Posts Tagged ‘media’

• This isn’t Lorenzo’s oil

  Date: 2008.07.21 | Category: ahh the news, links! | Response: 1

  Theories attempting to explain the current oil market are quite varied. Wired has compiled a list of the top eight reasons and delves into each one. Its worth a read if you’ve got a few minutes to spare.

• The media only gets paid if you stay afraid

  Date: 2008.03.12 | Category: ahh the news, rants | Response: 0

  The media loves to sensationalize every single thing that might cut your life short at a moments notice. Over the past few years they’ve run the entire gamut. Off the top of my head there is MSRA (staph infection), bird flu, West Nile virus, terrorism, (normal) flu, Africanized bees, pit bulls, overgrown snakes, and SARS.

  So lets take a look at the list -

  MSRA – MSNBC ran a piece of schlock detailing how your pets could pass the a staph infection to you. This is exactly what we need, millions of geriatrics living in fear of their lap dogs and armies of cats. I can see it now, millions of old people across America are screaming at Fluffy to get away from them. Blue haired and bald people will grab their walkers and canes and rush out the door without remembering to put their teeth in. Old and unable to see over the wheel they take out 3 cars on the way to the pharmacy. Once inside they yell at the top of their lungs for all of the disinfectant, breathing masks, and latex gloves they can find. They aren’t yelling because they need help – they’re yelling because their hearing aids have long since working. The other alternative is that they are yelling because the volume is cranked so high the unit is causing feedback on itself – the poor attendant can only try to understand them as he grits his teeth from the high pitch squelch.

  Bird flu – Despite the days spent covering this story only a handful of people have actually contracted this illness. The only one that sticks to the top of my mind is that of a young girl who contracted the disease IN 2006 and later died. It later came out that she was so sad about the death of her favorite chicken that she drug the dead body around and would kiss it. Its no wonder she got the disease – she had no concept of how diseases travel – she couldn’t have known. Her parents should have but not all of us live in a 1st world country – well, we can’t call all of the US a first world country. Trailer parks exist in the southern US (think Florida) where inbreeding and stupidity have risen to epic levels. Three legged troglodyte children run around and eat whatever vermin they can find while yelling that the south will rise again – this rhetoric has been pounded into their heads by the overweight, heavily tattooed, parents who live solely on welfare because the “mexicans” are stealing their jobs.

  West Nile virus Human infection is quite rare – in fact the odds of you even catching this disease in 2005 was 1/72,000. The mortality rate was far less – 1/1,724,000. I really done think we have anything to worry about here.

  Terrorism – we could go on for DAYS about this one. As Bush says – something something something “or the terrorists will win”. It really doesn’t matter what comes first – it could be something as mundane as “you need to brush your teeth twice a day or the terrorists will win.” It really doesn’t matter – unless you are on patrols in Iraq the odds of the average American dying from a terrorist attack is infinitesimally small. Well, its not really that small but there hasn’t been a major terrorist attack in the US since 9/11 – the odds get smaller with each passing year.

  The Flu – Every year millions of young and old are warned about the shortage of the flu vaccine. Every year people flip the hell out. You will probably be fine unless you have an abnormally weak immune system. If the medical system in your country would be ill equipped for an outbreak – say like China – they may shut down your schools if a few children become ill. Yes, the flu is bad this year but its BAD EVERY YEAR!

  Africanized bees – this one is seldom talked about because there are very few cases. There was a case in the past week where a mans dog was stung to death. I have a feeling the dog got too close to the bee hive and caused them to react defensively. People shouldn’t go running around in abject terror whenever they see a bee. I’m sure there is someone that put plastic tape over all of their doors and windows when they heard about this threat. I also have a feeling that this person defecates into glass jars and keeps them in their house cuz, ya know, you just might need that jar of urine.

  Pit bulls – People train dogs to be aggressive – this breed, in particular, has an extremely strong bite, large size, and is owned by idiots that treat their dogs like hell (Michael Vick?). Any dog can be aggressive – the most aggressive dog also happens to be one of the smallest. Yes, its yo quiero time – the chihuahua.

  Overgrown snakes – Jessica can skip this paragraph – I’ve seen quite a few stories about how large snakes are eating household pets in the southern United States. Yippie dogs and cats are the prime targets – meh – let the snakes eat them. It could be that we are destroying their habitat and their food chain forcing them to move. Alternatively, pets could be a far easier prey that have few ingrained fight or flight characteristics and are far better targets. I don’t think we have anything to worry about – unless we get on a plane because there might just be snakes on that plane… yep… snakes on a plane.

  SARS – SARS goes hand in hand with the flu – don’t spend your nights treading the carpet bare while worrying about contracting this version of the flu virus. The mortality rate is high – but – a flu epedemic is bound to happen once in a while. Further scientific research will allow us to counter each strain – of course – the SUPERBUG is still out there – we can’t stop that one.

