20081029
20081028
Fox News Gives Me Hope
I know a lot of people are getting absolutely sick and tired of this election and all the ugliness, but I've seen the ugliness of this underbelly of America for years, and I find a lot of hope and inspiration in the fact that as it rears its ugly head, America is banding together to fight it. So I'm not passing these on as ugliness, but as optimism.
That said, Joe The Plumber was quoted today as saying that an Obama Presidency would mean the death of the State of Israel. The comment was explicitly defended by a McCain spokesman, stating that this showed the perception of the American people, proof positive that we can't trust Obama.
Fox News' anchorman is Shepard Smith, their top newscaster and an right-wing loyalist who has staunchly defended both McCain and Palin, and taken great effort to spin everything they say in their favor. I want to share with you a direct quote, on air, from Shepard Smith, at 12:50pm today:
"I just want to make this 100% perfectly clear: Barack Obama has said repeatedly, and demonstrated repeatedly, that Israel will always be a friend of the United States. No matter what happens, once he becomes President of the United States... the rest of it... some things... it just gets frightening sometimes."
At that point, he hung his head in remorse, and cut to commercial.
I see that as hope.
That said, Joe The Plumber was quoted today as saying that an Obama Presidency would mean the death of the State of Israel. The comment was explicitly defended by a McCain spokesman, stating that this showed the perception of the American people, proof positive that we can't trust Obama.
Fox News' anchorman is Shepard Smith, their top newscaster and an right-wing loyalist who has staunchly defended both McCain and Palin, and taken great effort to spin everything they say in their favor. I want to share with you a direct quote, on air, from Shepard Smith, at 12:50pm today:
"I just want to make this 100% perfectly clear: Barack Obama has said repeatedly, and demonstrated repeatedly, that Israel will always be a friend of the United States. No matter what happens, once he becomes President of the United States... the rest of it... some things... it just gets frightening sometimes."
At that point, he hung his head in remorse, and cut to commercial.
I see that as hope.
Mature as I may be
None of the memories from my teenage years seem unappealing to me. I would have no problem sitting in the back of my friend's truck, listening to punk music, driving down the road to a kegger where we would take acid and watch Teletubbies. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would make more mistakes the second time around.
20081023
State of Modern Journalism
JOURNALIST: “How can Palin still be the champion of Joe Six-pack when she spent $150,000 on clothes in the last month so that she’d be pretty enough to be electable?
PALIN SPOKESMAN: “Oh, now that’s just taken out of context. See, after we’ve won the election, she’s going to give all those clothes away.”
JOURNALIST: “Oh! Well, that’s just charitable.”
Ed Murrow is rolling in his grave.
PALIN SPOKESMAN: “Oh, now that’s just taken out of context. See, after we’ve won the election, she’s going to give all those clothes away.”
JOURNALIST: “Oh! Well, that’s just charitable.”
Ed Murrow is rolling in his grave.
20081020
I am not making this up
One of the assigned responsibilities of our “tier one,” as she is called, is maintaining printer supplies and such. I walk up to the printer to print off one page, and she’s just staring blankly at the printer. She looks at me and asks, “did you print something?”
“Not yet,” I reply. “My job’s in queue.”
“Well, it’s not working for some reason,” she says. I look at the screen on the printer and >TONER EMPTY: REPLACE CARTRIDGE< is blinking. So I point out that there’s no toner in the printer. “I see that,” she says as she rolls her eyes, “I didn’t expect that that would stop it from printing!”
“Yep,” I say. “It can’t print without any ink.”
“Well, the toner cartridges are right over there,” she points, and walks away. I’m wearing all white today, but I need that printout, so I grab the toner and carefully replace it (we have one of those old printers that blow out a plume of toner whenever it’s replaced). I close up the printer and print the queue.
My supervisor walks up and looks at the printer. “Oh,” she says, “did someone get this working again?”
I shrug, “we just needed to replace the toner, so I swapped it out.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I saw that it said replace cartridge. I asked J.J. to do it, but he didn’t know how, and I don’t know how. I figure there had to be instructions somewhere.”
I look at her, trying not to make any sort of judgmental face. “You just swap it out from the toner tray.
She rolls her eyes, “well, I know that. I know that the toner goes in this tray right here—” she says as she opens it while it’s printing, causing a loud XKKRYNGH sound as seven sheets of paper get jammed up inside. “Whoops,” she says. “I’ll go get J.J. and see if he knows how to fix it.”
