In Short: Glenn Beck: Biased Danger Again

"This land was made for you and me!"

And today Glenn Beck denounced the song as a progressive disaster pushing land grabs. Why? Because when it was written, 1940, it was all FDR.

He apparently has no negative feelings about the politics involved in adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance or the very name of the thing, that we are required to pledge allegiance to a flag, a representation of our country.

I cannot even comprehend his distorted logic, except that it's scaring some people and pushing others to drive from CA to the Pentagon to shoot people.

A moron with a microphone does not mean he should be listened to.

Jesus! $7200 Worth of Beer Confiscated by Dumb Cops

The Jesus news today is sparse: Glenn Beck tells people to leave churches that preach social justice (asshat) and a painting of Mary is crying oil outside of Paris. Boo.

So let's talk about beer and dumb cops instead!



Who are they? That's Leigh Maida and Brendan Hartranft, owners of three bars, including Resurrection Ale House, in Grays Ferry, and Local 44, in West Philly. Based on a "customer complaint," their 3 bars were targeted and raided in unison for selling beer with names that were not registered with PA.

Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars, run by Leigh Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft. Checking their inventories against the state's official list of more than 2,800 brands, the cops seized four kegs and 317 bottles, totaling 60.9 gallons of beer, according to police calculations.

Aside from the obvious clusterfuck that is the organization of the law, here's the bullshit part: A half-assed list corroborated over the phone with liquor control jumbled with morons executing the order were confiscating everything not on their list exactly, like if Michelob was on the list, they'd take Mich Ultra because Ultra wasn't on the list.

And the list was far from accurate. The troopers ended up taking beer served in bars across the state and ignoring Heineken, whose brewer is apparently missing from the list.

Best quote, from Maida: "My main beef with this whole convoluted situation is that the PLCB is the sole regulator of a set of products that they do not even know the names of."

I think the bigger questions are: why did they target this couple's bars? At a time when people are arguing for smaller government and championing small businesses, how does a perfect storm of ineptness swarm in and take over? And why do we still allow morons who know nothing about beer poorly manage lists that they send to Schlitz-swilling officers who wouldn't know a bock from a stout to execute orders they can barely read?

Isn't there some more important crime going on somewhere in Philly? Shouldn't investigation precede a raid? I'm calling shenanigans on this bullshit; either these good folks were singled out on a personal or business level or PA's enforcement is retarded. Or both.

Glenn Beck is a Communist

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Sarah Palin and Shootin' Wolves

We'll be seeing much of this in 2012.



Her response: "I'm not Governor of AL anymore. Wait, what? A-L isn't Alaska?"

LOL's a-comin'!

Van Mural Wed - Thongs for the Memories, Man-Wolf

No, that's not okay.




And neither is this, though I'd argue that Man-Wolf was simply misunderstood; it wasn't his fault that the Godstone only allowed partial transformation because it was from a parallel universe. Sheesh.

Weeks Without the XBox 360 - It's Okay!

So you heard me whine about my XBox360 tweaking out all E74 on me and you're concerned, wondering whatever dear Ricky will do!?

I know. Worst bit? Mrs. Shambles leaves for parts abroad for 10 days on Friday, multiplying my video game play time by like 20. And my Xbox, sans faceplate and hard drive, awaits departure sometime tomorrow.

But it's not all loss and pain. In fact, it opens a happy and broad opportunity of getting back to some sense of roots. I'm not a deprived mess in any sense. I've still a working PS2 and Wii. And a bit of a backlog to go along with it.

Wii Weekend

For example, I have a couple Wii items I have to catch up on:

• I recently downloaded Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and have yet to crack into that
• I played most of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess drunk and my last save was in the mer-people's land and I don't remember much about ...anything. Let's just say a start-over would be good.
• I recently had a birthday and just spent my xmas and bday gift cards to purchase (today) Metroid 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy (+ hottest GameStop staff in recent memory)
• And if all else fails, I just found out LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias was released for download late last year.
• And I never did get very far into Super Mario 64

PS2 for One

Playstation2 still has some life in it as well:

• I still have GTA: San Andreas and in my latest save only have 1/3 of total gang territory left to conquer to own the whole town. Have not unlocked the 2 other sections of the map yet.
• Finally picked up God of War II at the aforementioned GameStop trip. Delicious.
• And there's always The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Seriously, back off. It's a reboot of the series and the cast includes Elijah Wood as Spyro, David Spade as Sparx, Gary Oldman as Ignitus, and Cree Summer as Cynder. That's right: Gary fucking Oldman.

