One Man's Blog » News

Brutal “Hate Crime” Beating Caught on Video

John P. — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:56:31 +0000

Less than two weeks ago, an absolutely brutal beating was caught on video in New York when two men decided to give a gay man “a beat down”.

Daniel Rodriguez (21) and Daniel Aleman (26) pummeled Jack Price who ended up in a coma after the incident with a fractured jaw, ribs and a lacerated spleen. Why did they do it? Well, Jack “came on to them” obviously! Duh. I mean, clearly that deserves having the crap kicked out of you, right?

I mean, like Rodriguez’s friend’s tattoo says, “[Thou] shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22″. Of course, as Jesse Galef points out:

Leviticus also forbids tattooing. In the very next chapter.

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:28″

Well, I’m a big fan of selectively following the bible too. By doing so, I can pretty much do anything I want and claim divine guidance for it. It’s awesome, you should look into it too.

Andrew Sullivan broke the news over on The Atlantic. And now here is the news clip that contains some of the beatdown on video. Damn. You know what kind of a coward you have to be to sit there and kick the crap out of a 49 year old gay man who is lying in the street?

So, I’ve really got nothing magical to add about this incident other than to share it so we can all be outraged together. I’d like to literally beat those punks who did this to death, if for no other reason than to simply protect the world from that kind of hatred and stupidity. But what can we do?

This starts with the parents. If you teach your kids to be intolerant, then this is what you get.

Los Angeles Fires Raging Uncontrollably

John P. — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:36:37 +0000

The fires in LA are seriously out of control. If you have any doubt, here is a very impressive time-lapse video that Brandon Riza shot, with his Canon 5D Mark II I might add.

First of all, the fires are very scary, and I feel bad for the folks in California right now. I hope none of you guys are being affected, but I’m sure a few of you are, so my heart goes out to you. Secondly, it goes to prove how little control we have over our environment. After thousands of years, and with all the technology we possess, mankind still lacks the ability to put out a forest fire.

Sad.

By the way, I have a whole bunch more Time Lapse (also called Stop Motion) videos for those of you who like this sort of thing.

Twitter Has Been Down for 2.5 Hours, Will We Survive?

John P. — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:50:15 +0000

So, for those of you who don’t know it, the world’s most popular micro-blogging platform, Twitter has been completely down for over two and a half hours so far today due to a Denial of Service attack.

Now, Twitter goes down pretty regularly. It’s difficult to scale up this rapidly for any business. But this is the first time that I can remember it being down for so long in a single block, especially in a critical part of the day. And it’s not just that they are serving up their standard “over capacity” message. The entire Web site has vanished!

I think the interesting thing about this is that it should emphasize how vulnerable we all are to relying on a single communication network with our contacts. It demonstrates why having multiple social systems is a good thing. If Twitter is down, one should be able to hop on FaceBook and stay in touch.

The Woopra 1.3 FINAL Release Test Team!!!

John P. — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:36:45 +0000

Ok. This might not be all that super secret, but I guarantee its going to pass a lot of people by this evening…

OH! Before I get started here, I hope that everyone is following Elie Khoury on Twitter and go and show him the LOVE! For God’s sake, he and Jad Younan (who we can’t get to use Twitter or anything else) have been working for like 48 hours straight to make this a reality for the rest of us!

Now, I’m happy to announce that the long awaited Woopra desktop client version 1.3 is complete, and about to be pushed out to all Woopra users. But before that happens, we need you to go over the final build one… last… time.

So, we’re going to use my little blog here as our super secret gathering ground for the Woopra Special Forces Testing Team tonight!

Please grab one or more of the appropriate links below and start testing everything out. Leave comments below for anything you find that appears to be broken or otherwise non-functional. If you come up with a feature request we’ll take note of it, but that will have to wait till a later version. We just want to make sure that 1.3 isn’t breaking anything.

If you want to test it but you don’t have an approved site… well, I’m feeling generous tonight! Send me a tweet to @johnpoz with the URL you need approved AFTER you set up your account on Woopra.com and I’ll manually approve it.

So, here you go my precious peeps! The whole Woopra team is standing by for the next couple of hours manning the comments on this post, so you’ve got direct access to power!

ONE LAST LITTLE DETAIL!!! If you download and install one of these builds tonight, it’s possible that the next time we push out an update you might have to do that one manually too. The auto-upgrade might not work on this one for a variety of technical reasons…. You’ve been warned. :-)

EDIT:
By the way, a few things you may want to take a look at:

The new chat functionality is RADICALLY improved. Multi-chat sessions, beautiful interface, impossible to miss…
Look at your Analytics! MUCH more information than before! Just a thing of beauty.
The new Light colored theme! Click on the little down arrow on the tab at the top to change your theme color. I LOVE “Woopra Light”!

