Why I am kicking Ubuntu to the curb
I have had it with Ubuntu Linux. I’m kicking the penguin to the curb. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s proverbial back was this morning. I was writing a blog post on my HP Pavilion dv6000 notebook running Ubuntu 9.10 when everything locked up on me. I couldn’t save what I had written and I couldn’t even close Firefox.
That was it. This wasn’t the first time Ubuntu had locked up on me, but it will be my last.
I got on my desktop PC and went to the HP website. Armed with my laptop’s serial number and model number, I was able to easily order a restore disc for only $15 that will install Windows XP back on my laptop. When I first installed Ubuntu, I wiped the entire hard drive, including the partition that held the Windows XP restore image, and reformatted it for Linux. Because of this, I needed a restore disc.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a PC lockup on me as much as this laptop has with Ubuntu installed. I’m just tired of it.
Hines Ward has lied to doctors about being straight
Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward, voted the NFL’s dirtiest player, called out Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for missing last night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won the game in overtime, but Ward’s comments came before the game in a taped interview with NBC’s sports gnome Bob Costas:
“This game is almost like a playoff game. It’s almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like ‘It’s just a concussion. I’ve played with a concussion before,’” Ward told Costas in an interview taped Saturday at the team’s suburban-Baltimore hotel as a prelude to the Steelers-Ravens game.
“It’s almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room: Should he play? Shouldn’t he play? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been out there dinged up; the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he’s still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn’t feel that they were going to clear him or not – it’s hard to say. Unless you’re the person [himself]. … I’ve lied to a couple of doctors saying I’m straight, I feel good when I know that I’m not really straight.”
Maybe Ward should not go around saying he’s lied about being straight. Someone might just take that comment the wrong way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I never thought I’d be doing this, but I feel the need to defend Ben Roethlisberger. He was right to sit out the game. A concussion is a brain injury. Unlike many of the human organs like the lung or the kidney, you only get one brain. You cannot mess around with brain injuries.
When in doubt, sit it out.
Not only is the potential for re-injury much greater with a quarterback than a receiver, a quarterback has to do a lot more in a game than a receiver. Roethlisberger has to orchestrate the entire offense while Ware only has to catch balls that get thrown his way (by Roethlisberger) and dive at the knees of defensive players on running plays.
Hines Ward should just keep his mouth shut.
Mike Huckabee has a problem
Nine years ago while Mike Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas, he commuted the 60-year prison sentence of a man named Maurice Clemmons. This same man is now wanted for questioning in the shooting deaths of four Washington State police officers.
Whoops.
If it wasn’t for Huckabee, Maurice Clemmons would still be in prison in Arkansas. He wouldn’t have been able to walk into the Lakewood, Washington coffee shop and gun down four police officers as they sat doing paperwork on their laptop computers.
It’s not like this is even Clemmons’ first transgression since been being let out of prison by Huckabee. Clemmons is on bail awaiting trial for third-degree assault on a police officer and second-degree rape of a child. How does someone even get bail for raping a child?
I’m guessing this means the end of Huckabee’s presidential aspirations. I imagine anyone running against Huckabee in the Republican primary will make Maurice Clemmons their poster child.
Obama administration working to allow ‘troubled borrowers’ stay in homes they cannot afford
The Obama administration is trying to help people who cannot afford to pay their mortgage payment to stay in their home. Great!
From The Huffington Post
Under the $75 billion Treasury program, companies that agree to lower payments for troubled borrowers collect $1,000 initially from the government for each loan, followed by $1,000 annually for up to three years.
The government support, which is provided from the $700 billion financial bailout program, is aimed at providing cash incentives for mortgage providers to accept smaller mortgage payments rather than foreclosing on homes.
So in other words, the federal government will reward mortgage providers that provided home loans to people that could not afford those loans. Why even make prospective borrowers fill out all that paper work?
Also from the same article:
Rising foreclosures depress home prices and threaten the sustainability of the fledgling economic recovery.
The problem is, home prices are still too high. Until we return to a time when a family making the national median average in wages can afford the national median average priced home, people will continue to over-borrow to buy a home. Prices for homes have skyrocketed while wages have remained nearly stagnant. Compounding the problem is that productivity has increased, resulting in less need for employees. A less need for employees not only keeps unemployment rates high, it helps keep wages stagnant.
I think it’s great that the federal government wants to help people. I just don’t think helping people stay in homes they cannot afford is really helping them. Rewarding borrowers $1,000 a year for three years for loaning money to people they should not have loaned money to is rewarding wrong doing. And it’s not like the federal government has more money than it knows what to do with. How many of these people who now cannot afford their mortgage payments refinanced during the housing bubble into loans with adjustable rates based on home values that existed only on paper?
What’s next, will the Obama administration go to Vegas and help people that lost all their money at the crap tables?
What is the Secret Service doing?
Here’s the photo of President Barack Obama meeting wannabe reality TV stars Michaele Salahi and Tareq Salahi. The couple crashed the White House State dinner for India’s prime minister.
What’s the Secret Service doing? Do they want Obama to be killed?
If this is the level of security they are giving the President and his family, I wouldn’t put much faith in the idea of Obama finishing his first term. Seriously, when you factor in how many people want Obama to die, coupled with the Secret Service not doing their duty, things don’t look good.
Tiger Woods was not drunk, he was on prescription pain medication
There appears to be more to the Tiger Woods solo auto accident then was first reported. Go figure. When Woods first hit the fire hydrant and then the neighbor’s tree, he was sitting behind the wheel unresponsive. The doors were locked, so wife Elin Nordegren used a golf club to smash in one of the back windows so that she could extract Tiger from the vehicle. Either she had heard the crash and came outside to see what had happened or she helped cause the accident by slamming that same golf club she used to rescue her husband into Tiger’s Cadillac Escalade several times as he was trying to leave the happy home. Both scenarios have been appearing in news accounts about the accident.
