Entries Tagged 'a process of dumbening' ↓

If this is true, it will not only be the coup of the century, but funny to boot.

In 1934, Dr. A. Nordenholz wrote a book called “Scientology: Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge” which reportedly scans pretty closely, if not too closely, to L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, according to those who read it. (You can read the first two chapters of Nordenholz’ book here.)

Of course, if you’re not a former Scientology member, you can’t really say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hubbard copied Nordenholz because unlike other religions, Scientologist literature is only available to members who pay for it.

Maybe this book is the reason why — you can’t prove plagiarism unless you have two texts to compare to each other, n’est pas?

According to an article by the BBC, certifiableed financial genius and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has stated that he may cut interest rates *again*:

In his semi-annual report to the US Congress, Mr Bernanke said the Fed would continue to “act in a timely manner as needed to support growth”.

Analysts said his comments increased the likelihood of another rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting on 18 March.

Are you kidding me?

Okay, it seems counterintuitive for any rational American to be upset about interests rates being cut, I mean, it’s going to prevent a recession, right?

WRONG!

Here’s what happens when the fed cuts rates: mortgage, loan, and credit APRs decrease by fractions of a percent, which the Fed hopes will spur people taking out newer, bigger loans at the lower APR to pay off those old, high ones, also known as refinancing (re-fi). When people re-fi, banks can try and sell more money than they need to them, so that the borrowers can spend the extra cash while paying the same amount on their home or credit card (with credit cards, it’s called a balance transfer onto a newly opened account. Car loans are immune to this sort of re-fi). Even if you just take the exact amount to pay off the high interest balance and end up with lower monthly payments overall, this will free up your wallet for extra spending and spur the economy.

Now, here’s the problem: It Doesn’t Work Like That.

What will happen is that your credit card rate will decease by a fraction of a percent. If you are in such dire straights that you need to refi to free up cash to pay on that soon-to-be-repo’d house, sorry, but your credit probably sucks so much right now that no one’s going to lend to you anyway. So you fail, or more accurately, the Fed fails you.

And then there are those of us who have high-yield savings accounts and little to no debt. All this is doing is decreasing your savings because that tiny fraction of a percent you’re saving on my credit cards (assuming that you don’t pay your cards in full every month like I do) isn’t going to make up for the half a percent (or more) hit your bank account interest rate (you know, what they pay *you*) will take, so if you’re are responsible borrower, you lose too! The Fed fails again!

The only people who will benefit are those Middle Class Jerks who live beyond their means, who bounce from 0% card to 0% card with their massive balances from vacations to wherever the $160k-$80k/year people go, who’ll refi their homes to make repairs, who’ll buy repo’d homes and cars and flip them in a few years, who have no savings or retirement accounts because Social Security will take care of things, who vote Republicican….

…I’ve said too much, haven’t I?

We Americans like to think of ourselves as a progressive lot. We pat ourselves on the back for free speech, even though 20% of high school students do not believe it’s a big deal, and like to think of ourselves as the land of the free.

We who live in the so-called Blue States also like to believe ourselves superior to those hicks from the sticks in the Bible Belt, those inbred Red State types. They ignore all evidence, we say, and just run with their eagerly embraced ignorance.

Wrong on both counts, lads.

A controversy has been brewing on the Web since a “60 Minutes” segment failed to appear on a CBS affiliated TV station in Alabama last night. The report covered a bitter flashpoint between Democrats and the Bush administration: the case of Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama who was jailed for corruption last June.

So hot was the anticipation of the segment in left-leaning circles that one political site published an article, “Bama TIVOs at the ready for ‘60 Minutes’.” But many Alabamans did not see initial broadcast of the report, which included new allegations that Karl Rove, President Bush’s former top adviser, waged a campaign against Mr. Siegelman.

Instead, just before the segment was to start, people in the northern part of the state who were tuned in to WHNT-TV, Channel 19 in Huntsville, found this on their screen instead:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a technical problem with CBS out of New York.