British Couple Commits Suicide Together After 54 Years of Marriage

John P. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:00:25 +0000

Just a few weeks ago my beloved dog Sandy came to the end of a long and debilitating struggle with kidney failure. My wife and I did everything we could to prolong her life and make her happy and comfortable, but none of us can cheat death, and eventually it was upon us.

One of the most difficult decisions of my life came when I was forced to choose to euthanize my faithful companion of more than a decade. It was compounded by a feeling of guilt – not that I had acted too soon, but that perhaps I had waited too long out of grief and a sense of personal loss. I remember wishing for days that she could tell me if it was worth living, or if she merely wished she could die.

When we finally had our vet come to the house and put her to rest it was a traumatic experience for the family, yet the death was so quite, fast and peaceful that not only did it remove any feeling of lingering doubt that we had done the right thing, but it made me consider my own mortality and caused me to realize that ultimately I would rather be able to go like this, than be imprisoned in a body stricken with ailments, waiting for death to take me.

Well, this is the situation that Sir Edward Downes, and his wife of 54 years, Lady Joan, found themselves in. And luckily for them, they were able to make the decision to leave this world on their own terms. I only wish that we had the freedom to choose for our selves here in the USA.

According to the UK’s Guardian:

One of Britain’s most respected conductors, Sir Edward Downes, and his wife, Joan, a choreographer and TV producer, have died at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, their family said today.

Downes, 85, was almost blind when he and his 74-year-old wife, who had become his full-time carer, travelled to Switzerland to end their lives, a family statement released to the BBC said.

Born in Birmingham, Downes had a long and distinguished career, including conducting the first performance at the Sydney Opera House. He worked with the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Opera House in London.

The statement from the couple’s son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca, said they “died peacefully, and under circumstances of their own choosing”.

The statement continued: “After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems.”

The couple died at a clinic run by Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that operates a specialist euthanasia service.

In my opinion, the notion of a society making assisted suicide a crime among humans, while allowing the very practice with our animals is the absolutely pinnacle of hypocrisy. On one hand, we recognize that the suffering is so great that death is a better substitute – but we then imagine that it simply doesn’t apply to humans?

The problem we have is an over-estimation of the value of life in this case. We actually strip the individual of their own free will to act in their best interests, and instead impose a false concept that absolutely nothing could justify the request to die, nor the assistance given to the individual to do so.

The same people who would often pose religious or sociological arguments in opposition to assisted suicides would be willing to give their own lives in defense of their beliefs. A choice, I would remind you, of one’s own life or death.

As for me, I can imagine any number of scenarios where I would pray for death rather than suffering the indignity of living. I only hope that one day my country wakes up and decides to grant me the freedom to choose my own fate.

FaceBook Usernames: The Gold Rush is Upon Us!

John P. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:00:45 +0000

For those of you who have been long frustrated by the fact that you can’t have a reasonable freakin FaceBook username, and instead have to have something like http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1529863541, well the times they are a changin’!

Tomorrow you are going to be able to choose your own username for your shortened FaceBook URL. So, you could get http://www.facebook.com/SexyBeast for example (that’s probably already been pre-assigned to me. Sorry.). But you are going to have to compete with millions of other people who are trying to do the same thing! So you better get there quick, and pray to the gods of everything technical that the FaceBook servers can handle the onslaught! (I’m betting they WON’T.)

Choosing a name is supposed to be simple. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and I guess as long as you are logged in you’ll be able to pick it. Right now it just shows a countdown timer, and I already had problems loading the page once, so I’m telling you the demand is going to be fierce.

Anyway, if you’re a loyal OMB reader drop your new FaceBook URL into the comments when you get it so I can go check you out! Oh, and friend me while you’re there if you haven’t already…

Ok, Ok… I’m Leaving Layered Tech – But Not Completely!

John P. — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:43:18 +0000

This morning I woke up to several emails from people who read Philbert’s, from Tier 1 Research, report that I was leaving LT. I must say, that was some sharp reporting! I have no idea how he found out about that so quickly. We didn’t really even announce it publicly yet. But he was very kind to me in his writeup (below) and I’m thankful for anything I was able to contribute while at Layered Tech.

Layered Tech chief marketing officer John Pozadzides departs

by Philbert Shih

Chief marketing officer John Pozadzides is leaving Layered Technologies to take the CEO position at iFusion Labs, owners of Woopra, a startup Web analytics and tracking platform. Woopra also happens to be a customer of Layered Tech’s private grid offering, buying a 100-server grid deployment for its ability to handle traffic fluctuations as it moved into a public launch (early in 2008).