Tiger was lying in the street with his wife Elin was standing over him when police arrived.
Remember those facial lacerations that Tiger supposedly sustained in the auto accident? Well, it now appears he received those not from the accident, but from his lovely wife prior to the accident. It was supposedly the reason Tiger was in the mood to go out driving at 2:30 a.m.
Because his wife beat him up.
And what would cause the Elin to go medieval on Tiger? Rumor has it that Tiger has been seeing another woman, Rachel Uchitel. The rumor had been reported in the National Enquirer this week so it must be true. They are usually right about such things. As John Edwards.
Though Tiger Woods may not have been using alcohol at the time of the accident, he evidently was taking prescription pain medication. This would explain why he was acting so loopy when police arrived.
What it doesn’t explain is why he wasn’t placed under arrest.
Tiger Woods injured in car crash
Tiger Woods was involved in an auto accident. From WESH NBC Orlando:
The Florida Highway Patrol said Woods was injured in the crash, which took place at about 2:30 a.m., and was taken to Health Central Hospital. The Orange County Fire Department confirmed that a patient was taken to Health Central, but would not confirm that the patient was Woods.
A source told WESH 2 News that Woods has been treated for facial lacerations.
Woods was driving a 2009 black Cadillac Escalade when he lost control and hit a fire hydrant outside his home and a tree outside his neighbor’s home, FHP said.
FHP said the crash is still under investigation. It said alcohol did not play a role in the crash, but that charges are pending.
Isn’t Woods a spokesman for Buick? Why then wasn’t he behind the wheel of a Buick? Granted, Buick and Cadillac are both brands owned by General Motors, but Woods only appears in commercials for Buick.
How does someone crash into a fire hydrant and then a tree at 2:30 a.m. and not be drunk while doing it? Can a sober person even do that? If anything, being sober while unleashing all that vehicular chaos is even worse if you aren’t drunk.
I’m pretty sure he was drunk. He had to be.
Secret Service allows reality TV wannabes to crash White House dinner party
Michaele Salahi, a Northern Virginia socialite who is trying to get on the Bravo upcoming reality TV show The Real Housewives of Washington, and her husband Tareq Salahi were allowed to crash President Obama’s first White House dinner. The dinner was in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Here is a photo of Michaele Salahi posing with Vice-President Joe Biden. Good thing she doesn’t know that “five finger death punch” technique from Kill Bill. Worse, that giant stupid looking ring on her finger could have a needle tipped with ricin or some other toxin.
I wonder who else the Secret Service is allowing to come into close contact with the President, who people tell me, is the nation’s first African-American President. I don’t see skin color so I have to take other people’s word on this.
I don’t want to tell Bravo how to produce reality TV shows, but if they want to create a show staring housewives from Washington, than perhaps they need to cast women who are housewives and who live in Washington.
Northern Virginia ain’t Washington and vice versa.
They are two distinctly different places that are very much not alike. Why call the show something it’s not? Would Bravo create a show entitled The Real Housewives of Manhattan and then cast it with women from Newark?
I think not.
Obama to announce Afghanistan troop buildup in televised speech at West Point
President Obama will be announcing his Afghanistan policy at a prime time televised speech from West Point on Tuesday. He is expected to announce a buildup that will bring U.S. forces to around 100,000, from today’s 68,000.
As if that’s going to change things in Afghanistan.
The first thing you need to do when you realize you are in a hole is to stop digging. Afghanistan is a hole. A really big hole. It’s a hole the British Empire found themselves in. It’s a hole the Soviets found themselves in. It’s a hole we’ve been in now for eight years and adding more shovels isn’t going to fix things.
Not only is sending more troops to Afghanistan not going to fix things, it’s going to cost a lot of money and more importantly, it’s going to cost a lot of lives.
It’s a shame that our flavor of democracy requires such a large and expensive military to sustain it. Other democracies in the world spend a fraction of what we do on their military. It allows them to spend their treasure on more important things. Things such as universal health care and high-speed bullet trains.
Think of what we could do in this country if we didn’t spend so much on our military.
So President Obama is going to announce more troops to Afghanistan. Good for him. I wonder if he is going to wear his Nobel Peace Prize around his neck when he makes the announcement. Probably not.
Roman Polanski to be released on bail
The Swiss appear to be caving to the demands of award wining director and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. While he awaits extradition to the United States for drugging and then raping a 13-year old girl in 1977, he will be allowed to post bail of 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.49 million U.S.) and stay under house arrest in his chalet in the resort of Gstaad.
The Swiss have to know that the chances of him staying in his chalet while he awaits extradition is zero. He ran from justice once before and he will run from justice once again. It’s what he does.
The only thing I hate more than Roman Polanski are the people in the entertainment industry that defend Polanski because, well, he’s a good movie director. As if that fact could negate what he did in 1977. If there was anything we should all agree on, you’d think it would be that a 44-year old man drugging a 13-year old girl so that he could sodomize her, is wrong. That whoever did something like this should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
It seems insane to me that people can disagree on this.
Dana Perino: ‘We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term’
I guess former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino has never seen one of those “Never Forget” 911 bumper stickers. Not only was there a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term, it was a fairly large one. In fact, it was the largest terror attack the world has ever seen.
I guess Fox News is trying to pin the blame for the Ft. Hood massacre on President Obama because he doesn’t understand that we are in a war on terror. If we are in fact in a war on terror, why didn’t President Bush have congress declare war on terrorism?
Terrorism is a technique. You can’t wage war against a technique.
Donny Osmond is your new dancing overlord
Donny Osmond won last night’s Dancing with the Stars finale beating out his fellow star finalists, Kelly Osbourne and Mya.
Unfortunately, I know who Kelly Osbourne is, but I have no clue who Mya is.
