Tuesday, March 30, 2004 :::
 
Look at this. Trust me. http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/040323/46/ep8bk.html

::: posted by Comic Tools at 3:34 PM


 
Look at this. Trust me. http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/040323/46/ep8bk.html

::: posted by Comic Tools at 3:34 PM


 
"In 2003, we began offshoring activities moving $3.5 (million) of work to lower-cost locations and we are planning to increase that to $48 (million) in 2004."
-- GM internal report quoted in Detroit News

Well then, GM can just go take a flying go-fuck-yourself. And while they're at it, they can eat shit and die.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 3:23 PM



Sunday, March 28, 2004 :::
 
I just want to make a point here that's been bugging me lately. A recent article snapped the camel's back on it, and now I have to rant.

Douglas Adams made the point repeatedly: opinions are not equal. The idea that every opinion is just as respectable as the next and that I ought to respect someone else's ideas as much as my own is a completre bullshit idea. Specifically, ideas that are supported by fact are not equal to ideas that either are NOT supported by fact, or are in fact disproven by fact. IN FACT, ideas supported BY FACT are SUPERIOR. Douglas used this argument in terms of discussing religion. But I'm alking about it in terms of reporting. Yes, news reporting. Specifically, in the case of Thomas Friedman, who is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. The problem is that lately he has been completely making shit up. Poof. Out of thin air. And Tom Tomorrow fact-checked his ass, and posted about it on his blog. and then Tom asked the opinion editor if there was going to be a factual correction. This, along with Tom's commentary, is his response:

"Of course they don't make the stuff up (at least the good ones don't). But many do use their material in ways that veer sharply from conventional journalistic practice. The opinion writer chooses which facts to present, and which to withhold.

For instance, Tom Friedman chooses to withhold from his readers the fact that his little story about the guy who lost his job and then made a fortune selling t-shirts joking about how he lost his job...was complete and utter bullshit. Never happened.

And this just leaves me scratching my head:

But if Safire asserts that there is a "smoking gun" linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, then even David Corn's best shots (which include many citations from Times news stories) aren't going to prove it isn't so. "An opinion may be wrongheaded," Safire told me by e-mail last week, "but it is never wrong. A belief or a conviction, no matter how illogical, crackbrained or infuriating, is an idea subject to vigorous dispute but is not an assertion subject to editorial or legal correction."

It's the "subject to vigorous dispute" part that really pisses the urine out of me. "opinions" that are, in fact, completre bullshit, are NOT open to debate. Debate is when you have two valid opinions and you want to discuss them on their merits. If an opinion has no merit, it is not open to debate. You give an opinion and I prove you wrong isn't a debate.

Of course, this has become acceptable debate in this country. Some pundit can come on and spew lies, and I can factually disprove it, but my facts aren't facts and his lies aren't lies- they're both "differing opinions", and no many how much I disprove the opposing view, I'M the one who gets looked at like some kind of asshole if I try to say that the other guy's opinions are not valid.

Well you know what? I don't care what people say- there are stupid questions and there are non-valid opinions. And if you hold a wrong opinion even after I prove you wrong, you are not still "entitled to your own view of things." You are a stupid fucking asshole.

Tom says it well:

"The bottom line is, if this is indeed the Times' last word on this issue, then they need to run a big disclaimer above every op-ed piece that states something like:

EDITOR'S NOTICE: Even though some of the things in the following column may sound to any reasonable reader like statements of objective "fact," everything that follows is actually nothing more than a statement of the author's "beliefs," which, while they may be illogical, crackbrained or infuriating, are nevertheless exempt in every respect from the Times' error correction policy."

Is this where jornalism is going, though? Where opinion pages don't just give the author's take on the facts, but instead report on paralell universes that exist only in the author's head and are made up by their own beliefs and crack-headed ideas?

Thank God for Dave Barry. At least he always gives it to us straight.


