Yeah, that seems about right

You Are 44% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

Hat-tip to Leingirlz for the link.

tagged: evil, good, world domination

...but is it against the law?

I saw on TV this morning (between my 3-year-old's episodes of Little Einsteins and The Doodlebops) this story about Walgreens being sued for insulting customers.

My first reaction was to stop chuckling. My second reaction was to wonder whether insulting customers is a crime.

To be sure, it's a bad business practice. I mean, who wants to be insulted when they're shopping? Personally, I stopped shopping at Priscilla's after they made fun of me when I asked for extra small condoms (even though I made it clear that they weren't for me, but for "a friend").

But I don't know if Walgreens employees broke any laws when they called several customers "CrAzY" and "B--tch," especially if the customers in question truly are crazy and b--tchy.

Have we really become so thin-skinned and touchy to over-react by such a degree just for having a few expletives placed by our names in a corporate database? Wouldn't the reasonable action be to take your business elsewhere?

Of course, litigious as our society has become, there will be a civil lawsuit and the lawyer of the three plaintiffs will make a ton of money from the deal and prices at Walgreens will go up for all of the other customers.

If there are any lawyers out there (Dan?), I'd love to hear read your thoughts.

tagged: Walgreens, customers, Florida, lawsuit

I'll see your Super Bowl and raise you an All-Star Game

Backers of the billion dollar boondoggle that is the proposed Rolling Roof addition to the Truman Sports complex have sweetened the pot for Jackson County suckers, er.. voters.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig promised Kansas City that the Royals can host the All-Star Game sometime between 2010 and 2014. Of course, the promise came with a proviso, a quid pro quo with which Jackson County voters are already familiar.

According to MLB.com the "honor" is contingent on the successful ballot measure to approve nearly a billion dollars in improvements for the sports complex.

"Major League Baseball is excited about the opportunity to bring an All-Star Game back to Kansas City," said commissioner Bud Selig in making the announcement. "Kauffman Stadium's construction played a key role in the transformation of modern-day ballparks. With the approval of the proposed renovations, this historic venue will once again be transformed into one of the crown jewels of Major League Baseball."

The same deal applies to the hypothetical Super Bowl that was promised after the stadium tax is approved.

Selig claims that the All-Star Game will bring $50-55 million in revenue to Kansas City as it did for Detroit in 2005. That's an investment of nearly $1Billion for a return of $50 Million.

But given the math skills demonstrated by Jackson County officials in negotiating leases for the sports complex over the past few years, I can totally see this making sense to them.

tagged: Kansas City, Royals, Truman Sports Complex, Jackson County, baseball, tax, stadium

Victim of intellectual fashion

Contratimes author and all-around good guy Bill Gnade posted the other day a link to a Wall Street Journal interview with author and social critic Tom Wolfe.

Mr. Gnade referred to and commented on some of Wolfe's views on email, the Internet and by extension, blogs. Good points were made by all, but my attention was piqued by other statements made by Wolfe, specifically, this notion of intellectual fashion. From the interview:

This is Tom Wolfe's MO--sorting out and at once demolishing pretension, snobbery, vanity in all its guises. "There is such a thing as intellectual fashion--just as we get our clothing fashions--and often it does not mean anything more," he says. "One follows fashion in order to look proper, and it's the same thing with ideas."

The current height of intellectual fashion is to consider the Bush administration an abject failure. To dare to consider that anything positive might come from the administration at this point marks you as an intellectual square by the self-proclaimed intellectual elite.

It's something Wolfe takes exception with:

George Bush's appeal, for Mr. Wolfe, was owing to his "great decisiveness and willingness to fight." But as to "this business of my having done the unthinkable and voted for George Bush, I would say, now look, I voted for George Bush but so did 62,040,609 other Americans. Now what does that make them? Of course, they want to say--'Fools like you!' . . . But then they catch themselves, 'Wait a minute, I can't go around saying that the majority of the American people are fools, idiots, bumblers, hicks.' So they just kind of dodge that question. And so many of them are so caught up in this kind of metropolitan intellectual atmosphere that they simply don't go across the Hudson River. They literally do not set foot in the United States.

It's interesting to read these statements in light of comments made by many bloggers in conjunction with the third "anniversary" of the war in Iraq.

I think one way to identify intellectual fasionistas is by the degree to which they are open to examining all (not "both") sides of a story.

For example, Joshua at TFK recently gave his version of a numerical rundown of the war in Iraq.

"2318 American soldiers have died in Iraq, a total of 2525 coalition soldiers. Credible reports attribute 33,710-37,832 Iraqi civilian casualties to military actions since the invasion, credible epidemiological research puts the number of excess fatalities above 100,000. In 1,100 days, that amounts to ten people a day who didn't have to die."

What Joshua doesn't consider is the number of people who would have died if other, or no, action had been taken. Granted, most people would expect casualties not to be as high. But then, most people in Kansas City wouldn't have expected more than 120 homicides last year.

The intellectually fashionable fail to consider numbers from other sides of the issue:

• 1,581 Iraqi civilians killed by Islamic terrorists so far this year
• 4,535 deadly terrorist attacks since the attack on The World Trade Centers in New York
• 3,262 people have been killed by Islamic terrorists in America in 37 terror attacks since 1973.

