Bydio

Yup, they’re annoying, they’re long, they run up your bill… they’re cell phone voicemail messages.  David Pogue of the New York Times found out how to get around the messages and get right to the *beep*:

Verizon: press *

Sprint: press 1

T-Mobile or Cingular: press #

But you have to know which carrier the person you’re calling is using.  Well, he has a solution for that, too:

Just add the instruction in your greeting! That’s the best of all worlds: your callers hear your voice but not the recorded lady’s, and they don’t have to remember what the keystroke is.

So in your cell phone greeting, tell people they can press “X” to go right to the beep.  Simple.

Just so you know, I’m on T-Mobile.

David Pogue, rock on!

C’mon, when you say something like this:

Increased spending inevitably means increased taxes. Thus, despite
President Bush’s much vaunted tax cuts, Americans actually pay more in
taxes today than they did during Bill Clinton’s last year in office.

you’re just asking for a smackdown.

Of course taxes increase when spending increases.  Everything you buy is taxed, retaxed and taxed again.  From manufacture to sale, raw materials, labor, import/export, transportation, everything that goes into a product has been taxed out the ass.

So saying that increased spending equals increased taxes is like saying water makes you wet.  At merely the 5% sales tax, if I spend $10, I’m taxed 50 cents, but if I spend $20, I’m taxed $1… fuck, I’m being taxed double because I spent double!

However, focusing on the tax cut to make your point is a dickhead move.  “Don’t give a tax cut because you’re just going to spend more in taxes anyway”… what kind of retarded argument is that?

With the Associated Press recently being bagged for false reporting, and Reuters for image manipulation, it’s no surprise that more and more news from the Middle East seems very pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli and anti-American.  Why the bias?  Well, these agencies are getting their information from one side of the story: the stringers.

Everyone picks up from the AP and Reuters, and runs their stories as news.  Mainstream news agencies, from newspapers to TV news, expect it to be pre-vetted for facts, so they don’t check the stories.  But what if the AP and Reuters don’t properly vet the facts?  Then you get what we have now: news with bias.

The Jawa Report has the latest AP fuck-up: Majdi Mohammed.

When CNN showed the sniper video and people claimed it was terrorist propaganda, I said bullshit.  Most people can understand the difference between news and propaganda (I think).  Showing one of our soldiers being killed in combat is not enemy propaganda, it’s truth.

However, if you’re going to justify showing that video by saying:

If you are a serious journalist, you want to report the news. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes the news isn’t so good.

then you’d better report impartially on that story.  Follow up and show the viewers when something develops.  If you refuse to follow up on the story, then it CAN be labeled as propaganda, because you only want to show one side of the story.

Did you know that the sniper who killed the Marine in that CNN video has been captured?

The news may be the news, but reporter intentions are becoming kinda obvious.

Ever since I was introduced to Daily Kos (dKos), I’d have to say I’m probably 95% against the content written on the site.  It may be less, I don’t read it all, but the sheer befuddlement of many of the writers to that huge blog verges on making me physically ill.

The latest bile-churning article by BarbinMD, “Freedom for Afghanistan?” says:

And so, Bush said, we liberated 25 million people to live in freedom.  How is that working out today?

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

For people like Mohammed Halim, Operation Enduring Freedom brought anything but freedom. And it seems that for young girls in Afghanistan, growing up under the auspices of George Bush hasn’t changed a thing.

This person has the audacity to claim that this horrific murder of a teacher is not only caused by George Bush, but the whole war in Afghanistan is pointless because of this teacher’s murder at the hands of the Taliban.

BarbinMD’s thought process is so frighteningly wrong that one has to be devoid of any sense of critical thinking to accept the premise.  It takes a special kind of hatred — a deep, deep black-hearted hatred — to blame a Shari’a law murder of a school teacher by Taliban terrorists, the murder of a teacher who was finally able to choose to teach girls because of the freedom that Operation Enduring Freedom has allowed, on the President of the United States.

Seriously, is this what the philosophy the “Left” is offering us in America today?  It’s no wonder I lean “Right” now.  BarbinMD is simply a wretched example of a human being.

Ol’ Atlas Shrugs points out that the UN is smoking a Bob Marley-sized joint if they believe that Israel should, or will, get out of Jerusalem.

Decisive majority
in UN General Assembly approves six pro-Palestinian resolutions,
including calls for Israel to dismantle settlements, withdraw from
territory captured in ‘67, including E. J’lem [East Jerusalem], Golan Heights despite
heavy opposition by Israel, US
[...]
The Palestinian UN Observer, Riyad Mansour,
said the vote - 157 to 7 with 10 abstentions - showed massive support
in the international community for moving forward on the peace process.
[...]
After the vote in favor of the Golan Heights
resoution - 107-6 with 60 abstentions - [Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar] Ja’afari thanked members for
their support for Syria’s right to retrieve its land occupied by Israel
in 1967. He appealed for a just peace and for the liberation of the
Golan Heights.

My simple opinion on Israel’s conquests of lands is they won the land in war, so it’s theirs to do with as they please, and the UN be damned.  The UN is fine for talking, but it’s useless when it comes to doing anything of use or of consequence.

From Lee Green at Honest Reporting, showing that Jimmy has Alzheimer’s… or he’s a history revisionist.  Pick whichever makes you feel better.  I’ve picked my side:

My Yahoo Messenger does the “One Eye Squint”, like it took a shot of Jack Daniels while booting up.

P.S. - The screen name is fake.