Yell!

I've moved from Blogspot.

2011-09-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

And I have begun the Wordpress experience.

anyellday.com

I'm going to leave this blog...

2011-09-14T04:30:00.001-07:00

...and use anyellday.com for something better.

Soon.

(Also, screw you, Blogspot, for breaking all of those images I worked on.)

I live in Thailand.

2011-05-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

There's a moment that I have every day that sends a shock through my system and makes me feel totally weird, and that's the thought that I live literally on the other side of the world, now, and that things are very very different (in a good way). Now that we've been here for a while and can maneuver our way through our day-to-day activities, the reality of life can begin to sink in.

That being said: our quality of life here is tremendously better. If we need something, it can be acquired. If we want something, it's probably not out of the question. Example: Today I woke up feeling flu-ish. As I work with kindergarteners, it's to be expected that I'll get sick from time to time. However, as I work with kindergarteners, I can't go missing work or dropping the ball, so I need to get better. I have a pretty bad sore throat and a fever, so I can assess that perhaps I need to see a health care professional. Back in the "good ole" USofA, I had to worry about the cost of such things. Since I didn't have (and couldn't afford) health insurance, I had to worry about the 1) cost to see the doctor and 2) cost for medicine. I had pneumonia - or something like it - back in February and could not afford to treat it. I was sick for a month, forcing myself to work through it and generally being miserable because I couldn't shell out $275 (YES, THAT MUCH) to see the doctor at the clinic (AT THE CLINIC) in Tahoe City, and I couldn't even imagine how much antibiotics would be. In Thailand, the pharmacist can assess what your problem is and prescribe the medicine you need. Less than five minutes and the equivalent of $4.35 later, I have a fever-reducer (strong Ibuprofen) and antibiotics....because you shouldn't go broke trying to get better.

My husband and I celebrated a mini-milestone on Wednesday. It was our six-month wedding anniversary. It's not a year milestone or anything, but it's something to celebrate (especially tying it in with my new employment and our new life abroad). We wanted to treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We rode our motorbike up the road a few clicks and settled into a nice restaurant by the river. Our water never dropped halfway down our glass and we both ate like kings. (If you must know, he had a MASSIVE wood-fired calzone and I had an impressive veggie dagwood sandwich with a huge plate of fries...and this place is nice - expensive by local standards.) Our total at the end of the meal, with tip, was the equivalent of $11...and this was a splurge. We usually eat out for about $1.50 for both of us at various stalls around town, but this was a treat. Back in America, a "special dinner" for us would have been a decent fraction of a paycheck.

But, it's not all about money....a lot of it is about smiles and fun. Thai people like to smile. They like to have fun. There's no point in doing something if it's not fun. (Don't think they're lazy, though...Thai people work impressively long hours - 10-12 hours a day for 6-7 days a week.) I can smile at every person I come across and 99.9% of them will crack a grin back. At my school, I wai everyone I can and greet everyone I come across, and I get the same in return. It's a warm feeling and it's inviting.

I could go on and on and on, really.....the sites, the smells, the feelings. I'll just say that this was a good move. It's probably not permanent forever because I miss some of those faces back home too much, but this is good for the soul. This place can make you feel like a person, again.

Computer Emissions

2011-04-28T06:04:00.001-07:00

Infographic via: Wordstream

Mad Delicious Tuna Noodle Casserole

2011-03-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

After reading through several "tuna noodle casserole" recipes on allrecipes.com and a few other similar popular sites, I decided to "wing it" and put together my own casserole. My entire adult life, I've been mostly vegetarian, so I'm not too familiar with cooking meat of any kind, fish included. That being said, I'm 25 and I have never made a tuna noddle casserole before. It wasn't much of a staple in my house growing up, either, so I was a little nervous attempting such an iconic American dish for my husband and a few roomies.

That being said, I kicked this casserole's ASS. It was DELICIOUS and my husband ate half of the casserole dish! I had a few friends asking for the recipe, so here ye be:

Ingredients:

1 12-oz package of egg noodles
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
2-3 cloves minced garlic
3-4 large button mushrooms, chopped
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup frozen peas
3 5-oz cans of tuna, drained
2 10.75-oz cans of condensed mushroom soup
1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1 cup crushed potato chips (about one small bag of Lays did me fine)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray/oil a 9x13 glass casserole dish. Set aside.

Cook egg noodles according to package direction. While noodles are boiling, saute the onion, garlic, and mushrooms with a little oil in a saucepan over medium heat, until the onions are translucent.

Meanwhile, mix together the tuna, milk, peas, one cup of shredded cheese, and condensed soup (no water added). Once the noodles are cooked, add them to the mix. Stir in the sauteed veggies. Mix well.

Transfer the mix to the greased casserole dish. Sprinkle half of your crushed potato chips on top, then sprinkle half a cup of shredded cheese, then the rest of your chips and the rest of your cheese (layering a few times on top of the dish).

Bake dish uncovered for 25 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Moving to the Land of Smiles

2011-01-12T08:05:00.001-08:00

(Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai - photo taken personally in March 2010)

Well, we've decided to move to Thailand. This was an idea we casually mentioned to each other every now and then since our return from a month-long vacation there last February-March. We've been restless since then, with an underlying tension driving us to do something a little different from what is the standard here. (Honestly, it was between this and getting a small travel trailer to live in near the coast. Ironically, moving to Asia is the cheaper option.)

I made the commitment about a week before Christmas, booking a month-long TEFL course with SEE TEFL in Chiang Mai. I chose SEE TEFL after searching for schools in Chiang Mai (Bangkok did not appeal to us) and noticing their re-appearance with every different search I managed. I've also yet to find anything negative about the school at all, and they seem to have reasonable connections for job placement. Since I've booked the course, I've exchanged several e-mails with the owner, John, and his patience and ability to respond promptly leaves me excited to arrive and begin my course. My classes start on April 25, and Shawn put down his deposit for the same dates just yesterday. We chose these dates as it's at the end of the Thai summer and this is when schools will be hiring the most during the year.

Our next move was to determine where we would be living for the duration of the course and during our job hunts upon graduation. We wanted something within walking distance of SEE TEFL. We also desired something with a kitchen (such a loose term in Thailand - a kitchen simply has a sink, 'fridge, and two hot plates....no oven ::sad face::). Searching from America, the only places I could find seemed rather expensive - service apartments in luxury hotels, around $750 a month at the cheapest. At the other end of the spectrum, I found a lot of guest houses for around 5k BAHT a month (~$160), but these lacked kitchens of any sort and were very basic hotels. (They also required that we pay for utilities, and I have no experience with that in Thailand so I have no idea how much electricity a "unit" is!) I pressed on, determined to find something more in our budget (we wanted to spend no more than 10k BAHT - around $300 - a month). After several Google searches and TripAdvisor reviews, I found a vacation rental agent in Chiang Mai. His website didn't advertise prices, which made me a little hesitant to even bother (the apartments looked nicer than some of the serviced places I saw advertised for nearly $1k) but I e-mailed him and we began the process of finding just what we needed. Luckily, Richard, the owner of the company, is another patient farang in the LOS (Land of Smiles) and he directed me to exactly the studio apartment we needed....and for a mere $400 a month, with maid service and all utilities paid. There's even a pool to relax in, which will be nice as we'll be arriving in the middle of the Thailand summer. The best part is the distance to the school: a short ten-minute walk. Finally, it seemed as if the pieces were falling together.

Our final major step in preparing was to book airfare. I was shocked to see that airfare basically doubled from the same time last year. In February-March of 2010, we got roundtrip airfare from San Francisco to Bangkok for $700 each. After a lot of searching and trying different methods and booking at different times of day, we settled at $709 each one-way from Reno to Chiang Mai. We could have gone San Francisco to Bangkok, again, but it was only $50 cheaper, and then we'd have to find transport to SFO and book a train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. That'd be tacking on another day of travel for no reason. At least we'll be flying out from a local airport and flying directly to our destination in Thailand (last time, we were a hot mess trying to find our way). The vacation rental agent in Chiang Mai even has a driver pick us up upon arrival, delivering us home immediately!

SEE TEFL sponsors all students' residency in Thailand for one year with a non-immigrant B visa. I have received the letter from SEE TEFL in the mail and I will have to submit my visa application, along with $175 and two photos of myself. This is the next major expense, but it is cheaper than going on visa runs to Burma or Laos every sixty days - which seems to be the norm in Thailand. I am lucky to get the one-year visa option, for sure. Shawn will get the same, as we are at the same school.

A lot of people who know me are wondering why in the heck I would want to teach English. I have a few responses. First, I'm tired of working in the service industry, whoring myself out for the odd dollar tip here and there. Also, I've done the office-gig corporate thing and that wasn't for me. Teaching is something that appealed to me when I was younger, but I opted out when I saw how little teachers got paid. (Not that they're millionaires in Thailand, but we can expect to have a combined income of ~60k BAHT over there...totally livable in Chiang Mai.) It's time to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone, and I think this is an excellent way to do that. Also, with the experience I'll gain with the TEFL certification and a year or two of teaching in Thailand, I'll be able to do the same in other countries. (Indonesia or Japan, anyone?) This is also good for Shawn, who has a degree that's just been collecting dust. He'll make more than me monthly, doing the same job, because he has that Bachelors. Benefits all around.

It's also good to note that you can't really find any other legal work in Thailand. Thais are very protective of their jobs, and teaching English is the only thing they allow farangs to do, for the most part. If you see a farang working any other job in Thailand, chances are they are being paid under the table and they have to make those pain-in-the-ass visa runs every two months. That, or they work online for an employer in another country and they discovered the BAHT to dollar or BAHT to pound ratio was in their favor to live like a king in the Land of Smiles.

And so, the journey begins. After all of these deposits and tickets and forms, we're pretty broke right now. Luckily, the big expenses are out of the way, and now all we have to do is save, save, save.

Alcohol vs. Marijuana

2010-11-13T15:15:00.001-08:00

Henry Rollins Disses Techno (& gets remixed with the Techno Viking!)

2010-11-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

Venturing out of color, and into cut.

2010-10-08T19:54:00.003-07:00

New 'do. I think this is the start of something...fun :)

Reishi Mushrooms in Missouri!

2010-10-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

It's true - Reishi mushrooms can be found in Missouri! My fiance and I went hunting in the woods near Castlewood State Park last Monday, and we found the MOTHERLOAD of Reishi mushrooms near the Meramec River. I was unaware that these mushrooms grew outside of Asia, but upon internet searching, it's proven that they grow in the Southeastern USA late-Summer to early-Fall.

(our tree!)

Why is this exciting? These particular Reishi mushrooms may enhance the immune system to improve overall health. Also, this article claims that Reishi mushrooms are useful in other ways!

Table - Pharmacological effects of whole Reishi extracts in vivo and in vitro

Analgesic
Anti-allergic activity
Bronchitis-preventative effect, inducing regeneration of bronchial epithelium
Anti-inflammatory
Antibacterial, against Staphylococci, Streptococci, and Bacillus pneumoniae (perhaps due to increased immune system activity)
Antioxidant, by eliminating hydroxyl free radicals
Antitumor activity
Antiviral effect, by inducing interferon production
Lowers blood pressure
Enhances bone marrow nucleated cell proliferation
Cardiotonic action, lowering serum cholesterol levels with no effect on triglycerides, enhancingcardial metabolism of hypoxic animals, and improving coronary artery hemodynamics
Central depressant and peripheral anticholinergic actions on the autonomic nervous sytem reduce the effects of caffeine and relax muscles
Enhanced natural killer cell (NK) activity in vitro in mice
Expectorant and antitussive properties demonstrated in mice studies
General immunopotentiation
Anti-HIV activity in vitro and in vivo
Improved adrenocortical function
Increased production of Interleukin-1 by murine peritoneal macrophages in vitro
Increased production of Interleukin-2 by murine splenocytes in vitro

We whipped up a tea once we got home and confirmed our all-too-lucky findings. The tea is delicious and a nice reward for the time spent tromping around the woods.

We also found a small amount of oyster mushrooms (used in a wild mushroom risotto at home that night), as well as various non-edibles that took pretty pictures.

(Oytster Mushrooms were part of dinner!)

Shecky's Girls Night Out - St. Louis

2010-10-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

A month ago, I was scanning the local Riverfront Times and noticed an ad for "Girls Night Out" in St. Louis. Considering I'm always trying to get more female hang-out time in my life, I figured this would be a fun event for my bestie and I. I found myself also intrigued by the "Goodie Bag" that seemed to be the big selling point for people who attend this event every year (I'd never heard of it, before.). The ad said tickets were $25 each, but I saw them for $15 each on the Shecky's website, so I figured "why not?" At the very least, we'd get free drinks and a bag that would probably have one or two "neat" items in it.

Last Wednesday, women of all ages and ethnicities filed into the Coronado Ballroom on Lindell. It was easy to move around for the first hour or so, but it quickly packed in and became IMPOSSIBLE to move in. I'm glad we got there at the very start, because we didn't wait in any sort of line and waltzed on in with no problems. I got a five-minute upper-body massage straight away, and got to do a beer-and-cheese tasting that was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch. (To be honest, however, the beers they chose for this were AWFUL and the food pairings weren't very impressive. All of the beers were cheap, fruity crap and the pairings were some raspberries, a very salty cracker with cheap jack cheese on it, and a plastic spoon with gross cheesecake filling on it. I wouldn't really bother with it, unless you like light, fruity, sugary beer.) Other free drinks were available (a decent selection of beer and sangria, as well as melon cocktails and some fruity cocktails).

As far as the main event (shopping), the pickings were slim and lackluster. I only found one article of clothing that I even considered buying, but still felt too steep at $30 for a flimsy, cheap shirt-dress. The worst part is that this was also the cheapest thing I could find at the event! Most of the vendors had cute clothes, but I wasn't about to drop $95 on a thin jacket or $45 on a dress, especially since the quality and style of the clothing presented can be found for half-that from places like Forever 21. I wound up spending a whopping $5 on some bath products at a booth in the back. (And, considering how busy this booth was, it seemed to be the only major money-maker at the event.)

