Philosophical note #653: There will be misery in the world so long as the man that invented Furbies, Barney, Weatherpixis and we can't forget earworms-- those annoying songs you can't get out of your head particularly when you're feeling nauseous-- is allowed to run free.
Post script: In the "More-Seriously" Department |
Month: August 2003
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What’s the Charge, Officer?
As I promised Dan from Xanga, below is an update to my previous flog (flame-blog) of two days ago, "The daily Poo - Special Edition 'Wither goest thou, Xanga'".
Today the Xanga folks posted an ablogogy (apology-blog) that explains the odd behavior we have encountered the last week or so. But after reading the blog, I think it still leaves one to wonder why Dan was quick to explain the power outage, which was easy to figure out, but only made cursory reference to why the servers were down for several days before that last week. Though an earlier blog explains the suspected DDoS attack during the first week of August.
I give him credit for the effort he put into trying to restore connectivity during the blackout - and to be fair, it sounds as if he did everything he needed to on that end (although, the tone is sometimes as such that it seems to want us to feel sorry for him for doing what is essentially part of that type of job.) It appears though Xanga realizes it needs to communicate with users by placing announcements where we will find them (not all of us I fear, subscribe to Dan’s blog---though I am now and I would recommend it
). If announcements at the site don’t work, I would send out a mass e-mail, just explaining the rudiments of the current ordeal. But, no one is perfect and we are all a work in progress.
So in all fairness, I give Dan props. I think they are really busting their butts up there. I am a new Xangite, so I may well be behind the curve on some of the Xangese ways. But as a paid lifetime premium member who thought he had thoroughly done his homework before deciding to Xang-it, I just kept thinking, “Great, I could have bought five Gwyneth Paltrow DVD’s…
”
-Blogbat
Post script
To my knowledge, I think I just coined "Flog" and "Ablogogy", though if there is already someone who has, I'm sure he is laying low.
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Shock Value
While politicians & pundits cannot pass up casting blame, citizens remain calm, civil.
As day two of the Great Blackout of 2003 passes slowly by, so far, so good. Yesterday, we were happy to discover that the American spirit of goodwill and cooperation in adversity is very much alive and well. As New Yorkers and residents of many other U.S. and Canadian cities in the northeast lost power during the most severe blackout in U.S. history, affecting around 50 million people – that’s nearly a quarter of the U.S. population – residents pulled together in Norman Rockwell fashion. Americans pooled money, transportation; fairly well everything to help each other with the basics, such as getting home, finding water and calling loved ones. After darkness fell, neighborhood families met together as a community in backyards with candles and board games. Children played together until
The National Guard stayed home. No declarations of disaster were made and even in the somewhat infamous
So far, the only place which seems to be panicking is Michigan, where Governor Jennifer Granholm declared a state of emergency, citing water shortages in the Great Lakes state.
The Power outage took the northeast by storm yesterday and happened so fast, according to MSNBC, that it may have damaged some of the power plants which were shut down too quickly. And this may slow the process of re-energizing parts left in the dark. In response in part to this, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated in a news conference today they may fire up a new local power plant which until now has been prevented from starting due to legal maneuverings and court orders related to a law suit by parties opposed to the plant, citing that this may help restore power to the area more quickly.
The blackout happened yesterday shortly after
It took about 10 minutes for the news to trickle in about exactly what just happened or how severe it was. Cell phone signals were lost and many landlines were down, hampering the process of discovery even more. This, as thousands of New York commuters were trapped in darkened subway tunnels with no word of what exactly had gone wrong or if, perhaps the worst had happened again.
Today, New York Mayor Bloomberg praised his city for their civility and courage after last night’s rush-hour nightmare. The mayor stated that all non-essential city workers would be off today and encouraged those who did not absolutely need to travel to work, to treat the day as a “snow day” and said he would open up all of the city parks and lakes, at no charge for those who wished to take advantage of a warm “Friday in August”.
Meanwhile reports of looting came in last night from cities in
At this time, power has returned to a significant portion of the grid and is expected to continue its slow march to full capacity possibly by some time this weekend. Public transportation will take some extra time however to be fully realized, as customary diagnostics and other work must be done after power is restored. This can take up to eight hours in some cases.
--Martin a.k.a. Blogbat
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The daily Poo
“Look stimpy! eet's Poooooo!”
Okay, here's some of what went down today
1. Got a Starbucks frap.
2. Let the dog out. (yes, I did it, "woof, woof woof")
3. Checked my e-mail, foxnews, drudgereport, yadda yadda.
4. I looked for financially solvent companies
5. Worked, ran errands
6. I attempted bloggage but Xanga was down again. Glad I am getting my money's worth...
8. Getting ready for music practice
6. started typing this puppy.
What is Your Expression Score?