::: posted by Comic Tools at 12:45 PM



Thursday, March 25, 2004 :::
 
When I read shit like this, it makes me seriously consider taking up drinking. Or maybe heroin:

Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times White House correspondent, on criticism that reporters were too easy on Bush on the eve of the Iraq war: "I think we were very deferential because ... it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you're standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."
This is a joke, right? The White House correspondent from the New York Times didn't ask a tough question because the atmosphere was too "frightening"? Has there been a more tacit and, yes, frightening, admission by a reporter -- from the nation's most important newspaper no less -- that the national press is cowed by this administration? Is there any stronger inducement for its continued bullying?
I grant that "standing up on prime-time live TV" might be nerve-wracking for some people. But I would assume that the person assigned to cover the White House for the NEW YORK TIMES would be a little less prone to stage-fright and a little less in awe of the moment. I mean, is there a more important -- nay critical -- time for a reporter to stand up and ask the tough question than on the eve of war?
Thank goodness for people like Joseph Welch, who wasn't too intimidated to stand up to Joseph McCarthy and ask -- on "prime-time, live TV" -- "At long last, sir, have you no shame?" Thank God, he didn't find the moment too "frightening" and "somber."

(from Atrios)

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:42 PM


 
When I read shit like this, it makes me seriously consider taking up drinking. Or maybe heroin:

Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times White House correspondent, on criticism that reporters were too easy on Bush on the eve of the Iraq war: "I think we were very deferential because ... it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you're standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."
This is a joke, right? The White House correspondent from the New York Times didn't ask a tough question because the atmosphere was too "frightening"? Has there been a more tacit and, yes, frightening, admission by a reporter -- from the nation's most important newspaper no less -- that the national press is cowed by this administration? Is there any stronger inducement for its continued bullying?
I grant that "standing up on prime-time live TV" might be nerve-wracking for some people. But I would assume that the person assigned to cover the White House for the NEW YORK TIMES would be a little less prone to stage-fright and a little less in awe of the moment. I mean, is there a more important -- nay critical -- time for a reporter to stand up and ask the tough question than on the eve of war?
Thank goodness for people like Joseph Welch, who wasn't too intimidated to stand up to Joseph McCarthy and ask -- on "prime-time, live TV" -- "At long last, sir, have you no shame?" Thank God, he didn't find the moment too "frightening" and "somber."

(from Atrios)

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:42 PM



Sunday, March 21, 2004 :::
 
It seems that, once again, Bin Laden has been allowed to slip back into Ahfganistan, right through our fingers. And this has gotten me thinking about the way George has handled the threat of Al Quaida- which is half-assedly post Septmber 11th, and not at all before:

WASHINGTON, March 19 — Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation — and how the new administration was slow to act.
They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.
One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in intelligence briefings that he led.
At the time of the briefings, there was extensive evidence tying Al Qaeda to the bombing in Yemen two months earlier of an American warship, the Cole, in which 17 sailors were killed.
"It was very explicit," Mr. Clarke said of the warning given to the Bush administration officials. "Rice was briefed, and Hadley was briefed, and Zelikow sat in." Mr. Clarke served as Mr. Bush's counterterrorism chief in the early months of the administration, but after Sept. 11 was given a more limited portfolio as the president's cyberterrorism adviser.


Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.
"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.
"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.
"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.
For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.
Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Now look: ANYFUCKINGBODY should have been able to see that as things stood when Bush came into power, Al Qaeda was the biggest threat facing us. You know what one of the first things I thought after the Cole bombing happened was? "They're gonna hit a major city next." You know what one of the first things I thought after september 11th happened was? "You know, I was kind of expecting something like this." This is what I thought, and I didn't have half the intelligence available to me that the fucking government did. But Bush ignored it, so him and his neo-con fuckhead cabinet could plan for Iraq and waste money on ineffective, pointless missle systems. Bush's negligence was a huge factor in the deaths on 9-11. And in response to 9-11 , we went hunting for Al Quaida in Ahfganistan, found out it was really hard, and left a few guys to look while we dicked around in Iraq. Now we're stuck in Iraq, Al Quaida is still killing people in droves, and Bin Laden is running around Ahfganistan.

You know what the only funny joke Dennis Miller tells anymore is? That he supports Bush because Bush is tough on terror.

Wolfowitz, Rummy and Bush are gonna get us all killed at this rate.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:38 PM



Thursday, March 18, 2004 :::
 
Al Quaida endorses Bush- (no, I'm not kidding.)

An unrelated videotape of a man describing himself as al Qaeda's European military spokesman also claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombing, saying it was in retaliation for outgoing Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's domestically-unpopular support for the U.S.-led Iraq war.