Side note: J.J. is our accountant. He is not our tier one.
I volunteer to un-jam the printer, and I calmly open it out and start weeding out all the jammed paper. At this point, the tier one comes back in and sees me pulling things out of the printer. She’s visibly upset. “I already called the service guy,” she says, “exactly so this doesn’t happen. You shouldn’t be trying to swap out the toner yourself.”
“The toner wasn’t the problem,” I say. “We just got a paper jam. It’s easy to fix.” I pull out the last piece of paper, close up the printer, and re-send the queue. I grab the one page of paper that I need, while the other 50 print back out, and I leave.
I pass J.J. on my way out of the printer room. I hear him talking to my supervisor behind me. “Oh,” he says, “did you get the toner cartridge replaced?”
“Yeah, Robert did it,” the supervisor replied. “I guess you just have to put it on this tray here—” XKKRYNGH!!!
So now the printer’s “out of order.” I’ll pull out the paper next time I need to print something. Which will probably be Wednesday.
On the other hand, we do have two printers…
“Not yet,” I reply. “My job’s in queue.”
“Well, it’s not working for some reason,” she says. I look at the screen on the printer and >TONER EMPTY: REPLACE CARTRIDGE< is blinking. So I point out that there’s no toner in the printer. “I see that,” she says as she rolls her eyes, “I didn’t expect that that would stop it from printing!”
“Yep,” I say. “It can’t print without any ink.”
“Well, the toner cartridges are right over there,” she points, and walks away. I’m wearing all white today, but I need that printout, so I grab the toner and carefully replace it (we have one of those old printers that blow out a plume of toner whenever it’s replaced). I close up the printer and print the queue.
My supervisor walks up and looks at the printer. “Oh,” she says, “did someone get this working again?”
I shrug, “we just needed to replace the toner, so I swapped it out.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I saw that it said replace cartridge. I asked J.J. to do it, but he didn’t know how, and I don’t know how. I figure there had to be instructions somewhere.”
I look at her, trying not to make any sort of judgmental face. “You just swap it out from the toner tray.
She rolls her eyes, “well, I know that. I know that the toner goes in this tray right here—” she says as she opens it while it’s printing, causing a loud XKKRYNGH sound as seven sheets of paper get jammed up inside. “Whoops,” she says. “I’ll go get J.J. and see if he knows how to fix it.”
Side note: J.J. is our accountant. He is not our tier one.
I volunteer to un-jam the printer, and I calmly open it out and start weeding out all the jammed paper. At this point, the tier one comes back in and sees me pulling things out of the printer. She’s visibly upset. “I already called the service guy,” she says, “exactly so this doesn’t happen. You shouldn’t be trying to swap out the toner yourself.”
“The toner wasn’t the problem,” I say. “We just got a paper jam. It’s easy to fix.” I pull out the last piece of paper, close up the printer, and re-send the queue. I grab the one page of paper that I need, while the other 50 print back out, and I leave.
I pass J.J. on my way out of the printer room. I hear him talking to my supervisor behind me. “Oh,” he says, “did you get the toner cartridge replaced?”
“Yeah, Robert did it,” the supervisor replied. “I guess you just have to put it on this tray here—” XKKRYNGH!!!
So now the printer’s “out of order.” I’ll pull out the paper next time I need to print something. Which will probably be Wednesday.
On the other hand, we do have two printers…
20081016
Now we know
Of all the goofy post-debate polls, there were two which I think were the most telling: 28 percent who thought that McCain won the debate, and 28 percent who said that Ayers mattered “a great deal” in their decision. I think it’s clearly obvious that the Ayers thing is absolutely ludicrous to anyone who has a thought in their head. The only people who would say it mattered to them would be obedient neocon loyalists. They would also be the only people to say that McCain made any sense at all in the debate last night (I’m really not sure what’s happened to him; he appears to have been brainwashed). He was an absolute buffoon who made no sense and was unable to respond to anything Obama said. He was very temperamental and outright rude, and in a roundabout way said he was proud of the people at his rally who were calling out to kill Obama. So we can now determine the exact percentage of people who are blindly following McCain to the ends of the Earth: 28%. Now the question is what exactly the other 14% who have said they’ll vote for him are thinking.
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