There is so much news out there that I’d like to bring to your attention today.

1. Obama goes on with his indecision on the war to do nothing and hope it goes away. By telling commanders that none of the options presented to him work.

2. Lou Dobbs (one of the few independent and non-liberal voices at CNN) is leaving CNN to pursue other options.

3. Remember when they said they were not going to raise taxes on middle class? Yeah scratch that, they were only kidding.

4. Jobless claims lower than expected.  That’s the best spin they can do that Americans are still loosing jobs and unemployment is still growing even during the Christmas hiring season.

5. “Saved” 650,000 jobs.  647,500 jobs. Sprint to can 2500 employees because of low subscriber rates.  Here’s a nifty idea – don’t be asshats to your customers.  You could also see about allowing jail broken iphones on your systems (but that might take a technology shift).  But people with AT&T are jumping at the chance to leave the expensive contracts.

6. In happier, trying to get you to spend money news – Target is announcing an insane black friday sale with 32″ HDTV for 246 bucks and $3 toasters. Really it’s just a toaster that you can burn your dollars for heat since the government is printing them enough to be kindle for fire.

7. And talking about currency.  Apparently the world is running out of gold.  Expect the price of gold to continue to climb.

8. “Saved” 647,500 jobs.  647,420 jobs. Al Gore’s Current Media company is cutting 80 jobs. See even global warming couldn’t save ole’ Al.

9. Atlas Shrugged to come to the big screen? Who is John Galt? But seriously Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are the ones behind the picture? Wow.

10. And lastly Obama hates the jews.  Ok maybe not, but he’s standing more with anti-Israel than he is pro-Israel when it comes to the west-bank settlements.

That’s right.  Because they don’t like what’s being said on Fox News.

“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”

The problem of course is that the White House fails to see the difference between the news stories throughout the day and the Opinion stories of people like Glenn Beck, O’Reily, Hannity.  These are commentators, they are not news people – they are paid for their opinions.

In recent weeks, the White House has begun using its government blog to directly attack what it called “Fox lies.” David Gergen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton and three Republican presidents, questioned the propriety of the White House declaring war on a news organization.

I like to draw the correlation between the White House (Obama) and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (who I might add had a great time with Obama at the Americas summit.).

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez threatened to close down an opposition-sided news network, saying the defiant Globovision channel’s days on the airwaves will be numbered if its directors don’t stand down.

Chavez on Thursday urged executives at Globovision “to reflect” upon the TV channel’s tough anti-government stance — or else the station “won’t be on the airwaves much longer.”

Wow, so a TV station that reports the news whom the President says is “anti-government” he’s trying to silence.  Obama of course hasn’t personally said anything like this.  Yet… but really his people have.  Seriously what type of person did we elect to office?

Updated Monday 10-19-09:

Over the weekend Obama’s staff continued attacks against Fox news:

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox “opinion journalism masquerading as news” in an interview last Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.”

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is “not a news organization.”

“Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way,” Axelrod counseled ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We’re not going to treat them that way.”

Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, “I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits.”

A couple things to note.  One – The ratings and polls speak for themselves  Fox is the most balanced news organization out there.  Two – Fox News beats all other organizations in the ratings day in and day out. Three – since when did making money not be a common factor on ALL news organizations? And when did making money become a bad thing?

Update: 10-22-09:

From politico.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs singled out specific shows on the Fox News network for criticism …

… Tuesday morning, continuing a public feud between the White House and the cable network that gained new momentum over the weekend.

Meeting with reporters in his office for an off-camera question-and-answer session, Gibbs parried questions about the White House’s harsh criticism of the cable news network, leveled on several Sunday shows by officials including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod.

Asked if it was fair for the White House to label Fox an illegitimate news organization, Gibbs replied: “We render opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness of their coverage.”

When a reporter pressed further, asking Gibbs to explain more specifically how Fox differed from ABC, MSNBC or Univision, the president’s spokesman pointed to two shows in particular as sources of concern.

