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“It’s like twitter. Except we charge people to use it.”

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design

Hello David,

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.

Regards, David.

It goes on from there.

That reminds me of the interactions I used to have back in the day (I was not the “entrepreneur” side of the equation. Good times, good times. Now I have to be all professional and important-like instead of driving circles of hilariously acerbic wit[fn1] around imbeciles who don’t have a fucking clue and/or are a CEO.

… unfortunately, he doesn’t offer an RSS feed. Cocksucker.

I should also mention that I’ve mentioned him before for one of the funniest email strings ever.

FN1. my perspective, but I assure you it is accurate. Q.E.D.

I haven’t been a fan of Slate since the pre-WaPo days, but this biography of that raving sociopathic waste known as Alissa Rosenbaum/Ayn Rand is quite good. In case you were wondering, the article is much fairer than the adjectives in my previous sentence… but comes to largely the same conclusion (though it does not address my clinical diagnosis of “sociopath”).

I will never understand why Rand is so popular among the far right and “libertarians” of this country. Let me rephrase – I can understand why the philosophy of utter narcissism may be appealing, but am unable to understand how anyone could devote themselves to it. Add in that her writing is sub-Twilight/Dan Brown-level bad, the dialogue wooden and worse than something from the Cultural Revolution, and that at some point, the reader must come into contact with another human being and I just don’t see its appeal.

Check that, Rand nails the mental makeup of the current American right:

Her heroes are a cocktail of extreme self-love and extreme self-pity: They insist they need no one, yet they spend all their time fuming that the masses don’t bow down before their manifest superiority.

Spot on.

Add in that the narcissism of Wall Street (who are obviously the producers and not the lice, right Mr. Greenspan) and I can see this appealing to an insular little group of aristocrats… but how on earth did our financial policy become beholden to this group of retards?

I encourage all Objectivists to go Galt. Immediately. And/or talk to a girl. I’m not sure which will happen first.

JFC, there are important things going on in this world. Phelps taking a bong hit is not one of them

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” the federation said in a statement.

Light it up, Mikey. You’re not doing anyone any harm and if Aquaman doesn’t deserve some down time relaxation, I don’t know who does.

Oh, and the federation can blow it out of their sanctimonious pie holes. Yeah, yeah, it’s illegal to smoke, but so are u-turns in many states and I don’t see people losing sponsorship deals or having to deal with an unending stream of Sistah Toldjyahs for it.

And to the douchebag who took the private photo and distributed it: you are a douchebag. Keep this shit private and no one is harmed. Idiot.

… just watch this:

It’s a guaranteed pickup.

As part of my moving, I thought I’d throw some stuff on CL at insanely low prices (I usually just donate, but I figured what the hell). Anyway, I had this computer desk that we got for >$100 in NYC for Voldemort back in my 2L year. It’s not worth nearly that much, but it’s still useful and in great shape, so I put it up for the “why not?” price of $25.

Here’s my favorite response. It also happens to be the best exemplar of the CL buyerflake, evar!

From: [name withheld] <[something]@hotmail.com>
Subject: Desk.
To: [me]

I can come tonight and pick up your desk & haul it away.

I have $23 bucks in my purse at this very moment. Are you set on 25?

AWESOME!

I ended up just donating the desk, btw.

Online checkin and printout of your boarding pass? Not so much.

Woohoo! I’m famous, bitches! Bow before me, for I am dangerous!

Oh, and the TSA and Bush administration can lick my sweaty nutsac. I’ve got your freedom of speech right here.

Shuttle launch to go ahead despite risk of ‘catastrophe’

NASA managers have rejected last-ditch pleas from their top safety officer and chief engineer to scrap next month’s shuttle launch, saying that they will press ahead despite potentially catastrophic risks.

The head of the US space agency, Dr Michael Griffin, overruled warnings that there was a “relatively high” chance the shuttle’s external fuel tank could shed some of its solid foam coating when it launches on 1 July, carrying seven crew including Briton Piers Sellers, an Edinburgh University graduate.

But it gets better. Rove Griffin is going to carry on! Well, the soon to be dead astronauts are anyway. Money quote:

Dr Griffin said: “I do not see the situation we’re in as being a crew-loss situation. If we are unlucky and we have a debris event on ascent, it will not impede the ascent. The crew will arrive safely in orbit, and then we will begin to look at our options.”

