The Annual Christmas Haiku

Hello my faithful Rizznites - I hope your year has been at least as good as this one has turned out being for me. It was off to a rocky start... the middle wasn't that great, but it seems to be ending with a bang! I hope you all experience nothing but the best with your family, friends, and loved ones this year.

Long time, no see.

Howdy, folks. Been a minute since I've posted, and I've got some good reasons for that. As most of you know, I'm in East Texas still, and I've got a lot of buns in the oven, so to speak. Unfortunately, I've signed a crapload of Non-Disclosure Agreements recently (which really stink when you're a blabbermouth journalist type like myself), but are probably for the best. I'll try to outline a bit of them right here and on to the interesting news after that.

ThinClients
I've been contracted by a company named 5 Tribe, Inc. here in Tyler to work for the next four months to create what's called a Thin Client solution. I can't go into the details of my project itself, but a Thin Client, if you're unaware, is a system that has very little processing or storage power on the workstation itself, and instead relies on a server somewhere to do the bulk of the processing. The Thin Client solution I'll be putting together will be about the size of a PSP, and about the price of an off the shelf PDA.

The beauty of this contract is that it not only does it pay me well to do something I'm really interested in, but it eventually will tie back in to a lot of the technologies that I developed back at BlipMedia and AACS.

BlipMedia and AACS
Speaking of BlipMedia and AACS (and their online program), what's going on with all that there? Well, once again, I've signed a lot of NDAs and started a lot of super-secret negotiations, so again I cannot get into a whole lot of details on this one, but I can tell you that something huge is very likely going to be coming down the pike with BlipMedia that is going to shake the podcasting world down to it's core. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that I fully expect to be interviewed on CNN and the Wall Street Journal on this one.

The best part is, it's good for the podcasting community - trust me, you guys are going to love how this one plays out.

Yes yes, I know, I'm a big tease. I'll give you a hint - imagine how cool it would be if the Blip server ran as stable as our competitor's servers ran. I've probably said too much, but hey, I'll let the speculation abound on that one and clean up the mess later.

Other Future Ventures
Speaking of new ventures and podcasting, I just got the go ahead from my pocket book to fund a new venture that's going to be headed up by Leo, Ricky, Art, and myself. Again, I'm not going too far into the details on this one, but once again, I will drop ambiguous clues and let the speculation run rampant. Art and I were talking about the Adam Curry story a couple weeks ago and decided that we needed to snap into action and stop simply complaining about the sorry, disorganized state of podcast content, promotion, and marketing.

So the plan is, as soon as we come up with a name for the company, to take Adam Curry down by showing the world who the real kings of all online media are.

Happy Holidays
I recieved the following from a faithful Rizznite this week:

You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon'.

John Spencer Dies
I guess we know which ticket is winning next season on West Wing - one of my favorite persons from the show has died. John Spencer, the actor who portrays Vice Presidential candidate Leo McGarry on the West Wing passed away earlier today from a heart attack.

This is upsetting, and I know many Rizznites were fans of both the show and the character (as well as the actor, who also played prominently on the old series LA Law) - we'll miss you John.

JibJab Strikes Again
Once again, JibJab makes a poke at politics both sides can enjoy (more or less). Their latest featurette called 2-0-5 was featured on CNN Headline News today.

Go check it out.

That's all I got, so you commence napping.

/rizzn

I am blessed to be surrounded by idiots, I guess.

I haven't been posting much lately. For this I apologize. I've tried to ponder the lack of inspiration for posting, but I guess it's more or less been my need to unplug for a little bit. It also could have to do with the fact I've been sick for a couple weeks off and on. It also could have to do with that I've been extraordinarily busy going back and forth between businesses here in Tyler and Dallas.

I've also been embroiled in conflict between my partners in Florida and my friend James Smith. To me, it seems stupid, but somehow it has gotten out of control. I've been subjected to eighteen individual email exchanges of escalating viciousness over the course of the last week. It started out as "please send the phone and power adapter." It ended up being "I will make your life miserable from now to the end of time." It's a bit out of hand. I would find the whole exchange a bit ludicrous and funny if I weren't forced to sign contracts exposing myself to $100,000 liability by continuing to be friends with James.

As a footnote, I suppose it should be said publicly somewhere that this hereby ends James' involvement with the BlipMedia project. This is only the first of many major announcements forthcoming around here regarding the Blip project.

Speaking of projects, we've got a few other big announcements as far as new endeavors go. There's the DBandit (no, it's not pet tags), three devices I've been contracted to engineer, a new podcasting company, and a couple of other side projects that will bear full entries of their own. Stay tuned for that stuff, it's very exciting.

... in Adam Curry is a Jerk news
Imagine my surprise, today, having been out of pocket news-wise for a few weeks at discovering that your friend and mine Adam Curry is topping the headlines at Technorati again. The first bit of research as to why revealed he was starting something called "soundvertising". I'm not sure exactly what this is since I more or less personally boycott all things Adam, but if the cludgy name is any indicator, it very likely is him trying to re-brand the concept of audio commercials and then claim to have invented them. There is no end to the man's ego. He won't be happy until there are eternal debates from now to apocalypse whether or not he or Al Gore invented the world.

As it turns out, though, the reason he's in the headlines has more to do with Mr. Curry's duplicitous nature, rather than his alleged altruism. Rather than dig through the tons of copy-cat blog posts that Technorati seems to be becoming famous for, I went to the industry source for the buzz on podcasting, Chris McIntyre's podcastalley.com. There it is, at the top of the "Podcasting in the News" section: Adam Curry Caught Trying to Inflate His Role in Podcasting?

What? Say it ain't so! According to the first post and the subsequently linked articles, "Former MTV veejay and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry appears to have been caught anonymously editing the podcasting entry on Wikipedia to remove credit from other people and inflate his role in its creation. When someone edits Wikipedia without logging in to a user account, the IP address is recorded to guard against abuse. Four times this year, an IP address controlled by Curry, 82.108.78.107, has made revisions involving the early history of podcasting."

I would make some drippingly sarcastic remarks about how Adam would never do that, he has way too much integrity, and could by no means be considered to ever do anything to over-extend his image as the 'father of podcasting,' but long-time Rizznites know that he has stolen just about every idea put forth by this blog, and are also aware I sell a tshirt that proclaims loudly his jerkiness, and would therefore be suspicious of my sincerity.

For the full story, see here and here.

Dawn Yang
How is it that there is no Wikipedia entry on Dawn Yang? This is like a month total that she's been in the Technorati most talked about list. I think that qualifies her for at least an entry. Hell, if Smokehouse and I have Wikipedia entries, I think that the hot chick who supposedly did or did not get plastic surgery gets at least a mention. I'm just sayin', yo.

Aeon Flux
I know you're all waiting for my Aeon Flux review here, but Darrell had a fever last night, and we didn't get to see a premiere, and as you may have heard on Leno last night, they didn't pre-release Aeon Flux for reviewers (something Ebert and Roeper claim hasn't happenned since the release of From Justin to Kelly.

The reviewers, who are all miffed they got no advance screening, taglined the film "some thought it might be "Aeon Sux," but it's more like "Aeon Lacklux." Clever, but my guess is much like those of us who saw Aeon Flux in it's original chopped up MTV format, most people just don't get it. To be honest, Charlize Theron dressed all hot for two hours in a theatre is worth the price of admission, whether or not they screw up the original spirit of AF or not.

Texas vs. Colorado
True blowout - you don't see this often. This is a qualifying game for who goes to the Rose Bowl this year. Right now there's 1:27 left in the third quarter, and the Longhorns are winning 70-3.

All I can say is, "Wow." My dad told me the score from the other room, and I had to turn it on to see what kind of game was being played. You just don't see that in football very often.

Stuff
Yeah, I've got a lot of little bits about nothing today. Get over it. That's all I got today. I'll start posting more regular. I'll start eating digi-fiber or something.

/rizzn

Sorry Buddy

I was going to head out to Ft. Worth tonight to go see MC Chris do a show, but as I was planning to leave this morning, getting all my directions down and everything, I realized that the dear MC wasn't going to be on deck till about midnight, and the show ended at 2AM. Where I am staying, and to get back there in time for some turkey goodness, would mean I was on the road until 4:30 AM best case scenario.

