SubscribeThe World Health Organization to stop using the term ’swine flu’
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it will would stop using the term “swine flu” to avoid confusion. This is in response to Egypt slaughtering thousands of pigs in an effort to prevent swine flu. Maybe they realized that it was silly for a Muslim nation to have so many pigs. The Qur’an, like the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah, forbids the eating of pork.
So what will the WHO call it now? From now on they will only refer to it as H1N1 influenza A. Personally, I’m going to start calling it Mexican Pig Death. It might not be as scientific, but Mexican Pig Death has more flare.
Pigs are nasty, filthy creatures. They will eat anything. They produce a massive amount of waste.
Modern pig farming is a truly disgusting enterprise. Gone are the small, family owned pig farms of yesterday. In their place are massive hog farms owned by large corporations that contaminate and pollute the environment. If you feel brave, Google the phrase “pig farm lagoons“.
Not only do these large corporate farms bread hogs, they bread infectious disease.
These diseases can often times spread to humans.
Smithfield Foods, an American company based in Virginia, operates massive hog farms in Mexico, where environmental regulations are more relaxed. Smithfield Foods operates one of these facilities in Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated.
Coincidence?
I don’t think so.
WHO raises pandemic alert to level 5
The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the pandemic alert for the H1N1 virus, the so called “swine flu”, to phase 5, the second highest level possible. It means that people in at least two countries have been infected and that a pandemic is imminent. Phase 6, or a pandemic, means that at least two regions have the disease.
In Egypt, 300,000 pigs were slaughtered in a precaution against the swine flu. Who knew that Egypt, a predominate Muslim country, had so many pigs? It’s as if everything I ever learned about the Islamic world is wrong.
President Obama last night in his nationally televised press conference spoke about the swine flu and advised all Americans to wash their hands. He also told people that if they get sick, stay home. Do not go to work. I’m not sure if this will get people out of trouble with their employers if and when they call off from work. Many Americans do not get sick days from their employers and calling off sick can lead to disciplinary action.
Free Comic Book Day 2009
This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. It’s the one day a year you can walk into a comic book shop and expect to legally get something for free. You don’t have to purchase anything first. You don’t have to sign up for anything. You simply grab something from a designated area (usually a table) and it’s yours to keep.
To see a list of all the free stuff you can expect to find this weekend, go to the official Free Comic Book Day website.
Many retailers take the opportunity to also put a lot of their existing merchandise on sale. Not only can you expect to get something for free, you can often find something else you might like at a discounted price.
Orioles reliever accuses umpire of being a degenerate gambler
Orioles reliever Jamie Walker got called for a balk in last night’s game against the Anaheim Angels by home plate umpire Angel Hernandez. I get the impression that Walker did not agree with the call. From the Baltimore Sun:
“No way in hell did I balk on that pitch,” Walker said. “I don’t know if the guy has something against me or what, but no way in hell did I balk. It changed the whole damn game. I may get screwed in the long run, but that’s just unacceptable at this level. I don’t know if he had money betting on the game or what, but that’s a horseshit call. I don’t even have a damn pickoff move. I think that might be my first career balk.”
I doubt the ump was betting on the game. Even if he was a degenerate gambler, who in their right might would take action on an Orioles game? With that said, why on earth is a man named “Angel” allowed to work a game involving a team with the same name?
I see a direct conflict of interest here.
Paul Pope does Adam Strange
This is a page from the upcoming Wednesday Comics, a weekly, broadsheet-sized, 12-part series featuring 16 stories starring DC characters told in a Sunday Comics style.
I wish Paul Pope and colorist Jose Villarrubia could just do every comic there is. Click the image to see a much larger image.
This looks unbelievably cool.
I forgot how wasteful the Air Force was
I often forget just how wasteful the U.S. Air Force is with it’s resources until something comes along to remind me. Yesterday the U.S. Air Force caused a lot of unnecessary drama by flying one of the 747’s used to fly the president from one place to another, Air Force One, directly over Manhattan so that a photographer ridding in an F-16 fighter plane could snap pictures.
Not only did this stunt cost a lot of money, it understandably scared New Yorkers who were painfully reminded of the morning on September 11, 2001 where airliners slammed into the World Trade Center.
Oops.
So while many Americans are losing their jobs, watching their 401K’s drop like a rock, or getting their homes foreclosed on, the Air Force is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars so that they can take pretty pictures of Air Force One.
Ravens draft offensive lineman Michael Oher
The Baltimore Ravens used their first-round draft pick to select an offensive lineman, University of Mississippi’s Michael Oher. How heavy is that ceremonial draft-day jersey if it takes five men to hold it up for the photo?
And what’s up with the guy on the right? You would think the smallest guy on stage would make a point of not holding the jersey with his pinkie sticking up in the air.
What is it, an NFL ceremonial draft-day jersey or a cup of tea?
Why the Mexican swine flu is such a big deal
The United States yesterday declared a national public health emergency over more reported cases of swine flu. Over 100 people have already died in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. What makes this strain of the swine flu so serious is not that it’s killing people, but the fact that those that have died are not the type of people that normally die from the flu. They have been people in their 20’s and 40’s. They have not been people with compromised immune systems.
