UP!, Blue Jeans, and other things
UP!, Blue Jeans, and other things
It was a beautiful weekend in Bogworld and in Mnneapolis /St. Paul. Unfortunately I spent most of my weekend indoors either watching movies or writing my novel or working on Bogworld. Maybe I need to rethink the things I love to do so that I can enjoy the outdoors more.
Onto what is on my mind this week...
Up!
You can read my review in the previous blog posting. Please check it out. I just wanted to take another moment to enthusiastically recommend this movie. One of the best things I have seen in a movie theater in years. See it! See it! See it!
Who Elected Rush Limbaugh?
Its no secret that the Republicans are reeling a bit in the wake of losing the last election to an extremely popular Democrat. Their candidate John McCain has sort of disappeared from the media and now filling that void were seeing Dick Cheney who seems hell bent (literally) on covering his ass on the whole torture issue and then Rush Limbaugh and his minions of Right Wing media personality. These folks have gone from commenting on things to driving the party. Trouble is, they are not elected policy makers. No one voted them into any office nor are any of them really qualified to do so just because they talk about things in the media.
Judge Sotamayor
The right wingers are jumping up and down as if President Obama nominated a KKK grand wizard. Fact of the matter is, Judge Sotamayor is actually a very bright (second in her class at Princeston), tough minded, independent judge with a lot of experience.
Take a moment to read all the controversial quotes that are currently being used against her. But read them in the full context in which they were said. Suddenly you are going to see how misrepresented this woman has been by the right wing media and ultimately its the right wing press that comes across as divisively racist.
Here’s the weird thing... Judge Sotamayor is not the darling of the left wing. Lots of things she has ruled on fall more in line with Conservative beliefs than Liberal beliefs. So really this battle is more about ANYONE Obama nominates being instantly rejected by the Republicans for no other reason than that.
Republicans need to choose their fights a little better.
Waterboarding
I got some interesting responses to the video I posted last week of the Chicago Conservative radio personality who staged a waterboarding on his radio show to prove waterboarding was just a lot of silly nonsense. Water poured on someone’s face. Child’s play. What he discovered was that its far from a child’s prank.
Its controlled drowning. It can result in real death. Often lungs and hearts get permanently damaged.
In an effort to make fun of waterboarding this radio guy discovered just how horrible it really is... And yes, that it is torture.
I had people write in who still argued with me that it is not. To them I suggested, try it yourself. Actually don’t because you might end up dead and then I would feel bad. But if you are so sure that you are right and all the evidence to the contrary is wrong... Do what you have to do to educate yourself. I thought this video clip would make that point so others would not have to. But I am starting to realize there is nothing that can be done for people who cannot change their mind when they are faced with the truth.
Maybe they do recognize that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” are torture but they still think there is a ticking time bomb scenario where we might want to have this capability.
Trouble is, the facts don’t even support that great leap in possibilities. First off, how many times has their ever been a real ticking time bomb scenario where we just happened to be interrogating just the right person at just the right moment? And then even if we were, what possible reasoning suggests that if we hurt someone from a group intent on hurting us they are going to give us just the right information we need to foil their plans? Oh they might tell us some nonsense bit to get the torturing to stop. But do you really really really believe torturing someone who already hates us is going to produce information that we benefit us?
The CIA’s own records indicate they got a lot more actionable information from prisoners they treated well.
So there you have it. I know I am not going to change the minds of people are dead set on believing America can do no wrong. But history shows us America moves forward in more ways when it does the right things then when it does the wrong things. America cannot be respected if our actions are no better than those of our enemies.
We have more than 200 years of history that proves that.
Blue Jean Blues
I am shopping for a new brand of blue jeans. I was a loyal customer to a certain brand who I will not name in an attempt to avoid litigation. But lets just say they have a western sounding name and leave it at that. For the purpose of this blog lets call them Strangler Jeans. A completely made up name.
Over the last two years literally every pair of jeans I bought from these guys have failed me. Almost all of them in the zipper. When it first happened I thought maybe it was something that happened in the wash. Maybe the zipper got stuck on the agitator or something. But then it happened to another pair, and another and another.
Here’s what happens; For no particular reason I can think of, the zippers start to lose teeth. You might not think this is a particularly big deal considering the average zipper has probably 50 to a hundred little interlocking teeth. The loss of one is insignificant, right? WRONG. The loss of a tooth means all the other teeth upstream will no longer properly line up and interlock. Meaning the blue jeans are unwearable unless you know a place where wearing jeans with your fly down is socially acceptable.
One? Write it off as a fluke. But a half dozen or more jeans now points to a really bad manufacturing trend. So I did what all of us should do when faced with life’s little injustices: I wrote the Strangler company a complaint letter.
They wrote me back saying they did not know of any manufacturing problem and they denied using discount zippers. But they said if I would send them the offending blue jeans they would inspect them and if found faulty they would replace them. They sent me a mailing envelope that would barely contain one pair of jeans. Thanks to duct tape and their prepaid postage I managed to tightly roll together three pairs of jeans with faulty zippers.
It took about a month but they did send back three brand new jeans. I thought about commending them here for doing the right thing, but I wanted to see if these jeans... Right from the factory... Would fair any better than the other ones that have disappointed me.
Today I got my answer....
One of the pairs they sent me popped a zipper tooth and once again I am wearing jeans without a functional fly. Sending me jeans that continue to disappoint me is like when you go to a restaurant, they burn your food but give you more of it to somehow make up for it.
Though I do like that the Strangler Jean Company made the attempt to make me a happier customer, they did not fix the problem that disappointed me in the first place. So today I am no longer going to buy their blue jeans.