In a shock election result three days after the Madrid bombs, Spain voted in the Socialist party, which has since said it will probably withdraw its troops from Iraq.


"The Spanish people... chose peace by choosing the party that was against the alliance with America," the statement said.


WE WANT BUSH TO WIN


The statement said it supported President Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."


In comments addressed to Bush, the group said:


"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization."


"Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected."


The group said its cells were ready for another attack and time was running out for allies of the United States.


"Whose turn is it next? Will it be Japan or America, or Italy, Britain or Oslo or Australia?" the statement said, adding Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were also targets.

-------
Also, will people please stop claiming that Spain has fallen to terrorists because they voted out a party that got them into a false and stupid war, for which 200 spaniards died in retaliation, and then lied to the public about who did it? The socialists suspected Al Quaida early on, becuase of their intelligence contacts in the middle east, while the incumbent government was still CALLING UP NEWSPAPER EDITORS, telling them to say it was ETA. So it seems to me like democratically voting the old government out is good democracy in action, and not "falling to the terrorists."

I should mention, while I'm at it, that in the article I excerpted, it says that Al Quaida is calling a temporary truce in Europe, to allow Spain's new Government to pull out of Iraq.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 12:48 PM



Monday, March 15, 2004 :::
 
From Atrios:

What Kerry - and the Democrats - need to do is to overturn conventional wisdom by re-framing the debate. September 11th happened on Bush's watch, after his administration completely ignored the threat of terrorism. Right now, We All Know that George Bush showed "great leadership" after 9/11. How do we know that? Well, because the goddamn Democrats keep saying it. Truth? Bush ran and hid and then didn't stop wetting his pants until 3 days later. He then went and bombed a stone age country back to the stone age, and then didn't provide the resources to rebuild it. Thousands of Taliban and al Qaeda members were allowed to escape to Pakistan, defeating much of the purpose of said bombing, and we never found Bin Laden, the stated architect of the 9/11 attack.
We now know that we haven't been devoting the resources to find Bin Laden, because we're now "stepping up" that attempt with Operation Mountain Storm. Why we didn't step up that threat two years ago is obvious - we had to mobilize for Iraq and this gang can't walk and chew gum at the same time (frankly, they can't do them separately either).
So, resources were diverted away from a fighting a gathered threat to a non-threat. We've spent $200 billion fighting this non-threat, much of which went into the pockets of corporations which failed to provide the services they were contracted to do. The immediate aftermath of the Iraq war was bungled, largely due to the utter lack of planning by the "grownups." Suspected WMD sites were looted, civil infrastructure wasn't repaired as the money was diverted to contractors who didn't do it, and civil order was not maintained.
We're spending billions on missile defense, and a measly few million on improving port security. While terrorists may obtain a nuclear weapon, they are unlikely to obtain a reliable intercontinental missile delivery system. Why bother? They just need to float into any port and push the button.
The only great leadership Bush showed after 9/11 is that he miraculously failed to shit his pants while giving a speech post-9/11. Just about everything else has been a total disaster .

::: posted by Comic Tools at 2:08 PM


 
I can explain a bit about how eating assloads of fat can make you thinner, Ben.

As a hypoglycemic, I have some knowledge of how fast certain foods are chemically broken down and processed. Simple carbohydrates are absorbed immidiately, and sent to the furnaces. In me, this causes an insulin spike, and within five hours I need to eat again. But in a normal person, the pancreas would simply stabilize the blood sugar levels, and the carbs would keep circulating, feeding cells. If a person eats their carbs sensibly, then the carbs will keep being used and eventually run out, perhaps ten or fifteen hours later, by which time the person would probably have eaten again anyway. In this manner, normal, healthy people maintain a fairly stable blood sugar level. But here's the thing: unused carbs will eventually be converted into more complex, esaily storable chains called lipids, or fats, and kept within the body for later use. This is a surrvival mechanism. So if you eat way too many simple carbohydrates, you start accumulating fat. (And it's also worth noting that one of the dangers of high sugar and carb fast foods lik white bread and soda and fries is that eating them for years will wear out your pancreas and give you hypoglycemia or even diabetes.)

