Sarkozy: Burqas are "not welcome" in France

This is a difficult situation for me, pitting my anti-religious-bullshit nature against my civil-libertarianism. I want to see burqas go away, but on the other hand governments making decisions about what people can and cannot wear makes me queasy.

Thoughts?

When I was a teenager I went through a phase where I desperately wanted some sort of supernatural or magickal power, which led me to study Wicca for a while. I still am fascinated by the culture and appreciate the wisdom of the Wiccan Rede ('An it harm none, do as thou wilt') but even then I was still intent on approaching it all with an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude, and there was no more evidence there of any truth or power than there was in any other religion.

NO WEEZER WHY

There are not enough question marks, exclamation points, and haphazardly typed 1s in the world.

I will give credit to mtvU for both playing actual music videos 24 hours a day and dedicating a significant percentage of that time to up and coming artists. However, I don't think I could watch the channel if I didn't have a DVR and the ability to fast forward through hours of not-so-great-akshually videos and conservative propaganda masquerading as PSAs.

In an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, I decided to make a YouTube playlist of my favorite videos currently being played on the station. If you've liked my Stuck In My Head Songs of the Week, you'll probably like most of these.

Some of these are a little strobe-y, so beware if you're prone to epileptic seizures. And being music videos, some of them are also a bit WTF.



For the full playlist and details click here.

Is it a phenomenon specific to Livejournal that people will respond to a well thought out (or not) comment or entry with nothing but the word "THIS."? Do people really think that is necessary or adds anything to the conversation?

I think each of these people should be forced to do this in actual real life conversations so they can see how stupid they look.

This seems pretty obvious to me - they have less experience driving than any other age group. They are also more likely to attempt to show off, but I think experience is still the trump card here.

Before I was 20, other people hitting me through no fault of my own was the way I got new cars. I got hit in my 1988 Ford Ranger making a left turn on a green when a Mistubishi Eclipse coming the other way couldn't stop in the rain. They gave me enough money from the insurance to buy a 1989 Dodge Colt hatchback (a rebranded Mitsubishi Mirage.) I drove that for a while until some guy in a Chevy Silverado failed to realize I was still there when I inched up for a right turn at a red. I (foolishly) used that insurance money to buy a 1984 Camaro. I haven't been in an accident since, and I do think it has a lot to do with learning to be more aware of the potential mistakes of other drivers.

Artist: PJ Harvey & John Parish
Song: Black-Hearted Love
Heard on: WRAS, WBER

Gotta hand it to PJ Harvey. It's hard work making jumping up and down in a wet dress in slow motion completely non-sexual.

That's not what I'm here for, though. It's an awesome song.

The new(ish) car came to me without a keyless entry remote. Getting the part at the dealership would have been $180, plus $55 to program it.

I got one on eBay for $20.94 including shipping and programmed it myGoddamnself for free in two minutes with instructions I printed from the internet.

Oh yeah, we got a new car. Scion XB for the win.

I was checking out Totally Looks Like, which is a sister site to I Can Has Cheezburger, when I found this:



While there is an obvious ripoff here, it's not where you might think. The publishers of the C.S. Lewis book printed this version in 2007, while Twilight came out in 2005. It is an obvious attempt to capitalize on the phenomenon through plagiarizing the packaging.

The more interesting story came from the comment threads, where the subject of Twilight fans and their rabidness came up. Someone links to the Twilight Sucks community where tales of attacks against non-Twilight fans are detailed. There I found this gem. I am no fan of Twilight, and would probably agree with the title of the website if I cared enough about Twilight to have read and/or seen it, but this was too ridiculous to not comment on.

Okay. So that's one more, when I'm going home from secondary school on Orchard Road. It was not a peak hour so there weren't many people and I was about to take the subway. Anyway, when I was waiting for the bus on the station, I popped open my mininote laptop and went to TwilightSucks.com.

I was having fun imitating SMeyer's style and writing "The Amazing Stalker Heroes!!!" full of Mary Sues when I realised that there was this redhead who was looking past my shoulder at what I'm writing. I was just wondering why there are redheads in Singapore (he should be Caucasian I guess then) when he hissed "Crazy Bitch" through his teeth. Then he suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me along, causing me to drop my laptop and my bag on the ground. Then he slammed me against the wall, then used one hand to press my chest (what the heck.) and said "You're just jealous of Bella because she has bigger boobs than you, bitch." I was so pissed I kicked him square in his manbits and left him howling like a gay idiot back there. Then I retreived my laptop that was fortunately still there and went up on the next bus before he could follow.

I'm still shocked. What's with the crazy fanboys?

There are some stories on there that are probably legitimate (school girls beating each other up over it, etc,) in that thread, but this one screams to me OBVIOUSLY MADE UP. The idea of the Twilight Cognoscenti running around inspecting everyone's laptop for anti-Twilight funfiction is pretty out there already, but this one is capped with unusual lie-giveaway details.