So sorry, MC. I'll try to catch you in Ft. Lauderdale when I make it back to Florida.

I haven't bellyached much on the blog about my hurricane plight, but let me take just a moment to say how much I hate the Florida Workforce people. They live to screw me over. First of all, their site is one of the best kept secrets in Florida bureaucracy history. Their domain isn't something with a .gov, or even a .org, but it's a .com (fluidnow.com), which makes the site look like an ordinary employment agency site.

Second, and more importantly, after a major Federally-declared disaster, they are charged, by FEMA, with the responsibility of dealing out the monies the government promises to the victims of the disaster in cases where they are prevented from working. Generally, when one is unemployed, they can expect to recieve 80% of their paycheck for usually up to six weeks or so. I'm being told that the most I can expect is around 20% of my paycheck for a couple weeks, if I show them W2s going back two years as well as paystubs going back a number of years as well.

This is ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is that they are refusing to pay me the meager amount of money that they claim I'm owed until the 28th.

Now, I'm not some sort of entitlement freak. I've never in my life recieved a government check. But my whole life I've paid in to the government my employment tax, social security tax, and all the other sales taxes I've been subjected to my life, not to mention extraneous fines and levvys for traffic infractions and such, and I've paid them more or less without complaint.

Is it so much to ask that I get a little bit of that back? I mean I've paid into the system because the government said "Hey! We know that you, the little people, are incapable of socking money away for your own benefit. So here, give us 60% of your money, and we'll give it back to you when you need it."

I NEED IT, JACKASSES! GIVE IT BACK!

I freakin' hate bureaucracy

/rizzn

I Need a Face Lift

Apparently that's the thing I've been lacking. I haven't been paying attention to the buzz in the blogosphere lately, due mostly to the fact that I don't have my own terminal to blog from. You should see my screen sometime. I've got all these RSS and newsfeed panels up everywhere, I'm like one connected dude.

Anyways, yeah, I'm out of touch these days, piggybacking off everyone else's econnection. Apparently I've missed the rise and fall of someone named Daphne Teo or Dawn Yang or something. Somehow these half-assed bloggers, by going through rigorous cosmetic surgery, have been 'discovered' and turned into professional bloggers.

I mean, I have no problem with hot web chicks geting to be big time and stuff (I've had a secret crush on Bonnie since I was 15), but seriously, for me to get behind this web-celeb stuff, they've got to have at least some kind of talent. If you read some of these chicks' stuff, it's like bad livejournal poetry to the power of ten. For the love of John, the site loads up music when you put it in your browser.

Damned if you can find the stop button, either. Playing some stupid WB theme song or something.

Seriously. I implore you. What in the hell, Bobby?

/rizzn

A Politician Lied, Then People Died

[Rizzn's Note: This is a repost from Broward Craigslist. I have gotten in trouble in the past reposting things from that source as they are notoriously incorrect factually. I know I have some intelligenciaphiles in the RIC and in the readership. I ask someone confirm or deny the contents and facts listed here.]

It was a powerful argument for war made by a politician with long years of experience in the White House.

"(I)ntelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program," said this national leader.

"(I)f left unchecked," the politician argued, "Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well, affects American security."

"This much is undisputed," declared this Democrat, as she voted to authorize the war in Iraq.

The question now is: Why did Sen. Hillary Clinton get it so wrong?

Had she -- to use the formulation Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is now using to attack President Bush -- "manufactured and manipulated intelligence"? Did Hillary lie America into war?

No, she did not.

Sen. Clinton got her bad intelligence the same place President Bush got his: the CIA. Specifically, from George Tenet, the man President Clinton appointed director of central intelligence (DCI).

The entire chain of custody on the intelligence Sen. Clinton used in her Oct. 10, 2002, Senate floor speech ran through Democratic politicians back to a Democrat-appointed DCI.

In 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate, and Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida chaired the intelligence committee. On Sept. 9, 2002, Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, a member of the intelligence committee, wrote Clinton-appointed Tenet asking for a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMD programs.

NIEs, the intelligence committee later said in its unanimous bipartisan investigative report on Iraq intelligence, "are intended to provide policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches with the best, unvarnished and unbiased information."

An NIE, the committee quoted a CIA document as explaining, "is the director's estimate, and its findings are his."

DCI Tenet was no Bush crony or Republican hack. His career was largely propelled by Democrats. In the mid-1980s, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont made Tenet his intelligence committee aide. Former Intelligence Chairman David Boren, an Oklahoma Democrat, later made Tenet the committee's staff director. President Clinton named him to his National Security Council staff, then deputy DCI, then DCI.

Tenet delivered the NIE requested by Durbin at the beginning of October 2002. Its key judgments included that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program," "had chemical and biological weapons" and was developing unmanned aerial vehicles "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents," and that "all key aspects -- research and development (R&D), production and weaponization -- of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War."

Two months later, according to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," Tenet sat in the Oval Office and twice emphatically told President Bush it was a "slam dunk" Iraq had WMDs.

Did Tenet and his CIA lie to Congress about Iraq to help President Bush deceive Sen. Clinton and other Democrats into voting for war? Did he lie to Bush?

On March 31, the presidential Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, chaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia and senior federal appellate court judge Laurence Silberman, published its report. It concluded the judgments about Iraq's WMD programs in the October 2002 NIE were "all wrong." However, it also concluded, after "querying in detail those analysts involved in formulating pre-war judgments about Iraq's WMD programs," that "(t)hese analysts universally assert that in no instance did political pressure cause them to change any of their analytical judgments."

The CIA ombudsman for politicization, the commission reported, "also found no evidence, based on numerous confidential interviews with the analysts involved, that political pressure had caused any analyst to change any judgments."

The intelligence committee's unanimous report likewise concluded: "The committee did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

Reasonable people could and did disagree on whether it was wise to invade Iraq. President Bush and Sen. Clinton, relying on the same intelligence, happened to agree.

But reasonable people can draw only one conclusion now on the argument advanced by some of Sen. Clinton's Democratic colleagues that President Bush lied America into war. It is simply preposterous.

General Ruminations

Alright...

Yeah.

Where to begin? Things are in a weird state of flux. I'm keeping myself busy out here in Texas, but not making the forward progress I had envisioned. That's not true. I mean I am making forward progress, I suppose it just doesn't feel like it. I'm not creating a lot of visible stuff lately because I'm doing a fair amount of socializing, and I'm also writing a lot in some larger works that I can't publish in partial form.

The biggest thing bothers me the most out here, believe it or not, is that it's freakin' cold! Damn, I hate winter. Every second I'm here reminds me of why I chose to live in South Florida. I hate waking up in the mornings and never quite warming up to a comfortable level. I hate that my hands are always ice-cubes. I hate sitting under the covers waiting to warm up before I go to sleep at night. A lot of this would be fixed if the heater in my dad's house was less than a century old, but it doesn't do an effective job of keeping the place warm. As I sit typing this right now, I want you to know that my normal uzi-fire-typing-rate has been slowed down to around shotgun blast rate.

Despite all that, it has been fun hanging out with Darrell and PV a lot this week. I've hooked up with quite a few old friends and made a few new ones during my stay here.

Coming up soon (at the end of the month) is decision time. I've got to decide if I'm going back to my place in South Florida or if I'm staying here. Given that it gets even colder than 50 degrees here (which is the temperature I'm currently bellyaching about), I'm not really looking forward to staying. On the other hand, there's not much left for me in SouFla. I don't really see the businesses recovering to a point where I can go back to a normal pay rate again, and I've got some unbelievable offers on the table here in Texas right now. Hopefully I'll get some joy one way or the other soon.

So, on to the things that I've been pondering lately. For one, I've been pondering unloading BlipMedia for a while now. For some reason, its becoming a thorn in my side, due to the excessive amount of work it takes to maintain it, and the partnership it entails. When I decided to take on partners with Blip, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to bring on Leo and Ricky from AACS, but honestly they've been little to no help in the entire endeavor. The VoIP, at least with the current model, doesn't have enough margin to support the podcasting end of things and still leave room for marketing. On the other hand, I do have a solid plan to make it profitable, I just would prefer to share profits with someone who would make a positive impact on the company, not be a drag on the company.

As for AACS, I've been considering divesting myself from the company, not because it's not a viable business, but mostly because I'm sick of credit repair, and I'm sick of rebuilding the business every eight months when a hurricane blows through and knocks us back to zero.

