Friday, March 21, 2008

Mall Blogging II

As Sherwin Williams is World HQ'd in Cleveland, the above image is the first mall-based Color Center in the world. That's pretty fancy.

And to officially round out the awful experience of the mall, we have Petland, destination of puppy mills and source of children's doting and my personal hell. Above you see a large puppy crammed into a cage that can barely hold him. Here he will live out weeks - maybe months. How is this even remotely fucking legal?

I wrapped with some book shopping and waiting for the ladies outside Penny's. Now I'm numb and it looks about Beer-thirty.

Mall Blogging

This weekend I'm back in Cleveland with family for the pseudo-holiday of Zombie Jesus. And someone thought it would be a good idea to roam the mall. Blogging through it is how I will maintain my sanity.

Above is the main enterance of South Park Mall and a cacophany of sugar-laden children grappling to their numbed, saddened parents, waiting to sit on the lap of a sweaty man in a bunny suit making minimum wage.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Kids in the Hall Reunion Tour

Ohmygawd ohmygawd ohmygawd - The Kids in the Hall are gathering for a reunion tour.



Check out the fan-run MySpace to see the list of tour dates. (via BoingBoing)

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Iraq War Blogswarm - 3-19-08 - 3992

I'm sad to announce that, according to today's count on the Iraq Coalition Casualties website, that we're - on the 5 year anniversary of this illegal war - just 8 dead Americans short of 4000.

That last statement was foul.

If the lives of 8 more Americans were taken, if we had reached 4000, then maybe, just maybe, someone might have taken notice.

Five long years we've been in Iraq, dealing with a literal invasion, now dealing with a literal occupancy. And they still don't want us there. And while McCain lauds the victories while messing up the details, he still says "success," nothing is right.

We're fighting a war with young Americans who eventually want to go home and see their wives or their children, against radicals who will easily give their lives and only hope their children grow up to fight the infidels. How do we fight that war? McCain says: for 100 years.

In reality, it's thousands of American lives. Millions more overall, perhaps.

What we are doing - and will continue to do under a Republican rule - is to spit in the face of God, to eschew peace for military contracts that don't actually benefit our military, to hold policies about our military that don't actually help the men and women "fighting for our country" even when they come home.

I just want to bring those kids home. I want, as Kucinich said, "Strength through peace," not Peace through strength.

And then maybe we can stop the - now inevitable - 5000 American deaths.

God help us all.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

This piece was meant to be posted when the March 7th picture was taken by my phone, when we got dumped on. It pushed 14 inches when all was said and done. I simply thought it didn't work, but not having internet earlier today, I was tooling around with my phone and it sent - and posted. So please enjoy this and other posts I'll now be making with me fancy phone.

This is my first mobile blog post. The pic is outside in Cincinnati. Still coming down. Love it.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008

Sadly, as much of a Sci-Fi geek as I am, I only read Childhood's End in college and then 2001 only 3 years ago (way better than even Kubrick could've done).

A reminder that I have catching up to do.

He will be missed.

National Post has wonderful links.

Obama Makes Speech in PA, Conservatives Make Doody in Pants

Over the last 20 years, the recently retired pastor of Barack Obama's church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has gone a little overboard - from the perspective of many Americans - in a whole hoopla of comments about the generalized and endemic racism inherent in White (Devil) America, Judiasm being an awful religion, and the plight of the Black American. Did Right Reverend Wright say this crap all the time over the several decades he preached at the church? No one knows, but the Right Wing's got about 5 clips that haven't stopped playing on FOX or talk radio for the last 3 weeks.

To make my position clear: the language and ideas used in those excerpts (and I'm serious - turn on the AM dial and you'll hear a montage in 5 minutes or less) is understandably used in an effort to evoke reactionary solidarity amongst the black population of that church, but it is misdirected and divisive and right now it's working directly against what would be one of the beautiful outcomes: get folks fired up and get an African American in the White House.

Is Rev. Wright the same person as Barack Obama? No. Just like Televangelist Rod Parsley is not John McCain:
Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.
Who's pitching a fit about that one? No one. Why? Because, realistically, we all realize that McCain pretty much believes the same thing.

So today, Barack Obama gave an extensive speech, primarily about race and overcoming our differences, but also to address the limited examples of these words and ideas and to denounce them. And that's what he did.

But the right wingnut radio syndicate is planting steamers in their boxers left and right because OMG he didn't denounce the man; he didn't stand up before the American people and shout at the top of his lungs "You're dead to me!" Dozens of alleged Christians, in their own words, on their own radio programs, are saying he must hate the sin and the sinner, must denounce the words and the man.