  *runs off to build a clean room*

  Why would the media make such a big deal out of this stuff? They’ve got 24 hours of programming to fill – and you can only have so many public interest stories… wait… never mind.

  You can split it 80/10/9/1
  80% sensationalization
  10% over analysis
  9% public interest
  1% real honest to god news

• Links!

  Date: 2008.02.20 | Category: links! | Response: 0

  I’ve had extra time to scour the internet for interesting articles – here’s what I’ve found in the last few days

  A college educated man experimented to see if he could rise from the ashes with only $25 in his pocket. His goal: to get a job, a car, an apartment, and put some money in the bank before the end of the year without using any of his connections. He succeeded – read his story

  America may never become energy dependent unless we make a drastic change in the way we educate our young and the way we value everything in our society – read on

  The author believes that we are accepting ignorance and that we are systematically dumbing ourselves down because – its just too hard. Its a fascinating read and ties into a book I am reading about globalization.

  Stanford conducted a study on voting patterns based upon how people associate with a candidate – based upon the candidates appearance vs. their own. Great stuff – a summary is available here and you can read the full text at Stanford.edu

  We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001 and we have still not captured or killed our number one target. Many believe that he is hiding in the mountains nearing the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. We have tried to make strikes in Pakistan in the past but have faced stiff opposition when seeking approval – this time we didn’t ask for permission and we found that there were no complaints made in the end. Hmmm… who would have thought – read on at MSNBC.

  CNN fired a producer, Chez Pazienza, for writing on a personal blog – he was not writing about his life experiences while never mentioning his employer. Its a fascinating read about corporate politics – read on

• A little bit of that and this and that and a….

  Date: 2008.02.07 | Category: desert, rants | Response: 1

  Ok, so I still haven’t done what I set out to do on my day off but I’m getting closer to it with each passing week. I have extremely little free time on a daily basis as I have scheduled only enough time to plow through my routine. There is no extra time for anything else unless I want to cut into my sleep schedule. I do well on 6 hours of sleep but 7 is better. Unfortunately, I don’t move fast enough when I wake up and that extra hour is imperative. Jessica, on the other hand, wants 10 hours of sleep a night. I have no idea how she sleeps that much and still has enough time to do everything. Even when I am bored and have little to do sleep is always a last option for me – she is down for a nap at almost anytime of the day. Often she insists that I join her – Read the rest of this entry »

• Bored and broke

  Date: 2007.09.17 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 1

  Its so hard to stay conveniently occupied and entertained and keep money in the bank account. As it stands now I’m on the edge of broke; but, I’m not completely broke so I still have a little bit of breathing room. The new job is going to help out a bunch and I may catch an extra couple of shifts much to the chagrin of Jessica. I need this money and I need to get ahead of things. If I work as little as 20 hours a week I’ll net a few hundred extra a month and it gets me out of hot water immediately. I’m not late on anything right now but if I went another month this way I’d be forced to start doing something drastic like selling plasma or becoming a male prostitute. I really don’t want to become a male prostitute for a few reasons (who else has time to think this out? ) – the clientèle I would draw would be much like the women that Rob Schneider attracted in Deuce Biggalo, the STD’s would be a huge drawback, the military would probably imprison me for trying (thus exacerbating the lack of income), and it would drive Jessica away (again, another bad thing). I could start selling my plasma to make a few bucks here and there but it freakin hurts. I had a friend in HS whose sole source of income was from the plasma he harvested from his body. I’m waiting to go to the desert because I can stop paying for a two giant money killers: rent and food. Both are paid for in the desert and I can take that cash and throw it on a bill. Hopefully, I’ll be down one credit card by the time I get back. If I’m good I’ll be able to get one partially gone before I leave.

  It sucks being broke but its nobody’s fault but my own. I’m stupid for doing it and I hope to hell I’ll figure out how dumb I’ve been and never repeat my mistake.

  Boredom is synonymous with a lack of creativity and lack of cash flow. There are very few things I can do that take absolutely no money. Think about it – if you want to go somewhere you’ve got to drive and use gas – even if you spend nothing while there you’re out the gas. Unfortunately if you’re gone for long enough you’ll need to bring some food. Sure, you’ve got some stuff in your house that you can bring with you but thats the stuff you bought for lunches during the week. The other option is to eat on the road and spend cash that you didn’t want to spend in the first place.

  So, if you’ve got some extremely low cost ideas on how to spend your off duty time let me know – you can only watch TV and goof around on the internet so much – both of which cost money – before you’ve run the gamut and need to find something else to do.

  Gee – this was quite a long rambling post – it saved me from boredom for a few minutes but its a solo activity and left out somebody thats sitting on the couch begging for my attention