Apparently, some people are still seizing the air, feeling it, et cetera. How quaint; pirate radio stations when all the cool kids have podcasts.
Hard Harry Redux
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Category: News
It Only Makes Sense
The CDC recommends regular AIDS testing for people 13-64.
Federal health officials Thursday recommended regular, routine testing for the AIDS virus for all Americans ages 13 to 64, saying an HIV test should be as common as a cholesterol check.
Because you’re just as likely on any given day to eat eggs and cheeseburgers as you are to have sex with an intravenous drug-using homosexuals who trades sex for drugs.
Oh, right, like I’m the only one who tosses that coin every morning.
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First, It’s Puppy Safety Seats, Then It’s Mandatory Booster Seats for Beagles
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells another heartwarming story of someone with a personal preference who would probably not mind government enforcement of his preference. This time, it’s car restraining systems for pets:
Since then, Rodriquez has beome an advocate for having all dogs in cars secured in the back with safety restraints.
Ad absurdum used to be a logical fallacy. Now, it’s standard operating procedure.
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Marketer-to-English Translation
Hasbro is using brand name products for token in its new Monopoly Here and Now game:
Five of the eight tokens in the new Monopoly Here and Now edition will be branded, offering players the chance to be represented by miniature versions of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, an order of McDonald’s french fries, a New Balance running shoe, a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Motorola Razr cell phone.
Hasbro Games senior vice president for marketing Mark Blecher assures us:
Hasbro chose not to brand all the new tokens, Blecher said, to minimize concerns that the new edition would be too commercialized.
Apparently, in Blecher’s world, 62.5% commercialized is acceptable, whereas 62.6% is not. However, as I am in marketing myself (obliquely), allow me to translate what Blecher really means:
Hasbro chose not to brand all the new tokens because it couldn’t find cross-promotional deals with an airline, a dog breeder, and a computer maker.
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Some Unfunded Government Mandates Are More Equal Than Others
Mandating $15 ID to vote, restoring some measure of faith and legitimacy to elections by making it harder to vote fraudlently? Bad.
Ordering citizens who would procreate (nowadays, that’s Republicans and the poor) to add a $49.99 (minimum) booster seat after the mandated $99.99 (minimum) infant car seat and the mandated $99.99 (minimum) toddler car seat on the off chance that the child will be in an automobile crash? Good.
Someone call me and ask me if I have faith in my government so I can add a couple hundredths of a percentage point to an inconvenient poll that our venal government betters will ignore.
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Probably Nothing To See, But
D.C. man charged with stealing desktop with info on thousands:
Authorities have charged a 21-year-old Unisys Corp. subcontractor with stealing a desktop computer with billing information on as many as 38,000 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical patients.
Khalil Abdulla-Raheem of Washington was charged Wednesday with theft of government property. He is the employee of an unnamed company that “provides temporary labor to Unisys,” according to a statement released by the VA’s Office of Inspector General.
The computer was stolen in late July from Unisys’ Reston, Va., offices. It contained records on about 16,000 living patients who had received treatment at VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well has information on another 2,000 who are deceased. Data on an additional 20,000 patients may have been stored on the computer, according to the VA.
The VA said these records may have contained Social Security numbers, addresses and insurance information. The FBI is analyzing the computer to determine whether the information was compromised, but investigators do not believe that Abdulla-Raheem was after the VA data.
Still, forgive us our sensitivity to fellows with Arabic names. No, probably, we won’t be forgiven; instead, we’ll be told to pay no attention to criminals of a certain faith.
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What, It’s Not Identity Genocide?
In the San Francisco Chronicle, a quote by a feminist equates theft of consumer data in a video game to, what else, rape:
“It’s identity rape,” said Lisa Stone, co-founder of Palo Alto’s BlogHer, an organization for female bloggers, and a sporadic resident of Second Life. “If this happened, it would be a personal violation. It’s completely unacceptable.”
She said she’s typically much more uninhibited in the virtual world of Second Life than she is in the real world. This is largely a factor of using a pseudonym when interacting with other Second Life members and having an invented digital image — an avatar — to hide behind.