Crew-loss == they all die
debris event == they all die on reentry
options once in orbit: 0

I don’t want these sociopaths to be able to add another 8 lives to their ledger. Politics is not worth sending a 25-year old deathtrap up into space.

Just remember: Mars, bitches!

The anti-sex misogyny brigade strikes again! Louisiana gov. signs another incest protection act into law.

Louisiana Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a ban on most abortions, which would be triggered if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling legalizing the procedure, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The ban would apply to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, except when the mother’s life is threatened. It is similar to a South Dakota law that has become the latest focus of the abortion battle.

Bonus points for having a woman sign the bill. Nice job, traitor to your gender. I’m putting in my claim on Kathleen Blanco’s uterus now. Kathleen, I expect you to ask me permission before you use your uterus for anything. Even menstruate.

I already gave for NOLA/Katrina, but Louisiana will never see another dime out of me.

dday, a Kossack, is doing his/her best to further the agenda of the anti-funnytistas worldwide with this truly idiotic diary.

Summary: a tech dude was at YearlyKos. While there, a truck slammed through his house, and had he been there, both he and his child would have been killed. But they weren’t. Because of YearlyKos. So he said thank you, YK, for everything. Touching story. Give ‘em some PayPal lurve.

Then Harry Hutton (who is one of those natively hilarious types that drive us mere quippers insane with jealousy… yeah, I’m speaking to you too Worker #3116. bitches.) wrote (in reference, ironically):

I am not easily moved to tears, but this post had me crying like a baby. Just think… he could have been… and the little ones are safe?… thank God for that!

Kos once saved my life too. I was reading a post about Senator Joseph Lieberman, and it was so dull that I got up to run my head under a cold tap. Just then this assagai comes flying through the window. Zulus! Fuck! If it hadn’t been for Kos, I could have wound up in a cooking pot. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

Anyway, so we formed a laager, called for reinforcements and went all Rorke’s Drift on their arses, and it all ended happily with a glorious slaughter of tribesmen. That was the day Boris Johnsons won the Victoria Cross.

Funny! Goddamn funny. I’m still LOL’ing over here. For the record, Hutton is a Brit lefty. There was another comment later, by dsquared … who happens to be a writer for the (lefty) Guardian:

That Daily Kos type is gonna feel pretty fucking stupid when the guy who missed him first time comes back for the second attempt.

Funny! Fun-nay.

Of course, D-Day, in his/her infinite wisdom, sees this and thinks “not funny! They are obviously eliminationist rightwing fascists!” because… drumroll please… mouthbreathing sack-of-hammer-stupid trogolodytes of the rightwing bigotsphere linked to the Hutton post! OMFG! It’s teh nazis! They link to Hutton, therefore Hutton is bad! (You wouldn’t happen to be a member of my State pursuing the same logic v. online “gambling” by any chance, would you?).

Here’s D-Day’s commentary: (more…)

to your eyes. I’ve written previously about my dislike of the DLC’er (formerly xian coalition Republican) Marshall Wittman (I believe the phrase I used was ‘worthless fucktard’). In addition to referring to himself in the third person as the Moose (of the Bull Moose/Teddy Rooseveltian era), he is of a kind with Joe Lieberman – not too bright, not a strategic thinker, invariably chooses the conservative/GOP side, and really only in this for himself. He brings nothing to the table.

In any event he apparently still has a job with the (worthless) DLC and still writes things and some people choose to read and respond to them. I don’t know why, but that’s beside the point. I don’t link to GOP operatives disguised as Vichy Dems, but Greg Sargent is still trying. Apparently, the useless fucktard recently said this:

To their credit, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman are two additional high-profile Democrats who have put country before partisanship when it comes to foreign policy…And, of course, Joe Lieberman refuses to waver. While many politicians claim not to be guided by polls, Joe truly puts principle first. He is a profile in courage. The scorn of puerile bloggers and assorted lefties should be worn as a badge of honor.

Yes, Lieberman. A profile in courage. As opposed to a self-serving profile in narcissism and pandering. I love how threatened the moose pie is by bloggers, and “lefties”, and actual people. Of course his language is phrased in such a way that any disagreement with him is going to be put in the “partisanship” or “party before country” camp.