So that's pretty much my next 12 days, aside from work, that is. In case you were wondering. I will not continue to bitch about how Microsoft is fucking their fan base, except when new glitches appear in the process of getting my XBox fixed, which I have faith they will.

My Personal Red Ring: Xbox 360 - Error 74

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane

I was playing Fallout3 (see my Dogmeat rantamble here), and after clearing out a cave of Raiders and getting to looting the place and taking a nap, everything went Matrix on me, but red, and with lots of dots instead of the green characters. Ghosts of the action before me still remained, but none nearly visible enough to continue. Woah! I reset.

Then the flashing red light you see above. But hey, at least it's not the Red Ring of Death! Right? Wrong. MS places it straight:

While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays “E74” on their screen. After investigating the issue, we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console.

So my error and my "Oh, at least it's not the ring!" are all for nothing. And by "majority" they apparently mean "more than 50%." My research shows Microsoft is busting out repairs on an extended 3 year warranty for a possible 30% of customers who purchased an Xbox 360.

So you give me a free shipping label to fix a problem you KNEW about when I bought your system? P'sha!

I'd like 5000 points to go with the fact that I have to ship my system to you to get fixed, leaving me without the product I purchased.

Microsoft, you are a douche. And you're short-selling your clientelle. And you need to make amends. Even now, when the fervor of the red ring has died down, it still lives. It lives in every box that has been purchased. Even though you put out your statement in 2007 that you made changes, you're still sucking something hard because obviously the purchase I made a year ago was not iron-clad to your supposed changes.

This is bad business. I'll post it on my other blog too.

And I'll send in my Box with box and packing that I must pay for. And I'll call customer service every single day to find out when I'm getting it back and what credits I might expect.

I'll report back.

And my daughter just bought me Dead Rising. And even if I could play it, I just found out I can't read any of the text in the game: was optimized for HD.

Asshats. I'll let you know.

In Short: The Next Anti-Choice Target: Miscarriage

I'm not fucking kidding. Only in Utah:

A new Utah law could charge women with homicide if they miscarry, making women's rights advocates concerned that women will be brought up on murder charges for drinking, failing to wear a seatbelt, or falling down the stairs.

The bill passed Utah's state legislature last Thursday and still needs final approval by the governor, but it continues to gain attention this week for its unusually restrictive language.

Usher in the Handmaid's Tale ASAP. Seriously. Is the work of government to get into our pieces parts as far as possible? Isn't this what Republicans are supposedly warning us about?

Oh yeah: doesn't apply to loose women who miscarry their children because of physical or emotional sin. Or some shit like that. Sin: defined by us and bad and makes Democrat women miscarry for which they must be punished. We miscarry? God wanted to challenge us in our faith!

No, really, I can't write anymore. Cheers!

Jesus on the Suds, Gay, & Beck

Jesus likes to crack one open and have a smoke now and then. He's just chillin' - he had a tough life. If he didn't like the sauce, why would he turn water to wine?

Seriously though, in a cursive writing exercise in a book in India, apparently the above image appeared next to "I for idol." And probably the same goons who decried the Islamic response to a cartoon of bomb-headed Muhammed are not only outraged and demanding apologies, but some groups are looking to file suit. So who are you going to sue? The publisher did not force the books on the kids - they were purchased by the school. Are you suing the school? Overreaction in the truest sense.

Worst bit of bad reporting? It took me 10 tries to find a piece of reporting that was about outrage over a picture that actually included the picture. Thank you BBC.


Elton John said:

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems," he stated. "On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead."

Queue religious outrage.


And FireDogLake has a great post about Glenn Beck at CPAC talking about a "come to Jesus" moment for the Republicans. Beck, of course, is horribly misguided in his use of language. Surprise!


And one last thing. I was scanning through the news for this post and saw the words "One True Crutch!" But then I did a double-take. It actually read: "One True Church!" Same difference, I thought.


Last last - I think Jesus would drink Schlitz and smoke Pall Malls. You?

Theocrat

Wait, I thought you meant. Oh. Nevermind.

LARP - Live Avatar Role Playing

Absurd and hilarious. "It's almost like what I've seen Japanese people do."

Fail, Damnit! Fail! It's Friday!

Okay, we'll start with a win. Because it's a cute nana.



Told you it was hot. I mean cute. I love a well-tied babushka.

Oh, no! That led me to Funny-Dancing Grandma. I guess that's a fail of some sort...



(No - I stopped there, even though Techno Grandma was tempting)

Wait. What's that you say? A Miley Cyrus cover of Goodbye? Wonderful!