Pozadzides came to Layered Tech in Q3 2007 as part of the new management team put in place by CEO Jack Finlayson that included some familiar faces from the older Savvis days. While he was not in the job for long, Pozadzides played a role in raising the company’s profile. Layered Tech had long been somewhat of a secret and that has quickly changed. Pozadzides can also be credited for helping position the company as a leader in virtualized and cloud-type infrastructure – an area that the company has made great strides in over the last few years. Through product development and the acquisition of FastServers, Layered Tech has quickly moved beyond dedicated hosting and built an identity as a total infrastructure solutions provider for the developer, reseller, SMB and mid-market enterprise space. Pozadzides deserves some of the credit for making that happen.

Pozadzides departs at a busy time, as another major initiative – implementation of the Astro automation platform – is well underway. The technology and platform have been built and the next step is to integrate the on-demand benefits into the overall marketing message. This will be high on the next marketing executive’s list of priorities. T1R sees Astro as a critical piece to Layered Tech’s potential success. If the messaging is right, Layered Tech will have a nice differentiator – a truly on-demand infrastructure provider with multiple hosting flavors – that will resonate in the marketplace.

Layered Tech founder, COO and president Todd Abrams will assume most of Pozadzides’ sales and marketing roles on an interim basis as the company searches for a successor.

Philbert got most of the facts correct, but I’ll just expand on of a few of the points a bit:

As most of you know, being a partner in the venture, I’ve always held the CEO position at iFusion Labs, even while working as CMO at Layered Tech. It was OK for a while but the stress and time constraints of two “C-level” jobs took its tole on me physically. In addition, Woopra has grown so big and so fast that I really need to be spending all my time nurturing it. So, this was a very difficult decision for me, but at the end of the day it was absolutely necessary.
I still have a vested interest in Layered Tech. Although I am stepping down, I am friends with basically everyone over there and will be available to them whenever they need advice and assistance. In addition, all of Woopra’s infrastructure is hosted at Layered Tech, so we remain a very signifigant – and growing – client.
Just to be 100% crystal clear, I would not be leaving LT if it weren’t for Woopra. I love the company, the people, and the challenge. It is the best place to get highly personalized and absolutely top notch hosting at fantastic prices.

So, going forward I’ll be concentrating on three things:

Woopra. This is my full time job, and I absolutely LOVE it. My partners, our team, and our clients are all absolutely fantastic! I mean I truly, truly love everything about it. I am really looking forward to spending ALL my time on this project.
Wealth Nation. This is a new radio style podcast that I’m producing along with my close friends Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell. We are going to talk about all sorts of things that cumulatively equal wealth: personal finances, business topics, health, and more. You can download our very first episode now, and subscribe on iTunes if you want.
One Man’s Blog. I always enjoy sharing things with my loyal readers. I think that everyone in the world realizes that I’ve got some fiercely loyal fans (which I appreciate more than you can ever know) and no matter what else I have going on in life, I intend to keep up with this blog forever.

So, thanks for all the concern from everyone, and I hope this kind of clears things up for you guys!

AT&T Tells CallVantage VOIP Service Customers to PISS OFF!

John P. — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:21:35 +0000

I’ve been an AT&T VoIP client for 5 years now via their CallVantage service. But they just sent us a letter in the mail telling us that they are going to discontinue the service. First of all, why didn’t they email it to us? Or drop a recorded message in our voice mail boxes? Anyway, I absolutely love their rationale…

As AT&T continually strives to deliver new and innovative products… AT&T will be discontinuing AT&T CallVantage service in 2009.

So, let me get this straight… In AT&T’s quest to deliver new and innovative products, they’ve decided to eliminate the internet based VoIP service which delivers flat rate calling, digital access to voice-mail, online capabilities to manage and change services, and instead offer “wireless from AT&T and traditional voice service”? Brilliant.

The letter they sent goes on to say:

To move your current AT&T CallVantage number to another AT&T service such as AT&T U-Verse Voice (VoIP) service… Contact AT&T…

What? Wait a minute. There is ANOTHER AT&T VoIP service? Well, fine, then why the hell don’t you just roll my CallVantage account into this U-Verse thing and NOT make me all upset and have to do work like “contacting AT&T”?

Well, maybe I’m just one of a very small number of clients they have on CallVantage, right? They really don’t care about us, because what’s maybe 200,000 users paying $30 per month each to AT&T? $6 million per month? HA! Fine, so if we all leave they could care less. Piss off!

But, if we do want to stay, our alternative is to contact AT&T to switch to U-verse. Ok, let me just find the number to call and waste my time taking care of that…. Where is that number? Where is …? WHAT?!?

They didn’t even give an F-ing number!!!

Iraqi Government to Execute 128 Men Because They’re Gay

John P. — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:20:21 +0000

According to an exiled member of the Iraqi Gay and Lesbian community, the Iraqi government (which is currently propped up by the US military) is about to begin a string of executions of 128 men who are guilty solely of the “crime” of homosexuality.

The tragedy is that I haven’t seen or heard anything about this unbelievable human rights violation from any of the mainstream media. And we must have hundreds of reporters in Iraq, so what the hell are they doing?

