I have to say, this freaked me out a bit...

...until I got to the part where it listed the referral website:





I mean, if you were writing a blog devoted to ridiculing authority in politics, wouldn't seeing "Pentagon" on your tracker kind of give you the creeps, too?

I want to thank The Academy...

Specifically, The Academy of Awesome Bloggers.

When I started this blog, I didn't actually expect to have a large list of readers. I certainly didn't expect many people to happen upon it, nor did I expect anyone whose blogs I read to actually notice me.

Let's just leave that whole statement above at, "I had very few expectations". That works.


Since the beginning of this month (an entire week...whoa), I've been tracking the visits to my blog with a Site Meter, which hadn't really done anything but contribute to my OCD until yesterday...when people started visiting.

So I'd like to thank everyone who's linked to me on their blog, in no particular order:

Tam
AD
Abby
TD

My Site Meter has exploded in the past couple of days, thanks to you.

And I figure the best way to keep it coming is to act grateful...because I am. :-)


Thanks to everyone who's reading - and if you have a blog you'd like me to read in return, I'll be more than happy to add you to the list of links in the sidebar (which I *do* actually visit every day I'm close to a computer). Just leave a comment.

The evils of MySpace...sorta.

Woman denied teaching certificate at graduation due to photo on MySpace account.

Now, when you see that headline, you think, "Oh, was she snorting coke off of a hooker's ass?"

Then you get into the article a bit, and it says that the reason behind her certificate denial was that she was promoting underage drinking with her photo.

So the next logical conclusion is that she's either got photos of herself as a teenager getting sloshed, or she has photos of some other kids getting schnockered.


Oh...so she was at a Hallowe'en party? At age 25? With a beer? Dressed as a pirate?


Clearly, this is discrimination against female pirates, and it must be stopped.


On a more serious note, I hope this woman wins her case. If the limits of her drunken revelry only extend to Hallowe'en parties, there's no reason why she shouldn't be able to pursue the field that she's trained for.

On a more personal note, I worked at a company about a year and a half ago where people were encouraged to drink at work on Fridays (and one or two people in the office just got drunk every day in Customer Service). I was the receptionist, so I was told that I couldn't start drinking until 3pm...which left me out of the game completely, because it takes me a while to get un-tipsy to drive home at 5pm. Big loss, right? Oh, did I mention that they bought the alcohol with the company credit card? Consider this: the company did tech support and printer/copier/CPU/fax repair. You think there isn't a significant amount of risk involved there? And these people were ENCOURAGED to drink at work.

Now let's look at Ms. Snyder again. Okay, she had a beer at a Hallowe'en party. Boo freakin' hoo. Give her the damned teaching certificate. Seriously. If she went through the 4-5 years it takes to get your education degree and certificate, worked hard, got high marks, and proved herself to be capable, her personal life shouldn't have anything to do with it. Teachers are people, too.

OH HAI FREE SPEECH I HAVEN'T SEEN U IN A WHILE HOW HAVE U BEEN HAR HAR

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Thanks AGAIN to Tam for yet ANOTHER glimpse into the fucktardery that makes up this nation.

Specifically, the New Jersey state troopers.

Even if they are able to pull this off without people raising hell (because now that it's in the news, you can rest assured that people WILL raise hell), there's a serious flaw in the logic...the same flaw that makes people think that forgoing gasoline for ONE DAY will have any affect on gas prices. *laughs*

If you have a ticket blitz, then a slowdown, you're not "sticking it" to anyone...the blitz in May will likely make up for the deficit in June. Just like if you forego gasoline on May 15th (which is the date slated for the "protest" this year), people are going to make sure to fill up on the 14th or 16th to make up for it. Yeah, smooth move, smart guy. Way to stick it to "the man".


Also, if the troopers slow down too much in June, there might be a backlash on them for not doing their job correctly, in the form of, "Oh, so you did a great job last month, but all of a sudden you're not catching anyone? Losing your touch, eh? What's the matter? Do you need some time off? Maybe you should take a few weeks off without pay and see if you can't get your act together."

Well, if things worked the way they should, that's what would happen.


They'll probably just get a slap on the wrist and continue to act like assholes.


And other than piss people off, their vendetta really isn't going to do any good. So let's all have a cheer for our intelligent, responsible police force...especially those of you in South Jersey. Godspeed to you...though, not TOO much speed, apparently.

Bits from everywhere (well, according to BBC)

Bush honors Queen Elizabeth at the White House. Direct quote from the queen (she's not MY queen, so I'm not capitalizing it): The relationship between our respective countries is "close and enduring".