Thousands of people die every year from the flu. Most are either very old, very young, or have compromised immune systems. When people die from the flu, it’s because they develop pneumonia.
Personally, the idea of pneumonia frightens me. I came down with it last summer while taking the psoriasis medication Raptiva. Psoriasis is caused by an overacting immune system. In my case, I get an overabundance of new skin cells on places where I don’t need them, mostly my hands and fingers. This makes the skin on my hands extremely thick and painful. Raptiva, and similar psoriasis medications, counter psoriasis by ratcheting down your immune system. One of the drawbacks of drugs like Raptiva is that it makes you very susceptible to things like the flu.
When I had pneumonia, I had none of the classic symptoms of pneumonia. I didn’t have a cough. It wasn’t hard to breath. I had a fever and couldn’t get warm. It was only after Sheri took me to the ER and they did a chest x-ray did I know I had pneumonia.
If I were to ever get pneumonia again, would I know it?
I guess that cop was not a moron after all
Frank Fisna FRISINA, writer and creator of the web comic Life’s a Bluff, recently got on the World Wide Internet Web to announce that his 14-year-old niece was missing. He wrote:
It took us a few days to get the police to take this seriously since the responding officer on Saturday night had her pigeon holed as a runaway from the start. Thanks to that moron we have lost precious time. Now we have the Colorado Bureau of Investigations involved and they are trying to get phone records quicker than I seem to be able to get them. We would have had them already but CBI needed the Arapahoe County Sheriff to upgrade from runaway to missing. The next step is to get her picture on the local news stations.
Fisna FRISINA was convinced that his niece was the victim of some sort of abduction, even though there was no evidence of foul play. He seemed convinced that she was not just a runaway, even though that was far more likely than being kidnapped.
He announced that he was offering up a $500 reward for information leading to her return. He asked people to donate money so that he could increase the reward. He also asked people to post his niece’s photo on all the various social networking sites.
She was located on April 16. She wasn’t the victim of a kidnapping. It appears that she was indeed a runaway:
On behalf of my family I have to thank each and everyone who helped from the bottom of my heart. You all had so many different impacts on the situtation but most of all you kept us sane. I was quickly crackin though and I am not sure how much longer I could have taken it without really losing it. Those of you who donated reward money… a special thanks. We raised over 3,000 dollars in less than 24 hours. It would have been more but I stopped taking donations. You will all get your money back over the next day. I want to make sure your paypal fees are recouped.
As far as how Jennifer is or what actually happened, all I can say right now is that she is OK and appears unharmed. I don’t really want to go into too many details for various reasons but at least know that she is a little shook-up but is not hurt. It turns out someone she was with saw something on the Internet about her being missing and made sure she got home. So whether it was Twitter, myspace, whatever… That is what did it.
I’m not sure exactly why he is planning on returning the $3,000 to the people that donated it when someone, the person she was with that made sure she got home, seemingly earned the reward. Not that I really know how that kind of thing is handled.
So what exactly happened? Was she abducted or was she a runaway? Frank Fisna is refuses to get into specifics, but he insists that she was not a runaway:
She is safe and at home, she did NOT run away, and we are not releasing any more information at this time.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that there could only be two (2) possibilities here: either she was abducted or she was a runaway. What else could it be?
Snake Eyes
Snake Eyes by ~Artlacal on deviantART
To me, a G.I. Joe will always be 12 inches tall and have Kung Fu Grip™. That said, this artist’s rendition of Snake Eyes is really cool. (Link via Super Punch)
The Mexican swine flu will kill us all!
From MSNBC:
Worries that the new swine flu strain that has killed as many as 68 people and sickened more than 1,000 across Mexico has “pandemic potential” increased with the announcement that the virus has spread to Kansas and likely to New York City.
I don’t really know a lot about the swine flu. I thought you only got it from pigs, but I guess that is not the case with this strain. From what I’ve read, this version of the swine flu is passing from person to person.
Symptoms include fever, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people also complain of a runny nose, sore throat, nausea, and diarrhea. In other words, it’s just like the regular kind of flu.
I’m not sure how the swine flu stacks up against the bird flu. I know in the animal kingdom, a pig can kill a bird. Not that the two creatures regularly engage in combat.
From Dead to Worse
From Dead to Worse, the eighth book in the Sookie Stackhouse “Southern Vampire” series, wasn’t the worse thing I’ve ever read, but it wasn’t the best either. I started reading the series a few years ago long before it became a series on HBO, True Blood.
I was nearly halfway through the book when I realized something very interesting about the book: it did not have a plot. I realized I had no idea what this book was about. A story is supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. From Dead to Worse was all middle. It had no real beginning and it had no real end.
Charline Harris is a gifted writer. Her stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends are definitely better than the ones that don’t. Stories like From Dead to Worse.
Shepard Smith does not like torture
I’ve always kind of liked Shepard Smith from Fox News. This video clip shows why.
General Motors to shut down most US plants up to 9 weeks
It looks like the hard working American auto worker will be getting the summer off. At least the ones that work for GM. General Motors has too many new vehicles sitting around that nobody wants to buy making building even more vehicles that nobody wants seem kind of silly.