“It’s fantastically freeing,” Stone said. “When I’m online, I can be anyone I want.”
So knowing your secret identity is exactly, or at least metaphorically, equivalent to forcible sexual penetration with actual violence or the threat of violence? I doubt it, seriously, and I haven’t even had to be raped to know the difference. Perhaps that makes me a chickenvictim or something.
You know, modern rhetoric and discourse has a distinct lack of imagination for metaphor. It’s either rape or Hitler to someone, somewhere, who lacks inventiveness to create his or her own turn of phrase. Yet these people get rewarded by a chorus of “Hell, yeah!”
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That’s One Inept Conspiracy
Bush administration distances itself from ailing U.S. automakers:
Please call back after the election.
That’s the message from President George W. Bush’s business-friendly administration to executives of the ailing U.S. auto industry.
Twice this spring, Bush postponed a summit with the chief executives of Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler unit and General Motors Corp., citing scheduling problems.
In a Sept. 8 phone call to Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr., Bush said he wanted to wait until after the Nov. 7 midterm elections to keep partisan politics from intruding on the event.
I mean, if the Bush administration is wholly owned by Big Oil, what the hell is it doing by not pandering to Big Auto, one of the best mechanisms through which citizens consume Big Oil’s products? I guess the two choices are:
- The Bush administration isn’t wholly owned by Big Oil.
- The Bush administration is incompetent in the service of its master, Big Oil.
Many people in the blogosphere will just expect it’s option 2.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch Headline Writer Again Focuses Wrongly
Here’s the headline: Teen student shot by officer is charged with two felonies.
Note how the teen student’s major role in this headline is to be shot by the officer, and then passive-voicedly charged with two felonies. What, pray tell could those felonies be? Illegal Larceny of Government Rounds By Secreting Them Upon One’s Person Or In One’s Body? Failure to Be Dead From Government Shooting? Here’s the handy lead to shed some light on it:
A Westminster Christian Academy student who was shot in the leg by police during a confrontation at his school Wednesday has been charged with two felonies.
Well, a confrontation. Perhaps the young man exchanged words with the policeman. Perhaps he tried to speak truth to power or to enlighten the policeman to the policeman’s oppressive role in the existing order.
I guess the Post-Dispatch does get to the point eventually:
The officer fired at Vincent – first grazing his leg and then striking it – as the student sat on a curb on the campus with a .410-gauge shotgun, according to Creve Coeur police Capt. Bob Kayser.
Witnesses said Vincent, who had not been in school that day, was pointing the shotgun toward his head and that he had earlier sent a text message to another student, saying he was planning to kill himself.
After police arrived, they began talking to the teen, who threatened to kill himself, Kayser said. At one point, Vincent lowered the shotgun and pointed it at the officers, who told him to drop it, Kayser said. An officer shot him when he did not.
So, this isn’t just the teen student shot by police; this is the teen student who brought a gun to school to commit violence upon himself or others.
(More fun with the Post-Dispatch and its love of passive voice here, here, here, and here. More coming to a newstand near you tomorrow.)
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Saddam Hussein Becomes Farce, Moreso, Again
Now he’s apparently channelling the Kids in the Hall:
Hussein later lashed out at “agents of Iran and Zionism” in the courtroom and vowed to “crush your heads.”
For intelligence into how this is possible, I refer you to the following documents:
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The Only Possible Rejoinder
Iraq’s prime minister announced plans to visit Iran on Monday, just days after his deputy returned from the country, accompanied by several top officials.
Whereas some people will no doubt say, “We toppled Saddam Hussein to make a little Iran?”, I can only rebut, “Well, it’s a free country.”
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Which We Is That?
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy today attended an immigration rally, which means an amnesty for illegal immigrants rally in Washington to show his support for the cause. However, his speech proffers a possibly ill-interpreted turn of phrase:
And if we can’t get this Congress to pass fair immigration reform now, we’ll elect a new Congress in November that will pass it.