All this isn't to say that the war in Iraq has been carried out flawlessly. It hasn't. There have been many missteps with fatal consequences, and the administration has shown incompetence on multiple occasions.

But, as Mr. Gnade notes in a separate post, there is no such thing as a perfect war or a perfect world. And mistakes have to be weighed against the cost of doing nothing at all. The the best way to do this is with objectivity and intellectual honesty.

Of course, that is much more difficult and takes more effort than following the intellectual fashion trends.

tagged: Iraq, war, terrorists, Wall Street Journal, Tom Wolfe, Bush, intellectual, fashion, casualties

Trials and tribulations

It looks like the Cruisetians (also known as Scientologists) are taking another kick in the PR chones.

By now you've surely heard/read about the flack thrown by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone when it was reported that Isaac Hayes had announced he was leaving the show in protest to the way Cruisetians were satirized.

Now it turns out that that might not be true. But before the buzz can clear, comes the allegation that Scientology and Maverick are being blamed for a woman's death. MSNBC reports:

The ad refers readers to a Web site, which provides details on the case of Jeremy Perkins, a 28-year-old schizophrenic who stabbed his mother to death. Perkins was a staunch Scientologist and his mother was a counselor in the church — which opposes psychiatry and psychiatric drugs and "believes modern psychiatric medicine derives from an ancient alien civilization's plot to drug and enslave humanity," notes the site.

So, it's not a good time to be a Scientologists. But all fledgeling religions have gone through tough times. Well Cruisetians, take heart. It's only 85 more years until Comet Hale/Bopp returns and you can all hitch a ride to paradise on the Giant Space Ark.

tagged: pop culture, TV, Isaac Hayes, South Park, Scientology, Tom Cruise, Top Gun

Wrath of grapes

A growing and insidious group of extremists continues to launch attacks in small towns and business throughout Europe.

These attacks aren't coming from Islamic extremists or anti-semitic neo-Nazis. No, the group behind the latest violence calls itself C.R.A.V. and it attacks the very life-blood of rural French, Spanish and Italian agriculture.

According to BeverageDaily.com:

Masked men, claiming to be from the shadowy Regional Action Committee of Winemakers (CRAV), took just 20 minutes last Friday to break open several of Val d'Orbieu's wine vats, sending millions of bottles-worth of French wine gushing into the street.

Devic told BeverageDaily.com the damage could cost between €1.5m and €2m. "It is all French wine, I hope there will not be any more [attacks]," he said.

Evidently, members of the terrorist organization C.R.A.V. are striking out against large, corporate wine producers because the producers aren't paying enough for the grapes they by from regional farmers.

BeverageDaily.com (a website dedicated to drinking? sweeet) reported that CRAV attacks have increased in ferocity and intensity since Christmas, and millions of litres of Spanish, Italian and French wine have been spilled in streets across the region.

And I guess I can understand their point of view. I mean, why fight about insignificant things like religion and democracy when French wine is at stake.

In vino veritas

tagged: France, Spain, Italy, wine, Europe, CRAVE, terrorists

Rock Chalk WuShock

Here's a shoutout to the best college basketball team in Kansas, you know, the one that didn't loose to Bradley in the first round of the NCAA Tourney?

In case you haven't been keeping up with current events (or if you're from Lawrence), Wichita State University represented by taking out No. 2 seeded Tennessee on Friday while KU was busy wetting themselves.

Anyway, mad props to the Shockers and best of luck in the Sweet 16.

tagged: Wichita State University, WSU, Shockers, WuShocker, basketball, NCAA, March Maddness, Kansas, Tennessee

Hey, let's play the Amelie Game

It's been a while, but I've decided to bring back The Amelie Game.

Here's how it works: I list three things I like and three things I dislike from the previous week. Then, you add your own list in the comments.

So here we go with this week's likes and dislikes:

Things I like

• St. Patrick's Day (even if it's freezing)
  
• New season of The Sopranos (Can you believe Tony got shot in the very first episode of the season?!?!)
  
• YouTube (this one is great!)

Things I dislike

• mutant cyborg insects
  
• filing my tax return
  
• Blogger's crappy servers (now they'll intentionally fuck with me)

Okay, now let's see what you like/dislike this week. And remember, if you don't add your comments, you're letting the terrorists win.

tagged: Amelie, Blogger, Sopranos, YouTube, taxes, cyborg, insects St. Patrick's Day

test post

I've been getting a weird error, so this is a test post.

Man, Blogger better not be fucking with me!

tagged: test, Blogger, error

HUAR alert!

I used to think those people over at Humans United Against Robots were a bunch of crackpots. Then I read what DARPA is up to, and I'm telling you, this has Terminator 4 written all over it.

"In an announcement posted on government Web sites last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, says it is seeking "innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect cyborgs," by implanting tiny devices into insect bodies while the animals are in their pupal stage."

If this sounds familiar, it's probably because it's been the basic plot of several sci-fi horror movies. One of the creepiest, of course, is Demon Seed -- in which a super computer succeeds in raping its creator's wife in order to recreate itself in a hybrid baby.

I can see it now, DARPA develops robots to build cyborg sensory insects. Only, the robots decide to build a few "specialty" cyborg insects, and comical mayhem ensues.

If you're involved with this project, take action. A little sabotage now might just save the human race.

tagged: science, robots, cyborg, DARPA, HUAR, sci-fi, Demon Seed, movie