Christians

Ah, Christians, what lovely people, they really understand the word of their god.

Thank you, Richard Dawkins, you made my day. If you ever publish a book of your hate mail, I'll buy it.

Ignorant people

I have very little tolerance for the ignorant. I suppose truly stupid people should be excused, they are simply incapable of learning and can't be expected to know any better, but the ignorant drive me up a wall. Ignorance is nothing more than intellectual laziness and selfishness.

I was looking for a barking bulldog animation for a job I'm working on — yes, I could make one, but if I can find one, it will save me some time. In my travels around the web, I came across this site about RV Campground Reviews. I suppose I should create yet another login name and password and reply to the bozo "Big Ben", but the discussion is already months old and I'm betting Ben can't keep a thought in his skull for more than a day.

Ben claims to be a dog lover, then after slamming certain large breeds (and can you really identify a pit bull just by looking at a dog?), he starts mentioning insurance companies and owners in denial. Here's a newflash, Ben: people, specifically breeders and owners, *are* the problem. While it is unlikely that a Beagle can kill you, millions of dollars are spent on dog bite injuries, and statistically, they can't all be pinned on the bad breeds of dogs. Pound for pound, the most dangerous breed is the Chihuahua, and I speak from a lot of personal experience. I've met exactly one mean Doberman, and he was trained to be mean when his owner was away. When his owner was there, you could drop-kick that dog and he wouldn't so much as bat an eye. Read up on that loser Michael Vick's court case. The reason he was hanging and electrocuting dogs, mostly pitbulls and Rottweilers, was because they would not fight. Get it? Bad dogs are abused, inbred, and trained to be bad. Who's fault is that? I'll spell it out for you, Ben, since I'm convinced you couldn't get a spark by rubbing two brain cells together. PEOPLE ruin dogs. And despite doing our worst, Vick proves that even bad breeding and abuse won't always make a dog mean. Dogs are far better beings than people.

There are about 75 million dogs in the US. Careful statistics are kept regarding maiming and fatal attacks, but the actual number of dog bites in general must be estimated. Roughly 1,000 Americans per day are treated in emergency rooms as a result of dog bites. In 2007 there were 32 fatal dog attacks in the USA. Most of the victims who receive medical attention are children, half of whom are bitten in the face. Dog bite losses exceed $1 billion per year, with over $300 million paid by homeowners insurance...

The insurance companies can't be expected to be happy about dogs that are capable of killing or seriously maiming a person, and that takes a big breed dog, but *any* dog that is having a bad moment can bite you. And before the insurance companies get on their high horse about dogs, they should take a look at health care, or car accidents caused by senior citizens, or having matches and children in the same house, or the pernicious threat posed by old men who wear hats while driving.

In 1994, the most recent year for which published data are available, an estimated 4.7 million dog bites occurred in the United States, and approximately 799,700 persons required medical care (1). Of an estimated 333,700 patients treated for dog bites in emergency departments (EDs) in 1994 (2), approximately 6,000 (1.8%) were hospitalized (3). To estimate the number of nonfatal dog bite--related injuries treated in U.S. hospital EDs, CDC analyzed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP). This report summarizes the results of the analysis, which indicate that in 2001, an estimated 368,245 persons were treated in U.S. hospital EDs for nonfatal dog bite--related injuries. Injury rates were highest among children aged 5--9 years. To reduce the number of dog bite--related injuries, adults and children should be educated about bite prevention, and persons with canine pets should practice responsible pet ownership...

btw, "BIG Ben", I'm betting you should pay more attention to those male enhancement infomercials.

Cell phone commercials

Is this the most insipid commercial on tv right now? My teeth hurt every time this stupid cloying crap is on. I really dislike commercials that show women, even unseen women, as clinging or needy or vapid. We have enough negative stereotypes to deal with; it would be so nice if some of these advertising firms would hire a few women to vet this kind of malarky.

