Roscoe Bartlett is against the fighting of cocks
My elected representative Roscoe Bartlett has found something else to waste his time on. Evidently he believes that the already existing penalties for cockfighting and dogfighting are somehow not tough enough. Once again he is introducing a law that does nothing to benefit the people of his district. Unless he somehow believes that we are a bunch of blood thirsty cockfighting and dogfighting aficionados. That only tougher federal laws will reign in our desire to witness cock on cock or dog on dog combat.
He recently got a federal law passed that forbids home owner associations from banning the display of the American flag. Something that is already against the law here in Maryland.
Years ago he got a law passed that banned the sale of adult magazines on military bases. Both state-side and overseas. Because of Roscoe Bartlett, 20 year old kids in the military stationed in South Korea cannot buy the same nudie magazines sold in any 7-11 or Sheetz. This from a man that refused to serve in the military.
It’s not like we have a problem with cockfighting or dogfighting here in western Maryland. I’ve never heard of either activities taking place anywhere near here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an advocate of animal cruelty. I don’t have much patience for people that abuse animals. I just don’t see a big cockfighting or dogfighting problem here in western Maryland.
I would prefer it if Roscoe Bartlett concentrated on issues that actually pertained to the people he is representing.
Sanjaya remains and Chris Sligh gets the boot
Not only did Sanjaya not get the boot last night on American Idol, he wasn’t even in the bottom three. I’m not saying that Chris Sligh didn’t deserve to be let go after butchering a Police song. I don’t like people that foul up a Police song.
I dislike Sanjaya more.
If this craziness continues, this may anger God. He’s probably looking down and shaking his head at America’s stupidity. Not that he doesn’t do that a lot anyway. When he looks down and sees Sanjaya prancing around on stage with his hair in a pony-hawk forgetting words to songs, it’s got to irritate him. Especially when he knows that Sanjaya is remaining on the show only because people are voting for him to remain.
It’s not a good idea to make God mad.
Who knows what voting for Sanjaya will make God do. He very well may flood the Earth. He promised to never do that again, but that was before he heard Sanjaya sing. He may turn our rivers to blood. He may blanket the country in locusts. They are kind of like grasshoppers, but different. I think he also did something with frogs, but I don’t remember all the details.
Remember, we all used to have only one language until the good people of Babylon came up with the idea of building a really big tower. Unfortunately, they forgot to fill out the proper paperwork and get all of the permits from God. That made God mad. Next thing you know, we had different languages. Even that one in Africa where people cluck. If you ask me, they got the short end of the stick.
Compounding the problem is that I have to believe God was rooting for Chris Sligh. He was a student for several years at Christian fundamentalist Bob Jones University. Not only does America vote to keep Sanjaya, it causes the guy he was rooting for to get kicked off. If you think about it, it’s a lot worse then building a humongous tower without asking for permission first.
Don’t blame me if you wake up tomorrow morning to find that nobody understands you any longer because you speak cluck.
Sanjaya Malakar must go
The joke has gone on long enough. American Idol is supposed to be a singing competition. At the bare minimum, the contestants should be able to sing.
Sanjaya Malakar is not a good singer. That’s precisely why he feels the need to resort to dressing up as a freak. That’s why he feels the need to do ridiculous things to his hair each and every week. Each week it’s worse then the last. He simply has to go home tonight. He has run out of shtick. There is nothing more he can do that will out Sanjaya last night’s appearance. He has backed himself to the cliff and there is no where else to go but down.
I honestly don’t know what more he could do to look even more freakish.
Last night’s actual singing was even worse. Not only did it sound rotten, he actually forgot the words. He is now at the point where he is mocking the very people that call in and vote for him every week. Can you imagine how real singers feel when they see this buffoon on TV? Singers that take their art seriously?
Singers that if they were going to be singing live on national TV in front of 30 million people might actually learn the words to the song they were singing. Sanjaya spent more time doing his ridiculous ponytail Mohawk then preparing to sing.
What an ass.