No! No! No! Make it stop! I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry!

(Okay, not really - like sharing the tape from The Ring with someone in a way. I believe the French refer to that as la bête du jambon)

How about an Anger Release Fail? At least he got some fight in the newspaper box...



Have a great weekend!

In Short: S. E. Cupp, Walking Absurdity

I keep a pretty good handle on the right wing nutters, but I'd never heard of S.E. Cupp before today when she was talking about Tiger Woods and plugging her upcoming book Losing Our Religion (which is predictably about how the left wing supposedly hates Christianity).

SE was talking to the Hannity stand-in and expressing her outrage that because Tiger didn't come out and say he was a loser, he was a loser. In a tie-in to her book, she pivoted on Tiger's comment about his previous and newfound dedication to Buddhism. Of course, that was a "direct attack" on Brit Hume who had -a while back- commented that Tiger come to Jesus and get some real redemption and ethics.

And then SE was outraged. "Buddhism, whatever," she railed, "Buddhism considers adultery a sin too." She continued: "He's obviously out of touch with whatever his god is."


Why do some people look down on Christianity, S.E.? Because of Christian(-esque people) like you. Ignorant, ignorant people like you who do not think any other belief is worthy of fifteen minutes of your time to learn the basics of the phraseology of their system, let alone the belief structure.

To clarify: Buddhism does not have a creator god, nor do they believe in the self-deprecating Christian construction of sin, original or otherwise.

But because she is informed on only one form and concept of religion, she can't speak in any other terms, even for 5 minutes. How'd she write a book about the subject? Jesus!

Here's an analogy: Many Europeans think Americans are asses because they expect the world to speak English and most won't take the 5 minutes to learn "please," "thank you," and "Do you speak English?" They just talk louder. And that's what you're doing, S.E. Not smarter - or even smart - just louder.

If you want respect from others, whether other religions or while traveling abroad, begin by showing some. I believe some would call that "being Christian."


UPDATE: To clarify, S.E. Cupp is a self-proclaimed atheist. But a bad one. Check the comments for my full opinion.

Who's Still Sponsoring Glenn Beck?

Just a little FYI from Media Matters for those of you with a few extra minutes on your hands:

At least eighty advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Glenn Beck's Fox News program since he called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for white people." Here are his February 8 sponsors, in the order they appeared:

Rosland Capital
Vermont Teddy Bear Company
Loan Modification Hotline
Aspercreme
Mesothelioma Families
Chattem
Tax Masters
Lifelock
Sokelove Law, LLC
Wall Street Journal
Goldline
American Advisors Group
Pro Flowers
Hydroxatone
The Jewelry Exchange
NBC Universal
Credit Card & Debt Relief Hotline

Cheers!

Jim Gaffigan - King Baby - Bacon

Delicious!

Van Murals: Javanasexy & Wave!

Uh-oh. Who brought the sexy?



I don't know who this guy is, but I tried to combine Japanamation, van, and sexy in the title of this post. And I believe that guy is all three. The person who drives that van, however, is totally sketch. As Irish Dancer would say.




OMG that wave is HUGE. Surf hard! OMG that sexy naked mermaid is about to be ground into coral reef food. What are you doing mermaid? You live underwater. You should know better!

Politics, Meh - Palin, Anyone?

My wife got me a fantastic Palin birthday card yesterday and then today I saw this on Think Progress:

Former Alaska governor and Fox News analyst Sarah Palin spoke to a crowd of Republican Party activists in Arkansas yesterday, where she lavished praise on the Tea Party movement and played down speculation that she might run for president in 2012. She also then mocked Twitter:

When she was asked what she believed was the number one threat to America today, several audience members shouted, "Obama!"

Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb, who moderated the Q&A session, responded by adding, "Besides Obama."

Palin then chimed in as many in the crowd laughed.

"See, they said that, I didn’t," she said. "Just you watch now, too, because somebody will be here with their little Twittering thing, and it’s going to be on the Internet any minute now."

It’s unclear what Palin has against the "little Twittering thing," considering she is also on Twitter (@SarahPalinUSA) and has actually been noted for supposed new media saviness. Last night’s event in Little Rock’s 18,000-seat Verizon Arena had a significant number of empty seats. In fact, fewer than half the seats "in the lower bowl were occupied, and the entire upper level was shrouded by black drapes." In the hours before the Palin event, "the Arkansas GOP was advertising on its web site a heavily discounted '$20 ticket special.'"

Case in point: Republicans don't get technology or the internet.

