Is Clear Channel Blacklisting Bruce Springsteen?

Southern Beale covers the story, reported in of all places, Fox News, and then shows how amazingly, Fox News may be wrong again.

So we Liberals either get to be mad, or get to laugh at Fox. I just want to know which one it is.

It will be approximately 5 pm as I post this when I get home from
work. After sending an email to the host of the October STLBloggers
Blog Carnival, I will turn off my computer, turn off all the lights,
and go to sleep. Kids in my neighborhood haen’t knocked on my door in
the over 8 years I’ve lived here - they’re not going to start tonight.
I’ve had an invite to a party, but I have other plans that start at
midnight.

You see…at Midnight it is November. I have to be at work at 8 am.
That gives me 7 hours to start working on my NaNoWriMo novel. Several
individuals are gathering at a local SteakNShake at midnight to do so
as a group. Most of them are likely taking tomorrow off work. I’m
not. I’m just getting my sleep in beforehand.

This post is supposed to be about Halloween to count for the blogger
carnival, but these are my Halloween plans, are they not? I also need
a picture.

Below is a picture of what I wore to work today. They don’t allow
people to come in costume, but I still dressed up — as a Trekkie. It
wasn’t a difficult costume; I had everything I needed already.

I know I have some friends with interests in science, and biology, so I figured I would share this, in case they hadn’t read it in the journals to which they subscribe.

Ananova, back in June, reported on a miraculous event in China. A dog gave birth to a kitten! (link contains photographic proof!)

Hua Chengpeng, of Huayang village, Jiangyan city, told People’s Daily that the unlikely animal was the third ‘puppy’ in his pet’s litter.

“The first two puppies the dog produced were both normal, but when the third baby came, the whole family was very surprised to see a cat-like creature. It is a cat, not a dog at all,” he said.

Local residents have been flocking to his house to see the ‘kitten’ which local vets say is really a puppy which looks like a cat because of a gene mutation. It apparently yaps like a puppy.

As Blair points out, the news story of a dog that shot a man in Iowa bears mentioning in the overall Great Animal Rebellion.

But there are two things about the story that I wish to focus on. Neither of these facts are in all versions of the news story. Ananova keys us in though.

1) Mr Harris was treated at Grinnell Regional Medical Centre and later taken by helicopter to University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City, following the accident in Poweshiek County.

Hey! I spent parts of three years in Poweshiek County! I went to Grinnell College! True, I was never inside Grinnell Regional Medical Centre…

Of course, you probably don’t care about that.

2) Alan Foster, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said it was not uncommon for hunters to be shot by their dogs.

And you probably thought this was a freak accident. Of course not! It’s a rebellion I tell ya!

One of my early posts on this uprising mentions a “Dog in South Dakota”. The story has been removed from Ananova’s archives, but I’ve discovered that Ananova isn’t blocking caches…so it appears on the

Wayback Machine

To truly comprehend the magnitude of the situation, you have to compare the frequency to other comparable events. If the Iowa Dept of Natural Resources sees a couple cases per year, it’s probably a safe assumption that several other states do too. It’s likely that every year, more dogs go on a shooting spree, than high school students.

I’m going to have to spend some time updating a lot of links on my old posts, but at least the stories are all still out there.

For those who like to know the politics of their entertainers, here’s a list of “Country Recording artists and Nashville-area stars” and to which political party/candidate they give money.

It doesn’t matter much to me. There are a couple in the Republican category whose music I have enjoyed in the past, and I will continue to enjoy. But I do find it interesting that if I were to tally the number of my CDs by artists in each category, the Democrats win in a landslide. Whether or not the musician makes their opinions explicit in their songs, often it will come through regardless.

And Bonnie Raitt sure has a lot of money to give. Alone, she almost doubles all the Republicans on the list combined. I’m glad she’s on our side.

Now that every loyal reader of my blog knows how to predict the winner of a Super Bowl or a World Series I expect everyone to go out and become rich. But if it doesn’t work for you, don’t blame me.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

And if you’re so inclined: What Breed of Conservative Are You?

I also took a Select a Candidate quiz. It tells you the percentage of your agreement with all the candidates from both parties. I had some problems with some of the questions not having enough possible answers - forcing me to pick the ‘closest’ to my view. But that’s always the way it is with these quizzes.

