My Favorite Products for Cleaning the Bathroom
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So you can make that never-ending chore a little easier.
1 day ago
Red State Update: No smoking on the battlefield!
haven't posted a link tot he red state guys lately - so here goes:
first the front line soldiers can't drink and now they can't smoke? let alone enjoy the brothels of France!
ummmmmm, like the red state boys say "cigarette smoking is bad for your health! Joining the military is bad for your health!"
When do they need a fig leaf - NYT takes on little kids and nudity
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/garden/16nudity.html?_r=1&em
An interesting read, especially for the moms and pops out there I guess.
I particularly remember a moment when I, like Adam and Eve in the garden, realized I was naked and "became ashamed." I wasn't very old, 5 or 6 maybe, and asked my mom to close the bedroom door where I was changing out of my soggy swimsuit and into some dry shorts during a family gathering. So, I guess, for me, that was the time for the fig leaf? Any thots from moms and pops or former kids on this one?
apple vs microsoft - it's not that ur not cool enough, your just poor enough
An Apple lawyer made a phone call to Microsoft to complain about the ad below because Apple recently reduced their laptop prices by $100.
Microsoft responded by having Microsoft COO Kevin Turner reveal to the audience at a Microsoft conference that an Apple lawyer had indeed called him to complain about the 'Laptop Hunter' ad.
PC World:
"And you know why I know they're working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey -- this is a true story -- saying, "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I've ever taken in business. (Applause.)"
so Apple responded with this ad:
of course, my solution to everyone is Linux, especially if you are not a gamer but use you computer primarily to access the internet or to handle documents - word etc - you will notice that your crappy old laptop, or desktop, will suddenly function quite well. but my evangelizing aside, I find the little ad wars to be sort of amusing, and I can see the point of both sides.
The 7 Worst First Pitches By Famous People Ever (VIDEO) (POLL)
in honor of the hubbub over Obama's first pitch the other day...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/the-7-worst-first-pitches_n_235523.html
Yesterday, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced its Emmy nominations for the year's best advertising spots.
Airforce one photo not as interesting as it first appears
Why did the tv screen in the background have three barechested men standing around a waterfall?
well, the answer is less titilating than expected:
"Planet of the Apes."
A photo of Willy Mays aboard Air Force One inspired some amusing conjecture over at Wonkette yesterday concerning the in-flight movie playing aboard the plane. It was quickly identified as Planet of the Apes by one of the commenters, but one suggested it was "the live-feed from the Senate Republicans’ cloakroom."
Interesting photo essay about "Today's KKK."
Little people/midget/dwarf - editorial I posted in response to an article on Salon
7/16/2009
With bonus UPDATE - at the end of my rant.
I am not a little person but I am gay. If you ask me to, I will call you whatever you would like. However, when I first heard, several years ago, that the term "midget" was now to be added to the ever increasing list of verboten words it did strike me as odd. Not having lived with the condition I cannot speak for little people and why they might seek to change our collective minds about the use of the word, but as a member of a group that has had similar issues with deciding how to describe themselves to others I would like to second the insights made by a few of the other posters regarding what can become a revolving door type syndrome in which one term is replaced by another and then the replacement term becomes widespread and then becomes considered inappropriate as well, and so on and so forth.
First we weren't called anything in particular at all (think ancient Greece etc), then with the advent of the middle ages we became Sodomites. To the list were added Faggot, Nelly and Gay. The first gay rights movement was found in pre-war Germany and the first replacement term was offered up; Uranians. Thank God that didn't stick because the ur-anus puns would have been truly endless! When the concept of a gay rights movement re-emerged in the United States in the late 1950s early 1960s the preferred term was Homophile and the first public protests seeking gay rights made a great effort to appear as "normal" as possible, one of the earliest marches held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia stipulated in the rules for the marchers that men wear suits and women wear long dresses.
A few years of this approach and we landed at Stonewall in 1969 and the "official" term became Gay - which seemed nice and all, being that it just meant happy. Eventually the term gay became widespread enough that it is now used by many younger people to simply refer to something they find stupid, regardless of any connection to sexuality, for instance "the new Transformers movie is really gay." Ok, need a new word again.
There is the clinical term "homosexual" which I find too dry and also too fixated on identity as bound up completely with genital activities etc. Post Stonewall, and especially during the angry gay (talk about an oxymoron!) years of the AIDs crisis in the 80s and 90s there were many who defiantly re-embraced the old, once derogatory terms fag and queer.