“You and I should watch sometime around 9 tonight or 5 this afternoon,” Gibbs said, alluding to the 5 p.m. show hosted by Glenn Beck and the 9 p.m. program anchored by Sean Hannity.

Right, so at the times that political commentators are on TV.  They are not news reporters they are commentors on the TV at that time.

Related:
Isolation over engagement (Michelle Malkin)
Who is behind Obama’s War on Fox News
Obama controls Television Set
Anita Dunn talks about her love of Chairman Mao
Article on Dunn
Fair and Balanced on Wetwired?
Obama calls Tea Party People Tea-Bag Anti-Government

(Ann Coulter is the queen bee. Thanks for the link love!)

You know I find it simply appalling that you can’t go out and find any news about ACORN on CBS, NBC, CNN (side from an article way back), or ABC’s websites. Not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR times ACORN has  been caught at different locations helping people “potentially” commit crimes.  Not only that,  last night the video that was released showed a woman talking about how she got away with murdering her husband!

None of the news outlets are covering the fact that because of this information FINALLY they are calling for investigations in Congress, and finally they voted to remove some funding.   A group that stands to get BILLIONS of dollars from the stimulus and the senate is more worried about baseball and steroids than actual fraud.  The media is spending more time talking about Rep. Joe Wilson’s comment.  Hell, now they are throwing the race card out there saying that he’s a racist – all of this to detract from the other WAY more important stories like- how fraudulent community organizations are scamming tax payers to fund crime.

What is wrong with our news media?

It’s time once again for your Weekend Week’s End Wrap Up!!! Aren’t you excited?

Sunday: The internet exploded when anger-prone bored housewives everywhere freaked out over Barack Obama’s interview with Jay Leno. I mean, Jay did a pretty good job with most of those questions, and Mr. President didn’t do too bad himself with the answers, so what were they pissed about? Obama is bad at bowling. He claims it’s “like Special Olympics or something.” Clearly, this means he was directly insulting all mentally challenged people by comparing his attempt to compete on an equal level with other, more able-bowlers, with the international sporting event for the intellectually disabled. Yea, that’s right, I said it. Whathca gunna do about it? Note: I cannot find any dictionary anywhere that defines “special” as being in any way related to a learning disability. It means other than ordinary, or different. Maybe Obama was referring to some sort of “special” Olympics for people who are bad at sports. Nevermind, that’s retarded.

Monday: Eddie Vedder says this in a Newsweek interview with Jessica Bennett, “Back [in our early days] it was very knee-jerk: You’d want to kick out a stained-glass window to get your point across. Now you try to deliver better business plans to corporate entities so they can still make a profit, but do it without destroying land or culture.” Well, when he puts it that way… I guess Pearl Jam derserves to still be the coolest grunge band ever. I’ll be sure to buy that rerelease of “Ten” as soon as it goes on sale at Wal-Mart. Take that, the Establishment.

Tuesday: Pieternel Dijkstra, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, read Stacked Heel’s post about Watchmen and decided to conduct a study on why she’s single and therefore has no hope of ever being happy. “The study, recently published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, asked 760 members of an online dating site to answer questionnaires regarding their personality traits, as well as the traits they would want in an ideal long-term partner.” Turns out, 86% of people claimed to want someone has qualities that “balanced” theirs (i.e. He is really energetic and wants someone who is more mellow). 4 out of every 5 people are looking for someone with whom they have nothing in common, and so when they meet someone they actually get along with they assume that person must be boring. So 4 out of 5 people find themselves boring, and are looking for incompatible partners to make their lives exciting. However, arguing is not exciting, and getting along might be kind of boring but at least you won’t be eating 10 pounds of break up cake every five months.

Wednesday: Al Gore dropped the unseemly Mr. Vice President business and now prefers to be referred to as Noble Laureate Al Gore. Therefore, Mr. Noble Laureate Al Gore announced that the Nobel Laureate will be releasing the follow-up to his New York Times best seller “An Inconvenient Truth” (later adapted into an Academy Award winning film) titled “Our Choice” by Nobel Laureate Al Gore, this fall. Also, he reminded everyone that he won the Nobel Peace prize.