I wasn’t too surprised with the results. I am in most agreement with Kucinich, but of the two issues we are in disagreement with, one is Iraq, which I think he (and those supporting him) consider pretty important. The other, which I won’t name, the only candidate who agrees with me is Mitt, though I ranked the issue as not very important.

Dodd’s next in line for me, and then there’s a three way tie between Edwards, Clinton, and Obama. I’ll probably look at Dodd a little more closely for the primary, but it is important to me that we Dems select someone who isn’t too weak against the GOP nominee. I know I’ve voted that way in the past 2 elections, but my candidate beat Bush in 2000, and the candidate I voted for in 2004 would have done better than Kerry, I am sure. I’m confident that I share enough views with E, C and O that I would be fine with any of their presidencies.

I last blogged about the Great Animal Rebellion three years ago. Most if not all the links to the news stories in those three posts are dead.

If I start keeping track of this again, I’m going to have to start quoting from some of the news stories so there is a record.

Wild monkeys attack a New Delhi deputy mayor who falls to his death.

Media reports say the deputy mayor of New Delhi was on the balcony of his home when he was attacked by a gang of Rhesus macaques (REE’-suhs muh-KAKS’) causing him to fall. He was rushed to the hospital but died of head injuries.

Many government buildings, temples and residential neighborhoods in New Delhi are overrun by Rhesus macaques.

Horse betrays cause

A Scottish farmer’s wife says her horse saved her life after it fought off a cow that was attacking her.

Fiona Boyd, 40, feared she was going to be crushed to death by the cow after it kicked her to the ground, then rolled on top of her.

She says she survived only because her horse, Kerry, raced to the rescue and kicked the cow until it moved off her.

And then there are the news stories that perhaps explain the reasons behind the rebellion:

Smoke ban causes collie wobbles

A dog with a cigarette habit is suffering withdrawal following the smoking ban.

What do you call a pig with six legs and two willies?

A piglet born in Croatia with six legs and two penises has been nicknamed Octopig…[owner:]”Who knows, maybe we can breed more although the two penises might be a problem.”

As seen on CasaChristy’s, I had a Past Life Analysis.

Results:

Your past life diagnosis:

I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Scotland around the year 1800. Your profession was that of a seaman, dealer, businessman or broker.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:

As a natural talent in psychology, you knew how to use your opportunities. Cold-blooded and calm in any situation.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:

Your task is to learn determination and persistency. Youd should not allow to let misfortunes take influence on your strong will. Do you remember now?

——
1) I’d feel better about this Past Life Analysis if there weren’t any spelling errors in it.
2) I’d feel even better about it if I had to enter more information than my birth date.
3) I’d feel even more better about it if I hadn’t read the disclaimer.
4) Or if I hadn’t read the source code.

Latest photo of me:

Photo taken by Databob

Plug the following into Google, and my blog is the number one hit. No quotations necessary.

1) Miguel Moses de Cervantes Cruvant
2) Drew Barrymore having sex with Harry Potter
3) Great Animal Rebellion
4) Rabbi found guilty of erroneous mathematical calculations at Victoria’s Secret
5) Victor Hugo translations and viagra erections

What’s really incredible is that I’m not the *only* hit for some of those.

Meme taken from CasaChristy

Some will probably accuse me of being hypocritical, and perhaps suggest my feelings are based on the fact that I find Halle Berry hot, and Mel Gibson not…

But of all the stereotypes she could have picked up on, I am not much offended that she made a joke about the European Jewish propensity towards large noses. I find it much less offensive than the idea that we are responsible for all the wars in the world. Or a few other stereotypes which I’ve heard.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that my gmail account had just surpassed the 3 gig mark. I made a mental note of it, but wasn’t too excited or anything. Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, it passed 4 gigs. It is right now at 4.3 gigs. So obviously the pace has picked up a bit recently.

A little websearch reveals a few recent news articles. Apparently hotmail offers 5gigs, and I suspect we’ll reach that by the end of this week. Whether it will slow down, or continue, I don’t know. Viewing the source of the Gmail login page seems to suggest, if I understand the code right, that it might be headed to 43 gigs which seems somewhat extreme, making me question whether or not I am reading the code right.