I started watching Dancing with the Stars the last few weeks and I’ve got to admit, it was worth watching. I was impressed just how serious the contestants took the competition. They really poured themselves into it. I know squat about ballroom dancing, but I know what it looks like when people take something serious and work hard towards a goal.
I guess Luke Wilson has never been to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
AT&T, in response to some Verizon ads that trash AT&T’s minuscule 3G coverage, have hired actor Luke Wilson to make commercials touting how great AT&T is. instead of actually improving their 3G coverage, they spend millions of dollars telling people that how great they are.
Isn’t that just fantastic?
I have an iPhone which means that I can only use AT&T as my provider. No matter what Luke Wilson says, I know that AT&T’s 3G coverage sucks. Without 3G, the iPhone is just a pretty iPod that you can talk to people on. When you find yourself in one of the many areas the AT&T doesn’t have 3G coverage, a lot of the apps that make the iPhone great are unusable.
When I worked in Pennsylvania, my iPhone’s 3G coverage died the minute I crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania. Because of this fact, I had to listen to XM radio on the actual XM radio instead of the Sirius-XM iPhone app on my iPhone. This would not have been necessary if AT&T’s 3G coverage wasn’t such a big bucket of suck.
Sarah Palin meets her doppelganger
Sarah Palin was signing copies of her book Going Rogue at a Borders in Noblesville, Indiana when she met a woman that looks just like her. I haven’t seen something this amazing since that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where a transporter malfunction created a second Riker, Lieutenant Thomas Riker. It’s one of the reasons to this day I refuse to use a transporter, and instead use shuttles.
The photo appears on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. It doesn’t identify who this woman is, but it states that the photograph is the property of SarahPAC, Sarah Palin’s official political action committee.
Is this a book tour or is it a touring political rally?
I thought it was a book tour. She’s been appearing at military bases, something she would not be able to do if she was campaigning.
Lou Dobbs for President?
Former CNN hate monger Lou Dobbs is actually considering running for President of the United States. Seriously, this is not a joke. The man who’s entire shtick seems to be built around hating brown people coming to the United States is actually considering a run for the presidency. He appeared on Fred Thompson’s radio show, and when asked if he would consider a run for President, he replied by saying, “yes is the answer.”
How exactly did the bar drop so low that a xenophobic cable news reader could actually consider running for the highest office in the land?
My days being unemployed are coming to a close
It looks as though the national nightmare known as me not having a job is almost over. I’ve been offered a position with a Fortune 500 company that I have accepted.
Yea!
I was offered the position this past Thursday over the telephone, and UPS delivered my welcome packet this morning.
My first day of work will be December 14.
To say I am excited about this is a huge understatement. As fate would have it, this is actually a much better job than the one I had before. I wont be working with my hands and the job doesn’t involve electronics. No soldering, no desoldering, no dealing with burned up circuit boards, and no troubleshooting of tiny surface mount components I cannot even see with the naked eye.
This job involves computers and the Internet. I’ll be working with people over the telephone. It still involves troubleshooting, but instead of electronics, it will involve html and php. It’s something I see myself really enjoying.
I have something to be very thankful about this Thanksgiving. Not only have I found a job in a time when finding a job is somewhat difficult, I think I’ve landed one that I am really going to enjoy.
Creepy gay kid who lost ‘American Idol’ acts creepy at American Music Awards
Adam Lambert, the runner-up on season 8 of American Idol, performed at the American Music Awards last night. The award show was televised by ABC. During Lambert’s performance, he made out with a male keyboard player and forced a female dancer’s head to his crotch in a sexually suggestive manner.
At least she looked to be female.
Make no mistake, Adam Lambert is one creepy dude. That fact that he’s gay has nothing to do with it. Anyone – gay or straight – that walks another human being on a leash like they were a dog on stage in front of millions is a creep.
Microsoft wants to make Bing the official search engine of teabaggers and birthers everywhere
Microsoft is in talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to de-index every News Corp owned entity from Google and allow Bing, the new search engine owned by Microsoft, to become the only search engine for News Corp properties. This would mean that if you wanted to search for something on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, or the New York Post, you would have to go to Bing, not Google. The same would apply to 20th Century Fox, Fox, Fox Sports, FX Networks, and a host of other entertainment and sports networks.
According to the Financial Times, News Corp isn’t the only media company approached by Microsoft to make Bing the exclusive search engine.
I cannot help but believe that this is a really stupid idea. Not just for News Corp, but for Microsoft too. A deal like this wouldn’t stop anyone from using Google to find News Corp related content. For instance, say Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck say something incredibly stupid on Fox News. If went to Google and performed a search of what they said, you might not find anything that directly links to Fox News, but you would still find a plethora of web content related to whatever Hannity or Beck said. Microsoft may pay News Corp money to de-link from Google, but that’s not going to stop bloggers and others from linking to News Corp entities.
These bloggers and others would simply move to the top of the Google search results.
A move like this would also hurt Bing’s credibility. I’m not sure being the official search engine of Fox News is anything to be proud of.
Bill Simmons is a douche
As if there was any doubt that ESPN columnist Bill Simmons is a raging douche with an exaggerated idea of his own importance, he attempts to remove all doubt by writing about a recent speeding ticket he failed to get out. The blog Kissing Suzy Kolber posted a portion of the article.
From Kissing Suzy Kolber:
Seattle loves me for defending its Sonics after Clay Bennett hijacked them and moved them elsewhere. If there was ever a place I could get out of a speeding ticket, it’s Seattle. Or so I thought.
Anyway, I shot out of Seattle like a bat out of hell. We were weaving between lanes and going about 90. Twenty minutes into the drive, still in the outskirts of Seattle, we were arguing about why navigation systems don’t come with different voices — for example, we should be able to have Morgan Freeman be our nav narrator or, even better, Sam Jackson as Jules in “Pulp Fiction” (”I told you to take a motherf—ing right, you dumbass!) — and I stopped paying attention to things like “Is there a cop car behind me?” Which there was. He pulled us over, walked over to my driver’s side and somewhat angrily asked why I was going so fast. I explained that we were trying to get to Portland and apologized for my speed. He asked for my license and registration. Then we had this exchange:
Me (big smile): “Were you a big Sonics fan? Because-”
Him (frowns): “No.”
