McCain wants to paint himself as Teddy Roosevelt.
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What’s in a name?
I’m unfortunate enough to have found myself living in a Red county, but this is beyond ridiculous. This ignorant man’s office is contracted for drug-testing by the local Wal-Mart and as it’s sign says, works with the Department of Transportation and DMV. I would suggest to anyone in the area, Obama supporter or not, to contact these local agencies and demand they pull their support. Our tax dollars do not need to support racism. Oh, and if we are going to split hairs over names, let’s mention that Mr. Trent Saxton of Placerville shares a name -and even a similar nasty disposition- as Trent Lott.
Recycling iPhones
this article here was the top story on Google News when I got home from work today which interested me a great deal. People who were lucky enough (or rich enough) to buy the original iPhones and can still afford the 3G are left with a fully functioning Apple product that has always attracted me more than the iPhone. For all intents and purposes, the old iPhone can be used as an iPod Touch.
Technorati Tags: products and services
The Starbucks Experience
I got a job at Starbucks in August of 2003. I left in 2005. Not because it was a bad company or anything, but because of a personal decision to go to school.
Any Barista can tell you about their first “Starbucks Experience” a training at an HQ that involved a comparative coffee tasting with Folger’s and the Starbucks Breakfast Blend using a French Press. Honestly, I was a Folger’s drinker until that day. I thought that 10 bucks a pound for coffee was ridiculous and there was no way they could get me to think otherwise.
Then it happened: to this day, I cannot drink coffee without a load of sugar unless it is a specialty coffee (not necessarily Starbucks) brewed to the exact proportions of water and grinds. Call me a coffee snob if you will, I call myself a convert.
At that same Starbucks Experience I was also told of the prospects of working for such an up and coming chain. Starbucks had yet to close its doors on any of its coffee shops and they let me in on a little secret as well. They were planning on building 6,000 more stores over the next five years! Starbucks stock would do nothing but rise! Oh, and also, despite the request of many to put in microwaves or toasters in the store for their pastries, Starbucks would never, ever put them in because it competed with the smell of the coffee.
Well, never say never, as toasters can now be found in many locations near you. In fact, you shouldn’t have trouble finding a location near year because if my town of 10,000 can hold three full-sized shops and two in-store stands in the Safeway and Savemart, there is probably ten in any urbanized square mile. But what has this saturation of the market done for Starbucks and why is its decision to allow toasters so significant?
Well, I’ll tell you! Because Starbucks is crashing and burning, that’s why! We can blame the economy, we can blame the Republicans for making Starbucks drinkers out to be liberal elitists, we can even blame Bear Sterns if we must, but the truth is that Starbucks has lost its appeal, built too many stores too fast, become its only competition (a house divided and all that) and was just plain arrogant in its success. And so, according to this article, Starbucks is closing 600 stores and cutting 12000 jobs. My Partner Number was 1149303. I think this sets them back about there.
The article explains Starbucks drop in patronage away with the rising gas prices. I suppose it doesn’t help that a Venti White Mocha and a gallon of gas have roughly the same value in many places, but I don’t agree that this is the only or even the main reason for the closings. Starbucks became too big for its britches. It may have worked for McDonald’s to build on every street corner, but Americans don’t particularly like that kind of expansion anymore.
I think there is also a trend in supporting local business here in America that has awakened in the last few years. Which is fine with me, I can’t get coffee and Open Mic Nite at Starbucks, but I can do it at Cozmic Cafe on Main Street. That is an appeal Starbucks will never have, no matter how many toasters they put in.
Six years on Unverifiable Evidence.
From the New York Times:
In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that allegations against an ethnic Chinese man held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims, according to the decision released Monday.
Six years is a horribly long time to sit in prison, innocent and without a chance to defend yourself. But the sad thing is, where will the Guantanámo prisoners go if they are released?
Although the ruling was a defeat for the Bush administration, it was unclear what it might mean immediately for Mr. Parhat, a former fruit peddler who once passed a message to his wife in China that she should remarry because his imprisonment at Guantánamo was like already being dead.
American officials have said that they cannot return Mr. Parhat and 16 other Uighur detainees at Guantánamo to China for fear of mistreatment and that some 100 other countries have refused to accept them.
If Mr. Parhat wasn’t anti-American before, he sure has a right to be now, as well as his family, his friends, his people, and anyone else watching the US fumble. Which also brings up this article.
I’ll end with a quote, because hopefully these cases are signs that justice can finally had. “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ” Thomas Paine.