And it isn't only women who are made out to be stereotypes - men often come out looking just as stupid. Are we to believe that men are dogs who cannot control their impulses? AT&T seems to think so; they also evidently think women should just tolerate it, because boys will be boys.



Maybe this one is funny if you watch "The Hills, but if you don't, it is yet another example of boys making commercials for themselves. Either that or they want to prove the adage that guys prefer pretty women to brainy ones, because guys see better than they think.

Hey, this should have been Lorena Bobbitt's defense all along - if boys will be boys works, why shouldn't PMS is a bitch? PMS is something that makes a woman act once a month like a man acts every day, right?

btw, if you talk to anyone who has one of these LG Shine phones, they will tell you that the mirror-like quality portrayed in the commercial is far from accurate.

STOP

I have to agree with one of the commenters; this looks a lot like a training video. Great satire!

I don't get it

MIAMI -- Police have arrested an 18-year-old man accused of stealing at least three county buses and driving them on their routes.

James L. Harris is charged with three counts each of third-degree grand theft and burglary of an occupied conveyance, WPLG-TV reported.

The most recent theft occurred Tuesday, when he was arrested and charged.

According to Miami-Dade police, Harris would take the buses from several Miami-Dade Transit bus depots in the county and drive the buses on their routes, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. He would then return the buses at the end of the day...

Is it me? I understand that he shouldn't be driving the bus route unless he is an employee, but really, what exactly is it that he stole?? Can't he be charged with, oh, I don't know, criminal mischief? And where did he get the keys?

Here's an idea...if the buses he stole ran on time, I say give the kid a job.

It's contagious, too. Across the pond, little old ladies cannot photograph empty wading pools for fear that they might be pedophiles. How many little old ladies have to be arrested before someone comes to their senses?

An amateur photographer was told she could not take snaps of an empty paddling pool because she might be a paedophile.

Betty Robinson was ordered to put away her camera by a council worker when she began snapping the outdoor pool...

Chi Chi's

Does anyone else find this series of commercials really stupid? The cyclops ad is no better than this p.o.s. I don't understand how a robot or a cyclops will sell salsa.

Anheuser-Busch has agreed to sell itself to the Belgian brewer InBev for about $52 billion. I hope InBev is smart enough not to change the Clydesdale ads.

Happy Independance day

I had a thought about Karl Rove today. You know how you always think of stuff when you are in the shower or driving? I was driving and something occurred to me. The Karl Rove theorem is many layers deep, because he is undeniably an intelligent though duplicitous and manipulative person, but the bottom line is that a lie repeated over and over again becomes true. Not necessarily factual, but true. It doesn't matter whether or not the facts back up the lie, because Rove believes (and has pretty much proven) that the average person wants to be told what to think, and we know from sociology, childhood experience, and Pavlov that repetition is the key. Anything repeated often enough will become true; anything heard often enough must be true. Rush Limbaugh laughs his way to the bank on just that strategy.

That's old news. What came to me was that Rovian political strategy is very similar to religious dogma in that it requires faith above all else. You must believe without question, because I say so. Look, I can even write it down and show it to you, so it must be true (just ignore the nasty "liberal" press). How else can one explain the hoards of "Republicans" who vote against their own best interests, and indeed against what was once the party platform, to elect the fascists that have been in charge these past several years?

Perhaps it is me who has misunderstood Republicanism. I always thought the Republican party was for small government, individual rights and secularism. A distinction must be made between Republicans and conservatives, because our current government cannot realistically be called Republicans. We have huge, pork-fed, inflated government bloat dedicated to the welfare of a tiny percent of the wealthiest citizens and corporations and a distinct lack of individual freedom for the rest of us. We have no national health care, but our health care is among the most expensive in the world. We have become a nation run by selfish bullies.

