Category Archives: In the News

In the News

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First let me say my internet connection has been sucking donkey balls all week. Grrr. Now … onto the news.

The Bandera County Sheriff’s Office issued a warning Thursday to citizens about an anti-government movement known for acts of domestic terrorism. The law enforcement agency said followers of The Sovereign Citizens Movement have been known to carry out violent acts, including killing law enforcement officers and other public servants.

This is a fact. They are dangerous (and crazy), and they are thick around here. They are, I might add, not Muslim or generally brown in skin tone, which is why they never seem to get too much national news coverage.

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Have you seen the “Vancouver riot kiss photo“? I have, and being an adult with fully functioning brain cells and emotions, I saw it for exactly what it was without having to have it explained to me. A couple, caught in a freaking riot, one of them gets knocked down and injured –the girl– and her boyfriend is doing the right thing and comforting her while she lies on the ground. Amazes me that so many other people thought it was staged or that these people were making out like crazy rutting animals in the middle of a riot. Those people obviously don’t have fully functioning brain cells or emotions and totally lack any kind of empathy. Anyway, touching photo and worth seeing.

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“I say that a prophet is generally not loved in their hometown.”
–Governor Rick Perry, R-Texas

The last couple of weeks, the theme of Perry as Prophet has been popping up entirely too much, mostly from Perry himself. First off, the only kind of prophet he might be is a prophet of doom, and second … if Texans hate him so much, how is it he keeps getting enough votes to be governor? Obviously, someone in Texas likes him. Most likely the sorts of people who think he’s some sort of prophet (of the non-doom variety). And when he runs for President, which I have been saying for years he would (and he will, you watch), please listen to me this time and don’t elect him, OK?

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Have you heard about the two lesbian bloggers who were, in fact, married, white, American men? As they say, on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog … or a heterosexual pretending to be a lesbian. All I can say about it is that these men are total assholes.

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The Daily Beast has a good article on the insanity that is Michelle Bachmann. If you can read that and still think she’s not a) crazy, b) dangerous and c) evil, we need to not be associates anymore. Seriously, she’s my new litmus test for who I should never allow near my person.

And now to see if my internet connection will allow me to post this on my blog. I am really getting annoyed with my ISP. Wish they weren’t the only option in my neighborhood, but they are … so I guess I just have to live with the crappy service.

Crap News

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I watch one local news channel every morning. I also visit their web site a couple times a day. I have always liked this one local news channel, mostly because they provided local news and they were unbiased, truthful, and trustworthy. But … this week, I have been annoyed.

It started a couple days ago when they had a report on e-cigarettes, and the “expert” that provided a blurb spouted something I knew to be utterly untrue: e-cigs don’t provide any nicotine at all. How do I know this to be utterly untrue? I’m a nicotine addict, and since I made the switch to an e-cig, I haven’t had any of the withdrawals I used to have when I simply went half a day without a smoke. Also, I can tell when I am using a juice in my e-cig that is lower nicotine than I am accustomed to. I can tell immediately, because … I start feeling cranky about it.

I looked into the person who spouted the lies, and a) he is totally in the pocket of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma (so probably should not be listened to) and b) the clip was very old, and he has since done a new study and yes, e-cigs do provide nicotine (no duh). Then I dug a little deeper, and I discovered the story had appeared on all manner of local news stations, having been bought from some news providing source … and my local news just plugged their morning guy into all the appropriate spaces for a talking head to talk.

OK, that annoyed me enough to email them and suggest that they maybe, might possibly, would want to at least buy news that is, in fact, new and not years old. I haven’t heard back from them.

Then today, I was watching the morning news and they had a health report on about Golfer’s Elbow. Now as most of you may know, I have a problem with my elbow, and over the course of the last few months, I have learned more than I ever thought I would possibly know about elbows and what can go wrong with them. For example, I know –without looking it up first– what Golfer’s Elbow and Tennis Elbow are and what the difference is between them. So when I heard a doctor explaining that Golfer’s Elbow was a tendon pain on the outside of the elbow, I knew this doctor wasn’t any doctor I ever wanted to see, because that is ENTIRELY WRONG. Pain on the outside is Tennis Elbow. Pain on the INSIDE of the elbow is Golfer’s Elbow. I really couldn’t believe a doctor was getting this wrong, so off I went to do some research on this doctor and the talking head involved in the news piece.

Well, both the talking head and the doctor (who is actually an actual doctor) are both in New York (the state), and lo and behold, this was yet another bit of news which not only wasn’t at all locally produced but was, in fact, completely full of misinformation. I guess I will have to email them yet again, because seriously, it pisses me off that not only can they not be bothered to produce their own easy-to-produce fluff pieces (with, you know local doctors and stuff), but that they keep running these things that are just flat out wrong about stuff or totally outdated information.