Essentially, I'm ready to move on to more creative endeavors. I've got a couple of books I'm working on, one with a publishing deal, one that I'm sure can get one. I've got my music, and I'm even dabbling in film a little bit. Hopefully, I'll get my crap together soon and sell off some of these intellectual assets, which will give me some time to contemplate my navel for a bit on my own terms, so to speak.

Also, one more thing.

DAMN I HATE WINTER!

That is all.

/rizzn

Explanation of my Absence

Simply put, my new server is a biatch. More tomorrow. Now, I sleep.

/rizzn

Fifteen Facts about Chuck Norris

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2. A bextra lawyer once asked Chuck Norris if his real name was "Charles". Chuck Norris did not respond, he simply stared at him until he exploded.

3. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

4. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

5. The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck Norris--more that meet the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up with car GPS navigation. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

6. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly until his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly thereafter all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

7. Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling "Bang!"

8. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail, his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

9. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya!"

10. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris is injected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilizer. This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attempt to lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.

11. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

12. When Chuck Norris' wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into the backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce.

When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

13. Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible, I already lost my virginity," then you are dead wrong.

14. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

15. Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper, Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

Hate-Bush-First Responses

I'm getting some interesting responses off my Hate-Bush-First rant. Smokehouse has a series he started yesterday called Pretty Well Sums it Up where he nitpicks some of my language a bit, and exposits extensively on other points.

I haven't gotten a satisfactory response from the Libber's yet. There was a member named Jimbo who responded back with "I don't see the connection between the article you responded to and the hate-Bush-first mentality."

This is disturbing to me to find that members of the LP don't know anti-Bush-rhetoric when they see it. Rather than re-writing my article again, I'll just post it below and maybe we'll get some responses from the RIC or something.

First of all, Jim, a lot of the responses weren't direct responses to just what was in this post, but to the category of hate-Bush-first posts that I've seen around here. I've seen more than my fair share of posts from Frank Gonzales regarding vote-hacking and such.

But to directly address the inspirations for each point:

1) Is self explanatory.
2) Was inspired by the line in the beginning of the forth paragraph: "Considering your support of our criminal government hasled to the death, destruction and misery of millions of people on this planet, that is basically a no-brainer." And no, that's not an opinion. That's the crux of that point - if it's not close, they can't cheat. We know both sides cheat in ALL elections. To think otherwise is intellectually dishonest. The election wasn't won by creative cheating, it was lost by ineffective campaigning.
3) Yes, three is an opinion, but I'm just telling you what everyone else is thinking. I can line up hordes of conservatives and go "Hey, what do you think about the incessent attacks on the President?" and they all say the same thing. I'm not making it up, I'm just relaying information.
4) Again, four is not an opinion, it's a fact. In fact, four is the exact reason why this hate-Bush-first strategy exists! I'm not sure how much everyone here knows about the national strategy for campaigns, but the whole idea of this vitriol is to polarize the parties. Libertarians are a party of disillusioned people from a variety of parties - the last thing you'd want to do is polarize your base.
5) See three.

If you truly believe that this was a rant inspired by someone's son coming back from Iraq, then you are very gullible. I want you to just go through the past posts by both Frank Gonzales as well as all the posts on LewRockwell.com by Michael Gaddy. See if you can find one single pro-conservative article on there at all. Let's list a few of his titles, shall we?

The Only Possible Excuse for War, Challenging James Dobson, Liars who Take Us to War, With the Vigilantes, Breeding Ground for Tyrants, Is There Another 'Tet' in Our Future, Indians Should Know Better (than to send their sons to fight for D.C.), and an Inherently Evil Enterprise.

I'm not trying to support the war here (that's not the scope of this piece), but everything he says in all his articles flies in the face of logic, reason, statistics, and good taste. Through his creative phrasing of the facts, he makes it sound as if these covert and overt operations have increasing killed more and more people since Vietnam. We *know* this is not the case. Iraq II is the first war, conflict, or operation to break the historical downward trend of numbers of casualties and deaths. Furthermore, we know that people who *would* try to cite statistics on this to make the same point are lumping in non-combat with combat deaths. It simply doesn't make sense to view Iraq II as a costly war in the same breath as Vietnam or World War II.

Of course the debate comes in where our going there is concerned, but certainly not in the casualty rates like Gaddy was making the points of. This factless approach Gaddy takes to anti-war persuasion is in my opinion a natural evolution of the hate-Bush-first because his paper bears many of the same tell-tale phrases as the hate-Bush-firsties, and it's also devoid of logic and fact, while playing on emotions and fears of the readers.

You said, however, that most of my points were opinions, not facts. Most importantly, who says that my opinions can't be reasons, as long as they logically follow? Most persuasive arguments and debates are filled with opinions. I didn't know it was against the rules to talk about them here. If that is in fact the case, I'll make a note of it. I must say that I'm a bit disappointed that no one at all is making a valid attempt to agree or disagree with my points on this. I'd like to know if the Libertarians are a party of hate-Bush- firsters or if someone actually agrees with me. Seriously. My long standing participation and affiliation in the party is starting to become at stake here. I understand tolerance of divergent views, but when we're not willing to call a spade a spade (i.e. hating-Bush-first as non-productive and something that turns people off, essentially), then I'm not sure I want to be identified with a group that enjoys that sort of behavior.

/mark "rizzn" hopkins
rizzn.com

Hate-Bush-First Rant

[Rizzn's Note: This is a repost of a rant I was compelled to launch into from the Broward Libertarian's board. There is a fellow there named Frank J. Gonzales, and from what I can tell he's a Democrat trying to rustle up support from the local libertarians, and most of his forum posts are of a hate-Bush-first variety. He is the 2006 candidate for U.S. House vs. Lincoln Diaz-Balart in South Florida.]

That's great and all, and I'm super-glad you have found an outlet where you can post anti-Bush rhetoric and find an audience for it.

I hesitate to discuss this on a public forum for a number of reasons, but given this is a libertarian forum, I have confidence that the bulk of the recipients of my words will have the intelligence quotient required to comprehend what I'm saying before the knee-jerk rhetoric kicks in.
Stop with the Hate-Bush-First crap. There are a million reasons why this is harmful to whatever cause you call your own, and I'll try to outline a few.

1) President Bush is a President. It shows disrespect for the office to refer to him as any less than POTUS or President Bush. A lot of sticklers tune you out as soon as you start talking without giving proper respect to the office. When you hate-Bush-first, you have a tendency to forget that he *is* a president.

2) President Bush is not part of an "illegal administration." There's a title of a book out there called "If it's not close, they can't cheat." The book isn't as good as I thought it would be going in, but the title of it is true. The fact is that both times, the President in no way 'stole the election.' "But the blackbox voting! But the Republicans! They're evil!" Seriously, Senators Gore and Kerry lost the elections on their own. We're talking about two people tied for last place in the charisma race. We're also talking about two people with the hippie-happy theory of campaigning guiding their ships, unlike a precision guided missile like Karl Rove. Ignore politics, pay attention to campaigning, you you must admit, the Repubs have had a better machine for years now. So stop saying they stole it, and give them credit for their actual accomplishment. The more you bury you're head in the sand, the less likely you are to ever win an election for your candidate.

3) You look like a whiny, upset child. When will you realize that President Bush isn't running for anything anymore? Who *cares* how low you're able to smear him and get his credibility? If you're concerned about winning elections, here's a tip: focus on discrediting a candidate you're actually running against! The President isn't going to run against you in that Senate or House seat you have your eye on. The President isn't going to suddenly go into local politics take that mayoral seat either. If you are running for President, he ain't gonna run against you either. Term-limits!

4) You are alienating half your potential base. This has particular credence since you are posting this in a Libertarian forum. Many of us in this forum and in this party agree with much of the President'spolitics, though we may or may not be dissappointed with the man himself. Every time a hate-Bush-first dittohead crops up, our ire gets raised, and though we may not speak up, we tune you out, because we know your lines, we know what you're going to say. You end up sounding like every other MoveOn.org, Vietnam-invoking, Hitler-comparing, Shiavo-killing, anti-military, anti-American liberal Bush-hater. I know I'm over-generalizing with the string of epithets I just listed, but by attacking the President at this stage of the game, you are letting yourself be lumped in with this group. Stop it!