Why is it that people who put country before party and were right are deserving of scorn in the moose’s scrotum world, and yet those that put country before party and were absolutely, astoundingly, mindbogglingly wrong (to the cost of tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars) should be proud? Why is it that those whose “country before partisanship” just happens to coincide with the GOP’s partisanship before country are to be given a pat on the head and called “good boy”? Why is it that standing up to dishonest thugs like BushCo to save our country’s citizens and fortunes partisan?

The DLC is filled with people who think like this. Biden, Lieberman, Hilary. People who think the only way to regain power is to keep losing elections. Apparently, they haven’t worked out step 3 of the equation, yet:

1. Act like a Republican
2. Lose elections
3. ?????
4. Profit!

In any event, the “country before party” is a rhetorical gimmick used solely to ensure that the person employing the gimmick wins whatever argument they are discussing. When 49% of the population favors immediate withdrawal from Iraq, it is, in the moose’s ass’ view, caving in to the fringe lefties and rabid radicals to do so. Actually, I think he calls it “caving to the base,” which, you know, is actually the point of the party in power. But if you disagree with half the country and you want to frame the debate so that you are above the fray, you call it “partisanship” to call for withdrawal. There is no principled opposition to your favored course of action, just people looking to their politics, while you look to the good of the country.

The DLC is increasingly so. I’d like to thank Wittman for helping to speed the day when we no longer pay attention to them and Shrum and Emmanuel no longer get their multimillion dollar paydays for being the world’s biggest losers (literally).

… unless I’m being ironic. If I do end up with it, I’m going to buy it secondhand because the author is a born again moron embellisher with anti-me politics, so I don’t want her getting a red cent.

Anyway, the book is The Thrill of the Chaste : Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. I hear the working title was You’re Going to Hell, Slut!

Finally, a book for single women who, unsatisfied with living a worldly lifestyle, want to give their lives a new and godly direction. Author Dawn Eden, a Jewish-born rock journalist turned salty Christian blog queen, gives these readers the positive and uplifting message that they’ve been wanting to hear-that spiritual healing and a renewed outlook await them. Using her own experiences in the New York City singles jungle, she shows women how they too can go from insecurity to purity, and from forlorn to reborn. She tells women who have been around the block how to find their way home.

Hah! Oh, there are so many awesome things about this book! The self-hatred. The superiority complex. The misogyny. The ignorance. The repression (and furtherance of repression). The submissiveness. The utter bullshit.

I now notice things about the men in my life that I never noticed before, like their thoughtfulness, their love of family, their integrity, even their vulnerability. These are intangible qualities that don’t jump out at you when you’re in a frame of mind where you’re viewing men only as potential dates. Put together, they add up to character. It’s the most important quality to seek in a husband, and the one that’s least discussed in this day and age.

Likewise, when you become chaste, you’ll notice for the first time that women who have sex outside of marriage don’t really appreciate men. You can’t see this when you’re having nonmarital sex, because you don’t realize how much there really is about men to appreciate. You think the mere fact that you’re attracted to them and that they seem to wield such power over you shows you appreciate them for what they really are.

As much as I like to be thought of as a dominant walking cock, I don’t really captures the true me. Well, OK, it does, but not the whole me. I was not aware that the minute my cock is inserted in the woman’s vagina, I become invisible to her… except for the cock part.

When I had nonmarital sex, I became accustomed to seeing myself as a commodity—a varied collection of looks, wit, intellect, and je ne sais quois. I looked for men whose commodities were worth as much as my own.

That’s because you were a groupie, Dawn. Your lack of self-esteem combined with your narcissism led you to seek out others just like you, so you could magnify your neuroses.

That you now choose to blame your feelings of emptiness and worthlessness on sex is your own damn problem. Instead of coming to the conclusion that the massive amounts of ass you were getting left you unfulfilled because it turns out you weren’t looking for physical closeness, you decided that the sex itself was what was making you feel worthless. Also, that raging case of herpes which you totally don’t have. At the very least, don’t project your own neuroses onto the rest of the world because, frankly, we left your sex-negative ignorant asses behind in the 16th century.

Enjoy those revirgin vagina treatments or whatever hackery you’re going to promote next.

Also, as a tip, you might have better luck finding a husband if you didn’t seem so damn desperate. Just trying to help.

