Terrorists Use SUVs

If you buy an SUV the gas you are using goes directly toward making the world less stable, warmer, and funds terrorism.

No longer able to hide the SUV relationship, terrorists have started letting the public know by crashing a flaming SUV into the Glasgow airport. Buy a flag and a Hummer today to show your support for terrorism.

Real Estate in the Crapper

I have a client who sells some products related to real estate. In spite of increasing ad spend, improving our ad listings, making our site rank better, lowering prices, and making the site far more usable, sales are still below their historical averages.

We spoke with a supplier who stated that all their other retailers are down too.

For Rent

loans, hair loss, and insurance
take a gamble and make it pay
click me click me click me

mortgage rates at all time lows
30 years or interest only
hope you don't lose your job

even if you buy you are still only renting
add in taxes and fines and the other cost of life
it was all fine though, he sat atop the ponzi scheme

Tax Payers Lose Free Speech, Subsidize Popular Religions

Church and state is out the window, apparently. From the WSJ's article titled Court Loosens Campaign Ad Law, Tightens Student Speech Freedoms

In four opinions, the court's four conservatives and conservative-leaning Justice Anthony Kennedy, diluted a key part of federal campaign finance laws, limited student free speech rights, threw out a challenge to President Bush's religious initiatives office and sided with builders and the White House in a dispute over federal endangered species laws.

When fictitious entities (corporations and Gods we created) have more rights than people you know stuff is broken. How much more corrosive can our government get?

FDA Issues New Rules for Vitamin Purity

In an attempt to make pharmaceutical drugs seem more effective while making vitamins and over the counter supplements ineffective the FDA did not endorse, approve, or review vitamins or other supplements. The party line, to curb consumer trust and demand, goes something like this

"Many herbal supplements have not been studied well and are not regulated by the FDA," said Tepper. "Therefore, we can not be sure of the safety of these products.”

In spite of that consumer fear, and banning once popular supplements like tryptophan to make space for SSRIs, the drug companies are once again in fear of losing profits to non-prescription non-subscription based drugs.

The FDA can't stop consumer demand or ban the OTC supplements quick enough. They can publish aggressively titled scare-mongering content on a few of them
( www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/204_ ), but that model does not scale. The trick only works well if it is rarely done. People can't be afraid of everything.

To help further put the balance of power back into the hands of the pharma corporations, the FDA is now requiring supplement and vitamin manufacturers to meet a purity level.

If the FDA finds that supplements do not contain the ingredients they claim, it will be able to ask the manufacturer to remove an ingredient or revise its label. In more serious cases, it could seize the product, file a lawsuit or seek criminal charges.

Not only can products be seized, but the act also requires the collection of biased data about how the supplements do not work

“In addition, as a result of recent amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, by the end of the year, industry will be required to report all serious dietary supplement related adverse events to FDA,” he said.

Over the years the quality regulations will tighten to drive up costs and destroy weaker companies in the space. And, as evidence is collected, these drugs will quietly be removed from store shelves one by one.

In capitalism the best business model wins, even if it is created through excessive marketing by monopolies that add no real value to the world we live in.

What is Patriotism

Ron Paul covers patriotism.

Why All the Best Musicians Are Flaming Liberals?

They have empathy and compassion. They respect human life more than money.

Typically a person has to have some scars or deeply feel and understand the scars of others to be able to clearly convey emotions to a third party. And he who is scared has a better appreciation for the scars of others. To not run out of material to write about you really have to focus on somethings outside yourself too...so the legends need the flaws of humanity to keep having things to write about with depth and meaning.

My two favorite bands right now are Radiohead and U2. Thom Yorke grew up somewhat glumy most of the time and has a lazy eye. Bono's mother died when he was 12 during an attack. I am really digging some Pink Floyd right now as well, and Roger Waters is still writing new music about wars, religion, prejudice, etc.

Roger Waters Live

So passionate that man is...amazing at his age that he still has that much passion. Gio and I had second row seats, and Roger has a stage presence that reaches beyond the last row.

And the Germans kill the Jews
And the Jews kill the Arabs
And the Arabs kill the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder that the monkey's confused

I suppose calling all Arabs terrorists, is like calling all Americans members of the KKK, or all Germans Nazis. The problem is the extremists, not the masses.

If I ever somehow rank #1 for Wall in Google I will have to 301 that over to a Pink Floyd site.

I Am Full

it is funny what a dog will eat
and the memories it brings
with each meal
what was it thinking
as it eats shit
the packaging may glitter and shine
but some days I am no different

is it low self image or a broken ego
something drives him to want to fix things
it drives him to break
some people want a break
some people want him to break
why shouldnt life be a constant break

Objective Media

The media reports Presedent Bush's job approval ratings have fallen to 29%. That's approaching the most pessimistic mood in the history of the WSJ/NBC poll.

The same media helped put the scumbag in power. A friend recently mentioned this

I had someone tell me once years ago...

That the one person you DO NOT want to vote for, no matter what party they belong too, is the one person that gets most all of the "free" and positive main stream media coverage...

Anyone remember the Presidential Political campaigns of 2004 or 2000?

According to information gathered from several media watch sites like fair.org and sinclairwatch.net, G.W. Bush received an average of 8 to 1 in "Free" positive mentions by the major Television Networks over ALL other political opponents combined (Democrat and Republican) during both of those political campaigns.

I think that says a lot about bias in the main stream media.

Also worth reading are How the Liberal Media Myth is Created and defining Mandate, but the big story on the media is here: TV news is dominated by 5 corporations.

NBC, CNBC, MSNBC are owned by GE. When I worked at MNSBC, some of the constraints imposed on the "Donahue" show were the result of GE ownership and a conservative NBC boss who'd come out of GE Financial and GE's plastics division.

Fox News is owned by the right-wing Rupert Murdoch (and News Corporation), and does Murdoch's ideological bidding.

ABC is owned by Disney. You'll remember that CEO Michael Eisner said that Disney wouldn't distribute "Fahrenheit 911" because Disney "didn't want to be in the middle of a politically-oriented film during an election year." Eisner's comment was allowed to pass only because so few people realize that Disney is one of the biggest purveyors of political opinion this election year and every recent election year -- almost all of it right-wing political opinion. Each day in major radio markets nationwide, Disney radio stations serve up hour after hour of Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Matt Drudge, etc. etc.

CBS News, owned by Viacom, got taken in by forged documents -- and then censored accurate reporting critical of Bush, apparently at the behest of Viacom's CEO, Sumner Redstone. Six weeks before the election Redstone endorsed Bush on behalf of Viacom: "From a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on."

Media is amoral and apolitical. But they are addicted to profits. Thus they use their authority to push their own agenda.

The reason right wing is in flavor now is because faith based voters are easy to manipulate. As media creation and consumption gets more decentralized and more personalized I wouldn't be surprised to see left wing news to be much more in demand.

Facebook = MySpace

Today I just got a request to join a group "make money with person x".

Firm Massage

My girlfriend and I went to get massages recently. The person giving me mine asked if firm was Ok and I said sure. They then commenced walking on me for nearly a half hour. When I got up I found it hard to walk for a few minutes.