January 27, 2007
Get Your Pink Tacos at Century City Mall
This huge banner advertises the arrival of what I would guess is a new restaurant, but my friend pointed out this is a euphemism for something else - as soon as she said it I thought, "Yikes." Although I had never heard this slang before, she didn't have to clarify -
Posted by smashmonster at 05:44 PM
January 18, 2007
I Swear, Osama Could Have Walked Right Through, and They Would Have Missed Him
My roommate and I took the red eye to Boston Wednesday night - and discovered the fun of getting "randomly" picked for extra security checks. We aren't sure if we were flagged because I bought both the tickets on my card - it's possible because once before when a fellow employee bought her ticket and mine, I had to go through the extra security. But this time the extra screening was pretty intense, especially when you consider we represent the absolute LOWEST risk - you've got a UCLA Law School grad with an Irish name who was born and bred in one of the original colonies and a harmless marketing director who was born in probably one of the most innocuous countries (sorry Canada) and grew up in freakin' Tampa Bay.
Needless to say - it was annoying. Millie made it pretty funny - as the screener told her she was going to "touch her backside," Millie looked over at me and said, "She's gonna touch my ass!" The poor screener said, "No!" and looked terribly embarrassed. We had a good laugh at that point.
I swear, every damn item in my carry-ons was removed and screened with those wand things - they attach a piece of cloth to it, wipe the over your crap, then put the cloth in a machine that can detect explosives.
Thing is - they had tagged our tickets with all these SSSSSSs and that meant we had to go through a different entrance. Then, get this, you know how they have grey bins for all the crap you have to pull out of your suitcases? You know, where you dump your laptop, liquids in a baggie, shoes, coat, and for me, a knee brace. They have special RED ONES for the people getting the extra special screening.
They really make you feel like a criminal - first you are there with your special screaming-red bins for your crap, then they let you go through the metal detector and stand in this "corralled" area surrounded by ropes on three sides and with a pair of feet silhouetted on the floor in case you are too stupid to know your feet go on the floor in this tiny corral. Then they yell out for a FEMALE check - and you wait until they open the rope and walk you over to the now-we-are-gonna-inspect-all-your-harmless-junk area. They make you stand on another footy silhouette and inform you they are going to pat you down and to let them know if you are uncomfortable. Well hell yeah I'm uncomfortable!
Then they go slowly through all my stuff - mind you, I had removed my metal leg brace to go through the detector so I'm standing there feeling very vulnerable - I finally asked, "Can I sit down?" Which they allowed.
Meanwhile, Millie is waiting behind the special gate for the extra-special-people-who-require-for-god-knows-what-reason-extra-scrutiny.
Eventually they finished up with us - and I commented something to the effect that the bad guys were walking through while they were preoccupied with the least-likely-people-on-earth-to-cause-a-problem. She responded, "Yeah! There goes Osama!"
And we had a good laugh about how patently absurd the whole process is. Criminy. If you are spending all your time on the lowest risk people, who's paying attention when the next Mohammed Atta walks up to the metal detector?
Posted by smashmonster at 04:12 PM
February 26, 2006
The Next Generation of Kool Aid Drinkers
Scroll down to the free Sean Hannity video to see the next generation of kool aid drinkers - especially the scene where like good little lemmings they do the "flip flop" cheer. As any one interested in challenging and thoughtful debate knows - the flip flop debate is one of the memes of the less sophisticated - they don't understand that if you don't change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, you are not terribly bright. Just like the Kool Aid - hey, this cult was fun, but now the guy is asking me to drink something that will kill me, maybe it is time to find another group to hang with...
So click the link below and scroll to the free videos:
http://www.thisdividedstate.com/
Unfortunately we have become quite lazy as a culture - it is easier to just keep believing something that makes us feel good about ourselves than recognize something is terribly awry.
Posted by smashmonster at 07:02 PM
February 08, 2006
Cutting the Deficit
Today Bush said we are on are way to cutting the deficit in half, get this, "By 2009" - in other words, I will have to be out of office for us to be able to do something about the deficit? I mean, I haven't seen any evidence that this is happening - so was his "hidden" message - you are going to have to elect someone with other policies in 2008 so they can start cutting this deficit? Maybe he means if you can get a turnover in Congress in 2006 they will probably be able to stop me from bankrupting America?
Posted by smashmonster at 03:10 PM
October 31, 2005
I'm Not Quite Sure I Get This
Do they have enough armor now for bullets and IEDs so they are ready to diverting donations to stuff like this? I'm not even sure what it does - books that help soldiers maintain sexual purity? Is salt peter involved?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but right at this moment it seems like every soldier's battle over there is keeping alive, keeping all their body parts...these just seem like slightly higher priorities.
Posted by smashmonster at 08:12 PM
October 27, 2005
Spinning Spinning Spinning - Dizzy Yet?
This article from TomPaine.com gives a sober analysis of the hyprocrisy of spin in the Fitzgerald investigation coverage.
If you want to see some really funny spin, check out how this editorial, compares everything to Clinton (in some of his examples he puts lying about consensual sex with an adult on par with revealing national security secrets - in a case where it was specifically done to undermine the great democratic tradition of challenging your government when you think it is up to no good). It might have been more interesting if he'd gone back to figure out who got off easy in Iran-Contra.
