November 17, 2008

Obamapaloodle. . . .

This week's weekend caption contest at Wizbang gives us a few laughs at the The One. It should be noted that the picture below is apparently NOT a photoshop.

I'm partial to faustian's caption:

"I would like to point out to our black friends that the white dude just behind Obama was a Republican.
Those guys in the sheets were democrats."

But the top six are all winners.

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:41 AM | TrackBack

June 30, 2008

Pretty damned impressive. . .

Amazing, stupendous, and oh. . .so. . .cute!

Talk about Dog Whispering.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:40 PM | TrackBack

February 29, 2008

How 'bout that Global Warming. . .

Hmmm. So. . . .So far in the 2007-2008 winter season it's snowed at least four times. No link, no need to elaborate. It's important to note however, I'm talking about Birmingham, Alabama. Go ahead, look at a map.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:10 AM

January 14, 2008

Contender for the best alcohol related ad campaign eva. . .

Via Instapundit, let's put your hands together for. . .

wait for it. . . .

Tea Partay!1!!!!111!!1!!one!!!1

In case you hadn't noticed the clues in the video, it's part of an ad campaing for Smirnoff. This is right up there with the Best Beer Ad eva.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:59 AM | TrackBack

November 30, 2007

Too funny to not mention. . .

62 percent of Democrats admit they are either a little or a lot crazy.

That's probably too mean, let's try this:

62 percent of Democrats aren't playing with a full deck. Yeah, that's better.

Hey! Don't get mad at me, I'm just the messenger, Gallup is the one that put together the report. (via WSJ Best of the Web Today)

The WSJ calls it "The Sanity Gap" but I like my phrasing better, I think it gets more to the point of the matter.

It's an interesting report, and worth taking a few moments to read through it. It also suggests a few possible explanations for the debacle at the CNN/YouTube Republican Primary Debate such as:

1. The reason so many Democrats thought it'd be ok to insinuate themselves into what was supposed to be a Republican Primary Debate of Republican candidates for Republicans. They were simply too mentally unstable to understand that they get their debate, and if they want to have all the questions asked by Democrat activists, interns for Democrat representatives, Democrat campaign steering committee members, Democrat campaign volunteers or Democrat Senator employees, former CAIR interns and Democrat aspiring TV writers who think that absurd racist stereotypes are funny, that's fine; and Republicans should be allowed to have their debate free from interference from Democrats masquerading as Republicans.

2. It also could explain why Democrat and Democrat agenda driven producers at CNN thought that it would be acceptable and appropriate to fly a sitting Hillary Clinton steering committee member from one side of the country to the other (creating what most likely is an illegal in-kind campaign contribution) and then have said Hillary Clinton team member miked up for more uninterrupted air-time than some Republican candidates (Hunter and Tancredo) at a Republican Primary Debate.

3. It could also explain the inability of CNN producers to use Google to vet questioners to insure they were on the up and up about their party preferences, affiliations and endorsements. They simply didn't have the mental capacity to use Google apparently.

4. It explains why Democrats would accept as valid the excuse, "that depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

5. It also explains why a majority of truthers are Democrats.

In all seriousness though, I think the report does raise some interesting points and suggests that accepting and believing in Democrat principles and policies is bad for your mental health. Which makes sense to me as the Democrat party moves farther and farther to the left and into the realm of socialism and communism. It can never be healthy for someone to intentionally subjugate their individualism in favor of collectivism in direct opposition to natural human nature. It also calls into question the validity of Democrat policies when a majority of Democrats admit themselves that their mental health is suffering.

The WSJ suggests that the fragile mental state of Democrats could be the result of spending 7 years in the wilderness while Republicans held the three branches of government, if that's the case, then one has to not only wonder about their mental health but also about their maturity. I've always thought that the Democrats penchant for demonizing Republicans, failing to accept the will of the people in 2000 and claim near constant victimhood status from the actions of Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc was a sign of immaturity just as their penchant for calliing Republicans infantile names like "rethuglican" or "Bushitler" was.

I agree with the WSJ's assesment that without longitudinal data we can only speculate as to the reasons a majority of Democrats are willing to claim themselves mentally defective. If such a survey is conducted over the long term we may find out why a majority of Democrats feel they are mentally defective. At least I hope we can, so that we can address the issue appropriately and turn them away from ideals that seem to be harming their mental health.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:19 PM | TrackBack

December 27, 2006

President Gerald Ford passes at 93

If you had lived in Vail, CO for any length of time through the 80's or 90's your path was bound to cross with the former President of the United States, Gerald Ford. At the very least, you'd come face to face with his Secret Service detail somewhere, I was lucky (and unlucky) enough to do both.

My first experience was with the agents that secure President Ford's home in Beaver Creek, situated directly under the Strawberry Park lift, is common enough (if you consider slopeside multi-million dollar homes common) but the pillbox shaped plain vanilla Secret Service residence and the tiny slopeside guardshack stands out, especially when Ford is in residence and the friendly but firm agents are directing wayward skiiers and snowboarders away from the residence.

On other occasions I was priviledged enough to meet, eat and converse for a few moments with the former President on multiple occasions, in short, he is a down to Earth, sensible and friendly man, whose presence not so much demands respect, but inspires it. He is quick to recognize that one is nervous or seeks a meeting and is quick to calm a visitor and greets humble meeting seekers warmly and with genuine courtesy and friendliness.

For a man who carried the nation's burden at one of her most difficult periods in history, Ford is perhaps a man who was ideally suited to the task. He was certainly not loved by Republicans and Democrats alike, but he was deeply respected by both parties for his intellect and logical approach to things. His decision to pardon Nixon was widely criticized yet proved to be the right thing to do and whiile comedians portrayed him as a bumbling klutz, in reality, he was a graceful, atheletic, surefooted. If you don't believe me, I'll give you a few challenges to prove the point.

First, head out to you local regional airport on an sunny day and bring a pair of very dark sunglasses, find yourself one of those staircars and stand at the top. Now take off the glasses and immediately walk down the stairs as fast as you can, smile and wave at some object/person in the distance and don't hold onto the handrails. Now repeat this exercise 100 times and see how many times you make it to the bottom without stumbling.

Next, lace yourself up a pair of cleats and head down to the local NFL franchise and challenge the boys to a little scrimmage and see how well you fair. Finally, cart yourself to the top of your local ski hill and strap on some vintage 60s era straight skis, bomb the most difficult runs and see how many times you fall. Now, do it again when you're 60, 70, or 80.

Sure Chevy Chase got some laughs at Ford's expense, some even say it cost him the election, but like most modern Presidents, their popular conception is misleading at best, grossly inaccurate at worst. Nixon, indeed, was not a crook, John F. Kennedy was not a saint, Reagan was certainly not an idiot and Ford was not a bumbling clown.

Like the others mentioned, now history can go about the task of evaluating Ford outside of the partisan spotlight and give us an accurate portrayal of the man as a leader, intellectual and genuine American President, who toasted his own muffins in the White House while restoring much confidence and repsect to the Office of President.

Ford won't go down as one of the nation's best Presidents, his term was too short and his tasks were not ones which gave opportunity for greatness, but President Gerald Ford was himself a Great Man, who loved his nation and his fellow citizens. President Gerald Ford had the mantle of a nation forced upon him at a time when few wanted it and still fewer were capable of wearing it.

I wish I could be more eloquent and describe my meetings with the man and the President in terms that showed a greater importance or say that we talked about great things, but alas my meetings were pedestrian, simple and the type one would have with acquaintance at mundane social functions, they were cordial, simple and short. We talked of the food, the snow, the games and the heaviest political discussions we shared revolved around the politics of a tiny ski-town. I will however forever count myself lucky however to have broken bread with him, share a few brief moments and consider myself lucky be recognized by someone I consider a Great Man when we met a second, third and more times.

Rest in peace President Ford, I and many others are sincerely grateful for your service, appreciate your sacrifices and honor your legacy. History will be kind, as well they should, for you were a Great Man in horrible times.

--Jason

President Ford passed at 93 at his home in Rancho Mirage, CA at 6:45 pm December, 26, 2006. [Link]

P.S. Above I allude that meeting President Ford's Secret Service detail was "unlucky". I mean that in jest. While certainly getting shoo'd away from his home while skiing was unlucky, I did have multiple occasions to meet his protective detail on multiple occasions. I even shared more than a few off-duty beers with them. These men and women were always the most professional and honorable of law enforcement officers, although they liked a good joke (as did the President) and were quick to remind me that their Department was under the Department of the Treasury just as the BATF was and since I held a BATF Brewer's license, they could make me squirm from time to time for fun (and it was fun). Professionally, the agents were masters of their craft; efficient, dedicated and trust-worthy almost to a fault, off-duty they were raucous and fun-loving (and some were quite good skiiers). I cherish my interactions with them just as much as I do meetings with the President. The term "unlucky" is used solely in jest.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:59 AM

December 24, 2006

Happy Christmas!!!

Hannakah, Kwanza, Solstice or whatever you want to call it.

This year, though, I'd like to present one of the little known Festivus instrumental carols:

Yes, yes, I know I probably spelled Hannakah wrong, but I just couldn't figure it out.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:54 AM | TrackBack

November 17, 2006

This quote just made my day. . .

Coming from Laura W., who blogs at Ace of Spades HQ.

"To sum up: Nanotech flying robots? Within the realm of possibility. Flying cars? Go fish."

I want a flying car. I'd like it if this one worked out.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:56 PM | TrackBack

September 27, 2006

Place your bets, place your bets. . .

Everyone is watching the DJI with baited breath today. Will it break through to a new record, or will all the attention cause it stutter?

The image will also refresh when you reload the page.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:44 AM | TrackBack

September 20, 2006

Oh hells yeah. . .

Ok, I know it'll probably be stupid, very stupid, but it's just too good to pass up, Zombies, Rebel Flags, Meth Labs and Karate. Oh hells yeah. . .

The South Will Rise Again

Click the link, watch the trailer, laugh, cry, be offended, I don't care; I just can't wait for this to come out.

--Jason

PS - It's also got the greatest movie tag line I've seen in quite a while. "Karate is about kicking ass. . . Zombie ass!"

-JC

UPDATE: While I've got the pirates from Ace's Place plundering, I thought I'd point them over to the Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival this weekend; where such fine films as the Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, Loud Quiet Loud and tons of other new, short, arty and indie films will be screened in Birmingham this weekend. I'll be there volunteering at the Alabama Theatre Saturday morning for the Alabama Shorts screening. If you're nearby Birmingham, it's a great weekend event with some special surprises. If you're not near Birmingham, you'll just have to make do with the website. The much hyped, panned and decried Jesus Camp that's been the talk of both the sinosphere and dextrosphere of late, will also be screened.

Maybe next year The South Will Rise Again will be there.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:25 PM | TrackBack

September 11, 2006

Eine minuten bitte. . .

As we enter this day (I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to call it an anniversary), that marks the fifth year since the attacks of September 11, 2001; many will have Islamic Terrorism and the greater threat of Islamic Fascism on their minds. This is appropriate, it will be on my mind as well. I just want to put the brakes on a second and remind people that Islamic Fascism is not the only threat we face in the world today.

As we prepare to remember our fallen, North Korea plans to announce to the world that they have indeed created an atomic bomb. Their only possible motivation for this is to blackmail the rest of the world into accepting a regime that starves millions of it's own people intentionally, that imposes an iron fist of state control on a completely opposite end of the scale from the Islamic Fascists.

Now is good time, if you haven't before, to read Bill Whittle's Tribes.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:50 AM

September 1, 2006

Today's the day. . .

Today, in 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, officially starting WW2.

Ironically, tomorrow is the day, in 1945, that saw the official end of WW2 with the surrender of Japan.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:00 AM | TrackBack

August 25, 2006

Ok, so I'll lighten up a bit. . .

Most of the recent posts have been heavy handed, I haven't injected enough reason to have the blog URL passed around and dump bandwidth for no reason lately. So let's do that.

The folks at HowItShouldHaveEnded.com produce some really funny stuff. Their newest work is this one on how Superman - The Movie should have ended.

But this is my fave, partly because I'm a huge Star Wars fan (I'm not into the Expanded Universe or anything like that, although I did play Star Wars Galaxies for a while.) and partly because I feel that this is actually how the movie should have ended.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:24 PM

August 16, 2006

NYC 9-11 Calls Released. . .

New York City officials today released over 1600 emergency calls and transmissions between dispatchers, first responders and other responding agencies today. Included are calls from individuals trapped inside the World Trade Center complex and individuals reporting the terrorist attack upon the Twin Towers. Also included are calls between responders and supervisors offering help, support, direction and information as the attack and the its aftermath unfold.

Listening to the released material is quite difficult emotionally and brings the horror of that day once again into sharp relief. I'd recommend that everyone take at least some time to listen to the recordings as they are an important part of understanding the scope of the event for the individuals tasked with responding and managing a crisis previously unimaginable.

I have nothing but praise to offer for the courageous efforts and professionalism the recordings demonstrate.

WARNING: There are some very graphic descriptions of tragic events included in the recordings, they are most definately inappropriate for young children and those easily disturbed.

Links to the released tapes after the jump.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:05 PM | TrackBack

August 15, 2006

Yes, I'm a slacker. . .

Yes, yes, I know I didn't blog hardly anything for the month of July.

Yes, yes, I know I've had a number of broken links throughout the blog.

Yes, yes, I know there are plenty of topics I haven't addressed that I should have.

Yes, yes I know I haven't posted any pictures of my recent trip to Germany yet, or even mentioned it for that matter.

BUT. . .

I did fix the Combloggerator link in the sidebar today, which I've taken a bit of heat for leaving broke for so long. The Combloggerator community has my sincere apologies for that.

If you're confused or wondering what I'm talking about, the Combloggerator is a collection of blogs based in and around Birmingham, AL. You can get to it by clicking the links in this post, or the picture of Vulcan in the sidebar.

--Jason

PS - Truth be told, I'm toying with letting this blog go the way of the dodo and starting up another at one of the other domain names I have. I've made a number of structural mistakes with this blog; such as not creating enough categories, not paying attention to bandwidth issues and not posting regularly. Shutting down this blog gives me some mixed feelings, and although I'm sure that eventually I'll figure out the direction I want to take, sometimes I just look at it and say "Dammit, this isn't what I want." So I mumble and grumble and carry on, maybe this tiny bit of venting will provoke me into making the changes I want and starting up something more serious and paying greater attention to it.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:18 PM | TrackBack

August 14, 2006

Has Google jumped the shark. . . .

Internet behemoth Google, seems to be setting itself up to jump the shark. From censoring results in China, to some dubious methodology in it's click-based advertising system, Google has already been under fire.

Now it seems they are taking offense to the terminology "to google" claiming that its use by media outlets is approaching trademark infringement.

While I can see Google's point, and I can almost agree with its, I think it's a seriously bad move to send menacing legal notices to media outlets. Google is on shaky ground with the rest of the world media via it's Google Video and Google News services. Further, their plans to digitize and make available on the web, every book ever published is setting the internet giant up for a showdown with Big Media over intellectual property rights.

Personally, I think they are setting the stage for a battle they cannot win by antagonizing the media and trying to play the bully. When push comes to shove, it's highly unlikely that their plan to digitize and offer up every published work will succeed. Authors like readers, for sure, and so do publishers, but both groups also want to be paid for their intellectual output and the resources used to publish such works. If Google succeeds in dealing such a fatal blow to print media, the public will be ill served as publishers will begin to step back from publishing hard copy and publishing only via electronic means where they have a greater control over who can access their content.

To take books away (as Google is unwittingly trying to do) would be a significant negative blow to the education of the masses. As much as Google would like it to be so, access to the internet is not universal and it never will be. Additionally, the ability to transfer knowledge without additional technological support (other than handing over a book) will be seriously harmed. Google is facing a showdown and before they get to the dance, they are further antagonizing their partner and will only gain enemies by trying to buck common vernacular and determine how people use the English language.

If Google wants to fight the use of their name as a verb, they need to go first to the publishers of Oxford's English and other dictionaries, not the people using the terminology found there.

Google is severly over-valued as a company, their position is far from stable at the top of the heap and as we've seen time and time and time again, your position on top is short-lived if you go after the people who put you there.

If they press this particular issue with the media, eventually they'll get a backlash, and the lawsuits over Google News and other services will begin to mount up. Remember, it only takes one successful lawsuit to force Google to shut down it's News or Video services. The sudden injunction on either of these services would severely hurt Google's stock, it will also produce a pile on effect as lawyers descend on Google en masse to begin a "death of a thousand cuts" which will be championed by the media that Google is antagonizing. Google has alot of cash, cash that once tapped with a successful lawsuit, will bring about a legal swarm of locusts that will make drug company liability cases seem pale in comparison.

For me personally, I don't rely on Google as I once did. I found over time that there were other search engines which produced better results with particular subject matter. While Google's interface is clean and fast, their results are being "gamed" more and more everyday. Just like Windows is targeted by virus developers because it's the prominent platform, Google is targeted by SEO con-artists and spammers because of it's position at the top.

Unlike Microsoft, there are simple and widely available alternatives to Google. Their position is not secure, they live in a multi-layered glass house, and if they start throwing stones at the brick and mortar media, the brick and mortar media will throw back. It doesn't take a structural engineer to determine who will win the rock throwing contest.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:54 PM

June 23, 2006

Yay for OLD U2, new U2 sucks. . .

I wonder if Bush has some old U2 on his iPod, you know, stuff from the Boy, October, War and Under a Blood Red Sky. Once U2 hit the Joshua Tree album, they started a long run downhill in my opinion.

Why do I even bother to cast judgements about the quality of old U2 versus new U2? Well, it's actually just a lead-in for this video:

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:37 AM | TrackBack

June 13, 2006

The media. . . better late than never. . .

Seems that the media is finally getting around to taking offense at the "Hodji Girl" (or "Hadji Girl") video I posted back in March.

Here's my original post with the video embedded, and here's a post about the pseudo-third-party death threat I recieved for posting it.

Dan Riehl has transcribed the lyrics, and as I said before, if this video pisses you off, GO AWAY!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:30 PM | TrackBack

May 23, 2006

The Python of the Christ. . .

As an atheist, I do have a healthy realization that I could in fact be wrong. It's possible, not probable but possible there is a God.

So this is one of those posts that I'll have to apologize for profusely for in order to avoid going to hell.

Great that if need be, I can just say, sorry, didn't believe it, now I do, please forgive me, and I'm in!

Presenting. . . .The Python of the Christ. (Some graphic content, you've been warned!)

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:57 PM | TrackBack

May 18, 2006

A little help needed. . .

I'm looking for a bit of help from any botany geeks out there. I'm trying to identify as closely as possible, the plant below.

The plant was originally found in the woods of Alabama, so it is most probably native to this region. The stem growing in the middle currently stands about 6 feet tall. As far as I know, this plant has not bloomed in the past decade.

If you have any info, or know of a forum where people might like geeking out on plant identification, please drop a note in the comments section below. If you need a larger image, click here.

UPDATE: Thaks to Southtrek, I believe it's save to say that this is indeed a Yucca, more specifically, I believe it's a Yucca Filamentosa. Here's the USDA NCRS Plant guide on Yucca Filamentosa, and interesting excerpt:

Ethnobotanic: The Catawba, Cherokee, Nanticoke and other Native American tribes used Yucca filamentosa for a variety of purposes including food, medicine, cordage and even soap. The roots, which contain saponin, were prepared by boiling and pounding for use as soap. Roots were beaten into a salve or poultice that would then be used to treat sprains or applied to sores on the skin. The roots were used to treat gonorrhea and rheumatism. Skin diseases were treated by rubbing the roots on the skin and by taking a decoction of the roots. The plant was used as a sedative to induce sleep. An infusion of the plant was used to treat diabetes. The flowers were eaten both raw and cooked. The pounded roots were thrown into fishing waters to “intoxicate fishers” allowing for easier catch. The green leaves are easily split into long strips that can be plied into cord. The leaves have long, very strong fibers, a type of sisal, which were twisted into strong thread used as cordage for binding and to construct baskets, fishing nets, fishing lines and clothing. The leaves of Yucca filamentosa contain the strongest fibers native to North America.

There is of course a catch, I believe this is some sort of a hybrid, perhaps Yucca Filamentoas / Yucca Flaccida, the plant is rather weak leaved like the Flaccida, but it also produces the filaments on the leave edges characteristic to the Filamentosa. These weak leaves could be a result in the plant growing in nearly permanent shade, I'm not sure.

If you're a plant geek, botanist or just have a green thumb about such things and can give more info, please drop me a line, or better yet, leave info in the comments. So far though, here's what I believe it to be:

Kingdom Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class Liliopsida – Monocotyledons
Subclass Liliidae –
Order Liliales –
Family Agavaceae – Century-plant family
Genus Yucca L. – yucca
Species Yucca filamentosa L. – Adam's needle

You learn something new everyday.

UPDATE 2: This Floridata page on Yucca Filamentosa has alot of info as well, I especially like this this bit:

There is much confusion regarding how many species of Adam's needle there are. Some experts (the "splitters") recognize Y. flaccida, Y. smalliana and Y. concava, as separate species, and others (the "lumpers") lump them all with Y.

The "splitters" bit reminded me of that Monty Python Life of Brian bit about the Romans, PFJ, JPF and the rest:

REG: Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f-ing Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

Which would lead me right back around to this.

I really never imagined that a plant in my front flower bed would lead to all this. I promise.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:44 AM | TrackBack

May 17, 2006

Ouch. . .

I've been bloggin pretty lightly over the last month or so, mostly because I've had other things going on and getting ready to implement some layout/structure changes with the blog itself. So you can imagine my surprise when I decided to check out my server stats (not Sitemeter) and saw that somehow my bandwidth had skyrocketed to over three times it's normal level (So far this month I'm 10 gigs over the blog's busiest month.). At first I thought it was a result of the server migration my webhost conducted at the end of April, but after a deeper look, I realized that after a year and a half of getting away with light controls on the blog, the hotlinkers and bandwidth theives had finally raped my site and have been directly linking alot of the videos here.

I began tracking down alot of the bandwidth thieves over the course of the day, and most have responded politely and agreed to save the hotlinked videos to their own sites, a few even worked with me to transfer alot of the videos and flash presentations here over to YouTube, Google Video and other sites more friendly to the casual blogger who wants to throw up a video now and then.

A relative few reacted with anger and threats, very surprising actually, but hey "Some people's kids. . . " right?

