Treading.net

Whilst recounting our Halloween experiences over dinner the other night, I realized what a truly devious little kid DBF was. While I would wear costumes and go door-to-door begging for candy, he had a much smarter solution to collecting sweets. Instead of dressing up and trudging around carrying a bag of candy, as kids from the suburbs—like us—did, DBF simply waited until his mother, a single parent, took his little sister out trick-or-treating, then shut out all of the houselights, and hoarded all of the candy she bought for him to give out to trick-or-treaters. When they came home, he’d tell his mother that tons of trick-or-treaters came by, and they ran out of candy. Because he was often left with a lot of the same candy—if his mother had bought 5 bags of Snickers, for example—he’d threaten his little sister with a beating unless she shared some of her candy with him.

Despicable? Yes. Devious? Certainly. Exceedingly smart for a little kid? Absolutely.

Miles O’Brien is an idiot. He tries, really he does, to be hard-hitting and confrontational with his guests, a la Claire Balderson of the BBC (whom I love and admire). But more often than not, something stupid slips out and destroys his credibility. While interviewing former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge about the big wiretapping ruling yesterday, he actually said (emphasis mine):

And to—the allegation is that [the Bill of Rights] has been ignored here because of the urgencies of war. And while the urgencies of war are wonderful, why are we in this war after all? We’re there to protect the right that we hold so dear, right?

I can’t get over it—I almost fell off the freakin’ treadmill when that one came out. The “urgencies of war are wonderful?” Isn’t that what’s getting Bush into trouble in the first place? What about that urgency of war that made Roosevelt stick thousands of Japanese-Americans in internment camps? Or thousands that are filling up Guantanamo (and emptying at the same time as the prisoner suicide rates continue to increase)? The rebuttal, from Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, whose on-air time was a fraction compared to the ridiculous back-and-forth between O’Brien and Ridge, made the salient point that:

And the reason they did this is because long before 9/11, there were people in this administration that wanted to expand presidential authority. That was before 9/11. And they saw 9/11 as an opportunity to reinvent the presidency. And so they wanted to go it alone because they wanted to increase the power of that office.

That’s right. When it comes down to it, it’s all irrelevant. Because the administration would have figured out a way to do this anyway, 9/11 notwithstanding.
But that’s beside the point, which is: I hate TV news.

Some companies, especially ones who target that 18-40 male demographic, seem to think that party + hot women = $$$!!

Not so. Especially if the “hot woman” actually looks like a transvestite with greasy skin and rock-hard breasts and she’s moving about the room in a robotlike manner. About as appealing as a Stepford wife, but without the charming 50′s housedresses. Can you tell what product she’s promoting? She’s wearing it in the picture.

The fact that some of my coworkers, especially the ones in our branch office, don’t know when and when NOT to use the “all@” email address revealed itself yet again today. But that’s for another day. Today this came:

***

From: redacted [mailto:redacted]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 9:27 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Moving People Out Of Israel, Lebanon, & Other Evacuation Sites

Please excuse this mass email.

Our office in Los Angeles has received several calls from people trying to get themselves, their families, their children, and friends out of Israel and Lebanon. We are in touch with the State Department as well as several international agencies. Many evacuees have been moved outside the area, but are looking for a way to get home.

If you have questions about how to get someone either out of the area or from an evacuation site, feel free to call our office our local office at 310-XXX-XXXX or our toll free number outside the area at 866-XXX-XXX. We will do the best we can to assist you.
***
I imagine all of those families I’ve been seeing on CNN holed up in some basement with Anderson Cooper are thinking “if only we charter a jet to get us out of this hellhole!” According to a Newsday article I found, this company will “fly up to 14 passengers from New York to Los Angeles…[for] $29,900 one way, with a flight attendant.” No word on the price for a Lebanon to New York flight, but I imagine it’s a wee bit more; hey, there’s probably an endangerment of the flight attendant and pilot surcharge.

I wonder if there’s an evacuation discount…