It's been a while...

Sorry folks, it's been a while. Been doing the vacation/back to work/back to school thing. Once the schedule gets to where I can plan/understand what's happening all the time -- we'll be good. Keep an eye out for new posts.

In the meantime, feel free to follow on twitter: JinDenver.

Posts coming soon, I promise!

Thanks A Lot Ohio!

Fucking flatlanders. The only thing you're good for is Roller Coasters, hell and even then most of your damn thrill rides were designed by foreign companies.

I know it's early...7:33 Mountain Time as I type these words. There's still time, but given the early results it's hard to see a big turn.

Jesus fuck, you stupid idiots from Ohio. I understand where you're coming from, really, I do. I'm from Maine. We're poor, NAFTA hurt us too, but honestly, you think Clinton is th fix to this? The bun to the hotdog in the most divisive Democratic family since the Jesus's's (What's that? Not their last name? Fuck you.) gets your vote? How in the hell did you fall for that stupid NAFTA commercial bullshit? Her husband passed NAFTA (the single most damaging trade bill in American History)!!!!!!!!!! SHE LOVES IT!!!! My lord you fuckers are idiots.

There's no check mark next to Hilldawg yet on that CNN screen cap, but c'mon -- that's a pretty solid indicator (I pray to all things holy that I'm wrong and tomorrow morning I have to put some crow in the toaster)

Sorry for the profanity. Actually, no, I'm not. I'm pissed. I should be reading right now, instead I'm drinking a beer and trying to think of something worse to call Ohioans than Midwesterners but I can't. Being from the Midwest is insult enough.

Look, I've got nothing against HRC, I don't. I think she's smart, competent...looks really owns the room when she wears a nice pantsuit... But she's less progressive than Richard Nixon. How is it you idiots in the middle of the country don't understand the progressive revolution -- you know, the one where we make sure everyone has the right to medical care, everyone has the right to an education, everyone has the right to stay safe from your dumb fuck neighbor's guns, everyone has the right to enjoy clean water/air/hiking trails/wildlife refuges (not to mention the animals!) and an assload of other things that are good for America...

You're as bad as Republicans. I wonder if Canada wants to buy you. Asshats. You go to the polls, vote for Hillary, and help to prolong this race? You know what's more important than which individual takes the White House this year? Which Party Does. This election is more important than Hillary or Obama. Fact is, Hillary's easier to beat than Obama is. She's more divisive and is able to split Democrats themselves, whereas Obama is able to not only get Democrats, but also Independents and Republicans(!!!!!) to vote for him.

You, Ohio, may have singlehandedly fucked us. Hillary may still be kept from obtaining the nomination, but your delegates may cause this race to go on much longer than it should, further dividing America.

You, Ohio, may have singlehandedly ruined the future of my kids (holy shit I wish I could say I was kidding.) If McCain wins this thing, we're asking for more wars! We're asking for more terrorist attacks! We're asking for terrible impressions of him on SNL!

You, Ohio, may have fucked this up. I swear to god, if you did, right after I come ride your excellent roller coasters one more time, I'm going to shit on your entire state. Just gonna drop a great big Wendy's influenced deuce all over it.

Fuckers.

I hope I'm wrong.

Whoa! Beer's empty! lolrz rotfl!!!!

~J

Personal rant...

Time for a personal rant:

I'm in a class at the University of Denver. It's a distance learning style class where, through the partnership of a certain television company that broadcasts the most riveting entertainment the House of Representatives and Senate have to offer, my class gets to chat with many high profile, important, and experienced guests about the political landscape. This proves especially fun with the B.H.O. v. H.R.C. war currently on.

We have an exam coming up. Our professor teaches class from Washington, DC -- so we never see him, and expect that when papers are due we will print them or have them written on the exam itself or whatever, so that we may fed-ex them to him for quick and easy grading (apparently he doesn't like to print things off himself, even if it is 15 people in class.)

I digress.

We get an email two days before the exam from the TA (this is not her fault in any way, she was just the messenger) letting us know that we had to buy a blue book for our test and that they were available in the bookstore.

In my head the conversation proceeds something like this:

Wait. What? Say that again?
I said you have to buy your own blue book.
We do?
Yes.
Our own blue books...what we'll be writing our test in, we have to buy it ourselves?
Yes.
From the bookstore?
Yes.
I'm sorry, I'm still a little behind here -- Let me get this straight. We're taking a test, we have to write our tests down for the professor, and he mandates that we purchase our own blue book for the test?
Yes.
Stop saying yes.
No.
Thank you.