LINK: Media Blackout Update: Pakistan and Alabama?

Except, when reached for comment, CBS said there was no difficulty. It was a transmissions problem on Channel 19’s end, probably due to an editorial decision.

What?

“There is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call.”

Of course, then Channel 19 back-peddled faster than the President trying to reverse a bicycle. It was the receiver in Alabama that caused the problem. It was absolutely, positively not an editorial decision.

But the assurance alone seemed unlikely to appease all of his viewers. According to Mr. Pylant, the problem was fixed quickly, resulting in only 12 minutes of down time. But that mostly covered the controversial segment, which lasted about 13 minutes. (”Strange coincidence,” one viewer called it.)

Afterward, the station took measures to counteract any appearance of censorship, while also presumably bringing in some nice ratings for its own local programming. The missed segment was broadcast on the local newscast later on Sunday evening, and posted on its Web site. (Hmm.)

I wonder how much else in Alabama and our neighboring Red States ends up down the Memory Hole? At least Pakistan, Iran, China, and other censorship-embracing countries are upfront about their tactical measures to keep bad press from the eyes and ears of the viewing public.

I can’t help but wonder if maybe election coverage in some areas isn’t dissimilar to the time Diamond Joe Quimby ran against Sideshow Bob on the Simpsons, complete with computer-added flames and devil horns over the Democratic candidate? Maybe news about such liberal concerns as the never-ending war in Iraq or extraordinary rendition is spun harder and faster than a certain President’s door on nickel-beer night (to steal a joke from SNL.) Perhaps they haven’t seen any news media but those of happy Iraqi children dancing on Saddam Hussein’s grave and refugees returning home since George Bush declared mission accomplished. Maybe all the news about Iraq not being tied to Al Qaeda and there being no WMDs in the country were not broadcast to the Bible Belt due to technical difficulties. Maybe extraordinary rendition is still a complement that Simon Cowell gives to American Dreamz Idol hopefuls and completely lacks any sinister connotations due to network problems.

Maybe the reason the Southern Democrats have disappeared is because the media has as well. Maybe they hate the liberal media so much because the liberal media too often is just a dark black screen of technical difficulties.

Maybe, in the South, the revolution will not be televised.

My husband and I went into CompUSA today to look for some good deals take in the wreckage of the once mighty CompUSA and laugh at the store that pissed me off with not only high prices but also it’s horrible business practices such as forcing employees to work on Thanksgiving Day to get a jump on the competition’s Black Friday sales. Ick! Going in there while it was open always left me feeling a little dirty inside, and seeing the carcas of that model of everything wrong with retail in America today made me feel just scummy, and yet simultaneously wonderful.

In any case, after wandering through two of the four remaining aisles, we came across a Sony DVD player that looked pretty solid and was discounted at 40% off. That’s when I read the hand-printed words on the sales tag.

"Defective"

and

"DOES NOT WORK"

There was also an ‘As Is’ tag on the item, just in case you didn’t read the hand writing on the big yellow sales tag and decided to try and return it later.

Wow, $179.98 for a brick sounds like a deal to me! Thanks CompUSA! This is why you’re in liquidation now!

They also had a heavily-used tape dispenser for $2.00 and used, broken bar stool for $10. WOW! WHAT A GREAT DEAL!

The thing is, The Husband worked for Circuit City, so we price checked some of the other items in the store to see how good the discounts were. Many of them were selling at 40% off some inflated price so that the final discounted price was only $20 or so below the price of Circuit City or Best Buy right next door. I looked at a .Mac subscription pack, and it was selling for $10 below the price at the Apple store, though this was 40% off the highly inflated price. The pack was for a basic membership ($99.99 at apple.com) and was originally $179.99 (price of a family membership) and reduced to $89.99.