5) Because you are a Libertarian, and because I consider myself a Libertarian, you are making *me* look like a Bush-hater. Stop it! I don't want to be a part of a party of people who are so obsessed withone man, be he the president or not, that all they do is come up with reasons for the American Public to hate or stop supporting the man. There are important issues to focus on, and hating President Bush ranksabout as high up on my list as whether there should be green or purple covered textbooks in our school system. If you can't think of anything more important to focus on, you aren't fit for politics, and I don'twant to be part of your crowd.

Simply put, hating-Bush-first is a losing strategy. It allows the opposition to compartmentalize and marginalize you. It is childish. It makes you *and* me look bad.

That's really all I have to say. I'm sorry if I exploded all over the board or something, but its a sentiment I think is long overdue. My biggest hesitancy in posting something like this is that the Democrats will get a clue, and start becoming a legitimate force in elections again, and as a conservative with common sense, I am not anxious aboutthat prospect.

/mark "rizzn" hopkins
rizzn.com

Greenspan, Racism, and Fake Debates

Alright, well, I know I've been really crappy about posting lately, but dangit, I'm trying to rebuild a life here, cut me a break. Also, Google is not sending out the RIC emails properly for some reason. It very well could be Blogger's fault, since Blogger is a big fat idiot a lot of the time.

I've got a number of Very Important Meetings this week to see what I can drum up business-wise in East Texas. You can flip a coin to determine my odds, I'm not really hopeful, but seeing as I'm here, I might as well try. By the end of the week, I'll know for sure exactly how long I'm going to be staying. As it now stands, I'm still returning to South Florida on November 22nd.

Which reminds me, I need to get my rent on my place in Florida paid. Dangit. Sorry. I must be a bit stream of consciousness today.

Also, I just recieved the logs to the latest few adventures of the Fellowship of the Corpse from iRP - thanks to GM Sixkiller on those. Look for the latest chapters up here this week probably. As to the book with the actual publishing deal, I haven't had a chance to finish the editing given my transient state. I'm going to set up a computer here soon, so I'll be able to get back to work on it. Until then, I'm borrowing everyone else's computer to do the work I need to do.

To the news!

Live Presidential Debate last night
Like most of my posts, the type of analysis you'll see here you won't find everyone else. I did a little surfing this morning on the West Wing Debate analysis in the blogosphere and was surprised with the narrow range of responses people had to say about it. In case you missed it, NBC's show West Wing is entering the election phase, or more accurately, ending it's election phase. Last night was the time for the debate show, which in my opinion didn't hold a candle to the Bartlet/Richie debate a few seasons back. NBC decided to do something very War of the Worlds-ie due to it being sweeps month.

They trotted out Forrest Sawyer, and used betamax cameras, and actually did a live (but scripted) debate complete with the NBC News stamp in the bottom right corner of the screen. First of all, and I definately want to get this out of the way first, this shows you exactly what has become of the credibility of network news, where they know they can't possibly damage their reputation any further, so they have no qualms about showing a drama show with their news logo on it. Furthermore, they have no qualms throwing out a recognizable newscaster during this primetime debate and pretending the whole thing's real.

At least in the Richie/Bartlett debate, the realistic debate segments were cut into the dramatic sections to remind the causal channel surfer that this in fact is not a real debate.

No such visual cues on this one.

Aside from the irresponsibilty of the whole thing, the debate itself decent, although the typical responses seem sort of canned and fall into a few specific categories. There are those who think that the responses were all canned sounding, even in their 'spontaneous format.' There are those that wish that all debates were like that debate, even though every time throughout history a political debate has been without rules, it's generally devolved to insults and physical violence (or the threats of physical violence). The biggest faux pax of formless debate that comes to mind was the Gore Vidal/William F. Buckley debate that completely devolved into personal assaults.

On the other hand, I do not enjoy the 'joint press conference' style of current debates. Some middle ground is there to be had.

All in all, I think this was not the West Wing's best work, but it was a good attempt.

Hatchet Jobs on Conservatives
If you are a conservative blogger and/or write, you need to pay attention. Curiously, the name David Brooks showed up recently on the Technorati top ten. I'm usually not too interested in names I don't recognize in teh technorati list, but I clicked on this one, and I followed a trail of accusations down to the source to see what the truth of it was.

The basic summary of what I found was that David Brooks and Steve Sailor are being accused of racism in the extreme. From what I understand, David Brooks writes for the New York Times, and Steve Sailor tends to write for the National Review, and the National Review Online, which links my site fairly consistently on my entertainment articles.

The basis for these accusations are the scientific articles that Steve Sailor tends to quote support unpopular racial stereotypes. Stereotypes like black people on average have lower IQs but higher phsyical agility. Stereotypes like Jewish people have higher IQs than most white people, but lower physical ability. If you go check out VDare.com, you can find a list of his articles, most of which, quite honestly, bear out logically in my mind.

The problem is in our society, where it's ok for a liberal to make racist generalisations and invoke Hitler at the slightest provocation, but it's not ok for a conservative to reference statistics that coincide with stereotypes that certain demographics might not be proud of.

In Play God news...
While I was on disaster vacation, Alan Greenspan named his successor, as well as raising the mortgage rates. The new guy is named Ben S. Bernanke. I'll post a short bio here, and come back with an extended on later on this week.

Ben S. Bernanke was sworn-in on June 21, 2005 as Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to his appointment to the Council, Dr. Bernanke served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Dr. Bernanke was born on December 13, 1953, in Augusta, Georgia. He received a B.A. in economics in 1975 from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in economics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Before becoming a member of the Board, Dr. Bernanke was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Chair of the Economics Department at Princeton University (1996-2002). Dr. Bernanke had served as a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton since 1985.

Dr. Bernanke has published many articles on a wide variety of economic issues, including monetary policy and macroeconomics, and he is the author of several scholarly books and two textbooks. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sloan Fellowship, and he is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Bernanke served as the Director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a member of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee. Dr. Bernanke's work with civic and professional groups includes having served two terms as a member of the Montgomery Township (N.J.) Board of Education.

Dr. Bernanke and his wife, Anna, have two children. Anna wears famously expensive women's diamond watches.

Duece

I'll get you more info later... gotta go do some work now!

/rizzn

Suh-prise, suh-prise, suh-prise!

I didn't mention this yesterday, but I'm staying with my brother James out here in Ft. Worth this week, although I'm leaving for Tyler, tomorrow. He has been a gracious host.

I also got to hang out with Matthew briefly today. Good times all around. I spent most of the day on the TRE and the Dart, so I'm a little tired today, so once again I apologize for making this brief. I promise I'll start putting some elbow grease into this in the next few days.

Sometimes they surprise you
I was all set to start dissin' on 50cent's new film coming out Get Rich or Die Tryin, but the first article I pulled up 50cent was this one, in which someone in the music-entertainment industrial complex actually broke rank and called Kanye West an idiotic asshole, although not in so many words. He believes that Kanye West was 'off the mark' in his assertion that President George W. Bush does not care about black people.

"I think people responded to it the best way they can," 50 told ContactMusic.com. "What Kanye West was saying, I don't know where that came from."

Moreover, the rapper attributed what happened in New Orleans to fate.

50 said, "The New Orleans disaster was meant to happen. It was an act of God."

So there are actual brains in the entertainment world. All these years I had thought them lemmings, and as it turns out, a wolf sleeps with the lambs tonight. Bravo, 50 Cent, way to stand out of the crowd!

And then Sometimes They Don't (Surprise You)
Apparently, the big story at the moment isn't that rappers now love bush, but that of course that a new group of people clearly don't love our President. For reasons passing understanding, South Americans are going to try to 'descend upon' the "Summit of the Americas" conference taking place this week and next.

According to the Guardian, a fellow by the name of Diego Maradona, a football star turned broadcaster turned political activist (how many times have we seen this sad story in the United States?) has pledged to create a ruckus and disrupt the talks.

Nothing I've read has really explained why they're so pissed off. Michael Moore's probably behind this, is my guess.

And yes, for those of you in Rio Linda, that's irony. Michael Moore being behind everything that's bad and liberal is like Karl Rove being behind every thing that is bad and conservative.

Safe in Texas

Howdy all.