So starting tomorrow, alot of the video clips, audio clips and large images will be gone until I can lay in some controls. I hate hitting broken links just as much as anyone else, but I've got to do it.

If you're using something and suddenly it's gone, drop me an email and I'll send you a copy or give you a temporary link to download a copy. I probably won't bother with alot of the smaller images, and if you're someone I like (hint, hint, Mr. Dunbar) I'll leave it alone until I can get in touch with ya.

My apologies in advance if you come looking for something and it's unavailable, check back later and I'll be putting it back up, you just won't be able to hotlink it (if you do wind up hotlinking it, and I find out, don't be surprised if suddenly in turns into a gay porn video on your family webpage).

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:30 PM | TrackBack

May 10, 2006

Hmmmm. . . .

I'm actually quite surprised Chris got booted from American Idol. I didn't catch the show, but I just Technorati'd it and found out. Boy some people are upset.

Go Taylor Go! Birmingham represent!!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:50 PM | TrackBack

April 25, 2006

The most moronic idea eva. . . .

Is the so-called "windfall profit" tax or the even better "excessive profit" tax. Anyone who thinks that this will in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM lower gasoline taxes is simply DELUSIONAL. Any additional tax on oil companies (who by the way DO NOT set the price of oil or the price at the pump) will simply be passed on to consumers by HIGHER PRICED GASOLINE.

I'm waiting for the day when an "excessive profit" tax is talked about for Google or Microsoft.

REDUCING TAXES WILL LOWER GAS PRICES, INCREASING TAXES WILL RAISE GASOLINE TAXES, if that's too complicated for you to understand, then you have no business even talking about gasoline prices, much less being a United States Senator.

/rant off

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:26 PM | TrackBack

April 2, 2006

A brief musical interlude. . .

Click the triangle to play, may take a minute or so to load. If it doesn't work for you, try THIS LINK.

Hope you enjoy. If you don't?.?.? Well, it wouldn't really be me if I said I cared.

--Jason

PS - Support the band by checking out their site: The Right Brothers

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:45 PM | TrackBack

April 1, 2006

HP Printing

HP Officejet 6310

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:39 PM | TrackBack

March 30, 2006

Here's something to make your blood boil. . .

I think if I'd have been a parent of a child who was subjected to THIS, I'd be showing up at Apopka middle school the next day with a rubber tire and a gas can. Then I'd kick down the principal's door (surprising him of course, after all this "experiment" needs surprise), then I'd give the principal his new "necklace", show him the gas can and chase him out of the school.

Of course I'd be arrested, but when they found that my gas can was filled with water, if they still wanted to press charges, I'd just demand a jury trial, then demand that the jury be divided with half getting the little yellow stars and told to stand in the back of the courtroom throughout the trial and of course, no lunch for the jew-jurors.

Yeah, this story pissed me off.

What's wrong with well-educated "educators" sitting children down in their desks, telling them to open their textbooks and learn the course material like we've been doing for well over a hundred years. BOOK LEARNIN works, people!!!!! Stop with the cheap theatrics, especially at MIDDLE SCHOOL.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:40 AM | TrackBack

This is fun. . .

The Movie Timeline

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:57 AM | TrackBack

March 22, 2006

Not that he needs the traffic. . .

But I must say, that the Instapundit has a particularly interesting column this week on Tech Central Station.

Sorry for the lack of blog, over the last week, I've been Spring Breaking with a young friend who gets herself in the strangest predicaments. Events at Camp Jason include:

"Oh, I accidently set the yard on fire"
"Oh, I accidently locked your car keys in the trunk"

and

"Can we sit on the very top row of the movie" Or the converse "Can we sit in the very front row"

Just some samples. Much fun, and confusing, frustrating, just plain goofy all the same.

Oh wait, let's not forget the "Why?" game; which can lead to very detailed discussions of the force of gravity or celestial mechanics while passers-by in a suburban shopping-mall give quizzical looks.

Seriously, the kid's shows have gone to hell, I'm sure there are still a few good examples of children's programming out there, but they seem to be very few and far between.

How does this relate to the Blogfather's post. It doesn't. It just makes me think about Google-zon and the fact that today we're going up to Vulcan, so if anything newsworthy happens there, we'll be on scene with video/photos/reporting.

--Jason

NOTE: The Google-zon link will take some time to load; it's a large flash movie. Check your volume before it starts.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:16 AM | TrackBack

March 17, 2006

What happened?.?.? Tom Cruise happened. . .

"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

-Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Servents of the Dark Lord Xenu

So goes the rather unusual press release by the creators of South Park regarding Comedy Central's decision to yank one of their episodes that criticizes Scientology and specifically, Tom Cruise. The episode, which has aired previously, is causing more of a stir since Isaac Hayes, who voices the character of "Chef" recently decided that he needed to grab some headlines and block for his fellow Scientologist Cruise who's not only dumped little Katie, but has a big budget mega-movie coming out (Mission Impossible 3).

Media control and manipulation is a game in Washington, but it's high art in Hollywood where entertainment reporters and studios/production houses/networks/publicists and actors all work hand in hand to create the "hollyworld" that is Big Entertainment.

Yes, kiddies, just like Big Oil, and Big Pharma, there is a "Big Entertainment", accept this as a truism and your world will become a better place seemingly overnight. Once you realize that BE is merely after those rectangular pieces of paper with green ink smeared all over them which your evil government prints but doesn't guarantee that you have enough of to spend on your every whim or donate to each Sally Struthers appeal for Cheesy Poofs for Africans, you'll be better off, mentally, physically and emotionally.

When I first read that Chef was leaving South Park, I immediately thought it was a practical joke, or a publicity stunt for the rebroadcast of the Scientology episode. The lead-up to the new season is underway and Comedy Central is replaying all the most "controversial" episodes in a heavy rotatation with lots of commericals for the first season. The "Chef leaving" story just seemed to fit with something Parker and Stone might try to pull off, and while it may still be a stunt, I'm going to have to run with the idea that suddenly Chef saw the upcoming re-run of the Scientology episode as a threat to his religion, offensive or some such. Personally, I think it's bollocks, or more appropriately, Chef's Salty Bollocks, but whatever.

South Park, like Carlos Mencia (most excellent comedian by the way, catch him on Comedy Central as well), is an equal opportunity offender. Parker and Stone are two after my own head and heart and I have laughed, cried and even . . . well, lets just say, I was waiting for a commercial, then started laughing and well. . . . new pants. Yeah, their stuff can be that funny. It's also, HIGHLY OFFENSIVE to damn near everyone at one point or another, but that's part of it's genius. It's offensive, but with a message, and 99 times out of 100, that message is overwhelmingly positive.

We've seen the South Park kids tackle Islam, Judasim, Fundamental Christianity and most of the other "Big Religions", we've seen them attack the far left and the far right, the celibate, gays and straights have all been their targets, you name it, they've probably blasted it (TIMMAY!!!!!). If they haven't? Just wait, it's coming in a future episode, don't worry. (TIMMAY!!!)

So is Chef grabbing headlines for himself, blocking for Tom Cruise, playing martyr for L. Ron Hubbard, in on the joke or is he just trying to end his ten year run on South Park in a way that his agent thinks will absolve him in the eyes of Big Entertainment for all the years of slams and digs he was a part of while cavorting with Parker and Stone? Who knows.

I'm more interested in the "over the top" way that Parker and Stone will dispose of Chef's character. I'm certain they won't take this lying down and it'll be painful (in a good way) to see what they do to Chef, and I can't wait. Although apparantly I'll have to wait, as the next season is in the can and we won't see Chef written out until the following season comes. Which on a good note gives some time for the controversy to die down and Isaac Hayes can come back as a Guest Star to voice Chef's demise. That is, of course, assuming that Isaac Hayes does in fact share Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls.

BUT. . . . .

This Comedy Central yanking of the Scientology episode is just STOO-PID. Or genious, who knows, but I do know that Parker and Stone are coming out on top of this one eventually. For any Scientologist to try to "go after" South Park is a HUGE mistake. It's a totally unwinnable fight to defend a religion created as fiction and then hijacked by some actors to set up a perpetual pyramid scheme of "yes people" funneling money back and forth to one another through "religious donations" is not something that can be defended when the light of day is shined upon it.

If any Scientologists decide to pursue this, in even the slighest way, it'll be the "jump the shark" moment for the nutball religion of Travolta and Cruise. Personally I think it's JtS moment was long ago, but it seems to hang on.

It's simple really, Parker and Stone could care less who's offended and who's happy with their work, they love the work and they love the characters just as much as they think their messages are important. They do the work first and put the soapbox second, that's what makes the HONESTY of their positions come through and resonate with the viewers. While the soapbox is integral to what is "South Park", the soapbox never takes over the work and warps the entire production. Parker and Stone have reached a balance point with their viewers between message and amusement, and I, for one, am a better person for it.

Yes, I am a South Park Republican.

--Jason

PS - And now, without further ado, lets have that South Park Scientology episode, shall we???

Click that triangle in the circle above and the episode will play in a few moments.

NOTE: Please drop me a note in the comments if the video quits working so I can take down the player. Currently, as of 9A Monday, it's working. It can take up to a minute to start playing so please be patient.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:44 AM | TrackBack

March 13, 2006

I feel like I've graduated. . .

Just scanning through the logs/lists and other paraphenalia that go along with running a blog and I noticed this little gem of a comment from someone who fancies themselves as "Your Nightmare" (I'm guessing that means a nightmare to the proprietor of the blog, namely me):

I'm sorry to see such a pathetic race of people such as yourself. The civil war is coming to America and your on the hit list. I do support the troops only in as far as bringing every last one home. But anyone who thinks this war in Iraq was justified or necessary should be tortured and killed.

The comment was in response to this post, which is ironically titled "If this pisses you off, go away. . .", the post is a video taken of a Marine in Iraq singing a parody song based in part on a theme presented by Matt Parker and Trey Stone, of South Park fame, in their great movie, Team America: World Police.

The irony just abounds, and I feel so priviledged to get great commenters like "Nightmare" above. I wonder, should I be nervous? Is this finally the "jihad on me" that I've been so anxiously awaiting????

Does this mean I've grown up a bit and now I'm an adolescent blogger instead of just a baby blogger???? Who knows.

I'm doubting that this "Nightmare" will cause me to lose much sleep.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:54 PM | TrackBack

March 9, 2006

Ah, New Orleans gets the shaft again. . .

Now I bet you'll think that I'm talking about the storm system that's bearing down on Lousisiana threatening tornados. Well, I'm not.

I'm talking about the "Dubai Ports Deal". Are you looking at your screen like a dog does when he hears a high pitched whistle???

How can the two be connected? I'll tell ya.

Dubai Ports World knows ports. I mean they REALLY know ports, of all the companies in the world, DPW is probably the most efficient and effective managers of seaports there is. They've built some of the most sophisticated and efficient cargo handling operations on the planet, from Dubai, to Hong Kong, wherever you found large concentrations of ships and cargo containers you found DPW. They found their niche and became the worlds best player at the game of shuffling cargo containers on and off ships.

DPW is the world leader in automated handling of cargo containers. Whereever they've gone they've installed automated cranes, robotic trucks and computerized container storage yards and dramatically increased the efficiency of the port facilities they operate.

Now it seems they're about to be cut out of a market that desperately needs their expertise, and more importantly, their money and investement.

One of the port facilities . . . . OK, I'm going to stop here for a second and point out a few things.

PORT SECURITY - Port Security WAS NOT, I repeat WAS NOT being turned over to DPW. The deal was this: DPW would lease some land within a designated "port area" and offload and onload ships into a yard where US Customs would inspect and oversee the "border" within the ports. Security would have remained a U.S. responsibility.

It should also be pointed out that in MOST of our ports, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Venezeula, Great Britain, France, Germany, China, Taiwan, South Korea and many more nations have entities like DPW that are CURRENTLY operating facilities within U.S. ports.

This ridiculous and false debate is NOTHING MORE THAN partisan politics, racism and ignorance combining to conspire against Dubai and Arabs in general. It's sickening in that sense alone, but wait. . . .there's more.

The port of New Orleans was devastated by Katrina, container yards, loading facilities and critical port infrastructure was largely destroyed by the storm, flooding and inattention after the storm as the companies that operated the facilities largely disappeared when their employees left town.

One of the most attractive portions of the DPW deal was the acquisition of leases for property in the Port of New Orleans. Making it more attractive was the need to completely rebuild the port facilities and making it even more attractive was that now there's actually an opportunity to expand port operations in New Orleans as the city is rebuilt in a more sensible and practical way. The Port of New Orleans was hemmed in, slums, housing projects and lower to middle class neighborhoods cramped any efforts to expand the port, sending business AND MONEY out of the city into St. Bernard parish, Baton Rouge and east and west along the intracoastal canal.

Katrina opened up whole new possibilities for New Orleans to become a MODERN PORT FACILITY. In fact, the possibility that the Port of New Orleans could be completely reworked was perhaps the one shining light in the entirety of the Katrina disaster.

Mardi Gras won't save New Orleans, tourism is only icing on the cake that is New Orleans. New Orleans is a port, it's always been a port as it will always be a port. New Orleans is the primary gateway for all those within the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Red River watersheds to get their products to the open sea via water, the most cost efficient way to ship products long distances. New Oreleans was also the primary gateway for products coming into those markets. Take a look at a map of the nation and look at those three watersheds and the smaller ones that feed into them, New Orelans in many ways is the beginning and the end of domestic shipping for a large portion of the nation.

Katrina has given us the opportunity to expand, upgrade and enhance the Port of New Orleans. It was (and may still be be) our opportunity to create a seaport that was the rival of the world, unconstrained by zoning and neighborhoods preventing an efficient layout of the port. This was the opportunity to FIX so so so many problems with the Port of N.O. It was the opportunity to develop an automated system to handle cargo by offloading, scanning, monitoring, inspecting, TAXING and loading shipments in the most effective way possible.

DPW realized this opportunity and like any good business who's business was ports would, they struck a deal to get in on this exceptional opportunity.

There aren't many players in the port game at this level. In the United States we have Haliburton, in Israel they have Zim, in Dubai, they have DPW, the Brits have P&O, et cetera, et cetera. All of these players work together wherever you find large concentrations of ships and containers. All of these players come together wherever a nation puts its ports of entry.

Now, at the time we need international cooperation on international shipping the most, we've told one of our allies, both in business and in the GWOT to essentially go away, that we dont' want them to do business with us anymore. The players in this game (and that's what it's become, a game) are effectively stiff-arming New Orleans once again, and I'll suggest that their motives are far from honest and sincere once they step in front of the cameras.

On one front you have the President and the Administration, who approved the deal because it MET ALL OF THE REQUIREMENTS THAT CONGRESS LAID OUT. That's right, the Administration, through it's bureaucracy that transcends President Bush or any individual, put the DPW deal through the mill and checked it off against all the requirements that Congress had set forth. The DPW deal is a good deal. It's a deal we've done time and time again within our ports, it's a deal we make with numerous nations, Arab, Caucasian, Black, Asian, it's a deal that before now was blind to race, but GUESS WHAT? The Democrats (through Reid and Schumer) led the racist charge to bring this deal down and they convinced a number of Republicans to come along for this hate-fest through misinformation, fear and spin.

No one talked about New Orleans and the need to rebuild the port operations there from scratch, but BOY O BOY were they ready to LIE about "turning over security". No one talked about automated efficient cargo handling like they have in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Dubai or some of the major ports of Europe, but BOY O BOY were they ready to destroy the reputation and goodwill of one of our allies in the GWOT. No one talked about the reality of the deal, they only gave out the false soundbites, the false claims that security was at risk, and misleading assertions that the "port" would be taken over.

When I talk to people about the ports deal, they believe that it means the entire port would be taken over in various U.S. cities. Why do they think this? Because the media tells them so, even though the media knows it's untrue. It's easier and more effective to their purposes to scare and mislead than it is to tell the truth and explain what it means. People are also under the impression that there is a security threat, when exactly the opposite is true.

How can the opposite be true??? Well lets see there for a second. With more efficiency comes more time, with more time you can do more. Makes sense doesn't it???

So here's the kicker. DPW wanted to install automated loading, offloading and handling systems in their port facilities much like what they have installed in other places. By automating many of these processes you gain time, and time is what port security needs most. The reason that only 5% of containers coming into this country are inspected is because the offloading of ships is so inefficient. Every available shortcut is taken by companies to get cargo off ships and onto trucks because port facilities are generally too small and cramped. Containers now in many places come straight off a ship and are dropped onto a truck which passes through an inspection station and then moves out into the city. A majority of cargo coming into the country comes in just this way. It's rarely inspected in our ports other than a quick glance at the manifest, maybe someone walks around the truck with a radiation detector and maybe a dog sniffs the back end of the truck, but that's it, mostly cargo just sails on through.

DPW offered a partial solution in their automated cargo handling systems. By using automated cranes to transfer containers to automated shuttles you gained time. The actual unloading of the ships is dramatically increased and the congestion and chaos of the yard is replaced with the quiet hum of electric motors as automated shuttles ferry containers through a radiation detector, place suspect containers aside for customs inspection and move the bulky cargo away from the docks into holding yards where there is time (and in the case of New Orleans, ROOM) to actually undertake systematic inspections of containers on a grand scale. When you're paying people by the hour to sit in the cab of a truck and wait for inspectors to look at the cargo, money gets wasted and people get sloppy. No one cares about a robotic shuttle sitting still or going in circles back and forth to inspection stations, the computers won't complain about wasted time and not enough mileage. Robots don't argue with customs agents that they need to get on the road so they can get home early for their kids recital.

DPW wanted into the U.S. market in a greater capacity then they already had been. Yes, Dubai already has operations in the U.S., they bring in oil and natural gas to numerous terminals, and have shipping and receiving terminals in many ports across the U.S. The facilities that P&O operated were much sought after leases within the 6 ports in question, but the jewel of the deal, make no bones about it was the Port of New Orleans and the opportunity to create a world class port facility in New Orleans and turn the tragedy of Katrina into a godsend for a city that so desperately needed it.

But yes, fear, racism and partisan politics once again conspire to keep New Orleans down. Just like the idiocy of the reports of mass murders and rapes and lies about the events dominated coverage of Katrina, and continue to do so today, lies and misinformation dash hopes for a truely world class port facility to be developed in New Orleans.

I probably won't revisit this topic again, I'm pretty sick of spineless Republicans and fear-mongering Democrats and their treatment of this issue. I'll close by saying that when all is said and done, I'll tell you who's going to be controlling these port facilities now that the deal is killed. I'm sure we'll hear cries of foul and evil Bushhitler dirty tricks when it's said and done.

I'll tell you though, this new entity, when you look at who they really are, will be shown simply to be the company I mentioned in this post three weeks ago.

New Orleans gets screwed again. Of course people will say that it's all Bush's fault again. To be honest, it seems like the entire federal government on both sides of the aisle and in every agency is against New Orleans, add to that the mayor and governor too. It seems like the only one who is actually on the side of New Orleans, is the President. Go figure.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:03 PM

March 8, 2006

If this pisses you off, go away. . .

Because I think it's absolutely hilarious.

The audio is a bit hot, so be ready to turn it down, and you may not understand all the lyrics at first, but give it a little bit and I promise it gets better. About half way through, you'll be tempted to turn it off because you'll feel like it's run it's course, but I encourage you to stay with it for the entire video.

If you don't find it funny, well, let's just say that if you don't, then, you're not really my target demographic, OK?

If the embedded player isn't working for you, you can click here.

A small bit of commentary below the fold. . .

Now I know SOME people are going to find this offensive, but I'd suggest that anyone who doesn't realize the stress and the activitiy levels of our troops in harms way, also won't recognize that humor is their way of coping with being far from home, doing a tough job and most importantly, battling the feelings that people at home aren't behind them.

I post this because A) I find it hilarious, B) I like poking those who would find it offensive and C) I really support the boys and girls in harm's way and can empathize with their desire to lash back a little by using humor.

So before you fire off that 10 page hate mail missive to me, just realize that if this offends you, and you bitch at me about it, I'm just going to laugh at you.

Also, lets just say that if you snipe at me or have a problem with me, that's cool, take a swipe at the troops or my "target demographic" in comments and I'll delete ya. Got it?

--Jason

UPDATE: Comments are closed due to spambots.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:30 AM

March 6, 2006

Bobsled vs. Rally Car. . . .who wins????

I'm not telling, so you'll just have to watch.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:26 PM | TrackBack

February 17, 2006

The international language of. . ..

"Common Sense."

First found via my favorite web diva.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:43 AM | TrackBack

February 16, 2006

Ok, I don't watch it, but that doesn't mean I live in a cave. . . .

American Idol, that bane on humanity that is also the biggest and baddest TV show on the block despite the fact that so many people actually despise it.

For the record, I despise it.

Nonetheless, I live Birmingham, Alabama, so like Natalee Holloway (which I refrain from commenting much on for fear of lynchings or vigils on my lawn) I can't avoid hearing about it, and although I don't comment on Idol all that much, that doesn't stop people from commenting to me about it. (I'm talking in person here, not blog-commentary, that's now changed though.)

A blog reader (who must be shy, since they don't want their name revealed) asks why I don't comment on Taylor Hicks, the Birmingham contestant who's made it to the final 12/12 (that's 12 guys and 12 gals). The answer I'm afraid is simple. . . I didn't know he'd made it because I don't watch the show (that's not entirely true, but I'll get to that in a second).

I did know that Taylor Hicks was Birmingham's "contestant du season" for Idol, and I also knew that like Ruben Studdard (who was top dawg in Season 2) and Bo Bice (#2 in season 4), Taylor was just a little out of the ordinary for typical Idol finalists. In case you do live in a cave here's a picture to explain what I mean.

Yep, he's got gray hair, he's a geezer, a fogey, and he’s one step away from pushing up daisies. OK, well, actually he's only 29 and I've got 5 years on him, but that hair??? Even I don't have gray hair yet and I'm an old codger by comparison.

With the age comes experience though, and Taylor Hicks may be the most experienced contestant Idol has had yet make it to this level of competition. Sure Bo had a band, and so did Ruben, and both were older than your average Idol finalist; but Taylor Hicks has played with the likes of James Brown, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Drive by Truckers, and Percy Sledge.

Now despite reader comments and the general rumors that we're putting something in the water to boost our Idol candidates to stardom, there's nothing special about Birmingham (well actually there is, but it's not related to enhancing musical talent) and there's no secret tie between Simon, Paula or Randy and the Magic City. I think we're just a moderate to large Southern City that attracts and develops talent of all types and our proximity to Atlanta makes it easy for our kids to head over and audition.