I don't understand how this makes sense. Why is my notebook not good enough? Perhaps you could go the short route of letting us use our computers for superior typing speed and therefore exam quality (theoretically) but no. We have to write it on a bluebook. That's fine. Until I find we're to purchase them ourselves. I'm not worried about the cost, I have a full-time job so I make enough to afford the $10 or whatever ridiculous cost the University of Denver bookstore dares to charge for these things, it's just the principle.

If you're going to force us to hand write a test, you should not have the audacity to then expect us to buy something additional on which to write our test!!! You want me to write it? Perfect. I'll use my notebook. That's not what you want? Tough shit. Do I get to mandate which format can be used for class communications? I don't except email communications, I have to be overnighted all class related communication from the professor. What's that? Email is most convenient for you and everyone else in the class? SO IS YOU BUYING THE BLUE BOOKS FOR US LIKE MOST REGULAR COLLEGES!

It's a ridiculous pain in my ass to leave my full-time job 20 minutes earlier in the day to make sure I can stop by the bookstore and pay some a king's ransom for a bluebook.

I've recently been informed that this happens a lot in undergrad. All I can say is you idiots went to the wrong schools, this shit should never happen. It's asinine, ridiculous, insane, and pointless. I can't think of a single good reason why this would be beneficial to the class.

In fact nobody can. And if they think they can find a good reason for forcing us to purchase our own blue books, they're wrong and their idea is dumb. That's it. End of story.

J-Wall out.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

this blog is a repost of mine from my blog for my networked journalism class




Finally! Someone as crazy as Jason Leopold seems to be.

Stick with it until the end. Or walk away while it's loading, and then cut straight to near the end.




WTF?!?!?! Whiskey...Tango...Foxtrot.

I've just signed up for www.myspace.com/firebilloreilly....soon that'll be off the ground to gain legions of fans!

Riddle me this, how does Kelly Tilghman get suspended for two weeks from the Golf Channel for suggesting that his rivals "lynch" Tiger woods in a back alley, yet Bill O'Reilly says he personally wants to lynch Michelle Obama and nothing happens?! Granted this was recent -- but how is he not on his ass fired already? You have to be kidding me. I'm against political correctness in most circumstances, I think people need to have tougher skin and should learn to laugh more, but I don't understand this double standard. Plus he's talking about

killing the wife of a candidate for the President of the United States.



Let's not be unclear about this. While there aren't many people (myself included) who believe that he would actually commit murder (if for no other reason than they wouldn't let him have a radio show in prison) this is an actual threatening statement. The Tilghman incident was clearly in jest, but this is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Bill O'Reilly should be fired ANY day now. The fact that Fox "News" allows this to happen is incredibly inappropriate.

It's times like this when I'm glad we have things like the blogosphere and networked journalism -- hopefully NOBODY lets Bill-O escape this one.

~J

Libel is as libel does

Over at my blog for class, the class on networked journalism, we were recently given some assignments for reading. That link has the exact blog entry.

Upon the issuing of the assignments, two of them about Jason Leopold who happens to be a former journalist who used to uphold the tenets of journalism and report stories, emailed our professor accusing her of libel. See his emails here.

Really? Honestly? By asking us to read about his fuck-ups and subsequent refusal to admit he fucked up, our professor commits libel? Asking us to read the truth about what happened is libel? By understanding that he's a liar parading as a journalist is libel? Honestly the only thing separating him from Matt Drudge at this point is his own website complete with shitty HTML. Oh wait.

I can't wait until nobody reads your website, Jason Leopold. You have the gall to email my professor and accuse her of libeling you? You lied, and fabricated sources in a piece for Salon.com, almost completely made up a piece for Truthout.org, and had the publication of your own memoir canceled because of concerns over....care to guess? Lying! That's right! We have a winner!

Douche. Terd Sandwich. Toolbag.

That's right, I'm name-calling. It's not libel, it's opinion! Prove my opinion wrong, I dare ya!

Or maybe he'll just make up some fake sources, emails, and quotes about me.

~J

Pssst, Pass it on!

This just in, Mike Huckabee won (surprisingly) a few states today during Super(duper) Tuesday. Many now consider him back in the race.

Therefore, Hucka is the new Hella.

As in: That is HuckaSweet. That movie was HuckaAwesome. That girls breaststs are HuckaTasty. You get the drift.

Pass it on!


~J

A big eff you to Coors Light

So I made the below video with my cousin to enter a contest for tickets to the 2009 Superbowl. Well, despite the fact that it's head and shoulders above any video on the Coors Light site that was chosen as a finalist, I'm quite bitter. All the videos they chose sucked, ours required hard work, devotion, creativity, originality, and plus we're just fun.