And he walked away with my license.
OK, first of all, “we” weren’t weaving between the lanes like a bat out of hell, he was the one driving like a dick. I have nothing against people driving fast. I’ve been know to drive fast on occasion. The problem I have with drivers like Simmons is the weaving in and out of lanes. Drivers like him make the road more dangerous than it needs to be. Though I may on occasion drive fast, I don’t weave in and out of lanes. I drive with traffic like a regular person.
He honestly thinks people know who he is?
I don’t know who the cop was that refused to allow Simmons to get out of his ticket, but he’s an American hero.
Hockey goal of the year
David Perron of the St. Louis Blues scores what has to be the goal of the year on the New York Islanders yesterday.
Everything I learned about fighting the next Revolutionary War I learned from a Republican billboard
This sign can be seen in Missouri while driving on I-70. It’s paid for by the Lafayette County Republicans. I guess by “corrupt government” they mean we have a black man with a funny sounding name as our duly elected president.
Sarah Palin fans stiffed at book signing
Hundreds of fans in Noblesville, Indiana lined up all day in the cold and rain at a Borders bookstore for the chance to meet Sarah Palin and get their copies of Going Rogue signed by the former Alaskan governor. The first 1,000 people in line that bought a copy of the book were given a colored wristband. This was supposed to ensure that they would get their book signed by Palin. The problem is that Palin left the book signing before everyone that had a wristband could get a signature.
Is it so hard to believe that a person who quit in the middle of her term as governor would also quit her own book signing? I say no. This is what makes her the lovable that she is. You think she’s going to do one thing, but she does the complete opposite.
These people that walked away from the book signing without a signature should not be sad or disappointed. They should be happy. They’ve been rogued by Sarah Palin. They should display their colored wristband and their unsigned book as a shrine to Sarah Palin and the complete rogue that she is.
Granted, she could have stayed at the book signing and continued to sign books for everyone that stood all day in the cold and the rain, but that would have been inconvenient for Sarah Palin. She’s not particularly found of doing things that are personally inconvenient for her. For example, finishing her term as Alaska governor.
Connecting Obama to Jihadists
A used car dealership outside Denver, Colorado has put up a billboard connecting President Obama to a turban wearing jihadist. It also calls into question Obama’s birth certificate and it instructs sleepy Americans to remember the Fort Hood massacre.
You’ve got to admit that President Barack Obama and Major Nidal Malik Hasan are so much alike.
Barack Obama’s mother was a white woman from Kansas and his father was a black man for Kenya. Hasan’s parents are Palestinians who immigrated from the West Bank to Virginia. Obama was born in Hawaii. Hasan was born in Virginia.
The similarities just don’t end there. Obama is a Christian, and has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal lord and savor. Hasan is a devout Muslim. Obama is married and has two children. Hasan is a confirmed bachelor with no children.
In his off-time, Obama wears old lady jeans, while Hasan wears traditional white Arab garb.
The similarities between the two men, President Barack Obama and Major Nidal Malik Hasan, are really quite remarkable. I for one am glad that this used car dealership had the courage to erect this sign.
Couple arrested for refusing to tip a bad waitress
Leslie Pope and John Wagner, Pennsylvania college students, were arrested because they refused to tip a waitress they said gave them terrible service the night they went to the Lehigh Pub. From Philly.com (via The Consumerist):
“You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip,” said Pope, a 22-year-old Moravian College senior who’s a Pottsville native, according to the Lehigh Valley Express-Times.
They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10.
The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.
They were busy, but not too busy to call the police and have customers arrested because they refused to “tip” their crappy waitress. Not that I know what goes on in the mind of a nicotine addicted waitress, but if she knows that she is getting a tip from any table that has at least six people no matter what type of service she provides, those are the tables that aren’t getting good service on a busy night. Why would she? She knows that no matter why type service she provides, good or bad, she is getting a 18% tip.
I can’t believe that the cops would even show up for something like this, let alone arrest both Pope and Wagner for theft. Why didn’t they arrest the entire party? They arrested not only the person that paid the bill and refused to pay the tip, but their significant other too. Technically, the other four people in the party refused to pay the tip too. Why weren’t they arrested?
Why I walked out on my dentist
I had a dental appointment Wednesday for a cleaning. I signed in at the reception desk and waited to be called. After only a couple of minutes, someone came into the waiting room and called my name. I was given a clipboard along with a stack of papers. I was told that I needed to fill out the forms and then bring them back up to the reception desk when I was done.
The clipboard had a bunch of forms, the type of forms you normally fill out when you first go to see a dentist. I was in two months ago getting a crown installed and they didn’t make me fill out forms. I asked why I needed to fill any of these out. I was told that they now require patients to submit these forms every year and I haven’t filled them out in four years.
Huh?
I went back to my seat and began filling the forms out. I was able to fill out most of the questions on the first page without any difficulty. I’m still a male and my birthday hasn’t changed in the last four years. I then got to the part where I had to enter the information concerning my insurance. This was a problem. Since I’ve been married, I’ve always been on my wife’s medical and dental insurance. Her insurance has always been much better than the crappy insurance offered by any of my former employers. When we first started going to this particular dentist four years ago, to the best of my knowledge, we took paperwork concerning our dental insurance with us and gave the paperwork to them.
I couldn’t even remember the name of our dental insurance, let alone the policy number or the group number. There’s no card that I carry in my wallet. I simply go to the dentist and they tell me what I need to pay in the form of a co-payment and they do the rest. Because I’m using my wife’s insurance, they wanted all of her information too, including her Social Security number. There are probably a lot of husbands that know everything about their wife, including their Social Security number. I’m not one of those husbands. Since my wife is also a patient, they already have all of her information. Then again, they already have all of my information too.