Now I said I don't watch the show, but that's not entirely true. I try to catch the season premiere (actually my mother has tricked me into watching it the last 3 years) so I can see the truly horrid auditions and laugh/cry about the foolishness of people chasing their dream to be an "Idol". I also try to catch an episode or two at the end, and if there's a Birmingham or New Orleans contestant, I take down the voting number for them and fire off a couple of votes. Otherwise I could care less about it. It's not a show I can sit down and watch, nor do I care for the inflated dramas about contestants sleeping with judges, who's being mean to whom, the antics of young kids in Hollywood also don't interest me (I've done the young kid in Hollywood thing myself).

Living in Birmingham forces you to at least feign some level of caring about Idol, just like it forces one to acknowledge that Natalee is still missing and that the Aruban's botched the investigation when then tried to pin it on the security guards right off the bat. When I'm out of town people also ask about Taylor. "Have you seen him live? Is he popular in Birmingham?" Answers - No, and "a little." American Idol has now even barged its way into my blog, a reader forced me to pay homage to Taylor Hicks and now I feel just a little dirty about it.

All that being said, good luck to the home team, Go Taylor Go! Keep up the good work and. . .

Magic City Represent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--Jason

PS - As I prepare to hit the Save button, I can't help but think that this will just lead to hits I don't necessarily want and spam I'll just have to manually delete and hundreds of young kids who have no clue about most of the thing I talk about here will visit. Hopefully a few will look around, and even give a comment or two on things they find interesting. So in a way I'm making Taylor Hicks my blog-ambassador to a younger and probably "cooler" audience. Either that or on some subconscious level I'm just Google-whoring for hits. I don't know. At least I got the opportunity to answer some reader mail and give some props to Birmingham.

Click here for the blog's Main Page.

-JC

**Comments are closed for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:48 AM

February 15, 2006

More of what the MSM won't show you. . . .

Something tells me that you'll never see an article about this type of reconstruction in Iraq in the New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, nor will you probably see it on ABC, NBC or CBS.

Yes, that's in IRAQ, and so is this.

To find out about this kind of reconstruction. You'll have to look to the blogs. This time, you'll specifically have to check out Michael Totten, who's taken to blogging directly from the Middle East. Until recently he was living and blogging in Lebanon, and now he's taken his laptop and digicam to Iraq.

Have a look around his site at MichaelTotten.com, when you're done there, check out Michael Yon.

The MSM is dying on the vine, I'm just glad we have something to take it's place.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:29 PM | TrackBack

February 14, 2006

YEE HA! Look at it go. . . .

So what caused this?

Let's see, Oil under $60, John Deere is up (lawn care), KB Home and Toll Brothers are up (houses), retail sales are up (everything), Qwest is up, Coca-Cola is up this is up that is up, OMG things are up all over!!!!!

Boy what a shitty economy we have here.

Just think where we'd be without 9-11, two wars, a bundle of hurricanes and a slew of Democrats trying to be Chicken Little at every turn.

Happy Valentine's Day!

--Jason

**Comments are closed for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:44 PM

February 10, 2006

Someone's missing the obvious question. . . .

And that question is:

Who's head is it and why isn't it still attached to their body????

I'm glad that the woman has been detained for "failing to declare the head and transporting hazardous material in air commerce", but come on, shouldn't we be asking just a wee bit more about this?????

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:08 PM | TrackBack

February 8, 2006

Back again. . .

Back from another trip to New Orleans. This time I'm returning with pictures and video from the French Quarter and the Ninth Ward as well as new photos and such from Abramson High School. I'm working on editing up the video into web-friendly segments and putting copyrights on all the pictures, so bear with.

More, much more, coming tomorrow, just wanted to give my RSS subscribers a heads up.

If you're stopping by for some other reason and want to get caught up to speed, Click Here.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:30 PM | TrackBack

February 1, 2006

Somehow. . .

I don't think THIS is what THEY had in mind.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:15 PM | TrackBack

January 31, 2006

Oh this is too good. . . . (It's in the Koran!)

Give it a bit to load and then click play. . .

It's in the Koran!

As always, give it a few seconds to load then click play, and PLEASE, no hot-linking. Link to the page, and that's great, but please don't just steal my bandwith without referencing, it's just uncool.

UPDATE: Google Video was originally serving the video but in their march toward Dhimmitude, they've taken it down. Never fear however, I had a copy laying around and am now glad to serve it up for ya.

Oh yeah, and just for Googles sake, lemme put in some keywords here: It's in the Koran song plus lyrics and audio, Islam's Not for Me.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:11 AM | TrackBack

OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!!

PLEASE LET HER RUN! PLEASE, PLEASE, LET HER RUN!!!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:11 AM | TrackBack

January 26, 2006

Just a quick game. . .

It's actually quite fun once you get past the first few levels.

Give it a try.

--Jason

EDIT: I fixed the link, thanks to Mr. Big from SamanthaBurns.com for pointing out the error.
-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:00 PM | TrackBack

January 23, 2006

It's as if. . . .

Mother Nature creeped up on the libbies and leaned in close to their ear and then screamed:

HA! There's your Global Warming for ya!

Seriously tho', I don't subscribe to the Global Warming nonsense. Sure there's evidence that the earth is getting warmer, but there's also evidence that it's getting colder. There's plenty of evidence that our Sun is cranking out more energy than ever before and that our planet and it's various ecosystems are responding in kind.

[NOTE:It's important to realize that our Sun is going to keep getting hotter and hotter over geologic/astronomic time until it cooks us right off the planet and absorbs the Earth into it's ever expanding disk just a few million years before it collapses back upon itself. So if you want to bitch about "global warming" and use the SUN as your boogeyman, that's fine, but pretending that WE HUMANS are the culprit is just ludicrous at this point in our scientific/industrial evolution.]

In essence for me, it just seems as if we simply don't have enough of a grasp of global climate change or even the global climate in general to understand what the last 100 or so years of data means. That's really all we have ya know, about 100 years of "somewhat" reliable data on temperatures. Not to mention that MOST of that 100 years of data was collected within big concrete heatsinks that make up our cities. Those sinks keep getting bigger as cities grow so it's not really surprising that collecting data in our universities and our city-based weather bureaus over the past 10 or so decades has skewed the temperature data upwards. We're doing much better now with satellites since people began pointing out the heatsink effect of cities.

There are plenty in the Global Warming crowd that will harp that we have THOUSANDS of years of data, but that's mostly theoretical data at best and wholely fabricated at worst. Although I do just LOVE this graphic from the IPCC via the Wall Street Journal some time back.

In all intellectual honesty we simply don't have enough information to say that WE are doing THIS or doing THAT with regard to the climate, even with ice cores and tree ring fossils.

Sure pollution is bad, but industrialized societies compensate for pollution with wealth. Yep, I said it, wealth. Think about it for a second. I'm not rich, rich, rich, but I'm Bill Gates when it comes to most of the third world, and I do something with that wealth that many people take for granted. I landscape my yard. That's right. I have a lawn, I have flowerbeds, I have trees and schrubbery that not only enhance the value and appearance of my property, but also absorb far more CO2 and produce more O2 than the same piece of property would if left to the natural state. I'm not alone either, there are MILLIONS of us doing this. Think about it.

Now I'm not about to say that nice lawns and landscaping are the cure for global warming, but I do know this, they certainly help quite a bit. In case you hadn't noticed, North America is a NET ABSORBER of CO2 (That's one of dem der "greenhouse gasses" ya know). Yep, that's right, even with all our cars, our power plants, fireplaces and heavy industry, we still absorb more CO2 than we crank out. I suggest that's mainly because of our land use practices, especially our more modern ones (post WW2). We rarely let land go to "waste" in the United States. We do hold some aside and we do have some that doesn't appear to be doing anything, but the vast majority of land in the U.S. is managed in one way or another.

That management can take many different forms, it could be local and individual, as in the case of my house, which is surrounded by a green lawn in summer, regularly watered and cut so it's always growing and cranking out O2 and absorbing CO2 at a fair clip. I also spread rye grass in the winter to keep a lawn growing, then I have fruit trees, decorative cypress, some schrubbery and plenty of other decorative plants which I try to keep healty and do my best to avoid them becoming deer food (which I'll come back to later), as well as another area set aside in it's natural state to provide a bit of habitat for critters, birds and the like.

There's also the big agri-business land use and management on the other end of the scale. The United States produces ALOT of vegetation for foodstuffs, and that vegetation has a significant impact on the CO2 level. This vegetation has also been selected, domesticated and hybridized to produce a fast growing crop, maximizing both the amount of food produced and also the amount of CO2 and O2 processed and produced (not necessarily intended, but definately a benefit). We grow far more than we need as a "people" and then we sell the extra to others who don't grow quite so much because either they can't, they won't or they try and fail to produce enough to feed their own people. We also grow alot of food for fun (private gardens which hardly every outproduce commerical farms economically) and then we do strange things like grow corn in Indiana, ship it to Alabama and then spread it out in our backyards to encourage a deer population that's already over-abundant to visit our yards and eat our ryegrass, but hopefully not to eat the pansies in the front yard or kill our fruit trees (go figure).

Then we have trees. Lot's and lots of trees. The libbies are going to react to that statement and bitch and whine about logging, but that's ridiculous. Responsible logging, like that practiced in North America and most other industrialized areas of the world, is GOOD for the environment. Sure, it might be better, if we let wildfires rage out of control every few years to take out our older forests, but managing the forest seems to be a little better for all concerned. So we cut down a tree and we plant 7 in it's place, and those 7 young trees are going to process more CO2 and produce more Oxygen over a given reasonable period of time than that one older tree did. Then that tree is going to be processed into lumber for a house that's going to have a lawn and landscaping around it. So yeah, I'll say it. Logging is GOOD for the environment.

I know this is all VERY VERY simplistic, but I didn't really intend to write this at all. I just wanted to point out that just when you think the clamor about Global Warming can't get any louder or be any more insane, Mother Nature herself tosses us a curveball to just point out how little we actually do know and throw all the proconceived notions about climate change and how evil us humans are right out the window.

I also love the recent "Global Warming CAUSED by plants" info that's recently surfaced. Showing that we plainly and simply have no freaking idea what we've been talking about, are talking about or think we might be talking about.

So in short, Europe, break out the winter gear, it's probably going to continue to be a chilly one for you. As for me, I'll keep working on my lawn and hope that one day I can match my Dad's skills in cultivating the perfect patch of grass. For the rest of you out there, stop worrying so much about global warming and start concentrating on just being good to yourself and those around you, get yourself a hybrid if you're worried about it, grow some plants, blacktop that driveway instead of concrete, or vice versa (think about reflection vs. absorbsion) and stop worrying about Global Warming (which we don't really know exists anyway).

I suggest you start worrying about REAL ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS, like the nutcase in Iran who can't wait to start splitting the atom in the open atmosphere in order to bring about the 12th coming or something like that. Freaking nutcase.

How's that for a RANT!!!

Oh yeah, there's always THIS IDEA too.

--Jason

PS - The above was provoked by someone who e-mailed that I hadn't been ranting enough on my blog lately. Is that good enough for ya!?!?!?!?!

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:15 PM | TrackBack

January 16, 2006

On this of all days. . .

On the annual observance of "Martin Luther King Day", a day when it's suggested that people reflect on the legacy of Martin Luther King and the principles he stood for. A day when people should take a moment and think about the "One Nation" and about the "liberty and equality for all" and about King's, dreams.

Among those was King's dream that one day this nation would be:

"where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers"

We now present Ray Nagin, soon to be ex-mayor of New Oreleans (hopefully). . . Go ahead, click the play button. I dare ya.

CLICK HERE for the "Chocolate City" video clip.

Oh, oh, but wait, that's not all . . . Nagin's channeling Pat Robertson as well. . . just in case you weren't confused, befuddled or dumbfounded enough already, click here for more.

I could probably type for hours about how angry I am, how totally offensive, counter-productive and hypocritical Nagin is; but I won't, I'm just going to leave it there, and point to it whenever someone trys to drag out the "racist" crap when speaking of Katrina and her aftermath. I'll tell you where the racists were and ARE, they're right up there in those videos, and Ray Nagin has become their leader apparently.

As Ian asks, "Is that a “black power” swastika on his shoulder?"

Sick I tell ya, I'm just sick over this, and sick because the main stream media will give Nagin a pass, they will gloss right over this and pretend it never actually happened.

Oh well, while I got ya. Go back and read this and this about Nagin's success as Mayor of New Orleans. I no longer have mixed feelings, Nagin's got to go.

--Jason

PS, If you'd like to have your own copy of that little gem by Nagin to send to friends and family and don't want to link here, just RIGHT CLICK HERE and "Save As. . .", or for the God comments, right click here and "Save As. . . "

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:59 PM | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

Dammit people. . .

LOOK! If you really want the rest of us to rebuild New Orleans, ya'll have just got to stop doing stupid stuff like THIS!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:46 PM | TrackBack

January 9, 2006

In case you hadn't noticed. . . . .

I'm not so amazed we got there, I'm amazed it held until close. I really thought the 2PM profit taking would force it under 11K for the close, but another late rally pushed it back up.

WOOT!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:57 PM | TrackBack

December 20, 2005

What the hell???????

There's been an EARTHQUAKE in Louisana? Talk about insult to injury. I guess it wasn't that big a deal though, the affected area is made of soft alluvial deposits so there's plenty of soft wet ground to "buffer" the quake.

It is damn strange though.

The quake's epicenter was approximately halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge and about eighteen miles down.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:44 PM | TrackBack

December 18, 2005

Clap. . . Clap. . .

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:16 PM | TrackBack

Just for fun. . .

There's not alot "fun" to say about Katrina or it's aftermath, but you have to look on the bright side sometimes and other times you just need a laugh to get through the day. So to start off a series of posts about Katrina, New Orleans and how things are progressing, here's a little tune to start with. . .

Downtown Got Run Over By Katrina (.wma format - 2 megs)

Before anyone writes me hate mail saying how insensitive this is, GET OVER YOURSELF. They're playing this on the radio in New Orleans and no one there is offended, so you shouldn't be either.

UPDATE: From commenter, Lenrose Fears:

"Downtown Got Run Over By Katrina" is performed by the Pascagoula High School Boys' Impact Show Choir from Mississippi. Please give them credit. For more info on the song, go to www.kicker108.com and read all about it. Oh, yes, CDs will be available for purchase soon, so BUY one and help out the boys' choir.

Thanks for the info Lenrose, let me know when CD's go on sale.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:14 AM | TrackBack

December 8, 2005

Notice. . .

I may throw up a few things later today, but I'm getting ready to head down to New Orleans for a few days to help some family and survey the situation for myself once again. Check out my previous Katrina / New Orleans postings here. I expect to add quite a bit more commentary on the progress or lack thereof being made in New Orleans post Katrina when I get back. Today however is taken up with errands, packing, getting batteries charged and what-not.

More to come next week.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:01 PM

December 6, 2005

Weighing in on the "War on Christmas". . .

As an atheist, I occasionally get drawn into discussions/questions about the "War on Christmas" debate which seems to raise it's head every year round about this time (go figure?).

I'm not a Mike Newdow atheist, screaming to high-whatever to have "In God We Trust" removed from money and I certainly don't advocate the elimination of the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States (and to the Republic for which it stands). I'm more of an atheist who realized long ago that there were significant failings with regard to the belief in a supreme diety, this led to an examination of most of the major religions and then finally a rejection of the concept of a God-construct in general. I'm more of a "common sense" atheist, who realizes that I'm part of a team, and that team just so happens to have ALOT of Christians on it. I like my Christian teammates and while I don't necessary agree with their God-construct, I don't begrudge them for it, I don't want to try and convince them of my views on the subject, and generally, I just leave well-enough alone and work on my own belief system about what's right and what's wrong.

BUT. . . invariably when the "War on Christmas" debate popps up, people ask for my position, as an atheist, on it.

So here it is. I DIG CHRISTMAS, I mean, I really, really dig Christmas. I like the cheesy lights, I like the fun, family oriented movies (although we don't have any this year *frown*), I like Christmas sweaters on chicks, I like getting Christmas cards, I like the idea of putting a dying tree inside my house, wrapping it in lights, and trying to keep it from spontaneously combusting for a month as it dries out.

I also like Hanukkah, and the concept of the "Hanukkah Bush", I like the idea of Kwanza (although honestly I have no real idea what it's all about), I like the idea of Christmas carollers freezing their butts off going door to door singing off key. I even like the rampant consumerism and insane traffic at malls and department stores. I dig the chaos of the season in general.

I also like the Christmas "spirit" that puts more smiles on peoples faces and the random acts of kindness from total strangers. I like the Christmas stories and their messages of peace, love and joy. I like mistletoe and eggnog.

Ok, so do you get it now??? I'm and atheist and I DIG CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

So what's the point of this post? Ok, well here it is.

When people ask me for my opinion on the whole "War on Christmas" thing. I usually begin by asking the following question:

ME: Well, lets see, hmmm, well, what would you call a Christmas Tree if you didn't call it a Christmas Tree?
THEM: Um, well. . . . A "Holiday Tree".

ME: Well, you see, AS AN ATHEIST, I have to strenuously object to the term "Holiday Tree".

THEM: Wha Wha Waht?

ME: It's simple really, you see, "Christmas Tree" means a tree you put up for Christmas, which is a day. That day happens to be December 25th, and to some people, that's an important religious date, and to others, it's a day off from work and a good opportunity to hang out with family you normally avoid, BUT the term "Holiday Tree" means alot more, and what it means is offensive to me.

**At this point I have to be very careful, because there's a real danger of the questioner's head exploding.**

ME: You see the word "Holiday" means "Holy Day" and I'm atheist. I can't support a "Holy Day Tree" or a "Holy Day Anything" because I don't believe in the concept of "Holy".

So there you have it, and I'm not afraid to say it. Those that want to make issue of "Christmas" and choose instead to use the terminology "Holiday" are the most hypocritical of hypocrits in my book. Many of these so-called-atheists are merely attention-seekers or people pushing an agenda that they don't want to admit openly. So they hide behind a "multi-cultural" or "atheist" label and make proclamations that "Christmas Tree" or "Merry Christmas" should be changed to "Holiday Tree" or "Happy Holidays".

I'm sorry, but AS AN ATHEIST, the term "Holiday" is FAR MORE OFFENSIVE than the term "Christmas". Christmas means alot of things to alot of people, and it means different things to different people. For some it's all about Christ in the Manger, for others it's a Pagan Winter Solstice Festival, for some it's just a day off from work, and for others it's about a guy in a red suit who comes down your chimney and trades you a new bike for some milk and cookies.

But the word "Holiday" means "Holy Day", there's no other etymology for the term, and as a REAL atheist, I just can't support that.

So there you have an atheist's view on the "War on Christmas", now you can tell all those fake wannabe atheists and multi-cultural warriors to shut up, chill out, have some eggnog, love thy neighbor, be merry, wrap presents, smile and LEAVE CHRISTMAS ALONE!

--Jason

UPDATE: Welcome, Riehl World View, SondraK and Cake or Death readers, thanks for stopping by. The main page is here, and maybe, just maybe you'll be interested in my Katrina Photos and Posts and the Taliban Bodies Story.

-JC

ANOTHER UPDATE: Due to spambots, comments on this entry are closed. If you have something you'd like to add about this, please email comments to comments [-AT-] jasoncoleman.com. --Thanks

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:26 PM

December 5, 2005

Is my neighbor trying to tell me something. . .

with this in his doorway?

Actually there's a bit of backstory here. It started with me (go figure) putting up a few Christmas lights on my house, mine were the first in the neighborhood, but nothing like this or this.

So my lights prompted my neighbor to go out and buy a small herd of those wire-frame animated deer for his front yard, and that's when things went downhill. Two nights after the wireframe deer appeared, another neighbor took some red Christmas lights and used them to create bullseye's on the deer. These were promptly removed (even though I thought it was hilarious) and a note was attached to the deer:

"Hey man, I've got kids, please don't vandalize the deer."

A day later, the Grinch appeared to grace our neighborhood.

Personally, I love the Grinch being around, and since my neighbors are rather an independent free thinking lot, he's actually quite the appropriate figure to grace "the hood."

--Jason

PS Sorry the pic is a bit blurry, if I can dodge his Rottweiller again I'll try to snag a better one.

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:11 PM | TrackBack

November 29, 2005

So now we're dangerous. . .

This story is getting a bit of press today.

For those that don't like clicking on links, the story tells how Quantas and Air New Zealand now have a policy that forbids seaing an unaccompanied child next to. . . wait for it. . . . a man.

I'll bet you thought I'd say something like . . . a clown, or maybe an Arab between the ages of 17 and 35, or maybe a priest. Alas, no, the new Quantas and ANZ policy just keeps it simple. No unaccompanied kids next to men, period.

The big guy linked to Dr. Helen (isn't that his wife?) about it, and about an hour earlier, I caught mention of the policy on Neil Boortz's radio show. I kept waiting to hear Quantas and ANZ's reasoning for the policy, but that seems to be noticably absent, they confirm the policy, but so far no one seems to know why or how this policy came about.

I myself travelled many times on airliners as an "unaccompanied child" when I spent the summers in sunny California with my grandparents. The experience was always pleasant, even with loud, obnoxious and fat passengers next to me (regardless of their sex) and many times I got bumped up to first class (usually surrounded by MALE business flyers) and I even got quite a few cockpit tours (with the pilots and radio operator being male), even getting to flip a few switches and talk to a tower once.

Now I understand why they don't give kids cockpit tours anymore in this age of Islamofascist terrorism, and I can even understand why they don't give out "wings" (little plastic pilot's wings) to kids. After all, I'm sure some kid was at some time poked himself with the pin and then of course those parents probably sued the airline. (I on the other hand, would poke other people with the pin, usually while standing in the crush of people at the baggage carosel. Hey, I needed to. . . in order to get in close enough to spot and grab my hard sided green suitcase that was bigger than me.) But that's all well and good.

However, I also enjoyed meeting people on the plane. They usually went on and on about how I was such a "brave little boy" for travelling alone (nevermind that I was put into the sealed metal tube of a plane by my Mom and had my brave little hand held by a flight attendant until my Grandparents verified with the airline that they were the party to pick me up, bravery had nothing to do with it). I also met my first TV/Movie star on a plane (forget who it was no, he was on some soap opera and all his movies flopped) and I think I even drummed up a bit of business for my Grandfater (who was in the Ad-Spec biz, which I thought was particularly neat because of all the logo'd cool pens and flashlights and golf-balls) by talking with a male passenger seated next to me on the plane once.