Thursday: Inexplicably still clamoring for attention, Rihanna gets a tattoo of a gun. Said her tattoo artist BangBang (what?!), ““I’m a big advocate of guns. So I said, ‘How about a gun?” I can think of lots of reasons why not a gun, but, whatever, it’s her body, she can let men do whatever she wants to it.

Friday: Some jerk scientist figured out that crustaceans feel pain, and made me feel a little bit bad about my Lowcountry Boil. For, like, a couple minutes. Really, I felt terrible for those poor little shrimp. But then I remembered when you peel the shell off, the legs and stuff come off with it, and then it hardly looks like a real animal at all anymore. I mean, come on, that’s why they don’t cut steaks into little cow silhouettes. Stop being such a jerk, scientist, I know that animals feel pain. I don’t need to be reminded during lunch.

Saturday: Earth Hour becomes the newest, coolest thing since whatever hipsters bothered me about for taking three napkins at Starbucks before Earth Hour.

Dear Allah,

I recently read about your good and faithful servant Muzzammil Hassan, and how he beheaded his wife to preserve his family honor when she wanted to divorce him for beating her. I was so moved to hear that there are still men in this world so devout to you that they are willing to kill, to murder their wives for reasons of honor.

I mean, let’s face it, women are evil and cunning (Qur’an 12:28), right? I mean that’s why you told us that they only have half of the value of a man. (Qur’an 4:11) Women are dirty, filthy creatures. They are so dirty, that you have instructed us not to pray if we have recently touched a woman, or used the toilet, and if we have to pray, we should scour ourselves with dirt which is cleaner. (Qur’an 4:43, 5:6)

Truly all these rules make sense, and we are thankful to you for providing them to us.

I wonder why in your infinite wisdom, you never thought to make women clean, and equal to men so that we could avoid problems, like the sickness of menstruation. (Qur’an 2:222) However, I feel sure you had your reasons. After all, if women were not made by you to be less than men, then who would we be allowed to beat when we are angry? You put us in charge of the beatings of women, because you made us better than them. (Qur’an 4:34)

Thanks for that. It would really suck if it had been the other way around.

However I have a modest proposal about the beheadings. I understand that there are times when your servants will need to kill their women so that they may continue to honor you, and worship you. That’s just the type of God you are, Allah. However, can we set up Designated Beheading Zones? I think this is a good idea, because if we did, then we would not have to worry about the health hazard caused by leaving so many filthy, vile, dirty women dead all over the place.

Also, if beheadings only happened in The Zones, then we could properly equip them with: swords, axes, machetes, and “Beautiful virgins, with wide, lovely eyes” (Qur’an 52:20) This would also make it much easier for your followers to commit “Emergency Beheadings”. This way, they would not have to plan the whole ordeal in advance. Really, is there anything more irritating than showing up to kill your wife for letting another man see her face, (Qur’an 24:31) and realizing that you left your axe at home?

Now, I know I am an infidel, and I come from the land of The Great Satan, so forgive my confusion. However, it may look to some of us like your subjugation of women may not be for their own good, but more for your sexual gratification. I know this shows my ignorance, and belies my own inner evil. However, it seems to me that the only men I know that are this scared of women are either impotent, or have a one inch cock.

(In metric that is 25.4mm)

Certainly, these problems of the flesh do not plague a god like yourself, so I ask myself if there may be another cause for it.  Obviously the answer can’t be that you simply have a preference for men. Maybe a secret preference that you have been denying for 3,000 years.

Allah, what are your preferences? Are your curious?

You know, maybe all this anger comes from being in the closet for the last 30 centuries, and denying that which really makes you happy? If that’s the case, maybe you should take some time off from telling some desert nomads how to live and realize that it’s 2009. Let your freak flag fly, man!

Have you considered therapy? If you just can’t get over this rage and need to beat women, maybe some time on the couch is all you need. I know a great Jewish psychologist. Of course she’s a woman, but not to worry, she only wears skirts that come past her knees.