No Trimspa, but lots of other stuff
Anna Nicole Smith’s autopsy report was released today. You can own your very own personal copy of her autopsy report by downloading the PDF file.
It seems Anna had quite a few pharmaceutical substances in her body. Oddly enough what was not found in her body (or her hotel room) was Trimspa, the over-the-counter diet supplement she was a paid spokesperson for. I guess the only thing Anna was taking from Trimspa was a paycheck.
There were a lot of people buying and taking Trimspa because they were led to believe that it helped Anna Nichole Smith lose a ton of weight. According to her toxicology report, she wasn’t taking Trimspa. She was taking chloral hydrate, Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan. She was also taking human growth hormone.
No Trimspa.
The autopsy report said that at the time of her death, she had a serious blood infection “caused from an abscess that had developed on her buttock as a result of so many injections”. Also noted on the autopsy report were things I never knew were even looked at by a coroner. For example, the report stated, “The vagina is normally wrinkled and contains no foreign material”. Normally wrinkled? No foreign material?
It also stated, “The anus is unremarkable”. It sounds like her actual asshole received a really bad job performance review. The kind you get and you just know you aren’t getting a raise.
I never realized that a coroner looks at your anus.
It almost makes me want to die in a massive explosion. I don’t want a coroner or anyone else rating or grading my anus. Maybe that’s only something they do for celebrities. I can only hope.
Site Meter is placing spyware cookies on user websites
I thought something was wrong with my blog. I noticed that load times seemed to have slowed down slightly. I thought it might have been because of a few of the WordPress plugins I was using. I tried deactivating some of them to see if that helped. It didn’t.
I then read a story on Digg. It pointed to a post on the StatCounter blog about “another” website counter service that was putting malware junk on people’s machines. They wouldn’t come out and actually say which service was doing this, but it was fairly obvious they were referring to Site Meter.
I decided to clean out my browser’s cookies and test Site Meter. I use Firefox, so I went Tools>Options>Privacy and selected Show Cookies. I then selected Delete All Cookies. I selected Close to save what I had just done and then reloaded my blog in Firefox.
I should have had NO cookies. Instead, my browser immediately had four (4) new Specificclick spyware cookies. Just by simply reloading my blog.
Needless to say, I won’t be using Site Meter any longer.
The Democrats have gone and pissed off the War President
Well, they did it. The Democrats in the House agreed to give Bush $124 BILLION, but they put restrictions on it:
The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 — or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
Bush and the other neo-cons need to learn that the American people will not sit still for a never ending occupation of Iraq. The neo-cons first tried to base American troops permanently in Saudi Arabia. We all saw how that worked out. They now want to make Iraq a permanent base of occupation to facilitate control over the Middle East.
To the neo-cons, it’s not about not leaving Iraq until “the job is done”. Whatever that means. It’s about staying in Iraq forever. It’s about having a permanent presence in the Middle East.
I doubt Bush would have invaded Iraq if it meant American forces would one day have to actually leave.
More on Wizard and their eBay shenanigans
Longtime comic book retailer and columnist Brian Hibbs touched upon Wizard’s recent smarmy Captain America #25 eBay activity in his most recent Tilting at Windmills column on Newsarama. Brian writes:
Finally, I think there’s some very real concern about Wizard magazine having advance knowledge of this event (and, as a print magazine, clearly they had to have that information weeks ago), and it either accidentally, or very much on purpose leaking to their sales arm, and their affiliated retail stores, giving them a clear market advantage.
Brian was able to sum up very nicely what Wizard did and why it’s so scummy. He goes on to add:
Wizard is not doing anything, that I am aware of, that is illegal. The comics aftermarket isn’t a regulated one. However, I believe it is deeply unethical to report on news and prices while at the same time selling items that can capitalize on that news and those prices.
He’s right that Wizard doesn’t seem to have done anything actually outright illegal. It’s not like Wizard did anything unethical or illegal with anything having to do with Wall Street.
What Wizard did was Insider eBaying. They used information someone at Marvel told them because they are the de facto Forth Estate of the funny book world and made some serious PayPal money from it. Scrooge McDuck would be so proud.