The good news in all of this is that one of the reasons I didn’t want to get rid of all the cable TV was that this news channel is only available with cable and not over the air. If this channel is going to continue sucking this badly, well … I guess I won’t miss them. I think I’ll start watching other news channels in the morning –the ones available with an antenna– and pick a new one as my favorite. Nothing I hate worse than misinformation and outdated news (by years, really), and that it’s the fluff pieces that would be so easy to get right (and do locally) that are so very wrong, well … makes me wonder if their “real” news is really any better or more reliable.

In short, I have lost faith in the only source of TV news I still somewhat trusted. Boo. Hiss.

Listen My Children, and You Shall Hear…

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You remember that girl in a beauty pageant a year or two ago? The one who went on and on about the reason some Americans can’t find the USA on a map is because they don’t have maps, and her answer made no sense at all? She had the usual deer in the headlights look and finished it off with the usual beauty queen smile. It’s a pretty common thing to see and hear at beauty pageants … girls who don’t know how to answer a question they’ve been asked just babbling mindlessly with a vapid look on their face and a pretty smile. Now one can forgive these girls for being a little vapid, or for not being able to come up with a decent answer to sometimes rather interesting questions while standing on a stage with a TV camera pointed at them. I’ve been there. It’s not as easy as it looks, unless you are really, REALLY comfortable in that situation (and practice answering questions pageants might ask).

The question itself is not just one test, it’s two. How well does the person carry themselves under pressure (don’t crack or appear stressed), and are they capable of thinking quickly when on the spot and maybe not knowing a good answer (“I don’t know” is actually a workable answer, if fleshed out a little). I am capable of answering any question, anywhere, at any time (or saying I don’t know an answer), but I am 46 years old. I have far more experience than a teenager standing on a stage in a spotlight in front of a TV camera (likely for the first time in her life). So yes, I can forgive even Map Girl for seeming a little stupid and not having a decent answer to a relatively easy question.

What I can’t forgive is a woman of my age, who has been the governor of a state, and has run for vice-president of the United States of America trying to pull the same deer in the headlights look and big smile while spouting a completely incorrect answer to a question just about any elementary school child could answer better on the topic of American History. Beauty pageant contestants WISH they got such simple questions! Therefore, I must once again break my moratorium on mentioning Sarah Palin. I do apologize.

While in Boston, a reporter asked Palin who Paul Revere was. Yeah, I know. It’s a ridiculously easy question for anyone who has completed a basic level of education in the USA. For someone who went to college? Should be a total no brainer. One would hope a person with political aspirations might at least have some kind of reasonable answer to such a simple question, but dear, dear Palin … well …

“He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”
–Sarah Palin

Uh. No. Not even close. Nowhere near the ballpark.

Would it pain her too much to at least read a Wikipedia entry or two on the historical locations she is out visiting before stepping off her bus? I’m dumbfounded that someone claiming to be such a proud patriot doesn’t seem to know anything much at all about the history of the country she insists she loves so much, but I could even forgive her that, if she’d at least TRY to read a web page or a guide book or ask her children or SOMETHING before standing in front of a camera acting as though the words falling from her lips weren’t the steaming pile of stupid they always are. She keeps acting as though she’s a teen beauty queen being put on the spot, but really … who is Paul Revere is not a gotcha question, especially when one is in Boston and standing at the North Church tower (and has had any education whatsoever). Poor journalist probably thought he was handing her a softball.

Now can the national media stop following this woman around? Please? I am tired of not being able to easily avoid the stupidity she spawns everywhere she goes.

If I would have been able to suggest some reading for Ms. Palin before visiting Boston to sight-see, it would be this page containing Longfellow’s poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and a bit of history on the subject.

Utter Bullshit

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Now for this morning’s outrage … cops harassing someone for taking photos and video at a train station in Baltimore.

Part One:

Part Two:

For the freaking record, and for the ten thousandth time … it’s not illegal to take photos and videos of pretty much anything in public you want to take photos and videos of. These cops giving this guy grief are totally and completely full of bullshit. The MTA agrees that “more training may be in order.” Yeah, no kidding. A lot more training, I’d say.

The ACLU is on the job and taking up the fight AGAIN. Go ACLU!

I still look forward to the day a cop hassles me for taking photos. It’s bound to happen eventually, and I will NOT put up with their bullshit and therefore, I will get arrested.

Poor, Poor Palin

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Sarah Palin is off on a bus tour of the United States for who knows what reasons. She still insists she isn’t seriously considering running for President, so I suppose her reason for traveling around in a large decorated bus would be the usual reason she seems to have for doing anything … getting her name in the press. Or not, seeing as she refuses to tell the gaggle of press following her bus around where they will be stopping or going next, which has lead to a line of journalists following her bus in a conga line of cars.