If you are worried about the hard working United Auto Workers union members not getting a paycheck while their plants are shut down, don’t be. It looks like they will still get paid:
Thousands of workers could be laid off but would still get most of their pay because their United Auto Workers union contract requires the company to make up much of the difference between state unemployment benefits and their wages.
Is it any wonder that GM is failing? The only thing worse than building gas guzzling trucks and SUVs that people don’t want is paying workers even when they aren’t actually working.
Earth Day
Of all the special days dedicated to planets, Earth Day is my favorite. Mostly because Earth is the planet I am from. It would seem wrong to live on Earth and root for some other planet’s special day.
Earth Day was established “to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment“. I know this because that’s what Wikipedia says so.
As far as my feelings on the environment are concerned, I fall somewhere in the middle. I enjoy breathing clean air and drinking clean water. We tried using reusable grocery bags when we go to Wal-Mart, but it got to be too much of a hassle. You would think the people working at the checkout line at Wal-Mart were trying to do calculus when it came to using the eco-friendly reusable shopping bags that they sell.
I like Styrofoam coffee cups. Sorry, I know Styrofoam is really bad for the environment, but I like my coffee to be hot. You know those paper rings they put around the cup at Starbucks so you don’t burn your hand? With Styrofoam, you don’t need those because the heat stays in the cup where it belongs.
This past weekend Sheri and I went walking along the C & O Canal here in Williamsport. It was nice. We saw fish, turtles, and even an owl. You know what else we saw? Lots and lots of cigarette butts and empty plastic water bottles. You would think people who enjoy the outdoors would maybe not throw their cigerette down on the ground or chuck their empty water bottle into the water when they are done with it, but you would be wrong.
People are pigs. Even the ones that like the outdoors.
I really hate these trucks [Pic]
As if my morning commute wasn’t bad enough, I have to deal with these stupid FoodPro trucks that feature a life size image of a guy in a chef hat unloading the back of the truck. I took this picture this morning with my trusty cell phone. I don’t know what the image is supposed to achieve, but when you are on the interstate driving 75 miles an hour behind one of these trucks, it looks like someone is about to throw something out of the back of the truck at you.
Someone in a chef hat.
And in case you are wondering, I’ve had stranger things happen to me than a chef pelting my car with boxes of produce.
What happens to your blog when you are dead?
Francis Wood, the Maryland woman who’s husband murdered her and their three children before killing himself had a blog. She maintained the blogspot blog What am I supposed to do now, where she blogged about personal issues including the stress her husband was under with his new job and the fact that she was taking an anti-depressant.
It’s kind of creepy to read.
She recently blogged about one of her children having emergency appendix surgery. It’s somewhat unsettling to read when you realize this young boy who needed surgery only a month ago is now dead, brutally murdered by his own father. Before shooting him with a .25 caliber handgun, he reportedly cut him repeatedly with a knife.
Reading her blog made me think of something I had never thought about before: what happens to your blog when you die?
Since Francis Wood had her blog over on Google’s free blogging service Blogspot, I imagine her blog will be around for quite awhile. Since there are no fees to pay to keep it online, it very well may be floating about the World Wide Internet Web for years to come.
Since I have my blog on AQHost, a paid hosting site, I imagine it would only be around for a month or two after I kick the proverbial bucket and can no longer make the monthly payment. Then again, I pay my monthly hosting fee with an automatic credit card payment. Maybe it would continue taking up Internet space, at least until my card was canceled.
And what happens to your Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook page when you are now longer sucking oxygen? I’m not so sure that I like the idea of my Facebook or Twitter page living longer than me. Maybe there should be some kind of deadman’s switch that requires you to log-on once a week. If you don’t, you will be presumed dead. I don’t want to die and have my fake friends on Twitter and Facebook leaving fake messages about my demise.
Making the entire header a clickable link
You will notice that when you run your mouse anywhere over my blog’s header that it is one big clickable link. Clicking anywhere on the header that does not have it’s own link takes to directly back to the main page.
It’s an easy hack to accomplish. All you have to do is open the WordPress header.php file in any text editor or the default WordPress editor and insert the following line where you would like this clickable aspect to begin:
<div onclick="location.href='http://bentcorner.com/';" style="cursor: pointer;">
It’s imperative the you also insert a </div><!--end clickable area--> where you want this clickable area to stop being clickable. Otherwise, not only will the rest of your blog be one huge clickable link back to the main page, the remaining formatting will be off.
It’s always a good idea to make a back-up of header.php before you start messing with it. Of course, you will also want to change ’bentcorner.com’ to the url of your own blog, that is unless you want your blog’s header area to be a clickable link to my blog. That would just be crazy.
Maryland man kills his family and then himself
From the Frederick News-Post:
A 34-year-old CSX Railroad worker killed his wife and three young pajama-clad children before turning a shotgun on himself, the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference Saturday afternoon.
The body of Christopher A. Wood was found that morning at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom of a two-story house in the first block of Washington Street, Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said.
Jenkins, whose career in law enforcement spans 20 years, said the crime scene was “the worst thing I’ve ever seen in Frederick County.”