How can a party claiming to be about individual rights be anti-choice? Let us remember that conservatives lean heavily in favor of capital punishment. So much for the sanctity of life. Don't give me any crap about how abortion kills innocent children. If you are against abortion, shouldn't you be against all abortion? If the child is the product of a rape, that is not the child's fault. If the mother's life is in danger, well, so be it, let nature and science take their course, but do not sacrifice the child's life for that of the host. Mind you, once those children are born, the conservatives want nothing to do with them and have done everything possible to curtail any effective programs for their benefit. Welfare reform may have come under Clinton in 1996, but the ditto-heads can claim credit for that; it's another short-sighted, politically motivated bill pushed through by a conservative goose-stepping Congress. Sorry, this one is strictly a religious argument that blows individual rights and secularism right out the window.

As for small government, has there ever been such a group of wastrels in charge? Tax cuts are given to multi-billion-dollar corporations, the largest of which really don't pay their fair share of taxes anyway, and to the wealthiest 1/2 of 1%. People who can more than afford to pay taxes get all the write-offs. Don't believe me? Take a good look at the FSA deduction. If you work for a company that has enough employees, you can elect to have a certain amount of money deducted from your pay and set aside for medical expenses not covered by health insurance. You can use it for anything from co-pays to buying Kleenex, and it is completely tax-free; it is deducted from your *gross* salary, before taxes are figured. It's a sly tax cut. Unfortunately, if you are self-employed, or work for any number of small businesses (who employ half of the people working in this country), you can't take advantage of this program. You get to keep paying taxes on the all money you pay for medical/health supplies, drugs and co-pays. You can afford it, right? It's more important to continue to subsidize your betters.

Shrub has only very recently come around to supporting any kind of renewed GI Bill for those returning from his incredibly expensive oil company conceived campaign in Iraq, and I mean recently as in within the last 60 days. Even John McCain, who of all people should know better, was against this until his boss came around, so there must be some political advantage in it for Halliburton or some other connected company.

And now the oil companies are clamoring for drilling rights in all the offshore sites they don't already have tied up. They haven't even scratched the surface of exploration where they could be looking for oil, but they want to have exclusive offshore rights to everything else available. Is anyone really thick enough to think they mean to explore for oil in these places? Or could it be that they want the rights so they can tie up the offshore sites and lease them back to, say, wind energy companies at some grossly inflated price? Hmmmmmmm.

Where did all this come from? As I was driving, I saw a man putting up signs for the fourth of July with a flag image and the text "Proud to be an American". And I got to thinking, as lucky as I feel to be here, am I proud of what this country has become these past few years? A supposedly free country where if you are not in lockstep agreement with a band of thugs and thieves, where if you dare to challenge them (which I always thought was pretty much required of all free-thinking Americans), you are branded a traitor? A country where the religious right dictates state policy? Where freedom really only applies to you if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford it? A country where we have to prove we can be trusted, where if you dare utter the word bomb on the phone your calls can be monitored without question for an indeterminant amount of time? I wonder how many tweens are being monitored on that word alone. If you think this is all good, by all means vote Republican, and kiss your Constitutional rights goodbye. Except #2, of course; at least for now. Once the conservatives in charge figure out how to couch the words, they'll be the only ones with gun rights, and the suckers who elected them will find themselves once again financing rights they no longer have.

And where the hell is that tape of Michelle Obama saying "whitey" at the Reverend Whackjob's church? Yeah, the one that will be released "right before the election". The one that doesn't actually exist...but you got your Karl Rove memo, right?

Hotels.com

Hotels.com has a few pretty good commercials about how hotels get good ratings because of their website. Some even feature well-known actors. This one definitely takes the cake. Absolutely brilliant and you just have to love the guy getting the abs paint-job. Perfect.

Live news and farm animals

/ video no longer available /

Maybe it's late and I shouldn't have had that short martini, but I damn near peed myself watching this. News anchors should take a cue from actors, never work with children or animals.

I'm pretty sure it won't be so funny tomorrow.

edit: since that one disappeared, here's another one along similar lines:



See if that reporter ever says any birds are an infestation…

Kermit has the blues

Not a half bad version of Radiohead's Creep, once you get past hearing Kermit sing the F word.