“I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media … I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this, and that would include not necessarily telling them beforehand where every stop’s going to be,” she told fellow Fox News employee Greta Van Susteren in an interview from the bus.

My suggestion to any real journalists out there trying to keep up with this woman on her zany bus tour is to simply stop following her. Ignoring Palin has been my suggestion from the beginning, but seriously, she wouldn’t be doing this tour if she didn’t want people to pay attention, but she does seem to be passive aggressive about it, so … stop following her, stop talking about her, and please, for the love of all that is holy, ignore her. She hasn’t really done anything relevant in ages.

Now I will go back to ignoring her myself, because really, she just isn’t that interesting anymore.

In the News

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A Chicago lawyer says his opponent in a small-claims case is using an unfair tactic by having a buxom woman sit next to him at counsel’s table.

When I read the headline and blurb for this news story, I expected to click through and see the lawyer was complaining about a busty woman who was inappropriately dressed for court. You know, someone Dolly Parton-like and showing off her feminine features in some low-cut, tight-fitted outfit. But no … the woman is dressed as one would expect a paralegal to be dressed (bookish), and she doesn’t seem all that buxom to me. So now I just have to say, the complaining lawyer is sleazy and quite likely a sexist pig.

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Upset about invasive screening techniques at the airport, the Lone Star State was considering a bill that would make a TSA patdown that involves touching “the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing” a misdemeanor, allowing Texas law enforcement to arrest TSA officials and charge them with sexual harassment. It would have meant that TSA officials could be fined $4,000 and spend up to a year in jail for doing their jobs of feeling up prospective fliers.

I was thrilled my state legislature was bothering to do something I could agree with, but then the TSA came on down and said they’d close all our airports and not allow flights into or out of Texas … and the Texas Leg folded. A shame really, because someone needs to fight the stupidity that is called security at airports. I’d have actually liked to see how no flights in or out of Texas went with the rest of the world. Hate Texas as much as you want, but we do have a hand in the world economy, and no flights would have chopped that hand right off at the wrist.

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The Walt Disney Co. has withdrawn its application to trademark the phrase “SEAL Team 6.”

Unfortunately, it took the SEALS applying for a trademark on their own name and threatening legal action to get Disney to drop their application. I don’t know what Disney was thinking. OK, I do. They were thinking it would be great to make yet more money without having to come up with a fresh idea of their own.

Food News

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I’ve been trying to sit down and write some posts about these links for days, and I’m just never going to get to the ranting. Just not enough time in the day for much ranting right now! But I do want to get these links out there, because it’s stuff people need to know.

In 2004, Dufault began researching the mercury cycle from an environmental management perspective for the FDA. With an extramural colleague, she analyzed a number of food products listing HFCS as either the first or second ingredient on the label and organic food products for mercury. Shockingly, results pointed to low levels of mercury in all of the products they analyzed containing HFCS while the organic foods did not contain any detectable levels of mercury.

As one might expect, her researched was frowned upon. Can’t have anyone pointing out that high fructose corn syrup might not be a good thing to have in every single food product on the market! She kept at it and eventually published her peer-reviewed findings.

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One of an array of factory-made additives, cellulose is increasingly used by the processed-food industry, producers say. Food-product makers use it to thicken or stabilize foods, replace fat and boost fiber content, and cut the need for ingredients like oil or flour, which are getting more expensive.

Although the notion of eating fine grains of wood pulp might make some consumers blanch, nutritionists say cellulose—which gives plants their structure—is a harmless fiber that can often cut calories in food. Insoluble dietary fibers like cellulose aren’t digestible by humans so add bulk to food without making it more fattening.

I am not a termite. Neither are you. While eating cellulose hasn’t yet been shown to have any negative health effects, it isn’t food. The next time you buy processed food of any sort, ask yourself what you are paying for … food or wood pulp and artificial flavorings pretending to be food. I’d prefer to not eat wood, thank you very much.

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The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo after an effort to chemically boost his fruit crop went spectacularly wrong.

Fields of watermelons exploded when he and other agricultural workers in eastern China mistakenly applied forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator. The incident has become a focus of a Chinese media drive to expose the lax farming practices, shortcuts and excessive use of fertiliser behind a rash of food safety scandals.

Before everyone gets their eyes rolling and their tongues wagging about the Chinese and their abundant use of chemicals in farming, please be aware forchlorfenuron is also used in the USA on grapes and kiwis (and is being tested on other food crops) … though thoroughly banned in other parts of the world due to its being implicated in cancer and neurological illnesses.

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And in closing … have a look at what students around the world are having for lunch at school as compared to what Americans kids get served. If you are American, it won’t make you happy.