The Citizens for Fire Safety has blanketed Maryland with scary flyers calling Maryland legislative bill HB1 “A Deadly Mistake” - “Help stop the bill that will ban material used to make flame resistant products. Call your state Senator!”

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of “Citizens for Fire Recklessness” groups that are mad now…

Strangely, the Maryland State Fireman’s Assocation supports SB1:

The Citizens for Fire Safety have not returned phone calls or e-mails as we have requested them to do to validate their existence or claims. Lobbyists have been hired by this group to contact as many fire service personnel as possible to assist in the defeat of this bill. We are not sure if they have given a complete and accurate set of facts with their requests.

PLEASE!!! If you have been contacted by this group, call us and get the true facts from people you know and can trust to be there tomorrow. Be sure you know the FULL STORY before you make your decision to call your legislators.

Which likely leads one to believe that Citizen for Fire Safety is really just Manufacturers of Chemical Crap with a website.

Jan7

Napoleon, I’m sure there’s a babe out there for you too.  Peace out.  - Kip

Jan 8Now, for only $300, you can sign up right now for my eight-week program.  - Rex

Jan 9

Dang!  You got shocks…pegs…lucky!  - Napoleon

Jan10

Took me, like, three hours to finish the shading on your upper lip.  It’s probably the best drawing I’ve ever done.  - Napoleon

Jan 11

Deb: This is looking really good.

Kip: You can say that again.

Jan 12/13

If you can’t find Trisha, I’ll let you dance with Deb for a few songs.  - Pedro

Jan 1

Grandma: How was school?

Napoleon: The worst day of my life.  What do you think?!

Jan 2

Lafawnduh is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I’m a hundred-percent positive that she’s my soul mate.

Jan 3

Deb: What are you drawing?

Napoleon: A liger.

Jan 4

My friends and clients, they call me Uncle Rico.  - Uncle Rico

Jan 5/6

Job Hunting Skills - Always bring food to your interview.  It shows you can take care of yourself and that you’re not just looking for a free lunch.  - Napoleon

Minnkota Power, a generation/transmission cooperative serving electricity consumers in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, is not happy about climate change and they want their customers to know about it, every other month. A review of their customer newsletter, the Minnkota Messenger, indicates a consistent concern that climate change is a massive environmental sham. Some of it reads like grocery store tabloids and it’s quite interesting how much coverage they give to it, perhaps hoping that quantity will make up for quality. They might do well to read “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.”

• Nov/Dec 2007, p6 - “A Developing Catastrophe”

• Sep/Oct 2007 - break

• Jul/Aug 2007, p9 - “Global Warming: The Rest of the Story”

• May/Jun 2007 - break

• Mar/Apr 2007 - break

• Jan/Feb 2007, p9: “Polar Bears and Climate Change”

• Nov/Dec 2006 - break

• Sep/Oct 2006, p6: “A shaky foundation”

• Jul/Aug 2006, p6: “Another Perspective: Noted scientist weighs in on climate change issue”

• May/Jun 2006, p10: “Political Science: New film puts climate change in headlines”

• Mar/Apr 2006, p10: “Myth: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.”

• Jan/Feb 2006, p10: “An astonishing discovery: Recent finding underscores cautionary approach”

• Nov/Dec 2005 - break

• Sep/0ct 2005, p11 - “A hurricane of misinformation global warming activists turn storms into spin”

• Jul/Aug 2005, p6 - “Earth’s ever-changing climate state geologist offers his perspective”

• May/Jun 2005, p12 - “Alarmist warning; Myth: Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are currently at an all-time high.”

• Mar/Apr 2005, p11: “Baliunas debunks Kyoto Protocol”

• Jan/Feb 2005, p12: “Myth: Global warming caused the recent tsunami in Sumatra.”

And the list goes on…

The website “Damn Interesting” has a great article on the history of Thomas Midgley and leaded gasoline, who might be considered a scientific pariah for inventing both leaded gas (health effects) and CFCs (ozone effects). In “The Ethyl Poisoned Earth” we learn that the health effects of lead were well known in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as corporate types continually lied to the public over and over and over, covered it up over and over and over, and influenced political attempts to address it over and over and over. Sound familiar? (DDT, global warming, smoking, etc)

And the Utne Reader has an article, “Atomic Dreams,” which talks about the revival of the nuclear industry in light of global warming and some arguments that it’s a necessary evil to deal with global energy needs.

This has been posted in numerous places online, but I thought I’d continue the virus (Source):

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

4. “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

5. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.

6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

13. Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is a solid defense policy.

16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

17. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

18. You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1980s is irrelevant.

20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist; but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

[Update 1/5/08: It's pretty sweet when your blog has thousands of hits, not because of something intelligent you wrote (if I've in fact done that), but because of humerous crap that you passed along.]