Now we find ourselves on the verge of basic integration with marriage and military rights the last ones on the list to be tackled. The revolving door has put us back where we were in the 50s and 60s seeking to be seen to be as "normal" as possible and we have ended up with the unwieldy new LGBT; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and transgendered. There is a movement to add the letter I to the end; Intersexed. the problem here is not only that acronyms are inherently dehumanized and lack any real meaning of their own but also the list of letters could, potentially be expanded infinitely to include any and every sexual orientation including in the future perhaps, the asexual, the chaste, friends of gays, and finally, oh, why the heck not, straights. LGBTIACFS would be the penultimately PC term because it would be perfectly meaningless and therefore could not be used to insult anyone. But who really wants to be referred to as a string of meaningless letters? I cringed when I saw that little people have begun to call themselves LPs.
I suppose it is all a natural cycle. As mentioned in previous posts we have seen this pattern repeat with other minority groups; negroe (derived from the Spanish for Black), colored, black, afro-american and then african american finally to land back at plain old black. Mexicans, chicanos, latinos etc.
I have friends who I know respect me as a person and accept me with real love, and among ourselves we are able to use the words fag, queer, homo, LGBT (which sometimes is transformed into BLT for a laugh) and none of these words carries a sting because I know the person using it, myself included, accepts me and sees me as a valid and fully equal human being. Sure, I will call you a pterodactyl if that is what you would like, but I am afraid that in the end these PC word battles amount to "much ado about nothing" when the real issue is to simply make sure that each generation of Americans learns to become more and respectful of each and every other person no matter their stature, skin color, sexual or affectional orientations etc etc etc.
UPDATE: I found this article via salon as well from the perspective of a very short man who also wonders about the anti-midget movement:The idea that a man should be taller than the woman he's with is deeply ingrained, perhaps not just in our culture but in the human psyche. (Which is why I went to live with the Pygmies for a year. Man, I made out like a bandit.) (And Pygmy chicks? Are hawt.)
I know: boo fucking hoo. Got a job? Got a house? Then get in line for sympathy. The line starts behind the 40 million people who are out of work. Hey, I’m not saying it’s a tragedy or that I think about being short 24/7/366 (it’s always a leap year in my calendar), or even that it’s been a driving force in my life. It definitely doesn’t suck more than cancer or lupus--in the great scale of things, it’s more like eczema. Kind of annoying, and a little itchy... Yeah, right; I don't believe I'm inclined to open that particular can of worms at this time. (Do worms really come in a can? Do canned worms taste different from fresh?)...
...If, though, suddenly by magic I could be average height, 5'9" or 5'10" or so, would I? Now, the psychobabble-ishly correct answer would be, "Hell, no! I love myself just the way I am," and while I agree with the whole "You must love yourself" concept (hey, my porn bill is so high because of how very much I love myself--well, actually, I guess it's because of how very often I love myself), the real answer is, "Fuck yeah," I would. Or I would until I spent two minutes thinking about how in fairy tales when you get wishes granted it generally does not turn out well. Wish for your drowned son back, and a shambling thing drags itself up the porch to your door, and you have to use your last wish to make it go away. Wish for the power to make gold, and you starve in the midst of golden food. (Why didn’t Midas just hire a guy to feed him? I always thought that was kind of a plot hole.) Wish for a gigantic penis and…er, wait, that’s not a fairy tale; that’s porn; sorry. The point being: there’s always a cost to magic....
... So, should some good fairy (or elf) show up and offer me the deal, I suppose I’d have to turn it, regretfully, down. Seriously, this whole having-learned-a-few-things-from-life-and-shit sucks. Even hypothetically....
it's a great read and the full article is here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/floyd_elliot/2009/07/17/on_being_short
Harry Potter in the Hood
7/14/2009
In the common room crib I be chillin with the Shorties, my homies and me be drinkin Butter Beer forties. I fight the 3 headed dog and I ride the big birdy, Buckbeak is my Freak- 'cuz she makes me feel dirty.
Goodnight Hans
7/13/2009
I don't really have anywhere else to say it or anyone who knew him well enough to talk to about it so I am just going to say it here: Rest in Peace Hans Klauson. He passed away at his desk unexpectedly friday night.
Ahmadinejad and his pretty pretty charts
Ahmadinejad giving a televised interview about his plans to reform the Iranian Military to keep costs down so that they can be used in more important areas, such as chart spending.
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