Wood’s wife, Francis Billotti-Wood, 33, and 2-year-old daughter were found dead of undetermined causes in the bed of the master bedroom.
The couple’s two sons, ages 5 and 4, were found dead in the bedroom they shared, also on the second floor.
I would say that it’s a given that unless Sheriff Jenkins had ever seen a man brutally murder his entire family, this would by default be the worse thing he could ever see. I cannot imagine seeing anything worse.
Francis Wood and her children were cut with knifes and shot with a .25 caliber handgun. Christopher Wood committed suicide with a shotgun.
The bodies were discovered on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. by Francis Wood’s father. He was concerned because he had not been able to reach anyone for at least a day. Upon finding his daughter, son-in-law, and his three grandchildren dead, he left contacted the police.
Police found five different suicide notes believed to be written by Christopher Wood.
American Journalist convicted in Iran for spying
From the AP via The Huffington Post:
Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States.
The Fargo, North Dakota native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.
Not only was she convicted of spying, the judge sentenced her to 8-years.
This is just ridiculous. I’m sure the United States has assets in Iran doing all sorts of espionage, I highly doubt any of them are pretending to be a member of the press. That would not make sense. You want someone engaged in espionage to not attract a lot of attention. A member of the press, one who is also and American citizen, would garner lots and lots of attention.
The national mainstream news media recently went completely nuts over the American being held hostage by a bunch of Somali pirates. One of their own was being held in Iran on trumped up, phony charges and their silence is deafening. Now she’s been convicted and because we don’t have formal relations with Iran, she will spend the next 8 years rotting in an Iranian prison.
Troubleshooting a WordPress slowdown
I noticed this morning that my blog was talking an overly excessive amount of time to load. The page would begin to freeze as soon as the first post’s title would appear on the screen. Even when I would try to load just a single post, the load time would exceed over 20 seconds.
It’s been my experience that most slowdowns in WordPress can be attributed to a plugin. To find out if a problem is coming from a plugin, go to the WordPress Manage Plugins page and temporarily bulk deactivate all plugins, then try reloading your blog. If it now loads quickly, you know the slowdown is coming from a plugin.
How then do you find out which plugin is causing the slowdown?
Go back to the WordPress Manage Plugins page and bulk activate half of your installed plugins, leaving the other half deactivated. Try reloading your blog. If it is loading slow again, you know the guilty plugin was in the group of plugins you just activated. If instead your blog is still loading quickly, you know it’s in the group of plugins that are still deactivated.
When I tried this, my blog was still loading quickly. I went to the deactivated plugins and activated them one by one, reloading my blog in a another browser window. It wasn’t until I reactivated the Related Websites plugin that I experienced a slow down. I went back and deactivated it and resumed reactivating the remaining plugins, hitting the refresh button in another other browser window each and every time.
When I verified that none of the other plugins was causing my blog to load slowly, I once again reactivated Related Websites. Once again, it slowed everything down.
This confirmed that it was the Related Websites plugin that was causing the slow down. Once I knew this, I was able to uninstall it permanently.
This is why it’s hard to take the Tea Party protesters serious [Pic]
Imagine what the sign would say if Obama raised this man’s taxes instead of cutting them. What’s worse, that this guy showed up at a protest in Chicago or that none of his fellow protesters told him to ditch the sign?
The Pirate Bay
A Swedish court on Friday found Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, the three men that founded the popular bit torrent site The Pirate Bay guilty of aiding in copyright infringement by linking to songs, films, TV shows, audio books, comic books, video games and other similar material. Carl Lundstrom, the man that provided financing for The Pirate Bay, was also convicted.
Each man was sentenced to a year in prison. They were also ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages to Warner Brothers, Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony BMG and EMI.
The defendants have maintained that they were innocent because they never actually hosted any of the copyrighted material on their servers. They only directed people where to go to get the material in question.
As of now, The Pirate Bay is still up and running. The last I read, most of their servers are no longer still even in Sweden.
Custom Query String 2.9
I wanted to limit the number of posts that appear on the front page to four posts, but wouldn’t limit the number of posts that appear on the archive pages to only four posts. Since only the titles are displayed on the archive pages, I wanted those to show 100 posts. The normal default WordPress does not allow you to do this. If you want only four posts to show on the front page, you will only show four posts on every other page too.
I found a plugin that allows me to do this, Custom Query String 2.9. It does exactly what good plugins do: it works exactly like it’s supposed to.
The guy that would rather pee than stand for ‘God Bless America’ is suing the New York Yankees
Last year Bradford Campeau-Laurion was ejected from a baseball game at Yankees stadium because he tried to leave his seat during the start of the seventh-inning stretch to use the restroom. The problem is that this is when the Yankees play God Bless America over the PA system. Fans are supposed to stand and show respect.
They are not supposed to go and relieve themselves.
A police officer stopped Campeau-Laurion and instructed him to return to his seat. Campeau-Laurion refused saying that he really had to go pee. When Campeau-Laurion tried to step around the officer, the officer grabbed Campeau-Laurion’s right arm and twisted it behind his back. A second officer grabbed Campeau-Laurion’s other arm and twisted it behind his back. They then marched Campeau-Laurion out of the stadium where one of the officers told him that if he didn’t like it, he should leave the country.