Of course there were times I'd rather have not been seated next to the person the airline tagged me up with. Once there was a very overweight woman who was deathly afraid of flying. That was a fun (NOT!) trip because not only was she digging her fingernails into my arm with each bump, hiss and every time that damn "fasten seat belt" DING sounded, but we landed in New Orleans in the middle of a thunderstorm. I had bruises for a week from this woman grabbing my arm in fear and screaching "Oh my God! Oh my God!" at the top of her lungs for the 25 minute descent into Moisant (now Louis Armstrong) Airport.

This policy, of simply banning male passengers from sitting next to unaccompanied children is RIDICULOUS, in fact, it's actually offensive. Is Quantas and ANZ trying to say that all men are some sort of threat to children? Are we now so politically correct that all men must be hidden and kept away from children because we might infect them with a love of football, construction equipment and all the neato features of today's jumbo jets. Has the politically correct crowd finally convinced our friends down under that all males are a threat?

It really doesn't make any sense to me other than Qantas and ANZ must be sucking up to some activist group like "Women who think Men are Evil!" or some such.

So does anyone have any info on this policy? How or Why it was started or whatever?

Kinda makes me want to book flights on Qantas, get shuffled around the plane a bit and then sue for "gender profiling".

--Jason

**Comments are closed for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:29 PM

November 26, 2005

The first Blogad. . .

You may have noticed that I've got my first Blogad over there on the right. WOOT, Boy Howdy! Am I on my way now or what? People actually want to advertise here (Ok, Ok, that's not entirely true, it's a trade, no money is changing hands.).

I was flattered that someone even offered me the trade. Especially since I'm no longer a "Large Mammal" in the TTLB with the recent changes, more on that in another post which I'll link HERE after it's done.

Not to make this useless, self-serving post any longer, but I do wanna say "Hey, why don't you go take a few minutes and check out the T-Shirts over at FreedomStone, I'll be buying a couple as Christmas Gifts for some Moonbats on my list." It's easier than sending a big lump of coal through the mail, and it'll tick 'em off. So it's a win win.

I think this will be the one I send:

--Jason

**Comments for this entry are now closed. If you'd like to add something, please email me.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:11 AM

November 23, 2005

Death by Indictment. . .

Here's an interesting post I came across today. It raises some points to consider when businesses are subject to indictment. I'm sure I'll be coming back to this once the Tom Delay indictment is tossed out on its ear and everyone is talking about malicious prosecution by partisan district attorneys.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:47 PM | TrackBack

November 22, 2005

Preferences. . .

I liked Pajamas Media better anyway.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:30 AM | TrackBack

November 16, 2005

This is a test. . . this is only a test

Of Google Maps

But it doesn't seem to be working.

--Jason

UPDATE: I guess I should have been more specific, it's the Movable Type plugin "MTGoogleMaps" that isn't working. I'll keep trying to figure it out tho.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:12 AM | TrackBack

November 14, 2005

I mentioned this briefly before. . .

But since I'm about to go work on the techie stuff behind the blog, I've got "blog-things" on the brain. So lemme point your to Aaron's Deck o' Bloggers. Just a fun little project to play on the Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards and have a bit of fun with the bloggin community.

So why am I mentioning this again? Well two reasons. Firstly, because I want you to go here and VOTE FOR "SondraK"! That's right, go here and VOTE FOR SondraK! Why should you vote for SondraK? Well, in a word, her blog rocks and it's a great source of stuff to make you laugh, cry, get mad or get happy. All the things a blog is supposed to be and really none of what this blog is all about.

So go here and "Vote for SondraK"

NOTE: Voting takes place in the left hand sidebar. So go VOTE FOR SONDRAK.

The second reason I'm mentioning this is I just want to raise awareness a bit about the project and hope that someone nominates me for one of the Diamond cards, and of course then hopefully I'll get enough votes for a Two, Three or Four of Diamonds. If that fails, then one of the low Spade cards. See, I'm not asking for all that much, it's not like I'm asking to be the King of Hearts or Jack of Diamonds, I'll take one of the low number cards and be more than happy. If I were a Democrat I'd be offering to buy your votes, but I'm not so I won't.

That's it. Enough shameless pluggin' for myself and others. Now it's time to go see what kind of funky plug-ins I can get working on this blog.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 6:35 PM | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

Happy Birthday

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:10 AM | TrackBack

November 9, 2005

Finally. . .

Whoever had me in their address book and was infected with the Mytob worm seems to have finally gotten the bug out of their system. At it's peak, I was receiving about 300 emails a day with Mytob worms attached. I'm pretty good about keeping my virus detection software up to date and actually have a two machine double layer filter for virsuses, so there was never any real risk to me, but it was annoying when my daily email load jumped dramatically and hiccuped with each infected message.

So whoever you were, glad you got it cleaned up.

For the rest of you? When was the last time you scanned for viruses?

One of the worst things about having your own domain is the number of viruses and the amount of spam it attracts, not to mention getting mail that's supposed to go to the .net and .org guys and having to reply back "I think you want one of the .net or .org guys". I guess you gotta take the good with the bad though.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:36 AM | TrackBack

In case you were wondering. . . .Islam's Not for Me

Here's reason number 376383472 that:

Islam's Not for Me

IF, the copy above doesn't work, OR, you want to be really nice and save me some bandwidth, please click the player below and listen to the song via InfidelsRock.com (I've asked and they say it's OK.)

Enjoy!, then take a look around the rest of the site.

Here's the lyrics so you can sing along:

They try to tell me my religion is wrong
They try to tell me to follow Islam
They said their prophet was a righteous dude
But I found out none of their words were true
I read the Quran and I read the Hadith
And the sickness of Muhammad was apparent to me
He justified perversion in the name of Allah
When he married a girl too young for a bra
She was playing with dolls when the prophet came
Her childhood was stolen in Allah’s name
Aisha was nine when he took her to bed
Don’t tell me that fool’s not sick in the head
Ain’t gonna follow no child molester, sex offender, prophet pretender.
Aint gonna follow no child molester

Islam's not for me.
Islam's not for me.

The sickness of the Islamic mind
Has caused the Mullahs to be blind
To justify their prophet they would justify sin
So the sins of the prophet are repeated again
All over the world in Islamic states
9 year old girls suffer cruel fate
Sold into marriage to twisted men
And Aisha’s sad story is repeated again
Ain’t gonna follow no child molester, sex offender, prophet pretender.
Aint gonna follow no child molester,

Islam's not for me.
Islam's not for me.

Do you care about women all over the world?
Do you care about those little girls?
Then stand up and fight for human rights
Speak out against the laws of Islam
Ain’t gonna follow no child molester, sex offender, prophet pretender.
Aint gonna follow no child molester,

Islam's not for me.
Islam's not for me.
Islam's not for me.

Of course, in case you didn't know what my #1 reason was. . . I'm an atheist.

--Jason

UPDATE: I included this in The Political Teen's Open Trackback Thursday as well as the midweek trackback fest from Stop the ACLU and GM's Corner.

UPDATE 2: Help keep this clip on the internet! You may or may not know that services like YouTube! and Google Video have been pressured often to remove "objectionable" content from their services. While sites like the Internet Archive and their "Wayback Machine" have done wonders for archiving content on the web, when it comes to file resources like this, it comes to individuals to keep the file alive as blogs come and go, personal sites get abandoned and more. I want to keep this site active and keep this file alive, but that requires purchasing bandwidth, so I've included Amazon ads into this page in the hopes that some of you might consider starting one of your Amazon searches here and support the site and the cost to keep this file alive. Just thought I should mention why I added the ads to the original post.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:50 AM

November 6, 2005

Making the rounds again. . .

I've noticed that the British Military spoof-video "The Way to Amarillo" is making the rounds on the "internets" today, so I just thought I'd throw it up too along with the rest of my "Real American Idol" series.

The Brits give us "The Way to Amarillo".

The Norweigan's give us "Kosovo".

The U.S. Navy chimes in with "Wazzup".

Then of course there's always "4th of the 25th" which isn't a "spoof-video" but rather a full fledged album.

Happy Sunday

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:35 AM | TrackBack

November 1, 2005

Decisions. . . Decisions. . .

So I picked up Star Wars Ep. 3 which released today, then I get home and there in my mailbox is Disc 1 for the Firefly series from Netflix. What to do, what to watch, oh the horror.

Ok, well, I know to many this will be sacrilege, but I'm gonna watch the Firefly disc first and save Ep. 3 for later. Although this weekend I plan on watching the entire Star Wars Saga start to finish. After all, I've waited 20+ years to do that.

Anyhoo, just needed to vent that.

In case you're clueless as to what Firefly is, it's the short-lived TV series that spawned the movie Serenity. Which if you haven't seen it, you need to it's a great popcorn movie, a great sci-fi movie, a great cowboy movie. . . it's just a great movie. If you haven't caught it on the big screen yet, go now, don't walk run, it won't be on the big screen much longer and it's one of those that's DEFINATELY worth seeing on the big screen.

Watch the trailer here. Trailer 2

In related news, Sci-Fi viewership among females in Great Britain has surpassed viewship among males. I guess the Brits are becoming to -metro. I knew it was a good idea to trade my jock ID card for a geek ID card. Yeah, yeah, I know it's Buffy that's doing it, but, hey, it's gotta start somewhere.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:34 PM

October 20, 2005

Boy. . . South Park wsa great last night. . . Quick Hits

And Time Blair thought so too.

MVRWC, well, they think's they're rich now. I just feel like a baby blogger growing up a bit. Thanks for the contest Beth.(fixed)

Dan is reporting that someone has posted Taylor Behl's livejournal photos and comments, I haven't really been following this at all but; I'm not feeling good about this.

Charmaine Yoest says it very politely about Tom and Katie. I generally agree.

Sister Toldja fell off the fence with regard to the Miers Nomination. I didn't pay attention to today's events in the nomination process, so I'm still on the fence until the 1st Day of the first hearing, then I may fall off, don't know.

HyScience tells us about Herceptin, and that's great news, but there's always a catch so read the whole thing. Hyscience also helped with my post today, in fact, he started the whole ball rolling.

I'd like to personally thank those linked above (and don't worrry, there are more to come, it's just alot of posts to read through) for linking or contributing to my post earlier today. Which I'll be commenting later tonight.

--Jason

**Comments are closes for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:09 PM

October 18, 2005

Moveable Type 3.2

So I've upgraded to Movable Type 3.2 after a few hours of wrestling with something that should have been no problem at all. YES, it was my fault and I made it more trouble than it should have been, but that's all behind me now. Of course, now my MT-Blacklist is kaput and I've got to see how the new version handles the trackback and comment spam (I never should have even mentioned Canadian Drugs on this blog, but oh well).

So if the whole blog just decides to crap out, you'll know why (although now "crap" will probably spur a whole round of poker spam, WOOT!).

So we'll just see what happens when I leave this thing alone for a few hours.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:11 AM | TrackBack

October 11, 2005

B15A - Another Update

One of the other "things" on this blog is the "Saga of B15A". B15A is an iceberg, once the largest iceberg on Earth, and B15A had an attitude problem, specifically an attitude problem with Penguins. You see, when B15A broke off the Antarctic Ice Shelf, the currents took it to the Ross Sea, where it blocked in the "fast ice" (ice that formed each Antarctic winter and broke up and floated out to sea each Antarctic summer). The "fast ice" remained trapped in the Ross Sea and caused problems for the Penquin rookery nearby, the Penguins had to walk an extra 20km to reach open water and a source of food, and they had to do this on two inch legs.

Additional difficulties were caused by the berg with regard to the resupply of McMurdo Research Station, the berg and trapped "fast ice" prevented the traditional resupply vessels from reaching the isolated base and the small community there. A broken down icebreaker added to the problem, but where there's a will there's a way, and the U.S. and Russia sent additional icebreakers to clear a path to the base.

B15A has been biding it's time in darkness over the Antarctic winter, but now the sun is shining again and MODIS has a great image showing the berg and it's position relative to the Ross Sea.

Click for larger image

If you look in the top center of the image, you'll see a flat rectangular piece of ice within a larger field, that's B15A. You can see that the berg has moved away from the Ross Sea and shouldn't be causing a problem for the Penguins or McMurdo this year. The "fast ice" should break up and move out to sea as normal, and with a little luck, B15A will also move out to sea where it will eventually melt and raise the levels of the worlds oceans by a miniscule fraction of an inch.

So there's an update on B15A for you iceberg fans, and in case you're wondering why I keep coming back to B15A here and here and here and here and here and here, it's simply because the search phrase "B15A" has brought more visitors to this blog than any other single google search term. Which ain't saying a whole lot, but you gotta play to your audience, ya know.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:35 PM | TrackBack

Still More Penquins. . .

There are things that just sorta take over your blog, and then you're forced to keep posting about that same topic or item. One of those things for this blog is Penguins.

So here's some Penguins for my Penguin fans. This time you get Communist Penguins, Capitalist Penguins, Penguins with Guns, Protesting Penguins, even Penguins on Fire, all with a catchy tune for the toon.

Click here to see the Penguins
Quicktime Video

You can find other Penguin Posts by me here, here, here and here.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 6:31 PM | TrackBack

The big "Catch-Up". Part 1

Here's a selection of quick hits that I've been meaning to post for a while. Presented quick and dirty just so I can get them out of my list of "Things to Post".

Just in case you're one of those "unsure" about the GWOT, I think you should take a look at this article. The most telling quote:

"If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam"

The U.S. Rhein-Main air base in Germany is now closed, but that's ok, because, ya know, it was just another prop to the German economy and according to the Germany powers that be, it had nothing to do with the Berlin Air Lift or the U.S. efforts to "bring down this wall".

I was talking to high school kid the other day, and he had NO CLUE what the Berlin Wall even was. Sad, really sad. Oh yeah, it gets better, he was wearing a Che t-shirt.

If you haven't seen it yet, go out and rent The Shining. A wonderful film about a boy and his search for a father figure, finding one in the form of a writer struggling to finish his latest work and their adventures finding one another. But hey, don't take my word for it

Watch the Trailer

If you own a computer and don't know what the RIAA is, you really should. The RIAA likes to identify people who have peer-to-peer file sharing programs on their computer, then they hack said computers and spy on the users. When they've collected enough evidence (or sometimes not enough evidence) they then begin demanding thousands of dollars in royalty payments for music you didn't download from bands you've never even heard of. These guys are thugs of the highest order, but some people are starting to fight back.

I have to agree with a few of the commenters that the Lybeck-Murphy firm may not be the best to represent this case because they may not be up to the task (they certainly can be outspent by the RIAA), but maybe, just maybe if people know more about the RIAA and their thuggish tactics, they may be able to give this case legs enough to get to the Big Show.

And speaking of the Big Show, I'm happy to say I'm on the Pro-Miers bandwagon. I know alot of Republicans aren't happy because they want a good ole fashioned slug fest over philosophy and issues, but I just want to get a common sense, NON-JUDGE, NON-Ivy Leaguer, Conservative on the court who's opinions I can sit down and read easily without a legal dictionary at my side. I'm pretty sure Miers just might be that Justice.

While I'm not saying I support Miers fully, I am definately on the "pro" side of the debate. Of course all that could change when the hearings start, but for now, I'm going to continue absorbing hard and fast evidence about her and refrain from spouting off about how badly I too wanted to see a good ole slug-fest in the Senate.

Nice end-run George, you made everyone scramble on this one, and that's exactly how it should be.

That's it for now, more in a bit, maybe just more quick hits, maybe something more substantial. Seriously though, scroll back up and watch that Shining trailer, it's good.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:52 PM | TrackBack

October 10, 2005

More to come

I took a pause from blogging a few weeks ago, no real reason, just things went a different way in my life for a while. HOWEVER, over the next few days I'll be working on quite a bit of material that I've been sitting on for some time.

Most important of which is my recent trip to New Orleans and other Katrina devastated areas, I've got over 3 gigs of video to convert and edit, nothing too too amazing, just things that were important to me.

I didn't go to New Orleans to be some sort of "citizen journalist" or for the purpose of breaking anything new. I went because my grandfather needed help, needed someone to do the things that he couldn't in wake of the devastation and damage. I went because it was the right thing to do and someone needed to do it, that person just happened to be me.

I couldn't go without taking time to see the effect on New Orleans for myself, and with my own eyes. It's obvious that the media dropped the ball big time when it comes to reporting the TRUTH of the New Orleans situation and the Hurricanes effect on the Gulf Coast in general. I needed to see my hometown one last time for myself, see the homes I grew up in, the schools I attended and the grounds I stomped.

So those readers that have stuck around, stay tuned. I don't promise anything Earth-shattering, but I do promise an honest first-hand account of what things are like now.

More soon, but for now I'm trying to beat back a fever and finish coughing up the rest of this nasty stuff I breathed in whilst I was down there.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:07 PM | TrackBack

September 24, 2005

I know I promised, but. . . .

Well, I sorta promised that I wouldn't talk about Cindy Sheehan, but when I found this at SondraK's place, I just couldn't help but want to pass it around.

Click here for Cindy.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:57 PM | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

Props for the Egg. . .

EggRadio that is. I followed a link to EggRadio.com are reading the review from a fellow Comblogeration member, Nate.

I've tried a number of Internet Radio stations, and this was the first time I was "grabbed" by the first song to stream in. This grabber was Front 242's "Headhunter" (Shinigami Remix). I still have the original mix (bought some 15 years ago) on 12 in. around here somewhere (unless it was among the vinyl I left in Colorado by accident).

Oh well, I'm hooked and EggRadio now has a place on my 'media favorites' list.

Oh yeah, and what's even better the follow up to Front 242's Industrial Rock "Headhunter" was Etta James' "At Last".

Props for The Egg.

Thanks Nate,

--Jason

Update: While finishing up this post and the links, "At Last" transitioned into "River of Babylon" by Sublime. This is DEFINATELY my kinda radio.

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:39 PM | TrackBack

September 17, 2005

Christians have grilled cheese, Muslims have ice cream. . .

Found this earlier today in the Scotsman.

Burger King recalls 'sacrilegious' desserts
JOHN INNES

THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.

The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad".

The chain is being forced to spend thousands of pounds redesigning the lid with backing from The Muslim Council of Britain. It apologised and said: "The design simply represents a spinning ice-cream cone."

The offending lid was spotted in a branch in Park Royal last week by business development manager Rashad Akhtar, 27, of High Wycombe.

He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."

A Muslim Council spokesman said: "We commend the sensitive and prompt action that Burger King has taken."

A jihad on you! A jihad on them. Oh yes, give them a jihad too. Another jihad over there please. Hey can I get some jihad over here? Yes, Yes, Jihad for you too!!!

Seriously, Burger King should simply say, "Um, well, I'm sorry that's what you see. Perhaps sir, you should check with a Psychiatrist and get a Rorschach Test. I'm sure that might clarify things for you, or at least get you on some heavy medication."

Uh, oh, there I go being unsensitive again.

-Jason

PS, If you live in the United Kingdom, I suggest you rush out to your local Burger King right now and try to get your hands on these lids. Then slap them up on Ebay, lemme know if you do and I'll link you're auction here. (Email me at jason-at-jasoncoleman+dot+com)

UPDATE: Sortapundit offers up a picture of the offending lid and suggests a jihad against "natural yoghurt". I'm in.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:56 PM | TrackBack

September 14, 2005

Nuff Said. . .

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

And to think?.?.? I'm an atheist and I don't see any problem with it. I guess I'm just not one of those revisionist, self and nation hating atheists.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:46 PM | TrackBack

September 7, 2005

Blog Maintenance

Heya folks, I've gotten a couple of emails saying comments are broken. IF you get a 404 error or notice some other glitch in the site, please drop me a line at jason-at-jasoncoleman-dot-com and give me a heads up. If it's a comment, please include the text you were trying to send as a comment. I'm not sure if it's a bad MT-blacklist string or something else. If you hit a snag, please let me know, so I can track it down. I'll add your comment manually if need be.

--Jason

UPDATE: Problem appears to be solved. Apparently I blocked coments from the email address pharmacyonline@yahoo.com last week and accidently blocked the yahoo.com domain. Sorry for the inconvenience. It should be fixed now, but if you run into a problem let me know.

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:11 PM | TrackBack

September 5, 2005

It's long past time to choose. . .

And I choose to be a Sheepdog.

Read the whole thing, come back later if you have to, but read the whole thing.

Then please take note of this:

In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor.
As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.

While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods - humanity.

"Some people became animals," Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White's Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. "We became more civilized."

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:09 PM | TrackBack

September 4, 2005

Read This. . .

READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS, READ THIS.
Thank you,

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:06 AM | TrackBack

August 22, 2005

The best Beer Ad EVA. . .

Really, This is the best beer ad ever. Really, it is. At least I'm sure it's the BIGGEST.
--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:11 PM | TrackBack

Amends. . .

Ok, Ok, so I didn't blog anything over the weekend. In order to make amends, here's a collection of the useless, cool, helpful and just plain timewasting things I found over the course of the last couple of days.

Firstly, get your daily dose of GEEK PORN. Don't worry, it's safe for work.

Here's a VERY COOL short movie from Double Edge Films (which has lots of cool stuff) that has the premise along the lines of "If Angel's were DJ's"; or something like that. Watch it!

It seems as though our fears have been realized. Walken 2008 is a hoax, promulgated by the great folks at GenMay. Be warned if you click the link -- they BITE!

This game, Guess the Google, sucked hours out of my life. It's a simple game where you are shown a collage of 20 images returned from a single "google image" search. Your job is to guess the search word. Good luck, my best was 301.

An interesting little setup to turn yourself into a roving WiFi Hotspot.

For killing vampires. . .

A series of funny, or maybe just stupid videos from AllDumb.com:
A really dumb cat. . .
And now a dumb dog. . .(you need volume for this one)
A very trippy bike. . .
Finally a dumb promo for Japanese baseball. . . Japanese TV is wierd I tell ya.

Here's a page of graphics toys that can let you create pictures like this one:

That should keep you busy for a while. Have fun.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:35 PM | TrackBack

August 17, 2005

Who'd have thunk it. . .

So here I am, minding my own business, check my email and find this:

Yes, I'm on the mailing list for Bloomies, and I'm quite comfortable with people knowing that. I just found this particular ad a bit odd. Maybe you will too.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:16 AM | TrackBack

August 16, 2005

Car funnies. . .