Overall, I think the major draw for these Shecky's events are the "Goodie Bags" that the "VIP" tickets get (I think nearly everyone was VIP at this thing.). Our bags were PACKED to the brim with some full-size product and some sample-sizes. In my bag, I found:

full-size tube of Colgate MaxWhite toothpaste
sample-size perfume (LOVE ETC from the Body Shop)
full-size reed diffuser and oil set from Febreze Home Collection (in green tea citrus - I think this was my favorite score)
two flameless luminary refill shades for the Febreze Home Collection (refill shades for a base that I don't own and wasn't provided to me...so, useless!)
full-size DenTek Triple-Clean floss picks
sample-size of KY Jelly lubricant (coupon included, as well)
two packs of two-pack Soft Lips limited edition chapstick in sugar plum and raspberry
small box filled with about four sample packets of various VitaFusion vitamin product (gummy vitamins)
two full-size Febreze Home Collection room spray in pomegranate mango
one pair of heart-shaped plastic pink glasses from X-Rated Liqueur (X-Rated was also making some sort of pink cocktail that I liked quite a bit)
two packs of four earthtone Goody hair ties
full-size Suave aloe with cucumber body lotion
a "starter pack" of Flip Me dating cards with a three-month subscription included (Totally worthless for me, as I am engaged BUT I'd like to note that these are BEYOND creepy. If I were a man, and a woman handed me one of these cards, I'd run away and never speak to her again. Want to know what I'm talking about? See flipmedating.com)
one Gillette Venus Embrace razor with one refill included
a sample packet of two Sunstar Gum Eez-Thru angled flossers
full-size bar of Lindt Excellence chocolate (A Touch of Sea Salt flavor) (They were also sampling these and dark cacao bars at the event.)
a large emory board
full-size Nailene So Real (fake) nails - 24 with glue included
a full-copy of the book Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
sample-size of Lady Speed Stick Stainguard deodorant/antiperspirant
full-size Suave naturals mango mandarin body wash
two sample-sizes of Jergens lotion (one is "original scent" and one is "shea butter")
sample-size of Rotho Dry Eye drops
sample packet of the Body Shop's Rainforest Moisture shampoo and conditioner for dry hair
sample packet of Aveeno Nourish+Shine shampoo and conditioner
sample packer of the Body Shop's Natrulift firming day cream (I don't use anything beyond shampoo, conditioner, and Bronner's soap in my life, though...so these fancy beauty products are wasted on me.)
sample-size of Aveeno Positively Radiant daily moisturizer
sample packet of the Body Shop's Nutriganics smoothing day cream
full-size copy of Venus Zine magazine
a sample of Dr Scholl's for her open-shoe insoles (This is an annoying sample, because it only gives you one right-shoe insole. So, basically, you're lopsided if you bother to try it out. Awesome waste of resources, girls.)
coupons for Aveeno, Kiss nails, and Lindt
a complimentary music download, courtesy of Midori Melon Liqueur (also pouring drinks, but I hate melon so I can't tell you how they were)

I think the goodie bags alone were worth the event. I scored WELL over $15 in product, BUT I don't think these bags are worth the advertised $100 that Shecky's claims. I will, however, go to an event in the future, if my timing is right and I happen to be in a city holding one.

A gallery of photos from the event can be found here.

I made a hat.

2010-10-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

Or, rather, I "fabric marker-ed" an already-made white hat...

It took me a little over six hours to make, off-and-on, during various movies over the course of a few days.

I'm pleased with myself. The bill says "WOMP WOMP WOMP" as a reference to my loveloveLOVE for dubstep.

And I'm considering making these to sell....what say you?

Apple Fritters!

2010-09-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a little kid, my mom and I would make "easy donuts" by taking Bisquik from the tube, rolling it around in cinnamon-sugar mix, and frying. It never tasted exactly like the donuts from our favorite shop (Dunkin' Donuts), but they were decent and it was a fun activity for us to do together. My favorite memories from my childhood revolve around my mom and I in the kitchen, and it's no wonder that baking is one of my favorite pastimes in my adult life.

A few days ago, my fiance and I were pumping gas and I noticed an ad for apple fritters inside. I mentioned that we had just acquired a very cheap bag of apples, and that we should make apple fritters. He said he didn't know what apple fritters are (he's from Northern California). My heart bled for him, so I knew I had to fix this problem - and I opted to go about it the homemade way.

This morning, I looked up apple fritter recipes online and noticed what I wanted in the Google Images results. That picture led me to this recipe (from The Picky Apple). They were SO EASY to make, I was shocked. I wondered why I never tried this before! If you can make pancakes, you can make these. Best of all - I think the fiance liked 'em :)

Apple Fritters

Fritter:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup chopped apple

Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Directions: Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon. Stir in milk and egg until just combined. Fold in apple. Pour oil into skillet so that it is approximately 1 1/2 deep. Heat oil on high. Oil is ready when dough floats to top. Carefully add dough to oil in heaping teaspoons. Cook until brown, about 2 minutes, then flip. Cook another 1-2 minutes, until both sides are browned. Transfer briefly to paper towels to absorb excess oil, then transfer to cooling rack. Make glaze by stirring milk and powdered sugar together in a small bowl. Drizzle over apple fritters. Wait approximately 3 minutes for glaze to harden, then flip fritters and drizzle glaze over the other side. Best served warm.

George Carlin on Children

2010-08-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Something else I'm getting tired of in this country is all this stupid talk I have to listen to about children. That's all you hear about anymore, children: "Help the children, save the children, protect the children." You know what I say? Fuck the children!

They're getting entirely too much attention. And I know what some of you are thinking: " Jesus, he's not going to attack children, is he?" Yes he is! He's going to attack children. And remember, this is Mr. Conductor talking; I know what I'm talking about.

And I also know that all you boring single dads and working moms, who think you're such fucking heros, aren't gonna like this, but somebody's gotta tell you for your own good: your children are overrated and overvalued, and you've turned them into little cult objects. You have a child fetish, and it's not healthy. And don't give me all that weak shit, "Well, I love my children." Fuck you! Everybody loves their children; it doesn't make you special. : : : John Wayne Gacy loved his children. Yes, he did. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this constant, mindless yammering in the media, this neurotic fixation that suggests that somehow everything--everything--has to revolve around the lives of children. It's completely out of balance.

Listen, there are a couple of things about kids you have to remember. First of all, they're not all cute. In fact, if you look at 'em real close, most of them are rather unpleasant looking. And a lot of them don't smell too good either. The little ones in particular seem to have a kind of urine and sour-milk combination that I don't care for at all. Stay with me on this folks, the sooner you face it the better off your going to be.

Second, premise: not all chidren are smart and clever. Got that? Kids are like any other group of people: a few winners, a whole lot of losers! This country is filled with loser kids who simply...aren't...going anywhere! And there's nothing you can do about it, folks. Nothing! You can't save them all. You can't do it. You gotta let 'em go; you gotta cut 'em loose; you gotta stop over-protecting them, because your making 'em too soft.

Today's kids are way too soft. : : : For one thing, there's too much emphasis on safety and safety equipment: childproof medicine bottles, fireproof pajamas, child restraints, car seats. And helmets! Bicycle, baseball, skateboard, scooter helmets. Kids have to wear helmets now for everything but jerking off. Grown-ups have taken all the fun out of being a kid. : : : What's happened is, these baby boomers, these soft, fruity baby boomers, have raised an entire generation of soft, fruity kids who aren't even allowed hazardous toys, for Chrissakes! What ever happened to natural selection? Survival of the fittest? The kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own. Simple stuff. Nature knows best!

Another bunch of ignorant bullshit about your children: school uniforms. Bad theory! The idea that if kids wear uniforms to school, it helps keep order. Hey! Don't these schools do enough damage makin' all these children think alike? Now they're gonna get 'em to look alike, too? : : : And it's not even a new idea; I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand, because the narration was in German! But the uniforms looked beautiful. And the children did everything they were told and never questioned authority. Gee, I wonder why someone would want to put our children in uniforms. Can't imagine.

And one more item about children: this superstitous nonsense of blaming tobacco companies for kids who smoke. Listem! Kids don't smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to. They smoke for the same reasons adults do, because it's an enjoyable activity that relieves anxiety and depression.

And you'd be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with these pathetic, insecure, yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you've figured out which side of the playpen smells the worst and then fill you with Ritalin to get you in a mood they approve of, and drag you all over town in search of empty, meaningless structure: Little League, Cub Scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, bagpipes, watercolors, witchcraft, glass blowing, and dildo practice. It's absurd. : : : They even have "play dates", for Christ sake! Playing is now done by appointment! But it's true. A lot of these striving, and parents are burning their kids out on structure. I think what every child needs and ought to have every day is two hours of daydreaming. Plain old daydreaming.

Turn off the internet, the CD-ROMS, and the computer games and let them stare at a tree for a couple of hours. Every now and then they actually come up with one of their own ideas. You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone.

-- George Carlin

Boycott These Companies & Boycott the Oil Spill

2010-07-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Reeps One from England - Beatbox Dubstep

2010-07-01T20:44:00.000-07:00

Fast Food...Gross.

2010-05-07T14:41:00.001-07:00

Via: Online Schools

On "Immigration" Laws

2010-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time mustering anger about illegal immigration. I mean, I see the point for national security. I also understand we can't just let every poor sap come here and gobble up our resources.

But these bills are not made with illegals in mind, they're made with Hispanics in mind and that's completely different. You never hear these right wingers bitch about the Somalians in Minnesota. YOu never hear them bitch about all the eastern europeans up and down the east coast. You never hear them bitch about canadians here illegally. It's always those "dirty mexicans". If they don't look like us and don't speak like us, then fuck em! That's basically what it's about. The letter of the law completely gets totally undermined by the spirit of it.

My other issue, is not one with an easy resolution. Most of the 3rd world has been raped at some point by the western world. We have built our vast empires and wealthy economies on their backs. Be it slavery, european colonialism, corporate imperialism, we've overthrown god knows how many governments and libertarian movements, we've installed right wing tyrants. We setup our corporations over there, shipped their natural resources out, kept the profits for ourselves and flicked them 40 cents a day and told them best of luck. We privatize their water and jack the price up to unaffordable rates. We become the #1 customer for the drug trade while waging a war on them for being the suppliers.

Hell the whole fucking "hispanic" race is the product of western rape. The race itself is barely older than the United States. It is the product of Spanish Christians conquering the Aztecs and Mayans, and taking their women as their own, many times against their will. They forced those two civilizations to convert and if they didn't they killed them in groups of 13 to represent jesus and his 12 disciples. There are accounts of ripping babies from a mothers breasts and murdering them by dashing their heads upon rocks. The west raped them (literally).

Want to know why "they breed" so much? Because every Catholic country community has HUGE families, especially when they rely on them for financial support. There's no retirement homes when you're dirt poor, you need 4-6 kids to help take care of their elders. You combine that with the fact that whole culture was forced by the sword to convert, to a religion so incredibly opposed to safe sex, abortion, etc. and then pile on top of it all the effects of poverty, how that effects education.. and bam. You have the situation you have today.

Banana Wars
Genocide against natives from Canada to South America
The Reagan Legacy
Reagan's Actions on the Salvadoran Civil War
US Invasion of Panama
Haiti's Colonial Legacy --> same shit as the spaniards, just done by america and the french.

Lets look at how many countries the US has helped overthrow their governments:

The CIA participated in the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala
The largest and most complicated coup effort, approved at White House level, was the Bay of Pigs operation. Under initiatives by the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, CIA trained Cuban anti-communist exiles and refugees to land in Cuba and attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Plans originally formed under Eisenhower were scaled back under Kennedy. The CIA made a number of attempts to assassinate Castro, often with White House approval, as in Operation Mongoose.
A democratically-elected government in Brazil headed by President João Goulart was successfully overthrown by a CIA-supported coup in March 1964. Declassified U.S. government documents show that members of the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson engaged in active preparations to aid Brazil's military coup plotter, and the U.S. was preparing support for a bloody coup, however in the event no blood appeared to have been shed. A military dictatorship which lasted for 21 years was successfully installed
The CIA participated in the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Chile, Link 1, Link 2
Argentina 1976
Nicaragua 1981-1990
Haiti 1991 - The C.I.A. was allegedly involved in the military coup against Haiti's first democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.
Guatemala again in 1993 - In 1993 the CIA helped in overthrowing Jorge Serrano Elías. Jorge then attempted a self-coup, suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio.
Venezuela 2002
Haiti again, 2004. The insurgency against the government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was allegedly supported by the United States, and Aristide claims he was physically removed from the country by U.S. personnel against his wishes.
Venezuela again in 2007

For more see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_US_regime_change_actions

I could go on with 100s of examples, we've been fucking this region of the world for hundreds of years and we're pissed they just want an honest fucking pay?

And then you look at today, the upper 1% of society can move it's capital across all boarders freely. To take advantage of lower wages in this country, tax shelters in that country, favors for a despot regime in another, etc.. while LABOR gets tied down to a physical location. The globe is the playground of the rich in their attempts to continue to sustain and exponentially grow their wealth, but when it comes to the common man, the working man.. fuck you. It's divide and conquer time.

And the most laughable part about this, is that the common man in the US has been convinced that these people are the enemy. That these people are taking their jobs.

It's kinda like the slave days. People in the south feared the end of slavery. They were told the freed slaves would take the working man's job and people just ate that shit up. They completely missed the point, as slaves, they already have your fucking job. THey're doing it for free. You can't fucking beat that.

Just like we can't beat the low wages companies make by exploiting the workers in 3rd world nations with no or horribly bad workers rights, nations where union leaders get murdered or kidnapped when they try to fight for a fair wage. Just like during the slave times, THEY ALREADY HAVE YOUR FUCKING JOBS.

People in India do your fucking taxes morons.

Instead of yelling epithets at these people, we should be marching with them in front of ever multinational corporation and every so called "free trade agreement" meeting. We should be standing by their fucking side because even if i don't understand a lick of spanish, we're in the same boat. The african american, the working class in america, most of the 3rd world.. no matter how hard we work, no matter how much ass we kiss, we'll only get what those scraps that the 1% flicks down to us so they can watch us fight over it.

And to top it all off, we're saying "get out" as we live and work on conquered land.

I didn't write this. I found it here.

"Socialism"

2010-04-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

-Source

The Winter Olympics Brings Out the Mom in Me

2010-02-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

In which the Winter Olympics bring out the mom in me.

Clive Mason / Getty Images

GET DOWN FROM THERE THIS INSTANT.

I am a mother. And while I struggle to be cool with that fact, and try to pretend that I am not some minivan-driving, antibiotic-carrying nag, sometimes I see things that make the mom in me come raging out.

For instance, I turn into Momzilla when I see people who think it is a good idea to strap long strips of metal to their feet, push themselves down a long ramp and sail through the air, just because.

NO. YOU GET DOWN FROM THERE.

Momzilla also freaks out when she sees people who think that if they put on some skimpy clothes and cavort around, contorting themselves in inappropriate positions, people will like them more.

NO. YOU GO PUT ON SOME PANTS BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE.

Sigh. When did I become so old? Who bought me this Kenny G cassette tape? And where did this Snuggie come from?

For some reason, instead of being in his cozy den with the fireplace and teevee screens, Bob Costas is in a seaplane. Making Snakes on a Plane jokes? Maybe he had these jokes saved for the last Winter Olympics, but never got a chance to crack them? The point is, someone at NBC thought watching Bob Costas flying around in a seaplane would make riveting television. And I suppose if you were in the 1800s and were like WHAT IS THAT FLYING CONTRAPTION? AND HOW DOTH IT LAND UPON WATER? AND WHAT IS THIS STRANGE BOX THAT IS SPEAKING AT ME? AND WHO ARE THESE TINY FAIRIES THAT ARE INSIDE OF IT? Then, yeah, fascinating. Otherwise, it's just Costas in some earphones inside a plane, which, so what? Who cares?

We begin with Team Ski Jump, which I didn't realize even existed. Apparently, everyone is REALLY REALLY happy that Harry Potter, the ski jumper from Switzerland is not competing, because he can catch a golden snitch like no one's business.

Austria is the team to beat, or, at least it is according to our announcers. But I suspect that like me, 99% of all Americans have no idea whether or not this is true. And call me a conspiracy nut if you want, but what if they remind us every 30 seconds that the Austrians are pretty much guaranteed to win this and if they don't they should essentially commit hari kari due to the shame they would feel so that when they don't win it will be DRAMA! and INTERESTING! I mean, all I'm saying is that this event isn't being broadcast live, and for all we know these commenters taped this in a studio an hour after the whole thing finished, and maybe, maybe, all this "Austria must win!" nonsense is a huge set up so that when Germany wins, American audiences will be like, "Well, even though we didn't have a dog in that fight, it sure was interesting! We didn't see Germany's big win coming, especially since Austria was supposed to take it all!"

zzzzooooommmm WHEEE!