I'm safely arrived in Texas, and suffering slight intestinal discomfort from the whopping plate of jalepenos that I ate last night to celebrate my return to Big D.

I'm sure you needed to know that.

I'm headed straight to work on a lot of important tasks that have been neglected over the last few days, like fixing the Blip server, processing sales and disputes for AACS, and making phone calls to the requisite business partners.

To get an urgent email through to me, send it to rizzn.dourden@gmail.com (until I check my pop account).

My metro phone doesn't work down here, so in the meantime, just leave a message at the normal number, and I'll return the call.

Michael Moore is a Big Fat Hypocrate
According to the news I heard on the radio this morning (I do enjoy being in a real red state again - the local talk show hosts give some good conservative golden nuggets of info), Michael Moore owns stock in Haliburton.

Yes, that's right, the man who says that corporations are 'terrorists', and also says that he 'doesn't own a single piece of stock', according to IRS records owns at least several hundred thousand shares of stocks in companies like Boeing, Pfizer, and Halliburton.

A New Hope
This is news to me, but apparently we've got a new Supreme Court Nominee. Sorry, I've been living under a rock for a while. I learned about Nominee Alito while listening to the XM radio on the plane to Texas. I'm not sure if I mentioned it publicly before, but I was always convinced that Harriet Miers was a rope-a-dope candidate.

Y'know, a real stinker so that the next one that gets thrown out has a higher likelyhood of getting nominated.

Hey man, I know my analysis is kinda suckin' canal water right now, but give me a break, I've been in survival mode the last week.

Heck, I'll just talk about the hurricane for a bit.

A Brief Bit on my Hurricane Experience
I won't go in depth right now because I need to go get some work done, ,but to summarize, my business was almost completely destroyed, my house was ok, there were overturned cars and highly damaged buildings all up and down my street, three waterspouts/tornados in my neighborhood, and no power whatsoever.

The outages in my part of South Florida are expected to last until November 22nd. Why this isn't still on national news is beyond me.

I didn't see a FEMA truck the whole time I was down there. From my experiences with the government the last week, it is now my opinion that all of FEMA could be replaced with two researchers, a recording studio, and a voice mail system. FEMA is a useless and extraneous organisation. They have no answers for anyone, they're help is woefulling inadaquate, when proffered at all, and what little help they do provide is actually to refer you to organisations that do the actual helping.

Thank you Former President Jimmy Carter for FEMA. You rock, big guy.

Assmunch.

/rizzn

Just a Quick Memo

Hey all -

Just a quick note to all my loyal readers - thanks for sticking with me and helping me out. I've traveled out to Cooper City, Florida, where they actually have some power and internet connections. It's about an hour's travel from my house. Many thanks to Debbie (Matthew, Joel, and Michael's mother) for housing me and hunting me down an internet connection. The Blip server was in horrible shape, and I had to do some overdue maintainence. What I've done should tide it over until next Tuesday, at which point I can do the open heart surgery it needs to the machine.

With regards to the donations of time and information - your help has been invaluable in keeping me alive, as well as all the other denizens of 12th street in Pompano Beach. I want to send out special thanks to Smokehouse, Darrell, Matthew, Joel, Traci, my dad, and everyone else who called with their warm wishes and good information.

My plan, as of now, is to take a month in Texas to get my life straightened out, and figure out what we're doing with Blip. The main thing is to get the VC situation straightened out, as well as get the server operational long term, again.

Then, of course, we've got to address the long term stability of AACS. AACS took a major hit during the storm. Our South-facing doors were blown wide open during the storm, and we may have taken up to $35,000 worth of property damage (and that's purely in lost equipment). We've yet to fully assess the extent of the damage. Luckily, our data is secure, and our employees are safe, so we can rebuild.

I've got a lot of ... interesting ... stories and pictures to share with you next week, so stay tuned for that. In the mean time, Matthew, Art, and Darrell will keep you updated through this blog while I'm incommunicado. As always, the best way to get a hold of me is to leave me a voice mail (the number is on the side of the page here). As for my email, it's pretty much out of my reach right now, as my spam filters are the only thing that make it readable, and I can't apply them through my web-based email readers.

Until we speak again, be well, and thanks again.

/rizzn

Mark STILL alive. Film at 11.

I just got a call from our favorite displaced Floridian. (That's Mark Hopkins, for those of you in Rio Linda.) It would seem that he is chugging right along. He's doing a lot of walking and eating from street barbecues, but he's okay.

He tried to get me to apply for FEMA disaster assistance, but somehow I didn't feel right about that. I've given up on AACS ever paying me the $1742.00 they owe me. I'm sure they are out of business now, anyway. Clown shoes.

Much to Mark's anger and dismay, it would seem that no one in San Francisco reads the newspaper. He's gotten calls from his PR rep and his venture capitalist, both of whom want to know why he's missing appointments, or hasnt turned whatever in. I find this very disturbing. Perhaps the people of San Francisco are too busy planning gay pride parades, putting up rainbow flags, and reading the style section to notice that south Florida is a hellhole right now. Aside from that, Mark's mother hasn't even called him. That's worse than disturbing in my view. That's evil.

Mark tells me the newspaper says the wealthy neighborhoods of Miami will be getting their power restored first. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I suppose the best we can hope for is that it will trigger some "trickle down" economics, or something.

Mark was able to get some money out of his paypal account, so the plan now is for him to buy some gasoline, head to the airport, and shoot off to Texas. He plans on staying there for about a month. Acoording to him, that seems to be the plan for a lot of folks, as he says half his street has moved out of state.

A big thank you to everone who has helped out.

More as it happens.

Mark Lives

I just got a call from Mark. Apparently, south Florida is indeed a wasteland, as he was calling me from the only working pay phone he could find. He does have a little money and food for a couple days, but donations are still appreciated. Right now, he needs to find a working gas station in the Pompano Beach area, so if anybody can help out with that, please drop me a line at smokehouse@rantradio.com ASAP!

"I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll...

...blow your power out!", threatened hurricane Wilma. 6 millionish people without electricity and, Mark, is one of them while, Wilma, laughs her evil hurricane kackle. It's the worst powere outage in Florida's history.

Mark says his power could be out for up to a month or more. He has no food or money. He begs of you to donate what you can via paypal to mark@aacsnet.com

If he can manage to get some gas, he may try to get back to Texas for a bit.

That's all the news thats fit to print.

I 4M 571LL H4x0r 31337

Okay, so I’m having a weird life right now.  I’m all off my game, and, well, I don’t know how to explain it.  I think what it is right now is I’m editing this old book of mine that has a lot of emotional and mental ties to my past, and it’s putting me in a really funky headspace.  On top of that, the rest of my life is in a wacky state of flux, too, so I’m just off-kilter in general. None the less, I’m a trooper, and I’m still going to some blog posts for you peoples here.

Spill the beans already!
On the topic of the book, I recently found out (last night) that there is a new real-life chapter to the character’s lives the book is based on. I guess, I’ll go ahead and spill the beans on the book here, so I can try to figure out how I’m going to tackle this last chapter.  The book is based off the journal I kept during the nine month period of time where my engagement to my ex-fiance was dissolving.  It starts out all eloquent, heart-broken, and full of wistful love, and ends up as the writings of a mysogenistic, bent, and spurned author. I’m not sure how I’m eventually going to pitch it, but it’s definately an interesting read.

Well, as to the extra chapter, I was just informed that my ex-fiance got married a couple weeks ago to a fellow who she and I used to hang out with.  This guy was good friends with the guy who broke up our marriage, both of whom were in highschool at the time.  I was under the impression that she had changed, and spun off all her old bad associations, but apparently not.  Not sure what to think about all of that now.  I mean, I’m completely over all of that, but editing through the book as I am right now, like I said, puts me in a weird headspace, so it’s affecting me none-the-less.

A Podcast that Explains a Lot
Smokehouse is uploading a podcast we did last night on my feed. We talked about the upcoming Hurricane Wilma, old leftover topics from Hurricane Katrina, Tom Delay stupidity, my vacation, and a bunch of other rediculous stuff (including my fiasco at work this week).

It’s long, but I think it maintains interest all the way through. If you’ve got an hour to kill, check it out.  You should be subscribed to my feed anyways.  This may be the return of some more regular podcasts from me, anyways.