Wizard needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Does it want to be the pinnacle of comic book journalism or does it want to sell $4 comic books for $50 on eBay the day they come? I honestly don’t see how they can do both. Not if they want people to respect what they do or what they represent. The more this type of crap goes on, the less they seem like a credible magazine and more like the typical fleamarket vendor. Only without the grotesque body oder.
Then again, if they were looking for respect they would have hired Augie De Blieck as Editor-in-Chief and not the guy that ran FMH into the ground. Not that FMH didn’t deserve to be run into the ground.
Wizard sort of responds
The other day I wrote about Wizard Universe selling hundreds of issues of Captain America #25 on eBay. It seemed as though Wizard Universe had some kind of special insight that Captain America #25 would include the death of Captain America. That’s some insight no other comic retailer seemed to have.
Wizard the magazine is a magazine about comic books. Wizard Universe is a retailer that sells comic books. Is there an information firewall between the two entities? Are there safe guards in place to ensure that the retailing side of Wizard doesn’t get an unfair advantage from the (don’t laugh) the journalistic side of Wizard?
The Daily News was the first to break the story about Captain America getting killed. It wasn’t by accident. They were privy to the fact that Captain America was going to be killed in issue #25 two whole months before it happened. What if the Daily News also sold comic books? Would that be a conflict? They don’t sell comic books, so it’s not an issue.
The difference with Wizard is that not only do they report on comics, they also sell them. By the looks of Wizard Universe’s eBay auctions for Captain America #25, someone over there had the foresight to order lots and lots of this particular issue.
I decided I would try to ask Wizard.
I contacted Wizard’s media contact Drew Seldin. In an email, I asked if in fact anyone at Wizard the magazine had prior knowledge of Captain America’s death and if anyone at Wizard the magazine passed this information over to Wizard Universe before last week. Seldin responded to my email. Instead of simply answering my question, he told me that he believed that my “ultimate goal is to attack Wizard“.
He went on to say that if he was wrong about my intentions, I could call him next week and we could discuss it. My ultimate goal was not to attack Wizard. It was to have him answer my question. By refusing to answer my question, I’m left with even stronger suspicions then I had before.
Did Wizard take advantage of insider information?
Yet another reason Wizard magazine should be avoided at all costs. Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers talks with comic book retailers about Captain America #25. It’s an interesting read. Especially when the topic turns to how Wizard Universe, which is owned by the same company as Wizard magazine, sold hundreds of issues of Captain America #25 on eBay on Wednesday at prices from $10 to $50 an issue.
It’s as though Wizard Universe had some kind of inside information from Marvel Comics that Captain America #25 would include the death of Captain America. That’s something no other comic retailer was privy to. That Captain America was going to be killed.
Did anyone over at Wizard magazine with information concerning what was going to happen in Captain America #25 advise their counterparts at Wizard Universe to stock up on copies so they could quickly post them on eBay?
It sure seems like it.
It also seems highly unethical. I lost all respect for all things Wizard last year after Wizard World Philadelphia. I haven’t purchased any of their magazines since.
Alan Greenspan’s neocon wife is smoking crack again
That’s the only way to explain what neo-con Andrea Mitchell is now saying about her neocon buddy Scooter Libby. That she is smoking crack and lots of it. She actually said on Chris Matthews’ Hardball that Libby should be pardoned by the President and that polls show a majority of Americans agree:
They’re going to try to really tamp this down and appeal to the polling which indicates that most people think, in fact, that he should be pardoned. Scooter Libby should be pardoned.
Like Bush has ever worried what most people think. Look Andrea, I’m going to now tell you something that Chris Matthews or Tim Russert will never say to your heavily worked on face.
Please put that glass pipe down.
CNN conducted a poll that showed nearly 70% of the American people are against the President pardoning Libby. Just what poll were you referring too? Your plastic surgeon asking you and your husband what you two think doesn’t count.
300
Sheri and I went to see the family movie 300. Normally I don’t care for movies that try to cater to the entire family. They usually end up appealing equally to no one. This movie was different.