We learn a bit more about Austrian ski jumper, Gregor Schlierenzauer, or "Schlieri" as he is known in Austria. Schlieri has created his own clothing line, and fancies himself a photographer. And as Schlieri zzzzooooommmms and WHEEES! the little pop-up thingy in the bottom corner alerts us to the fact that Michael Phelps will be swimming in 4 minutes? Wait, what?

zzzzooooommmm WHEEE!

For an hour.

And then the Austrians win the gold, so there goes my big conspiracy theory. I've been watching too much Lost.

Oh look, giant merman Michael Phelps is here to talk to Bob Costas about being a spectator rather than a competitor in the Olympics. Yes! Tell us all about what it is like to watch world-class athletes do things that you aren't capable of doing! How illuminating this will be to the entire world that does not participate in any Olympic events! Michael Phelps assures us that he will not eat 8 medals of any sort in London in 2012. And blah blah blah blah let's talk about things that happened nearly two years ago blah blah blah. Could they really not find anyone who is actually competing in these Olympics to talk to for 10 minutes?

Tom Brokaw brings us a story on Kevin Pearce, a snowboarder that is unable to participate in the games because of an accident a few weeks ago. Apparently, while training in Park City, he smacked his head on the lip of the half-pipe, suffered a traumatic brain injury and he very nearly died. He's making good progress, but it is too soon to say whether or not he'll make a full recovery. But, it is telling that his family is thrilled that he is making sounds and able to squeeze their hands and OH MY GOD I AM CRYING AND WILL NEVER ALLOW MY SON TO SNOWBOARD AGAIN. And he has a younger brother with Down's Syndrome that Kevin is particularly close to? STOP IT, NBC! STOP. IT. And the brother with Down's Syndrome went down to the hospital and cried and demanded that they take care of his brother? ENOUGH. Sobbing. I am sobbing. The Pearce family is hoping that Kevin will be able to walk on his own sometime soon, and his speech is severely compromised but everyone is hopeful. Sigh.

ICE DANCING. Tonight is the Free Dance, which accounts for roughly 50% of the score. So, it's important. Really important. What makes this dance "free" is that they can choose any music they would like "as long as it has a beat." Also, they aren't forced to dress up in ridiculous "native" garb, that is, unless they want to.

Our first pair is Canadian, Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier, who skate to "Nocturne" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." And by "Bohemian Rhapsody," I can only assume they are referring to Queen's operatic masterpiece. It is, but unfortunately, it is some lame cover without an ounce of Freddy Mercury, which: LAME. It's a tasteful dance with tasteful outfits and everything is perfectly tasteful. However, a few more "GALILEO! GALILEO FIAGARO! MAGNIFICO-O-O-O-O!"s and a few fewer saddy sad faces, and they might have won me over.

We head to the Men's Arial in Freestyle Skiing, which OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING? These dudes, they ski up and over a ramp and start flipping and twisting and flipping and flipping before twisting again before landing and WHAT? WHO'S MOTHER ALLOWS THEIR CHILD TO DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Matt Depeters of the United States is going to attempt something called a back full double full? Sure. Then, American Ryan St. Onge (which would make for a terrific soap opera actor stage name) does a full double full full, and even though it sounds like I am being flip (ha, pun so intended) and making up the names of these jumps, I swear I am not. St. Onge (who plays nefarious playboy villain, Drake von Palmerson on Days of Our Children's Light) finds himself in second place after his series of improbable flips and twists.

I wonder what kind of regimen of anxiety medications these freestyle skiers' moms must be on.

Jeret "Speedy" Peterson from the US is the inventor of "The Hurricane," which is not a punch drink one enjoys whilst strolling down Bourbon St. and flashing one's boobs at frat boys in a fair and reasonable exchange for cheap Chinese-made beads. No, "The Hurricane" is a jump that somehow involves 5 twists and 3 flips. A full triple full full full full? Maybe? And what's this? Speedy was thrown out of the Torino games by the USOC for "conduct unbecoming of an Olympian?" TELL ME MORE. Ooh, apparently it involved a drunken fight of some sort. Probably after enjoying one too many Hurricanes. I don't judge. It happens.

The Belarusins are all over this event and doing quite well in their Darth Vader costumes.

Scotty Bahrke is only here because another teammate had appendicitis. Apparently, Scotty's sister is Pinkie, Shannon Bahrke, the Bronze medalist in Women's Freestyle Skiing! He will be doing a full double full full, also known as the Gin and Tonic (no, it is not). Scotty does some beautiful flips, but lands on his behind, so, boo.

And, oh look, the Australian fellow, David Morris, appears to have dyed his hair an alarming green and yellow, because, like Shannon Bahrke, he feels the need to remind us that freestyle skiing is X-TREME!!!!! He does well enough, I suppose. Apparently, Mary Carillo will cover the second half of this qualifying competition while we're all in bed.

Quick! Back to Ice Dancing! Americans Emily Samuelson & Evan Bates are going to skate to "Canto della Terra" by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. Samuelson & Bates are lovely and graceful and pleasant enough to watch, but, listen. If Dancing with the Stars has taught me anything, it's that "Free Dance" means that you put on a creepy doll costume and do a weird limp dance that involves putting your crotch in your partner's face while a bad cover of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" plays worriedly in the background. Where is the doll costume? Where is "Start Me Up?" Where's the pizzaz? Samuelson and Bates take first place for the moment. It won't last.

British siblings Sinead Kerr & John Kerr, who, last we saw, we're doing a gross impersonation of an 18-wheeler, are skating to Linkin Park. And just typing "Linkin Park" makes me all aggro and want to punch someone in the face. That's what "nu metal" (AGAIN, PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE FACE) does to me. They do some dramatic lifts, including an alarming one that involves her doing a handstand on his thighs, and one in which she lifts him! And I have to say, while I hate Linkin Park something fierce, there was the pizzaz I was looking for. Well done, Great Britain! Also, thanks for not grossing me out again! First place for you! For now!

The Frenchies, Nathalie Péchalat & Fabian Bourzat, dance to "Summertime Overture" from Requiem for a Dream, and the announcers tells us that their theme is "time" which we will be able to tell by their arm and leg movements, lifts and the fact that sometimes everything goes all white and their noses bleed. And WAIT, IS HE SUPPOSED TO BE DRESSED LIKE A GIANT CLOCK? Awesome. The announcers can talk about how "contrived" their theme is, BUT HIS HANDS ARE LIKE CLOCK HANDS. COME ON. And now they're in first place because he got extra preposterous makeup points for that thing painted on his face.

Oh, Isabelle Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder, with your wacky hijinks during the introduction where you push and trip each other! These two have been skating together since they were twelve, and this is their last competition, so they are skating the story of their career together. Which I suppose explains the funereal clothes and skating to "The Impossible Dream." BUT WAIT. They rip open their tops to reveal SPARKLES! YAY, SPARKLES! And color me charmed, but I like these kids. Farewell, Frenchies! I don't know why everyone is writing you off, especially since you now take the lead, BUT WHATEVER. Au revoir!

WHY, HELLO THERE, FLASHY RUSSIANS! Jana Khokhlova & Sergei Novitski are here with their fabulous to skate to "Firebird," AND THEY ARE NOT KIDDING AROUND. Ruffles and sequins and skin, LOTS of skin, and much flapping about. The announcers are talking about how "you have to like what they tried to do," so I suppose it didn't work? Prediction: they take the lead and then lose it to the next pair who skate.

Hey! You know who's awesome? America's Alpine Skiers, that's who!

Americans Meryl Davis & Charlie White have been skating together for 13 years and are perfectly adorable, as evidenced by this footage of them when they are 10 years old and full of adorableness. However, they are dancing to music from Phantom of the Opera, which really? I wish they'd deduct points for lack of originality in music choice. I personally would choose to skatedance to a medley of "Dream On," and "Shoop," but then again, I've never put on a pair of skates in my life, so what do I know? Our American babies are quite good! They went for it! Or so claim our announcers. And I'm not saying Meryl looks like a N'avi, but I'm also not saying she doesn't look like a beautiful flounder either. They score like a zillion points (107, akshully) which, SURPRISE! puts them in first place.

The Italians, Federica Faiella & Massimo Scali, are next, dancing to THE GODFATHER SOUNDTRACK? ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? And he's even dressed as Vito Corelone in The Godfather, Part 2. Srsly. This is happening. The Italians are actively engaging in broad Italian stereotypes. It is, literally, just as bad as if they had come out with a "frickin' poof" and their hair gelled within an inch of its life, flashed their abs which they referred to as "The Incident" or "The Circumstances" and fist pumped their way through a routine. IT WOULD BE JUST AS INSULTING.

Fuggedaboutit.

They skate well, manage to not make anyone an offer they can't refuse or send anyone to sleep with the fishes, and find themselves in second place. For now.

Canadians, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir are very cute, and drive the home crowd crazy. They are lovely and balletic and I have nothing terrible to say about them, and they very well might be better than adorable Americans, Meryl and Charlie. The crowd certainly thinks so, and who am I to argue? Still, the waltzes are my least favorite dances on So You Think You Can Dance With the Stars and, similarly, I am kinda bored by this. It's a personal failing, I know. SO GO AHEAD. LEAVE THE HATEFUL COMMENT. I CAN TAKE IT. Virtue and Moir score a remarkable 110 points and solidly take the lead. Well done, Canada! (And secretly, I am pretty sure they deserve it.)

More Americans: Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto, are next. He appears to be dressed as a late-era Elvis, and, well, I don't know what she is dressed as. Someone whose dress was caught in a shredder? They are skating to "Ave Maria" and "Amen," which, wait, what? They are perfectly capable, but lack that ease and delicacy of the Canadians before them, so. Also, I'm irritated by his hair. They find themselves in third place -- for the moment.

The Russians, Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin, are wearing FACES. I just don't know about these two. What with their ridiculous "aboriginal" costumes that mostly involved ferns stuck into their skates and hair. Apparently, these costumes are controversial, too, as they are wearing these weird face/S&M get-ups, with ropes wrapped around their bodies. It seems our skaters might use these ropes in their lifts. CONTROVERSY! And there it is right there: Maxim grabs Oksana by her belly rope and spins her around, just because. Their music also incorporates "Summertime Overture" from Requiem for a Dream, and, like "Fallin'" by Alicia Keyes on American Idol, perhaps it's time to retire this particular piece of music from the competition?

In the end, the graceful Canadians win the Gold, the adorable Americans win the Silver and the weirdo Russians win the Bronze. YAY, NORTH AMERICA!

This is the part where I hand it off to Bobby who will be handling more bobsledding, skiing and ladies' figure skating tomorrow. And if you'll excuse me, Mommy has a Hurricane she needs to go finish.

-SOURCE

2012

2010-02-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

Lesbians and Bisexuals

2010-02-03T11:33:00.001-08:00

"Lesbians like sushi and bisexuals like hot dogs and sushi. Lesbians would never be interested in eating hot dogs. A lesbian can eat sushi all day every day and never consider hot dogs. In fact, lesbians can never eat too much sushi. A bisexual can go without sushi, then really miss the feel and taste of sushi, because there is nothing like sushi. Then they go out and get some sushi. They swear they can go without hot dogs, because sushi is so much better. They start to eat sushi all day every day. The lesbian continues to do the same.

Then one day the sushi is a little stale and the bisexual remembers how hot dogs are different. She didn't have that problem with hot dogs, at least not that she can remember. Eating hot dogs was easier and less complicated. The lesbian does not start to crave a hot dog when this happens. The lesbian knows she only likes sushi, so even though it got stale, she is still focused only on the sushi. She wants the sushi to get better, because she knows really great sushi is hard to find. The bisexual won't try as hard to figure out why the sushi got stale. Sooner or later she will do what is easier. She will go out for a hot dog. There are hot dogs on every corner and she knows she'll have a few to choose from soon enough. Perhaps she will just have hot dogs for a long time or will try some hot dog rolls or sushi dogs. This is why I prefer lesbians. The only problem is that they may go out for some completely different sushi, thinking that the new sushi will be different. But at least they are aren't out eating hot dogs."

Source

I quite like hot dogs. Veggie ones, of course.

Thank you, Martha! Portobello & Zucchini Tacos

2010-01-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

The boy and I have been getting pretty bored with our dinners and we've been supremely stuck in an enchiladas-all-the-time rut. Lately, all of the recipes I read seem either un-inspired or overly-complicated and my frustration was peaking. I logged onto MarthaStewart.com yesterday (yes, I am 24 going on 48) and chose a few recipes to try. We settled on this one for dinner last night - and let me say: WHOA. JUST WHOA. This recipe SEEMS a little boring, but one taste and you can't stop until every last bite is gone. It's THAT GOOD. And simple. And cheap!

Pro-tip: We got chipotle tortillas and topped them with avocados at the end!

Ingredients

Serves 4

5 medium portobello mushrooms, stems and gills removed, sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
Coarse salt and ground pepper
4 medium zucchini, cut into 2-by-1/2-inch sticks
1 medium red onion, halved and sliced 1/4-inch thick
12 (4 1/2-inch) corn tortillas
6 ounces (1 cup) Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1/2 cup fresh salsa

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss mushrooms with 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 tablespoon oil, and 1/4 cup water; season with salt and pepper. On another rimmed baking sheet, toss zucchini and onion with remaining teaspoon oregano and tablespoon oil; season with salt and pepper.
Place both sheets in oven. Roast, tossing occasionally, until vegetables are browned and fork-tender, 25 to 30 minutes (zucchini may cook faster than mushrooms).
Meanwhile, in a small skillet over medium-high heat, warm tortillas according to package instructions (they should be lightly browned but still soft). Wrap loosely in a clean kitchen towel to keep warm.
To serve, fill each tortilla with mushrooms, vegetable mixture, shredded cheese, and salsa.

From Everyday Food, September 2004 - Recipe Source

Christopher Walken was HOT at a young age!

2010-01-21T12:16:00.001-08:00

Neat-O San Francisco Music Videos

2010-01-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

Aw, look at me gettin' all nostalgic.

Neighborhood from Sam Young on Vimeo.

Well Said.

2009-12-22T12:55:00.001-08:00

I am getting infuriated with this war on christmas crap. I really am. And my views on it cover several areas.

First off, there's no "war" against it. I'm tired of this parnoid delusion that there's some organized effort out there to wage war on christian beliefs. There is no such thing. There are those who may be atheist or muslim or of other faiths who appeal to schools (politely or through the legal system) and other government institutions and ask them to remain as neutral as possible. I don't see a problem with that. Religion is for home and church, or hell, even pray to yourself at school when time is alotted for you to do so. As long as it causes no disruption to class and is not lead by a school employee, i see no problem with it..

That being said, there are a couple tokens here and there, atheists or other faiths that will bitch about the christmas setup at the mall, or a church displaying something or another. Then the likes of Fox News gets a hold of the story and makes it seem like this is one of many many many events across the nation where them damned godless commies and brown skinnned towel heads are takin' over! They blow it completely out of proportion. And that's on the assumption that the rabble rouser is actually the "other faith" party, as Fox has been caught redhanded distorting the hell out of a story to make it look like it's that party's intent-- to destroy that town's christmas.

I do get irritated with the very very very few out there who can't just let people have their christmas, but they are far outnumbered by these ranting, lunatic, paranoid, delusional and hysterical angry white people who seem to have forgotten all i was ever taught christmas was about.

Christmas was about family, and family traditions, and giving thanks and slowing down the pace of life and taking a step back and appreciating the things that truly matter. It was about doing goodwill unto your fellow man, especially the less fortunate.