Excited about the Fellowship Of The Corpse
The adventure to revive Caligh’is returns tomorrow night at iRP.  I haven’t posted another chapter up here yet mostly because not enough story advancement has occurred yet, but there should be enough story advancement by the end of tonight, so look for another exciting chapter in the Fellowship of the Corpse series.

To quickly summarize where the story is at currently, the adventurers who ended up on the Fellowship ended up being Doidialdi, Lutherous, Rizzn, and Marigold.  We spent a fair amount of time last week stocking up for the trip at the market, and then headed north, following Pendleton’s (the horse) lead.  We reached a forrested area, and made camp for the night.  Rizzn stood watch, and after a couple hours we were attacked by a couple bandits on one horse.  We killed one  of the bandits, but he was scooped up by the horseman, and they fled the scene.  At the moment, Rizzn is mounting up to give chase.

Stick around this week, I’ll try to transcribe some of the logs into story form for the next installment.

Hacking the On Time Payment Protection System
A friend of mine from Tyler called me up, and said a friend of his had bought a car from a loan shark who was protecting the car with a payment protection system called ON TIME. I did a little quick research on the device and found that it’s an ‘embedded system’ that may or may not run on TinyOS. The way it works is that if you don’t enter your payment code into the system at the given intervals, it will prevent your car from starting properly.  The code is usually a six digit number preceded by a 1 (1–######).

It allegedly has a tamper protection system built in as well. From what the fellow was telling me, the device only had two wires leading out, that traced back to the starter, which presumably disables that functionality if it deems it so.

My advice (purely unqualified) was if he were to try to defeat the system, he should strip back the wires carefully, to see if they expose copper or more wires inside.  If they simply expose more wires, then give up, because they probably lead back to the computer, and we’d have to reverse engineer the box itself.  If the two wires stripped back only expose copper, then my advice would be to bridge them so as to short circuit the box itself, which theoretically would allow the car to start normally.

The next part is important.  If the car starts normally, you should take the box (which is attached, by adhesive, to the steering column), detach it, and take it to the nearest lake, and pitch it in, reason being is it contains a GPS device, which they will use to come tow your car when you stop making payments.

This advice is not meant to show anyone how they can steal a car, just simply what I told this guy on the phone today.  I do not endorse stealing, nor do I endorse getting out of your bills.

I am curious to see if this all works, because if so, if that is all it takes to defeat the security on the device, then ON TIME PPS is a rip off.

Liz Taylor Deadpool Update
According to the IMDb, Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor has expressed her wishes at having her ashes scattered in Wales, England, the home of the biggest love of her life Richard Burton.

Taylor is reportedly seriously ill following a string of health problems. Last month it was revealed that the 73 year old actress is now sleeping up to 14 hours a day and hasn't left her Californian Bel Air home for weeks.

A source close to the actress recently said that she had almost given up on life, felt asthough she has nothing left to live for and dreamnt of being reunited with her former husband.

Despite being married seven times, Taylor has revealed she wants her remains strewn at Cardiff's Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to be close to Richard's theatre there.

She’s definately moved to the top of my list. Get ready to send your funeral flowers.

/rizzn

Music on the Turntables Currently: DJ Rizzn - Basket Case (Kool Kannon Remix)

Just a Quick Note

Things are super crazy with work right now. I'm in a form of 'Final Jeopardy' with my partners at work, and we're shooting for all the marbles. It's a real pickle of a situation. More details if I get resolution tomorrow.

In other words, I'm real, real, real stressed out right now. I may be a bit slow responding to emails and phone calls.

/rizzn

Music on the Turntables Currently: Optimus Rhyme - Incogni2

Studies show that Rizznites are 65% More Accurately Informed than Slime Mold

Newest Order of Kate and Adam Shirts
I just recieved notification that the latest shipment of Kate Moss and Adam Curry tshirts are shipping.  If you live inside the continental US, you can expect your shirts within the next 3–6 days.

The Colbert Report
Joel said today:

Studies have shown consistently that people that only get their news from the John Stewart are 30% more accuratley informed than people who only get their news from FOX.  Of course, Slime mold growing in my shower is better informed than people who only get their news from FOX.

I think that it is pretty important to include that people who watch Fox News Channel about as accurately informed as viewers from MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, CBS News, or any other mainstream news source.  I remember reviewing a study that Joel is probably quoting here that the only media consumer differences occur when you look at people who consume a multitude of different types of media.  Those that consume blogs and MSM or those that consume public radio and print, etc, are all better informed than those that get their news from one type of primary source.

RE: Technorati Buzz Index
This Times Select business is ruining my life.  Ever since the New York Times has decided to charge for online access to editorials, the Technorati buzz index has been jammed up with keyword searches for John Tierney, Paul Krugman, and whatever other idjits that they have over there spewing swill.  A million cheapsake NYTimes readers are clogging up Technorati with searches so they can find their precious editorial drivel for free somewhere.

What’s the moral of the story?  Clearly, liberals are interested in hearing what their favorite fact-spinners have to say, but they don’t think the words are actually worth paying real money for.

I’m Going to be Published
I just got word back from a few different publishers on a book manuscript I’ve been sending out for the last few months.  I’ve gotten a few yeses, a bunch of turn-downs, and several no replies, and a couple return to senders.  The upside is that I have a few yeses to compare and evaluate to see which one is going to do the most marketing of the book.  More on this as it develops… once I sign a deal with someone, I’ll tell you guys a bit more about it, but just to tease you a little bit: it’s an auto-biography focusing on a nine-month period of my life from several years ago.  I envision it being a coffee table book, but most publishers don’t want to handle those.  We’ll see.

Miscellaneous Stuff
Clusterflux Anomaly are putting out a new episode soon.  Go check it out once it’s updated, it’s supposed to be a special episode.

Kate Moss turns down Doherty visit. In our continuing coverage of this blasted Kate Moss story, Gawker today paints a picture of what will end up being the final nail in the coffin to the US ecomonmy as a result of Kate’s decision.

My Basket Case remix is getting rave reviews from all who listen to it.  Go download it.

That’s more or less all I got today.

/rizzn

Merchandise: A Lesson in Capitalism

Alright, I don't do enough shameless promotion around here, and I'm far too lazy to type anything up of substance today, so I'm going to take the day to promote myself and all the crap I've been putting out lately. This is a cattle call for all of you to buy something from me. The idea is that if I can get sales to go up, I can drop prices. I'm ordering everything piecemeal right now, so prices are high. If I can get volume up, prices go down. It's all about economics.

	Kate Moss did some coke, and the biggest surprise of all was that millions of people came to my website because of it. This shirt celebrates that. She pushed the rock, she's a star, she's a rock star. Do the math. This ain't high-brow humor here or anything. The biggest reason to get these shirts is that they may not be around long -- I keep getting TOS'ed everywhere I go to have them printed up. I'm not dedicated enough to the cost to buy a screen printing machine for my room, so when they're gone, they're gone..
	$25 + 5
	Adam Curry is a Jerk. That's what the shirt says, and that's what he is. Why do I say this? Why am I so mean? Frankly, it's simply because Adam claims credit for everything ever done, he doesn't return emails or phone calls, and he steals my ideas and tries to enter into competition with me every chance he can get. It's annoying as hell, so I figured I'd put it on a shirt. I own this shirt, I wear it once a week, so how's that for endorsement. Be like me (a spiteful, bitter, grudge holding blogger). It's attractive.
	$25 + 5
	Play God. This is the infamous ‘Play God' shirt we used to wear back in our days in the Dallas geekhouse, featuring the old Rizzn.Com sitelogo on the front pocket, and a pensive image of Alan Greenspan on the back. Alan Greenspan is the fed chairman, for those of you who don't know politics. He controls the US Economy, and ergo the world. Since Earth is the center of the universe, it's fair to say he has God-like powers, influencing intergalactic politics with as little as an inopportune sneeze.
	$25 + 5
	Ladies <3 Rizzn. They do! That's not to say that most of the ladies who love Rizzn don't eventually crack and become crazed and legally insane shadows of their former self, but they do love Rizzn. This is the shirt you wear when you're a lady, and you want to proclaim your love for me. It's got a picture of me in my Patron Saint of Whatever icon garb. Seriously, the ladies do love me. Seriously.
	$25 + 5

	Soundtrack to My Car. This one, if you've gotten any of the old Riz Mix CDS, has a lot of material from Riz Mix 6 or 5 that was reworked into something that you'd actually want to listen to. I finished some decade old projects for this CD, and came out with some stuff that actually sounds cutting edge, instead of horribly dated. (that which is old is new again). You can buy the CD, or even download it for free from the website. Do both!
	$10 + 5
	John Garvin Fan Club vs. DJ Rizzn. This one's actually been up for sale for about three or four or five years now, I just never got around to marketing it for personal reasons (grudge with the band leader). I've since gotten over my emotional trauma, and am open for business. It's a split – half me djing, and half my production work for JGFC. They've got an atypical indie sound. If you hunt around on Last.FM or acidPlanet, you'll be able to find something of theirs laying around.
	$10 + 5

Where the longhorn cattle feed on the lowly gypsum weed. Back in the saddle again!