I’m beginning to think saving a few important documents as attachments in drafts (photos, writing) might be a good backup technique. Of course, not the only backup, but still a good secondary one.

update

Here’s the code directly from the sign in page:


// Estimates of nanite storage generation over time.
var CP = [
[ 1175414400000, 2835 ],
[ 1192176000000, 2912 ],
[ 1193122800000, 4321 ],
[ 1199433600000, 6283 ],
[ 2147328000000, 43008 ],
[ 46893711600000, Number.MAX_VALUE ]
];

You’ll note we are currently around the 4321 mark, so that is why I am assuming we are headed towards the 43008 mark, but I’m not sure how long it will take to get there as I have no clue what the numbers in the left part of the array mean, or if they are relevant. Then of course, there’s the question of what the max_value is.

Update on the Update

Found somewhere the following explanation and decoding:

The above numbers are timestamps in Epoch format. So on conversion the entries indicates that the storage would be

1. 2912MB by October 11, 2007
2. 4.2 GB by 23rd of this month(October)
3. 6GB by Jan 4th 2008
4. 42GB by the year of 2038

So, yeah, it will reach that high…but it will take 30 years. In the short term, 6 gigs by January.

My prediction twelve days ago on the winners of both the NL and AL pennant has come true. The Red Sox are facing the Rockies.

My prediction on the winner of the World Series remains the same. Not that I want the Red Sox to win, mind you. It’s just a matter of numerology.

Today I learned Patrick Swayze is possibly my 7th cousin. This is much more likely than my relationship to Chaucer. Though my line intersects with his before it branches off towards Geoffrey, making Patrick as much of a direct descendant as I am. I’m not sure Patrick realizes this.

To the delight of millions of slash fan fiction writers everywhere, JK Rowling has outed one of her characters. (The character’s name begins with the letter, ‘D’)

Apparently she did it at Carnegie Hall Friday night. Of course, since it’s not stated explicitly in any of the novels, one could question the canonicity. Are the author’s spoken words a valid source of canon? Will the canonicity change if she puts the fact on her website? (I don’t believe she has, yet.) These are questions fans must answer.

The Age Project shows you pictures of faces, and asks you to guess how old. It also allows you to upload a photograph of yourself, and see how old you look to others.

Now, you could follow the link and guess ages until they randomly provided you with my photo. I have no idea how many photos have been uploaded, so this theoretically could take you awhile.

So I will be nice and provide a direct link to my photo. I will admit my selection of photos wasn’t random; it met some specific criteria I had in mind. However, it was taken in May of this year, so it is sufficiently recent to be honest.

The American Family Association says, “Congressman Pete Stark owes the President, the American people, the troops and their families an apology.” I don’t think so. Sure, his statements are slightly hyperbolic, but there’s applause from where I’m sitting.

FWIW, if Stark’s entry in this list which I posted to the blog 3 years ago is correct, he served in the Air Force between 1955-57.

Pete appeared in a poem I wrote five years ago as he was one of only three Congressman brave enough to vote No to the declaration that the Country was led by G-d. (Of course, he comes from a Progressive California district, so his stand back then, and his statements now, are what his constituents want.)

Note: The video appears on the AFA’s own YouTube account, and it’s where they direct their mailing list to view the video, so feel free to double-click and leave comments, but understand the mind-set where most of them come from.

This morning’s SpeedBump comic. (Link will expire in 30 days.)

Situation: You are sitting on the commode at work when there is a PA announcement: “All employees are asked to refrain from using water for an hour. This includes drinking fountains, faucets, and flushing.” You know that the commode you are sitting on is one of those automatic ones that will flush when you stand up.

Query: Is it your duty as a good employee to remain sitting where you are for the entire hour?

A woman has been cited for cursing in the privacy of her own home.

There was an open window, an off-duty policeman overheard her, asked her not to use profanity, she apparently hurled a few more choice profanities at him without realizing he was a policeman (not that that should really matter — He’s the one that started the conversation with her) - and she’s been cited for disorderly conduct.