What happened to that? Because when i was a kid, that's what i saw out of people. I saw them give, i saw them care about family above all else, i saw them wind down from work and politics and focus on these little kids they loved so much. I saw my grandparents go down to the church and feed the less fortunate. Every year.

And now all i see is a bunch of angry ravenous Christians who are out for blood. If someone says "happy holidays" with the best of intents at heart they're ready to jump down their throats. How dare they not say Merry christmas?

It is sick and it is sad, that more atheists and people of other faiths embody the spirit of Christmas more, than the very fucking people who are supposed to.

I hate the conservative movement, i hate how they've led the sheep of the masses to such anger. I'm not even debating viewpoints, but it's just this feeling of anger, anger at anyone remotely different. Anger at gays and immigrants, and other religions and atheists, whatever. The Bill O'Reilly's, Alex Jone's, Rush's, Coulter's, Glen Beck's, Hannity's, the Tea Party's, the mega churches have turned this nation into the angriest bunch of people i've seen. They, with some help, have changed the tone in the last 10 years. A tone that doesn't offer solutions, it just offers uncontrollable anger. And their anger makes them miserable and it makes them forget all that's good about the world and all that's good about life. It blinds them.

I watch my father since Obama's election, the stress from family members dying, and early signs of alzheimer's set in and i can't do anything but pity him. With every red faced political rant, with every deluded and paranoid thought that some group is out to get him, with ever racist comment and sexist joke... i pity him. He used to smile a lot, and tell jokes that didn't have the fire of hatred behind them. When i was a child i looked at him and i saw someone smart and strong, and he always got on my ass to have a positive outlook on life whenever i got down. And now i see someone stupid and weak and negative, always negative and always bitching. I admired him.. and as i see him crumble, like i've seen this atmosphere of anger make other people crumble, i feel ashamed to be an american. I feel ashamed to be human. I find myself hoping that when the boomers die off that we can finally make this place better, a place where we can build our families and our communities without some group trying to burn another at the stake for daring to think differently.

Source

One of the Better Remixes I've Heard in a Minute

2009-12-10T09:54:00.001-08:00

Free/Cheap Fun in St. Louis, Missouri

2009-11-29T15:18:00.000-08:00

I'm not a resident of Missouri any longer, but I still look back on my time living there and I genuinely MISS what St. Louis and the surrounding area offers. Now that I'm stuck in (expensive-as-hell) California, I look back fondly on the things that I could do for practically no dough at all in the Show-Me State (and sometimes Illinois...sometimes).

I noticed a friend on Facebook earlier today. He's visiting home for the holidays (as he also moved out of the Midwest and pursued other things in life) and I saw a status update he posted stating that he was (ugh) BORED visiting home. I just can't FATHOM being bored in the St. Louis area...even if you're broke as a joke. The more and more I think about it, there's simply too much to do there at times, and I miss that.

So, I will share with you what I would find myself taking part in, if I were only lucky enough to go back for a while.

The Obvious
Forest Park, home of the Zoo, Muny, Science Center, Turtle Park, History Museum, and Art Museum, as well as the remaining buildings from the 1904 World's Fair:
Forest Park is a large attraction for visitors to the area, and rightfully so. At a whopping 1,293 acres, it's actually 450 acres larger than the most popular city park in the country (Central Park in New York City). In 1904, Forest Park was home to the World's Fair, and several of the buildings that were built for the Fair are still in the park...and they're impressive. The St. Louis Zoo is a free attraction (you can find free road parking in the park just fine - don't bother paying for parking in the large lot as it's an $11 rip-off) and a Safari Pass is only $10 inside (it will give you unlimited access to the Zoo Line Railroad that runs throughout the park, as well as entrance to special attractions inside - like the Children's Zoo). The St. Louis Zoo is the second-largest zoo in the country, trumped only by the San Diego Zoo in southern California. The Muny is an outdoor theater situated near the center of the park, next to a large pond with a popular gazebo in the center. The Muny offers 1,500 fre e tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis for every performance. The St. Louis Science Center is also free and home to several buildings of science projects and hands-on museum learning, as well as a planetarium and Omnimax theater for a fee. They also show rotating traveling exhibits on a regular basis. Turtle Park is a sculpture park on the outskirts of Forest Park, just across the freeway. Massive sculptures of turtles and snakes decorate the park and made for fantastic photos, etc. The History and Art Museums are also free and located in Forest Park. There is a fee for special exhibits. Forest Park is also home to several biking and walking trails - all wind through the beautiful inner-city outdoors. After a day at the park, saddle up to a cheap diner-style dinner at Courtesy Diner on Hampton, just outside of the park. It doesn't disappoint, and it's a freakin' landmark institution in the City. You can eat like a King for practically nothing. Be sure to load up the jukebox while there.

Grant's Farm
Located south of the city, Grant's Farm is a wildlife refuge owned by Anheuser-Busch and the historical home of General Grant. While there is an $11 fee per car for parking, everything else is free - entrance, tram rides and wildlife shows. The famous Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales are in a stable right next to the parking lot. To get into the park itself, everyone takes the tram, which winds through fields and forests filled with various animals. You will also pass by General Grant's old cabin. During the ride, you will have a tour guide telling you about the history of the park. The tram will drop you off in the park, just by the baby goats (you can rent bottles of milk and feed them for a fee). Here, you can pet camels, see elephants up-close and watch animal shows for free, among other things. There is a beer garden (and eating) near here. Every visitor over 21 will be treated to a few complimentary beers from Anheuser-Busch. To get out of the park, you'll take the tram back to your car.

Beer Tours
While we're on the subject of beer, I must mention that Anheuser-Busch is a prominent figure in St. Louis, and has a brewery on the Mississippi River downtown. They offer complimentary tours, which include complimentary tasting of all of the varieties that are brewed on-site.

The "best" beer in St. Louis (my own opinion, of course) is Schlafly. They, too, offer complimentary tours and tasting....and it's, well, better beer. (If you have a little bit of money to spare, EAT at the Schlafly Brewery. I miss the menu a great deal, and I live in the culinary capital of the country, now. They have plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, as well...a rarity in this City.)

Soulard Market
Everyone needs to experience the oldest farmer's market west of the Mississippi! It's not free if you actually purchase anything, but the prices here are downright reasonable and the whole experience is a throw-back to the way people bought produce and meats and household supplies before the days of Wal-Mart and Target. You can buy fresh fish, alligator, and buffalo meat or head over to the hundreds of stalls stocked with berries and breads. If you're hungry and need food pronto, eat at any of the stalls dedicated to prepared food on the spot. You can also buy fresh flowers and gloves, as well as other random items. Soulard Market is HUGE and really represents the Mississippi and the way life was (and still is, for some).

Cahokia Mounds
Moving out of the actual CITY of St. Louis and over the river and into Illinois (no tolls to pay - ah, the beauty of the Midwest), there exists the remains of a massive Native American metropolis - the largest that existed north of Mexico, in fact. Entrance here is free of charge, though a donation is appreciated to continue the preservation of history. You are allowed to climb the mound and look out over rural Illinois, as well as access a great museum covering the history of the area and the Native Americans who called it home for so many years. Learn about the history and be mesmerized by what a civilization can accomplish.

Go in the opposite direction out of the City, however, and see what the western county of St. Louis can offer:

Laumeier Sculpture Park
A 105-acre outdoor exhibit with absolutely no entrance fee, Laumeier Sculpture Park houses over 70 outdoor sculptures. Wide-open fields and hiking trails through the woods encompass the property, so you have to actually seek the art itself. Most of it is contemporary, though it does take a page or two out of ancient art from time to time. There are also rotating exhibits, as well as movies and music in the park on certain nights.

Lone Elk Park
Just a little further from the city and you'll reach another wildlife refuge that St. Louis County offers. Various trails, old abandoned watch-towers, a bird sanctuary, and packs of random wild animals will greet you here. Whether you prefer to stay confined to your vehicle or you fancy a walk in the woods, Lone Elk Park can be a fun place for anyone and an excellent opportunity to see animals (like elk or bison) that you might not get a chance to elsewhere. As it's a County Park, there is no entrance fee or any of that rubbish.

Day-Tripper
Get out of the city for a day and head south - land of epic outdoors and some of the oldest mountains in the country. Johnson's Shut-Ins is a bit of a drive through some interesting back-country, but a summer day there is worth the world. Epic wat er-fun awaits you, as it really is a water-park from nature. Waterfalls you can slide down and great cliffs for jumping are prominent, as well as deep pools for swimming and water holes for relaxing. If you plan on going during the summer to get your swim on, arrive very early on the weekend days or plan to camp overnight. Often times, there are VERY long lines of cars trying to get in, as the parking lot reaches capacity quick. If you're an overnight camper, however, you can drive right past them all and get settled in - you have priority this way. If swimming isn't your thing, but you still fancy a bit of rock-fun, check out Elephant Rocks just down the road. Home to giant granite rocks and easy-going hiking trails, Elephant Rocks is truly a one-of-a-kind State Park. "About 1.5 billion years ago, hot magma cooled forming coarsely crystalline red granite, which later weathered into huge, rounded boulders. Standing atop a granite outcrop, one of the largest elephant rocks, Dumbo, tops the scales at a whopping 680 tons!" There are great picnic areas available here among the rocks. Burn off the burger calories and jump around for a while on the granite when you're ready to have some real fun.
While "down south," check out Taum Sauk Mountain. It's the highest point in Missuri (at a mere 1,772 feet), but it's also very old - several times older than the Appalachians, in fact. Geologists believe that Taum Sauk and its neighbors may be among the few areas in the US never to have been submerged in ancient seas. Check it out; learn something new.

The City Museum
If you don't mind shelling out a little bit of cash for quite-possibly the coolest spot in St. Louis, then check out the City Museum. It's WELL worth the $12 admission, and I won't tell you why. You simply need to go to experience it. Wear comfortable clothes!

So there you have it - St. Louis and the surrounding area is CHOCK-FULL of loads of fun and plenty of attractions. Stop yer bitchin' and go enjoy yourself like a champ.

Oh, Palin.

2009-11-16T19:29:00.000-08:00

Direct quote from Sarah Palin’s new book: “If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?” ...thanks...

$29,000 for 5 minutes in the ER

2009-11-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

"For five desperate minutes, emergency room doctors at UC Davis Medical Center frantically tried to revive Scott Hawkins.

In those five minutes, the 23-year-old California State University, Sacramento, student was hooked up to life support monitors, air pumped into his weakened lungs as he bled on a gurney.

Hospital officials said Hawkins was given the highest level of emergency care, with a phalanx of surgeons, specialists and nurses at the ready. His parents called the effort "heroic."

Five minutes later, doctors pronounced him dead.

Few question the extent to which doctors tried to save the student's life on Oct. 21, but the amount billed for his emergency care has provoked outrage – a further example, critics said, of what is wrong in a health care system that is roundly maligned for its escalating costs.

The charge for those five minutes: $29,186.50 – including a single-ticket item for $18,900.50, described on the itemized bill as "Trauma Rescue Service."

What's more, the Hawkins case may be a dramatic and brutal example of the wide disparities in the sticker price for medical care provided to those with insurance and those without it. With millions of Americans unemployed and increasingly uninsured, emergency rooms have become part of the focus of the high cost of medicine in this country.

"Part of the outrage is that those with the least are charged the most," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group.

The bill sent to Hawkins' family was an undiscounted "rack rate" that hospitals charge the uninsured – patients who do not have the benefit of having an insurance company negotiate deep discounts.

Hawkins was mistakenly classified by the hospital as medically indigent. Had the hospital realized that the student was insured, the bill would have been sent to his insurer, Kaiser Permanente, which would undoubtedly have paid thousands of dollars less.

A Kaiser spokeswoman said she could not discuss the Hawkins case because of privacy reasons.

However, an agreement is in place between Kaiser and UC Davis, including provisions for compensation for care.

"If you're covered by an insurer, the contract is intensely negotiated between the insurer and the hospital," said Maribeth Shannon, director of the California HealthCare Foundation's market and policy monitor program.

Wright of Health Access said uninsured patients who use emergency rooms are often billed at "an inflated price – three or four times what insured people pay."

UC Davis officials declined to discuss their billing practices, or how negotiations with insurance companies are conducted.

But Dr. Lynette Scherer, a general surgeon and chief of trauma at UC Davis Medical Center, said the public simply doesn't understand how expensive it is to run a sophisticated emergency room and trauma center like the one at UC Davis.

"If he survived, we wouldn't be even talking about the cost. We'd be saying: 'That was money well spent,' " Scherer said.

"The unfortunate thing, obviously, was that the outcome in this case was horrible," she said.

"I think people are just uneducated about the cost. … If people actually knew what they were getting – yes, the cost is high, but it's your only opportunity to save a life," she said.

Not only are emergency rooms available at all hours of the day, they are staffed by some of the most highly trained – and highly paid – personnel, including surgeons, trauma specialists, registered nurses and others trained specifically for emergency medicine.

"It's an extraordinary amount of resources at the ready for this patient who we haven't met yet," Scherer said.

Emergency crews at the hospital did everything they could to save the young man, Scherer said. He was not dead on arrival.

"When he arrived here, he met our criteria that he might still have a chance of surviving," she said. "We never want to stop short with a patient with a chance of surviving."

The federal Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the uninsured accounted for one in five emergency room visits in 2006.

Federal law prohibits hospitals from refusing emergency care to those who need it, regardless of their ability to pay.

"The expectation is that there should be an emergency department that's open nearby, open 24 hours a day seven days a week," said Elena Lopez-Gusman of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

"We want it all, we want it now," she said. "And we don't want to pay for it."

A groundbreaking "fair pricing" law enacted three years ago limits how much hospitals can collect from low- and moderate-income consumers who are uninsured or underinsured.

Still, bills can pile up quickly.

"A person without insurance must be wealthy, or so poor as to be not worth pursuing by bill collectors," said Patrick Johnson, chief executive officer of the California Association of Health Plans.

The House voted 220-215 late Saturday to pass health care legislation intended to bring relief to the 46 million Americans who lack health insurance, including nearly 7 million in California. The measure must be reconciled with the Senate's version.

There is little debate that the uninsured pose burdens to the country's health care system. The legislation being considered in the Senate and House would require nearly all Americans to carry health insurance, with the poor getting government subsidies to pay for coverage.

The uninsured are now at a disadvantage because they lack the bargaining power of insurance companies, Shannon said, but consumers should nevertheless attempt to negotiate their bills with doctors and hospitals. "Often hospitals are willing to negotiate the amount with families," she said. "There's always room for negotiation." -Source

Christian Malarky

2009-11-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

"File this under "makes me embarrassed to be human":

On November 16th, pastors and other clergymen (yes, clergyMEN. Get your feminist head out of the gutter.) will be congregating at our nation's capitol to publicly defame homosexuals, in order to "challenge" the Matthew Shepard Act, a congressional act which protects citizens against hate crimes committed because of the victim's perceived sexuality. The pastors don't have a problem with hate crime legislation itself, but specifically with this hate crime legislation, which limits their god-given rights to incite violence against gay people.

Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamantion League (oh, yes) had this to say about what happens when hate crime laws include homosexual victims:

"Christians are singled out for prosecution, with threats, imprisonment and fines simply for refusing to stop doing what Christ commands: proclaiming the truth."

In the interest of sympathy, let's put ourselves in these Christians' shoes. How tragic it is, that so many people devote their lives to spreading hatred, not because they are hateful people, but because they have been indoctrinated-- brainwashed-- with a bronze age story about the origin of the universe. When someone asks you, "Yeah, but what harm does religion do?" point them to examples like this.