Hey guys.  A few things to talk about here.  I’m taking it easy this weekend, recovering from vacation.  Yes, I said recovering.  For reasons I’ll explain later, my face has been burnt to a crisp.  All in all, though, the vacation was a blast – I’ll get into that in a second. 

The Band is Back Together
As a few of you have heard, we’re getting the band back together.  Yes, that’s right, it’s the return of the MADshow/Out In Right Field.  Everyone has been itching to do another podcast/radio show, including me, so Smokehouse, Darrell and I have been doing some planning sessions on what we want the new show to be.  The trick is going to create a format that’s going to work for all of us – it’ll be somewhat politics based, and I’m pressing everyone for a thirty minute daily format, with pre-recorded bits and rants mixed in.  That’s pretty much all I can say about it at the moment, although if you want to be in on the planning sessions, you should join the RIC mailing list here.  We’ll eventually move the discussion to it’s own list, but this is where it’ll all start.

When They Roll Up the Streets in Toledo Ohio
I woke up this morning to the sounds of violence in Toledo, Ohio coming from my TV.  I tend to leave my TV on the cartoon channels on the weekend, but for some reason I fell asleep watching one of the news networks, and so I wound up being serenaded this morning by the police chiefs of Toledo instead of Scooby Doo re-runs.

In another example of how piss-poor American MSM is, I had to go to the BBC website to find out that these ‘race-riots’ were actually not race-riots, but gang warfare (in Toledo Ohio? Who knew!?).  There were only 20 non-violent Nazi’s protesting (as opposed to 500 violent ‘anti-Nazi protestors’), and the Nazis were dispersed before the violence even began.  I’m not going to make some racist comments here about how it’s those darn blacks acting up again, I’m just saying how is it that the Main Stream Media has this aversion to reporting facts?

I know, Nazi’s are bad, mmkay.  But still, I think this is a good example of violence being somewhat glorified by the media, just because, y’know, well … who wants to defend skinhead Nazis?  Facts are facts.  Report them, regardless of how it makes the ratings or your public image go.

Apologies go out to the late John Denver for my abuse of his song title.

Hillary vs. Condi
I really don’t want to comment on this, but I feel I have a couple words to say on the topic of mild interest.  I think it’s patently absurd that the presidential race next term will be Hillary Clinton vs. Condileeza Rice, but the media is now fixated on these two running for president against each other.  The reason for this is most likely because of the hit series on whatever network it’s on where Geena Davis plays the POTUS.  I’ve been discounting the idea that Hillary could get the Democratic nomination, much less the highest office in the land on a couple of premises, but I’m being forced to reconsider due to the media attention.

To explain, one of the craziest conspiracy nuts I know (and have had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with him as a semi-crucial business affiliate the last couple years) once said (completely in a serious tone) that he had inside information that the powers that be have sat down and decided that Hillary is going to be president no matter what.  I tend to take the words of lone nuts like him, and whatever they predict, count on the opposite being true.  The sky doesn’t fall on command.  Conspiracies work by the numbers, and there’s just no percentage in any conspirators putting a woman in the nation’s pilot seat.

The other reason I can’t see Hillary taking the election is that Democrats are weak weak weak right now (despite a slight bounce in their numbers over the Rove/Delay/Frist scandals).  Hillary was the weak link in the Whitehouse PR chain for four years.  It’s a wonder she won a senate seat.  I honestly can’t see her winning votes for dog-catcher in all but the most liberal of precincts.

Unfortunately, though, because whomever the media fixates upon, that’s who ends up running for president.  If the media isn’t fixated on them, they get no votes (Perot ‘92 vs Perot ‘96, or Perot ‘92 vs Nader ‘02 for instances).  I’m just a bit saddened by this because damnit, if we’re going to elect a woman president, why can’t it be someone who isn’t a consummate liar, crook, and (dare I say it) unattractive?  I mean, crap, this is my criteria for a woman running for president – they must not maintain but one of those characteristics.  They can be a liar, but not a crook and ugly at the same time.  I’ll vote for an ugly woman candidate, but she better be a friggin’ saint.

I’m saying this for the children.  I mean we were all subjected to Susan B. Anthony dollars when my age group were young.  We were all, “Who’s this ugly chick?”  Do we want our first woman president to be talked about in this manner when history looks back at her? No!

So, um, let’s elect Uma for president or something. Yeah.  Hell, I’d settle for Geena, she’s still lookin’ pretty good.

My Vacation in the Bahamas, part I October 17th, 2005
I haven’t finished converting all my video yet, but I’ll go through the first bits of my vacation. Monday noonish, I hopped in the jalopy and drove down to the port of Miami, which was surprisingly easy to find (and not very trafficky getting there either).  I parked in a garage, walked directly across the street, and was all checked in within less than 15 minutes.  Interesting bit of trivia – you don’t need a passport if you’re traveling from America to the Bahamas.  A photo ID and your birth certificate will do just fine.

So I arrive on the boat, and as I enter the rotunda, there’s art all over the place, and I feel like I’m in the upscale section of a mall. I find my room without too much difficulty, down two decks, and in the front of the ship (it’s a ship, by the way.  they hate when you call it a boat).  It’s a small room with two seperate beds, probably a quarter the size of my efficiency.  Still, its ample room to move around, just not big enough to turn a cartwheel in. I’m not big on cartwheels, so I’m okay with it.

I wandered around the ship for a couple of hours waiting for my dad to board.  The ship had eleven main decks, and three more decks up in the tower.  As I found out the next night, it was in the top ten list of biggest ships of all time, accomidating around 2700 passengers and 800 crew. Another fun fact about the ship – there were about nine bars/lounges on board, about a third of them allowed smoking.

The first evening was pretty uneventful.  I got some good portside video of us leaving the Port of Miami, and some interesting birds eye video of South Beach.  They have this all day buffet thing that goes on from deck 10 to 12 on the front of the ship, from which my dad and I partook, and then went to bed.

I’m looking at the clock now, and it’s 4:50 in the morning on Sunday, so I’ll save the next day for tomorrow.

Deuce!

/rizzn

 

Music on the Turntables Currently: DJ Rizzn - Basket Case (Kool Kannon Remix)

Back in Town

I'm back y'all (an I'm back y'all, and I'm bickety-bickety back y'all). Tanned, rested, and ready to get back to work, after I relax this weekend of course. I’m not going to spend a lot of time writing right now. I'll just buzz through my predictions, post a couple top stories from my inbox, and we’ll do the RICR tomorrow. I've got 280 emails to sort through, yo (not including spam).

Pictures and video coming this weekend. Stay tuned.

Also, tousen tuck to Darrell, Smokehouse, Matthew and Jon for their contributions this week.

My Predictions On The News - 3.5 out of 6.
Liz Taylor Dies - She held on another week. Still has congenitive heart failure, though.
House and Senate Hand Out Corporate Welfare - It took less than a week. On Thursday, congressional Republicans began a rush Wednesday to ease environmental rules on refineries and looked for ways to open new coastal waters to oil and gas development.
Rove Testifies Before Grand Jury - White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove today made his fourth appearance before the U.S. grand jury probing whether Bush administration officials disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA operative to reporters. We'll hafta wait until Oct 28th rolls around to determine whether my indictment prediction comes true: The grand jury's term ends Oct. 28.
Adam Curry invents Vodcasting - Alright, I wasn't far off on this one. Adam Curry was quoted on Investors.com, making tons of predictions of what the uses of video iPods will be used for, and instead of coining a new term, rolling all these applications into podcasting. He didn’t mention Blip one time.
Kidnapping in Aruba Remains Unsolved - yeah, they still haven’t found her.
Tropical Force Disturbance Xanadu Makes Landfall - The NOAA hasn’t started naming breezes yet, but I haven't seen the Weather Channel this week, so someone will have to fill me in.