Anyway Allah, if nothing else, please consider my suggestions on the Designated Beheading Zones. It’s really a win-win for every man involved. Until then, please feel free to go back to instructing your followers to murder innocent children and women for your glory.

Allah Akbar!

Sincerely,

Beerslinger, the Infidel.

I guess I should have seen this coming.

Truth be told, the symptoms started a few weeks ago. I became less immediate in my need for news, and I could go for several hours without checking websites for the latest headlines. I became less knowledgeable on world events happening on a daily basis.

Then, there was the inauguration. I watched it, then went to a car dealership to help a friend look for a truck. Rather than stay and watch the rest of the festivities, I left my tv and computer behind for the rest of the day.

Today, I checked fark.com to see the headlines on the not-news site, and went to the political section first. Once there, I realized- I had little knowledge on what Obama is doing as president. Since he took office two weeks ago, I haven’t cared enough to follow along with the news.

It was simple, I realized. I had Informative Burnout.

It’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on in the world. It’s that I can’t take the continuous barrage of real, actual news at the moment. After two years of election news, 8 years of Bush news, 3.5 years of Katrina fallout news (and subsequent hurricanes), 8 months of Palin, 16 years of Clintons, and 7.5 years of 9/11, I’ve had enough. It’s become so much that to lessen the strain of the world around me I’ve had to tune to… (sigh)… celebrity news.

There, I’ve said it.

I have turned into a celebrity news person, simply because the inane shitheadery of actors, actresses and reality show celebutards (combined with the usual douchebag list in California) has become an outlet for me feeling bad about everything that’s wrong with the world today.

It got to the point where I saw a commercial for a VH1 show about mid-20s douchebags being sent to a guy’s version of a charm school so the could stop being complete assholes, and I was INTERESTED IN WATCHING IT.

(shudder)

I’m not proud of that.

…

I think I have to stop looking at the news for a bit. I think I need to relax for a little while, focus on work and not fretting too much about the events of the world around me and give the 24 hour news cycle a rest.

After a bit, I’ll be back to being informed. Just not right now- I can’t take the repercussions. I mean, I almost watched a reality show on VH1. What the fuck?

Out.

So let me get this straight. There are actually 3 issue number 1s?  Really?  If you glance at their business page you’ll see that we have Issue #1 Transition.  Then we have Issue #1 Detroit. Then we have Issue# 1 Jobs.  But wait a second.  I got past kindergarten I learned that you can’t have more than one number one.  Apparently CNN thinks that we’re all too stupid for our own good now a days.   Of course they’ll try to say its all Issue number one its money.   No, it’s your stupid new catch phrase and you can’t help but use it for every single thing.

I’m sure pretty soon we’ll see “Issue #1 your prostetic arm.”  Really?

Not a Podcast, but a news report. Take a listen.

Comments will definitely be appreciated.

Out.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here is one of those “I’ll believe it when I see it” things. Basically two guys claim to have found a carcas of a “bigfoot” in Georgia and plan to have a press conference to release DNA evidence this Friday. Seriously guys, why not do it today?

I heard about this on the news today on Fox News I believe but in searching their website and CNN’s and there is nothing. I found this on the Inquirer’s website. So what does that tell you? It tells me that the press is paying attention and possibly just mis-reporting other rumors or it could be that the Associated Press guys are just being cautious because they don’t have any confirmed informaiton. News Release from their site:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 12, 2008 BIGFOOT BODY FOUND DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a PRESS CONFERENCE to be held on Date: Friday, August 15, 2008 Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306 Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California Tom Biscardi, CEO BIGFOOT BODY FOUND – EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia. DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press. Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body: *The creature is seven feet seven inches tall. *It weighs over five hundred pounds. *The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like. *It is male. *It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes. *It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot. *The feet are flat and similar to human feet. *Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel. *From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide. *The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.) *The teeth are more human-like than ape-like. *DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.