I looked through the rest of the forms. They wanted to know not only all of my dental history, they wanted to know my entire medical history too, including any medications I’m taking. I took the time to give them all this information four years ago and to the best of my knowledge, none of it has changed.
I decided that I wasn’t going to fill these forms out again.
My name was called so I went back up to the reception area. I handed the clipboard to the woman that called my name and I told her was done. She looked at the forms and said that I needed to fill out everything completely. I said I wasn’t going to do that. I said that everything was the same as the last time I filled out the forms. She said that I still needed to fill them out completely. My response to this was to tell her that I would be canceling my appointment. Then again, it was 20 minutes past my appointment, but that wasn’t because of me. I got there early. I put the clipboard down and walked out. I’m never going back.
I refuse to jump through their hoops. There was no valid reason for me to fill out forms that I’ve already filled out. They already posses the information they asked me to provide. If I have to fill out lengthy forms detailing not only my entire dental history, but my entire medical history too, I might as well just go to a new dentist. Who knows, maybe I can find a dentist that doesn’t have Fox News playing in every room.
You call that perfect?
Sean Storms, a collector with more money then sense, just spent $200,000 on a graded “perfect” Michael Jordan 1986-87 Fleer Card. The card is considered Jordan’s “rookie” card, even though his rookie season in the NBA was 1985-86.
Beckett, publisher of the most popular sports card price guide and the company that graded the card, published the story on their website about the card’s sale to Sean Storms. They claim in the article that the card is perfect, yet if you look the actual ratings of the card, it’s not really perfect. If it was perfect, it would rate solid 10’s in every category. This card doesn’t have solid 10’s. Beckett rated the card’s surface as a 9.5 out of 10. If it was in fact perfect, they would have assigned a perfect 10 to not only the Centering, Edges, and Corners, but the to the Surface too.
This card isn’t perfect.
If you want to impress me, show me a graded 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan with solid 10’s. You do that and I just might just start bowing like Obama in Japan.
One of my favorite basketball cards comes from the same set. It’s a 1986-87 Fleer Kurt Rambis card, number 89 in the set. It, like the Jordan card, is considered the Rambis rookie card. I was able to pick it up for fifty cents at a card show at the Ruritan in Mauginsvile, Maryland. It was quite a score because the card usually goes for around $2. I handed the gentleman selling the card a one dollar bill and not only did I get a mint Rambis rookie card, I got two shinny quarters as well.
It was a wonderful day.
Raiders finally invite JaMarcus Russell to take a seat
The Oakland Raiders have announced that they are benching former number one draft pick quarterback JaMarcus Russell and will be starting journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski for the foreseeable future.
It’s about time.
Russell has been an awful NFL quarterback. If the Raiders didn’t use an overall number one draft pick on him and paid him over $30 million in guaranteed money, I have to believe they would have benched him a lot sooner. Not that benching him is even the correct move. They need to release him. He has no business being in the NFL. Though he is a talented athlete, I don’t think he really wants to play football. I don’t think his heart is in it. Someone with his raw talent shouldn’t be as bad as he is. His passer rating this season is only 47.7. He’s thrown nine interceptions and fumbled the ball five times.
And to think the Raiders cut Jeff Garcia before the season started, supposedly to give Russell a shot of confidence going into the season. Also, one of the reason’s Raiders owner Al Davis gave for firing former head coach Lane Kiffin was that Kiffin never believed in JaMarcus Russell and was against drafting him.
Imagine that.
Praying for Obama to die
It appears some conservative Christians have found a new low when it comes to demonstrating their displeasure in our elected president, Barack Obama. They are now turning to a little known Bible verse to vocalize just how much they don’t want Obama to be the President.
They are praying that he will die.
At least that is the implication of inciting Psalm 109:8 in relation to President Obama. The verse reads, “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.” In case you don’t see the implication of this verse, the following verse, Psalm 109:9, reads, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”
To get better context, read the entire chapter.
It’s a shame that a perverse few can take a verse from Psalm and use it to sell hateful t-shirts, bumper stickers, and hats that imply that they want President Obama to die. Psalm is a wonderful book of the Bible with many beautiful passages. For generations, people have turned to Psalm during times of trouble or great loss and have been comforted from the words found within.
I truly hope I never see anyone wearing one of these hateful t-shirts.
Terrell Suggs may miss the rest of the season
Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn’s wallet is a bit lighter thanks to the illegal chop-block on Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs. Quinn refuses to say how much the fine from the NFL is, but a league source tells ESPN that it’s $10,000.
An MRI exam showed that Suggs suffered a severe MCL sprain in his right knee resulting from Quinn’s chop-block on Monday night. Suggs’ agent, Gary Wichard, said that his client might miss the rest of the season.
Though I’ve never been a Brady Quinn fan and I think he’s a punk, Terrell Suggs is a thug who brags about hurting opposing players. No matter how hard I try, I can’t feel sorry for him. If there is such a thing as karma, it would stand to reason that a player like Suggs would suffer a season ending injury.
John Shadegg is a fear mongering coward
Arizona Representative Republican John Shadegg stood on the House floor speaking out against trying those that participated in the September 11 terror attacks in a New York civilian courtroom and posed a rhetorical question to New York City mayor for life, billionaire Michael Bloomberg how he’d feel if his daughter was kidnapped by terrorists.
Classy.
Doesn’t Shadegg have a staff that he can run ideas past before he opens his mouth and says something really stupid? What a stupid thing to say. I’m sure Bloomberg would hate to have his daughter kidnapped. Who wouldn’t? That doesn’t mean he should curl up in a ball under his desk.