Why you shouldn't buy a Mini Cooper.

---and---

Is it wrong to laugh at this????

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:11 PM

August 13, 2005

Never forget. . .

The New York Times has the NYFD Dispatch calls that were among the recently released oral histories of 9-11.

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:13 AM | TrackBack

August 10, 2005

Ask and ye shall receive. . . .

A commenter was having trouble finding the text of the new Anti-Kelo legislation passed by the Alabama legislature and signed into law by Gov. Bob Riley in special session. So he asked me (not sure why, but hey, I gots connections) to help him find it.

Lo and Behold, here it is. Senate Bill 68 or Act #2005-313.

Hope this helps Fred.

--Jason

NOTE: If Dean knew my politics, he surely wouldn't have posed for that with me. Actually, if those that gave me credentials to attend that meeting knew my politics, they probably would have tried to ban me from the building.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:22 PM | TrackBack

August 8, 2005

Google throws a hissy. . .

The internet behemoth Google, is thowing a hissy fit over this article from CNET News.com article. It does seem like Google is flexing it's muscles and is freezing out CNET from access to its employees(scroll down to the last paragraph). This will be interesting to see how it plays out, as CNET is one of the big boys on the net as well. While I don't expect Google will actively work against CNET beyond the admonition to it's employees not to cooperate, Google does have the power to remove CNET from it's News Search feature and they certainly can play around with CNET's rankings on Google should they choose to.

While Google may be that mother of all search engines that is seeking to take over the world, they definately have a right to respond to the CNET article, but I'd caution about freezing out a media outlet that reports on you. It begins to look like sour grapes, and draws more attention to the original reporting. Probably better to work with your public relations people to put your corporate spin on it, point out the shortcomings of the reporting and focus on the positive aspects of your company. Google may have over-reacted, and if this "freezing out" business turns out to be true, Google needs a thicker skin.

I like Google. They have certainly had a profound effect on the internet and how people use it, but let's not forget the lessons of EPIC. Which is a fun, or scary, flash animation about the evil merging of Google and Amazon in an effort to crush Microsoft and rule cyberspace.

If you haven't seen EPIC yet, here it is, it runs about 10 minutes and will definately make you think.

--Jason

EDIT: This post has been edited from the original posting an hour ago, I got off on a tangent that distracted from the topic. Sorry about that, and I'll save the other issue for another post. I didn't want people to think I was complaining, because I wasn't.

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:03 AM | TrackBack

While the cat's away, the mice are playing. . .

The blogfater, puppy-blender, Instapundit, Leader of the Wingnuts, or whatever you want to call him is on vacation. Yes, Glenn Reynolds isn't blogging this week and has turned over the keys to the largest blog on the "right" side of things to Ann Althouse, Michael Totten and Megan McArdle.

Althouse and Totten have been on my blogroll from the beginning, and I check out their blogs at least once a week, if not more. I have to admit that I've rarely visited McArdle's site before today, but rest assured that all three are excellent bloggers (much better than your not-so-humble author) and promise to make Instapundit a varied and interesting link-fest and read this week.

A couple of things are readily apparent to the regular Instapundit reader instantly. They write more. They actually give us a few paragraphs instead of quick one-liners. This is good and bad, it gives you a little more inside into the issue but it also slows down the read a bit.

Nevertheless, there are three times as many Instalanches available this week, so all you fellow bloggers out there should get on the ball and rant, rave, educate and enrage your respective communities. The "right" side of the blogosphere can and should grab this opportunity to tighten up their writing, get their ideas down and publicize and propagate them well.

I'm sure that Ann, Megan and Michael will do a fine job subbing for the Instapundit, so don't waste any more time with me and head over there.

--Jason

PS, I'll be working a little on the back end of this blog today to fix some broken stuff and rearrange the sidebar, so if it goes down for a bit, it's not gone, just in the shop. Unless I get an Instalanche, of course.

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:39 AM | TrackBack

August 7, 2005

Chrenkoff is hanging up his blogging shoes. . .

Arthur Chrenkoff has announced that he's taken a job that will prevent him from blogging. While his departure from the blogosphere is a few weeks off, you may want to head that way and check out the fantastic work he's done in reporting the "Good News" from Iraq [Parts 1 through 25] and Afghanistan [Parts 1 through 10]

Chrenkoff has been instrumental in my understanding of what's really going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. His reporting has been objective and his blog, coupled with a few others, led me to starting this particular small corner of the blog world.

Farewell, godspeed and I wish you all the best Mr. Chrenkoff. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Pay him a visit, spend some time and look around, it's well worth your time. If his blog disappears, I'll take it off my blogroll, if it sticks around, so will the link.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:10 AM | TrackBack

August 6, 2005

They wanna ban WHAT????

When I'm curious about interesting goings on in Germany, I turn to Davids Medienkritik(which is on my blogroll), you can only imagine my surprise when I checked in and found out that the EU wants to ban this:

I'm sorry, but I just can't approve.

Come on now, Eurofreaks, get over yourselves. I just can't believe that the Euros are so eager to legislate EVERYTHING that they want to force employers to protect employees from the sun. That's getting a little ridiculous now isn't it.

I find it very unlikely that construction workers are going to cover every inch of exposed skin while they're performing physical labor. Next thing you know, it's going to be a crime to allow your children to play outside.

If you're European and think that this is just as silly as I do, then you're excused from the Eurofreak moniker. HOWEVER, if you think that banning the dirndl is a good idea, you're definately deserving of my newfound title for you.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:00 PM | TrackBack

August 4, 2005

Snuppy, the franken puppy. . .

Ok, that's a little harsh on a puppy that really doesn't deserve it, but seriously, if we as a somewhat "cogent" species can't get the abortion debate settled have got NO BUSINESS cloning anything.

I've touched on this before.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:00 AM | TrackBack

August 1, 2005

What can I say. . .

THIS IS HILARIOUS, Click it, Dammit! Click it!!!!

Make sure you catch this part too!!!!

Found this via !No Parasan!, quite the excellent blog from an interesting Euro perspective you won't see on TV.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:52 PM | TrackBack

I should watch more soccer. . .

I never played soccer in school, I've never been that interested in soccer. In fact, I've always thought soccer was boring.

Until now!
NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

I need to watch more soccer apparently. Anyone know what team she's on????

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:53 AM | TrackBack

July 28, 2005

Introducing, "Day by Day" by Chris Muir

If you've traveled around the "Blogosphere" much, you've undoubtedly come across the webcomic "Day by Day". Personally, I've found the series hilarious at times, poignant at others and something that at the very least brings a grin. I've been meaning to incorporate the strip for some time in my blog some way, and now I've finally gotten around to it.

So from now until I decide otherwise, you can get "Day by Day" by clicking on this graphic which will be located in the sidebar:

So without further ado, let me welcome "Day by Day" by Chris Muir to JasonColeman.com.

--Jason

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:23 AM | TrackBack

July 27, 2005

Meet the new al-Queda information minister. . .

Minister Baghdadarella!

Via The Commisar of The Politburo Diktat -- new addition to the blogroll.

Tip o the hat to Beth.

If you have no clue what this is all about, READ THIS.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:50 PM | TrackBack

July 26, 2005

By Request...

More Penguins. . .

If that's not enough for you, then check out the new movie March of the Penguins from Warner Brothers. Big "aaawwww" factor in the trailer, you've been warned.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:29 PM | TrackBack

July 23, 2005

DAMN!!! Talk about "going big". . .

I'll never land "or even attempt" a jump this big.

Watch the Video!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:18 PM

July 22, 2005

Pluh-ese!!!!

Ok, just read it, then puke!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:26 PM | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

Raving Penquins and icebergs. . . .

One of the bigger traffic drivers here, is the iceberg B-15A. I've written about it here, here, here, here, and here. I'm not sure though, if people are interested in the iceberg, or the chance that I may post more penquin pictures.

So? In order to satisfy both camps, here's an updated picture of B-15A (enhanced thermal image, dark equals really damn freaking cold, light equals just plain cold):

You can see B-15A, which looks like an aircraft carrier deck, has moved up and away from the Ross Sea. Currents may bring the iceberg back down to block the sea again this Antarctic summer, but it looks like the danger to the penguins (which was overblown in the first place) has passed.

You can tell the penquin in THIS VIDEO is excited about B-15A's departure. I never knew Penquins were ravers????

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:14 AM | TrackBack

July 10, 2005

Dennis Peters

While still a major storm, Dennis has been downgraded to a tropical storm. 194,075 Alabamians are out of power at the moment and my humble abode is one of them. So looks like I'll be taking advantage of my Mom and Dad's spare room tonight and heading home in the AM.

So far there aren't any deaths reported as a result of the storm here in the U.S. and hopefully that good news will continue to hold.

So keep dry out there, don't go waving any metal sticks around outside and we'll see what this storms done as far as damage goes, sometime tomorrow.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:44 PM | TrackBack

In case you want to keep an eye on Dennis

Ok, so the pun was bad and intended.

But!!! Here's a short range radar loop out of Mobile.

For a bigger picture, check out this long range radar loop.

--Jason

PS - 3 more points off the barometer since the last post.

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:22 PM | TrackBack

Here comes Dennis

The barometer here in Birmingham has dropped 6 points in the last hour. I guess we're gonna get it. The wind has been blowing on and off for the last hour. Now it's an erie quiet and still.

The Babalu Blog has some minute by minute observations from Cuba.

Illc0mmunication just missed a flood, but high tide is still an hour away.

One of my favorite bloggers, Beth from My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has a roundup of hurricane related posts (and some not so hurricane related) here. Beth's down in the Mobile area, where Dennis is beating the hell out of the coast, good luck down there Beth.

Check out Weather.com or Accuweather (which has a better track record for Hurricane forcasting) for up to the minute updates.

As for me, I've locked up the house, moved the cars inside and battened down all the hatches. I'm heading up to the family enclave on top of the hill where Sunday dinner is more assured with a natural gas stove. Plus my area will almost certainly lose power sometime tonight. Ivan took down trees and power lines that kept my area in the dark for 4 days.

I love Hurricanes, kinda makes me wish I was still living in New Orleans to see the nutria and snakes swimming down the street.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:25 PM

July 6, 2005

The SPAM strikes back

A while back I was having problems with comment spam. Some changes to my Moveable type installation put a stop to 95% of it, and all was well with the world.

Lately though, I've been getting heavy loads of Trackback Spam. So later today I'm going to do something about it. First I'll try the same fixes that I made to battle comment spam, if that doesn't work I'll incorporate some sort of Turing test for commenters and trackbacks.

I'm not happy about doing either, because it reduces the ability of people to comment or send relevant trackbacks, but the War on Spam is never-ending, and one must remain vigilant.

SO!?!?!?!?!?! If the site goes down later today, please check back later. I may have to pull it completely down for a while to implement changes.

--Jason

UPDATE: Well, things seem to be going well, I've added two plugins and some custom hacks to try and block comment and trackback spam. I decided against a Turing test for commenters because a few people emailed that they read this blog via the feed, and a turing test would have hampered their use of the site. So we'll see how this goes.

-JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:27 PM | TrackBack

July 4, 2005

Happy Fourth of July

Never hurts to read it again.

-------------------------------------

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

------------------------------------------

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:08 AM | TrackBack

July 2, 2005

And now here's the news. . .

News from Afghanistan you'll never see on TV.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:43 PM | TrackBack

LA has been captured. . .

Ok, just kidding, but I was trying to come up with a title to go with this post from SondraK! LA was captured long ago.

I'll bet some people thought I was talking War of the Worlds. Which SUCKED btw!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:11 PM | TrackBack

PURE GOLD!!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:23 PM | TrackBack

Does the blog look funny to you?

If you have any technical issues about this blog that you notice,please Email Me, don't forget to take out the REMOVEME from the address. For instance, if you're using FireFox, Safari or Konqueror and the blog looks goofy, lemme know. Thanks.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:05 PM

July 1, 2005

Catching up . . .

I meant to post this two weeks ago, but Craig's List has come to Birmingham.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:19 PM | TrackBack

WOO HOO!!!!

This just found in email. Worth a look. Go Boy Go!!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:33 AM | TrackBack

June 28, 2005

Cop out . . .

I was gonna blog about my recent trip to Memphis (actually, the drive there and some revelations along the way) but I went out and checked my mail and Netflix sent a copy of Gunner Palace. So, sorry, but I've waited a long time to see this flick and I'm gonna watch it instead. Maybe I'll write my first movie review for the blog after I watch it a few times.

So, for now, go check out what the fine ladies of The Cotillion have to say today. They throw their big shindigs on Tuesdays. Plus, right wing chicks are sexy.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:22 PM | TrackBack

June 22, 2005

Open Media 100

AlwaysOn and Technorati have come together to create the "Open Media 100". A comprehensive list of the movers and shakers in Open Media, from the creators and visionaries to the reporters and collectors that shape the new Mediascape. Described in their own words:

"The purpose of this list is to provide an initial, helpful framework of this emerging industry and highlight its key players who are influencing the adoption of open media and proving the impact it is already having on the technology industry, journalism, and marketing."

The list is VERY impressive, and is sure to give countless hours of reading material to anyone interested in Open Media. Additionally, the list serves as a Mega-Blogroll of the important players.

I'm reproducing it here for two reasons, one so you can have a look at it and two, so I can have it easily accessible for my own use. I'll probably wind up putting it in the sidebar in some fashion as well.

The list is pretty damn big, so I'm leaving out the 50 Honorable Mentions for now, I'll find a place to stick them for easy access in a little bit.

Open Media 100 List
Pioneers	Trendsetters	Practitioners	Toolsmiths	Enablers
Adam Curry The Daily Source Code Dan Gillmor Bayosphere J. D. Lasica New Media Musings Lawrence Lessig Lessig Blog Craig Newmark Craigslist Yeon Ho Oh OhMyNews Howard Rheingold Smart Mobs Doc Searls The Doc Searls Weblog Clay Shirky Shirky.com David Weinberger Joho Dave Winer Scripting News	John Battelle Searchblog Rebecca Blood Rebecca's Pocket Jason Calacanis Weblogs, Inc. Marc Canter BroadBand Mechanics Nick Denton Gawker Media Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder, Xeni Jardin, David Pescovitz Boing Boing Steve Gillmor ZDNet Matt Haughey MetaFilter Mary Hodder Napsterization Doug Kaye IT Conversations Amy Jo Kim SocialDesigner.net Liz Lawley Mamamusings Eric Olsen Blogcritics Tim O'Reilly O'Reilly Media Eric Rice Audioblog.com Brett Simmons Ranchero Software Elizabeth Spiers Mediabistro.com Phillip Torrone Flashenabled.com Joe Trippi Change for America Jeffrey Veen Adaptive Path	Mohamad Reza Abdollahi (Imprisoned in Iran for his blog) Jeff Bates, Rob Malda Slashdot Russell Beattie RussellBeattie.com Duncan Black Eschaton N. Z. Bear The Truth Laid Bear Stowe Boyd, Hylton Jolliffe Corante Ana Marie Cox Wonkette Mark Cuban Dallas Mavericks Matt Drudge The Drudge Report Kevin Drum Washington Monthly Barb Dybwad Geeked Mohammed Fadhil, Omar Fadhil Iraq The Model Hugh Hewitt HughHewitt.com John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Mirengoff Power Line Jeff Jarvis BuzzMachine Charles Johnson Little Green Footballs Mickey Kaus Slate Jason Kottke Kottke.org Bob Lutz General Motors Om Malik Om Malik's Broadband Blog Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo Dave Pell Davenetics Chris Pirillo Lockergnome Dave Pogue New York Times Glenn Reynolds Instapundit.com Peter Rojas Engadget Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion Jonathan Schwartz Jonathan Schwartz's Blog Robert Scoble Scobleizer Roger Simon Roger L. Simon Andrew Sullivan The Daily Dish James Taranto The Wall Street Journal Jon Udell InfoWorld Eugene Volokh The Volokh Conspiracy Jeffrey Zeldman The Daily Report Markos Moulitsas Zuniga Daily Kos	Jonathan Abrams Friendster Tom Anderson, Chris DeWolfe MySpace Mitchell Baker Mozilla Foundation Nick Bradbury Bradbury Software (acquired by NewsGator) Stewart Butterfield, Caterina Fake Flickr (acquired by Yahoo!) Dan Chan Daypop Bram Cohen BitTorrent Dick Costolo, Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski, Matt Shobe FeedBurner Neil Drumm, Zack Rosen CivicSpace Labs Mark Fletcher Bloglines (acquired by AskJeeves) Janus Friis, Niklas Zennstrom Skype David Galbraith David Galbraith's Weblog Meg Hourihan Blogger Salim Ismail, Bob Wyman PubSub Scott J. Rafer, Scott Johnson, Francois Schiettecatte Feedster Brewster Kahle Internet Archive Loic LeMeur Six Apart Paul Martino, Mark Pincus Tribe.net Ross Mayfield Socialtext Matt Mullenweg WordPress Greg Reinacker NewsGator Technologies Joshua Schachter Del.icio.us Ben and Mena Trott Six Apart Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales Wikipedia Evan Williams Odeo	Tim Draper, Steve Jurvetson, Andreas Stavropoulos Draper Fisher Jurvetson Esther Dyson Release 1.0 Bradley Feld Mobius Venture Capital Reid Hoffman LinkedIn David Hornik August Capital Joi Ito Neoteny Allen Morgan Mayfield Pierre Omidyar Omidyar Network

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:00 PM

Talon Sword delayed. . . .

The Packbot crawled through caves in Afganistan looking for Al-Queda badguys and predator drones fly overhead, but the next generation of battlefield robotics has been delayed as Army engineers finish final testing in preparation for the Talon Sword to be deployed to combat regions.

I'm glad to see that the Army isn't rushing these tools to our soldiers before they are ready. I know that pressure to take our boys out of harm's way is strong, but lets face facts. If the technology isn't ready, or worse, doesn't work after it's deployed, soldiers in the field will lose faith in it. They may even be putting themselves in greater danger by using tactics that fail due to technology.

All in all I approve of the move to put weapons on battlefield robots, and I respect the difficulties that arise when you try to automate or remote control a system. I'm glad to see that they're still moving forward, and I hope that soon the technology will be ready to help our boys in the field.

Here's a brief roundup of battlefield robots with lots of links that I'd written previously.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:43 PM

June 21, 2005

Really Mixed Feelings

Killen convicted on all 3 counts.

#1 - EXTREMELY HAPPY THAT JUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE

#2 - EXTREMELY DISTURBED WITH THE ADDED DRAMA OF THE CONVICTION BEING HANDED DOWN ON THE 41ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE CRIME ITSELF.

#3 - I'll toss in the "Anti-Lynching" Vote in the Senate.

My Point? This contrived drama seems to be coming together better than a Hollywood script. I'm not sure I like the idea that our courts and mediascape have now combined to present morality plays.

Or perhaps they should.

Let's hold a public trial and televise it for the 20th hijacker guy. Pull a jury of 12 plus 88 alternates (100 or 2 from each state) lets lay it all out on the table. Let's talk about the USS Cole, the 1st Trade Center bombing, Bali, Israel, and then 9-11. Then we can talk about air-conditioning, Christina Aguillera and handling books THAT WE GAVE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE with rubber gloves and surgical masks. Then lets talk about Nick Berg and countless other beheadings. Connect them all up with the guy that WANTED to be a part of the Twin Towers attack. <-- Video you might want/need to see again. If you start, WATCH THE WHOLE THING!

On the side we can have a smaller trial televised from Europe (Italy), the one where the woman is on trial for "defaming Islam". Oops, looks like the guy that complained just got convicted for "defaming Christianity".

Oh yeah, don't forget, it's ok to sleep with little boys.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:24 AM | TrackBack

June 20, 2005

If Vonage goes public . . . .

I'm buying their stock. Here's Why! Plus they have that catchy jingle. Do, Dooo, Do, Do, Do -- You know the one!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:00 AM | TrackBack

Geek Stuff and a Paranoid Rant about Aliens coming to kill us all.

I usually have a computer running 24/7 that performs a whole load of automated tasks for me. It runs spiders, manages downloads, keeps offline copies of certain websites and collects program updates. I've also run SETI@Home for years on it. Normally I don't pay much attention to this computer, but when I decided to check up on it today, I noticed there have been some major changes to the SETI@Home service and I haven't been helping the SETI Project for the last couple of weeks. Ooops.

After a quick download, I'm proud to announce that I've got it back up and running. Also, that the new SETI@Home service, powered by BIONIC is a great improvement over the old set-up.

I like that BIONIC can shift programs from SETI programs to other NASA distributed computing projects without having to require the user to make adjustments. I've tagged onto other NASA distributed projects before and I like that I can now set-up my account to automatically make the switch when needed.

Ok, this is gonna turn into a space rant from here on out, so to spare some readers that would be totally lost by it, you'll have to continue to the extended entry.

Ok, time to "Space Rant" a bit.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is a tiny, tiny portion of the NASA budget, I've never checked the actual figures, but I'd imagine that if you account for all the computing cycles donated by individuals and private donations, that SETI probably gets more cash from the private sector than it does from the government. I can't really complain about that too much. SETI is the proverbial needle in the haystack and given the choice I'd rather see new dollars go into exploration and research programs.

I am pretty realistic about the SETI project and don't "expect" anything to develop from it in my lifetime. That doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow though. It' a scary thought to think that tomorrow we might catch an ET's "I Love Lucy", or black and white test signal.

When I talk to people about SETI, they usually imagine that the "first contact" will be like some science fiction movie where we are actually in two way communication with some benevolent superior life form. It's unlikely that's what we'll see. More than likely, the first things will be more of a "first discovery" nature. Some of our first powerful radio and television transmissions would be quite confusing to an outside observer. Variety shows, news broadcasts and music would all paint a strange and distorted picture of our world. We'd likewise discover something similar upon "first discovery".

From what I understand, our best chance to discover an exterrestrial intelligence is to be looking and listening in just the right spot at just the right time. The spot, of course, is where the developing ET society is was located in the universe at the the time that it was technologically advanced enough to have discovered the radio but not so technologically advance that it's using mostly digital broadcasts and has a ring of communication satellites around it. So roughly, compared to Earth time, we're looking at a 75 to 100 year window.