No, we're awesome. But Coors Light chose to ignore our video and go a different route. So I'll never drink Coors original or Coors light again unless I'm on their brewery tour. Fkrs.

Below is our video. It's excellent.



~J

On a Chilly Denver Morn

Just a couple awesome things that are really fucking pissing me off lately.

First: Fuck you, CNN. Again. I've done it before, and I'll do it again. Seriously, Heath Ledger is your lead? Really? It's 9:45 in the morning right now in Colorado, and your lead story is about Heath Ledger? Couldn't be bothered to put up the story about the 935 false and misleading statements made by the Bush Administration about the war in Iraq? Couldn't bother to lead with an article about the debt crisis (and how it was the banking industry, credit card companies, and predatory lending that REALLY put us here?) I understand the concept of if it bleeds it leads, and you want eyes because eyes on your pages mean more sponsor dollars.

But really. Go fuck yourselves. Profanity never makes a great argument, but your bullshit never makes great news either. This is worse than yellow journalism. It's distracting, misleading, and it shows just how willing (lest we forget able, and eager) you are to abdicate your responsibility to inform the public. This is not news. Heath Ledger is a tragic story, but by putting it up front you are saying that is the most important thing right now. Fuck you. Fuck you, twice. And then there's a story about some robbers in Australia who robbed a restaurant. They meant to grab a bag of cash but instead grabbed a bag of "bread rolls." Here's the thing -- doesn't this fit your criteria for a top news story CNN? Robbery, Fun Accent, Guns, Someone Gets Shot In The Ass, and a funny happy ending. I'm surprised you haven't linked it to to the Heath Ledger article yet, after all he was an Aussie...and the robbery happened in Australia...and given all your foreign relations "street cred" in closing down bureaus and sending people to do foreign reporting less and less every year, I'm surprised you don't just automatically think they're related.

I fucking hate you. You're still better than Fox News, but you're a fucking piece of shit. I could continue on CNN, I'm not going to. I need to get back to work soon.

Second: This whole credit crunch shit, and recession fears and all sorts of things. I have my doubts that it's actually real. The credit crunch is, but the stock market falling and all sorts of other bullshit -- all that's predicated upon is fear that consumers are really going to stop spending. We're spending because shit costs too much. Unfettered capitalism, and a free market society create a financial situation that's only good for business. Then there's a collapse, and consumers get blamed. Really? We get blamed for what someone else has done? Let's take a look at this for a second. You know what has really created this? Credit Cards and predatory lending. Republicans especially love to make laws that help these fuckers out. And in the mid 80s with the Reagan administration and trickle-down economics and supply side economics, the flames of the problem were only given more fuel.

When people don't spend, the economy gets hurt. So the idea was that people could be given credit cards to spend, and the economy would do better -- but that's a hollow solution. There's no real liquid, fluid currency processed in a credit card transaction so merchants get their funds, and the consumer gets its merchandise, but the consumer goes in debt. This only adds up over time, in the end pulling the bulk of the consumers fluid currency out of boosting the economy and placing it into a position where it reduces debt -- that hurts the economy. This housing crunch, and the predatory lending associated with it, does more of the same. Lending institutions want nothing more than to lend you money on great terms, reserve the right to change them on whatever arbitrary standards they want to use, then make boatloads of money off of your increased payments. Of course, they think very little of what happens when the lower-middle-class family they just fucked over actually doesn't have enough money to pay their bills. Stupid fucks. When money is spent paying off credit cards instead of actual purchasing of goods, the economy goes downhill. Credit card companies and predatory lenders have fucked us over.

And if you're one of those morons who *again* places all of the responsibility on the consumer, shut the fuck up. You shouldn't be allowed to breed. Does SOME of the responsibility belong there? Yes. But if you're saying that the individual consumer is at fault, you then by extension of your argument are never allowed to blame society, video games, music, family life, or ANYTHING ELSE for ANY PROBLEM for ANY PERSON EVER. If one person has the responsibility, then that's it, no other thing in society can have any hand in their situation. For instance, Larry Craig really is fucking gay. Pun Intended.

People deserve some of the responsibility, but we need to understand that the tactics and practices of credit card companies, and banking and lending institutions breed this kind of behavior. They encourage people to spend too much, take too much credit, and a society of systematic overindulged consumerism does more to encourage people to live beyond their means. The system is at fault for this one, kids. We're talking illegal in many cases, yet our government doesn't really see fit to do much because of course in their minds if businesses are healthy, then so too will be the people. But as we learned from GM in the 1980s, what's good for GM (and by extension corporate America) is NOT good for the rest of the country.

