Your vote matters. VOTE. Don’t let weather, work, long lines, bullies, picketers, or anything else stop you.
Nov 012008
Oct 252008
Remember that WASSSSSUPPPPPP commercial from a few years ago? Here it is again, revised for this year. (Via Twitter. Like, all of Twitter. It’s been going around the link carousel there for days)
I could not say it better than my very smart friend Chris Penn has in his blog post on why the proposed bail out is such a bad idea. Please go read his post, then call your congressman or senator immediately. Write them, email them, call them, twitter them -let them know how bad this would be by speaking out now and with your ballots in November.
Won’t you join me Sunday to discuss how to use social media to tackle the poverty gap?
There is now a push for a National Speed Limit to “help save gas”. Here’s an idea, folks. Spend that time and money on finding alternative fuel. Subsidizing the oil companies further to lower prices is something we should have stopped in the 70s. sure prices would have (and should have) been high ever since, but imagine how much better our public transportation systems and other infrastructure would be if we didn’t keep voting in favor of Big Oil’s wallet. Along those lines, gas saving by law making is a method that is too little, too late. If Mercedes Benz can admit that and phase out gas powered cars in 7 years, then the rest of us need to catch up and think out of the box. Full Article
You all know that I am not a fan of Dunkin Donuts, however their shenanigans this week took the cake. I planned to write about it here, but then I saw that my friend JP said it first, and said it better. Check it out.
Apr 072008
Content stealing is one of my all time pet peeves, especially when one blog writer steals from another blog writer. Bloggers work so hard for their audience, whether it is for pay or for their own personal reasons. To see your content on a splog or copied in total on some other web site is a slap in the face and goes against writer solidarity. I got so incensed at the issue this weekend that I wrote a post on Profy helping you find ways to fight plagiarism online. Check it out here. If I missed a method, or you just want to tell your story of plagiarism, leave me a comment over there and let me know. If we help each other out, we may be better able to fight the content thieves.
NOW LISTENING: dishwasher sounds, washing machine sounds, hubs on phone, cats yowling…. off to find my headphones and turn on iTunes
Mar 292008
WP 2.5 has been successfully installed here and on AppleGrrl. The rest of my blogs are next. 
Easy peasy. Hate the new dashboard look, but am exploring the feature set to write about on Profy tomorrow.
Meanwhile, my good friend Meleah of MommaMiaMeaCulpa fame was the victim of an employee error at her new host and registrar (I kid you not – a typo felled her blog until Monday, when the department is back in the office – nothing I can do, Meleah fans.). The entire move went perfectly smoothly on our end, and all was well. Then an employee made a typo on their end and disabled her blog. The poor customer service rep manning the late night phones was very apologetic, but sadly the issue was something he didn’t have the ability to fix for us. So you’ll have to check back Monday afternoon or so for the result of the next phone call. I know she is flipping out but once I get the department that caused the problem on the phone it should be an easy fix. I must admit this is a first for me – I’ve never had anyone’s blog I was tech support for dropped dead by a keystroke error at the host before.
Meleah Update: I should have her all fixed by 3PM Eastern 3/31/08, no worries.
PayPal is not in my good graces right now. There was a breach at the Hannafords grocery chain here, in which the credit and debit card files were stolen. All well and good, breaches happen, keep an eye for unwarranted charges and call your bank if they occur, right? Wrong! PayPal decided to cancel my debit card for me, without asking, “for my protection”. This means I can not get to any of my money until I get a new card – 2 to 4 weeks from now. I am beyond pissed, but unlike Meleah’s issue, this one will take longer to fix. Bills are bouncing all over the place as we speak – car payments, subscription services, you name it, it’s bouncing. The car is gas free, too, and grounded until further notice – gas money is in PayPal – it’s how my clients all want to pay me.
So it has been a looooong day. Back to Word Press upgrading. .
Mar 222008
Yesterday I rode in to work with honey and spent the day tooling around Mass with my MIL. We share a birthday week, so we always try and do something together that week now that we live close. Some years we drag the whole family along, going to see The Chieftains one year, Blue Man Group at the Charles, hitting the Comedy Stop, etc. This year we just kept it low key.
We started off at Trader Joes in Cambridge. It’s become something of a monthly tradition to go there and buy a metric ton of wine. She is in love with Two Buck Chuck (now really Three Buck Chuck thanks to inflation), but I buy a wide variety. Their prices are great. (And yes, we also get food. We aren’t complete winos. Sheesh.)
We hit Starbucks, went back to her house for lunch, then headed back out to go antiquing. I’m not a huge antique fan, but she loves it, and I like to browse the junk section, so we go. And the men are happy because they don’t have to go. She has a real eye for antiques, but I tend to prefer new. New everything – houses, cars, furniture, etc. The only thing I like old are vinyl records and books.
Anywho, I did find some lovely wine glasses in a variety of brightly colored glasses, which she insisted on getting for me for my birthday (thanks!) and a present for my friend Meleah. Which will be in the mail next week, and is a surprise. I can’t wait to see if she likes it – I thought of her immediately when I saw it.