Bradford Campeau-Laurion is now suing the New York Yankees.
The police of course are disagreeing with Campeau-Laurion’s account of what happened. According to them, Campeau-Laurion was a drunk that was standing on his seat and loudly cursing, “reeking of alcohol”.
If that were true, why didn’t the police arrest Campeau-Laurion?
Even if I didn’t hate the New York Yankees, I would side with Campeau-Laurion on this. The seventh-inning stretch is intended to be a time for fans to get up and, well, stretch. It’s not supposed to be a time for faux patriotism.
Hagerstown Tea Party a raging success
It would seem that the Tea Party protest held in Hagerstown yesterday was a huge success. The Herald-Mail reports that there were “about” 300 people in attendance. The event’s organizers were hoping to attract 200 people.
I’m still not sure what the protest was actually about. I heard over and over again that it was a grass roots, non-partisan movement, but when you look at the people behind the movement, you only see Republicans.
Was it about wasteful government spending? Where have these people been for the past eight years?
Much of the angst coming from these Tea Party people seems to be directed to President Obama. Do they realize that he has only been in office for less than three months? Do they know that unless they make more than $250,000 a year, their taxes under Obama were cut? I hope these people compare their 2009 tax return to the one they filed yesterday. The amount of taxes they will be paying in 2009 will be less than what they are paying for 2008.
I hope those that stood in the rain yesterday in downtown Hagerstown throwing tea bags in that plastic wadding pool will compare their 2009 tax return to their 2008 tax return.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they will.
Hagerstown Tea Party
From the “official” Hagerstown Tea Party freebie Google Blogspot website:
TEA PARTY PLANNED FOR HAGERSTOWN MARYLANDThe Hagerstown Tea Party represents people who are concerned about their family’s and their children’s future, who are concerned about the skyrocketing national debt, and who think the government is spending too much of their hard-earned money. The Hagerstown Tea Party is a part of a national movement of Tea Parties planned in over 1,500 cities across the U.S. scheduled for April 15.
The Hagerstown Tea Party expects to have approximately 200 participants. Main Speakers include Delegate Chris Shank and Delegate Andrew Serafini. The event is scheduled for this Wednesday, Tax Day, rain or shine from 3-6 PM in the University Plaza. The plaza is located right next to the University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus and across from Hagerstown Post Office in the middle of the Dual Highway.
Please contact Neil Parrott for more information. He can be reached by phone at 240-329-2645 or by e-mail at hagerstownteaparty@myactv.net.
I don’t know what’s funnier: that they think 200 people are going to show up for this thing or that they are wrong about where the University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus is located.
The Hagerstown Post Office is not on Dual Highway. It’s on Franklin Street. The University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus is on West Washington Street.
Why didn’t the Catholic church ever excommunicate Hitler?
If you assumed that the Catholic church excommunicated former alter boy and genocidal mass murderer Adolf Hitler, you would be wrong. Hitler’s mother was a Roman Catholic and raised young Adolf to be one too. In 1941, Adolf Hitler told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, that “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
The Vatican recently excommunicated a doctor and the mother of a 9-year-old Brazilian girl that was raped by her step-father. The reason? Because the poor girl was pregnant (with twins) and received and abortion. The doctor performed the abortion, and was excommunicated because of it. The mother consented to the abortion, and was excommunicated because of it. The step-father that raped his 9-year-old step-daughter was not excommunicated.
Other national leaders have been excommunicated by the Catholic church. Napoleon Bonaparte was excommunicated by Pope Pius VII in 1809. Fidel Castro was excommunicated by Pope John XXIII in 1962 for simply being a communist.
If Communists can be excommunicated, why can’t Nazis?
Amazon de-lists books dealing with homosexuality
When author Mark R. Probst noticed that hundreds of books dealing with gay and lesbian themes including his own book, The Filly had suddenly disappeared from the Amazon sales rankings, he contacted Amazon about it. Here is the response:
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
So Amazon has decided that any book involving gay or lesbian themes is now suddenly “adult”. How nice of them. Let me see if I understand this. If a book has two characters named Chris and Bill that fall in love, it’s “adult”. If a book has two characters named Kris and Bill that fall in love, it’s not “adult”. Does that make any kind of sense?
And it’s not only gay and lesbian fiction that is getting de-listed by Amazon. A biography of Ellen DeGeneres is no longer showing up in the Amazon sales list. If you scroll down to the “Product Details” section, under the “Average Customer Review”, you should see “Amazon.com Sales Rank.” If you don’t, as in the case of the DeGeneres biography, the book has been de-listed.
More proof that Saudi Arabia is the worst country in the world
From CNN:
A Saudi mother is expected to appeal a judge’s ruling after he once again refused to let her 8-year-old daughter divorce a 47-year-old man, a relative said. Sheikh Habib Al-Habib made the ruling Saturday in the Saudi city of Onaiza. Late last year, he rejected a petition to annul the marriage.