Anyway if this is true it’s kinda cool, but seriously what are we going to do, track them down, hunt them? Put them in a zoo?

Update, here is the website of the guys who claim to have found bigfoot. Their website looks like a 5 year old put it together though.. what do you expect from the state that brought us Deliverance. Here is a more local news station reporting it CBS affiliate.

Update 9:28CDT: BAMN. Fox News has now posted the article. So either it is getting more legit or its just an internet rumor feeding frenzy.

Update: I’ve posted a running post for today with more information Go here.

In case you missed it, Chillville was on 101x this morning in Austin.  I always try to catch just a little bit of it when I’m in town.  Today I found out about Gnarles Barkley’s new Album “The Odd Couple“.  This was Full Monty’s Catch of the day.   I have to agree after listening to the album that many more of the songs on this track are – bareable.   It seemed like the last album that came out only had one or two good songs – especially Crazy – very radio friendly and even today if you played it, it would still get stuck in your head. 

Today also was the very wet Cap 10K.  And our very own figment did it in 1hr and 2minutes and liz did it in 56minutes.  Congrats! 

I just bought my tickets to see Salvage Vangaurd’s Intergalatic Nemesis for the 3rd time.  This time it will be at the Paramount for one night only on May 9th.  You can still pick up tickets but all the good stuff has been sold out -rather all the close up stuff has been sold out – I got in the A seating. 

“So, yeah, we had a good thing going for a long time there. But Movable Type, baby, we felt that love start to die inside and we couldn’t go on just for the posts.

 Oh, don’t cry baby. It’s us, it’s not you. You’re beautiful, yes you are!

So yeah, we’re moving into this cramped little studio apartment until we get our new place. It’s not like it was with you, but it’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

So yeah, you’re looking at our temp placeholding until we get the new site full launched.It’s not as nice as the old site, but it’ll do until we get everything up and running.

Oh, and I may have some news about The Job soon, so stay tuned.

Out.

I’ve grabbed the K2 theme and threw up an older custom drawn header I had made some 2 years ago but never posted.  If you’ve followed any of the wetwired news posts about the site itself you’ll remember that several times I have begun to re-design the site and have not moved forward with it.  This time I have a new theme that I’ve got an artist working on and once its done I’ll be working hard on creating the wetwired theme for the site and then uploading it.

So needless to say here is the site in all its temporary template glory, but fully converted to wordpress including all the old posts and comments no less.  The forums will not be going back up, feel free to comment and notice that the comments actually work again!

A MAN who was accused of having sex with a sheep has walked free because the animal was unable to testify.

The man, from Haaksbergen, near Utrecht in the Netherlands, was reported to police after a farmer caught him having sex with a sheep.

But the case was thrown out of court as the sheep couldn’t take to the stand to testify that it didn’t want to have sex and had suffered emotional stress.

Under Dutch law, bestiality is not a crime unless it can be proved the animal didn’t want to have sex.

“Short of putting the sheep in the dock, at the moment these perverts cannot be prosecuted,” animal rights campaigner Jos van Huisen said.

Original Alamo is moving to 6th street. They are asking if you have any memories that you shoot them over – specifically if you have a blog entry. I went ahead and shot over Fnliii’s Harold and Kumar incident. The reply from Jon Hurwitz made it all better I’d say.

Saturday Salvage Vangaurd will be doing 2 shows for the Intergalatic Nemesis its free. Thats right, new material, and free. I’m guessing it will be just a bit crowded, but we’re going to try to go.

Apple has a new iphone tour that is 20 minutes. Part marketing, part tutorial on how to use. In reality, just another brilliant marketing ploy that you have to admire about Apple.

Also I have done some “summer cleaning” on the links/blogroll. A lot of the blogs on there have not been updated in 6 months or are dead links. Its amazing how many blogs come and go, yet wetwired is 7 years strong.

That’s all I got for now, just figured it was time to post something again as we’ve been short on posts for a long time. In actuality I’m thinking about updating to the new version of Movable Type that is in beta.