Today, I sent an e-mail to a family member who works at an executive position at a major nationally-known hospital and in this fine and dandy, benign-looking message was a joke I had recently read on one of the political message boards I frequent. Knowing his political disposition...not to mention his disposition in general, I thought he would really enjoy it.
But within mere moments I received a warm reply from the e-mail server, in my family member’s stead, rejecting my not-so-exceedingly-tawdry message and its contents for violating an appearent e-mail language policy set forth recently by newly hired technology guru’s who, from appearences here, just immigrated from Afghanistan. Worse yet, on (mostly) trumped up charges, no less! Just like those bloody Taliban, I say.
At any rate, here is my auto-flame:
-----Original Message-----
From: Email Admin
Gesendet: Sonntag, 10. August 2003 16.01 Uhr
An: (Me)
Betriff: St. So & So's Hospital Email Policy Notification
St. So & So's Hospital email system is intended for business purposes. This email was intercepted as violating the company's offensive inbound email policy and will not be delivered to the recipient. Should this email have been intercepted inadvertently, please reply to this message and insert the words 'NOT OFFENSIVE' in the Subject line and attach the original message. The email will be viewed before being forwarded onto the intended recipient. If this is personal and confidential, please find an alternate method of delivery.
Message information:
Date: 08/10/2003, 04:00:56 PM
To: "Relative" <yaddayaddayadda>
Subject: Hillary Joke
Reason:
List:Offensive (Weighted)
Found the expression "ba***rd" 6 times, at 3 points each, for an expression score of 18 points. =============================================================
Total Message Score: 18 points.
...Ticking off the e-mail admin: Priceless.
I rarely, if ever send jokes with even moderate „language“, but this one was just too relavant to the story. I guess that was enough to have my e-mail message Tali-banned.
Unfortunately, the system really doesn’t help by showing you how to score really big, which removes some of the fun. Plus, I was surprised "Hillary" wasn't at least worth a few...but I suppose technology is a work in progress.
He did get the modified one I resent, which slipped past the not-so slick politburo. As with most filtering software, adding a random character usually does the trick.
I think I will save the message and use it to reply to anybody I don’t wish to communicate with electronically however, since that could be useful. To add even more punch, I secured a mailer-daemon email address awhile back from an ISP (they forgot to reserve it). Not only does this address cause me to receive hundreds of stupid notification emails from other servers a day, but on the bright side it gives me really authentic looking message-rejected replies I can send to people and other servers.
Oh, and if you were interested in the joke itself, here it is below (how could I leave you in suspense?)
Enjoy!
(FYI, this is one of the very FEW times I publish PG stuff in here...ya know, try to keep it clean so my dog can surf it safely. Dogs are pretty corrupt to begin with, so I try my very best to Christianize them.)
Hark! The offending joke:
Hillary Clinton Pregnant
Hillary Clinton went in for her annual checkup. When she was finished, she asked her gynecologist how things looked. He responded, "I'm pleased to tell you that not only are you in great condition, but you're a month pregnant, too!
"Hillary told the doctor there was no way, but he said that she most definitely was a month pregnant. She stormed out of the office, went to the receptionist, grabbed a phone and called Bill.
When the receptionist/intern answered, she announced herself and demanded to speak to Bill right away. So she rang his office and Bill answered.
Hillary said, "Do you know what you did, you rotten Bä***rd? You got me pregnant!!!"
The President remained silent.
Again, Hillary screamed, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, YOU ROTTEN BÄ***RD? YOU GOT ME PREGNANT!!!"
Finally Bill answered, "Who is this?"
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Since we were on the topic of that pesky shortbus-oriented Iraqi military, I had to put this pic up also. If you buried your car, what would you be sure to cover before the sand and ROCKS were poured on top of it? Oooh! The Windshield! I feel MIT scholarships coming...Fortunately they only had a gyroscope and an old Atari joystick inside to replace.
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Lost MiG
The below pix were recently declassified, after which someone e-mailed them to me. I am fairly certain one of the main reasons for these having been released is to irrefutably illustrate the all too inescapable point.
What does Blogbat think that point is?: Wow.
Document and some of the pictures below:
UNCLASSIFIED
I wanted to add a note at the end about the third picture. You can't see it, but on the side of the truck that is towing the MiG are painted the words, "Let's Roll". Let's not forget why we are there, even as we find compelling evidence that it's a good thing we are.
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Le Blog Politique de Jours pour Jeudi...
First Amendment and Do-Not-Call – It’s All About Who Owns the Presses
One of those quiet-yet-mighty battles is currently being waged. Beginning in January of this year, a consortium of four telemarketers filed suit in federal court in
The law is now facing its time in the court system, which we are happy to say will not go anywhere near the infamously liberal ninth circuit.