There seems to be a brewing schism in the Republican party: Those who want to make the party appear less the "white man" party and are willing to push Palin to the forefront of 2012 and those who say it would be political suicide. So what's the call, Pubbies? Do you appear to be even more misogynist by saying a woman who has no right running for president has no right running for president or feign acceptance of her lack of qualifications to appear more inclusive? I'm guessing they'll go the latter and blame America if she does't win the primaries and blame America (I can hear Hannity now: "America was just not ready for a strong, independent woman to lead the country!") when she doesn't win the general election. And then they'll ride that feather in their cap for the next 20 years, that they had a woman run. And that's how they'll phrase it. And that's how they'll get it so, so wrong in the short and long run.


Other politics? No, not really. Shitty, really. We're still buried in snow so my ears have numbed from the deniers saying global warming is a hoax or that it might be real but not man-made and some guy posted something on a blog about how it's all collapsing around the "warmalists" but really its not and it's become so political that it ceases to be scientific. And McCain can't even remember if he said something about capping carbon at some point.

It's all quite pointless. The Right will continue to push for less carbon regulation because business will continue to grease their asses for doing so and the Left will continue to push for more regulation. In my opinion, whether it's AGW or just GW, the Left's doing the only thing that will help the problem. They're shipping snow into Vancouver for chrissakes.

Enough politics already. Bring me the van murals!

Jesus, Green Pot, Green Lent, Fiery Pareidolia

Either I strategically postponed my Monday Jesus because of Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday or I'm a lazy son of a bitch. You decide.

Why is it that every year I completely forget that it's Ash Wednesday until I walk into the AmeriStop or UDF to pick up some beer and am entranced and almost comment to someone that they've got some shit on their forehead? Then just before what would be a horribly embarrassing moment, my brain goes "Ohhhh yeah. Some people still do that."

Weed Worship Jesus



Hey, why do these three paintings of Jesus crossing the Mexico/Texas border weigh so much? Oh, because you've got 10 lbs. of pot stuffed into the back of each one!

Stupid. What chintzy painting weighs 10 lbs? None. Even the drug-sniffing dog Cesar knew that.

Can we just legalize marijuana please? We could empty prisons, focus on real problems, people would stop stuffing the Lord with weed, and everyone else could stop pretending to be offended by it. Jesus!


Green Lent

Some folks are giving up carbon for Lent. That is so absurd it will only get this blurb. It's like only giving at Christmas. If you want to do something you know you should be doing anyway, don't use a man-made holiday to appease your deity with a faux dedicated sense of responsibility. Is baby Jesus happier if you make a pittance of an effort for 40 days or dedicate yourself to real change the whole year?


Pareidolia FAIL



Dude saw Jesus on a log in a fire. Dude apparently missed that his picture shows Jesus' huge, demonic hand emerging from the same fire.

If it was really Jesus, he'd let you pull the log out of the burning inferno with your bare hands so you could put it on Ebay. You know he would...

Progressive in Short: Right Wrong

This week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) presented a scaled-back "Jobs Bill." Republicans who had previously stated that the big one wouldn't create a single job switched tune to say Harry was selling out the country and not doing what needed to be done. Is anyone surprised by this?


3/4 of Americans support openly gay people serving in the military. Is this openness and compassion or "at least it's not me" or "kill the fags?" Maybe a mix of all? I personally don't think America's tolerant enough to allow everyone the same rights.


Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is still batshit crazy. I nominate her for VP to Palin in 2012. Oh, what a party that'll be. I'll bring the Jameson.


And, lastly, it appears that the right-wing nutters saying that snow in winter means Global Warming is a hoax are blind to all things Canadian and international. The Winter Olympics start tonight, and Vancouver has to airlift snow in so it can actually happen. Why? Warmest winter on record. I guess that like their breadth and width of knowledge of the world ends at the US borders and of science ends at the end of the day, you tie the two together and not a whisper will be spoken about an international event dependent on snow not having snow because it's too warm. But perhaps one of their coal-shucking scientists can somehow tie it to "Global Cooling."

Friday FAIL: Deniers, Cops, Light Switch Penises?

More Friday Fail. And third week in a row I haven't made it in every day. Ah, well.


Global Warming Denier FAIL

Rachel Maddow and Bill Nye lay out - in plain terms - that the morons on the right like Hannity and Limbaugh and Beck who say that snow in the winter means global warming is a hoax are full of BS, purposefully misleading their viewers and listeners.




Cop FAIL

Not new, but always funny.




Light Switch FAIL

Many examples of inadvertent penis humor.