Texas Sucks
This is why stupid, outdated cowboy laws should be thrown out and why the Supreme Court’s decision is ridiculous. Let’s just let anyone have a gun. Yeah, great idea. Texas has a “castle” law that says that a man has a right to defend his property with a gun. But Horn of the article wasn’t even defending his own home.
From the article, Horn’s lawyer:
‘He was afraid for his life,’ Lambright said. ‘He was afraid for his safety, and then they charged him. I don’t think Joe had time to make a conscious decision. I think he only had time to react to what was going on. Short answer is, he was defending his life. ‘
Afraid for his life? More from the article:
‘This man took the law into his own hands,’ she said. ‘He shot two individuals in the back after having been told over and over to stay inside. It was his choice to go outside and his choice to take two lives.’
Who the fuck gave this man the right to sentence two people to death for a crime that would have had them in jail for a few years? Why was someone with such an obvious lack in judgement and impulse control ever allowed to own a deadly weapon? Because of stupid gun-nut fucks all over the fucking place in Texas and elsewhere in this country. Was he asked by his neighbor to watch the house and use deadly force to defend it? Apparently not. Again from the article:
‘You cannot take another person’s life in defense of their property unless you’re somehow given permission by the other person to protect their property,’ [Harris County Assistant District Attorney] Diepraam said.
On that 911 call, the dispatcher asked Horn directly about the owners of the house that was being burglarized, and whether he knew them.
‘I really don’t know these neighbors,’ Horn said. ‘I know the neighbors on the other side really well … I can assure you if it had been their house, I’d already have done something.’ Still, Lambright says that his client ‘absolutely’ had his neighbors’ permission.
I understand a person’s right to defend their own home if a person is attacking. I do not understand shooting people in the back, especially if it isn’t even your own home. Texas now has a mentally delayed vigilante to thank for defending its gun laws. That’s the Lone Star State for you.
T-Mo
I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for over a month now and I must say I’ve enjoyed it. Their customer service is impeccable compared to Att and their choices in plans were much better suited to my income (which is quite low, if you hadn’t guessed). Not only that, but the My Faves plan makes much more sense in the long run. The one thing that Att has an advantage over T-Mo is reception in buildings and areas with tall trees, but it is not too much of a problem for me, even living in Pollock Pines (you guessed it, lots of pines here).
McCain’s Top Advisor: Death and Terror are Good for Politics.
In this article by Michael Shear of the Washington Post, McCain’s top advisor, Charlie Black is quoted in an interview with Fortune magazine that a new terrorist attack would be great for the campaign. He goes on to say that the murder of Benazir Bhutto, an event so tragic in the minds of millions, was actually the boost that gave McCain the Republican nomination because it brought focus to national security.
A Great Comedian, A Great Man
George Carlin has long been one of my very favourite comedians. His willingness to tell it like it is has inspired generations of comics. His material was timeless, and his timing perfect. He succeeded in not only entertaining a whole generation, but was working on their children when he died.
Their Plan is Coming to Fruition.
It’s a sad day when oil tycoons have enough politicians in their pockets so that Congress can’t pass a bill that supports alternative energy and that holds Exxon Mobil responsible for the suffering of the average American in light of the company’s record profits.
I saw this happening, really. I knew as soon as I read this article on June 11th. The Senate killed two bills that would have held the oil companies accountable and would have created incentives for growing the alternative energy market. But, you see, what the Industry and the Bush administration want is not independence from oil,but independence from foreign oil.These are completely different concepts. Independence from foreign oil includes dependence on destructive oil drilling practices that will hurt precious eco systems that will take hundreds of years to repair. They still want to be able to vacuum up hard-working Americans’ dollars, but they want to do it in a way that is beneficial to them, regardless of the effects on our natural habitats and our oceans, and despite the fact that it is merely a band-aid solution.
Their strategy is easy to see, and practically unstoppable in the wake of the last eight years of de-regulation and the absence of corporate accountability. They have forced the issue by hurting the constituents in such a way that there is no choice but to make a major change. You see, if they can stall long enough and keep just enough Senators from passing a bill that would change the energy market completely, (in fact, only nine Senators were needed in one case) there is no choice but to open the discussion of drilling in environmentally sensitive areas.
The Republicans are now proposing their own solution. It is no real change in the energy market or in US consumption, which are the real issues behind the rising gas prices, just another way for the oil companies to make a quick dollar. I believe they are forcing the issue because they know that the Republicans are losing ground on Capital Hill and will lose ground in the White House in just five and a half months. Even so, with a Democrat in office, I’m afraid it will be too late. The American public will be attached ever longer to their intravenous addiction to gasoline.
