See what 50 years will do.

Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father's car and his Dad gives him a whipping.
1957- - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy's sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.
1957 - Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state democratic party. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can't speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary, hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison.

Ann Coulter Didn't Call John Edwards a Faggot

Showing considerable restraint given the fact that John Edwards is an insufferable egomaniac and quite often overly effeminate, Ann Coulter did not in fact call him a faggot despite the uproar of the liberal blogosphere this weekend after her speech at CPAC.

To be honest, it probably wasn't the wisest move ever for Ann to even utter the word. Just a few scant weeks ago, I was discussing a Hollywood nobody who became a big deal just for calling his coworker the f-word. I'll say now what I said then: who f'ing cares?

What she was saying was more of a commentary on Hollywood's infatuation with protecting a group of American's who they seem to think need to be separated out for racial protections when it's not their genetics that set them apart but their behavior. I don't hate gay people, I have several friends who are gay. Like I've said before, most of them regularly use the word faggot to refer to themselves both humourously and in derogatory manners. As you can tell from the context of Ann's speech, her use of the 'f-word' was meant humorously (hence the subsequent laughter).

Homosexuals weren't systematically enslaved for 400+ years, not even by White Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans. Homosexuals were never denied the right to vote, read, or own property.

So please, for the love of JOHN, you liberals, quit equating the word faggot with the word nigger. It's not the same thing.

That's all I have to say about that.

/rizzn

Paul’s Pals Perturb Polls

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has explored a presidential run, doesn’t register very high in the national polls featuring 2008 presidential candidates (1 percent, tops). But there’s one place that he simply rules: the Internet.



Fans of the libertarian have stormed the Web — in ways both good and bad — to show their supportI've been talking about this for a while.



read more | digg story



Like I said, there's an interesting cyberwar going on.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has explored a presidential run, doesn’t register very high in the national polls featuring 2008 presidential candidates (1 percent, tops). But there’s one place that he simply rules: the Internet.

Fans of the libertarian have stormed the Web — in ways both good and bad — to show their support. Over at TechPresident.com — a Web site that tracks candidates’ “friends” on the popular social networking site MySpace.com — Paul is tops for Republicans, with 3,107 “friends” (Mitt Romney is second with 1,785).

But elsewhere, the voraciousness of Paul’s supporters has sparked the ire of others. The Web site 2008HorseRace.com, which features an ongoing poll for candidates, issued this notice on Feb. 23: “Ron Paul has been suspended for two weeks because of repeated use of mob intimidation tactics and multiple threats made by Ron Paul supporters against racetrack operators, racetrack officials and racetrack sponsors.” PajamasMedia.com removed Ron Paul from its presidential polls after it was discovered that someone had rigged the poll system in his favor. It has since implemented a rule that it will only include candidates polling at 1 percent or more in credible national news polls.

And a MySpace page titled “Opinion Polling” posted the following note this week: “Temporarily shut down due to Ron Paul will be back eventually.” A source said that the page’s owners shut it down because Paul supporters “invaded the place.”

Paul’s exploratory committee spokesman Kent Snyder thinks he knows why Paul’s supporters are so gung-ho for their guy. “One of the reasons that Dr. Paul is getting a lot of cyber support is because he voted against regulating the Internet,” Snyder told Yeas & Nays.

AJ, Iris and I go to the Museum

The chronicles of AJ Iris and I at the Discovery Science Place in Tyler, TX. ENJOY!

Celebitrix Reaches 300 Users

A friend of mine has been working on a new socially driven website called Celebitrix. He’s recently reached 300 users, and with a tiny bit of help (and dare I say inspiration) from yours truly, added a video post feature to the website.

Celebitrix.com is adding new and exciting features everyday. Recently we've added the ability to post your favorite Youtube or google video snippets.

Celebitrix allows you to 'Bling-It', by utilizing your products and conveniently posting them online to be viewed by some of the most interesting people. This specialized service is allowing users to search for bling nation-wide and set their own pricing for ad displays. Bling-It continues to integrate new user-friendly features to create the ultimate ad posting portal online.

Celebitrix is proud to announce the registration of 300 users as of 3/1/2007! We'd like to thank everyone who have registered and appreciate the continued support.

 

Please login and try our new features today! Click here to login

Check it out.  And be happy I finally posted something NON DIGG related.  Even I’m sick of my Digg ramblings.

 

/rizzn

Digg Apologist Skewers Wired's Annalee Newitz

SugarRae says: "I won't even go into how comparing the eBay rating system to Digg isn't even on the same planet as far as Internet marketers are concerned. But there were several points in the article I took issue with that made it obvious that while well-meaning, Annalee had missed many facets of the industry she was reporting on."



I just got through talking about Wired's hard on for destroying Digg - despite the fact that SugarRae obviously has her nose up the butt of Digg, she makes some valid points.



read more | digg story



/rizzn



Update: Techcrunch gets Dugg talking about what I've been saying the last couple days.

Wired Says "I Bought Votes on Digg"

Annalee Newitz of Wired says: "A sneaky web service offers to get you to the front page of the popular news aggregator for $1 per digg. We'll see about that."



More on this later.



read more | digg story



Alright. So by now, my readers know that my idea is an offshoot of the U/S website. So it's clear, U/S isn't my site. I think it's not a very well executed design, and thus very difficult for the users to figure out.



My design won't win any awards, but it will be usable.



At any rate, as I'm moving more into the final stages of development, I can say that this will have more elements to the functionality than U/S and will also have more safeguards in place to prevent discovery.



But in case you're asking, there is a concerted effort by Wired in the last few months to disparage Digg and pimp out Reddit. Any regular reader of Wired can tell you that for certain. So shame on them.



/rizzn