I don’t understand fear mongers like Shadegg. What does he think, that we shouldn’t try terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? I assume that he’s in favor of military tribunals. I guess then only members of the military and their families would face possible repercussions from the terrorists.
Does Shadegg not care about military families?
When did it become OK for Americans to act like cowards? It’s a trick question because it’s not OK. When you react to terrorism with fear and trepidation, you are responding just the way they want you to respond.
My advice to John Shadegg is that if he cannot get past his fears, maybe he ought to move to Canada. That’s what cowards did during the Vietnam conflict, they went to Canada.
Sarah Palin, keep your pants on
From the ex-Governor’s Facebook page:
The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness – a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.
You know how you can make sure that you never appear on the cover of a national news magazine in your shorty shorts while leaning on the American flag? Don’t ever pose for a picture wearing shorty shorts while leaning on the American flag.
When I first read that Sarah Palin was complaining about the cover of Newsweek, I assumed that Newsweek had photoshopped the image. It didn’t even occur to me that she would pose for a photo like this.
That’s what I get for assuming.
Teabaggers lose again
Every year, lexicographers at Oxford University Press track words that pop up in the English language and bestow the honor of Word of the Year on one of these new words. For 2009, the word “unfriend” wins that honor:
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
Also making the list of finalists is the word “teabagger”:
teabagger – a person who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
Once again, the teabaggers are on the losing side. Usually they lose to Democrats. This is the first time they’ve lost to a word. For what it’s worth, I think they were robbed. Though I’ve heard the word “teabagger” used numerous times (I live in western Maryland), I’ve never heard the word “unfriend” used before.
Sarah Palin does Oprah Winfrey
I watched Oprah Winfrey interview Sarah Palin and I thought she sounded good. Sarah Palin that is. She didn’t sound as clueless as she did during the 2008 campaign, but then again, how could she? It was almost hard to believe that this was the same woman that couldn’t name a single magazine she reads.
Almost.
The most interesting part of the interview was when Oprah asked her why she resigned as Alaska’s governor. Palin said it was because she had already decided that she wasn’t going to run for reelection and she felt like she was a lame duck. She also said something that sounded really odd. She blamed the reason for stepping down on Barack Obama. She said that people from the Obama camp were coming up to Alaska to do “opposition research.”
Watch it here:
I understand there are some on the right that want to blame everything on Obama, but this? I have a hard time believing that after winning the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama really cared about Sarah Palin. Why would he send people up to Alaska to do research on her?
I think the reason she quit was so that she could cash in on her sudden fame. If she resigned as governor, she could go on the paid lecture circuit and write a book. Instead of just admitting to this, she instead blames Obama.
She should have just said she wanted to make money.
Sending prisoners and the unemployed to Afghanistan
One of the most popular parts of the local newspaper, The Herald-Mail, is the Mail Call section. It’s where people call in and leave messages about the things that concern them. To be honest, I used to think that The Herald-Mail was just making up these calls. Most of them are almost too silly and too entertaining for me to believe that they are true.
I’ve since changed my mind. I’ve realized that the Hagerstown area has no shortage of the type of people that would call into Mail Call.
Here’s one that caught my attention today:
I’m a veteran. What they should do is empty out the prisons, and all these young guys hanging on the streets, and send them to Afghanistan. They’re not doing any good on the streets where they’re at now. All the prisoners and people that’s unemployed and stuff, roaming the streets, send them to Afghanistan. Let them fight the war.
As an unemployed person, I really appreciate being grouped in with people in prison. As bad as getting laid off was two months ago, if this person was in charge, I would be on a plane right now sitting next to Bernie Madoff and Charles Manson heading to Afghanistan.
That would really suck.
Sarah Palin will tell you what you can do with your fact checking
Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin’s new book is coming out tomorrow. A lot of people, including those that worked in the McCain campaign, have taken exception to some of the contents of the book, specifically the parts she evidently just made up. The AP have been going through the book and have been writing about the factual errors the book contains. Palin has a problem with this. So much so that she wrote about it on her Facebook page:
Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They’re now erroneously reporting on the book’s contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.
She refers to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as though Sheik is his title, like the Iron Sheik. It’s not his title, it’s his middle name. Maybe she just likes to refer to people by their middle name. In that case, I’m going to start referring to her has Louise Palin. That’s her middle name.
Louise Palin also wrote the following:
We’ll keep setting the record straight, and we’ll keep reminding some in the media that Americans are very tired of their non-objective reporting.
I couldn’t disagree with her more. If Americans want objective reporting, why do so many of them watch Fox News? On the contrary, a good many Americans want non-objective, biased reporting. They not only want their news to be biased, a good many of them will simply reject anything that doesn’t embrace their particular bias.
I also think Louise Palin is dead wrong about the AP. I think the AP is very serious about getting the facts right. Back when I found a t-shirt at Wal-Mart with a Nazi skull on it, I was interviewed by an AP reporter for an article they published about the controversy. When the article first appeared online, it incorrectly stated that I’m a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I’m not. I’m a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, not that it mattered.
I didn’t really care, because to me, it didn’t make a difference. I didn’t think my military service pertained at all to the article. About 20 minutes after reading the article, the reporter called me. He asked me whether I had said I was in the Navy or the Air Force. I guess he was going over his notes and noticed that I never said I was in the Navy. I told him that I was in the Air Force, but that I don’t think it mattered. He disagreed. He said that the mistake would be fixed immediately. He said the AP cared a lot about getting facts, all the facts, correct.
Sure enough, the AP quickly corrected the article.
I was impressed by this. I didn’t think it really mattered, but they went to the trouble of fixing a mistake anyway.
So when Louise Palin implies that the AP shouldn’t be trusted with the facts, I couldn’t disagree more.
Borders has a sale on gift cards
It’s no mystery at this point that retailers want consumers to buy gift cards this upcoming holiday season. When people buy gift cards for their friends and loved ones, retailers don’t have to worry about these friends and loved ones bringing gifts back to the store for a refund. Once a store sells a gift card to a consumer, the transaction is complete.