Whenever we teach our children that groundless faith is a virtue, we pave the way for groundless violence.

Rest in peace, Matthew Shepard."

-Source

Life and Death

2009-11-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Source

California Takes MORE Money from Taxpayers!

2009-11-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Source

"The amount goes up 10% on Sunday as Sacramento borrows from taxpayers. Technically, it’s not an income tax increase: You’ll get the money back eventually. Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento – Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners — holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You’ll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less. But with rising gas costs, depressed home prices and double-digit unemployment, the state’s added reach into residents’ regular paycheck isn’t sitting well with many.

“The state’s suddenly slapping people upside the head,” said Mack Reed, 50, of Silver Lake. “It’s appalling how brash that is.” The extra withholding may seem like a small amount siphoned from each paycheck, but it adds up to a $1.7-billion fix for California’s deficit-riddled books. From a single taxpayer earning $51,000 a year with no dependents, the state will be grabbing an extra $17.59 each month, according to state tax officials. A married person earning $90,000 with two dependents would receive $24.87 less in monthly pay.

California will probably continue to collect the tax at a higher rate for many years — or find an additional $1.7 billion to slice from a future budget, an unlikely occurrence. All workers who have state taxes withheld will see their paychecks shrink. “Many families are sitting at their kitchen table wondering how they’re going to make ends meet,” said state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks). “At the same time, the state of California is taking a no-interest loan.”

"Yes on 1" in Maine

2009-11-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

Maine passed medical marijuana legislation, then turned about and said "no" to same-sex marriage. Are we still fighting this? Why?

From here:

"When prop 8 passed in California, there was a shot of the reaction from the campaign headquarters. I'll never forget this. At the center of the image was a guy in a suit throwing both hands up, mouth agape in pure jubilation of victory. It was as if he's just won the Lotto. I just couldn't understand how someone could be so thrilled about having gotten so little. What did he get? Nothing. How did his life change? Will he not have to get up for work in the morning? Are his bills any cheaper? Has a loved one who was sick been cured? Does he get more money, video games, blowjobs, or whatever he likes to do in his spare time? He gets nothing. It was all because it felt so good to hurt someone." -nihilion

More:

You know what else is an abomination, Maine? Lobster

Dear 53% of Maine,

Today you decided that homosexuals are lesser human beings who don't deserve the same rights are heterosexuals. You have just illustrated to the nation that you, like California, believe popular vote is a valid and moral way to decide human rights. I'm really glad we didn't use this method back when legalizing interracial marriage, but I guess the whole majority rule, minority rights thing isn't too important too you. But if you're going to go and base your legal decisions on the Bible, I thought I'd like to point out one little thing to you so your logic is at least consistent. In the same book that condemns homosexuality, there's another verse that you may find important:

Leviticus 11:9-12 says:
⁹ These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
¹⁰ And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
¹¹ They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
¹² Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Deuteronomy 14:9-10 says:
⁹ These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:
¹⁰ And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

I know the Bible can be a little hard to understand, so let me spell it out for you: God hates shellfish. You know what's a shellfish? Lobster. Because of this, I fully expect a ban on Maine's lobster industry ASAP. I know that's a major facet of your economy and all, but you've illustrated that God's word is more important than the well being of your citizens. I'm sure they'll understand the dip in the economy, since getting into heaven later is more important than this life.

So, get cracking on that next referendum. I mean, you don't want to be hypocrites, do you?

Net Neutrality

2009-10-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an illustration of what could happen if net neutrality disappears.

Thanks to reddit.

Hella Creepy Cat Video

2009-10-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have said it better, myself.

2009-10-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

"I feel my flighty defense mechanism slowly coming down. I'm not letting my life be run by feelings of olfactory nostalgia (as pleasant as that might be) and idealistic whims of living in coastal villages. No mid to large city is going to be any better than this. My extreme cautiousness has only caused me harm so far. Romance should not be like some hard-edged novel where the two involved share one-liners all night and end up drifting apart for unknown reasons, their only memories being of that night they drew constellations from each others freckles. Life's not like that.

Sometimes it's boring and sometimes you look really stupid. Sometimes someone has to take you home from the dentist when you're drooling and delirious, face swollen. Sometimes you have to be romantic and not feel silly. And sometimes you have to stand corrected.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that the way people behave is based on the only way they knew how to at the moment. They are the doing the best they can essentially.

And all I can say is that I'm learning."

She's got it going right.

Rad Trippy Music Video

2009-09-27T13:09:00.001-07:00

The Freshest of Foods

2009-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I've done a proper entry and not a short, release-the-embed and run. I wanted to tackle (well, semi-tackle) the issue of FRESH, WHOLE food.

Fresh, whole food bursts with flavor, and the health benefits are tremendous. You'll get the most of nutrients and you'll get the most of taste. Steering clear of months-old dried herbs and chopping up a fresh bunch of leaves can create a new sensation on your taste buds. Pair that with a perfectly ripe, juicy vegetable and a creamy, herbed cheese...and you have:

Baguette Bites

-1 small European-style baguette (the thin kind work best)
-2 ripe vine tomatoes
-1/2 bunch fresh basil
-goat cheese (We used the herbed goat cheese from Trader Joe's...it comes in a pack of three different varieties - the herbed being one of them.)

Preheat your oven to 325-degrees Farenheit. Slice the baguette in small, 1/2" slices and arrange on a LIGHTLY oiled cookie sheet. Spread your desired amount of goat cheese on top of each slice (I seemed to use about 1/2-1 teaspoon on each one.) Chop the tomato up in 1/2" chunks and set on top of the baguette slices. Chop up the basil in the smallest pieces you can and sprinkle over the top of the tomato.
Bake until the bread starts to crisp, barely lightly-browned on the edges.

Insurance.

2009-09-23T10:30:00.001-07:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

He is terrified.

2009-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Awkwardfamilyphotos.com

New Project: "Hi, I'm from the Internet."

2009-09-14T15:38:00.001-07:00

You can order them here.

If Websites Were People

2009-08-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Found on reddit.com

Fungus Turns Victims into ZOMBIES

2009-08-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

Scientists say they have discovered a horrific flesh-eating fungus which is able to infect living creatures and turn them into "zombies".

The hapless victims are then compelled to shamble away to a location where their immobilised bodies - as they are gradually consumed from within, acting as food supply and nest to the ghastly fungal offspring - can spray out more spores to seize control of more hosts.

For now, the terrifying Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus appears to be focusing its zombie extermination campaign primarily on carpenter ants of the sort found in the jungles of Thailand.

“The fungus accurately manipulates the infected ants into dying where the parasite prefers to be, by making the ants travel a long way during the last hours of their lives,” says Dr David Hughes of Exeter and Harvard universities.

Having successfully taken over an ant, the fungus compels it to leave its normal haunts high in the forest canopy and directs the unfortunate insect down into the dark, moist basement layers of the jungle. There the luckless creature is compelled to clamber onto the underside of a leaf in the O unilateralis' favoured location for reproduction - some 25cm above the ground, on the northwestern side of the tree or plant in question.

Once in such a location, the dying ant is made to clamp its mandibles - jaws - firmly shut onto the leaf, and then hangs lifelessly from them to become a food supply and home for the burgeoning, ghastly fungus-children within. Most of the insect's innards are gradually converted into food and consumed, but the muscles holding the mandibles shut are cunningly left alone.

In order to prevent any rivals trying to snaffle the nutritious ant corpse, the fungus also forms a protective coating or cocoon over the hanging victim. Presently a stroma or "fruiting body" sprouts from the back of the insect's head and begins to shower drifting spores down on the forest floor beneath - each of which could infect another unlucky passerby.

The fungus' dreadful capabilities were already well-known in the insect-zombification boffin community, but Hughes' latest research has revealed just how precisely the hapless walking-dead ants are controlled. He theorises that the deadly rain of mind-control zombo spores may be why the carpenter ants try to avoid the lower levels of the jungle as much as they can.

Source

Too True.

2009-08-10T18:20:00.001-07:00

Why the Public Option Sucks

2009-08-03T13:21:00.001-07:00

Universal Health Care

2009-07-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

I get on Reddit.com on a VERY regular basis (several times a day) and it's been a unique tool as far as this whole Universal Health Care debate goes. Several of the users on the site are from Canada and other such countries where health care is a natural RIGHT among the citizens, not a commercialized, capitalistic way of taking even more money from hard-working people. The way some of the media spins it (Fox, I'm looking at you), you'd think that mandatory health care for every citizen would destroy us as a society. Not so.

Want more proof? In a recent thread on Reddit, users got together and decided to chart life expectancy in countries with national health care. They pitted the USA against these countries, and look what happened:

Proof.

Apologies.

2009-07-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know that I have that many "regular" followers at this point; but, if I do, I'd like to offer an apology for the completely sporadic updates to my blog. I can assure you that, once Autumn surrounds us, I will be back more.

Currently: I am moving into an amazing cabin on the West Shore in Lake Tahoe. I am taking over a new position at the Gatekeeper's Museum in Tahoe City (and thus learning about the amazing history of Tahoe City). I will be learning to snowboard this winter. Basically, the possibilities are endless.

I will update when I see something that strikes me as dire, but it seems that most of what I seek seems to be on vacation, as well. It is that time of year, after all.

Happy BBQs and bonfires!

-Yell

Too True

2009-07-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Atheism So Good

2009-07-05T15:16:00.001-07:00

Creativity

2009-06-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:

A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him...

a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

- Pearl Buck

Chirp.

2009-06-24T10:44:00.001-07:00

I would very much like to live here.

2009-06-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

ktnxbi

Erik Johansson

2009-06-15T14:36:00.001-07:00

Erik Johansson is a 24-year-old photographer and retoucher based in Gothenburg, Sweden. He takes photos with his digital SLR and then manipulates them. More here.

Post-It Deadline Stop-Motion

2009-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

I lost it.

2009-06-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

I kinda sorta NEED this penguin.

2009-05-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Moving Tomorrow - Lake Tahoe

2009-05-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'm moving tomorrow...to be closer to this:

....and by "closer," I mean RIGHT THERE.

OMG INTERNETS!!1!

2009-05-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

What the hell, California?

2009-05-28T10:57:00.001-07:00

Tim Rutten:

California court's contradictory Prop. 8 decision

The decision Tuesday that upheld a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was social and moral nonsense.

Tim Rutten
May 27, 2009

» Discuss Article (36 Comments)

One of the most misunderstood stories in the Western moral tradition involves the "judgment of Solomon," which usually is taken as a metaphor for splitting the difference.

But that's wrong. The story, for those who have forgotten, involves two harlots who came to King Solomon to resolve a dispute. Both recently had given birth, but one women's baby lived and the other's died. The woman who went to sleep with a living child and awoke to find a dead baby in her arms claimed that the other had switched their infants. Solomon listened to both and then announced that he would "cut the living child in two, and give half to one woman and half to the other."

When one of the women renounced her claim "in anguish" and the other accepted the verdict, the king gave the anguished harlot the living child, for she had reacted as only the true mother would. The point, in other words, is that Solomon didn't split the baby. Justice divided is no justice at all.

That's essentially the problem with the California Supreme Court's ruling Tuesday, upholding Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage while leaving legally intact the 18,000 or more unions the state already has sanctioned.

Legal precedents notwithstanding -- and the six clearly nervous justices who made up the majority in this case reached all the way back to the state Constitution of 1849 for those -- Tuesday's decision was intellectually and morally incoherent. It essentially tells Californians that a right as fundamental as the ability to choose the marital partner of your choice is a kind of judicial lottery ticket -- if you got in early, you win, but those who arrived a few days late lose. Sorry.

You could feel the justices straining for their convoluted result in every tortured sentence of Tuesday's 6-1 opinion, and it was impossible not to draw comparisons with the moral and legal clarity of the court's ruling last year that the state Constitution guaranteed gays and lesbians the right to wed the partner of their choice.

That ruling, also written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, drew deeply -- in spirit, at least -- on the philosopher Michael Walzer's insight that the American conception of moral progress consists not in the creation of novel rights but in the extension of those recognized as fundamental to those people to whom they've been denied. As such, the earlier decision stood in a distinguished line that includes Griswold vs. Connecticut and Brown vs. Board of Education -- in which courageous judges undertook to synchronize the law with the social conscience of their age.

Tuesday's ruling stands in the line of moral retreat and expedient retrenchment that includes Dred Scott vs. Sandford, Plessy vs. Ferguson and Korematsu vs. the United States.

Consider this passage from George's latest majority opinion, asserting -- against all reason -- that Proposition 8 did not entirely repeal or abrogate same-sex couples' right to privacy and due process or the "constitutional right of same-sex couples to 'choose one's life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized and protected family relationship.' " Instead, George wrote, "the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state 'constitutional rights.' "

George went on to argue that Proposition 8 did not abrogate "all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple's state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection under the laws."

In other words, gay and lesbian Californians can board the marital bus but must take seats at the rear.

Moreover, denying an entire class of people the right to marry the partner of their choice is a "narrow exception" to the equal protection clause? And it's morally permissible to carve out exceptions to constitutional rights for specific groups, as long as it's done by majority vote?

So, if a majority of Californians voted to "carve out a narrow exception" to California's right to privacy and applied it only to Jews, would it be constitutionally acceptable? If Native Americans were accorded all the protections of the law by a ballot proposition, except the right to marry a non-Indian, would that be legal?

This is social and moral nonsense.

The court tried Tuesday to cover itself with a fig leaf of decency by allowing the 18,000 existing same-sex marriages to stand. It won't work. This is a logically and morally incoherent decision that simply will plunge the state into another round of bitterly divisive initiative politics, while adding fuel to the growing sense that all three branches of California's government have lost the ability to function in the public interest.

timothy.rutten@latimes.com

Stanton Sessions Vol. 2

2009-05-19T12:56:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite mix right now. Enjoy!

Stanton Sessions Vol. 2 - Stanton Warriors

Religion is a Movie

2009-05-18T14:00:00.001-07:00

I hope this is a joke.

2009-05-13T14:55:00.001-07:00

Make sure you watch the whole thing, as painful as it is. I think the part where he starts choking her...well...that's "art."

Mixed Berry Muffins (Vegan)

2009-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

My favorite man brought me leftover berries from his work, so I had to figure out what to do with them! After pouring through several cookbooks, I realized I would just have to wing it and figure it out on my own.

Lucky me....the muffins turned out super rad! You get to benefit...I bring you

Vegan Mixed Berry Muffins

-2 cups flour
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
-1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1 cup soy milk
-1/2 cup vegetable/canola oil
-4 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer + 5 tablespoons warm water, beaten together
-1 1/3 cup mixed berries (I used blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners.

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and oil, then add the "egg" mix.

Pour the wet mix into the well in the dry and mix until JUST mixed. Fold in berries.

Divide evenly among the muffin cups, then bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
(I am not a food photographer.)

Look at This Fucking Hipster

2009-05-07T12:53:00.001-07:00

I thought that I had already posted this little gem up, but then I realized I had merely Twittered it...and it just deserves so much more than that.

There are a few websites I check out on a daily basis nowadays. One is (and always will be) I can has cheezburger.com for my feline fix. Another is that wonderful Textsfromlastnight.com (blogged about a few entries back).

Another is Look at This Fucking Hipster.

And it is glorious.

It's not just the wonderful pictures, but the quips summing up the entire situation present in the photo.

Case in point:

“The word ‘success’ means ‘cupcakes,’ right?”

annnnd

“This is what a retarded chicken looks like.”