If we observe the alien planets location too early, they aren't pumping out anything to detect, and if we come along too late, we lose the opportunity for discovery as recognizable signals become lost in a haze of overlapping broadcasts turning into a sea of white noise. There's also the problem of an alien intelligence migrating to a communications protocol that we simply haven't fathomed yet.

So lets ponder a bit. Suppose we're looking at the right place at the right time? What might we find? We could get really lucky and find ourselves staring at an alien version of Alex Trebec playing Jeopardy with a panel of tentacled blue squishy things. This would be ideal!!! We'd be able to learn the language both written and spoken and learn about their history, culture and trivia, that's all probably a little much to ask though.

We'll probably get a snapshot pretty similar to what we've cranked out. We'll see news that we cannot understand, entertainment that baffles us and images presenting the extremes of whatever society we get to observe. We'll probably get to eavesdrop on a war or two and alot of toally incomprehensible audio and data. Then we'll hit a wall.

This first discovery will be very frustrating because we'll have no context to put the data in. Once discovery is made, we're only moving forward from that point, and only one day at a time. That's kinda hard to wrap your brain around, but I'll try to clarify. Once we discover the source, we're only able to watch and listen from that point forward. Every day we'll get more and more data which will certainly keep everyone interested, but then we have to tackle the problem of "where are they now" and more importantly "what are they doing".

The most probable scenario is that we'll catch some ET's that are hundreds, if not thousands, of light years away from us. We'll also be catching them at a period of time when they are remarkably like us technologically. We'll be catching them as they migrate into their information age. They will probably be mastering some sort of powered flight, fighting about energy and resources, and in the infant stages of leaping off their rock. Remember though, that they'd be hundreds, if not thousands of years ahead of us though.

So now I get to my reasons for using the SETI@Home service. I look at it as our only "Early Warning System" for a War of the Worlds type scenario. I most certainly do not believe that our first interaction with any sort of ET's will be a pleasant one AT ALL. In fact, I'd suspect that if a bunch of ET's were to roll up on us tomorrow, that'd either kill us right off the bat because of the threat we represent or that we'd wind up shooting at them in some way, and then they'd kill us.

I'm not joining the tin foil brigade here, I'm just saying that if an alien society were advanced enough to pay us a visit, they'd probably be pretty damn scared of us. Not because we'd be an actually threat, but more the "virus-like" quality we'd represent. If someone handed us warp-drives and rayguns today, we'd be pretty dangerous.

So I'm promoting the SETI@Home project so that we may get a jump on these bastards; before they find us and kill us all. If we can catch up to them by eavesdropping on their past, we may be able to drive our efforts to get off the rock along quicker, enhancing our ability to survive when the human-virus does get discovered. Eventually we may be able to sneak up on them and kick their ass first.

I'm sure you're shaking your head right now. Make no mistake though, once we get off this rock it'll be no picnic. Interactions with other biological systems will not be pretty. War will be the outcome of more of these meetings than peace. We'll get beat down by more technological systems and we'll be beating down those below us on the ladder.

Now I know that this flies in the face of tradional science ficion lore about who altruistic we'll be in the future and how as societies advance they get less and less warlike. I totally disagree though. When we do get out there in big spaceships that have some independence (which is inevitable), it'll be the wild west all over. I can imagine that some alien societies might be peaceful and it could wind up as a "Ok, I'm over here, and you're over there. Let's keep it that way" scenario. In those situations we might even be able to trade a bit and do some technology transfers. I'm not thinking we'll be too interested in getting too close to them, nor they us. After all there will be viruses and disease to worry about, quite serious concerns actually. We really couldn't trust them, nor they us when it comes to sharing resources or anything for that matter. We'd be looking out for humans first and they'd be looking out for whatever they are first.

Then we'll probably run into quite a few hotheads, the shoot first, ask later types. I'm pretty sure that out there in the universe there will be quite a few Hitler types that acutally succeed in their warped world view creating societies that are 100% confident that they are the #1 life form on the block and are ruthless about keeping in that way. There will probably be interactions with alien societies that have been burned by trans species peace deals before. These alien cultures may have decided long ago that bipeds are evil and they may just vaporize us on sight.

I don't think it's a question of "if" there are ET's out there, I believe it's a question of "when" we'll meet them, and at in what stage of our and their technological development do we meet. Finding someone now, through a program like SETI will scare the living bejezzus outta me, because that means we're way behind in the game, could we catch up to a society that's thousands of years ahead of us? Have they seen us yet? Are they coming to kick our ass?

So there you have it, what I'm sure is an almost incomprehensible rant about blue squishy aliens that are going to kill us all one day. You can take it for what it's worth, but this is my blog and I just felt like "going off for a bit".

Oh yeah, for the protection of mankind, go to the new SETI@Home page, create an account, download the software and let your puter turn an eye to the sky and make us all a little safer . . . maybe.

--Jason

PS In all seriousness tho' please check out the SETI sites and think about helping out with their distributed computing project. It helps the program along, doesn't really cost you or them anything and we're a small step forward to the future.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:22 AM

June 19, 2005

The Canucks have a good idea here. . . .

Placing "Bait Cars" in areas where car theives operate. Film the crime from inside the car, notify police when one is hijacked, and disable the engine via remote control before they can flee. Then make a website so everyone can see what jackasses car theives are. Deterrence coupled with some pretty lock-tight evidence for prosecution. Right on, yeah, eh!

Of course trying to use techniques like this in the U.S. would bring the A.C.L.U. in force, and get challenged by every race-baiting politician out there.

They have some cool videos, funny, tragic and scary. [Note: Getting the videos to play is a bit tricky, look for the "High" and "Low" Resolution links under the parental advisory tag.]

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:00 PM

Triumph!!!

It's Triumph, the Comic Insult Dog, doing a number on Michael Jackson supporters. Funny Stuff!!!!

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:55 PM | TrackBack

June 6, 2005

Iraq Rap . . .

I'm not sure if it's in the same spirit as Kosovo and Way to Amarillo, but it's certainly "All-American". Members of Task Force 112, currently serving in Iraq have released an album, yep, a full fledged album, not just a net-video parody. Members of the task force had the recording equipment sent to Iraq, created a makeshift recording studio (actually a semi-soundproof room with exercise mats for soundproofing) and used the "studio" to "vent" their anger when returning from patrols. The result is their rap-album Live from Iraq, the Music of a Lifetime.

Now I'm not a big rap fan, I like R&B and some of the more mainstream rap, but if you ask me for details of the East vs. West coast thing, I'm clueless. Although I do think that Tupac is alive and well somewhere on an island dreaming up his next "post mortem" CD.

Now, on to the album, which you can buy at CDBaby.com. The "anger" I referred to earlier isn't what those lefties that come read my blog and then send me stupid emails might think. This is the ANGER of young men and women serving overseas and fighting a life-and-death battle every day to give a better life to the Iraqi people and protect our way of life here at home. Anger that's directed at the insurgents who target women and children, as well as American, Coalition and Iraqi forces. Anger that's directed at urban youths who are "playing soldier" (in reference to gang-bangers in America) and whose common lexicon tries to develop solidarity with soldiers fighting in Iraq (the track is called Reality Check, links below). Anger that's natural for any soldier to feel when he or she realizes that just a few moments earlier someone was trying to kill them. A special ANGER is revealed on many of the tracks for critics at home who are second-guessing every action of our soldiers and media whores who want to condemn every action of our soldiers as they put their very lives on the line. More than one track references the Marine who was vilified by the media for shooting an insurgent in a mosque which was videotaped and sent around the world as "evidence" - !NOT! - of soldiers acting inappropriately, namely Integrity and Testament of a Soldier.

From what I've heard so far (the sample tracks and trailer), I like it. While it's not what I normally listen to, the beats are rough yet catchy and the lyrics are direct and easy to understand. Most of all though I like the messages and honesty of the work and think it's worthy of recognition, if even only by me.

WARNING: The lyrics in the samples are strong, these are soldier's in the field remember, not rappers in a studio sipping on Cristal. There are also some images in the video trailer linked below that may be disturbing in their stark reality.

I've listened to all the tracks sampled at CDBaby, and even if you don't buy the CD, listen to the sample tracks, the first 2 minutes of each song is available at the CDBaby page. Each of the tracks carries a powerful message, some simple, some very complex, please go have a listen.

Here's the official website for the album -- www.4th25.com

Here's the trailer video for the album.

Now if I can just get my hands on a DVD of Gunner Palace, I'll be happy.

--Jason

PS I'm tired now, but I'll pull individual lyric quotes from the album tomorrow for those reading from work or dial-up readers.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:57 AM | TrackBack

June 5, 2005

Rest in Peace, President Reagan

It was a year ago today that President Ronald Reagan passed away. While I don't go as far as Regular Ron does and call him a "saint" (I am atheist after all), his comments are very similar to my own feelings about this great President.

Trey Jackson also has an excellent "in remembrance" post.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:00 PM | TrackBack

June 3, 2005

WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Echo and the Bunnymen is now RETRO????? Who the hell decided that BS! We're only talking 1990 here. I AM NOT OLD DAMMIT!!!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:20 PM | TrackBack

June 2, 2005

EPIC: 2015

Here's the bitorrent for EPIC: 2015 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. Right click and select Save As. .

If you don't know how to use BitTorrents, CLICK HERE - It will take a while to download (Note, this link will go away if bandwith issues come up. So you might want to right click and Save As. ., in case you want to watch it agin.)

EPIC is a shockwave based animation depecting the future of our mediascape, the internet and how they might develop into the construct named EPIC. The battle between the internet and "old media" is played out as well as the News Wars between Microsoft and Google. It's an interesting piece.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:30 PM

YOU HAVE TO DO THIS. . . .

I don't know why they are doing this, I don't know who's behind it, and basically I know nothing about it other than IT'S THERE, IT WORKS, AND IT'S HILARIOUS.

CLICK THE LINK AND CALL THE NUMBER -- WWW.CALLTHEINTERNET.ORG

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:19 PM | TrackBack

June 1, 2005

Presenting, The Cotillion

Possibly the first blog I ever read was Beth's. I think I found it via google for "Alabama Blogs". Beth introduced me to Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, IMAO, LILEKS, LGF and more. I'm not sure whether Glenn is my Blogfather or Beth is my Blogmother, but she's certainly a figure in the formation of this blog. Plus she got me named Blogger Babe of the Week.

So I MUST MUST MUST give a plug for her new project. Not just because she's involved, but because it's a great idea, and a fantastic collection of blogmistresses. I present to you, The Cotillion:

I guess this would be their manifesto of sorts:

The Cotillion

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a woman of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith

And I was 'round when Emperor Misha
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Ace
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game *

We ladies have gathered together for the presentation of these dazzling darlings of the blogosphere, and yes, proper etiquette dictates that you shall kindly direct your devoted attention to each of these fine young women! Please, gentlemen callers, remove your hats indoors in their presence! I do declare!

Ok, now take a few minutes to introduce yourself to these fine ladies, I'm sure they'll be provocative, insightful, flirty, polite, mean, informative and entertaining. Some, like Beth and Janette, can be all at once; now that's talent.

Bon Chance ladies, I'll certainly reading.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:46 AM | TrackBack

May 30, 2005

Ok, Ok, I'm sorry

I thought I'd gotten autoplay off all the videos. Sorry to those of you that got caught at work or had multiple instances playing at once. They should be dumbed down and converted over to links. Lemme know if any are broken.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:38 PM

May 24, 2005

Wow, what fun

So on Saturday, I had a great time. My cousin Eddie, he's about 10, went to Space Camp a few weeks ago and came back with Rocket Fever. My uncle and I thought this was just a great idea and that we should support him in his newfound hobby. So, to make a long story short, this past Saturday was the Birmingham Rocket Boys - Birmingham Blast-Off, and a great time was had by all. Rocket Boys of all ages came out for the event and even a few Rocket Girls were in attendence.

I shot ALOT of video of launches, both with my digi-cam and on tape. It'll be a little while before I sit down and cruch all the video to digital, but I started working with the .mpegs from my camera tonight. There's a brief sample below. Hopefully this weekend I'll find time to crunch all the video over to digital and put it together with some Death-Rock or something to make an interesting short. I just gotta bone up on my video editing and compression skilz to avoid winding up with a 75meg video.

Click here to watch one of the launches.

Click play to watch.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:58 PM

May 23, 2005

Fun Star Wars Stuff

Ok, you have to try this. For the record, I picked "a hat" and beat Vader. I wouldn't try "a hat" again as you enter what you were thinking of at the end. So he'll be sneaky and get ya.

Props to Burge Royale for this one.

Challenge Vader

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 6:52 PM | TrackBack

May 20, 2005

Cool Vids

Since I'm on a video kick lately.

I Found this video on Big-Boys that I thought was pretty interesting and cool.

Background:
Some Iraqi Defense force soldiers are in a prolonged firefight with some AIF (Anti-Iraqi Forces). Attached to the Iraqi troops are some U.S. Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC's). The JTAC's get permission to call in a Maverick Missile airstrike.

You can hear the missile come in.

I'm not glorifying war by posting this, I just find it amazing sometimes how technologically advanced and effective our Military Forces are. Plus I just found it cool.

Click here for the video.

Other videos that I just feel like showing. (All .wmv files)

Don't fly with these guys. . . .

Don't play with fire EVER!

I SAID, DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE!!!

I MEAN IT, DO NOT PLAY WITH FIRE!!!!

And REALLY don't play with hairspray and fire!

And Gasoline? That's just RIGHT OUT!!!

Don't shoot your friends [aka We're winning the war against evolution by breeding more IDIOTS and then protecting them!!]

The French arrive in Iraq (almost)

I don't know if this is real or not, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Although I'm still firmly PRO 2nd Amendment.WARNING: Content may be disturbing!!

This is just audio, and it takes a bit to get started, but it's hilarious.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:12 AM

May 19, 2005

Yeah right!!! Blame us?

Get this:

Thu May 19, 1:15 PM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

I love that last line, no matter what "Blame Bush!"

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:13 PM | TrackBack

May 18, 2005

More Martial Music Madness

Judgeing from the email and hits, people liked the Norwegian effort (you can either scroll down or click here for that performance), our next contestants come from the British Isles and are performing in sunny, sandy, scary Iraq.

So without further ado, take it away Lucky Pierre. . . go click play now.

Clik HERE to watch the video.

So what do the judges say?????

--Jason

PS, if you have other military parody music videos, drop me a line at Jason[AT]JasonColeman.com.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:12 PM | TrackBack

May 17, 2005

American Idol, eat your heart out!!!

This just in. . . . .

MUST SEE MUSIC VIDEO courtesy of the Norwegian Armed Forces stationed in Kosovo.

Click here to play video.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:43 PM | TrackBack

Mythbusting

When I first heard of the "Koran flushing" incident falsely reported by NEWSWRONG, I wanted to test the theory behind it.

Unfortunately, Silent Running beat me to it.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:20 PM

May 10, 2005

Visitor Update

I promised to keep people updated, so here's the overcrowding situation here at my humble abode.

I need to apologize for the quality of the image. The babies were asleep, but that didn't stop mommie bird and daddy bird from attacking me when I got near the nest. It's difficult to snap a picture when you're trying to stop a mommie bird from pecking your eyes out.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:12 AM

April 17, 2005

Imminent Visitors. . .

I haven't blogged much about "important" stuff. That's mainly because I'm taking advantage of the good weather and doing other "important" stuff.

But I did want to annouce the arrival of my new neighbors and upcoming houseguests.

Here's their house:

And here are the imminent visitors:

I'll be sure to keep people updated.......

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:08 PM

April 12, 2005

I wonder. . .

I really wonder sometimes about the people who read this blog. Quite a few of them I can identify, but I always take pause when I see things like usdoj.gov, house.gov and senate.gov in the lists of people that come here.

Whenever I see visitors from house.gov, senate.gov or al.us I wonder; so if you're one of those, drop me a line and say hi!

It's jasonATjasoncoleman.com BTW.

--Jason

PS - Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Nah, that's not it, I'm just curious.

PPS - Add GC.CA to that list. That's the Government of Canada server for those who are curious.

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:43 AM

April 11, 2005

Back again Part Deux

Well this post could just as easily be called, the TOTALLY USELESS POST, but I'm doing it anyway. Because I CAN!!!!!

So as I ran around today, I had my camera with me and I just wanna document my randomness.

First, the dogwoods are blooming in my yard. There are 10 or so scattered around, and when I left for Flarridah, they were just starting to bud out, now they're full bloom, and the smell is wonderful and they really are quite pretty trees to have around.

Since I had the camera with me, I decided to stop a few places I pass by quite often and snap a shot or two. I've always made note of the Boy Scouts of America Statue of Liberty when I pass it, but I've never stopped to take a look at the dedication or plaza. So today, I stopped, and I found out that in 1921 there were only 5 Eagle Scouts from the State of Alabama, in 2004 there were 345 (unless I messed up the count, but I'm pretty close).

Normally I hate French stuff!

Later, I stopped by the canoe lauch on the Cahaba near my house, the water's a little high right now, but it's still a nice spot. Makes me really love where I live since I can get to this spot in about 3 minutes.

So there are a few useless pictures from the useless parts of my useless day. See, I told you this was a useless post.

--Jason

PS I also took a picture of this guy making a BIG PILE O DIRT. Didn't make much sense as to why he was making this BIG PILE O DIRT, but I'm a boy and boys always take note of BIG PILES O DIRT.

--JC

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:51 PM

Back again

Well, it's been another blog hiatus for me, this time it wasn't just slack it was work. I've was in Flarridah all last week working. That's it, just work, no beach time, no bikini watching, no play time at all. It was up at 6:30, meet my co-workers, travel to the first meeting of the day, attend meeting, travel to next meeting, rinse and repeat until lunch, then rinse and repeat until dinner, then back to the hotel, hit the sack and repeat the next day. Hows that for a run-on sentence.

So I got back to Birmingham close to midnight Friday, Saturday was my uncles Birthday, so family stuff ruled the day. Sunday was catch up with Mom day (we watched the Bridget Jones Sequel, there's two hours of my life I'd like to get back, that movie SUCKED).

Today was run some errands, do some laundry (which Irish doesn't do, maybe we should hook up, but she's a Dem), tried to meet up with some people who needed some work done here in town, and now I'm trying to catch up on non-Pope related news that occured whilst I was away and find purpose for the rest of the day.

SO. . . . to make a long story longer, if you happen to drop by and read this post, then pop back in a little later, as I run around the house doing this and that, I'm gonna drop a few more posts in here.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:04 PM

March 30, 2005

Springtime Slack

Spring has sprung and it brought forth a large amount of slacker behavior when it comes to this blog. I can mostly attribute this to an identity crisis your not so humble author is going through which directly contributes to the number of posts I put up. Over the last few weeks I've logged in numerous times and pounded away at the keys only to look back at my words an realize that they didn't fit with what I wanted this blog to become. Then I further realized that I don't have a vision of what I want this to become. It's simply been a rant space, a place for me to point out this or that, or to comment about someone else's comments. I didn't have a "plan" when I started this and I guess I still really don't. So let's talk about??? Springtime!

Yes, springtime has come to Birmingham and with it comes the desire to get out and do more things that make one feel like and active participant in life rather than just an observer. I'm hoping that this spring will finally be that one where I shave those strokes off my golf game (13 trips to the driving range are in my immediate future, taking only one club each time to try and solidify my swing), I also hope to perfect my skills with a bait-cast reel and I plan on doing some major work on my yard which is battling an identity crisis of it's own much like the author and this blog. More on that in another post.

So there you have it, the ice has been broken and the blog has been updated. Nothing much there to say, but I'll be here in front of the keys for the next hour or so to put up a few more posts. Speaking of ICE??? Wait fifteen minutes or so and check back, I'm going to check on the status of B15A right now and post some new photos of what that "killer rogue iceberg" is doing.

--Jason

PS - There you go Irish, are you happy now?

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:37 PM

March 11, 2005

Things that make you go HHHMMMMMM.

I wonder about those people who get locked up in a room writing fortune cookiees. I never extended the same thoughts to the people that have been coming up with the cutesy sayings on the Taco Bell Border Sauce packets.

This packet was found in Birmingham today. I have to say it's either marketing genius, a great prank or someone got or will be fired. It's damned hilarious and I just thought I'd share. Here is a larger version and the image before cropping.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:11 PM

March 1, 2005

Traffic Report

Friends and Family have been asking "Who's reading your blog?" So I figured I'd start writing a report monthly about the most interesting things (to me anyway) coming off my site statistics report. Rather than go back and hash out the first few months, I'm starting with February.

The site got 1360 Unique visitors in February; readers came from over 25 different countries. I was surprised to see a few different visitors from Estonia and Mauritas.

I also received a number of hits from the US House and Senate intrawebs, I'm not sure why. When I try to track back and see where the links were coming from I hit a couple of password protected pages/sites and apparently there was a brief spat where emails were being passed around the House and Senate linking back to my site.

My 30 seconds of fame for the month came with the Blogger Babe of the Week selection (Beth was right, it did drive some traffic to the site). The series of posts about the B15A iceberg was the most popular "news type" issue I discussed, and the "Philosophy of Liberty" flash animation was pretty popular.

Some of the stranger search phrases were:

Sexy Bergy Bits (there are some strange puppies out there)
1103629729296 (I guess that number has some significance, it's been searched for more than once)
Swimmingpool nudity (no idea why that returns me)
e.t. coleman (do people thing I'm an alien? Actually it's cause of this)
sexy bergy-bits (I guess the hyphen added something)
rave pics space philadelphia (the connection eludes me, but I'll take the hit)

My favorite was victor hill idiot, and YES, he is an idiot.

Then there was the search for www.how, I'm figuring that was just a mistake.

So there you have it, a not-so-brief report of what's happening in this little corner of the web.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:54 PM

February 24, 2005

Dammit, just STOP THIS LUNACY

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

The number of syllables in your title DOES NOT make you more important. In fact, it lets everyone know that you're an over-inflated suck up within an organization that is more interested in puffing themselves up than they are in actually accomplishing a task.

Teachers are not LEARNING FACILITATORS. They're TEACHERS!!!!

Bus driver is now a "Transporter of Learners" -- Gimme a break.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:49 PM

February 21, 2005

IMDB and Netflix are trying to ruin my life

Yep, it's official, Netflix and IMDB are conspiring together with my cable company to take over my life. My laptop is helping them.

Netflix rocks for starters, it's much better than wandering around the video store looking for something that you feel like renting and then hoping that it's available. The problem is that my netflix's queue is well over 100 titles now. I've been trying to limit my additions to the queue to only one per day, and that's where IMDB and the cable company are coming in.