The genius that is capitalism and religion have paired up to offer the Talking Jesus doll at Wal-Mart and Target (Source). Indeed, I just heard about it on NPR…

Of course, the easy media angle is whether Jesus will out compete traditional toys, i.e. will kids play with it? Some even call it the next religious Tickle-Me-Elmo. Whatever…too easy. Softball news garbage. The next easiest controversy is whether it’s some kind of heresy to make a Jesus doll in the first place. Another whatever.

What I immediately thought of is whether Talking Jesus was made in China, whether he was made of plastic (PVC - poly-vinyl-chloride), and if he would be dogged by the lead controversy.

Wouldn’t that be fitting? It’s cheap toy crap, no matter what veil you put on it…And the religious do-gooders couldn’t think ahead of short-term cheapness.

In fact, he is made of PVC and is made in China. I can’t answer the lead question without an independent laboratory test, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit…The toy recalls for plastic toys made in China are an obvious source to base that on (NYTimes).

Who cares about PVC? Well, to start it’s not exactly safe to produce (Building Green). And PVC can contain phlalates to make it flexible/pliable, which course aren’t very good to ingest, ala BPA plastic concerns.

This isn’t new, just newly discovered. A few years ago I bought a measuring tape at Target that was plastic and a sticker on the box, saying it contained lead and I should wash my hands after using. I returned it.

So how about it? Can someone test Jesus to see if he’s made of lead?

(Source: Joe Jaszewski, Idaho Statesman)

At what point does a lie become delusional? At what point should you just give up, and say, “You caught me.”? Two totally unrelated liars, caught in a web of clear evidence, seem awfully similar in their denials:

Jammie Thomas illegally downloaded music and is being sued by the music industry. The evidence (Star Tribune):

• She used the online name “Tereastarr,” which was implicated in the download and distribution (how many “Tereastarrs” can there be?)
• Her Internet IP Address was assigned to her computer at her home at the time of implication (someone must have broken into her house and used her computer to download music)
• She listened to the artists that were in question
• She wrote a college paper on Napster, but had never heard of Kazaa (it’s like Ford and Chevy of online file sharing)
• She said her hard drive was installed in January 2004, but Best Buy actually put a new one in March 2005, 2 months after coming under scrutiny

Senator Larry Craig (Republican from Idaho) was busted in a bathroom sex sting but denies everything. The evidence (Star Tribune 1, StarTribune 2):

• He entered a restroom, stood outside the door of a stall with an undercover police officer, and peered in
• Entered the adjascent stall and tapped his foot, slid it closer to the next stall, and moved it up and down slowly (he said it was because of a “wide stance”)
• Swiped his left palm under the stall, more than once, exposing more fingers each time (he said he was picking up a piece of paper…many times)
• The officer saw his wedding ring on his left hand, but Craig insists it was his right hand that “picked up the paper”
• When the officer placed his badge under the stall, Craig yelled “No!” (why would he care if he didn’t know what he was doing?)
• He didn’t flush the toilet and wouldn’t leave until told he was under arrest
• He asked the officer of soliciting him and said “Am I going to have to fight you in court?”

I absolutely agree that people lie and that human nature is to divert and lie when confronted. But when presented with overwhelming and public evidence, don’t make a fool of yourself, just admit it. Clinton lied. Bush II lies. (But Clinton never killed anyone.) Say your sorry and take your medicine.

I find it especially amusing that moral majority likes to throw stones, while they are doing the same things behind the scenes. I bet there’s a high correlation between the strength of one’s public moral fundamentalism and engaging in the exact activites you decry.

Swing off of Rhode Island near the Shaw Howard University metro station and you’re bound to his U-Street, where a string of ethiopian restaurants reside. The most famous is probably Dukem, which serves respectable fare. But if you want to taste something a little more authentic, try Etete.

Amazingly good Ethiopian that is served in bowls instead of directly on the bread, the food tastes more like kitchen fare than restaurant. And that makes sense, since the back of the rowhouse appears to be living quarters. (Except for the fancy electronic soap dispenser, you feel like your in your friend’s bathroom when you wash up.)

And as an added bonus, they might fire up the big screen projector and let you taste not only the food, but African music videos with pelvis thrusting women dancing around a hipster grandpa, even if no one else is really there or appears to be watching. It makes it a little distracting to have all that ass shaking around while you’re trying to eat and talk with your girlfriend.

Rita’s Ice Cone shops are becoming quite the chain, but I can taste why. This one is at the corner of South Dakota and Rhode Island on the northeast side and is THE stopping point for DC and Prince George’s County ambulances - five stopped by in the hour we were there. Plus, we can bike there from Mount Rainier.

You can get soft serve custard, but why?

Instead, go for the gelati. Tonight I had custard with pina colada and wild black cherry flavored shaved ice on top of more custard. Incredible.