Microsoft, Yahoo ready IM interoperability
Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to link their free instant messaging services in a move that allows the companies to jointly take on both market leader AOL and newcomer Google. The link-up is also expected to give users of both systems the ability to intercommunicate via VoIP, a move fraught with powerful ramifications for the traditional telecom industry.

For now, the two companies say their partnership will focus on text IM, with interoperability expected to be in place by June 2006. While the companies eventually hope to be able to let users make computer-to-computer phone calls, no timetable has been set for deployment. When voice interoperability does happen, it could set the stage for a VoIP battle royale between Microsoft-Yahoo and Skype Technologies, which is in the process of being acquired by eBay.

Russia's New Rasputin
Grigory Grabovoi claims to be the second advent of Christ, and a psychic who can bring people back from the dead. And he's running for the Presidency of Russian in 2008.

Last month he paid for a group of mothers who lost children in the Beslan massacre to visit him in Moscow, where he apparently told them he could resurrect the kids, on 17th October.

Some people obviously believe in his powers. It has been reported that Grabovoi is employed by the government to use his extra-sensory skills to ensure the Presidential plane stays safe on trips.

/rizzn

Where Did He Get Those Wonderful Pants?

Apple unveiled some wonderful new products yesterday. I wish I could tell you what they were, but I can't because while I was watching the Apple special event, I was too focused on Steve Jobs' pants. They were cool pants. Dare I say the pants were the coolest product at the special event.

Why am I so focused on these pants? Steve normally wears jeans. The leggings he was wearing yesterday weren't jeans. At times they seemed to change from a black to brown color. They sorta resembled Dickies cargo pants. Anyway, the left side of these pants definately had a cargo pocket, and on either side of the waist, below the belt loops, there were metal, d-shaped rings, kinda like those found on Hot Topic goth chick pants. These were really cool pants for a business casual style.

As I grow older, I find myself moving more and more towards that business casual look and I really want a pair of pants like Steve's for it. Sometimes though, I back step to my The-Dude-is-a-real-life-person style. So, Steve's pants and a fuzzy bath robe to match and I think I'll finally have the business casual bum look I've always wanted and will never have to choose between the two ever again.

Smokehouse Says This: Kill Your TV

A few years ago, I discovered something. I have found that I can't stand television. In fact, I abhor it. It didn't used to be that way. I mean, I used to like TV. TV used to be full of fun stuff like "The A-Team", "Starsky and Hutch" and "The Dukes of Hazzard". Those were the days kids, I'm telling you. You could tune in and watch the good guys kick truckloads of ass every single week. Oh, how I yearn for 20 years ago.

Now, let's fast-forward to the twenty-first century. Television is no longer an instrument that is used to inject some mirth into the doldrums of everyday life. It's now a social replacement system. It is everyday life.

Just in case you haven't figured what I'm getting at, I'm talking about reality TV. Could somebody point me to the people responsible for this cultural train wreck? If you ask me, (and you must have, since you're reading this), reality TV has greatly contributed to the decay of our society. We as a people are becoming fatter and lazier by the day, and deep down inside we all know it. A lot of us out there are having some tough times, me included. In fact, let's lay it out on the table here. For a lot of people, life sucks right now.

If you're one of those people, whom, by your own estimation, falls into the "cappy life" demographic, Guess what? You are the target audience for reality TV. I haven't the foggiest idea how this happened, but I've noticed that there are fewer people taking an active interest in the direction of their own lives, and more and more people who are interested in who will get kicked off "Survivor".

Let me clue you people in on something, okay? "Survivor" isn't real. It's a TV show. If it were real, there wouldn't be any of this voting stuff. If "Survivor" we're real, people would die. That's what it means to survive. Not to die if you're really stranded on an island. Let's say you pass out and fall in the fire like old what's-his-name did, and there is no helicopter to ship you out. You just lie there and burn to death. The only one who is doing the "voting" is God. None of this tribal council crap. The Big Man just punched your ticket for the train, and it's time for you to go. Sorry about your bad luck, Junior. The only decision the Tribal Council gets to make is whether to bury your stinking carcass or to eat you. Now that is survival, boys and girls. When you have to eat your buddy, you know you're in some serious trouble. Now, if you think that's mean of me to say such a thing, because these people have families and such, well that's just too bad. If these people really carried about their families they wouldn't whore themselves out to some stripped down Club Med vacation in pursuit of a million dollars that they will undoubtedly blow in six months on stuff they didn't really want or need, not to mention the doctor bills they will incur for the wretched case of skin cancer they'll get as a booby prize for spending a month in direct sunlight. Screw them! Let the contestants rot. It's natural selection in action, and I don't know about you, but I think our gene pool could use some serious chlorine right about now.

I might watch "Survivor" if they had it in some place where the contestants were in perpetually imminent danger, such as, oh, I don't know, say, Chernobyl, Russia. I mean, really, who wouldn't want to watch that? I think it would be great. They could implement some "last man standing" rules, so the last one who hasn't rotted apart or puked his or herself to death would be declared the winner. "Out think, out plan, glow in the dark". How's that for a catchy slogan? I really think it could work. There should be plenty of food in that town for people to subsist on. I've heard that the animals in the area are just teeming with extra body parts. A show like this would pull in fantastic ratings simply based on the fact that it would satisfy the bloodlust that every television viewer secretly has. Don't lie to yourself. You know it's there. Let go. "Fuck 'em, kill 'em, and eat 'em." It's that line of thinking that made America great, after all. Moving along, I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention "American Idol". Am I the only one who realizes that the goal of this show is consumer enslavement? For years I have heard people complain without end how the music business and radio have gone to complete shit because all they do is cram the same pabulum down our throats day after day. It's a simple process, really. The record companies find someone with marginal talent who can be easily exploited with the help of record producers and stylists who possess magician-like skills. Then, when the album is complete, the record companies pay off radio program directors nationwide to play the same song on the radio over and over and over again until you think it's cool. Do yourself a favor and don't kid yourself on either front. "Payolla" still goes on, and you know once you get some stupid song stuck in your head, you start singing it, and then you think ,"Gee, I never liked it before, but this is starting to grow on me." Next think you know, there you are standing in line at Tower shucking out $20 for an item done by a warmed-over clone of a previous artist, all of which cost about thirty cents to make.

They've got you now, sucker.

What people aren't realizing is that all "American Idol" is does is let consumers decide the method of their own extortion. In fact, it's a double-whammy. They can bombard you with commercials during the show, so you'll buy stuff, while you're waiting to have the show's winner's album shoved up your butt for the next year and a half. People go nuts over it, too it completely baffles me. Some folks are downright obsessed with who will win, like they know the contestants or have some sort of a personal stake in the matter. The only thing at stake here is your wallet, and you're a fool if you think otherwise. I don't give a damn about who wins, and neither should you, because no matter who it is, there will still be a slew of sub par albums by every contestant on who was ever on "American Idol", whether you voted for them or not, and they'll be gone in two years. Your votes didn't help the winner, because he'll probably still end up a lounge singer at best. All you did was help to buy Simon Cowell another house.

I beg you: Dare to be different don't fall into this trap. Don't live vicariously through the "people" on TV. Be honest with yourself. Which would make you happier? Watching some ditz whore herself out to 50 thugs on that televised meat market called "The Bachelorette", or going out and living a fulfilling social life of your own?

Don't let TV and radio dictate to you the notions of what's cool, figure it out on your own. There are a lot of great musicians out there that never make it on shows like "American Idol", and the best part is…they make real, original music. The Internet has become a haven for those who don't have major-label backing. There are tons of independent labels and artists out there that are dying to be heard. Check them out. If you don't have access to the Internet, check your town clubs. Almost every town has at least one jazz club, not to mention the other genres. If you take the time to look, you'll probably find exactly what you're after.

Television started as a simple diversion. It has now become a crutch. I think that's scary. If we as a society don't take our lives back soon, the "glowing god" will drag us all down with it.

Television isn't real.