Also, be on the lookout for the fucking love connections. Pure comedy.

Chompsky

2009-05-06T10:38:00.001-07:00

(source)

Noam Chomsky is now a meme.

Penguin Wednesdays

2009-05-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Prior to going out last night, I got wrapped up looking into penguin....things. ...We're talking WAY wrapped up.

I've decided I have a problem. It can only be satisfied with this:

(penguin usb drive)
or this:
(tea 'guin)

and my life would be complete if I owned one of these:

THE most BRUTAL thing I have ever read

2009-05-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

You worthless bag of filth
Date: 2009-02-26, 7:37AM EST
You vulgar little maggot. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a slug than be seen with you. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon. You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beast who sired you and then killed himself in recognition of what he had done. Your daddy was a bastard, your mamma was a whore, and you wouldn't be here if the rubber hadn't tore. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a booger. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell? You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Sheep won't have sex with you––only trash such as yourself. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot. And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake? You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile, one-handed, slack-jawed, drooling, meatslapper. On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of a used condom. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go. You smarmy lagerlout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oik artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill. You are a fiend and a coward, and you have toe jam. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away forever. I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid, so stupid it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left.
Location: You swine

Source

I just have to wonder what this someone did. Thems be some words, yo.

Being "Green"

2009-05-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Alright, folks. I'm stepping up onto my soapbox for a brief second. I'm getting a little antsy seeing so much "talk" and not enough "walk."

The Earth is dying. We have to fix it.

Fact is: the American way of life is not sustainable.

I'm not saying you have to go vegan, or even vegetarian. (But if you do, hugs'n'kisses and mucho love from this senorita!) I am saying look into the facts, think about it, and maybe re-arrange a little bit of habit from time to time. Moderation, folks. We can has it.

Check out the PDF report from HSUS, which includes the findings of the 2006 United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Report, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, “stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.”

You drive a Prius? Cool. How many burgers have you had this week?

Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation...methane has 23 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. (source)

Let's study a graph:

(Source)

To get roughly the same amount of calories from potatoes as you do from a pound of beef, you would need 4.15 pounds of potatoes.

So that's 249 gallons of water for 4.15 pounds potatoes versus 12,009 gallons for the pound of beef -- in order to get the same number of calories from the two foods. In short, it takes nearly 50 times more water to produce a calorie from beef as it does from potatoes.

Is this an efficient and fair way to feed the world?

Have you thought about your own garden? Not only will your plants be counterracting all of these pollutants, but your carbon footprint is almost invisible (except for the watering). Plus, you have groceries right there in your backyard. For free. No transportation costs. No middle man. No unnecessary packaging and no wasteful plastic produce bags. It's beautiful, really.

/end (brief) rant. You can read more into it here, here, or here if you'd like.

Probably the coolest dog...ever...

2009-05-01T12:54:00.001-07:00

More side-splitting, gut-wrenching, cute-overload here.

Regarding the Swine Flu

2009-05-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

"1 person dead from Swine Flu in the US...Meanwhire another 5,769 people have died from obesity in the past week. Maybe you people should forget about H1N1 and lay off the chalupas."

I love to laugh.

2009-04-29T14:08:00.001-07:00

And this shit takes care of it:

First up, http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

Some samples:

(401): my mouth tastes like poor choices
(949): Hey sorry for feelin' up your date. Sadly, this is a mass txt.
(619): Good news! Whoever used this stall at Target earlier...not pregnant!

Anddddd, THE SLAP CHOP REMIX!

Made possible by Greg Doom.

RT @gregdoom http://tinyurl.com/cy96a5 this made me laugh so hard the entire planet kicked in my door to see what I was laughing at, and laughed with me.

Just an Average Homeboy

2009-04-28T14:26:00.001-07:00

Invisible Sweet-Ass Blues Guitar Solo

2009-04-20T14:38:00.001-07:00

Not Photoshopped

2009-04-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

More here.

Celebrity Pin-Ups

2009-04-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

I've always been semi-obsessed with the look of a pin-up model. I had to share this link.

There are 52 of them, but here are a few highlights:

Taking It Way Back

2009-04-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

Taking It Way Back

Madonna: Photoshopped

2009-04-07T12:55:00.001-07:00

The Dark Side of Dubai

2009-04-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.
But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.
Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.
Related articles
The Desert Blogger: Jamie Stewart's dispatches from Dubai
I. An Adult Disneyland
Karen Andrews can't speak. Every time she starts to tell her story, she puts her head down and crumples. She is slim and angular and has the faded radiance of the once-rich, even though her clothes are as creased as her forehead. I find her in the car park of one of Dubai's finest international hotels, where she is living, in her Range Rover. She has been sleeping here for months, thanks to the kindness of the Bangladeshi car park attendants who don't have the heart to move her on. This is not where she thought her Dubai dream would end.
Her story comes out in stutters, over four hours. At times, her old voice – witty and warm – breaks through. Karen came here from Canada when her husband was offered a job in the senior division of a famous multinational. "When he said Dubai, I said – if you want me to wear black and quit booze, baby, you've got the wrong girl. But he asked me to give it a chance. And I loved him."
All her worries melted when she touched down in Dubai in 2005. "It was an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse," she says. "Life was fantastic. You had these amazing big apartments, you had a whole army of your own staff, you pay no taxes at all. It seemed like everyone was a CEO. We were partying the whole time."
Her husband, Daniel, bought two properties. "We were drunk on Dubai," she says. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to mismanage their finances. "We're not talking huge sums, but he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was surprised. We got into a little bit of debt." After a year, she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
One doctor told him he had a year to live; another said it was benign and he'd be okay. But the debts were growing. "Before I came here, I didn't know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada's or any other liberal democracy's," she says. Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can't pay, you go to prison.
"When we realised that, I sat Daniel down and told him: listen, we need to get out of here. He knew he was guaranteed a pay-off when he resigned, so we said – right, let's take the pay-off, clear the debt, and go." So Daniel resigned – but he was given a lower pay-off than his contract suggested. The debt remained. As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren't covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country.
"Suddenly our cards stopped working. We had nothing. We were thrown out of our apartment." Karen can't speak about what happened next for a long time; she is shaking.
Daniel was arrested and taken away on the day of their eviction. It was six days before she could talk to him. "He told me he was put in a cell with another debtor, a Sri Lankan guy who was only 27, who said he couldn't face the shame to his family. Daniel woke up and the boy had swallowed razor-blades. He banged for help, but nobody came, and the boy died in front of him."
Karen managed to beg from her friends for a few weeks, "but it was so humiliating. I've never lived like this. I worked in the fashion industry. I had my own shops. I've never..." She peters out.
Daniel was sentenced to six months' imprisonment at a trial he couldn't understand. It was in Arabic, and there was no translation. "Now I'm here illegally, too," Karen says I've got no money, nothing. I have to last nine months until he's out, somehow." Looking away, almost paralysed with embarrassment, she asks if I could buy her a meal.
She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars.
"The thing you have to understand about Dubai is – nothing is what it seems," Karen says at last. "Nothing. This isn't a city, it's a con-job. They lure you in telling you it's one thing – a modern kind of place – but beneath the surface it's a medieval dictatorship."
II. Tumbleweed
Thirty years ago, almost all of contemporary Dubai was desert, inhabited only by cactuses and tumbleweed and scorpions. But downtown there are traces of the town that once was, buried amidst the metal and glass. In the dusty fort of the Dubai Museum, a sanitised version of this story is told.
In the mid-18th century, a small village was built here, in the lower Persian Gulf, where people would dive for pearls off the coast. It soon began to accumulate a cosmopolitan population washing up from Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and other Arab countries, all hoping to make their fortune. They named it after a local locust, the daba, who consumed everything before it. The town was soon seized by the gunships of the British Empire, who held it by the throat as late as 1971. As they scuttled away, Dubai decided to ally with the six surrounding states and make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The British quit, exhausted, just as oil was being discovered, and the sheikhs who suddenly found themselves in charge faced a remarkable dilemma. They were largely illiterate nomads who spent their lives driving camels through the desert – yet now they had a vast pot of gold. What should they do with it?
Dubai only had a dribble of oil compared to neighbouring Abu Dhabi – so Sheikh Maktoum decided to use the revenues to build something that would last. Israel used to boast it made the desert bloom; Sheikh Maktoum resolved to make the desert boom. He would build a city to be a centre of tourism and financial services, sucking up cash and talent from across the globe. He invited the world to come tax-free – and they came in their millions, swamping the local population, who now make up just 5 per cent of Dubai. A city seemed to fall from the sky in just three decades, whole and complete and swelling. They fast-forwarded from the 18th century to the 21st in a single generation.
If you take the Big Bus Tour of Dubai – the passport to a pre-processed experience of every major city on earth – you are fed the propaganda-vision of how this happened. "Dubai's motto is 'Open doors, open minds'," the tour guide tells you in clipped tones, before depositing you at the souks to buy camel tea-cosies. "Here you are free. To purchase fabrics," he adds. As you pass each new monumental building, he tells you: "The World Trade Centre was built by His Highness..."
But this is a lie. The sheikh did not build this city. It was built by slaves. They are building it now.
III. Hidden in plain view
There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?
Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.
Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.
Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.
As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.
Sahinal was in a panic. His family back home – his son, daughter, wife and parents – were waiting for money, excited that their boy had finally made it. But he was going to have to work for more than two years just to pay for the cost of getting here – and all to earn less than he did in Bangladesh.
He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp – holes in the ground – are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is "unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night." At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.
The water delivered to the camp in huge white containers isn't properly desalinated: it tastes of salt. "It makes us sick, but we have nothing else to drink," he says.
The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."
He is currently working on the 67th floor of a shiny new tower, where he builds upwards, into the sky, into the heat. He doesn't know its name. In his four years here, he has never seen the Dubai of tourist-fame, except as he constructs it floor-by-floor.
Is he angry? He is quiet for a long time. "Here, nobody shows their anger. You can't. You get put in jail for a long time, then deported." Last year, some workers went on strike after they were not given their wages for four months. The Dubai police surrounded their camps with razor-wire and water-cannons and blasted them out and back to work.
The "ringleaders" were imprisoned. I try a different question: does Sohinal regret coming? All the men look down, awkwardly. "How can we think about that? We are trapped. If we start to think about regrets..." He lets the sentence trail off. Eventually, another worker breaks the silence by adding: "I miss my country, my family and my land. We can grow food in Bangladesh. Here, nothing grows. Just oil and buildings."
Since the recession hit, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."
This is all supposed to be illegal. Employers are meant to pay on time, never take your passport, give you breaks in the heat – but I met nobody who said it happens. Not one. These men are conned into coming and trapped into staying, with the complicity of the Dubai authorities.
Sahinal could well die out here. A British man who used to work on construction projects told me: "There's a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they're not reported. They're described as 'accidents'." Even then, their families aren't free: they simply inherit the debts. A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.
At night, in the dusk, I sit in the camp with Sohinal and his friends as they scrape together what they have left to buy a cheap bottle of spirits. They down it in one ferocious gulp. "It helps you to feel numb", Sohinal says through a stinging throat. In the distance, the glistening Dubai skyline he built stands, oblivious.
IV. Mauled by the mall
I find myself stumbling in a daze from the camps into the sprawling marble malls that seem to stand on every street in Dubai. It is so hot there is no point building pavements; people gather in these cathedrals of consumerism to bask in the air conditioning. So within a ten minute taxi-ride, I have left Sohinal and I am standing in the middle of Harvey Nichols, being shown a £20,000 taffeta dress by a bored salesgirl. "As you can see, it is cut on the bias..." she says, and I stop writing.
Time doesn't seem to pass in the malls. Days blur with the same electric light, the same shined floors, the same brands I know from home. Here, Dubai is reduced to its component sounds: do-buy. In the most expensive malls I am almost alone, the shops empty and echoing. On the record, everybody tells me business is going fine. Off the record, they look panicky. There is a hat exhibition ahead of the Dubai races, selling elaborate headgear for £1,000 a pop. "Last year, we were packed. Now look," a hat designer tells me. She swoops her arm over a vacant space.
I approach a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants, oblivious to the swarms of men gaping at her. "I love it here!" she says. "The heat, the malls, the beach!" Does it ever bother you that it's a slave society? She puts her head down, just as Sohinal did. "I try not to see," she says. Even at 17, she has learned not to look, and not to ask; that, she senses, is a transgression too far.
Between the malls, there is nothing but the connecting tissue of asphalt. Every road has at least four lanes; Dubai feels like a motorway punctuated by shopping centres. You only walk anywhere if you are suicidal. The residents of Dubai flit from mall to mall by car or taxis.
How does it feel if this is your country, filled with foreigners? Unlike the expats and the slave class, I can't just approach the native Emiratis to ask questions when I see them wandering around – the men in cool white robes, the women in sweltering black. If you try, the women blank you, and the men look affronted, and tell you brusquely that Dubai is "fine". So I browse through the Emirati blog-scene and found some typical-sounding young Emiratis. We meet – where else? – in the mall.
Ahmed al-Atar is a handsome 23-year-old with a neat, trimmed beard, tailored white robes, and rectangular wire-glasses. He speaks perfect American-English, and quickly shows that he knows London, Los Angeles and Paris better than most westerners. Sitting back in his chair in an identikit Starbucks, he announces: "This is the best place in the world to be young! The government pays for your education up to PhD level. You get given a free house when you get married. You get free healthcare, and if it's not good enough here, they pay for you to go abroad. You don't even have to pay for your phone calls. Almost everyone has a maid, a nanny, and a driver. And we never pay any taxes. Don't you wish you were Emirati?"
I try to raise potential objections to this Panglossian summary, but he leans forward and says: "Look – my grandfather woke up every day and he would have to fight to get to the well first to get water. When the wells ran dry, they had to have water delivered by camel. They were always hungry and thirsty and desperate for jobs. He limped all his life, because he there was no medical treatment available when he broke his leg. Now look at us!"
For Emiratis, this is a Santa Claus state, handing out goodies while it makes its money elsewhere: through renting out land to foreigners, soft taxes on them like business and airport charges, and the remaining dribble of oil. Most Emiratis, like Ahmed, work for the government, so they're cushioned from the credit crunch. "I haven't felt any effect at all, and nor have my friends," he says. "Your employment is secure. You will only be fired if you do something incredibly bad." The laws are currently being tightened, to make it even more impossible to sack an Emirati.
Sure, the flooding-in of expats can sometimes be "an eyesore", Ahmed says. "But we see the expats as the price we had to pay for this development. How else could we do it? Nobody wants to go back to the days of the desert, the days before everyone came. We went from being like an African country to having an average income per head of $120,000 a year. And we're supposed to complain?"
He says the lack of political freedom is fine by him. "You'll find it very hard to find an Emirati who doesn't support Sheikh Mohammed." Because they're scared? "No, because we really all support him. He's a great leader. Just look!" He smiles and says: "I'm sure my life is very much like yours. We hang out, have a coffee, go to the movies. You'll be in a Pizza Hut or Nando's in London, and at the same time I'll be in one in Dubai," he says, ordering another latte.
But do all young Emiratis see it this way? Can it really be so sunny in the political sands? In the sleek Emirates Tower Hotel, I meet Sultan al-Qassemi. He's a 31-year-old Emirati columnist for the Dubai press and private art collector, with a reputation for being a contrarian liberal, advocating gradual reform. He is wearing Western clothes – blue jeans and a Ralph Lauren shirt – and speaks incredibly fast, turning himself into a manic whirr of arguments.
"People here are turning into lazy, overweight babies!" he exclaims. "The nanny state has gone too far. We don't do anything for ourselves! Why don't any of us work for the private sector? Why can't a mother and father look after their own child?" And yet, when I try to bring up the system of slavery that built Dubai, he looks angry. "People should give us credit," he insists. "We are the most tolerant people in the world. Dubai is the only truly international city in the world. Everyone who comes here is treated with respect."
I pause, and think of the vast camps in Sonapur, just a few miles away. Does he even know they exist? He looks irritated. "You know, if there are 30 or 40 cases [of worker abuse] a year, that sounds like a lot but when you think about how many people are here..." Thirty or 40? This abuse is endemic to the system, I say. We're talking about hundreds of thousands.
Sultan is furious. He splutters: "You don't think Mexicans are treated badly in New York City? And how long did it take Britain to treat people well? I could come to London and write about the homeless people on Oxford Street and make your city sound like a terrible place, too! The workers here can leave any time they want! Any Indian can leave, any Asian can leave!"
But they can't, I point out. Their passports are taken away, and their wages are withheld. "Well, I feel bad if that happens, and anybody who does that should be punished. But their embassies should help them." They try. But why do you forbid the workers – with force – from going on strike against lousy employers? "Thank God we don't allow that!" he exclaims. "Strikes are in-convenient! They go on the street – we're not having that. We won't be like France. Imagine a country where they the workers can just stop whenever they want!" So what should the workers do when they are cheated and lied to? "Quit. Leave the country."
I sigh. Sultan is seething now. "People in the West are always complaining about us," he says. Suddenly, he adopts a mock-whiny voice and says, in imitation of these disgusting critics: "Why don't you treat animals better? Why don't you have better shampoo advertising? Why don't you treat labourers better?" It's a revealing order: animals, shampoo, then workers. He becomes more heated, shifting in his seat, jabbing his finger at me. "I gave workers who worked for me safety goggles and special boots, and they didn't want to wear them! It slows them down!"
And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. "When I see Western journalists criticise us – don't you realise you're shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying – I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."
Sultan sits back. My arguments have clearly disturbed him; he says in a softer, conciliatory tone, almost pleading: "Listen. My mother used to go to the well and get a bucket of water every morning. On her wedding day, she was given an orange as a gift because she had never eaten one. Two of my brothers died when they were babies because the healthcare system hadn't developed yet. Don't judge us." He says it again, his eyes filled with intensity: "Don't judge us."
V. The Dunkin' Donuts Dissidents
But there is another face to the Emirati minority – a small huddle of dissidents, trying to shake the Sheikhs out of abusive laws. Next to a Virgin Megastore and a Dunkin' Donuts, with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" blaring behind me, I meet the Dubai dictatorship's Public Enemy Number One. By way of introduction, Mohammed al-Mansoori says from within his white robes and sinewy face: "Westerners come her and see the malls and the tall buildings and they think that means we are free. But these businesses, these buildings – who are they for? This is a dictatorship. The royal family think they own the country, and the people are their servants. There is no freedom here."
We snuffle out the only Arabic restaurant in this mall, and he says everything you are banned – under threat of prison – from saying in Dubai. Mohammed tells me he was born in Dubai to a fisherman father who taught him one enduring lesson: Never follow the herd. Think for yourself. In the sudden surge of development, Mohammed trained as a lawyer. By the Noughties, he had climbed to the head of the Jurists' Association, an organisation set up to press for Dubai's laws to be consistent with international human rights legislation.
And then – suddenly – Mohammed thwacked into the limits of Sheikh Mohammed's tolerance. Horrified by the "system of slavery" his country was being built on, he spoke out to Human Rights Watch and the BBC. "So I was hauled in by the secret police and told: shut up, or you will lose you job, and your children will be unemployable," he says. "But how could I be silent?"
He was stripped of his lawyer's licence and his passport – becoming yet another person imprisoned in this country. "I have been blacklisted and so have my children. The newspapers are not allowed to write about me."
Why is the state so keen to defend this system of slavery? He offers a prosaic explanation. "Most companies are owned by the government, so they oppose human rights laws because it will reduce their profit margins. It's in their interests that the workers are slaves."
Last time there was a depression, there was a starbust of democracy in Dubai, seized by force from the sheikhs. In the 1930s, the city's merchants banded together against Sheikh Said bin Maktum al-Maktum – the absolute ruler of his day – and insisted they be given control over the state finances. It lasted only a few years, before the Sheikh – with the enthusiastic support of the British – snuffed them out.
And today? Sheikh Mohammed turned Dubai into Creditopolis, a city built entirely on debt. Dubai owes 107 percent of its entire GDP. It would be bust already, if the neighbouring oil-soaked state of Abu Dhabi hadn't pulled out its chequebook. Mohammed says this will constrict freedom even further. "Now Abu Dhabi calls the tunes – and they are much more conservative and restrictive than even Dubai. Freedom here will diminish every day." Already, new media laws have been drafted forbidding the press to report on anything that could "damage" Dubai or "its economy". Is this why the newspapers are giving away glossy supplements talking about "encouraging economic indicators"?
Everybody here waves Islamism as the threat somewhere over the horizon, sure to swell if their advice is not followed. Today, every imam is appointed by the government, and every sermon is tightly controlled to keep it moderate. But Mohammed says anxiously: "We don't have Islamism here now, but I think that if you control people and give them no way to express anger, it could rise. People who are told to shut up all the time can just explode."
Later that day, against another identikit-corporate backdrop, I meet another dissident – Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, Professor of Political Science at Emirates University. His anger focuses not on political reform, but the erosion of Emirati identity. He is famous among the locals, a rare outspoken conductor for their anger. He says somberly: "There has been a rupture here. This is a totally different city to the one I was born in 50 years ago."
He looks around at the shiny floors and Western tourists and says: "What we see now didn't occur in our wildest dreams. We never thought we could be such a success, a trendsetter, a model for other Arab countries. The people of Dubai are mighty proud of their city, and rightly so. And yet..." He shakes his head. "In our hearts, we fear we have built a modern city but we are losing it to all these expats."
Adbulkhaleq says every Emirati of his generation lives with a "psychological trauma." Their hearts are divided – "between pride on one side, and fear on the other." Just after he says this, a smiling waitress approaches, and asks us what we would like to drink. He orders a Coke.
VI. Dubai Pride
There is one group in Dubai for whom the rhetoric of sudden freedom and liberation rings true – but it is the very group the government wanted to liberate least: gays.
Beneath a famous international hotel, I clamber down into possibly the only gay club on the Saudi Arabian peninsula. I find a United Nations of tank-tops and bulging biceps, dancing to Kylie, dropping ecstasy, and partying like it's Soho. "Dubai is the best place in the Muslim world for gays!" a 25-year old Emirati with spiked hair says, his arms wrapped around his 31-year old "husband". "We are alive. We can meet. That is more than most Arab gays."
It is illegal to be gay in Dubai, and punishable by 10 years in prison. But the locations of the latest unofficial gay clubs circulate online, and men flock there, seemingly unafraid of the police. "They might bust the club, but they will just disperse us," one of them says. "The police have other things to do."
In every large city, gay people find a way to find each other – but Dubai has become the clearing-house for the region's homosexuals, a place where they can live in relative safety. Saleh, a lean private in the Saudi Arabian army, has come here for the Coldplay concert, and tells me Dubai is "great" for gays: "In Saudi, it's hard to be straight when you're young. The women are shut away so everyone has gay sex. But they only want to have sex with boys – 15- to 21-year-olds. I'm 27, so I'm too old now. I need to find real gays, so this is the best place. All Arab gays want to live in Dubai."
With that, Saleh dances off across the dancefloor, towards a Dutch guy with big biceps and a big smile.
VII. The Lifestyle
All the guidebooks call Dubai a "melting pot", but as I trawl across the city, I find that every group here huddles together in its own little ethnic enclave – and becomes a caricature of itself. One night – in the heart of this homesick city, tired of the malls and the camps – I go to Double Decker, a hang-out for British expats. At the entrance there is a red telephone box, and London bus-stop signs. Its wooden interior looks like a cross between a colonial clubhouse in the Raj and an Eighties school disco, with blinking coloured lights and cheese blaring out. As I enter, a girl in a short skirt collapses out of the door onto her back. A guy wearing a pirate hat helps her to her feet, dropping his beer bottle with a paralytic laugh.
I start to talk to two sun-dried women in their sixties who have been getting gently sozzled since midday. "You stay here for The Lifestyle," they say, telling me to take a seat and order some more drinks. All the expats talk about The Lifestyle, but when you ask what it is, they become vague. Ann Wark tries to summarise it: "Here, you go out every night. You'd never do that back home. You see people all the time. It's great. You have lots of free time. You have maids and staff so you don't have to do all that stuff. You party!"
They have been in Dubai for 20 years, and they are happy to explain how the city works. "You've got a hierarchy, haven't you?" Ann says. "It's the Emiratis at the top, then I'd say the British and other Westerners. Then I suppose it's the Filipinos, because they've got a bit more brains than the Indians. Then at the bottom you've got the Indians and all them lot."
They admit, however, they have "never" spoken to an Emirati. Never? "No. They keep themselves to themselves." Yet Dubai has disappointed them. Jules Taylor tells me: "If you have an accident here it's a nightmare. There was a British woman we knew who ran over an Indian guy, and she was locked up for four days! If you have a tiny bit of alcohol on your breath they're all over you. These Indians throw themselves in front of cars, because then their family has to be given blood money – you know, compensation. But the police just blame us. That poor woman."
A 24-year-old British woman called Hannah Gamble takes a break from the dancefloor to talk to me. "I love the sun and the beach! It's great out here!" she says. Is there anything bad? "Oh yes!" she says. Ah: one of them has noticed, I think with relief. "The banks! When you want to make a transfer you have to fax them. You can't do it online." Anything else? She thinks hard. "The traffic's not very good."
When I ask the British expats how they feel to not be in a democracy, their reaction is always the same. First, they look bemused. Then they look affronted. "It's the Arab way!" an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.
Later, in a hotel bar, I start chatting to a dyspeptic expat American who works in the cosmetics industry and is desperate to get away from these people. She says: "All the people who couldn't succeed in their own countries end up here, and suddenly they're rich and promoted way above their abilities and bragging about how great they are. I've never met so many incompetent people in such senior positions anywhere in the world." She adds: "It's absolutely racist. I had Filipino girls working for me doing the same job as a European girl, and she's paid a quarter of the wages. The people who do the real work are paid next to nothing, while these incompetent managers pay themselves £40,000 a month."
With the exception of her, one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid. The maids used to be predominantly Filipino, but with the recession, Filipinos have been judged to be too expensive, so a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory.
It is an open secret that once you hire a maid, you have absolute power over her. You take her passport – everyone does; you decide when to pay her, and when – if ever – she can take a break; and you decide who she talks to. She speaks no Arabic. She cannot escape.
In a Burger King, a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say – 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.' At first I would say – my God, I will tell the consulate, where are you staying? But they never know their address, and the consulate isn't interested. I avoid them now. I keep thinking about a woman who told me she hadn't eaten any fruit in four years. They think I have power because I can walk around on my own, but I'm powerless."
The only hostel for women in Dubai – a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed – is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her – and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. "But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family – four children – and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn't give me my wages: they said they'd pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn't know anybody here. I was terrified."
One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked – in broken English – how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get her passport back from Madam. "Well, how could I?" she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. "I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything," she says.
As she says this, I remember a stray sentence I heard back at Double Decker. I asked a British woman called Hermione Frayling what the best thing about Dubai was. "Oh, the servant class!" she trilled. "You do nothing. They'll do anything!"
VIII. The End of The World
The World is empty. It has been abandoned, its continents unfinished. Through binoculars, I think I can glimpse Britain; this sceptred isle barren in the salt-breeze.
Here, off the coast of Dubai, developers have been rebuilding the world. They have constructed artificial islands in the shape of all planet Earth's land masses, and they plan to sell each continent off to be built on. There were rumours that the Beckhams would bid for Britain. But the people who work at the nearby coast say they haven't seen anybody there for months now. "The World is over," a South African suggests.
All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea.
The projects completed just before the global economy crashed look empty and tattered. The Atlantis Hotel was launched last winter in a $20m fin-de-siecle party attended by Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan and Lily Allen. Sitting on its own fake island – shaped, of course, like a palm tree – it looks like an immense upturned tooth in a faintly decaying mouth. It is pink and turreted – the architecture of the pharaohs, as reimagined by Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Its Grand Lobby is a monumental dome covered in glitterballs, held up by eight monumental concrete palm trees. Standing in the middle, there is a giant shining glass structure that looks like the intestines of every guest who has ever stayed at the Atlantis. It is unexpectedly raining; water is leaking from the roof, and tiles are falling off.
A South African PR girl shows me around its most coveted rooms, explaining that this is "the greatest luxury offered in the world". We stroll past shops selling £24m diamond rings around a hotel themed on the lost and sunken continent of, yes, Atlantis. There are huge water tanks filled with sharks, which poke around mock-abandoned castles and dumped submarines. There are more than 1,500 rooms here, each with a sea view. The Neptune suite has three floors, and – I gasp as I see it – it looks out directly on to the vast shark tank. You lie on the bed, and the sharks stare in at you. In Dubai, you can sleep with the fishes, and survive.
But even the luxury – reminiscent of a Bond villain's lair – is also being abandoned. I check myself in for a few nights to the classiest hotel in town, the Park Hyatt. It is the fashionistas' favourite hotel, where Elle Macpherson and Tommy Hilfiger stay, a gorgeous, understated palace. It feels empty. Whenever I eat, I am one of the only people in the restaurant. A staff member tells me in a whisper: "It used to be full here. Now there's hardly anyone." Rattling around, I feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the last man in an abandoned, haunted home.
The most famous hotel in Dubai – the proud icon of the city – is the Burj al Arab hotel, sitting on the shore, shaped like a giant glass sailing boat. In the lobby, I start chatting to a couple from London who work in the City. They have been coming to Dubai for 10 years now, and they say they love it. "You never know what you'll find here," he says. "On our last trip, at the beginning of the holiday, our window looked out on the sea. By the end, they'd built an entire island there."
My patience frayed by all this excess, I find myself snapping: doesn't the omnipresent slave class bother you? I hope they misunderstood me, because the woman replied: "That's what we come for! It's great, you can't do anything for yourself!" Her husband chimes in: "When you go to the toilet, they open the door, they turn on the tap – the only thing they don't do is take it out for you when you have a piss!" And they both fall about laughing.
IX. Taking on the Desert
Dubai is not just a city living beyond its financial means; it is living beyond its ecological means. You stand on a manicured Dubai lawn and watch the sprinklers spray water all around you. You see tourists flocking to swim with dolphins. You wander into a mountain-sized freezer where they have built a ski slope with real snow. And a voice at the back of your head squeaks: this is the desert. This is the most water-stressed place on the planet. How can this be happening? How is it possible?
The very earth is trying to repel Dubai, to dry it up and blow it away. The new Tiger Woods Gold Course needs four million gallons of water to be pumped on to its grounds every day, or it would simply shrivel and disappear on the winds. The city is regularly washed over with dust-storms that fog up the skies and turn the skyline into a blur. When the dust parts, heat burns through. It cooks anything that is not kept constantly, artificially wet.
Dr Mohammed Raouf, the environmental director of the Gulf Research Centre, sounds sombre as he sits in his Dubai office and warns: "This is a desert area, and we are trying to defy its environment. It is very unwise. If you take on the desert, you will lose."
Sheikh Maktoum built his showcase city in a place with no useable water. None. There is no surface water, very little acquifer, and among the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf – making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes. It's the main reason why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being – more than double that of an American.
If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues – if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."
Global warming, he adds, makes the problem even worse. "We are building all these artificial islands, but if the sea level rises, they will be gone, and we will lose a lot. Developers keep saying it's all fine, they've taken it into consideration, but I'm not so sure."
Is the Dubai government concerned about any of this? "There isn't much interest in these problems," he says sadly. But just to stand still, the average resident of Dubai needs three times more water than the average human. In the looming century of water stresses and a transition away from fossil fuels, Dubai is uniquely vulnerable.
I wanted to understand how the government of Dubai will react, so I decided to look at how it has dealt with an environmental problem that already exists – the pollution of its beaches. One woman – an American, working at one of the big hotels – had written in a lot of online forums arguing that it was bad and getting worse, so I called her to arrange a meeting. "I can't talk to you," she said sternly. Not even if it's off the record? "I can't talk to you." But I don't have to disclose your name... "You're not listening. This phone is bugged. I can't talk to you," she snapped, and hung up.
The next day I turned up at her office. "If you reveal my identity, I'll be sent on the first plane out of this city," she said, before beginning to nervously pace the shore with me. "It started like this. We began to get complaints from people using the beach. The water looked and smelled odd, and they were starting to get sick after going into it. So I wrote to the ministers of health and tourism and expected to hear back immediately – but there was nothing. Silence. I hand-delivered the letters. Still nothing."
The water quality got worse and worse. The guests started to spot raw sewage, condoms, and used sanitary towels floating in the sea. So the hotel ordered its own water analyses from a professional company. "They told us it was full of fecal matter and bacteria 'too numerous to count'. I had to start telling guests not to go in the water, and since they'd come on a beach holiday, as you can imagine, they were pretty pissed off." She began to make angry posts on the expat discussion forums – and people began to figure out what was happening. Dubai had expanded so fast its sewage treatment facilities couldn't keep up. The sewage disposal trucks had to queue for three or four days at the treatment plants – so instead, they were simply drilling open the manholes and dumping the untreated sewage down them, so it flowed straight to the sea.
Suddenly, it was an open secret – and the municipal authorities finally acknowledged the problem. They said they would fine the truckers. But the water quality didn't improve: it became black and stank. "It's got chemicals in it. I don't know what they are. But this stuff is toxic."
She continued to complain – and started to receive anonymous phone calls. "Stop embarassing Dubai, or your visa will be cancelled and you're out," they said. She says: "The expats are terrified to talk about anything. One critical comment in the newspapers and they deport you. So what am I supposed to do? Now the water is worse than ever. People are getting really sick. Eye infections, ear infections, stomach infections, rashes. Look at it!" There is faeces floating on the beach, in the shadow of one of Dubai's most famous hotels.
"What I learnt about Dubai is that the authorities don't give a toss about the environment," she says, standing in the stench. "They're pumping toxins into the sea, their main tourist attraction, for God's sake. If there are environmental problems in the future, I can tell you now how they will deal with them – deny it's happening, cover it up, and carry on until it's a total disaster." As she speaks, a dust-storm blows around us, as the desert tries, slowly, insistently, to take back its land.
X. Fake Plastic Trees
On my final night in the Dubai Disneyland, I stop off on my way to the airport, at a Pizza Hut that sits at the side of one of the city's endless, wide, gaping roads. It is identical to the one near my apartment in London in every respect, even the vomit-coloured decor. My mind is whirring and distracted. Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City.
I ask the Filipino girl behind the counter if she likes it here. "It's OK," she says cautiously. Really? I say. I can't stand it. She sighs with relief and says: "This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!" But she is trapped, she says. She got into debt to come here, and she is stuck for three years: an old story now. "I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand."
As she says this, another customer enters. She forces her face into the broad, empty Dubai smile and says: "And how may I help you tonight, sir?"
Some names in this article have been changed.