Anyone have any recommendations for really good comfortable jeans who’s zippers are not prone to failure? I’m listening.
Onto what is on my mind this week...
Up!
You can read my review in the previous blog posting. Please check it out. I just wanted to take another moment to enthusiastically recommend this movie. One of the best things I have seen in a movie theater in years. See it! See it! See it!
Who Elected Rush Limbaugh?
Its no secret that the Republicans are reeling a bit in the wake of losing the last election to an extremely popular Democrat. Their candidate John McCain has sort of disappeared from the media and now filling that void were seeing Dick Cheney who seems hell bent (literally) on covering his ass on the whole torture issue and then Rush Limbaugh and his minions of Right Wing media personality. These folks have gone from commenting on things to driving the party. Trouble is, they are not elected policy makers. No one voted them into any office nor are any of them really qualified to do so just because they talk about things in the media.
Judge Sotamayor
The right wingers are jumping up and down as if President Obama nominated a KKK grand wizard. Fact of the matter is, Judge Sotamayor is actually a very bright (second in her class at Princeston), tough minded, independent judge with a lot of experience.
Take a moment to read all the controversial quotes that are currently being used against her. But read them in the full context in which they were said. Suddenly you are going to see how misrepresented this woman has been by the right wing media and ultimately its the right wing press that comes across as divisively racist.
Here’s the weird thing... Judge Sotamayor is not the darling of the left wing. Lots of things she has ruled on fall more in line with Conservative beliefs than Liberal beliefs. So really this battle is more about ANYONE Obama nominates being instantly rejected by the Republicans for no other reason than that.
Republicans need to choose their fights a little better.
Waterboarding
I got some interesting responses to the video I posted last week of the Chicago Conservative radio personality who staged a waterboarding on his radio show to prove waterboarding was just a lot of silly nonsense. Water poured on someone’s face. Child’s play. What he discovered was that its far from a child’s prank.
Its controlled drowning. It can result in real death. Often lungs and hearts get permanently damaged.
In an effort to make fun of waterboarding this radio guy discovered just how horrible it really is... And yes, that it is torture.
I had people write in who still argued with me that it is not. To them I suggested, try it yourself. Actually don’t because you might end up dead and then I would feel bad. But if you are so sure that you are right and all the evidence to the contrary is wrong... Do what you have to do to educate yourself. I thought this video clip would make that point so others would not have to. But I am starting to realize there is nothing that can be done for people who cannot change their mind when they are faced with the truth.
Maybe they do recognize that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” are torture but they still think there is a ticking time bomb scenario where we might want to have this capability.
Trouble is, the facts don’t even support that great leap in possibilities. First off, how many times has their ever been a real ticking time bomb scenario where we just happened to be interrogating just the right person at just the right moment? And then even if we were, what possible reasoning suggests that if we hurt someone from a group intent on hurting us they are going to give us just the right information we need to foil their plans? Oh they might tell us some nonsense bit to get the torturing to stop. But do you really really really believe torturing someone who already hates us is going to produce information that we benefit us?
The CIA’s own records indicate they got a lot more actionable information from prisoners they treated well.
So there you have it. I know I am not going to change the minds of people are dead set on believing America can do no wrong. But history shows us America moves forward in more ways when it does the right things then when it does the wrong things. America cannot be respected if our actions are no better than those of our enemies.
We have more than 200 years of history that proves that.
Blue Jean Blues
I am shopping for a new brand of blue jeans. I was a loyal customer to a certain brand who I will not name in an attempt to avoid litigation. But lets just say they have a western sounding name and leave it at that. For the purpose of this blog lets call them Strangler Jeans. A completely made up name.
Over the last two years literally every pair of jeans I bought from these guys have failed me. Almost all of them in the zipper. When it first happened I thought maybe it was something that happened in the wash. Maybe the zipper got stuck on the agitator or something. But then it happened to another pair, and another and another.
Here’s what happens; For no particular reason I can think of, the zippers start to lose teeth. You might not think this is a particularly big deal considering the average zipper has probably 50 to a hundred little interlocking teeth. The loss of one is insignificant, right? WRONG. The loss of a tooth means all the other teeth upstream will no longer properly line up and interlock. Meaning the blue jeans are unwearable unless you know a place where wearing jeans with your fly down is socially acceptable.
One? Write it off as a fluke. But a half dozen or more jeans now points to a really bad manufacturing trend. So I did what all of us should do when faced with life’s little injustices: I wrote the Strangler company a complaint letter.
They wrote me back saying they did not know of any manufacturing problem and they denied using discount zippers. But they said if I would send them the offending blue jeans they would inspect them and if found faulty they would replace them. They sent me a mailing envelope that would barely contain one pair of jeans. Thanks to duct tape and their prepaid postage I managed to tightly roll together three pairs of jeans with faulty zippers.
It took about a month but they did send back three brand new jeans. I thought about commending them here for doing the right thing, but I wanted to see if these jeans... Right from the factory... Would fair any better than the other ones that have disappointed me.
Today I got my answer....
One of the pairs they sent me popped a zipper tooth and once again I am wearing jeans without a functional fly. Sending me jeans that continue to disappoint me is like when you go to a restaurant, they burn your food but give you more of it to somehow make up for it.
Though I do like that the Strangler Jean Company made the attempt to make me a happier customer, they did not fix the problem that disappointed me in the first place. So today I am no longer going to buy their blue jeans.
Anyone have any recommendations for really good comfortable jeans who’s zippers are not prone to failure? I’m listening.