The gift card recipient is locked into using the gift card.
How far will retailers go to get people to buy gift cards? If they are like Borders, they will put them on sale. Currently, Borders has a sale on $60 worth of gift cards for $50. Spend $50 on gift cards at Borders’ website and they will send you two $25 gift cards along with another free $10 gift card.
This seems like a good deal, especially when you then combine it with a Borders Rewards 40% off coupon. You could purchase the gift cards and then wait for a 40% coupon to be released. It would enable you to purchase a $100 book for only $50 bucks.
Sirius XM compares Howard Stern to two dead guys and a retired basketball player
Sirius XM started running a strange commercial yesterday that seems to imply that Howard Stern is just like Elvis, Richard Prior, and Michael Jordan. Elvis and Richard Prior are dead and Michael Jordan hasn’t played basketball in years. Is this really what Sirius XM wants to do, compare the guy they pay $100 million a year to two dead guys and retired basketball player?
I guess I understand that since they pay Howard Stern so much money, Sirius XM feels an obligation to put him front and center in any national ad campaign. The problem is that his he only works four days a week and has 10 weeks of vacation a year. Getting people to subscribe to Sirius XM because of Howard Stern may backfire when these people realize that Howard has every Friday off and spends a lot of time on vacation.
There is a lot more on Sirius XM than Howard Stern.
LeBron James to give up the number 23 and wants everyone else to do the same
Cleavland Cavalier all-star forward LeBron James has decided to give up his current number 23 and instead go with the number 6 out of respect of of former Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards guard Michael Jordan.
From Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
James wants to lead a movement to get every player who wears No. 23 in the league to give it up as a tribute to Jordan.
“I just think what Michael Jordan has done for the game has to be recognized some way soon,” James said. “There would be no LeBron James, no Kobe Bryant, no Dwyane Wade if there wasn’t Michael Jordan first.”
“He can’t get the logo, and if he can’t, something has to be done. I feel like no NBA player should wear 23. I’m starting a petition, and I’ve got to get everyone in the NBA to sign it. Now, if I’m not going to wear No. 23, then nobody else should be able to wear it.“
So if LeBron James decides not to wear a number, nobody should wear that number? I guess this is what happens when you are incapable of winning a championship. You have to resort to spearheading a movement to honor a former player of one of your team’s biggest rivals.
The game winning jumper Michael Jordan made over the Craig Ehlo in game five in the first round of the 1989 NBA playoffs is somewhat legendary. It even has it’s own Wikipedia entry. LeBron James now wants to honor the player that 20 years ago killed his team’s championship hopes? Classy.
Contrary to what LeBron James might think, there was an NBA before Michael Jordan. To think players like Kobe Bryant or Dwyane Wade wouldn’t have a league to ply their craft in if it wasn’t for Michael Jordan is just silly.
And Michael Jordan has a logo, it’s just not on NBA uniforms. He has his own line of clothing with a logo of himself spread out with a ball in his hand. I guess LeBron James is referring to the fact that the NBA logo features the likeness of Jerry West, not Michael Jordan. Does he have a problem with Jerry West being the logo?
I would say that LeBron James is shafting his fans by making them go out and buy another jersey with his name on it. He’s not making the number switch till next season and we all know that LeBron James will probably be wearing a New York Knicks next year anyway.
Will someone please tell Obama to stop bowing?
What is it about President Obama that prompts him to bow to foreign dignitaries? First he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, now he has bowed to the Japanese Emperor Akihito. Does he just go around bowing to everyone he meets and we don’t see it because there isn’t a photographer around?
I don’t get it.
I bow to no one. I never have and I never will. Is it too much to ask that the guy living in the White House do the same?
He needs to knock it off and start practicing better posture. It’s embarrassing enough that he’s a Chicago White Sox fan. Is he trying to give TEA Baggers a photo to put on their protest signs?
911 terrorists will finally stand trial
After eight long years, some of the terrorists involved in the terror attacks of 911 will face a trial in a civilian courtroom. From the AP (via MSNBC):
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.
I don’t understand why it took this long. Granted, I didn’t expect Bush to do something like this, but we elected Obama over a year ago, and he was sworn into office in January.
This should have been done his first week in office.
I’ve long believed that we will never defeat terrorism militarily. Terrorism is a technique, not a nation or a group of people. How do you wage war against a technique? The goal should be to hunt down and bring to justice those that engage in this awful, disgusting technique.
Ideally it should be done a lot sooner then eight years after the fact.
For the past eight years, we have fought terrorism by spending billions of dollars in invading and occupying two Muslim countries. We’ve lost well over 5,000 service members and thousands more have been injured in this futile military pursuit. It’s hard to say exactly if these costly military excursions and occupations have contributed to the fact that the United States has not suffered a terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, but what is quite clear is that there are more Islamic terrorists in the world today then there was on September 12.
I believe the military occupation of two Muslim countries has greatly contributed to this problem. I believe that if you want to create more Islamic terrorists, occupy a Muslim country.
I don’t know if we will ever defeat terrorism. It’s hard to defeat someone who engages in a technique that often results in their own death. I do know this: terrorism will never be defeated in an epic tank battle.
Responding to terrorism with our massive military makes about as much sense as responding to North Korea invading South Korea by sending the FBI to the Korean Peninsula. If terrorism will ever be defeated, it will be in the courtroom, not the battlefield. It will be defeated with our laws and our judicial system, not our smart bombs and our main battle tanks.
Jon Gosselin sues TLC
Jon Gosselin has filed a $5 million lawsuit against TLC claiming that the network dedicated to learning damaged his reputation and career by preventing him from working with other media outlets. He also claims in his lawsuit that TLC owes him $175,000 for Jon and Kate Plus Eight episodes that have already been aired. In accordance with a contract he and his soon to be ex-wife signed in 2008, he gets $22,500 for each half-hour episode and $45,000 for each one-hour episode.