So here I am, kicked back watching some ensemble piece on HBO or whoever and I notice an actor or actress that is doing a particularly good job and I pop them into IMDB. BANG! There's a list of other films by said performer. Scan through the reviews and bam, it's over to Netflix and there goes another addition to the list.

Then there's the cross referencing issue that been popping up and making my life hell with IMDB. Whole new observations and discoveries are popping up as I jump back and forth between the two. For instance, I'm flipping channels and catch Keira Knightley in Love Actually, I think "Hmmm, that's the girl from Bend it like Beckham, isn't it." Quick pop over to IMDB and BANG! There in Miss Knightley's Filmography is a credit for STAR WARS EP 1.

Wha Wha WHAT!!!! Keira Knightly isn't in Phantom Menace!! Well it turns out she is. She's Sabe, one of the decoys/hand-maidens for Padme/Natalie Portman (who I never realized was in Heat. Dammit. There's more of my life wasted as I start crossreferencing other actors for their early work, extra appearances, etc. Fifteen minutes later, I've followed links to Ivana Milicevic, Kris Marshall, and a bunch of other actors to other movies and now my Netflix Queue is over 200.

I swear, the couch potato revolution has just barely begun.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:58 AM

February 20, 2005

The spammers found me

Well, I guess I should be flattered, my blog has finally gotten the attention of the various spambots out there.

A few "spam" comments have appeared and been deleted, and about 100 spam related trackbacks appeared within the last few hours. I've deleted them all and temporarily disabled the trackback functionality of the site.

I'd been waiting to upgrade the Movable Type installation until I finished with two other web projects I'm working on, but now it seems I have to adjust the timeline a bit. So over the next couple of days I'll be updating to the newest version of Movable Type. Please don't be discouraged if the site goes down for a little while, it'll come back up after I've moved everything over and cleaned up the directories at my host.

I'm actually kinda glad this happened because I wanted to clean up the way the site was organized on the back end.

The pathetic thing is that SPAM works, it boggles me actually. That people would see a "Texas Hold'em" or "Online Casino" trackback or comment and think for half a second that it's legitimate just confirms that people are quite stupid when taken "en masse". It must work to some extent (which I find amazing) because the people doing it wouldn't go to the time and expense to create and maintain what one can only assume winds up to be a million (maybe even billion) dollar industry.

Oh well, at least I know what I'll be doing tomorrow night; rebuilding this site.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:13 PM

February 17, 2005

I'm a slacker

Yes, yes, I know. Some of you have even emailed me. I haven't been posting lately and I feel bad about it.

One of the reasons I've been slacking is work, which is legitimate. Another reason is that I've found what could quite possibly be the coolest computer program/tool I've ever seen. It's called World Wind and it's freeware from NASA. The program basically combines the Big Blue Marble, LandSat, MODIS and USGS Satellite images into one simulation of the planet earth. You start viewing the composite Big Blue Marble image and from there you can rotate around the Earth and then ZOOM all the way in to the USGS images.

It's a great tool if you're a space geek (and I am). It's also something that anyone can easily use to get satellite images of your house, neighborhood, local lake, hunting area or whatever. Documentation is pretty scarce, and you need some play-time with it to get the hang of it, but it's still super-cool. I'm sure as I learn to use it, I'll be posting more about it and the cool things it can do.

It's a big download, about 170 megs, and it needs about 2 Gigs of harddrive space to work effectively. You also really have to have a broadband connection to the internet for it to work. The images are quite big and it just doesn't function on dial-up.

So that's what I've been Geeking out on lately. If you want to give it a shot, you can DOWNLOAD WORLD WIND.

More a little later, I'm going to clean up my office now.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:23 PM

February 8, 2005

Quick Hits-Feb 8th

I didn't watch the Superbowl. The Saints weren't in it, so I could care less. I'm not watching the Superbowl until the Saints are in it and it's in their new stadium. Ok, well I'm not sure I'll keep that promise, but I needed someplace to put the links and I wanted to show you where the SuperBowl Commericials are.

If you're looking for the President's Budget Proposal, you can find it here.

There's been no sighting of Kim Jong-Il yet, but they're setting the stage for the coup. Military leaders are re-affirming their allegiance.

As are "spontaneous" groups of youths.

I tell you, I think the guy's dead. Pushing up Daisy's. Doing the dirt nap.

IF I'm wrong? Well then I'll feel stupid, but I gotta call it like I see it.

I know that it's not until 2029, and I know that it's not going to hit us, when when you put out an image like this one:

that's showing that an asteroid will pass between the Earth and the Moon, I get a bit nervous. But I already covered this.

Peace is breaking out all over.

And Liesl is throwing a party.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:22 PM

I ROCK, I so so ROCK!!!!

Oy Vey!!! Do I rock or what?????

I wasn't even around and I won the damn big prize?!?!? Who'd have thunk that......

I'm too sexy for your cat, too sexy for your cat. . . . . .

Yeah, I'm tha shiznit........

Ok, serious, here's the link. Click it dammit, CLICK IT!

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:00 AM

February 6, 2005

Death to America Day

I was going to blog alot this morning, but then I found out that today is "Death to America Day", so I did laundry.

Oh yeah, last chance to go vote for one of those other guys.

I did notice that Canada is thinking about coming on board with Iraq. I expect that more will want to get in on the new Demo-Capitalist state arising in the Middle East. After all, it is a safe investment (now) that can possibly give great returns in the long run. If things go south, they still look good for helping and can pull out whenever thier resolve to defend freedom does.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:55 PM

February 5, 2005

Raptor Ready to fly

The United States' newest superfighter will be flying in active US units in December 2005, according to Lockheed-Martin.

Click here for official info on the F-22 Raptor.

Coupled with the Joint Strike Fighter YF-35 and the announcement that the new Marine One Helicopter for US Presidents will be Lockheed project, it seems that Lockheed is taking a big role in our Military Industrial Complex. Some people are complaining about these contracts, especially the Marine One helicopter procurement because a substantial portion of these platforms will be built in Europe, by European companies.

Is this a good thing? I'm not sure, but I'm not ready to say it's bad. I think that we should reach across financially now and say "Hey look Euros, we don't fight, we may bitch at each other a little, but there's not going to be a shooting war between us, so lets move on OK?" Followed with a series of "Here you go, make some stuff for us, we'll throw a bunch of dollars into your economy and maybe it's slow down the meteoric rise of your Euro." Which they desparately need.

People may not see the connection, but it's there, we're playing politics as usual and passing some economic aid over to the Euros by buying up a bunch of war material from them. It's quite ironic, how they don't want us to go to war in Iraq, but they want the contracts to supply our military. It's all hypocracy, I tell ya. Dollar Bill Diplomacy it seems, same ______, different day.

Overall I like the planes and think they're pretty rad units. Can't wait until more performance oriented videos start popping out.

Don't think that I'm opposed to the purchase of the fighters in any way, I'm not. We've been working on these for a long time, and have a good relationship with the foreign contractors. These relationships go a long way to smoothing out the rough edges in relations with our allies and friends. I'm totally supportive of them, as long as we don't buy too much from the French.

I wished everything could be made here, but that would only cause even more resentment (and that's really all it ever is) from our foreign friends. We need to share the wealth to move this Demo-Capitalist experiment on it's merry way. It's funny that we'll probably have F-22's in operation over Iran and/or Syria in a year's time, and the Euros will just have to lament that they were the ones that sold them to us. I expect they'll be more on board though. They don't want to be wrong three times in a row.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:28 PM

Well Now. . . . .

Woke to a laugh today when I saw this

I was confused when I followed the link in my email, then I started hitting the links on the page, and everything became clear. The Blogger Babe of the Week is up, and I'm part of it. Oh lordy, I'm not normally one for blatant blogpimping devices, but when Beth was looking for nominations, I just ran with it. Here's her roundup of Blogger Babes (myself included), and you should read her site too, it is a daily requirement for me.

Oh yeah, here's my competition:

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway
Dan of Riehl World View
and, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom

Looks like yours truely doesn't stand a chance. That's ok though, it's not about winning, it's about . . . . well I'm not sure what it's about, losing sucks. Go Vote! Or at least go read the sites. Yeah, that's the ticket, it's about hits.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:27 PM

February 2, 2005

War on Toys

We all now pretty much know that the AP got duped into running with the story about and American G.I. (Joe) captured in Iraq. It didn't take long for the blogosphere to determine that something wasn't right with the picture. Within hours of the story's emergence, doubts started arising and finally a toymaker came out with the evidence to crush the claims. The "soldier" was actually a doll and the whole thing a hoax.

This seems to be very indicative that the "insurgents" (read terrorists) are running out of effective mechanisms for turning the tide in Iraq. They've also recently resorted to trying to "trick" people into becoming suicide bombers, and when that fails they're resorting to using the mentally handicapped (yes, I know that's not a politically correct term).

Closer to home, people are taking their ire out on dolls here in America. Latino groups are now criticising the Marisol doll. COME ON PEOPLE, WE'RE TALKING DOLLS HERE!!!!!

For a funny read click HERE.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:46 PM

January 31, 2005

No fear, shameless plug or something like that

Ok, Beth, this is for you --

A brief explanation: I'm trying to persuade Beth over at "My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" to nominate me for some blogger boy contest, and well, since this is technically a vanity site, I may as well just go all out for it and give her a pic. Not that I think I'm all that handsome, but hell, someone's gotta win. Maybe it'll even drive some traffic this way. It's all about the hits right?

Yes, the T-Shirt does say "Bitter as Love".

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 6:36 PM

January 30, 2005

Where you been boy???

Ok, Ok, I know I haven't posted in a few days and I'm sure a few of you have been checking in and may even have been disappointed that I wasn't saying anything. Well, I'm sorry, but I've been busy working on what I intend to be my primary website from here on out. I still plan on keeping jasoncoleman.com going as a personal rant space, but I want to expand a bit on what this is all about and I don't want to do this under this domain. Don't worry though I'll let you know where to go when the time comes.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:21 PM

January 24, 2005

The Movie

I'm sure that many people over the next few days will be talking about the made for TV movie "Dirty War" which aired on HBO this evening. I just finished watching it and the simplicity of the attack described, coupled with the devastating effects such a device could cause are simply beyond comprehension.

Personally, I can't really make an informed comment on the film or the possibility that such an attack could seriously happen. I'll need more time for that. What I can say is going to sound cliche.

THIS FILM, "DIRTY WAR", IS MOST PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT FILM YOU COULD POSSIBLY SEE GIVEN THE CURRENT AGE WE LIVE IN.

I HIGHLY recommend that you visit HBO.com and find the next available showing, and if you don't currently subscribe to HBO, find a neighbor, a friend or a family member that does.

Beyond the horror of the possibilities, the simple viewing of a "whitewashed" account of what the immediate aftermath would be like for those affected by such an attack is important to take note of.

The first reaction of anyone who found themselves in a situation such as presented in the film, namely a nuclear dirty bomb attack, would natrually immediately try to leave the area. Which on the surface seems to be the best option, when in actuality, it's EXACTLY the WRONG thing to do. It should be noted that NO GOVERNMENT would be able to effectively set up decontamination efforts in a timely manner to take care of a large scale attack on a civilian population. However, leaving the area would only bring the contamination home to your family, friends, pets and anyone you would come in contact with along the way. Additionally, the contamination would spread to your home, car and any object you came in contact with. Effectively serving to recontaminate you.

The prospect is mind boggling, and it certainly leaves us with many questions to ask of ourselves and our government. Are we as prepared as we can be as a nation for such an event. Probably not. Are we as prepared as we could be personally? I mean in terms of being able to protect ourselves and our families from contamination and provide for our short term needs in the even of such a crisis. I would suspect, definately not.

Over the next few days, I'll be revisiting this topic as I absorb it. I plan on providing informative links about decontamination, preparedness and threats. I hope that you'll come back.

For now though I think I need a drink and some time to reflect.

Watch this movie. It's important. Trust me, you'll feel the same way.

--Jason

**Comments are closed for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:31 PM

January 22, 2005

Great VW fun

I was talking online with a friend about the new Volkswagen Phaeton. Which I have to say is probably one of the greatest cars on the market today. More on that later.

So some time passes and I get a link to a Quicktime file in my email from the very same friend. Lemme just say, Diet Coke out the nose is NO FUN!!!!!

--- Click to watch the video ---

I was totally unprepared for it. As I watched I felt my hackles start to rise because I was sure that I was about to be really pissed off. Well you already know I wasn't. I musta watched it ten times before I was able to write this.

In a follow up email he also sent me this picture and the accompanying text which I found out came from a 70's era National Lampoon ad:

If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be President today!

It floats.
The way our body is built, we'd be surprised if it didn't. The sheet of flat steel that goes underneath every Volkswagen keeps out water, as well as dirt and salt and other nasty things that can eat away at the underside of a car. So it's watertight at the bottom. And everybody knows it's easier to shut the door on a Volkswagen after you've rolled down the window a little.

That proves it's practically airtight on top. If it was a boat, we could call it the Water Bug. But it's not a boat, it's a car.

And, like Mary Jo Kopechne, it's only 99 and 44/100 percent pure. So it won't stay afloat forever. Just long enough. Poor Teddy. If he'd been smart enough to buy a Volkswagen, he never would have gotten into hot water.

Great fun, made my day.

So if case you're still curious about the Phaeton, it's Volkswagen's ultra-luxury sedan, and I have to say, it's one helluva car.

Official VW Phaeon Site
The Autoweek test versus the Mercedes S500 (The Mercedes left on a wrecker)
The Glass Factory, this is where the Phaeton is made, take a few minutes to go through the site, it's amazing.

(Full Disclosure: Someone very close to me bought one recently, and it's everything they claim it to be and MUCH MUCH MORE.)

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:01 AM

January 17, 2005

Il Divo

Here ya go mom!

Il Divo

Foot Hill Stomp

Posted by JasonColeman at 6:13 PM

January 14, 2005

She's Gonna Blow!!!!!

If you don't have one eye on the major news channels today, you may want to. The Prado dam in California is threatening to burst. Should it decide to let go, there are 500 homes immediately affected and the pictures will be quite incredible (and of course, tragic).

So flip on the news and hold a good thought for our brothers and sisters in Corona, Ca.

On the bright side? At least the California drought is over.

-Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 9:24 AM

January 10, 2005

Rathergate AGAIN

Well, the "independent" (read: hired by CBS to investigate CBS) panel has released their report and pink slips have been handed out to 4 CBS News staffers over CBS's new "false but accurate" reporting style and the Rathergate memos.

The report stops short of saying that the "documents" were fake. However as John Hinderaker of Powerline says:

I should add that I don't attach great significance to the authors' failure to state a definite conclusion that the documents were fakes. The report does an excellent job of marshalling the evidence as to content, format and typography. No one (except, perhaps, Dan Rather) can read that evidence without concluding that the documents were a hoax. Whether the authors stopped short of the obvious conclusion in order to help CBS, or out of an excess of caution, I have no idea. But the evidence arrayed by the authors against the CBS documents is the last nail in the coffin of those who have continued to argue that they might, after all, be genuine.

While no one can say definately and without a doubt that the documents are indeed forgeries, there's no evidence out there at all to say that they are real. Unless you want to take Dan Rather's word for it.

There is however THIS, which I feel demonstrates quite conclusively that the documents are indeed forgeries. (Please give it time to load, it's worth it.)

None of this really matters anyway. CBS News will recover, Dan Rather will get his gold watch and retire peaceably. There's no crime to prosecute and we'll only be able to say that it's widely believed the documents are forgeries put forward in an attempt to influence the election. Those that are supporters of Rather and Mapes will say that the documents may be "false, but accurate".

Today the main stream media will continue to use "false but accurate" reporting simply because IT SELLS. It's now easy to go out there and make bombastic claims, throw out forged documents and make connections where none exist. The media has failed us completely with this issue and it's only the first outward indication of what we're sure to see come up time and time again.

Quite frankly, the entire episode is quite depressing. Journalists, who were once the "guardians of the truth" have merely become entertainers, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves out there in the wasteland.

Complete Independent Panel report on CBS News

Exhibits for reports and Appendices

CBS Official Statement Regarding the Report

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:17 PM

January 6, 2005

Canadian Drugs

Ok, so now I get to rant. Why? Just because I can.

Canadian Drugs -- The Canadians DO NOT want us buying drugs from them. They're about to cut off the ability of Americans to buy drugs from Canada. People are beginning to scream that this is because of some pressure that the Bush administration has put on the Canadians.

ANYONE WHO THINKS THIS IS AN IDIOT!!!!!!!!!

The Canadians are about to cut off the drug pipeline to the US because the Canadian government is SUBSIDIZING the cost of drugs in Canada. It does absolutely NO GOOD for the Canadian citizen to subsidize American drug purchases.

Get the reality of the situation straight people. The Canadian government TAXES THE HELL out of the Canadian people. They then in turn use these taxes to subsidize prescription drug costs in Canada. When we (Americans) go across the border or use the internet to buy Canadian drugs, it's costing Canadian citizens their tax dollars that are meant to benefit Canadian people. When we buy their drugs, we are using Canadian money to subsidize our prescription drug costs.

NO WONDER the Canadians are pissed. And NO, it's not Bush or any American administration that's cutting off the suppy, it's the Canadians acting in their own best interests. They're getting taxed, those taxes are getting them cheaper drugs. They don't pay taxes so that Americans, or anyone other than Canadians, can get cheaper drugs.

We'd be pissed as all hell if our taxes were going to provide the Canadians with season tickets to NFL games wouldn't we??? Of course we would.

So stop this BULLSHIT about the Bush Administration cutting off the supply of Canadian prescription drugs. Canadians do not want, nor should they be asked, to subsidize our prescription drug costs.

NOW, DO NOT SEND ME EMAIL saying that we should have cheaper drugs. NO WE SHOULDN'T! The Canadians made the choice to have the hell taxed out of them and they made the choice to have those tax dollars go to subsidizing their prescription drugs. We have not made this choice. We DO NOT WANT to have the hell taxed out of us. It's a question of fundamental differences in how we view our healthcare system.

We want cheaper drugs, so we're trying to get those drugs from Canada. The Canadians want better access to healthcare so they stream over our border to see our doctors. It's Yin and Yang, give an take, it's the choices we make. However, taking advantage is taking advantage. Canadians coming here to use our doctors and our hospitals are not using our tax dollars when they do it. We should not be using their tax dollars by buying their subsidized prescription drugs.

Stop pissing off the Canadians by stealing their drugs, and their taxes. They are our neighbors dammit, show them some respect. After all, from time to time we borrow their tank. (Ok, I'm sorry, and yes, I know their military isn't THAT small.)

--Jason

PS I could have used another source for the link, but I've taken so much shit for being in Alabama lately that I thought I'd start to use more Alabama websites and news sources in my blog. Ya'll furgit folks, us redneks have a damn sight lotta smart folks down here an we'sa got us more rocket sci'tists heer in 'bama than any dang place ellst.

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:40 PM

January 5, 2005

A Treasure's Trove

Here's an interesting book with an even more interesting concept.

Buy this Book

Posted by JasonColeman at 5:58 PM

January 4, 2005

Yay for the Dutch

One of my favorite reads is The Diplomad. Mainly because of posts like this.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:48 PM

Captured, not captured, captured -------

Scoop artist extrodinaire Drudge is reporting that Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi has been caputred. Happy New Year.

Not so fast! Two hours later, he's posting a denial by military officials.

What to think? Probably a "fog of war" issue, but I've still got my fingers crossed, hoping that he actually has been captured and the military is embarking on a disinformation campaign until they can get him secured out of the country.

Hey? I can still hope, right.

Great news if he is captured, if not, we still gotta keep trying and anyone with a brain knows that this was never going to be easy.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:22 AM

The Blog is Fixed!!!

Woo Hoo, the blog is fixed. I have to really hand it to the great folks at Webstrike Solutions. They have been a great hosting company to work with and BY FAR they are the most responsive internet business I have EVER dealt with.

Now I just have to organize my thoughts up again to make up for all those posts I wanted to make but couldn't. Expect a flurry of activity. Woo Hoo, I'm stoked.

While I'm here, lemme give some props to Donnie Fowler and specifically his efforts to "changetheparty". I think Donnie is possibly one of the brightest stars in the political landscape today. If he's able to "changetheparty" the way he seems to hope to, I'll probably have some mid-term endorsements going to Democrats as well as Republicans. Good luck Donnie. For the record, I'm hated by a few of their far left visitors and members inhabiting their forums. However, I firmly believe that we need a two party system and Donnie's efforts to bring the Democrat party back into the game by working on their issues and infrastructure is valuable to country. I do respect their opinions even if they don't respect mine. Here's my introductory post over there.

On the other side of the spectrum, there's ConservativePunk, I've played over there a little bit over the last week or so and while dealing with the Punk subculture on their forums is sometimes a very frustrating experience. There are some real gold nuggets of truth to discover there. Check it out, just remember that dealing with the Punk subculture is not a PC experience and they'll jump down your throat whether your liberal or conservative. Read this first!

Oh yeah, the MSM has finally begun to expose the Philly 11 issue. I blogged about this over a week ago, today I finally caught stories about it on C-span and Fox.

Finally, remember this guy? Now read this. Sweet Irony!!!

More to come.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:30 AM

January 1, 2005

New years gift for me

A surprising New Year's gift for me was delivered by The Truth Laid Bear. You may notice my TTLB ranking in the lower right of this blog.

Like everyone else, I started out as an Insignificant Microbe. Well today, as you can see, I've graduated up to Slimy Mollusc, and "boy howdy", am I stoked or what.

Yes, to be completely honest, it's not some great honor, and I've got a ways to go before I can give the likes of Instapundit or Little Green Football's a challenge. At least a few people are reading this little rant and rave space I set up. It was nice to see today and it's certainly encouraged me to put a little more effort into this thing.

Thanks to you all for stopping by to take a look and those of you that are linking to me and moving me up the blogosphere food-chain.

Even better was that I made the jump from Insignificant Microbe straight to Slimy Mollusc, I was able to skip right over Multicellular Microorganisms, Wriggly Worms, Crunchy Crustaceans and Lowly Insects.

--Jason

NOTE: For some strange reason, I can't put links into this entry. I'll have to figure it out later when I get home. Must be something toggled funny on this computer I'm borrowing.

