(funny... but with a jab to the city I call home, by a publication from Buffalo)
Glad someone else recognizes that Jim Lehrer isn't liberal just because PBS is not hysterically conservative.
But I only ever heard of about a quarter of the people on that list. There were only 20 I knew something about. And only 10 I would recognize in a line-up. (Though I couldn't be sure I'd recognize Michael Jackson in a line-up if he's been under the knife yet again in the past year.)
At least I wouldn't recognize myself in a line-up apparently... Because I actually don't buy a lot of useless crap, I'm not in any debt, I don't have a big tv, I really am trying to cut processed foods out of my diet, and I've never been much interested in any awards shows of any type, much less in what anybody wears to them.
"If Degeneres were a straight man, she�d be getting booed off the stage at a tiny club in Scranton right about now."
I live in Scranton, and I don't think she'd even make it onto a stage in any club in Scranton if she were a straight man. Though I will admit, she'd probably be warmly welcomed as herself, a lesbian, in a gay club in Scranton, naturally.
But don't make assumptions about Scranton, please. We have some damn funny people in the area.
I happen to have recently met a local comedian who lives in Scranton, and who performs in Manhattan clubs. And the young man is funny, I must say. And I haven't even seen him do stand-up in a club - I saw him when he wasn't getting paid, and wasn't necessarily trying to be funny. So I imagine he must be even more funny when he actually performs as a comedian. For what it's worth, I think his name is Joe Van something or other & apparently he's done stand-up at Farley's in Scranton. I believe he's straight, though he didn't specify, and I wouldn't know from personal experience.
But then I should consider the source... The BEAST shows an address in Buffalo, New York, a place lampooned in the hilarious movie, Buffalo 66, so I don't know where they get off poking fun at Scranton.
("Their revolution was televised, but nobody watched." Probably because only about 15% of the world has internet access, and probably less than 5% read blogs... and not everyone watches tv either)
The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven't paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences. Radio killed the "special edition," but newspapers survived. When television dethroned radio as the hearthside infobox and cratered the Hollywood box office, radio became a mobile medium, and Hollywood devoted itself to spectaculars that the tiny TV set couldn't adequately display. The competitive spiral has continued, with cable TV, VCRs and DVDs, satellite TV and radio broadcasters, and now Internet broadcasters entering the fray. The only extinct mass medium that I can think of is the movie house newsreel.
The likelihood that blogs will vanquish mainstream media recalls the prediction Michael Crichton made in his 1993 essay "Mediasaurus." Crichton wrote that the New York Times and one commercial TV network would vanish within a decade and would be replaced by artificial-intelligence agents, skimming information and the news from news databases and composing front pages or broadcasts tailored to the interests and needs of individuals. Like Shamberg's guerrilla revolution, Crichton's infotopia failed to arrive as promised. In 2002, Crichton good-naturedly claimed that his vision will still come true; it's just running a little late.
Maybe Crichton predicted "Google News". But I hardly think Google News will wipe out a TV network. Especially since a hell of a lot more people in the world have television sets. Most people in the world don't have internet access. A lot of bloggers often forget this though. I think a lot of bloggers don't realize that there are people in the world who don't have telephones... or even clean water.
Only about 15% of the world has internet access, and probably less than 5% read blogs, and likely far less use Google as a verb, regardless of what The Word Spy might have you believe.
And a lot of us with relatively clean water, cell phones, internet access, and televisions, don't even watch much television and don't bother with Google News much.
Maybe a lot of bloggers think "Shafer doesn't get it." (I could've used that U.S. dollar for some candy, damn it!) But I didn't think this Shafer was referring to everyone at this conference. I knew he was really talking about the zealous bloggers with delusions of grandeur. And come on, they do exist.
(another hand gesture of Bush... SLAYERR! SLAYERRRR!!)
You didn't go to my school, George. You don't get to make that sign.
Unless the float that just went by had Black Sabbath on it.
I used to have a friend named Chuck, many years ago, who would make that hand gesture at the car radio at times, and sometimes say, in a deep gravely yet sing-song tone, "SLAYER!"
I wonder whatever happened to Chuck.
("43 percent of Americans say they have common sense, but the reality is only 7 percent really do have it")
Fully 43 percent of Americans say they have common sense, but the reality is only 7 percent really do have it, according to a new survey conducted by Scott Tissue and Towels. Common sense isn't very common.
The surveyors first asked whether the respondent thought he or she had common sense, and then administered a quiz to actually measure common sense perception. That is what tripped up 36 percent of those who thought they were blessed with this trait--but apparently are not.
Other fun common sense facts, courtesy of Wireless Flash:
--More men than women think they have "a lot more common sense than most people," but women outnumber men among the seven percent of folks who have common sense.
--4 percent of respondents think they have less common sense than the average American.
--51 percent of New Yorkers think their hometown has the most people with common sense, but only 14 percent of the residents of Los Angeles think their city is most sensible.
I personally don't have a problem with going to the pharmacist for my Theraflu, so long as I didn't need a prescription, and there were pharmacies in my area open on weekends. But the government list of purchasers kind of bothers me, since I would worry about that information about how often I get colds, being used by someone for some other purpose - like say a job background check or something.
(proof that they're not just after protecting marriage, they're after blocking any & all legal arrangements, and making anyone who disagrees noticable to police in traffic)
"The law, passed last year (story), prevents the state from recognizing gay marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships and block any "contract or other arrangement" same-sex couples may enter into."
A 65-year-old Wal-Mart greeter has been fired for greeting customers with a computer-generated photograph of himself wearing nothing but a Wal-Mart sack.
Dean Wooten was fired in September from his job as a greeter at the Muscatine Wal-Mart store where he had worked for seven years, state records show. He was accused of greeting customers with a picture of himself in which he appeared to be naked except for the carefully placed sack.
Wooten allegedly told customers that Wal-Mart was cutting back on expenses and that the sack represented the new employee uniform.
(why would they want to create license plates to identify anti-gay drivers?)
"Lawmakers also will consider creating a special driver's license plate for supporters of traditional marriage. The license plate would feature two interlocked golden wedding bands over a red heart."
Armed with a high-pressure hose and a bucket of octopi, hundreds of protestors in this Mediterranean town pelted a McDonalds restaurant due to open this week with the slimy seafood.
Between 300 and 500 people gathered on the banks of the Sete canal, across from the fast-food outlet, playing music and yelling anti-junk-food slogans across the water, as police barred them from reaching the restaurant itself.
Aiming the hose across the water, they catapulted fresh octopi -- a local delicacy, known here as the "pouffre" -- towards the town's first McDonalds, which had been set to open on Saturday.
The crowd held up slogans slamming junk food, dubbed "malbouffe" in French, as well as work conditions in the fast-food industry.
(FLIP FLOP - "They belong at the beach, not in a political dialogue.")
CARBS - "You�re not fat because you eat bread; you�re fat because you eat too much!" SAFE AND EFFECTIVE - "Safe and effective should not be a selling point, it should be an FDA requirement!"
superficiality >>If the facade is what's important to you, all you wind up with is an illusion. Disillusionment is the gift of substance.
-- Chloe<<
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