No this isn't an anti-capitalism rant, it's just a what's pissing me off rant. So don't call me a communist. Actually go ahead and call me a communist, because that's a much more appealing party label than anything party that pretends to have the best interests of America at heart.

Oh yeah, 24 states have primaries or caucuses coming up on Tuesday February, 5th. Don't forget to go vote if you have a primary, or find out where your caucus site and go to caucus. Even these steps are important in making your voice heard.

No matter who you support.

Use Google to find a calendar of all the states and their caucus and primary dates so you can figure out when yours is. Your local state.gov site should have instructions on precincts and where to go for your caucus. If you have a primary, it works just like voting. Find out where your voting location is (based on precinct) and then go cast your vote for who you think should be your party's nomination for President. If you have a caucus then you can find candidate videos on youtube that tell you how to do it. (They're goofy, cheesy, so suspend some disbelief, but they will tell you how to get the job done.) You can also find out on your state sites (or by contacting respective party help-lines that can be found online) where your caucus sites are and ask any questions how it works. Caucuses can take a couple hours or as little as 20 minutes, it all depends on how many people arrive from your precinct, and how much support there is from different candidates. But its important, it should be done.

That's it. J-Wall out.

Vote!

Happy New Year. We get to vote this year. It'll be like Christmas in November.

Don't let any poll, pundit, talking head, news story, or blog entry tell you who you should vote for or that this race is over. All it takes is 20 minutes every day for a week. Research candidates, go to their websites, their myspace pages, whatever -- and see where they stand. See if you agree. In the amount of time it takes you to eat a bowl of cereal and toast you can figure out if you agree or disagree with a candidate, and see who best represents you.

Despite what the media tells you this is not a circus to be watched, a race to be observed, a game in which you have no hand. This does not take place on a playing field that has nothing to do with you. The field is America, it has everything to do with you. It is not only your privilege but your responsibility to vote, and to cast your say.

Happy New Year, we get to vote this year.

I'll take rational thought with a side of Atheism, please.

I am incredibly disheartened today. I read an article not long ago about Pope Benedict attacking Atheism as "cruel and unjust"saying that it had led to some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” known to mankind. What? Explain please. (He doesn't,) Perhaps the good Pope forgot that "he who asserts must prove."

I think the very basic aspect of all of this can be boiled down to one single question, especially when he is labeling Atheism as cruel and unjust and saying that it has led to cruelty and violations of justice: When was the last time someone attacked someone else (be that plural or singular) in the name of Atheism? When was the last time it happened in the name of god?

You still want to argue that religion is good for our world? Without religion the twin towers would still be standing (arguably.) Without religion we'd be a whole lot smarter and technologically advanced. We'd be a whole lot more rational, we'd be a whole lot safer. We'd be a whole lot less scared, and a whole lot more responsible for our own lives.

I'm also disheartened that Benedict completely misses the idea behind Atheism. He says that Atheism was created to explain the creation of justice by man since there was no god to do it. False, good sir. Atheism is the rational and logical explanation for the state of the world. No god has provided laws for us (men have, in all cases.)

The Pope said, but “the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false”. Again, false, good sir. It is not intrinsically false to say that humanity must do what no god does. That's like arguing that it is intrinsically false for one teammate to do what another cannot. The Pope's quote above, actually makes no sense at all whatsoever. The more I read it, the less sense it makes.

There are good aspects to religion, and the idea of god. I cannot deny that. But religion openly and actively tries to slow down progress, make people afraid, and control lives. There is also absolutely zero basis to the theory that without faith in god people are "evil" "morally suspect" or "morally corrupt." Those are just blatant falsehoods. I have been an Atheist since I was 12 years old. That is when I reached the age of reason and realized that the idea of god just didn't make any sense whatsoever. I am not morally reprehensible, morally corrupt, unjust, or evil. I am a good, kindhearted person, who believes that helping people is good. The more you help the better life will be in general.

There are some who will argue that those are religious tenets -- with that I cannot necessarily disagree, but it's worth noting that just because it has some good ideas, that does not warrant diving full-on into it.

I'm an Atheist. I have been for a very long time, and I will be for the rest of my life. I don't want to raise children believing in god, but believing in themselves, and being good people. Logically it makes sense. I want to raise them to question things, find their own truths and answers, and never seek the easy way out. And most importantly, never let their search for answers in anything lead them into cruel and unjust areas. I guess that means keeping them away from Pope Benedict.