Archive for January 1st, 2003

Representative of the People I

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Kehaar – Comments Off

Representative of the People

I find Bush’s latest excuse for war with Iraq to be a little laughable. Bush now claims that an attack on the U.S. would cripple the economy. While I don’t dispute this, I sincerely doubt that Saddam Hussein has a.) the means to attack the U.S. or b.) the rationale to attack the U.S, unless an attack on Iraq by the U.S. seems imminent and inevitable. Of course, it does seem to be inevitable, but GW doesn’t like to be questioned about something like that. In an article on MSNBC.com, GW is quoted as saying:

?You said we?re headed to war in Iraq. I don?t know why you say that,? Bush told reporters. ?I?m the person who gets to decide, not you. And I hope this can be done peacefully.?

Assuming that the President of the U.S. is an elected representative of the people of the United States, shouldn’t it be the people who decide whether we go to war with Iraq? Somehow I doubt we’ll get the chance. Unless, of course, we happen to represent corporate America and have tons of money to donate to the cause of keeping GW in office another four years.

Bad Moon Risin’ The News

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

Bad Moon Risin’

The News and Observer has a section called “Connect” that deals mostly in light news and trends dealing with computers and the net. On the front of the print edition of Connect today is a small notice;


Triangle Blogs
We’re looking for local Webloggers for an upcoming Connect story. Please drop us a note with the site, your name, and a daytime phone number. Contact Connect editor Alan Wolfe at awolf AT newsobserver DOT com. (e-mail editorially munged)

Now far be it from me to trash the paper I grew up with, but that’s just lazy journalism, and just what one would expect from an Internet challenged reporter. But for god’s sake, this is the freaking technology editor, and he apparently can’t even think to use Google. What’s worse is that the plea only appears in the N&O’s print edition. As of right now, it’s totally absent from the online section. Is it too much to expect that a journalist whose beat is the Internet to have some freakin’ Internet savvy?

The problem with soliciting a story like this is that Alan won’t be selecting his sources and creating a story. His sources will be selecting themselves, which means the column will be skewed and inaccurate before the first word is written. The bloggers that volunteer themselves by writing in will be people hungry for the spotlight, newbies desperate for traffic, or the Internet equivalent of the the toothless rednecks that pop up on the local television news every time there’s a drug bust in a trailer park.

Zod: I assume you’ve already left three or four messages for him, then.
Surprisingly, no. Decided to stick to my moral guns on this one.
Zod: I guess there is a first time for everything.

If the N&O used a similar tactic on a story about novelists, you know who would write in? Norman Mailer? No. Stephen King? No. Piers Anthony? Damn skippy. I’ve got nothing against Piers, but I stopped reading his stuff around age 15, and I don’t think a news story on novels would be real representative of the industry with him as the source. An article about bloggers and blogging is going to suffer in exactly the same way.

New Year! Same old life?

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

New Year! Same old life? New Blog!

As Daniel says, The truly devoid of social life take this quiet time to start a new blog.

Zod: Daniel Boone was a man,
Yes, a big man!
But the Bear was bigger, so he ran like a
Hey!
Zod: up a tree…

Advice from Uncle Dub

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

Outflanked Democrats Wonder How to Catch Up in Media Wars

“If you start from the premise that the message was right, which we do, then the problem was that it wasn’t getting out to the people,” said one official of the Democratic Party who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

Well, there’s your problem right there, Mister. Ya’ll’s Premise has thrown a rod and is a-leakin’ oil all over the place. Now, that’s going to cost you a pile to pretty up, and it warn’t running that well no how. Tain’t surprising, you been driving that ole rattletrap for nigh on forty years, and it’s showing its age. No wonder folks don’t want to ride around in it. I don’t know how that Clinton boy kept it running as long as he did. He could do more with a little duct tape and spit than the rest of you city boys can with a whole damn team of media engineers, I’ll give him that, but he’s gone, and the damn thing’s ten years older. Maybe ya’ll ought to trade it in a on a new one?

Won’t get much for it, mind. Might be able to sell it abroad as scrap. But you could make a nice little down payment on a new model. Ain’t much like the one you got now, but least it’s new. I got me one sitting in the lot right now, comes standard with a bumper sticker saying Saudi Arabia’s the real enemy and a handy list of corporations what been screwing the little folks out of their retirement. You won’t find either a those in any of them fancy ones parked over at the country club, and it’s a got a neat little feature that’ll let you bitch about the size of of the guv’mint.

Yea, yea, ya’ll heard me right. I pulled it of one off the old Republican models. Asked ‘em if they wanted it installed in the new one, but thet Rove fella just started laughing and handing out dollar bills to all the farmers and steelworkers roundabouts. He told me the only time that bitching about guv’mint worked was when you ain’t them, and he didn’t think they’d be needing to worry about that for 20 years or so. I reckon ya’ll might be able to use it now. Still got the instruction manual around here somewhere.

What? Oh, hell no, it hasn’t got directions in Mexican and American. Listen, ya’ll want it or not? Ross Perot called me up today, said “Save the little one, I wanna take a look at it. I got me an itch to scratch.” Ya’ll don’t buy it, somebody else will, and ya’ll might as well be Whigs, then.

Well? Time to shit or get off the pot, you ask me. I ain’t patching up that damn Premise anymore, it’s a danger to the public, and they know it. It’s dead, and you gonna have to find sumpin else to ride around in.

Legal in West Virginia Carnival

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

Legal in West Virginia

Carnival of the Vanities #15 is up. This week’s edition is at Solonor’s Ink Well, whom we conned into giving up his New Year’s Eve in exchange for the fleeting fame that is the lot of the Carnival host.

Upcoming stops include;

1/8 The Eleven Day Empire
1/15 Greeblie Blog
1/22 Yourish.com
1/29 Ipse Dixit
2/5 Plum Crazy
2/12 Dissecting Leftism
2/19 The People’s Republic of Seabrook

If you’d like to host the Carnival, drop us a line. Information on how to join the Carnival can be found here.

Always Listening I like seeing

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

Always Listening

I like seeing the “Currently listening to” feature some blogs have. To lazy to do it myself, not to mention that it would hardly ever change. Ever since May I’ve basically blogged to one sound. Funkyville #2

Zod: There’s like all of one person in the world who cares.
We’ll, I’m there for them.
Zod: You are them, dip.
Somebody has to be.
Zod: Why don’t you go get another beer?
Alrighty, then.

In the Zone Welcome back,

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1st, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments Off

In the Zone

Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they’re turned around.

Who’d have thought they’d lead ya (Who’d have thought they’d lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we’ve got him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.