Local Director of Public Safety: ““Upon further review, many types of these incidents are not as cut and dry as they originally appear. Freedom of speech is not an unfettered right.”

No, it’s not…but I am extremely curious what the non-cut-and-dry aspects of this case are.

Only 56% of America feels that Freedom of Religion in America applies to all religions, regardless of how extreme. Down from 72% in 2000.

Other scary stats:

* 74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others.

The right to practice one’s own religion was deemed “essential” or “important” by nearly all Americans (97%); as was the right to “speak freely about whatever you want” (98%)

Of course our rights are essential, but it seems a lot more Americans than I thought don’t see what’s wrong with wanting to restrict their rights.

I’m going to attempt NaNoWriMo again this year. Didn’t do too hot last year. Made it about half-way.
But if at first you don’t succeed….

For those who feel NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in a month) is too much to ask…consider NaBloPoMo National Blog Posting Month…where the only requirement to ‘win’ is to post something to your blog once a day for a month.

I did this in April, so I have no plans to attempt it in November — especially since any blog posts would take time away from writing my 50,000 word novel. Not that my blog will be post-free for a month. I am afraid if that happened I’d get phone calls from people worried that I was dead, or something.

Just discovered that in Lexington, KY there’s a Transylvania University

Now, with a name like that, what do you think their sports teams are called?

Transylvania Pioneers. No fun at all.

Ann Coulter has said some pretty offensive things over her career, but I don’t feel the latest controversy is one of them.

She is now on record as saying that she wishes Jews would become Christians. This doesn’t surprise me, for that is what the New Testament, as I understand it, teaches, and it’s the basis for millenia of proselytizing, and persecution.

They feel we’re going to Hell if we don’t convert, so they only have our best interests in mind. The difference between a missionary and an anti-Semite, is the difference between the proselytizing and the persecution - the means they recommend to achieve their desired end.

As long as its just talk, I can choose to ignore them, or if they’re a friend, I an assure them that I understand their love for me, but really, I believe what I believe, and no amount of words will change what I believe. Theoretically, I could pretend to believe something else, but G-d would see through that, because G-d is pretty smart, and so I would go to Hell regardless of which one of us was correct. I’m actually better off hoping I’m right.

Luckily, if I’m right, we’ll both wind up in Heaven, because Judaism doesn’t believe Heaven is a ‘restricted community,’ or at least it is open to ‘righteous gentiles’. That’s one reason proselytizing is foreign to many Jews, as there’s no impending doom for our friends if they fail to convert.

To sum up: I feel Coulter is offensive on many levels, but I’m not offended, nor do I feel threatened, by her desire for me to become Christian. I desire for her to become Liberal. We probably both have equal odds of our desires being fulfilled.

hmmm…what could this be about?
What popular website values verifiability over accuracy?
Could it be…..Satan?

Here’s a funny webcomic about a kid with a funny name. You probably don’t need to understand SQL programming language to get the humor, as the context should explain it.

Bonus Material: This webcomic is extra-geeky, and you should be aware that if you scroll your cursor over the panels, more stuff might appear. You know, Easter Eggs or Passover Matzah, depending upon your religion.

I just had a wondeful idea how the homeless problem in Washington DC can be solved. Pretty much bring their homeless percentage down to 0 overnight.

It came from reading this news article.

If tshirts with political slogans were handed out to the homeless, they would quickly cease being homeless, and become protesters, and would be allowed to sleep in front of the home of any Congressman, or Senator.

OK, perhaps this solution is a little insensitive to the needs of our nation’s politicians.

Back in February I told you I could have predicted the results of the Superbowl if I had tried to do so beforehand.

Well…I’m going out on a limb here and testing my numerological prowress using the theorem I mentioned back in February.

The World Series will be between the Colorado Rockies and Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox will win.
This is somewhat dependent upon who the manager actually plays.
If certain people sit on the bench, that could influence the results.

For exaomple, someone may point out that using my theorem, the Cubs should have beat Arizona. Arizona has no players in their active 40 man roster with any of my magic numbers. The Cubs have one. However, they went with the wrong catcher two out of the three games. Cubs fans will tell me that they lost all three games, and Soto played better in his two games than Kendall did in his one game. That doesn’t matter. If Kendall had played all three games, I guarantee that they wouldn’t have lost more than three games, and can anyone prove they wouldn’t have won the series?