You mean like when we kicked your asses out for trying to trample on the new laws we made for ourselves?

"It is the time to look forward, jointly renewing our commitment to a more prosperous, safer and freer world," she added.

I don't think so, lady. I've seen what your country refers to as "freedom", and I don't like it.

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In Italy, a new law is being pushed that would basically make it impossible for filthy-rich people to hold office.

Now, I'm not someone who's going to rail on a person for having a lot of money - it all depends on how they got it. This guy in the article (former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi) apparently did a hard-and-fast investment process and obtained ownership of several television outlets.

I don't have a problem with owning a lot of companies and wanting to run for office, though I can see where it would be an issue if you happened to own media-based ventures. What better way to plaster your face all over and refuse advertisement to your opponents? So I can see where these guys are coming from, but I don't think they need to pass a LAW, fer chrissake. That's like passing a law over here telling someone that they can't live in a town with dirt roads if they drive a Lamborghini or something, for fear that they'll decide to pave the roads to save their car.

Well, not exactly, but you get my point. You can advise someone against something and let them know that they should probably reconsider their tactics without passing a freakin' law...especially for one person. That's just stupid.

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More Chinese population drama. Do I need to comment on this? Well, I guess I'll say something, anyway:

Here's a solution: keep the female babies and ship them to the U.S. or some other country for college! Then they can find a male with a fetish preference for Asians and be allll taken care of. There. Problem solved.

Okay, seriously...yeah, the population problem in China sucks. I would hate to be crowded in with so many people (it's approaching that sort of situation in Memphis, though not nearly as severe). My problem with the mindset isn't necessarily the laws against more than one child (or two for "rural areas"). The issue that I see is the placement of value on males over females...and not just because I am a woman. I see their point in wanting sons: carry on the family name, bring in a higher paycheck, and no dowry needed at marriage time. I just don't know what to say, really, about it. This situation defies reason to me. So I'll just stop there.

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Just what the world needs: more Korean cars in the market. Oh, yeah...and more trade with Europe, which I suppose is okay. But I'm more focused on the car thing.

I have nothing more to say on that, but if you'd like to hear about my various experiences with Korean-manufactured automobiles, feel free to comment for an earful. I didn't even have that many problems with my Ford Escort (and you wanna talk about a shit car...).

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The weird part about this situation in South Africa is that I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear something like this here in Memphis.



Sorry for the prolific posting today. I guess you could say that I'm inspired.

DUDE.

Let me just say right now that the medium I'm accustomed to blogging in is LiveJournal. My blog there is friends-only (meaning I choose who reads what I write, because I really do treat that as a diary of sorts), so I can pretty much tell who's reading at any given time, and I know, generally, where the people who are reading hail from. It's cool, to me, to be able to interact on a tit-for-tat basis with other LJ users (meaning, you can read my stuff, I can read yours, and everyone's happy because there are no surprises). Thus, I'm really unprepared for what Site Meter has been telling me about my visitors today:


First of all, you can't see the numbers on there, but I'm up to about 50 page visits for today, and 80 views (what's the difference? Length of time spent perusing?). That's pretty damned cool, to me. I started out getting excited because 6 people had viewed my site in one day. It's not even 1pm yet, and I'm already up to 50. Neat!

The neatest part is that people all over the world have checked my blog out (and the referral page points to AD as the source), and I don't know who they are!

:-D

This means that ANYONE could be reading, seeing my opinion, and talking about me. Call me silly, but that's just so cool. I like to be talked about - even negative press is good press...just ask Britney Spears and Paris Hilton!


So thank you, regular readers and people just browsing, for even the consideration required to click on a link leading to this blog. And thank you to those who've mentioned me in their blogs, put me on their blog rolls, and directed any traffic at all to my site. I try to do the same, and I'm hopeful that this trend will continue.

Buh?

Thanks to Matt G. for this disturbing piece of information:

Chicago Mayor and CAGE (appropriate acronym for Chicago Anti-Gun Enforcement) has begun confiscating residents' guns.

The reasons for this, as explained by this article, are that apparently purchasing a gun doesn't mean anything if you let your licensure lapse.

...

So, by that logic, if I don't get my driver's license renewed, I should be blacklisted from ever buying a car. Or, if a car is already titled to me, someone should come and tow it away, because obviously if I can't be bothered to renew my license, I'm going to go on a killing spree.

Ignoring, of course, the Constitutional right to bear arms that's being walked all over in this case.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't like Charlton Heston, but I like his philosophy: "From my cold, dead hands!"