It was truly great.
I lack the ability as a wordsmith to describe just how much I enjoyed this movie. It tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where King Leonidas and 300 of his best Spartans fought against the creepy Xerxes and his massive and equally creepy Persian army. Take my word for it. It’s not as boring as I probably made it sound.
It’s based on the comic book by Frank Miller. I never read the comic. I did flip through it once at Waldenbooks while waiting for Sheri to finish shopping over across the way at Old Navy.
I should note that even though the film was billed as a family movie, it could at times be horrifically violent. In fact, it was pretty much always violent. Not only was it visually violent, it was audibly violent too. The sound of blood splatter was heard continually throughout the movie.
The visuals of this movie were breathtaking. Most, if not all, of the movie was made with actors filmed in front of a green screen. Everything was then added digitally. I don’t know what life was like in ancient Sparta. From the looks of this movie, I would have to guess that the men spent a great deal of time doing sit-ups. Lots and lots of sit-ups. When not doing sit-ups, they must have been doing scrunches.
Even the old men had well defined six-packs.
The atheist version of the George Washington Presidential $1 coin
The U.S. Mint has issued a press release concerning reports that some of the 300 million George Washington Presidential $1 coins made don’t have the words, “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum,” on the edges like they are supposed to. They claim it was a mistake. They claim it wasn’t intentional.
I’m not buying it. I think they meant to do it.
It creates publicity for the new coin. The U.S. Mint wants to get people behind the new coin. They want people to want to use the new $1 coin. Like Cheap Trick said in 1978 from the Budokanin – I Want You To Want Me.
The U.S. Mint wants you to want the new $1 coin. They really do.
What better way to get people excited about these coins then to have a super über rare version? Better yet, it even capitalizes on the whole messy separation of church and state argument. Some people will get all agitated and worked up over an atheist version of the $1 coin. The only way they could have whipped up more controversy would have been to make some of the coins with a gay version of George Washington teaching a group of Boy Scouts how to make a campfire.
A gay campfire.
This isn’t the first time a “mistake” has come from the U.S. Mint. Some of the Wisconsin Quarters featured an ear of corn that had an extra piece of husk. When the mistake was first noticed, coins were going for over $300 on eBay. I didn’t even know they grew corn in Wisconsin and I’ve been there a bunch of times.
Update: Scott from the Coin Collecting Blog and a fellow Marylander linked to a really good FAQ on the atheist version of the Presidential $1 coins.
Brian Bolland rips off one of his fans for $150 dollars
A guy goes to the recent New York City Comic-Con and commissions comic book artist Brian Bolland to do an old school Batwoman sketch. The price Brian Bolland charged said fan was $150 dollars. The actual sketch only measures four by three inches.
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan destroy reporter’s photos
A suicide bomber hit an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan with an explosives-packed minivan and militants then fired gunfire from several directions. American forces returned fire in defense of the attack. 16 Afghan civilians were killed and another 25 people were wounded.
Several wounded Afghans said they were shot by U.S. forces fleeing the scene. One U.S. soldier was injured in the attack.
The incident is supposedly under investigation. What’s not very clear is who exactly killed the Afghan civilians. Finding out what really happened may be next to impossible. This from the AP article:
U.S. soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. It wasn’t immediately known why the soldiers deleted the photos and videos. The U.S. military didn’t immediately comment on the matter.
The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle with four bodies that had been shot to death inside.
An American soldier then took Gul’s camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul but that he didn’t.
How are we the American people supposed to know what is happening if reporters are forcibly having their photos destroyed?
I personally have a hard time believing my personal freedoms depend on my government invading and occupying two different countries. Did any of those 16 dead or 25 wounded Afghan civilians had anything to do with the terror attacks on 9-11? Was there a chance that any of the 16 people killed would ever come to the United States to commit a terror attack? I would say that since they were not Saudis, the chances of that ever happening were absolutely nil.
What a complete and utter waste.
