Let’s face it, news anchors didn’t get their jobs because of their massive brains, enjoy.
First, stupid CNN anchor person
Second fair and balanced stupidity, with Fox News
One of my all-time favorite idiot news moves, but he stays professional all the way through
Ok don’t know if this is staged but it’s still funny
General stupid news people but the 5:50 mark bird story may be the funniest thing ever
This year there is a possibility that there will be a much higher percentage of newbies heading to the desert so I thought I’d spend the 30 days before the gates open throwing out some information, some images and a little bit of wisdom, advice and snark about the place I love so much. These posts will be generally directed at Burning Man virgins but hopefully some of you old dogs out there will contribute through comments or get some enjoyment out of them as well. So here we go. . I’ll include at least one photo from Burning Man each day and once a week I’ll do nothing but photos. I hope the posts are sometimes helpful and also enjoyable, enjoy ~ ZD Blue
Burning Man in the news and a quick ticket update, tonight links to recent Burning Man news items, enjoy ~ ZD Blue
Did a quick ticket scan tonight, first for tickets on Craigslist in Sacramento over 20 posts with tickets ranging from trade to $200 to $500 so some over selling but lots of available fair priced tickets.
Ebay is less attractive about 55 auctions a few that at the moment would be great deals but most are overpriced.
The best and safest process is through eplaya and there are a ton of tickets there
http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewforum.php?f=291&sid=5386ebeebf0616ad7ee4a3a299034fe3
Finally massive number of tickets available on Craigslist in the SF Bay area across the price spectrum but happily a lot of really reasonably priced tickets.
Rancher Cleared in burning of Burning Man Ship
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/12/4719161/rancher-cleared-in-torching-of.html
A story about a Burning Man project, the Dream Box
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/xaque-gruber/the-dreambox_b_1741895.html
Finding Jesus at Burning Man, a piece from Christianity Today and an interesting read
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/july-august/finding-jesus-at-burning-man.html?start=1
A piece interviewing a restaurateur from NYC about Burning Man, a beautiful illustration of how horrible most of the main stream media cover Burning Man, either we’re all drunk and stoned or this is a dusty happy camping trip where you can “hop on a rolling Tiki Bar to go wherever you want” enjoy.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/travel/dont-miss-the-tiki-bar-at-burning-man.html
Gay Marriage, Don’t be on the Wrong Side of History
Today, North Carolina became the 30th state in the supposedly most exceptional and most free country in the world to ban marriage for same-sex partners.
The fact is that America has been here before; in the early 1960’s 41 states had laws banning marriage between races. In 1967, 16 states still had these laws on the books. I’m sure that the people in those former 41 states truly believed they were right and that God was on their side in prohibiting inter-racial marriage. That in fact they were protecting traditional marriage as it was intended to be, that marriage should only be between two people of the same race as it would be unnatural for marriage to occur between races.
Today, except for an attempt by a church in KY recently, people generally see the stupidity of the idea that two people of different races shouldn’t be allowed to be married. Oh, I’m sure some racist bastards out there still believe this, but generally society has come to realize this prohibition was absurd. Like people often say, hindsight is 20/20.
My hope for you today is for you to realize that five, or ten, or twenty years from now people will think the same damn thing about the opposition to same-sex marriage and the ridiculous argument that gay marriage somehow threatens the validity of a marriage for heterosexual couples anywhere. That somehow allowing same-sex couples to marry will lead to people marrying animals or inanimate objects, this is just ridiculous. I don’t want you to have to lie in the future when your grandkids ask you what side of this issue you were on. I want you to proudly look at them and say I supported gay marriage because it was the right thing to do, because two people who love each other should always have had that right.
I leave you with the words of Mildred Loving, the wife in the case that helped eradicate the idiocy, the injustice of the ban against interracial marriage.
“My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.”
“Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.”
“I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”
Mildred Loving died in May of 2008.
The logic of conservatives forces them to think women are less intelligent and lazier than men
Recently a piece in CNN by Nina Easton of Fortune magazine puts forward all too common refrain of conservatives and their network Fox News. This is the idea that people who are upset about the wealth gap in America and the greed of the 1% are just jealous, whiney, losers. You see from their perspective, the reason people are rich is that they are smarter and better than the rest of us and just plain work harder. You see to conservatives the idea that they are not better than others and morally superior is unfathomable. There is no luck involved, where you start out in life is irrelevant, they can’t conceive that America might actually be a country that does more to support and maintain the wealthy than to support the basic living standards of the poor or provide opportunities to the poor and middle class.