For those who might be curious, but not curious enough to have looked it up yourself in the past week…

It is interesting what happened with the 2007 Baseball Hoover Awards

If you recall, since 1973, three American League teams had finished dead last five times, for a 3-way tie: Tampa Bay, Seattle and Detroit. Tampa Bay did it again, so they are the clear ‘leader’ currently in the American League.

Between 1982-2006, The Pirates were leading the National League with 5 Hoover Awards, with the Phillies, Braves, Cubs and Padres all tied for second place with 3. Pittsburgh extended their lead.

As seen at the Blog on the Edge of Forever:

Find out census information for your zipcode at ZipSkinny

My results:

Where I work:

High school or higher: 73.2%
Bachelors or higher: 18%
Median Household Income: $17,852
Unemployed 7.9%
Below Poverty Line 34.1%
Population: 4603
Density: 2102.88 (people per sq mile)

Where I Live

High school or higher: 92%
Bachelors or higher: 54.7%
Unemployed 1.6%
Below Poverty Line 5.9%
Median Household Income: $49,054
Population: 9072
Density: 3900.9

Where I grew up
High school or higher: 96.7%
Bachelors or higher: 70.3%
Unemployed 2.1%
Below Poverty Line 8.7%
Median Household Income: $62,252
Population: 14490
Density: 4889.22

(for those who know where I grew up and have large question marks in their mind right now. Here’s a hint: Washington University’s college dormitories fall within the zip code.)

Douglas Adams Dirk Gently series is being serialized for the radio by BBC Radio.
And you can listen online. Regardless of where you live.
The episodes began on Wednesday Oct 3…and are weekly…and I’m not sure they’re giong to remain accessible in archives…so you may have only 2 days to catch the first episode online.

It says it airs at 6:30pm on Wednesdays. But I suspect that’s GMT. Which means 12:30pm in St. Louis.

Darkness, Darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to read your words again
Because a vision softly creepy
left its seeds while I was sleepy.

The link is to a novel written by a friend and fellow writer’s group member, and recently published by SamsDotPublishing (which publishes a lot of great SF and Horror). My altered Simon and Garfunkel lyrics above are somewhat true since at the time she read the work in group, I was still regularly attending the Monday night open mic at The Venice Cafe which went into the wee hours of the morning. Then a full day of work on Tuesday. And by the time of the meeting on Tuesday night I was often ready to fall asleep.

But she gave me a copy to read and critique outside of the meeting, and I was able to read it at a more heightened state of mind.

I am also told that I am mentioned in some manner in the bio. (I’m a bit scared about that.) I’ve ordered a copy, but it hasn’t arrived.

All of the above pretty much puts a huge ‘biased’ disclaimer on what follows, but it’s good. Damn good.

To quote the book blurb, the novella “takes you into a maelstrom of madness where, just as the singer becomes the song, so too does the writer become the story . . . and the story of madness becomes the writer. Heavy with the flavor of Poe, this tale is a must-read on a dark night.”

I’d say more, but you should read it, and it’s been awhile since I read it, and my copy hasn’t arrived. So this review sucks. But the novella doesn’t. Not by a longshot.

From the recent issue of The Ansible

Jeanette Winterson [author of The Stone Gods] regards her novel as ‘more than speculative’: ‘I’m not a Luddite; I’m fascinated by technology. There’s not a single thing in The Stone Gods that’s not plausible; it’s not flights of fantasy or science fiction, but completely within our reach.’ (Metro, 25 September) [SK]

In [her] far future, genetic fixing has eliminated ageing, an advanced AI robot can be one’s soulmate, and mankind is starting anew on a fresh ‘Planet Blue’. But apart from that, what has science fiction ever done for us?

So Jeanette Winterson isn’t a science fiction writer. She just writes fiction about a future based upon plausible scientific advances. Gotcha.

Moderate consumption of alcohol is good for memory retention.

Don’t watch this video if:

1) You are diabetic, and can’t handle extreme amounts of sweetness
2) You have a phobia of kittens. Really cute kittens.

(as found at FilkerTom’s)