The case, which has drawn criticism from local and international rights groups, came to light in December when Al-Habib declined to annul the marriage on a legal technicality. His dismissal of the mother’s petition sparked outrage and made headlines around the world.
The judge said the mother, who is separated from the girl’s father, was not the legal guardian and therefore could not represent her daughter, the mother’s lawyer, Abdullah al-Jutaili, said at the time.
The girl’s husband pledged not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty, according to al-Jutaili, who added that the girl’s father arranged the marriage to settle his debts with the man, who is considered “a close friend.”
I don’t know what is worse: that a 47-year-old man can legally marry an 8-year-old, or that the 8-year-old’s mother cannot sue on the behalf of the girl because she is not the “legal” guardian. As if the rule of law means anything in a backwards country like Saudi Arabia.
To say that woman are treated like second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia is a colossal understatement. At least a second-class citizen is still a citizen. Women in Saudi Arabia are treated worse than livestock. The 8-year-old girl was literally given by the father to the 47-year-old man to settle a debt. It’s like she is a goat or a chicken, a piece of property that can pass from one hand to another.
Orioles Hebrew t-shirt: where do I get one?
During tonight’s Rays-Orioles game, MASN is showing commercials featuring real-life Oriole fans talking about great moments in recent Orioles history. When I say “recent”, I of course mean that none of the moments involve Cal Ripken Jr.
One of these fans is a young woman wearing an Orioles t-shirt that appears to be in Hebrew. Or Klingon. I often times get the two languages mixed up, but then again, who doesn’t?
The only thing I’m sure of is that I want one. I did a search on the World Wide Internet Web, but I couldn’t find any. I found a Hebrew Orioles hats, but no t-shirts. I have enough hats. I want a Orioles t-shirt in Hebrew.
The woman’s t-shirt in the commercial says “Let’s Go Orioles” on the back in English. I’d like to get one that says “Derek Jeter Sucks” and preferably, in Aramaic. That’s the language Jesus spoke.
(Image: The Wayward Oriole)
Maker of Raptiva issues voluntary withdrawal
I blogged earlier about Raptiva, the psoriasis drug I was taking for a while, was being linked to a rare type of brain infection. Evidently enough people have died because Genentech, the maker of Raptiva, has issued a “voluntary withdrawal” (whatever that means) of the drug.
They have issued a message to doctors to stop proscribing the drug and to contact patients who are still taking Raptiva to arrange for them to start taking something else for their psoriasis. Something that does not infect their brain and kill them.
My sympathies go out to the people who were taking Raptiva and have positive results with it. For me, it was the only thing that ever put my psoriasis into total and full remission. When my former primary care physician screwed me over by withholding a needed referral to continue seeing my dermatologist, I was forced to abruptly stop taking Raptiva.
The resulting flare up was pretty bad. I would not wish that on my worst enemy.
Drunk driver that killed Nick Adenhart had a suspended license
Andrew Thomas Gallo, the piece of human excrement that killed Angels pitcher and Maryland native Nick Adenhart, is a drunk that was illegally driving on a suspended license. From the Associated Press:
The car they were riding in was broadsided in an intersection by a minivan that apparently ran a red light, police said.
Andrew Thomas Gallo, 22, of Riverside, was driving on a suspended license because of a previous drunk driving conviction. Preliminary results indicated Gallo’s blood-alcohol level was “substantially over the legal limit” of .08 percent, police Lt. Kevin Hamilton said.
There has got to be a way of stopping drunks like Andrew Thomas Gallo from getting behind the wheel. Everyone is afraid of Islamic terrorists, there is a much better chance that you will be killed by a drunk like Andrew Thomas Gallo than you will be by a terrorist.
It’s not even close.
Anti-same-sex marriage scare ad
There’s a group called the National Organization for Marriage that has produced an ad that tries to scare people about the concept of “gay marriage”. It attempts to make people believe that if gay couples in committed relationships are allowed to marry, it will somehow effect others. The reality is that it doesn’t.
For all intended purposes, gay couples are already living as married people. Many of them own property together. Many of them raise children together. They only want the legal protections that married people currently enjoy.
And really, what’s the harm? Why is it of any concern to anyone? What difference does it make if the gay couple down the street that own a home together enjoy the same rights and privileges awarded to those that are married?
It’s silly.
To read a rebuttal to the statements made in the scare video, the Human Rights Campaign has the details.
Thanks to Senator Mikulski, buy a Hummer, get a tax credit
United States Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) spoke with Heather Keels from the Herald-Mail in a video interview. Senator Mikulski bragged about an amendment to the stimulus bill she proposed along with Republican Senators that allows people to deduct state sales tax and the interest on auto loans for new “cars” purchased from November 12, 2008 through December 31, 2009.
Not a tax credit for people who buy a more fuel efficient car or maybe a car that incorporates hybrid technology. No, in fact, it doesn’t even have to actually be a “car”. People who purchase gas guzzling SUVs or trucks get the tax break too.
She also states that she is planning on running for reelection in 2010. Of course she is.