See considering that America might not be the most perfect nation ever created or conceived of violates another core conservative principle, that of American Exceptionalism. You see according to conservatives there is something uniquely and inherently special about the United States of America. This is fact is actually code for America is God’s chosen nation and that of course would be a Christian Protestant God.
However, these underlying principles of conservatism deny many very real facts about America. I think the biggest one involves healthcare. If America as conservatives claim has the greatest medical system on earth, if Americans are so special, than why do we have such a horrible infant mortality rate in this country? We have the 28th lowest infant mortality rate and that is behind countries like: South Korea, France, Japan, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and even Cuba. That’s right the United States ranks behind, non-Christian countries, socialist leaning countries, countries with socialized medicine and even communist Cuba.
Back to Nina Easton’s article, if the reason the rich make more money than the rest of us is that they are smarter and work harder, how do conservatives explain that women make 77% of what men make? Well, let’s use typical conservative logic, since you make more if you work harder and are smarter, I guess that conservatives must believe that compared to men, women are lazy and less intelligent. Can’t imagine why the GOP struggles to get a majority of the women’s vote.
Five Star Trek captains all at once
At Destination Star Trek in London in October all five captains from the Star Trek series, Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Cisco, and Archer will all be appearing together for the first time. Tickets go on sale April 30th and I imagine they will sell out quickly so if you’re a hard-core Trekkie I’m thinking this is not something that you want to miss. Here’s a link to the official event:
http://www.startreklondon.com/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/uk-startrek-convention-idUSLNE83F01320120416
New York Times shows off its snobbery on the issue of Doomsday Preppers
I saw a piece today in the New York Times on the TV show Doomsday Preppers. Now I get that some of the folks they feature on the show are more than a bit out there. There are folks who are fully prepping for something they are sure is imminent which in fact is very, very unlikely. Ok, but not all preppers are living in fear of the Yellowstone Volcano erupting or a massive coronal mass from the sun wiping out life as we know it. The thing is there is typically at least a little science behind what these people fear. Someday there will be another eruption of the Yellowstone Volcano and solar storms can be problematic and in rare cases could actually cause significant disruptions to the electronic grid. So yes I get that the people featured might be pushing the edge of the rainbow a bit, but hell, really rational folks don’t make for great TV, if they did the Kardashians, well, you wouldn’t know who they are.
The second thing the author of the piece really harped on and I think completely unfairly, was that basically all preppers are a bunch of gun nuts that can’t wait for the apocalypse so they can start shooting people. I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet the author has never met anyone in the prepper community. Like all communities preppers come in all shapes and sizes and philosophical bents. The fact is, having weapons for defense is a really good idea if society melts down, regardless of the cause for the meltdown. Of course the show takes an opportunity to show the people they feature shooting their guns and playing a little Rambo for the cameras, it’s TV, they need the ratings. Apparently the good folks at the New York Times think that watching folks assemble first-aid kits, canning fruit and making pemmican would make for enthralling television.
Being someone who talks about the apocalypse and people’s response to it quite a bit I’ve discovered something. There are two basic types of people, those who don’t want to survive doomsday and those who do. The NY Times author admitted to being someone who wouldn’t want to survive the dissolution of society because he couldn’t imagine living in the world shown in McCarthy’s book, The Road. I think that shows he has a limited imagination and that’s fine, and it’s even fine that he’s wants to die in the apocalypse, but some of us would like to live as long and as full a life as possible regardless of what happens in the world. The author unfortunately talks down to the rest of us and writes us all off as gun-toting maniacs with homicidal tendencies just for not sharing his beliefs, that’s a bit snobbish to me.
Regardless of what your philosophical beliefs might be about where society is headed, disasters happen and it is only prudent to be prepared. Having three days worth of food and water on-hand, a good first-aid kit and a basic survival plan for your family is just plain smart. So if a show like Doomsday Preppers does anything beyond entertain you, hopefully it will make you think about having a basic preparedness plan and the appropriate resources available.