I probably shouldn't poke fun - it's obvious from the title "Patrick Fitzgerald Brings New Legal Standard to DC" and the writer's bio that he is more a conspiracy theorist than an expert on legal matters. Unfortunately, this sort of extreme right paranoia, once a fringe element, has spread like a bizarre witch-hysteria. Such zealotry damages the basic funtioning of democracy UNLESS the average voting American is curious enough (and committed enough) to look past specious arguments and dig a bit more.
Certainly the idea that national security, the safety of NOCs, and justifications for war when Congress has relinquished its rightful authority in these matters are on par with lying about a bj is laughable - but most people don't think beyond the surface argument. They just say, "Yeah! That sounds unfair!" I remember more than one friend with a law degree telling me, "The first thing you learn in law school, is that the law isn't fair." Anyone who lives in the real world knows that it isn't.
The almost infantile belief that the law (or life) should be fair is bizarre - you could extend it to other crimes: how many murderers get away with their crimes? Sadly, a sizeable number. Does that mean it's not fair to indict murderers you have more evidence on - if that guy got away with it, I should too!
It's hard to ignore just how Machiavellian this has become. The idea that Dick Cheney, merely a Vice President, is so involved in these matters alone seems odd. Also see:
Cheney and Libby withhold documents from Senate Intelligence so they could continue to claim he had WMDs.via Agitprop
Is Rove Considering a Plea Deal?
Posted by smashmonster at 03:09 PM
October 26, 2005
You CAN Make This Stuff Up
Interesting flights of fancy. Really fascinating how people can convince themselves of just about anything when they are blindly obedient to The Leader.
Is he describing the same person who did this:
As acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War, he was the last US diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein, in 1991.He very publicly defied the Iraqi strongman by giving refuge to more than 100 US citizens at the embassy and in the homes of US diplomats - at a time when Saddam Hussein was threatening to execute anyone who harboured foreigners.
He then addressed journalists wearing a hangman's noose instead of a necktie.
He later told the Washington Post newspaper that the message to Saddam Hussein was: "If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own fucking rope."
You have to go to the world press to see the actual factual history of Wilson vs. the spin-of-the-moment, although there are other sources that make it clear the Wilson-bashing is merely desperation. Wilson devoted his life to the foreign service - and challenged Saddam Hussein with patriotic bravado. I certainly doubt the weasels who ignore these facts would have been so bold. I imagine them quivering in a corner, crying to those Americans stuck in Iraq and looking for safe haven, "No, I can't protect you! Saddam said he'd kill me! I have to save my own ass!"
Posted by smashmonster at 10:40 PM
October 22, 2005
Round and Round We Go
I'm stunned sometimes by how many people quote other peoples' lies and misrepresentations without having the least bit of curiosity. Bo Bo said it, must be true!
It's a sad day for American Democracy and Freedom when journalists quote propagandists and don't bother to check the facts. Just because you SAY "the spin stops here" does not mean that the spin stops there. Me thinks thou doth protest too much...
Posted by smashmonster at 03:47 PM
October 21, 2005
Don't Think Miss Daisy Had This in Mind
I grew up in Florida - the St. Pete area - where we would regularly hear about elderly, confused drivers plowing into people at bus stops. This one takes the cake.
Although I understand why people don't WANT to give up their driving privileges - it is indeed a privilege and not a right - and privileges are earned. We don't let 14 year olds drive because we think they are not yet capable of the responsibility. Why do we let people who no longer have all their wits about them to drive? Is their right to drive greater than your right to cross the street and not end up in their windshield?
This is just part of our "Entitlement Culture" in which everyone thinks they are owed something.
I remember my mother recounting a visit to the DMV. An elderly man was taking the vision test, and he was having considerable trouble reading the eye chart. Finally, the DMV tester asked, "Do you think it could be a "T"?
She actually helped the man pass his vision test by prompting him with the answers.
When you can't see, that might be a good time to give up the car. Granted, I do think much of the problem lies in poor public transportation. People fear giving up their mobility, and most towns have insufferably public transit systems. The fear of being "trapped" when you give up your driver's license is a real fear and as the baby boomers age we need to take a serious look at how to help people who can no longer safely drive a car.
Posted by smashmonster at 12:15 AM
October 08, 2005
Chugging Down Gas Smoking Cigs Driving on Down the Road...
Sing that title to your favorite tune...as you imagine some white-haired guy tooling north on the 405 freeway through the Sepulveda Pass, driving one of the top polluting vehicles (Range Rover), tossing a lit cigarette out the window during fire season.
It could become an American anthem...
Chugging Gas and Smoking Cigs
Driving on down the road
I'm a God-fearing 'merican male
Carrying a heavy loadGot people telling me I use too much fuel
That my butt could burn down my town
But I ain't no liberal tool
or no conserving, paranoid clownI love, I love my gas-guzzing truck
And spewing my fumes to the sky
You think I'm selfish but I don't give a fuck
I do whatever gets me high.
Posted by smashmonster at 02:35 PM
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