Really? Is that random redheaded guy in Singapore really so invested in Twilight that he decides to abuse and harass random women who dislike the book? And the supposed comment was rich, because I'm sure it's a perfectly legitimate accusation to suggest one would get boob envy from a character in literature, whose boobs only exist in the mind's eye. It's all punctuated with a totally irrelevant and needlessly offensive adjective ("gay idiot") that the author thinks puts her in a superior position after kicking him in the "manbits". How exactly would one sound straight when "howling" after a groin-kick?

More likely scenario - Torofecus, the God of Bullshit, has just been offered another sacrifice.

I had mixed feelings about 99X when it disappeared from the Atlanta airwaves 15 months ago, and I have mixed feelings about its return now, although I would have to say it's a net gain.

The return of 99X is noteworthy in more than one aspect. While I am sure it has been done before, it's the first time I've personally seen a terrestrial radio station go internet-only and then actually return. Usually when they kill a radio station it's gone for good, and going internet-only is either a permanent downgrade or a stopgap measure before it goes completely away.

Also, even though it went from a 96,600 watt signal on 99.7 to a 250 watt one on 97.9, the range is actually pretty good. You can get the station all the way up to Acworth, thanks to the height of the tower. A 250-watt signal at 1,000 feet permeates as well as a 3,000 watt signal at 350 feet. And they could even go for a green message - "Our station only uses as much power as two and a half light bulbs!"

Unfortunately, what is also noteworthy is that the format is identical to the day it shut down.

Dismal ratings are going to continue to be a factor because Cumulus has not learned from the past. I can't really blame them though, because this is a problem that is common with the Alternative format. They eschew new and innovative artists in favor of replaying the same 15 songs from the 1990s and even the small percentage of new material being played is dominated by well-established artists from the past.

In my unscientific estimation, about 97.9% of 99X's current playlist is shared with either Project 9-6-1 (Active Rock) or Dave FM (Triple-A). The good news is that they don't play a lot of the crap from either of those stations, so no Nickelback and no Billy Joel. If nothing else, it's another second-choice preset when there's nothing good on 88.5. Still, I hope they will one day take the chance to innovate and become more like they were in the early 1990s when they played a much bigger role in the Atlanta radio market.

Boos are a logical reaction when the free-range teabagger is exposed to the truth.

Montel: I'll Air Both Sides on 'America'

Why, Air America Radio? Why would you give a show to a man whose most recent work includes shilling for the American Pharmaceutical Industry and selling "authentic" Obama commemorative coins that were later found to be quarters with stickers on them?

What, was the ShamWow guy too busy beating hookers to step up to the mic?

It's April 7th, in Atlanta, and it's snowing.

Flurries, but snow nonetheless.

Bizarre, but cool.

Consumerist reader finds card skimmer on bank ATM



Thanks to this guy we now get to have a closer look at this comparatively low-tech way of committing identity theft. There's the skimmer itself, a flash card, and a mini-USB port. That's all there is to it. Ironically, he probably could have gotten away without putting in the mini-USB, but maybe the identity fraud community hasn't caught on to card readers yet.

The police seem to have scratched their heads at this, shrugged, let the finder keep the device (along with the stolen ATM card numbers,) and referred him to WaMu so they can do an internal investigation. Bang-up job there, Deputies Fife.

I typically shed down to a t-shirt, black sweat pants and house shoes (black slip-on shoes or flip flops,) although I stay dressed if I'm going to be seen by anyone I'm not related to.

Stuck In My Head Song Of The Week



Song: Love Letter To Japan
Artist: The Bird And The Bee
Heard: Indie 103.1

This one has actually been stuck in my head off and on for the past few weeks. It's interesting how a lot of the songs by non-Japanese artists I enjoy have Japanese-themed videos.

Song: Handlebars
Artist: Flobots
Heard: WBER, Sirius Alt Nation, Shoutcast 181.FM "The Buzz"

You might have heard this one already - it's been out for over a year and has 15 million hits on YouTube. It's still making the rounds though, being played as if it's a new song.

This is a song that I first overheard when my boss was listening to Shoutcast, and I immediately wanted to find out more about it. The video is interesting and tells an actual story, so I will forgive its imprecise ideas about bicycles. (Tip: It's extremely difficult to ride a road bike without using the handlebars. The fat tires on a mountain bike or BMX are what make that possible, and road bikes are unstable going on dirt paths anyway. What we have at the beginning of the video is a recipe for a faceful of dirt.)

The song itself, aside from being insanely catchy, has something akin to character development. It starts off with some innocent and amusing lines (I can take apart the remote control, and I can almost put it back together) but ends up being deadly serious (I can end the world in a holocaust). In tandem with the video, the lyrics present a story about growing up and having to make choices about what you think is right.

Cool song, and really amusing video, especially if you're familiar with yanki.

This is what happens when I start typing with no predetermined subject.