If, on the other hand, I eat a fatty foodstuff, my body will react in a different way. Fats need to be broken down to be used as fuel. They need to be broken down from fats to carbohydrtaes, and then finally into glucose. This process is slow-release, taking hours. If I eat fat, then as a hypoglycemic, my blood sugar will be far more stable for far longer than if I eat sugar. If a normal person eats fat, the effect is similar. But because most people's metabolism works differently than mine, the majority of fat that people take in is shat out long before the body has a chance to reap it. Furthermore, grease can coat the intestinal walls, further inhibiting nutrient absorbtion in the small intestines. And further-furthermore, fat that makes it into the bloodstream (not all of it is processed fully in the stomach) doesn't get used right away as fuel, so it has time to bind to artery walls and cause problems.

Now, the health probelms with a normal bad diet are many fold- salt raises the blood pressure, fat clogs the arteries, putting them under even more presssure an weakening the plumbing at the same time, and insulin spikes from sugar wreak havoc with the blood sugar levels. The sugar also gets stores as extra fat, which requires blood to feed it, thus taxing the belabored blood-plumbing even more. The fat causes immobility, which weakens the heart and vessels. See a pattern here? A big, heart-exploding pattern?

The atkins diet temporarily alleviates part of this. Less simple carbohydrates means less stored fat, less pancreas damage from insulin spikes. Eating only fat, pretty much, causes the digestive tract to become slow to digest nutrients, but faster in excreting food waste. The effect is what Carter mentioned- the digestive tract ignores alot of what comes through it. But the problem with atkins is the damage caused by what it is not ignoring- I haven't read any studies, but I should think that having high levels of fat in the blood, especially saturated, hyprogenated, and high-cholesterol types, must be really shitty for your blood curculation. Sounds like a fucking heart attack in the making, to me.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:45 PM



Saturday, March 13, 2004 :::
 
Can we talk about Michael Heath please? Thanks.

::: posted by Jeff at 10:20 PM


 
My memory here is hazy, but wasn't there some point in Good Omens where Famine was describing a miraculous "health food" that had been invented, which tasted great and allowed people to lose spectacular amounts of weight to the point where they would, in fact, starve to death? It was basically some kind of odd manufactured food-like substance that had been engineered to be completely ignored by the digestive system.

This, I feel, would be the ultimate goal of the obsessive Atkins crowd. Atkins can probably make you lose weight pretty well, but, you know, the same can be said of heroin addiction. As a short term diet, it may or may not be perfectly acceptable, but the horror comes when trendy dieters with the intellect of a hedge decide that since getting relatively few carbs for a few weeks is good, getting no carbs forever must be GREAT.

Once more, from the top, real slow and real loud. CARBOHYDRATES ARE NOT BAD. CARBOHYDRATES ARE FUEL. YOU NEED THEM TO LIVE.

At some point in the future I plan to introduce my own "oxygen free" diet, wherein the human race can lose two or three hundred pounds in a matter of moments, and the world will be a better place.

::: posted by Carter at 6:49 PM


 
Atkins pisses me off too. However, it seems that this fad is slipping out of favor as research progresses. By "research" I mean "common sense."

I read recently (don't recall where, darnit) that a problem with Atkins is that it is a short-term diet only. It has been found that many of the Atkins success stories are waring off as the newly-skinny folks return to their old selves.

The best answer (I am led to understand) to losing weight? Moderation. But moderation is tough to make a profit on isn't it... The other answer I have heard (this morning, on NPR) is as simple as balancing the calories you take in with those that you burn.

I am eating cheese, on a cracker, right now.


::: posted by Jeff at 4:01 PM



Friday, March 12, 2004 :::
 
Short of litigating or fining the companies themselves (McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, &c.) in an effort to artificially inflate the cost of doing business, thus driving prices up, the next best thing that would accomplish what you wanted would be to levy a "sin tax" against, not necessarily the end product foods themselves a la cigarettes and alcohol, but some necessary component of grossly unhealthy foods, because these taxes will inevitably get passed on to the consumer anyway, and what the hell kind of sentence is this now?