NOTE:

Posted by JasonColeman at 8:02 PM

December 29, 2004

Face Facts Moonbats

The left is all in an uproar about the US aid response to the recent Tsunami. In a word? It's sickening. The outrages range from people saying that the Tsunami was created by global warming to the Tsunami missing Diego Garcia because of secret government weapons systems to create undersea earthquakes.

The left is crying that Bush didn't come out publically soon enough. I'm sorry, but the initial 15 million was announced the day after the quake. Then they want to scream to the rafters how the aid is paltry. Get real people, it's not over yet, no one knows how many are dead and NO AMOUNT OF MONEY WILL GET ANY OF THE DEAD BACK.

More will be spent on this by the US and other nations than is currently committed. But get real people!!! Throwing money, more money and more money at the region WILL NOT DO A DAMN THING!!!!

If the region needs money to rebuild, it will come. It will come in the form of aid, loans, credits, in-kind donations, private contributions, trade missions and all manner of other sources. It will be there and the region will be rebuilt, better than it was before.

The Moonbats on the left are SO DAMN anxious to try and blame Bush for the earthquake that they themselves are trembling. It saddens me to think that the first thoughts on people minds about this event wasn't "what can I do to help" but rather it was "this is Bush's fault because. . ."

Some days I really wish that anyone who's so profoundly unhappy that they have to blame their country for every single event, regardless of what it is, would actually carry through with their threats to move to Canada or Vietnam or wherever.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:21 PM

December 23, 2004

Somethings VERY wrong here.

Ok, first off let me make a couple of things perfectly clear. First, I am an atheist. Fully, and without qualms or doubt, I am an atheist. I also have no problems with homosexuality. I feel that a person's sexual orientation is their business, PERIOD.

What I'm INFURIATED about is what I see in THIS VIDEO. (10 Megs / 7 min.)

What I see here is a peaceful protest by members of an organization with a message, the message is a religious one. I see them exercising their constitutionally protected right to assembly and speech. The event in the video is a festival called OutFest held in Philadelphia. The festival is a gay pride celebration and a Christian group called Repent Now staged a protest during the festival which occurred over 15 city blocks, and did not charge admission.

What I also see in this video is a group of people DENYING those constitutional rights. The group doing the denying happens to be a homosexual advocacy group called the "Pink Angels". What I see in this video is one group of people denying another group of people access to public streets and thoroughfares. I see them surrounding them and denying them their right to move freely and speak freely.

This is VERY disturbing, but it gets better. The activity of the "Pink Angels", denying others their constitutional rights was announced in advance.

But it gets better. The police wind up arresting the Christian group. YES. They sure as heck do, and it's all right there in the video. The police watch as the "Pink Angels" surround the Christians, the police whatch as the "Pink Angels" harrass the Christians. The police also watch as the "Pink Angels" impede the Christians on public thoroughfares, and deny them their right to assembly and speech. Then the POLICE arrest the Christians.

Ok if you haven't watched the video yet, HERE IT IS again.

This is HIGHLY HIGHLY disturbing to me. I could care less if one group wants to parade their gay pride around in a street festival, and I could care less if a group of Christians want to preach gospel at the same festival in protest. That is the CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED right of BOTH parties. What I DO CARE ABOUT is that the Constitutionally protected rights of one group was denied to them repeatedly by another group of people in PLAIN view of the police.

You'll see in THE VIDEO, that the POLICE even acknowledge briefly that the Christians are being impeded and harrassed. But when the Christians finally put their foot down and exercise their CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS. They are arrested.

This is an OUTRAGE. But it's not over yet. The Christians that were arrested are now in danger of being sentenced to 47 years in prison for the activities shown in THE VIDEO. Please, I implore you, my readers, few that you may be to please watch THE VIDEO and then decide for yourselves. I'll put up more about this OUTRAGE as I investigate it further. Here are a few links about the incident so you can start investigating yourself. As I learn more about this I'll be updating this, as well as commenting on the larger implications of what's going on. PLEASE view THE VIDEO and read the links below to learn more.

Link 1 - Bill of Rights/Amendments to the US Constitution

Link 2 - Announcement of the intent of the "Pink Angels" published in advance of the event. NOTE: DEAD LINK, either this site has been getting hammered with hits in the last 24 hours or it has been removed by the owners. Below is a relevant quote from festival organizer Chuck Volz. I will try to find another source for the advance anouncement of the groups plans.

"We'll have a moving pink wall around them [protesters]," Volz continued. "Hopefully, they [protesters] will be so frustrated, they won't come again. Talking to a piece of Styrofoam is not the same as talking to a crowd of people."

Link 3 - Press Release from the AFA

Link 4 - Press Releases from the arrested group [ONE] [TWO]

Link 5 - Coverage of the incident by Ex-Gay Watch

Link 6 - WorldNetDaily Coverage - [ONE], [TWO], [THREE]

Link 7 - Philadelphia Inquirer coverage of the recent court decision.

I'll be adding more to this tomorrow when I've learned more about it, please check back and a special hat-tip to Geek Blonde Girl. Please feel free to save the video (right-click and "save target as. . .") and email it to concerned parties or direct them here to view the video.

The permanent link for this post is:

http://www.jasoncoleman.com/BlogArchives/2004/12/somethings_very.html

--Jason

UPDATE: Unrelated but equally egregious is this item from California

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:10 AM

December 20, 2004

Music and Marriage and Alabama Blogs

Today, I followed a link from Geek Girl Blonde (another blogger from Birmingham, AL) to Policy Review. As a "product of divorce" myself, the article resonated with me. When I was younger and thought about my father, I too felt the pangs of abandonment, and I can certainly agree with the issues explored by Everclear, Papa Roach, Nirvana and others lamenting the breakup of the family as well as the desolation and angst of Generations X, Y and Z.

I can only hope that as the children of these fractured generations (my own included) grow up they will turn back to a traditional family unit that includes both a mother and a father as role models. If the music of our parents was that of abandon, and ours is the music of abandonment, let's hope that the next music generation is that of reconnection and commitment. Unfortunately, I'm kinda doubting it, commitment doesn't really sell. *frown*

--Jason

Below are some quicks hits collected from other Alabama Bloggers:

Over at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, is a great recap of Delroy Murdock's editorial about the War on Islamofacism in The Union Leader.

Spontaneously Planned and The Irish Geisha are Birmingham, AL area bloggers. See, I read about more than just Space, Politics, and Religion.

Stephanie at Weekly View is upset about the PC crowd turning MERRY CHRISTMAS into Happy Holidays and the like. She's also not too happy with the gaggles of Hollywood-pundits out there.

Ltmr.net is reviewing Xmas Movies. Personally, I didn't think Ocean's Twelve was all that great, but worth seeing anyway. (No permalink on this one, so hit it quick if you need a red state review of Christmas flicks.)

The Crimson Lefty has died. Probably of Pork Rind poisoning.

Carla Jean at Stumbling Through the Lines wanted everyone to know she graduated. But she also has a good post about her Southern Heritage.

Citizen Frank (great blog BTW) is talking about his serendipitous mistake.

Finally, Liberty Flash details discusses the state of Prohibition in Alabama.

**Comments are closes for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 4:11 PM

December 16, 2004

Quick Shots - Dec. 16th

I've been working on a piece about George Soros, the self-proclaimed defender (huh?) of democracy. However it's not ready yet, so I want to take a moment or two to hit on some little bits that are of interest -- to me.

With all the hoopla about global warming, I find it strange that a bunch of Kiwis got worried about the problems posed from a massive iceberg threatening penguins.

In case you have dropped out of the loop on this one, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers are still hard at work on the surface of Mars, giving us daily reports on our red neighbor. Unfortunately, the demise of Beagle 2 is still a mystery.

It seems the good Mormon, Ken Jennings jumped the gun in a particularly interesting way during his run as Jeopardy champion. (Hat-tip to my sister Adrienne for giving me a few laughs.)

I have a morbid side too, that's why I'm working on my picks for this years Dead Pool.

Date rapists beware!!! Women are catching on to your tactics and turning the tables on you. (No! I'm not googling "date rape" I found this over at Die Puny Humans.)

I feel a bit sorry for Bernard Kerik. Personally I think he'd have been a great choice for Homeland Security Chief. After all, if the guy can keep two mistresses and a wife all at the same time, he's certainly capable of handling multiple security matters at once. Honestly though, we need a kick ass rough and tumble cop heading up this department. I hate to thing we're actually looking at Lieberman for this spot. I just have no confidence in this guy watching our backs, no offense Joe, but you've never been known as the toughest guy on the block, and then there was that whole excommunication thing.

I love reading the Iraqi blogs. Not just the blogs that are talking ABOUT Iraq, but the ones actually written by people IN Iraq. I think it's a good thing to get the the word's "from the camel's mouth" so to speak (Yes, I know that was insensitive, I'm sorry.). But do go check out A Day in Iraq's post about Michael Moore. BTW, Iraq The Model is another great Iraqi blog.

This probably should have gone at the top, but it looks like one the last hurdles has been completed to get the morons over at DU to shut the hell up and accept that they lost. Well, no, I guess they can't accept it, and they don't read the news.

Well, that's what's been on my mind today, and I'd like to give a special thanks to Cambridge Coffee. They've opened up a new store near me and I think I've found a new spot to stop in, coffee up and hit the net for a few minutes. They certainly do a better job that that Seattle outfit.

--Jason

PS, While you're here, please check out a couple of other Alabama bloggers, Geek Girl Blonde and My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Posted by JasonColeman at 3:58 PM

December 13, 2004

Carnival!!!!!

The Carnival of the Capitalists is up. Some great reads in there, I'm especially liking this one.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 2:07 PM

December 6, 2004

Chicago Fire

Blogs of War is giving a minute by minute account of an ongoing high-rise fire in Chicago. As of right now, the fire has caused over 25 injuries, with at least a dozen reported as "serious."

The fire has involved several floors, but the roof webcam is still working, for now.

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:24 PM

December 4, 2004

Now I'm no prude -- however

I've finally been triggered to talking about indecency on television.

Personally, for me, nothing that could be broadcast over the tele could possibly generate outrage in me. I'm not going to be offended by language, violence, nudity, crassness or even poor taste.

I'm simply going to change the channel, turn off the TV or ignore it while my attention wanders over to something else, like this BLOG.

But I was watching "NewsWatch" on Fox, that's the program where they spend the hour doing the news "about the News." They go back and forth about media events, but it's the end of the show that prompted this rant. During the email segment, someone named Robert had written in and said basically:

at issue isn't the nudity or the activities promoted, but rather the issue is me as a father trying to teach my son to be respectful of women or my daughter to respect herself and her body and to be responsible in their actions, and then to have all of that undermined when we try to sit down and watch a football game

And DAMN, if that just ain't the IT of all this hullabaloo that started with Janet's "Wardrobe Malfunction" and has most recently included the Monday Night Football / Desparate Housewives Promo.

This guy Robert has hit the nail right on the head. It's about choosing your programming and then getting thrown that unexpected curveball. Expecting to sit down with the Family to watch the game and suddenely you're involved in a "Deep Ethical Conversation" with your son or daughter about the events on the screen. If you're any type of good parent you can't just let it slide. You have to address it. If you don't you've given tacit approval to the attitudes of the athelete and actress and there goes all that social programming you're fighting the losing battle on, right out the window. If you do react to it and begin a "family discussion" you've ruined the game and have to on the fly disect and analyze the situation you just saw in an unexpected flash. It's simply unfair for you, the consumer.

Just like with Janets "wardrobe malfunction". I saw that live. I was in a room with many other people, we were all talking about this or that, and no one was really paying attention to the half-time show. But I was angled so that I still had the TV in my field of view and . . . WHAM . . . there it was. I think some liquid may have come out of my nose. No one else in the room saw it. Only me. I knew immediately that it'd be an issue, or was I wrong? Maybe I didn't see it. I'd definately have to check the news later.

AND THAT THE RUB. This is AMBUSH MARKETING, and I don't think we're going to see it go away any time soon. Because it works. Desparate Housewives couldn't have been happier with the free advertising on EVERY network for their Monday Night Football stunt. The NFL, Janet, CBS (it was CBS right?), and even pretty boy accomplice made out pretty well with their half-time stunt too.

That's how AMBUSH MARKETING is going to be from now on.

1. Identify your demographic
2. Insert racy/raunchy/whatever material into unrelated high viewship programming.
3. Wait for the outrage.
4. Feign innocence, misunderstand or just sack the producer with a golden parachute and rehire said producer later.
5. Rake in the viewer and the profits.

I really don't like this tactic with advertising. And I SURE AS HELL didn't like it when Rather used this marketing gimmick in the election with his "false but accurate" reporting. But it seems that the last vestiges of honor and decency are leaving us in group interactions. It's a matter of rudeness, it's a fine example of the lack of respect that media outlets have for their consumers and it's just simply, in the commonest sense, WRONG.

But I don't think we'll see it go away anytime soon.

--Jason

The Internet is a great thing. With a few clicks you get this.

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:01 PM

December 2, 2004

Battlefield Robotics

The US military is always looking for ways to be a leaner, meaner fighting machine. Most of the superior performance of our war-fighters in the field can be attributed back to our technological edge.

You probably don't think twice about Unmaned Aerial Vechicles when they're mentioned on the news. But in the near future, you can also expect to begin hearing about UGV's, Unmanned Ground Vechicles.
Robots are making tremendous inroads into the ground battlefield environment. The Talon, which has been serving as bomb defusing or ordance disposal robot for years, is now being equipped to carry a grenade launcher and machine gun. The Terminators have arrived.

Also in the development pipeline is the REV or Robotic Extraction Vechicle. This cool unit is essentially a robot ambulance. Safely incased in a light armor shell, the wounded soldiers can be stabilized, then shuttled back to the rear for attention at field hospitals.

John Deere is even working on a version of it's small utility vechicle the Gator for the military. Currently, infantry units are using the small truck/tractors to haul gear. John Deere wants to enable some sort of robotic technology into the M-Gator so that the troops don't have to drive the vehicle. It will just follow the group around and react to information is receives from its sensor array.

Finally, I have to mention the iRobot company. No relation to the movie. These guys make the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. Which is a good christmas present for bachelors, BTW. You can buy one here.

But iRobot is also developing the SUGV, otherwise known as The Soldier's Robot. This things being designed to serve as a personal assistant to the individual soldier, serving as a shooting platform, pack mule or outfitted to whatever speciality the soldier needs.

Very cool technology. Of course I get the mixed feelings about taking the Humanity out of war. Will leaders be more willing to start shooting conflicts when their armies are swarms of UAV's and UGV's instead of humans? What happens when war becomes just another video game?

But generally, I support the development course with all these projects. I'm all for keeping our guys overseas in all the gear they need and anything we can do to make their job easier and safer, I'm giving it my full support.

Oh yeah, the Gladiator for the Marine Corps is really cool too.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 10:46 PM

November 24, 2004

In the quest for "Equality"

I support women in the military, though I'm not necessarily a fan of women in combat roles. I think it's OK for men to be a little stubborn with that position. We can be a little chivalrous, after all, that's a benefit of being the most powerful military force on the planet. HOWEVER, I do want to point out an example of what a great job some women are doing in Iraq.

While I'm at it, here's a great post showing why Condi will make an EXCELLENT Secretary of State. She has great potential to encourage women's rights initiatives all over the world.

Since I've already addressed changes in the cabinet here, what about Bill Cosby as Secretary of Education? Sounds interesting. [2] [3] I wonder if this is the start of something?

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:21 PM

November 23, 2004

Good News from Iraq -- And Dolphins!!

The mainstream media still refuses to tell Americans about the good things happening everyday in Iraq. Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal and an Australian Blogger have filled the void.

CHRENKOFF'S Report on the past two weeks in Iraq.

Dolphins are getting some good press today. Here are some Dolphins in Iraq, keeping humans safe because they're trained to. And HERE are some Dolphins keeping people safe because they want to.

Maybe it's time to take a closer look at these aquatic buddies.

Posted by JasonColeman at 12:32 PM

November 17, 2004

These guys are great.

I found this series on accident a few weeks ago. I'd watched a couple of the episodes and laughed, cried; the whole gambit of emotions washed over me. I didn't think much about them until today when I came across this. I thought I'd share it here. You'll need Quicktime to view it. Don't worry it's not political.

Red Vs. Blue - Real Life vs. the Internet If you're on dial-up, feel free to right-click and download this via "Save File As. .", but if you're using cable/DSL it should stream fine after a few seconds of buffering.

You can get more of Red Vs. Blue at RedVsBlue.com.

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 7:55 PM

November 12, 2004

Well? Now What?

Hmmm....

It's been a week now. I'd promised myself that I'd wait a week before updating because I didn't want this site to evolve into another rightwing nutjob site. I didn't want to hash out the election over and over. I'll make mention of it of course, but I wanted to let the fever die down out there.

But is the fever dying down?? Or is the new American pass-time a game that includes:

Self-serving, Look at me, I hate myself and my country drivel?
Racist, Bigoted, Insulting, Profane Rantings?
Conspiracy Theories taken as fact?
And the media embracing "false but accurate" reporting?

It's been horrible to watch this whining, sniveling bunch of the sorest losers ever to go through their death throws. There are even people in Florida trying to describe this as "Post-election stress disorder" and they're trying to say that some kid was distraught over the election and decided to "blow his head off with a shotgun in downtown manhattan?" Gimme a break. In the first case, YOU LOST, GET OVER IT! In the second, there was definately something else going on there, it's hard enough to walk around NYC with a shotgun, let alone blow your OWN head off with one.

So can we expect now that people will try to claim disability because their presidential candidate lost? Yeah, I'm sure someone will try to sue Bush, or Rove, or the RNC, or the Swifties or even the DNC and the Kerry Kamp. They'll claim that their negligance or some BS cost them their electoral rights and they now need a stipend from the government so they can sit around and bitch about the government all day. It's out there, just around the corner folks.

But Hey, it's time to move on, and for me, it's great news that Bush is President. He's the guy I voted for, not because of the War on Terror, or for the return of family values, not for anything other than he was my guy, the guy that I trusted, the guy that didn't defame my dad's service in Vietnam, the guy that I believe will do better job with the economy, the guy that I believe will do a better job with education, the guy that I believe will do a better job on balancing America's responsibility to the world and her responsibility to her citizens.

That's the whole point right? America is supposed to work toward her own self-interests first right??? Isn't that the whole point of this geo-political game. To make the world better by starting right here in the USA. Yeah, that's why I voted for Bush, PURE SELF INTEREST. I like my Freedom, and I like being on top of the charts when it comes to things like money, shelter, security, cool gadgets, new toys and free time. I'm glad that I don't live a subsistence "lifestyle" in some third world country.

I'm glad that I have the time to expound about what I like or don't like about my country, my fellow citizens or the world in general. I'm glad that I don't have to go out and stand in lines to get my basic food needs met, only to have that food hoarded by a bunch of thugs with guns.

I'm glad that I drive a SUV, and I'm not upset about the price of gas. I'm glad that I get to have my MTV, FOXNEWS, CSPAN, HBO, History Channel, Nickelodeon and PBS. I'm glad that we're fighting over there, rather than in our grade schools and supermarkets. I'm quite comfortable with my life; I'd like it to be better, and it does get better every day.

I think "W - The President", has done a damn good job in a difficult time for this nation, and I want him to have a full term where he's not bound by the electoral politics that hinder real progress.

So I'm moving on and looking at the world with a sharper focus now.

More soon. . .

--Jason

**Comments are closed for this entry, if you'd like to add something, contact me via email.**

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:51 PM

October 27, 2004

Current Marine Corps Videos

America's Marine Corps remain the "tip of the sword" for US Military Forces. Conducting all manner of operations in Iraq from humanitarian to high-altitude combat drops, our boys and girls on the front line are proving to the anti-Iraqi forces (IAF) and the world why they are the best of the best.

Videos

Quick React - 2nd Batallion 4th Marines engage in Ar Ramadi, Iraq after encountering an IED.

Swift Silent Deadly - Marines from 1st Recon, 1st Marine Division soar into Iraq in historic first HAHO jump.

Click HERE for hi-res and more videos from the US Marines.

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:53 AM

October 23, 2004

So far so good

Well, the blog made it though the night. The database seems to be stable and most of the functionality seems to be intact. I had some friends attack it to try and break it up, and waking up to over 100 comments on my first article surprised me until I realized they were all from the same IP and part of a systematic attack to try and break my server (thanks Raz, but that's not what I meant). I have to give credit to Webstrikesolutions.com (my host) for having a great robust system
that has so far proven to be everything they claim it to be.

Now those of you who know me know that I'm a news junkie. I awake every morning to FoxNews on my office television and I throw one of the other 24 hour cable stations or Bloomberg on the TV in the living room so I don't lose "background input" while I walk around the house. I then usually sit down and hit the big news websites, read a few key blogs and try to get an overall picture of what's going on in the world.

I do read newspapers, but I typically don’t start the day with one, I usually hit the major newspaper websites and check to see what their big stories of the day are, I’ll then make a decision which one to pick up that day or sometimes, I just stick with the local. I’m hoping that one day soon, the print news media can make the big leap and come up with an effective format to deliver their product in some sort of ePaper form that makes sense and is easy to navigate. Of course they are dragging their feet in this and I can’t really fathom why, unless its some concession to their advertisers or a fear that their product will then be viewed as just another blog. Who knows.

So what is it today that perked my interest----

Posted by JasonColeman at 11:14 AM

Welcome to my Blog

Well, I finally decided to start one of these up, I've been pestered by friends and family to start putting my stuff out there publically for more people to read and I've procrastinated long enough. So here it is, my first blog, I feel like a proud daddy already.

I figure with this first post I should let people know a bit about what I'll be putting here. Basically I plan on being pretty eclectic with the site, but you can expect that I'll write alot about Politics, Current Events, Science that interests me and things that make me just sit up and take notice of the world around me.

As for the site itself, it'll probably go through a few revamps before I'm satisfied with the layout and the appearance, I hope that if you start reading in the beginning, that you bear with me through the changes and revamps. I promise I'll do my best to keep it interesting and topical.

I'll leave comments open on the site, and I hope that if there's something that you find interesting, particularly agree with, or particularly disagree with that you'll please comment on it or drop me an email. Likewise, please let me know if you ever find part of the site broken or a dead link so I can keep the site as clean as possible.

I'll make up a consent policy if you want to repost or publish any articles or posts that I make and while I'll be pretty free with what I post, I'd appreciate it if you wind up using something of mine that you give credit where it's due and send me a link to it.

Thanks, and welcome to JasonColeman.com

Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at 1:57 AM

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