Then, there was the little Zune nano for $139.99 — also only reduced by $10, and it was a display item. It admittedly was that puke green color, but still, I could walk to two other places right down the street and buy it for ten dollars more, brand new, free of the greasy hands of teenagers? I’ll pay for that convenience!

My husband later said to me, “I thought the purpose of a liquidation sale was to get rid of merchandise, not to inflate the prices to what they were before the store went out of business.”

And here I thought the purpose of liquidation was to see who could get the most copper wiring out of the building before getting caught. They *were* selling everything that wasn’t nailed down, of course, including the above-mentioned chair and tape dispenser, the security cases for video games (which, at $37.99 each are worth more than the DVDs they hold. Maybe that’s why thieves steal video games!), and old plastic trashcans (the kind you can buy at Staples — right across the street — for five bucks) for ten dollars. Used DVDs were also in the $10 category too, which was sad, as you can get them new at Target for the same price.

Of course, there were no sales people to be had, and we actively talked one gentleman out of buying an Apple TV (which he believed worked like a TiVo and would allow him to burn his favorite shows to DVD as well. Sorry, hun!)

Even in liquidation, CompUSA is still full of fail.

(Full of fail, except for the cut out drawing of Christopher Walken’s head above the registers, his eyes glowing red, hovering over the “no refunds” sign. Walken is always FTW.)

All parents who do not get their children vaccinated against childhood diseases because of a completely discredited, erroneous, conspiratorial belief that vaccines cause autism are all awarded unofficial Darwin Awards for doing their best to remove their already-spawned genetic material from the pool!

In Britain a widely publicized — and since discredited — research paper published in 1998 started a scare over the safety of the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, drawing a potential link to autism. Though the premise of the research did not concern thimerosal, vaccination rates plunged in Britain. Over the next two to six years, outbreaks of measles soared in Britain and Ireland, causing at least three deaths and hundreds of children to be hospitalized.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/arts/television/23ston.html

The world is already grossly overpopulated — and mostly by stupid people — so, to all those parents out there who aren’t getting their kids vaccinated against deadly childhood diseases:

THANKS! AND KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

See Also:

• NYTimes: Study Finds Vaccine Preservative Is Not Linked to Risks of Autism (January 8, 2008)
• NYTimes: Vaccine Compound Is Harmless, Study Says, as Autism Debate Rages (September 27, 2007)
• NYTimes: Opening Statements in Case On Autism and Vaccinations (June 12, 2007)

No, not the planet and, technically, not all instances of the letter “m” but you wouldn’t know the latter from the disclaimer on the end of recent M&Ms radio adverts which states:

M&Ms and the letter “m” are trademarks of Mars Corporation

Of course, the are referring to the trademark the own on the very specific typeset letter that appears on their candies, but a literal reading of the advert suggests the letter m itself is a trademark of the Mars Corporation — which means I owe Mars royalties for 16 uses of their trademarked letter. Well, seventeen now. Not including the title of this piece or the name of this blog. Shit, that’s eighteen now! Sorry! I just can’t help myself (19)! I love trademark (20) infringement (21), I suppose, or it could be that I am (22) just a criminal (23) mastermind (25) that will, even subconsciously, infringe trademark (26) at all costs!

God, somebody (27) stop me (28) before I infringe again!

Twenty-eight infringements (29) in one post? DAMMIT! (31)

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, you know that law enforcement has been bitch-smacked by the liberal socialist press recently for two incidents, which I like to refer to as “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” and “Wow, I’ve Been Living In A Techno-Cave”. Since we all know about the dickhead who, essentially, wanted to make a name for himself on YouTube and thus started disrupting John Kerry at a speech with questions and then resisted arrest, I won’t discuss any more on that subject.

Here’s what I will talk about: ideology verses common sense in the case of one Star Simpson.