I’m not sure he even has to be in the episode to get the money. TLC probably didn’t foresee a future where Jon and Kate would be separated and no longer appearing together on the show.
Jon Gosselin filed the lawsuit here in Maryland at the District Court in Rockville, where Discovery Communications, TLC’s parent company, is headquartered.
Since Jon Gosselin is under contract with TLC, it’s a shame that they cannot simply reassign him to another show on the network. I’m sure I’m not the only one that would get a real kick out of seeing Jon work as a deckhand on The Deadliest Catch. After spending 48 hours on his feet pulling up crab pots in below freezing temperatures on the Bering Sea, he might just decide that being married to Kate isn’t so bad after all.
How am I supposed to read this?
A while back I purchased Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Collection Volume 1. It collects the first three story arcs of Powers, the somewhat monthly comic written by Brain Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. I never read the comic, but I thought the basic premise of a world where people with superpowers is common and because if this, the police department has a section devoted to superpower related homicides, sounded interesting.
I finally got around to reading it. That is, I finally got around to trying to read it. The problem is, the book is so poorly bound that some of the pages cannot be read. For example:
I cannot read page 9 because one of the panels is obstructed by the binding. Even though I shelled out money for a deluxe edition, I cannot read it. Wonderful.
It’s not even like I could have flipped through the book before purchasing it. When I found it at my local Borders, it was sealed in shrink wrapped plastic. As a consumer, I had to simply trust Icon, an imprint of Marvel Comics, that they knew how to properly bind a book so that it could be read.
Only a comic publisher would produce a book that cannot be read by the people who purchase it. No other publisher would treat readers this way.
Catholic Church threatens to stop helping the poor if gay people are allowed to marry
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to pull out of contracts it has with the District to provide various social service programs for the city’s needy if a proposed gay marriage law goes into effect next month. Churches would not be forced to conduct gay marriages. They, along with every other business or organization in the District, simply would not be allowed to discriminate against gay or lesbian people because they were gay or lesbian people.
I hate to point out the obvious, but Jesus wouldn’t discriminate anyone. Though he never spoke about gay people, Jesus was all about extending love and kindness to the people everyone else looked down upon. Is there a group of people more looked down upon today than gays and lesbians?
Jesus ministered to everyone, but he made a point of especially ministering to those that everyone else despised and rejected. If the Catholic Church is correct and gays and lesbians are sinners for being gay or lesbian, then these are just the people they should be ministering to. Jesus would not discriminate against gay or lesbian people.
Jesus wouldn’t withhold love or kindness from someone because the local government enacted a policy he didn’t agree with. Jesus cured lepers and healed the sick even though I’m sure he didn’t agree with everything the Roman Empire did. To think otherwise is just silly.
When Jesus said to go out and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and to comfort those in distress, he didn’t preface it first by saying to only do these things if the local government passed laws you agree with.
Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum [Washington Post]
Only in America
Thanks to an old Google Alert I had set up at least a year ago, I read today that my former employer, the company that laid me off nearly two months ago because they wanted to “lower the head count,” received $282,000 in job creation tax credits from the state of Pennsylvania this past December.
This company didn’t create any jobs. They did the complete opposite of that. In the name of cutting costs, they eliminated jobs. How on earth do they get a tax credit for something they clearly never did?
Even before I was laid off, the company in an attempt to save money, was forcing all employees to take one week off each quarter without pay. How can they be allowed to do this when they are receiving tax credits because they are supposedly creating jobs?
I find things like this to be extremely disappointing and more than just a little demoralizing.
Larry King inappropriately asks Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean a question
Carrie Prejean, the former surgically altered, gay hating, Miss California USA, first claimed she was being shut out by the liberal media. Then while being interviewed by Larry King on CNN, which I’ve been told is an extremely liberal news network, she got angry over one King’s questions saying that it was “inappropriate.”
She got so angry that she removed her microphone. She then pretended that since she did not have her microphone on, she could not hear Larry King when he tried to ask her another question. I’m not sure that’s how it works. Microphones don’t allow you to hear, they allow you to be heard.
The two are much different.
If you are thinking that the inappropriate question posed by Larry King had to do with a solo sex video Carrie Prejean sent to a former boyfriend, you would be wrong. It was about the recent lawsuit she filed against the Miss California pageant for firing her. Larry asked why she agreed to drop the lawsuit since she claimed she was fighting for her religious freedom.
Personally, I was looking forward to the lawsuit. It’s not often you see a woman with a $5,000 boob job and her very own solo porn movie claim that her religious freedoms were being trampled upon. It’s sounded interesting to say the least.
Black Columbia professor punches white woman in the face
Lionel McIntyre, 59, an architecture professor at Columbia University was in a Harlem bar with other Columbia University employees when the topic of discussion turned to “white privilege,” the theory that people who are white enjoy certain privileges that non-white people do not enjoy. The discussion became heated when McIntyre, who is black, shoved and then punched Camille Davis, who is white, in the face.
Camille Davis is a woman who works at Columbia University as a production manager in the school’s theater department.
I’m not expert in the art of debate, but I have to believe that when you feel the need to punch a woman in the face, you have lost the debate.
This is not how you successfully win an argument on race relations. In fact, an incident such as this only hurts race relations. Something like this only supports the negative stereotype that black men are overly violent and cannot control themselves. If a successful professor from one of the country’s most respected schools cannot control himself from attacking a woman, who can?
Lionel McIntyre is an ass.
‘Kick-Ass’ the movie trailer
Kick-Ass
Trailer Park | MySpace Video
I’m looking forwarding the the movie adaptation of Kick-Ass, the comic book by writer Mark Millar, about a regular kid that decides to be a superhero. From the look of this trailer, the movie will be staying true to the über violent source material.
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