No doubt the we means the naturalized citizens and I, but given that he’s speaking before a crowd that could, quite possibly contain some non-naturalized gente, doesn’t it sound almost as though Edward Kennedy is exhorting illegal aliens to vote Democratic in November?
One could easily make that mistake, couldn’t one?
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Metaphor Failure! Metaphor Failure!
In a story about how Macy’s will revitalize downtown when its preceding Famous-Barr gave up and lie curled in a fetal position at the corner of 6th and Olive, we have a gusher:
“This is exactly the punch in the arm downtown needed,” she said. “I think this is just the beginning. Famous-Barr had been here for years. Then Macy’s took it over and, boom, they brought it back.”
There you have it. Macy’s is giving downtown a punch in the arm. Sorta like the bigger kids in gym class. No word on when Macy’s will demand the lunch money of downtown, but all corporations do, sooner or later.
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Christopher Hitchens Won’t Need To Bother
Debra J. Saunders speaks ill of Steve Irwin:
Irwin did not deserve to die — but his death can hardly be considered a surprise. It was the predictable end that followed the marriage of a dangerous hobby with a dangerous conceit — and better Irwin than the baby.
Poor form, Debra.
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I Feel Secure
I don’t know which makes me feel better in this story.
That the pilot locked himself out of the cockpit:
Or that he could get back into the locked cockpit:
I think Big Oil set this all up to make people drive more.
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Spot the Straw Man
Sylvester Brown, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, writes in a cites a couple of things in the column entitled Blaming blacks is popular with some, but it’s perilously naive:
A few weeks ago, an NPR “Morning Edition” segment featured interviews with Emmy Award-winning correspondent and author Juan Williams and writer John McWhorter. Black leaders “excuse crime and poverty,” said McWhorter, while Williams chided leaders who embrace the “notion of victimhood.”
And:
In his commentary last week, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described the “indications of a culture of failure . . . boys saying it’s a ‘rite of passage’ to go to jail . . . or kids telling other kids that if they’re trying to do well in school, they’re trying to ‘act better than me’ or ‘trying to act white.'”
But watch the subtle shift to the straw man:
This diatribe – that the black man is inherently flawed, violent and savage – is older than the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Heck, a twisted interpretation of Noah’s curse on the dark-skinned descendants of his son, Ham, offered biblical rationale for dark servitude.
Brown cites his opponents who chastise individuals (leaders and boys) and a man-made, man-maintained, and (to some extent) man-chosen construct (culture) and then promptly attributes to them to an unchosen and uncontrollable factor (race). In doing so, Brown not only mischaracterizes his opponents’ views, but also strips the people whom his opponents criticize for the behavior the opponents criticize.
Well-played, sir! Illogical and, if intentional, duplicitous.
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Simple Reflex
If they’re against it, I’m for it: Lawyers don’t recommend retention of 2 county judges.
They probably have good reasons, but why humor lawyers?
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Very Popular in Shrewsbury
Got a banned dog breed? Disguise it as a poodle.
(Link seen on The Agitator.)
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It Could Be Nothing
Up to 14 hurt in SF hit-and-run spree:
As many as 14 people were injured this afternoon by a motorist who drove around San Francisco running them down before he was arrested, authorities said.
But it could be something:
Authorities have identified the man who was arrested as Omeed Aziz Popal, who has addresses in Ceres (Stanislaus County) and Fremont.
I’m certainly sensitive to the possibility.
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L’il Dig?
A large public works project that goes hundreds of millions over budget, leads to suits and counter suits between the city and the contractors, and leads to an unsustainable business model that’s freshly-mewling for more tax money. What could make it better? Oh, yeah, brag about the tunnels:
Instead of burrowing underground like miners, crews ripped open Forest Park Parkway and dug a trench that in some places is 45 feet deep. Reinforced concrete shored up the tunnel walls, and massive precast concrete tops – some weighing up to 30 tons – covered the tunnel.
Oh, boy.
I suspect this one, as only a minor boondoggle, won’t collapse, but if it does, we can easily point our fingers at nearby home owners who will have cost lives to maintain their property values.
Also, the ACLU, somehow.
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