National ID Card Regulations Issued Part II
Yesterday I quickly wrote something about the federal government requiring everyone to get National ID cards. I thought it was a good idea and long overdue. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think it’s a good idea.
Last night Sheri and I went down to Baltimore to pick up her great aunt. She was flying back to Maryland from an extended visit with one of Sheri’s cousins in Arizona. After getting to the airport and finding the terminal she was arriving at, we found ourselves with some time to kill. I started watching some of the security measures in place. One of the things I noticed was before passengers could even get into the line for TSA screening, they had to show their boarding pass along with a photo ID.
Imagine how complicated that can be.
How many forms of photo ID currently are there? A country with 50 states means 50 different driver’s licenses. You also have to factor in US territories such as Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There is also Washington DC. They have their own drivers license too.
What about the people that are not licensed by their state to drive a motor vehicle? Well, they would have to have some type of photo ID issued by their state. Something that looks every much like a drivers license. There are around 54 different versions of those too.
A state drivers license was never intended to be a national ID card. It was meant to show proof that someone was licensed to drive a motor vehicle. That’s it. To rely on it to also be an ironclad form of ID is inefficient.
There needs to be one standard form of identification.
Ann Coulter calls Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards a “faggot”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ann Coulter said:
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
People in attendance actually cheered.
They do know what the word “faggot” means, right? It really makes me wonder. It’s a derogatory term for someone who is homosexual. Clearly John Edwards is not homosexual. So called “conservatives” know this, right? I will admit in all honesty that John Edwards is not my idea of an ideal presidential candidate.
That doesn’t mean that I think he is gay.
It’s hard to take conservatives seriously sometimes. They say peculiar and outlandish things and expect the rest of us to react with a straight face. Things such as that Ronald Reagan was a great president or that global warming is a hoax. Now we are to believe that John Edwards is gay.
Do conservatives even know what homosexuality is? We have always assumed that they do, but what if they really have no idea what it really means? If so, it certainly begs the question as to why we allow them to have their way in matters pertaining to gay people. Such as the issue of gay marriage.
Stormtroopers are the new Klingons
Back in the day you would go to a comic book convention and there would be guys dressed as Klingons. Not the kind of Klingons on the old Star Trek TV show, but the newer fancy ones shown in the movies. The ones with ridges on their heads and hair like Ben Franklin.
These days you will not see that many Klingons at a comic book convention. Instead you will see lots and lots of Stormtroopers.
Why do you even see Klingons or Stormtroopers at a comic book convention? The focus is on comic books, right?
When I see a battalion of Stormtroopers standing in line for nachos at a comic book convention, I wonder why they are even there. Seriously. Do they even like comics? It makes me want to go to a Star Wars convention with about 30 other people dressed up like the Flash. We would then run around in our matching red spandex costumes on the convention floor annoying just about everyone there. You know, people that are there because they like Star Wars.
Imagine that. A group of people dressed as a comic book character at a Star Wars convention. Now that would be ridiculous.
photo taken by jmyer
National ID Card Regulations Issued
I read this bit of news this morning over at the Wired blog, 27B Stroke 6:
The Department of Homeland Security released long-delayed requirements for the standardization of state identification documents Thursday. States must start issuing the new internal passports by May 2008, or else their citizens will not be able to board planes or enter federal courthouses. Civil libertarians say the requirement, known as the REAL ID Act, creates a national identity card that presents significant privacy risks to Americans. Many states oppose the rule as an unfunded mandate and an encroachment on states rights.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this. Check that. As a liberal blogger I know how I’m to feel about this. I’m supposed to be all up in arms and declare this to be an infringement on my personal privacy. Blah Blah Blah. The truth is, I think this is a good idea. Who ever came up with the idea that a license to drive a motor vehicle would also double as the de facto photo ID?
Driving a car has nothing to do with proving you are who you say you are. I don’t know why the kid working a register needs to see my license to drive a motor vehicle any time I want to use my Visa Card. It doesn’t make sense. It never has. A driver’s license is meant to show that I am licensed to operate a motor vehicle. Not that I am authorized to rack up more debt.
I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, I like it.
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