Source

Cartoon Characters

2009-04-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

Disturbingly, Breathtakingly...Beautiful

2009-04-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

DIY Manifesto

2009-03-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

I posted this before as the image of the poster you can buy from Microcosm, but I finally got around to typing it out. Eventually, I plan on doing another post where this is interactive.

Our foreign policy is a fetid glop of belligerent macho and corporate opportunities. Our economic policy is an open giveaway to the same smooth-talking carpetbaggers who looted our lands, stripped our industrial legacy, and abandoned our kids. And nothing more than "discretionary" White House policy is left to protect us from a full on police state.

Well then, so be it.

We are walking out. We can sew our own clothes, grow our own food, teach our own kids, make our own music, and even build our own supercomputers however and whenever we feel like it.

Between us we know bike repair and cooking and programming and writing and singing and particle physics and we're teaching it to each other.

We are building alternatives to all of your plastic crap. Every last bit.

Consider the reworked clothes and piercings and purple hair. You've gotten so used to seeing it all, you've forgotten that it ever meant anything.

It does. It means Screw Your Norms and Your Assumptions. I Do As I Choose.

It was "social misfits" like us who invented modern computers, medicine, cuisine, and a hell of a lot more and we've figured out we don't have to play your game.

And now we're spreading the word.

Where can we live? In strawbale houses and abandoned buildings and big group houses in the neighborhoods you don't even see.

What can we eat? Stuff we grow on rooftops, in backyards, in planters made of milk crates lined with one dollar shower curtains and wherever else we see wasted space. Along with, of course, stuff from our food coops and your dumpsters.

What can we wear? Your castoffs, stuff we swap among us, stuff we sew and cut down and spiff up and rework a hundred different ways.

How can we spread our knowledge? With skill shares and zines and open source software and music and websites and stuff like this poster. We're homeschooling our kids and doing teach-ins and creating copyleft educational materials and buying used textbooks for ten cents on the dollar.

What can we do for money? We get by with less, barter between us, sell what we make, and sell our services to the folks we respect.

How can we get around? By bikes everywhere, by mass transit, when we can, with biodiesel cars where we must. With skateboards and scooters and plain ol' walkin'. Long distance? Ride shares, Green Tortoise, and converted panel vans.

What do we do for fun? Music and parties and bands with our friends in them and art and feasts that we've made and the sex, drugs, and rock and roll we've had all along. And no television at all.

And we will live happy and laugh last.

Why Parents Shouldn't Use Facebook

2009-03-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm friends with my mom on Facebook. She might even read this blog, though I kinda hope not because she's God-fearing and to fuck if I am.

Anyhow, my mom uses more applications than anyone I know. I logged in tonight to see this:

and this:

Have you no mercy, mom? I let you into my virtual world and make it easy for you to get the play-by-play on my hangovers and I give you access to pictures of me dancing on bars in Vegas. And this is how you repay me? Booby Shaking Bananas?

This will not stand.

(No, but seriously. I love my Mom.)

(Seriously.)

This is a Yellocracy.

2009-03-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

By the way, qwantz.com is amazing.

Everything Andy Samberg touches is gold.

2009-03-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

Very rarely do I see something on the internet that is so funny, I return. Very rarely is that something so funny, that I return multiple times.

I can't even remember the last time something was so funny, I watched the fucking video every single day. EVERY DAY. Multiple times.

I'm sure you've seen it. If you haven't, well FUCK:

And there are so many other gems....Dick in a Box, the parody of Beyonce's "Single Ladies," Ras Trent.....

Also, Andy Samberg: I will marry you and have thirty of your children. Just say the word. I happen to love New York City. And you. I love you. And your sweet moves.

Neat-o Maps

2009-03-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

I did a post about Cartograms just after the election last November. A cartogram is a map that isn't based on the actual size of land, but rather is based on some variable. It's like working a graph into a map.

Here are some more cartograms...for, like, learning purposes and shit.

HIV - distribution by countries.

Immigration

Alcohol consumption

WAR DEATHS.

There are more here.

NYC Sitcom Map

2009-03-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

More Reno Obsession

2009-03-11T20:15:00.001-07:00

my street
Originally uploaded by face~less

Sorry, but Flickr is full of gems in Reno.

This one isn't necessarily because of Reno, but because I think this photo looks nifty.

Wire Bike

2009-03-08T15:19:00.001-07:00

More Neat-o Reno Photos

2009-03-08T10:33:00.001-07:00

I've become a little obsessed with Flickr lately, and I did a random search for "Reno" to see what popped up. ...and WOW! There is a plethora of gorgeous imagery of the city.

Some gems:

Check out this sky

Inside a casino

Beautiful Truckee River Downtown

Bento Penguin

2009-03-07T11:19:00.001-08:00

I've been immersed in Bento Box blogs all morning, and I've found some really crazy-creative things that make me want to foray into the art...too bad I'm not artistic.

But, check out this 'guin!

-Source

For more BENTO inspiration, check out this blog. Her creativity is killer. Be sure to find Calvin & Hobbes and Where the Wild Things Are.

I think I'm going to have to buy one of these bento boxes....

The Original Ronald McDonald

2009-03-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

Uber-creepy.

Science VS Religion

2009-03-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

Getting My Piece of the Pie

2009-03-01T20:42:00.001-08:00

I've been saying I'm going to sell some stuff online for ages, now, and I haven't been very pro-active about it. My man-friend put up some records over the past week, and inspired me to get my ass in gear and sell the stuff I wanted to.

I now have some old video games for sale on eBay, the likes of which are very...kid. Scooby Doo, Harvest Moon, and the Sims 2 Double Deluxe.

Yeah, I'm cool. So what?

I'll gain it back here:

I made some necklaces today, and I decided to dust the cobwebs off of my old Etsy store and possibly make some scrilla in the process.

AND voila, my newest creations:

(You might need to squint a bit or something...those are winged penises! AS A NECKLACE!)

You Grow Girl

2009-02-24T19:19:00.000-08:00

So, I've moved out of San Francisco and into Reno, Nevada and I find myself in a real HOUSE. A house with a BACKYARD. A backyard that equals GARDEN which equals yummy-in-the-tummy fresh veggies...if I can ever figure out how to stop killing stuff.

You see, I can't keep a freakin' cactus alive. It's a curse. I'm a whiz in the kitchen. I can knit some socks in no time. I can type like a beast. But, I can't keep a flippin' PLANT alive and well.

I needed help.

I zipped on down to my public library and picked up some books about gardening. One is from the For Dummies series (duh - I should be paid by those people, I talk their books up so much) and the other was a book with a clever title. It caught my eye and I glanced at it briefly before just deciding to chance it and check it out, too.

The book was You Grow Girl and it's now my current favorite book.

This woman is a genius. She knows how to talk to my kind. She writes like she's standing there telling you how it is. I like writers like this, hence my fascination with the likes of Vegansaurus.

The basics are covered - and then some. It's like a punk-rock frugal gardening bible, complete with garden projects and recipes. (She tries to appeal to the cheapskate in all of us, stating early-on that she feels too often that gardening is associated with "rich woman hobby.") It will benefit you - whether you want purdy flowers or tasty veggie bits.

She covers the planning aspects, right down to handmade stones. The planting chapters are numerous, tackling containers, sowing, tools, protection, etc etc etc. Common (and not-so common) problems are covered. The book even mentions saving/storing your bounty, making homemade bath & beauty projects, harvesting your own sseeds, and fall pruning. Winter gardening is even mentioned! Basically, THIS BOOK IS THE MECCA OF ALL THAT IS YOUNG AND FRUGAL IN GARDENING.

Seriously, go get it. It's cheap enough, and it'll save you tons of cash in the future. And your mind. It'll save your mind.

Check out this butternut squash

2009-02-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

Who abuses a fucking CAT?

2009-02-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

This makes me physically sick. Who the fuck tortures a helpless cat and uploads the video on YouTube?

I want to rescue that poor thing.

David After Dentist - Remix

2009-02-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

There's this video being tossed around the likes of Myspace featuring a little boy in the backseat of his dad's car. He's stoned out of his mind on whatever the dentist gave him before surgery. The video's pretty good, but I think this remix is better.

Blog-In...a little late, but that's ok.

2009-02-06T08:08:00.001-08:00

As parents and concerned citizens I’m sure most of us at one time or another have been confronted with the question of lead poisoning. But have you asked yourself what your government is doing to protect your children from lead contained in toys? The answer? They're banning toys, taking books from schools and libraries, hurting low income families, killing entrepreneurial spirit and risking putting the economy in an even greater depression than we've seen in decades. I'd like to introduce you to their solution: the CPSIA.

Do you know about the CPSIA? No? Then I ask you to take a few minutes to find out about it.

The CPSIA stands for Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a new set of laws that will come into effect on 10 February, 2009 and will impact many, many people in a negative way. Make no mistake, this is very real. View it for yourself. If Forbes, the American Library Association and numerous other media are paying attention, perhaps you should too.

How will these new laws affect you? Well, here are a few examples:

To the Parents of Young Students:
Due to the new law, expect to see the cost of school supplies sky rocket. While those paper clips weren't originally intended for your student to use, they will need to be tested now that your 11-year-old needs them for his school project. This law applies to any and all school supplies (textbooks, pencils, crayons, paper, etc.) being used by children under 12.

To the Avid Reader:
Due to the new law, all children's books will be pulled from library and school shelves, as there is no exemption for them. That’s okay though, there's always television. Our children don’t need to learn the love of reading after all.
Article from the American Library Association http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=1322

To the Lover of All Things Handmade:
Due to the new law, you will now be given a cotton ball and an instruction manual so you can make it yourself since that blanket you originally had your eye on for $50 will now cost you around $1,000 after it's passed testing. It won't even be the one-of-a-kind blanket you were hoping for. Items are destroyed in the testing process making one-of-a-kind items virtually impossible. So that gorgeous hand-knit hat you bought your child this past winter won’t be available next winter.

To the Environmentalist:
Due to the new law, all items in non-compliance will now be dumped into our already overflowing landfills. Imagine not just products from the small business owners, but the Big Box Stores as well. You can't sell it so you must toss it. Or be potentially sued for selling it. You can't even give them away. If you are caught, it is still a violation.

To the Second-Hand Shopper:
Due to the new law, you will now need to spend $20 for that brand new pair of jeans for your 2-year old, rather than shop at the Goodwill for second hand. Many resale shops are eliminating children's items all together to avoid future lawsuits.

To the Entrepreneur:
Due to this new law, you will be forced to adhere to strict testing of your unique products or discontinue to make and/or sell them. Small businesses will be likely to be unable to afford the cost of testing and be forced to close up shop. Due to the current economic state, you'll have to hope for the best when it comes to finding a new job in Corporate America.

To the Antique Toy Collector:
Due to the new law, you'd better start buying now because it's all going to private collection and will no longer be available to purchase. “Because the new rules apply retroactively, toys and clothes already on the shelf will have to be thrown out if they aren't certified as safe.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123189645948879745.html

To the American Economy:
Already struggling under an economy that hasn’t been this weak in decades, the American economy will be hit harder with the inevitable loss of jobs and revenues from suppliers, small businesses and consumers. The required testing is far too costly and restrictive for small businesses or individuals to undertake.

To the Worldwide Economy:
Due to this new law, many foreign manufacturers have already pulled out of the US market. You can imagine the impact of this on their businesses.

If you think this is exaggerating, here is a recent article from Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html

And for those of you prepared to be stupefied and boggled, The New Law
http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/cpsia.html

Did you know? If this upsets or alarms you, please react.

Amazing Stop-Motion Music Video

2009-02-05T07:03:00.001-08:00