But would elmo sing... THIS???

Apparently emo can cause gender bending... even DRUGS!

Talk to your children about emo.

I love the kid in the mall looking nonplussed and saying "I guess they have their own... style?" Kid, talk to Dr. Napolitano about emo.

Thanks to kniwt

FD

I was listening to the fire radio in my car last night because I am a dork.

There was an apartment fire, and the fire department got two wrong addresses and a lot of bad information at first, saying it was a storage unit or a shed or a different apartment building. But they got there in less than five minutes anyway, and charged on in to the burning apartment to put out the fire.

Meanwhile, a full "structure fire response" (lots of engines and trucks) from three other cities and the County got there in < 10 minutes. By then the commander had divided the people he had into functional groups and assigned each of the group leaders the people needed to do a task (putting out the fire, ventilating the building, checking upstairs to see if the fire had spread, searching for people in the building.)

Some of the people from the other cities and county were able to help and sped up the process tremendously.

In less than half an hour the fire was out, no one was hurt, only one apartment was badly damaged, and almost all the outside helping people had been sent away.

I am very, very impressed. And this among other things is why the next AIP post will be about the fire department.

RETRACTION: re pink pistol menace

The security "expert" who ran amok on the O'Reilly show about lesbian gangs forcing children into the "homosexual lifestyle" was forced to issue a retraction on his site, which is called rod007.com and sounds like a gay porn flick. His response manages to retain the crazy (lesbian gangs? what the...) but weasels out of the extreme crazy. He also of course links to a nutcase racist hate mail he received in order to show how unpleasant his enemies are and of course reveals the guy's email address so everyone can dogpile on him. Smooth. The text is here since he will no doubt remove it from his site as soon as he can:

Contact Rod Wheeler: Info@Rod007.com

Clarification and apology:

First of all, let me thank you for your feedback surrounding the O'Reilly Factor discussion on Lesbian Gangs. I received several e-mails from viewers, some positive and some negative, offering comments and constructive criticisms. Some of the e-mails I received were threatening and simply hostile. Click here for a sample e-mail I received from one viewer.

During the O’Reilly Factor segment on June 21st, while engaged in a discussion on Lesbian gangs, I inadvertently stated that gang members carry pistols that are painted pink and call themselves the "Pink Pistol Packing Group." I was not referring to the gay rights group "Pink Pistols" who advocates for the lawful rights of gays to carry weapons for protection. Further, I mentioned that there are "over 150 of these gangs" in the greater Washington DC area. What I actually meant is that there are over 150 gangs in the Washington DC area, some of which are in fact lesbian gangs. Lastly, I mentioned in the segment that there is this "national epidemic" of lesbian gangs. A better choice of words would have been to say that there is a growing concern nationally, and especially in major urban areas, of increased gang activity, which includes some lesbian gang activity.

I apologize for any misunderstanding this may have caused.

Sincerely,

Rod Wheeler

sun patch foldy ear cat

Modest Proposals: Spam and the Music Industry

The old "music industry" in the United States is dead. This has been clear for a decade now. Parts of it fall off occasionally, e.g., the entire retail store establishment. Those in charge cannot acknowledge that things have fundamentally changed to their disadvantage. Instead they're driven into ridiculous extremes: suing children, crippling computers and their own CDs and DVDs, attempting to dock the tuition accounts of college students, and buying risible legislation.

They have no choice. The music industry distributes its product via trucks through warehouses, and there is cash involved. Therefore they are in part controlled by organized crime. In the golden years of the 70s and 80s, so-called "cutout" or remaindered discount records were a cash equivalent, and everyone had some good times with the resulting piles of $50's. Lew Wasserman helped out his old buddy Ronald Reagan with slush money, and later there was a polite to-do about the Mafia and MCA.

Now imagine the reaction of the wise guys to the elimination of trucking and cash, the elimination of warehouses, and the elimination of networks of middlemen. The made man in the corner office isn't happy.

It's clear we need to get these guys out of the picture. They're trying to make money off something dead, and they aren't going to let it go. But they're armed, and wealthy, and very good at using legislation and muscle to keep a good thing going. What to do?

Another problem has been getting worse the last ten years: spam. Annoying email, most of it for illegal or fraudulent businesses, is gumming up the works badly. The spammers are winning the arms race, too: it gets harder and harder to filter their crap without losing legitimate communication. Worst of all, it can't be legislated out of existence because it originates offshore and is transmitted by zombie armies of compromised computers controlled by crafty Russians. So now we have another organized crime problem: the damn Russians won't stop spamming us and we can't do a thing about it.

I propose that we solve both problems simultaneously.

A mission of music executives, internet portal and technology managers, and suitably anonymous government figures will be sent to a Godfather-like summit with the Russian mob's top leaders. And we will say this to them:

"We know you're businessmen. And we respect that. We're businessmen too. And we have a problem for us that's an opportunity for you. If you want to come in and wipe out the guys who are holding back our music industry, the business is yours. Clearly you know how to sell on the Internet, and how to sell music for that matter. You're digitally sophisticated and you know how to get paid without trucks and wads of cash. Come on in and enjoy, and we'll overlook the crime wave as you whack all these bastards.

"In return we ask only one thing: stop the spam. It's bad for business for us, and it can't be a long-term business for you either. Technology changes, you know that. If you walk away from spam we'll hand you the key to digital music, and that's not going away. Deal?"

The result in my utopia would be a short, exciting series of gangland murders, followed by the emergence of slightly too expensive but totally functional music download services. And spam will go to about 5% what it is now; the government and tech people can take credit for this.

I for one am willing to pay 10% more on my music downloads for this deal.