The idiot son is also an asshole. From today’s press conference:

Bush: You gonna ask your question with shades on?
Wallsten: Yes…
Bush: But there’s no sun out here.
Wallsten: It depends on your perspective.
Bush: Touché.

The key bit of information here is that Wallsten is blind.

There’s no way Bush should not have known that, Wallsten’s been around for a while. He’s just defaulting back to his towel-snapping assholery in the form of jokes. What a dick.

Update now that I have cable, I saw the Daily Show cover this in depth yesterday. It was awesome.

Dammit, I need to be quicker about these things. Apparently, the formerly-known-as-fun-and-cool Elfmans went apeshit over John Roecker’s shirt.

Indie film director John Roecker tells TMZ he was walking to his car with a female friend in LA’s trendy Los Feliz neighborhood last Sunday when he was approached by a shirtless man and a tall blonde. “Hey, man, you’re making fun of my religion,” said the stranger angrily.

Roecker quickly recognized the couple as actor Bodhi Elfman and his wife, ‘Dharma and Greg’ star Jenna Elfman. Mr. Elfman’s ire was apparently drawn by Roecker’s self-made t-shirt, which had a picture of Tom Cruise on the front under the caption “Scientology is Gay!” and a ‘Stayin’-Alive’-era John Travolta on the back with the words “Very Gay!” For the record, both Cruise and Travolta have said repeatedly they are not gay.

The shirt:

Here’s the thing, you coddled whiny ass titty baby scientologists (yeah, I’m talking to you too Isaac)… your religion is not special. Though you are pampered at every turn, though you are given accolades, tchotchkes, and are the recipient of constant ass kissing from every person within a 5 mile radius whose livelihood depends on the celebrity culture… you are not special. You are not Marie Antoinette. You are not Goaul’d. You are just another meat puppet sharing this rock, and if you are offended by a t-shirt, or the flavor of your mango chutney, or the fourth button on the arm of the couch… we don’t give a shit. Deal.

I didn’t intend for this to become pop culture blogging day, it’s just the most interesting news I’ve hit all morning.

MLB suspends Grimsley

Major League Baseball has suspended Jason Grimsley for 50 games under the auspices of its joint drug program, making the former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher the first Major Leaguer to be so punished without failing a drug test. Grimsley is also the first big leaguer to be suspended under the new rules this season.

This decision by MLB is so wrongheaded, it’s astounding. Look, just because a guy said he did something does not mean you can suspend him. No positive test == NO SUSPENSION.

Now the league is going to have a labor dispute over a guy who retired and without any objective evidence that he did anything in violation of any of the league rules. All for some false appearance of “enforcement.”

Here’s how you know this move is ridiculous: using the same reasoning, Barry Bonds should also be suspended. He said he used the Clear! Off with his head!

Another way: how is HGH detrimental to the game, but cortisone shots to enable an injured player to stay on the field OK? With both you get players who shouldn’t be on the field on the field (theoretically in HGH’s case). How is HGH any worse for the body than repeated cortisone injections?

Update: Yet another way to know that your move is both retarded and transparent… the dudes at Baseball Tonight at ESPN can point out the sheer hypocrisy of the move in the first 10 seconds of the segment on the news.

Nice move, Bud.

Because I do. Corrupt robber barons who don’t give a shit about anything other than their pocketbook. The worst group of ownership any entertainment outside of the Romans has ever been saddled with. They’re just abysmal.

Now, they want to keep Sling and Orb and the like from placeshifting their broadcasts.

At the heart of the issue is that Sling Media, Orb Networks and similar companies cut out cable and satellite operators who pay great sums for transmission rights in their areas, according to Kliavkoff. Baseball sells transmission rights to specific geographical locations. So, a cable subscriber in San Francisco who watches a Giants baseball game from his or her laptop during a visit to Chicago is stealing from the Chicago cable operator who paid to transmit MLB games in that city.

But we’re not talking Napster here, argues Buchanan. The cable subscriber in such a scenario already purchased the content from a programmer back home and under the law can watch it wherever he or she chooses, he said.

“Your interpretation of the (cable and satellite user agreement) is wrong,” Kliavkoff told Buchanan as the two spoke before some 200 conference attendees. Sling Media users “are violating the scope of their user agreements.”