In all actuality, Limbaugh and Wilkow and Hannity and the rest are actually shitting themselves because they see this not sticking. And you know what? They're right. The immediate result and interviews and call-ins I heard have this result: those people who would not vote for Barack Obama before are still not going to vote for him. Everyone else is lauding the speech as brilliant and calling out the attacks as ugly politics.

And they're shitting their pants a second time because they realize that if they can't push this hard enough to stick, if they can't get anyone to believe the bullshit line I heard today that "he's falling apart," then they've got a huge problem should he become the nominee: Nothing will stick. (see: He says he denounces it? He's lying! Hussein! Michelle's an Angry Black Woman!)

And this just-about-failed attempt at race-baiting is a clear indication of just how difficult running John "them gooks" McCain against Barack Obama will be: you can only get so positive on McCain, they have no problem practically calling Hillary a "cunt" at this stage of the game, but if they're up against Obama, they're dealing with race. All the time. Because no matter what, they're dealing with an established presumption that Republicans don't like brown people, and if the attack is about race, they'll catch hell, and if it's not about race, it's coming from that direction because they really wanted to attack his race but couldn't.

Time to give up, take a breath, and regroup. Racists.

Subprime Tent Towns in LA - America's New Shantytowns

The dollar is in free-fall, the market is slipping, and foreclosures are hitting record numbers, to the extent that tent towns are now popping up in LA. So why am I hearing about this from BBC and not American Media? (via BoingBoing)



Ricky's Wisdom Today - 3/18/08

It does not matter whether you are a theist or atheist, what matters is sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Muhammad vs. Jesus - Fight!

Kottie Paloma’s Jesus vs Mohamed
Kottie Paloma’s "Jesus vs Mohamed"

You sign up for one lousy free PDF about how the Wingnuts hate Obama and end up with every nutjob, anti-science, "ain't Christian ain't right" email partner spam in the world.

Today's anger ball is a book layin' out plain that not only are radical Muslims in the wrong, but the whole frickin' religion is whacked and based on hate and violence. And since I've never met a Conservative who has read the whole Quaran (let alone the whole Bible), I guess it'll stick. But the headline quote stayed with me:
"I have been made victorious through terror."
-- Muhammad, founder of Islam
Why did this stick with me? Because through the terror of the fear of hell, by the terror of the fear for people's own souls, by the terror of torture or being ostracized or being set on fire, Christianity has also been "made victorious."

As soon as we stop demonizing entire swaths of inhabitants of our planet Earth based on their belief system, the sooner we might come to accept that we're not that much different - on a very human level - than other people, despite the color of their skin or who they believe God's Messenger was.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Your Giant Jang Will Rule the World

Sometimes I scan through my spam folder to make sure nothing important gets pushed through. This one made my morning:

Your giant jang will rule the world

No, I couldn't make that up.

Because I don't want to make this blog NSFW immediately and Photobucket even deletes the three-lobed elementary rendition of a "jang," imagine, if you will:

A titanic statue, Colossus, thirty stories to the crotch, where is attached a twenty-eight story jang, hung to sway in the wind and as thick as a redwood. Adorned with vines of ivy and berries, decorated with chains and jewels. The ground below is constantly covered with a worshipful congregation, chanting, bowing, tossing libations as high as they can reach to wet the jang.

At least, that's what I thought when I saw the subject line.

One jang to rule them all.

Davis Fleetwood Up for YouTube Video Award

Davis Fleetwood, everyone's favorite Hermit, is up for YouTube's 2007 Video Awards for his video Students: A Challenge For You:



Go to the YouTube Awards Page, check it out under Politics and unless you enjoy watching Huckabee and Chuck Norris cross swords, cast a vote for Davis.

Google Spams Job Boards

Google, the undisputed juggernaut of online search - and, frankly, most things internets - is, amongst those of us who wear the label Search Engine Marketing Specialist, well known for their constant prayer to the Goddess Relevance. This means that when you type a phrase, say "making delicious rhubarb pie," into Google's elegantly simple home page, the results will probably be recipe related because, based on your query, you want to make a pie. They pride themselves on this, with good reason: they're damn good.

I like to keep abreast of opportunities because in today's day and age, "uncertain times" does not so much make me think of terrorism as me being out of a job. So when I saw the following post on my Careerbuilder email, I jumped because, well, power makes me horny:

Google on Careerbuilder

Woo-hoo! Work for Google if I live in Ohio? Hells yeah. And then I followed the link.

Google Lied about Relevance

Bugger. Google is spamming the job boards and produced something that is completely irrelevant to me. Google: shame on you.