Once the law goes into effect in October, violators could face fines of $11,000 per violation. This should especially discourage small-time snake-oil salesmen.
But it seems that one obvious and key part of the kings anatomy is not being mentioned.
As we gear up for a full-fledged battle in the courts and on the Sunday talk shows, I think first there’s one argument that needs to happen:
A media outlet or publisher such as the Fox News Channel, CBS or the Washington Post newspaper own their medium of communication. More specifically, they either physically own the hardware and locations they operate or they lease these and are thus justified in determining their purposes within the provisions of the contract. For businesses to advertise, they must pay Fox News or the
Likewise, the phone customer owns his or her phone. He or she has paid the phone company to lease connectivity to the local telephone network. Thus, he or she is justified in determining their purposes within the provisions of the contract. Therefore it is unreasonable for a telemarketer to assume he has the right to advertise on a medium for which he has not paid unless the telemarketer is made a party in the aforementioned contract. While the telemarketer has paid for his own phone line, this only gives him the right to solicit himself, but neither has anyone else the right to solicit him unless he allows it.
Another precedent for this line of thought is found with internet service providers. ISP’s such as earthlink and more recently AOL have begun to follow the model set forth by the premium cable channels to a great extent with regard to advertising. Granted, there too is needed room for improvement, but there is progress. However, those who advertise as sanctioned by these ISP’s do so because your contract with the ISP and their contract with the advertiser each permits it. Had it not, they would have no right to use the ISP’s web space to do so. In more stark example, those such as Juno's free service cover all of their costs with ads as agreed upon. In point of fact, aside from the current telephone service system, there is really no other communications medium where the advertiser assumes he has a right to advertise without paying the one who owns the medium or method the agreed-upon fee.
Now, that said, I think there is a great workaround that follows the ISP and commercial media example that could benefit all ethical parties, with the added twist of even addressing a new issue on the horizon: Helping the poor who cannot afford telephone service.
Suppose businesses wished to underwrite the cost of phone service for customers who desired to participate. In return, they would retain the right to market to those customers. Again, exempli gratia, ISP’s and media outlets.
Since there are a goodly number of people who would opt in to this, particularly college students and those on fixed incomes, the advertisers would have their ready market.
This would help to also flush out the scam artists who would be locked out of such deals and would already be recognized as committing a crime simply for placing the call in the first place.
Perhaps with this line of reasoning some clear thinking could be infused into these bellicose legal wranglings. What is more simple than "you do not have a constitutional right to my stuff".
Post Script
Additional sources can be found here:
Bush Signs Do-Not-Call bill into Law
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news03/dnc_law.html
Telemarketers Sue over Proposed Do-Not-Call Bill
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57478,00.html
AOL Advertising Schemes
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,929132,00.asp
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The daily Poo
So far it is a balmy 81°F (27°c) outside in Tennessee today. But don’t be too self-assured of your ability to survive this heat wave, it actually FEELS like 83°F (29°c) Yes, it is shaping up to be a day in which the masses can safely wear shorts (provided they are not of the planetarily strained bikershort veriety, with which I have some qualms (one of my chief determiners for not shopping at Wal-Mart especially late at night).
Back in Texas right now people live among collective moans of misery as the thermostat continues to climb and the black asphalt flames of shopping mall parking lots and lunchtime eateries continue to rise up against the feet and faces of its hearty tormented ones, almost to embody the gehennish laughter of devils. Or maybe fugitive state senators.
People wonder why Texans are so tough. It is my opinion that it results from four months each year spent on broil. Maybe some people get tough and crusty mixed up. But irrespective of the process, the argument can be made that it is why our babes are hot…at least in the summer, like everyone else.
Okay, here's what I did today:
1. Got a Starbucks frap.
2. Let the dog out. (yes, I did it, "woof, woof woof")
3. Checked my e-mail, foxnews, drudgereport, yadda yadda.
4. I looked for financially solvent companies while listening to Glenn Beck on the radio (he is usually cool - incidentally, I did not get any ideas for my site design from him. It was sheer creative coincidence. However, it has helped me to understand at least to some extent the feeling a women gets when she sees another woman at the party with the same dress on she bought and is wearing today. Guess that means I now have to scratch Glenn's eyes out and spread slanderous whispers...developing...)
5. I blogged locally and abroad.
6. started typing this puppy.
7. Will add things in BLUE to the daily Poo as it is warranted, so stay tuned. (I never flush until the end of the day…at least in blogville!)
Le Pim's
for you, maaan.
Went to the store and met a really cool, cute chica in the check-out line (isn't that what those lines are for?) Anyway, unfortunately it wasn't the produce isle this time, but who knows I might see her again at Starbuck's or at the store. I will keep my eye on the price of eggs. (Please, no flames, I beg ye).
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