Wizards of the Coast sues eight people over file sharing
Wizards of the Coast is trying to crack down on people that post Dungeons & Dragons products to the various file sharing networks. From ICv2:
Wizards of the Coast has filed three lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against eight defendants located in the United States, Poland and the Philippines alleging copyright infringement of its recently released Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 2. The lawsuit contends that the defendants illegally distributed the Player’s Handbook 2 via free file-sharing Websites, and that these uploads resulted in a substantial number of lost sales and revenue for Wizards of the Coast.
Evidently Wizards of the Coast was selling PDF versions of there popular Dungeons & Dragons role playing system. That was until they realized that people could take these PDF files and share them on Bit Torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay.
Oops.
I realize that this is a civil lawsuit, but wouldn’t it be something to go to prison for something Dungeons & Dragons related?
I’m not sure they will have any luck suing somebody that resides in the Philippines for copyright infringement. The country has what you might describe as a very relaxed view on copyrights, or for that matter, crime in general.
I think by suing a few of their customers for file sharing, Wizards of the Coast may only be exacerbating the problem of unauthorized file sharing. By taking this action and then publicizing the fact, they are broadcasting to the world that their intellectual property is available for free at the various file sharing sites. The people they are suing are people that actually paid them for the PDF files.
Suing these people wont stop these specific PDF files from being shared in the future.
Local baseball star killed in California car crash
From WHAG NBC:
Williamsport High School graduate Nick Adenhart, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, died early this morning in a car accident in Fullerton, California, according to a family member.
Three people were killed in the crash and another person was seriously injured.
Authorities are blaming the three-vehicle accident on a motorist in a mini-van who ran a red light at East Orangethorpe Avenue and South Lemon Street.
Authorities say the driver of the van fled the scene, was later captured and charged with felony hit-and-run.
This is really sad. Adenhart wasn’t even supposed to start the season with the Angels. He was to start the season with the Angels’ AAA team, but he had a good spring training and the Angels had some pitchers out with injuries.
My condolences go out to his family.
Orioles fans hate Mark Teixeira
Orioles fans last night once again booed Yankees first baseman and Maryland native Mark Teixeira each and every time he came up to bat. In fact, they started booing him as soon as he made his way to the on deck circle. Could this somehow become an Orioles tradition? I sure hope so.
Why is he getting so much heat? It’s for statements like this one:
“In a perfect world, the Orioles would’ve won the World Series every year I was alive and I’d be an Oriole right now,” Teixeira said. “I have so much love for this city, this organization. But in the business world, in the baseball world, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. When it came down to it, the Yankees were a better fit for me.
And by “the Yankees were a better fit for me“, he means that they were able to throw more money at him. The Orioles actually tried to bring the Maryland native home, offering him $150 million over seven years. The New York Yankees offered him $180 million over eight years.
Teixeira has often spoke about being an Orioles fan. He was in Camden Yards the night Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games. He became a switch hitter because he wanted to emulate Eddie Murray.
If he really wanted to come home to Maryland and play for the Orioles, he could have accepted the $150 million the O’s offered him. I realize that $150 is less than $180, but it still represents more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime.
It’s more money than his children could spend in their lifetime.
I think he made it seem as though he wanted to come home to Maryland to play baseball so that the Yankees would simply offer him more money. Normally the Yankees only have to compete with themselves when it comes to free agents, especially when the Boston Red Sox aren’t in the mix.
What a waste of money
Yesterday there was a special ribbon cutting ceremony at the Hagerstown Regional Airport celebrating the new commuter service to Baltimore. Cap Air will be flying passengers from Hagerstown to Baltimore and will be receiving $1.2 million from the federal government in the form of a special subsidy for the service.
There is a special government program called the Essential Air Service (EAS) that is designed to link rural communities with the national transportation system. Maryland’s two U.S. Senators, Barbara A. Mikulski (D) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D) had to seek a special waiver so Hagerstown would be qualified.
Hagerstown of course is not at all qualified for this special subsidy. One can easily drive from Hagerstown to either Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport or Dulles International Airport in Virgina. Either airport is only an hour drive away.
It was recently announced that the unemployment rate here in Washington County is now at 9.9%. That $1.2 million subsidy going to Cap Air isn’t going to be making a dent in our unemployment rate.
They killed Kutner
Kal Penn, the actor that plays Dr. Kutner on House, is leaving the show so that he can go work in the Obama White House. Instead of writing him off the show by having House get made at him and firing him, they had the character unexpectedly take his own life. He shot himself in the head.
To say that I didn’t see this coming is a huge understatement. Out of all the characters on House, Kutner was probably the most normal and least screwed up character on the show. In other words, he was probably the least likely one to eat his own gun.
And that’s precisely why House is such a good show.
Kutner’s suicide left his fellow doctors disorientatied and confused. None of them saw any signs of depression or deep saddness coming from Kutner that might make one turn to suicide, and it’s something the viewer could relate to. By the end of the episode, I too felt like I had actually lost someone I knew. I had to remind myself that Kutner was only as fictitous character on a TV show and that none of it was real.
Dr. Lawrence Kutner will be missed.
Howard Stern is out of touch
This morning on the Howard Stern show, Howard and the gang were making fun of a new Imus in the Morning commercial that is a spoof of the very popular “Hello, I’m a Mac…” ads.
