Uncreative Friday

Too much to do today to blog, so here's an especially amusing webcomic I came across:

How Are You Set on Trent Reznor Banjitars?

Opting not to go the KISS route and release the same album for 20 years while on a never-ending retirement tour, Trent Reznor is apparently pretty serious about the break up of Nine Inch Nails. So much so that he's selling most of his equipment on ebay.

Of course, most of it is already prohibitively expensive (as I assume it tends to get whenever the seller is famous), but there are some pretty sweet instruments tucked away in all of it, like the above custom-made banjitar (which is currently available for the low, low price of $1,690).

I guess you know what to get for the mid-90s industrial goth fan on your holiday shopping list...

Oh Outrage Fatigue...

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights.

2,976 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 90 countries. In addition, the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a result of exposure to dust from the World Trade Center's collapse.

That's the first two paragraphs of the wikipedia entry for the September 11 terrorist attacks. Just wanted to be clear.

And if you're reading this, you probably know all that. In fact, I would be willing to bet you could give all sorts of more information and details and would think it were laughable if someone didn't know about these attacks.

But that would put you far ahead of Bush Jr.'s former press secretary Dana Perino, who just recently claimed there were no terrorist attacks during Bush's presidency. Go ahead: click on the link and watch her say it.

Let me repeat that to be clear: Mz. Perino apparently does not count the attacks of September 11, 2001 (well over 9 months into Bush's first term) as terrorist attacks. Apparently they were friendly misunderstandings.

Of course, Dana Perino makes her living lying out of her ass. And once again, maybe this was just a really, really stupid mistake.

But I highly doubt it. This is just another example of how the right-wing attempts to re-write history to make it fit their pre-conceived notions. Because of course her completely-wrong assertion about never suffering a terrorist attack under Bush wasn't just a mistake, it was to illustrate how strong a defender of the homeland Bush is, as opposed to that queer-o-sexual, Muslim terrorist currently in the White House.

And, of course, it doesn't matter that Bush was warned months in advance of the worst terrorist attack on our nation in the past 60 years, and then did nothing to prevent it. And then took actions to make matters worse and another attack far more likely.

No, like Reagan, Nixon, and all the other fuck-ups ahead of him, he must've been a brilliant and noble man, so surely something as inconsequential as the fucking objective truth shouldn't inconvenience your narrative at all...

Controlling the News Through Poor Infographics

The above image has been making the rounds on the ol' interwebs for the past couple of days. As you can see, it's a handy Fox News breakdown of who Republicans support for the next presidential run. And as you also might see, if you have 3rd-grade level math skills or higher, the pie chart adds up to 193%, an amazing feat.

This is a great example of not only the shitty, hurriedly-slapped togetherness of most everything the 24-hour news stations do, but also a great example of Fox' repeated "errors" that make their chosen politics and positions look better. Fresh off the flap over their twice in as many days doctoring crowd footage to make various Republicans look more popular than they really are, you now have this pie chart.

And sure, it could just be a stupid error of someone not knowing what they're doing, or it could be a conscious attempt to misuse graphics to make it look like all three of them are wildly popular. And granted I would like to think it was a failure, but we are, after all, in a nation where a large percentage of the population is insulted by the the teaching of scientific fact to their children, so I'm not too sure they would be that quick to notice obvious math errors...

Nerdgasm: Jason Segel + The Swell Season

If you're a fan of Irish/Czech cutesy (former) couples folk music and underrated sweetly awkward comedy, than you'll love Jason Segel serenading the audience at a recent Swell Season gig in L.A.

Turns out that the number in the video is actually his phone number...I got his answering machine, so try it while you can.

A Public Service Announcement

Don't Not Do It Because It's Wrong, Don't Do It Because You Don't Need To

Recently 3 Tennessee football players were arrested on charges of armed robbery. As of yesterday, two had been dismissed from the team and action was pending on the third.

This is absurd for multiple reasons (how much money do you need when you're going to college for free?), but the most pertinent is this: you don't need to do it. Unless you're just in it for the thrills, there are far easier ways for a football player at a major Division I school to get money.

And no, I'm not talking about the indignity of work-study or even a real job. No, you simply get a wealthy booster to give you thousands of dollars under the table. Like this guy:



That's a photo (which was quickly removed) from Kenneth Page's myspace page. Page, a recent high school grad and high-ranked recruit of the Clemson football team, somehow got his hands on thousands upon thousands of dollars in fresh bank bills (in case the resolution isn't very good, those are twenties).

Now one might ask how an unemployed recent high school graduate would come into possession of such a large amount of cash. Perhaps he went trick-or-treating in a really nice neighborhood that gives away thousands of dollars in fresh-from-the-bank bills instead of candy bars...

Or, perhaps, a Clemson booster wanted to make sure their new recruit was happy and well taken care of. Not to make the wild accusation that these supposed amateur athletes occasionally make some good money for being "student" athletes, but it would seem to be a plausible explanation.

Which is what makes the Tennessee case so crazy. Major college athletes don't need to avoid robbing banks because of the legal fallout, they don't need to rob banks because there are plenty of people willing to give them large amounts of cash just because they play football for a particular university. And given the choice between armed robbery of a bank and getting thousands of dollars for free, I would probably choose the free money. But then again, I was busy spending my time in class instead of running football drills, so maybe they just missed that day in logic class...