Anti-hunting advocates are off the rails
I get really sick of the anti-hunting rhetoric that passes as normal these days. People seem to be quickly willing to denigrate hunting and hunters. Many times these folks are vegetarian or vegan and often animal rights activists who are opposed to the idea of killing animals. This position gets quickly under my skin because first off fishing (which I also support) seems to me to be much more horrible way to harvest an animal. Catch and release programs are perhaps the worst of all from a moral stand-point. Take an animal, hook it through its mouth, drag it through the water to exhaustion, pull it out of water til it is nearly suffocated then let it go. By comparison hunting, NOT sport hunting, does not allow for this type of activity, you either kill an animal or you don’t. To be clear I’m not in favor of sport hunting, you should only kill animals you plan to eat.
Secondly, animals and animal products are a fully integrated part of our existence and although I respect their right to attempt to not use animals in any way, I believe they have to also respect other people’s rights to use animals. I do agree that animals should be used for food and products, not simply killed for sport. I’m also in favor of treating animals with compassion, not humanely, as the root of that word implies we should treat animals as human beings, personally I can’t go there, that’s how we end up with people giving their dogs face lifts.
The anti-hunting attitude has reduced hunting levels in the United States, correspondingly deer populations have exploded to the point of a really beautiful animal becoming a pest animal. They are hell on gardens, landscaping and worse they have become an extremely dangerous traffic risk in some parts of the country. I personally hit three deer with my car when I lived in upstate New York and it can be a truly terrifying experience, not to mention a deadly one for humans and deer.
Recently what has gotten under my skin is the fury over a California official legally hunting and killing a mountain lion in Washington State. He is being attacked because hunting mountain lions in California is illegal. So effectively a man is being questioned for undertaking a legal act in another state. This is beyond ridiculous and just shows how far off the rails anti-hunting folks have gotten.
So for those of you who are TED fans you probably already know about this, but at the recent TED show a researcher showcased the autonomous aerial robots he and his team have created. These robots are unbelievable, they can hover, shoot up or down, fly at almost any angle and most impressively fly without a pilot in formation (hence autonomous). Put a few LED’s on these things, send them up at night and I guarantee they’ll fool any UFO investigator on earth. The uses of these robots are numerous and on the video they are shown mapping the inside of buildings and building things cooperatively, check out the video it’s amazing.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/04/opinion/ted-kumar-flying-robots/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Fox News lies too much for Canada
I was sitting yesterday at a conference listening to a speaker and was surprised to hear her assert that given Canadian law Fox News can’t broadcast from Canada. Why? Because they tell too many lies. So I set out today to explore this issue a little bit and really was shocked to find out, she was telling the truth. According to the Huffington Post, there is a push in Canada by the conservative minded Prime Minister to repeal a provision in the Canadian Broadcasting regulations that ban networks or shows that broadcast any false or misleading news.
It is this law that has kept Fox News from being able to broadcast from Canada, this doesn’t prevent Fox News from beaming a signal into Canada, but they can’t broadcast within Canada. For all of those people who believe Fox News is fair and balanced guess again, not so fair, not so balanced, not so honest and not broadcasting from Florida because of it. Spin that O’Reilly!
Fun Friday: Rick Santorum quotes
So the psychobilly nutjob Olympics, also known as the GOP presidential primary is down to a two man race. So I figured for fun Friday I’d give you a deeper look at one of the men at the top, former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.
First of course, if you haven’t before, check out the Urban Dictionary entry for Santorum
On contraception:
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country…. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” –Rick Santorum
The best part of this quote on education is that the speech made by Obama actually suggested the exact same thing Mr. Frothy suggested:
”President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob … Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.” –Rick Santorum, speaking to a Tea Party group in Michigan (February 2012)
On the speech JFK made to show why Catholic’s like Santorum should be considered for president:
“Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.” –Rick Santorum, on JFK’s 1960 speech about the importance of separation of church and state (October 2011)
Uhhhh Whaaat??
“The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person — human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, ‘We’re going to decide who are people and who are not people.’” —Rick Santorum, CNS News interview (January 2011)
Maybe Rick should take a history class from Professor Gingrich
“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. … What I’m talking about is onward American soldiers. What we’re talking about are core American values.” –Rick Santorum, campaigning for president in South Carolina (February 2011)