Ideologically, innocence is always innocent — if you only mean one thing and someone takes it the wrong way, that’s someone’s problem, not yours. But, in practice, this simply isn’t the case. Much like in law, ignorance of the law does not excuse breaking the law, ignorance of social mores or cause and effect is not an excuse. For example, if I walked into Germany wearing a swastika because I was trying to say my body is my Hindu temple (or something equally unknown in the mainstream) I would have absolutely no right to look shocked that I was arrested — it is illegal to wear or display the Swastika in that country.

I do not agree with Germany on that policy, but I would not be angry with the police who arrested me when it was *I* who needed to know what the Swastika is interpreted as and how the law is designed around it.

Since the day that two buildings in New York City fell down, terrorism has been a real and imagined concern in the eyes of the populace, but even before that (I say this as a former airport employee, by the way) before TSA and all the Orwellian nightmares they induce, before planes were turned into Weapons of Mass Murder and Destruction, you could not walk into an airport and through security with something strapped on your chest that had exposed wires and an exposed electrical supply and anything resembling plastic explosive on your hands. Would you have been shot — or at least stared down the business end of a gun? Maybe, maybe not. Most people weren’t that stupid. Most people knew the rules, even before water became a threatening substance: no guns, no (large) knives/weapons, and nothing that looks like a bomb.

Remember Pan-Am 103?

So why, in the name of all common sense, would anyone think that an electrically-wired shirt with an exposed battery and wires would make it through security? More over, why would anyone defend this?

Oh, that’s right — because TSA are always wrong. Always.

Now, I’ll tell you something, as someone who was in the airport when there were private security firms, who knows people who lost jobs to the TSA overhaul, who couldn’t go to work for three days because suddenly my security clearance wasn’t up to the newly-imposed standards, who had to deal with John Wayne cowboys who wouldn’t let me take my lunch through security more often than not, even though this was years before the liquids ban, and MPs (Military Police) who sexually harassed me every day I went to work, I hate the TSA more than anyone. Yet, I’m not going to fault them for doing their job. I’d think someone who was walking around with exposed wires and batteries and putty on their hands was up to no good too.

And, ladies and gentlemen, look at what airport this took place at: LOGAN. This was the airport from which two of the buildings fall down day airplanes left from, who took most of the flack for the terrorist attacks of the day. This is an airport in BOSTON, a city which arrested two men who were just putting up some guerrilla marketing and only cared about hairdos of the 1970s, for putting up hoax devices.

None of these things make what they did right, but neither is banning a symbol. Yet that’s the reality you have to live with until we can get enough people petitioning enough politicians to change the law. And, by the way, martyrdom may raise awareness, but it’s a piss poor way to do it, especially when it involves gratuitous acts of stupidity.

You’d have to be an idiot to wear that shirt into Logan Airport and not expect something to happen. Hell, if this was London, she’d have been shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

You’d have to be an idiot, or much like “Don’t Tase Me, Bro”, a fame hound.

You be the judge.

Apparently someone called Sherri Shepherd is one of an ever-changing roster of hosts for morning TV show ‘The View’. And recently, when Whoopi Goldberg asked her on-air if she though the world is flat, she replied that she did not know.

Quite why anyone is surprised that she’s an idiot is beyond me. She co-hosts The View, ferchrissakes, and with Whoopi and Barbara on board, she’s relegated to fulfilling one of the chairs reserved for ‘hosts who will say dumb things the big-name hosts can pick on them for.’
She also apparently retracted her statements today, claiming she was too nervous and confused to answer the question properly. Which also makes sense. I mean, she’s only the most frequent guest on Ellen’s talk show, and veteran of two or three sitcoms and several movies into the bargain. People with that much experience frequently get too nervous to answer very simple yes-or-no questions that fourth-graders would call you retarded for asking, I’m sure.

Of course, stupid though she might seem, she is a little more intelligent than people have given her credit for: she knew this was going to happen.
“Now just keep praying, that every morning I don’t put my foot in my mouth – but if you know me, it’s bound to happen.”

And she can look on the bright side: it’s not the stupidest view that has ever been expressed on The View – not since Rosie O’Donnell hosted last year, anyway.