So it was a good day, though long and full of travel time, but now I’m back and playing catch up with writing and such. How has your weekend been so far, blogosphere?
If you want to know why I’m incensed by this (and much more) read this article. The man being smartest and most honest about the situation right now is the head of the US Treasury, who opposes continued band aid practices of bail outs:
But Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has already declared his hostility to federal measures to help the sinking financial sector.
“Let me be clear: I oppose any bail-out,” he said in a speech 10 days ago.
“Most of the proposals I’ve seen would do more harm than good – bailing out investors, lenders or speculators who, instead of getting a free pass, should be accountable for the risks they took,” he said. “
We are already in the next recession. Refusing to mention the R word won’t make the bad financial practices of eight years of war and faulty GOP financial decisions (not to mention past bail outs and bad lending practices, an ever increasing deficit, no new taxes, etc) go away. Calling it a “slump” or a “slowdown” or a “downturn” won’t make that true.
The whole situation makes me angry, and we’ve reached a point where there are few solutions. A change in regime might help, but it won’t be a fast fix, putting the next candidate in a nearly impossible situation, even if they do a phenomenal job. The stimulus package is a terrible idea – that money should be used for reducing the federal deficit or handling other problems, not thrown away on the hope that millions of Americans might just buy a television or a game system instead of making that overdue mortgage payment or rent payment and hanging on to a place to live one more month.
It is times like this I’m glad I only have a rudimentary and functional grasp of economics. I have a feeling if I knew what was really going on I’d want to ask my Aussie contacts to sponsor a much bigger move than NH to NC.
Proving that yes, it can get worse, pro lifers demonstrated a complete lack of tact and flipped the virtual bird to hundreds of children in an auditorium, as well as kids and adults everywhere, with this little gem from HerBadMother. Seriously. I only wish I were kidding. Who protests abortion at a kids movie. In front of the kids. When the movie isn’t about abortion. Who? These people, apparently. This got me so riled up I can’t even think of what to say.
NOW LISTENING: the whir of my MacBook fan
Mar 092008
This went across my Twitter feed and I am SO FREAKED OUT right now. Story on the amount of other people and pet’s pharmaceuticals found in our drinking water. …starts researching home reverse osmosis systems…
Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public “doesn’t know how to interpret the information” and might be unduly alarmed.
“Unduly alarmed” my ass. I am alarmed all right. I may have nightmares at having my worst suspicions confirmed for a week, all the while frantically trying to think of something anything to drink daily that isn’t made from water.
NOW LISTENING: Patch Adams on TV
Now Microsoft has gotten in on the act (I wrote a piece about it on Profy). Not only that, Fox news has gotten in on it too – plastering the air waves with commercials for a new “exposé” on illegal downloads, even going so far as to use examples of cases that haven’t gone to trial yet at various colleges. The thing that is pissing me off is that they are making it sound like all file sharing is illegal, not just stolen music; that the laws are in place to support the RIAAs lawsuits, when they are not and in fact the RIAA is getting flack from the courts for how they file them; that the people can’t fight back, when in fact they can; and more.
To read more about the RIAA shenanigans, visit my series of posts on their thug tactics here, here, here, here, here and here (plus others linked within those posts).
**NSFWK**
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Ralph Nader announces (yet another) “bid” for the presidency.
You know what? Fuck you, Ralph Nader, and your massive ego trip, too. Every election we have to watch you jerk off in public, masturbating into our ballot boxes and eye fucking the camera. You are not a real politician, you are just another ego-driven yob who craves the limelight so much you don’t care who or what you damage to get it. You are no better than the school shooters and freeway snipers, doing anything to get your name in lights. So I say again, fuck you, Ralph Nader. I’d write an eloquent argument about why you shouldn’t run, similar to my argument about being willing to change my vote for change, but you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t listen because you don’t really care. Never mind the overwhelming need for change in this country and how your running will be a hindrance to getting that accomplished. Never mind how freeing up the votes you take might have changed the outcome of at least two previous elections and removed some ambiguity from the counts. You asked for the public to weigh in on whether or not you should run, and I know many who weighed in with a resounding NO. That level of response and interaction was just a teaser for you, though, a back alley hand job. A slippery step back on the road to your addiction – being on the television cameras and in print and online news. Once you had a taste of the rush from that sweet, sweet attention again, you couldn’t let it go, in spite of overwhelming public opinion that you should stay in whatever dark hole you live in between elections. Oh no, you had to go for the Full Monty and try for the reach around. Well, thanks for that, Ralph Nader. Now I have to spend another election cycle cleaning your cum off my monitor and television screen and trying not to get your stink on my fingers in the polling booth. Awesome.
NOW LISTENING: Ralph Nader’s 70s style porno campaign music
This little tidbit floated innocuously across my feeds today and got my full and undivided attention. Yet another reason to beware Real ID.
NOW LISTENING: the pitter pat of my paranoid little heart
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