The real trick would be determining some component of junk food that is universal enough that you would be able to pass a single tax and inflate prices across the board (grease, maybe? where does all that grease come from, anyway??). Well, no, I lied, the real trick would be pushing a new tax through congress that would adversely affect an industry that was able to lobby its way to a specified variance exempting them from the civil law that the rest of us are subject to. Incidentally, if mad cow ever manages to make its way over to this side of the pond in a meaningful way, it'll accomplish basically the same thing, since supply and demand would be borked for a while and beef would be as exspensive as anything. McDonad's would be almost just as screwed.

You're right, though. In the end, people just need to take responsibility for what they eat and be done with it. Because when you're looking at absolutely nothing but the bottom line, you'd be amazed at the kind of things that a company can make unhealthy. This is witnessed by the fact that the McDonald's "salads" may actually contain more fat than the cheeseburgers.

That frightens me.

::: posted by Carter at 3:48 PM


 
August J. Pollack at Xoverboard says it well:

"McDonald's sells greasy, fat-laden food with questionable labelling. The response is that Americans have to have "personal responsibility" and just not eat. Janet Jackson flashes her breast and Congress decides that it's time to demand $500,000 from Howard Stern. Where are the congressmen telling parents to "take personal responsibility" then? It's time to think of the children when they see a breast, but it's "absurd" to consider them when the advertisment for the restaurant that was on the same station ten minutes ago tells them it's alright to break 200 pounds consuming their product.

So apparently, the bottom line from Congress is that parents know what to feed their children; they're all just too stupid to know when to change the channel. "


I would extend the same argument to things like tobacco or alcohol. If people can excercize judgement about food, then surely than can take responsibility for their personal descision to smoke or drink as well? Sure, both are harmful and blatantly targeted to kids, but so is fast food. Tough shit, parents. Or how about, say, heroin? Why should it be illegal for the public good? Surely people can weigh the risks for themselves of taking heroin. And what if, hypothetically, companies aired television ads encouraging children to buy their heroin, luring them with free toys and games with every hit? Couldn't parents "excercize their judgement" then?

Why are parents left to fend for themselves about dangerous and killing food products, but when naked people or injectable drugs are involved, super govermnment man flies in and saves the day? Okay, you could make the argument that heroin destroys communities and lives, and that porno is wrong because God hates it and it makes kids start touching themselves. Fine. But next year obesity is expected to replace smoking as the number one killer in america. People are so goddamned fat they are DYING from it. Kids are getting diabetes from it. People are succumbing to diseases before middle age that are usually reserved for sickly octagenarians.

Incidentally, I don't believe in lawsuits as a solution. But neither, like a republican, do I believe that fats food companies should get to peddle whatever the hell they want. I don't believe that for teo reasons- one, I think people get as mentally addicted to fast food as chemically-addicted junkies. Have you ever seen someone trying to switch from fast food to a healthy diet? Nick, you know what I mean. Vegetables practically burn the fucker's throats, for Christ's sake. Secondly, fast food companies pretty much feed the poor and middle class people of america. In most any other country, healthy foods are cheapest, but here, thatnks to years of fast-food company influenced agricultural practices, cheap, unhealthy shit is the only thing poor folks can afford. Anything green of lowfat or healthy is through-the-roof expensive, especially to people in cities, whose health suffers the most from this situation.

So for these reasons, and because I'm an evil socialist government-loving liberal, I think the government should use it's means of controlling prices to shoot up the prices of things like products made with high fructose corn syrup, white bread, soda, beef from milking cows, and some other of the more offensively unhealthy components of fast food, so that low-quality shit food is no longer economically advantageous to cultivate and sell. ( I admit I'm being a bit vague here, but I'm not so much proposing exactly what to do, as more of a different way of going about it. I dont want fast food companies legally penalized into doing what's right- I want conditions changed so that they could not possibly continue doing business they way they are and surrvive. They can keep burgers , fries, and sodas on their menus, fine- but they should be an expensive luxury, not the bulk of the food.


::: posted by Comic Tools at 12:53 PM



Tuesday, March 02, 2004 :::
 
Is Iraq ready for the handbag of sovereignty?

(that's what I thought the BBC guy said, until I realized I was wrong.)

::: posted by Jeff at 9:16 AM

ARCHIVES :::

Ben, Nick, Molly, Matt, Carter, Maria, Christy, Jason, Greg, Eric, and UNCLE JEFF!! We are truly honored to have someone among us who is over 20 and claims to have some sort of responsibility. It won't last long.