Get Paid To Blog

Get paid to blog!

I just did.

Reporting From:

Mainstream journalism has given up the slightest pretense of doing it's purported job- reporting the news-
and has handed the keys over to bloggers- here's a BBC article about blogs that are covering a conflict that the U.S. press won't seem to touch...one of many such unpleasant trifles.

This blogger's conclusions largely match my own, and he's not sanguine about the outcome, although he does offer some optimism. It's no small deal, this war, despite being ignored in typical U.S. media fashion.

Q: Where's Darfur?
A: Right after da three, duh.

Sadly, the above isn't a joke, it's a national mindset.

From the Head Heeb blog:

So on balance, I'd still rate the most likely outcome as a sham Ethiopian withdrawal followed by an extended counterinsurgent conflict, with the TFG remaining ineffectual and internally divided while the Islamist militias wage a guerrilla struggle with substantial public support. This, in turn, will ensure that Eritrea continues to support local proxies against the Ethiopians, and that fighters from the greater Middle East will continue to be attracted by the widely reported (albeit erroneous) portrayal of the conflict as one pitting Somali Muslims against Ethiopian Christians. And needless to say, a prolonged counterinsurgency is the type of conflict that nobody wins, with major impact on regional food security as well as widespread death and displacement. Somalia deserves better, but there are too many forces converging toward the opposite to provide much room for optimism.

Change a few words and I got this:

So on balance, I'd still rate the most likely outcome as a sham American withdrawal followed by an extended counterinsurgent conflict, with the ITG remaining ineffectual and internally divided while the Islamist militias wage a guerrilla struggle with substantial public support. This, in turn, will ensure that Iran continues to support local proxies against the Sunnis, and that fighters from the greater Middle East will continue to be attracted by the widely reported (albeit erroneous) portrayal of the conflict as one pitting Al -Queda against America. And needless to say, a prolonged counterinsurgency is the type of conflict that nobody wins, with major impact on regional food security as well as widespread death and displacement. Iraq deserves better, but there are too many forces converging toward the opposite to provide much room for optimism.

See? I cut and pasted someone else's words, changed a few nouns...took about twenty minutes, start to finish- and suddenly it's a more in-depth look at world events than you can find on our Network/Cable news...pitiful.

Endeavor to Persevere

Here it is, 2007 , and the Cable News has a developing story, a banner across the bottom of the screen proclaims : THE HUNT FOR OBAMA and in the background there's a grainy video of Osama bin Forgottin.
There are a great many other words on the screen but they move too rapidly for me to even attempt to decipher them- but I do see THE HUNT FOR OBAMA quite clearly...

Hmm...

Don't they mean THE HUNT FOR OSAMA?

cut to commercials...this ad...it's a woman touching herself, she's seemingly naked on a field of white and her soft voice rises as she orgasmically hawks some product or service-I don't know what she's selling...what a jarring interlude, this odd sensuality trapped between the snippets of carnage and portents of doom that...it's sad that this weirdly beautiful 30 second spot exists solely to help sell detergent. Or insurance. Or toasters.
Like I said, I have no idea what she was selling...

The news comes back, this time the "Developing Story" is corrected:THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN.
Geez...bin Laden? That's so 2001, the news should have more pressing concerns- our President certainly doesn't seem to give a shit about finding bin Laden, so why should we?- let's see, Gerald Ford, James Brown and Saddam Hussein are still dead- how can the news be running low on material?

At one point it was almost impossible for me to watch the James Brown tributes because they kept getting interrupted by pictures of a hearse, presumably carrying a Presidential cadaver, which in turn was interrupted to bring me updates on Saddam's Deathwatch...beneath it all , there was this constant stream of fast words, quick , elusive text, subtitles within subtitles; is this how we are trained to think?
No wonder tranquilizers are so popular.

So what's the Osama Scoop?

Get this: No one knows where he is. He might be in Pakistan or maybe not.

This is a Developing Story? I could have told you that in 2005. Or 2006.
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Happy New Year to Slovenia! You have until 2016 to exchange your tolars for euros.
I understand that the paper notes will be honored indefinitely.

(oops, I was misinformed- better hurry!)
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Did you know Gerald Ford is dead? True.
Did you know Richard Nixon's favorite food was cottage cheese and catsup? True.
Did you know Ford's first Presidential Order was :" Stop serving cottage cheese and catsup!"? All true.
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Oh yeah- we have a whole new war to ignore. Ethiopia has kicked the shit out of the Somali Islamists- Ethiopia is not a nation known for it's wealth, but it has somehow managed to acquire devastating and expensive military technology- I wonder where they got those attack helicopters?
eBay?
The displaced Islamists will disappear into the shadows and become tomorrow's terrorists/insurgents and life in Mogadishu will continue to be hellish, brutal and violent- quite a bit like Baghdad except without headlines to remind us it's there.

I guess you could say it's more like Afghanistan than Iraq.

I just saw a one-minute "news" report about how you can upload pictures of your dog straight from a cell phone to the Interweb.
Yowzah. Who knew?

Not one word about Afghanistan or Ethiopia.
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Iraq is back in the news- did you know that Saddam is dead?
So are at least 3,000 American Troops.
Fair trade? You decide.

Our President says he's going to make a decision about Iraq eventually, maybe sorta...
I have full confidence that whatever decision he makes will be the absolutely worst, ill-considered move possible- probably leading to an unwinnable war against Iran.
He's not very smart, our Glorious Leader, but he is consistent.

Eat Your Clone

The FDA has just given Big Meat the go ahead to start the factory clone farms; apparently cloning technology is BAD in the context of medical stem-cell research, but is GOOD when used to help Taco Bell increase profits.

The Food and Drug Administration proposed today that cloned animal products be sold without separate safeguards based on studies showing they pose no more risks than natural-born goods.

What does this mean? No more Clone Warning labels?
What if I am allergic to clones?
Eating clones doesn't sound so healthy:

Some US consumer groups maintain that surrogate mothers, in which the cloned animals are grown, are treated with high levels of hormones. They claim that clones are often born with severely compromised immune systems and receive massive doses of antibiotics, opening the way for large quantities of pharmaceuticals to enter the food supply.

Right now, there aren't any cloned products on the market, but you can bet your last strand of DNA that the technology to mass-produce heifers customized to meet Big Mac specifications is nearly ready for use- there was undoubtably some heavy lobbying going on to get this draft passed-
the FDA didn't introduce this proposal for no reason- someone stands to make big bucks cloning McCows and they don't want squeamish consumers put off just because their cloned products are even deadlier than the current, traditional variety.

Make money butchering clones. It's the future.

But how?

Cloning is a lot more expensive than breeding- at least it is now. If this draft is passed, Big Meat can 'transition' from bred animals to cloned animals without notifying the consumers that their hamburgers no longer have parents.
The research is being done to find a way to clone food animals in a manner that is more profitable than the artificial insemination techniques currently used- the animal husbandry days of cows fucking are long since gone...

If we reach the point where we have giant clone factories to meet our demands for fast food and filet mignon, then it's not a stretch to take it to the next level and start cloning humans- I don't wanna sound too 'X-Files' here, but if Big Meat develops the capacity to manufacture an endless herd of customized ubercattle, then the next step is...well, let's just say this is how Clone Wars get started.

I'm quitting meat.

I'm not against cloning- for instance, it would be great if one day we could clone new organs for people with faulty original parts-but the idea of perverting something with so much potential for good into just another way to poison the unquestioning consumer masses appalls me.

One of our greatest scientific achievements, served with fries.

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