Howard, the former king of all media, had no clue what was going on with the Imus ad because he said that he wasn’t familiar with the popular Mac commercials.
Fred tried to help him out by describing them as “IBM vs. Apple” commercials.
How does someone who is even slightly familiour with pop culture not know about these commericals?
New ‘Watchmen’ lawsuit, this time it’s over coffee
Massimo Zanetti, the maker of various crappy grocery store coffees including Chock Ful o’Nuts, is suing Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and the Organic Coffee Cartel over coffee that looks an awful lot like a can of Chock Ful o’Nuts. The coffee, Nite Owl Dark Roast, is being sold online with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity.
Clay Enos, the official still photographer of the Watchmen movie, came up with the idea to sell the coffee. Shortly before the movie was released, he was a guest on the Ron and Fez show where he talked about taking photos for the movie as well as his $100 photo book from the movie.
He also talked about this coffee.
Massimo Zanetti is asking the courts for an injunction against any further sale of the coffee, plus they want a percentage not from the coffee sales, but from the actual movie.
Police waited 43 minutes to enter the American Civic Association building
News out of Binghamton shows that it took the police an excessive amount of time to enter American Civic Association when they arrived at the scene. From the AP:
The shooting at the American Civic Association stopped shortly after the first 911 calls came in Friday morning, but police didn’t enter the building until nearly 45 minutes later. Survivors reported huddling for hours in a basement, not knowing whether they were still in danger after the gunman, 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, killed 13 people.
At least they arrived at the scene with their sirens on. It was reported that Jiverly Wong took his own life when he heard the police arrive. If he had known that it would take the police hours to enter the building, would he have instead continued killing people?
The police arrived on the scene only minutes after the first 911 call was made, but they decided to wait until the SWAT team arrived before entering the American Civic Association. It took the SWAT team 43 minutes to arrive.
This is why you cannot rely on the police to save you.
Censoring Scott Kurtz
Scott Kurtz
Scott Kurtz, the cartoonist behind the very popular webcomic PvP, got into it the other day with other professional cartoonists over at The Daily Cartoonist blog. The exchange got him banned from posting comments on the blog.
What exactly did he say that got him banned? It was for comments he made in a post reporting that editorial cartoonist Gary Brookins had been laid off from his employer, the Richmond area newspaper, the Times-Dispatch.
Scott Kurtz wrote:
Don’t worry guys. According to Ted Rall, editorial cartoonists have never been more relevant with a more promising future. Everything is going to be juuuuussst fine.
He was referring to things print cartoonist and syndicated columnist Ted Rall has said about webcomics. In a nutshell, Rall is a big believer in the medium of traditional print media, not the Internet, for created content. Scott Kurtz then followed that up with another comment.
He wrote:
Wow. I was just offering a word of support. Ted says that things have never been better for you guys and he would know.
Ted just told me that the money I make in my best year is nothing compared to your worst year. And I’m doing pretty well right now so all you fired guys must be raking it in.
Seriously, if you’re feeling a pinch right now you should talk to Ted. Cause he’s got the real lowdown on how great you guys are truly doing.
This was followed by a comment from the blogger that runs The Daily Cartoonist, Alan Gardner.
He wrote:
I don’t care if you’re webcartoonist, editorial cartoonist or wash dishes at the local taco joint. A good man just lost his job.
Everyone ignore Scott and his comments and bring this thread back to Gary. Scott has been banned from commenting on this site.
If anyone should be against censorship, you would think it would be a group of professional editorial cartoonists. Whether it’s drawing the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban or pointing out the personal character flaws of politicians or those in positions of power, the absence of censorship is what allows them to do what they do.
Was Scott Kurtz being rude? Maybe, but that shouldn’t really matter. He was using the example of Alan Gardner, an accomplished cartoonist getting laid off from a major print newspaper, to make a point about the state of traditional media.
Often times, editorial cartoonists are rude too. At least the really good ones are.
No baseball for Sirius satellite radio subscribers
The Major League Baseball (MLB) season starts tomorrow and it looks like Sirius XM subscribers who subscribe to the satellite radio service with a Sirius radio will not be able to listen to games like their XM counterparts, even if they are paying extra for the “Best of XM” package.
The reason for this is that even though the two satellite radio providers were finally allowed by the Federal government to merge into one company, Sirius XM Radio CEO Mel Karmazin insists on running the merged satellite radio company as though it is really two separate companies. Though he was able to quickly strike a deal with the NFL, the NHL, NASCAR, and the NBA to allow both XM and Sirius to broadcast live games and/or events, he was not able to work something out with MLB.
MLB wanted more money to allow games to be broadcast on Sirius. XM Radio had already pre-paid MLB for the rights to broadcast every game up to March of 2011.
I think this is a problem in that out of all the major sports, baseball is the only one that is actually worth listening to on the radio. When I listen to a baseball game on the radio, I can easily see the game play out in my mind’s eye. I’ve listened to games on the radio and then later watched highlights of these same games on ESPN. The events transpired exactly like what I imagined.
I can’t say the same thing for any other sport.
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