Lest we believe it’s a fabrication, CNN has previously reported and cited a UN study which clearly shows that the problem is well known:

A U.N. report on human rights in Iraq reinforces the accusations of violence. Although gays are supposed to be protected by law in Iraq, it says, they face extreme brutality.

“Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them,” the report said, adding that homosexuals have been murdered.

“Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family,” it said.

The report was issued at the end of 2006 and is the last U.N. study to touch on the subject.

The following is the report from the Iraqi LGBT Web site. I would encourage all of you to go and sign the petition to help save these lives. I did.

STOP EXECUTIONS OF GAY IRAQIS MEMBERS OF IRAQI LGBT GROUP ON DEATH ROW
ACTION NEEDED TO HALT JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS
London, 30 March 2009

Urgent action is needed to halt the execution of 128 prisoners on death row in Iraq. Many of those awaiting execution were convicted for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality, according to IRAQI-LGBT, a UK based organisation of Iraqis supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Iraq.

According to Ali Hili of IRAQI-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week.

IRAQI-LGBT urgently requests that the UK Government, Human Rights Groups and the United Nations Human Rights Commission intervene with due speed to prevent this tragic miscarriage of justice from going ahead.

“We have information and reports on members of our community whom been arrested and waiting for execution for the crimes of homosexuality,’’ said Mr Hili. “Iraqi lgbt has been a banned from running our activities on Iraqi soil.”

“Raids by the Iraqi police and ministry of interior forces cost our group the disappearing and killing of 17 members working for Iraqi lgbt since 2005,” added Mr Hili.

“Death penalty has been increasing at an alarming rate in Iraq since the new Iraqi regime reintroduced it in August 2004.
In 2008 at least 285 people were sentenced to death, and at least 34 executed. In 2007 at least 199 people were sentenced to death and 33 were executed, while in 2006 at least 65 people were put to death. The actual figures could be much higher as there are no official statistics for the number of prisoners facing execution,” he said.

IRAQI LGBT is concerned that the Iraqi authorities have not disclosed the identities of those facing imminent execution, stoking fears that many of them may have been sentenced to death after trials that failed to satisfy international standards for fair trial.

Most are likely to have been sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), whose proceedings consistently fall short of international standards for fair trial. Some are likely to have. Allegations of torture are not being investigated adequately or at all by the CCCI. Torture of detainees held by Iraqi security forces remains rife.

Iraq’s creaking judicial system is simply unable to guarantee fair trials in ordinary criminal cases, and even less so in capital cases, with the result, we fear, that numerous people have gone to their death after unfair trials.

The Iraqi government must order an immediate halt to these executions and establish a moratorium on all further executions in Iraq, particularly since due process cannot be guaranteed. The state executing people for ‘morals’ crimes is also obviously unacceptable and deplorable.

Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to make public all information pertaining to the 128 people, including their full names, details of the charges against them, the dates of their arrest, trial and appeal and their current places of detention.

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi’s facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.

Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Iraqi Lgbt
22 Notting Hill Gate
Unit # 111
London , W11 3JE
United Kingdom
Mob: ++44 798 1959 453
Website : http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

45 Percent of Global Wealth Destroyed in Last 18 Months

John P. — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:44:21 +0000

This is a fascinating report from Megan Davies and Walden Siew of Reuter’s. Thanks to Jacques Snyman for sharing the link over on Facebook.

45 percent of world’s wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Private equity company Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis.

“Between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half,” Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. “This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime.”

So, if your 401k is suffering, well… join the club! The whole world is in this one together, and that means we all have to get together and work our way out if it.

He put part of the blame for the financial crisis to credit rating agencies.

“What’s pretty clear is that, if you were looking for one culprit out of the many, many, many culprits, you have to point your finger at the rating agencies,” he said.

Rating companies have been the focus of intense criticism for their role in granting top “AAA” ratings for complex bonds that later plummeted in value, resulting in subsequent rating cuts, in many cases to junk status.

“Once you bought into … the Triple A paper and it turned out to be paper that was in many situations going to end up defaulting, then you really had the makings of a global problem,” he said.

Let me tell you what is going to change the game in my opinion. Technological innovation.

Right now, what we need are some new and exciting disruptive technologies to get people fired up again. Everyone is going to keep hoarding and scrimping and saving until something comes along that they figure delivers so much value that they just can’t live without it!

What could that be? Well:

New medical technologies that extend life, cure diseases, or improve our physical health. Can anyone say Bio tech investment?
New battery and other storage devices. We already know how to make all the energy we need. The problem is, we can’t store it for long at all.
New transportation infrastructure. I’m tired of building and maintaining roads! And smelling car fumes! How about futuristic electric powered hover-cars!

Bottom line people… wishing about changing the world isn’t going to make it happen! We have to ALL get off our asses and work our way out of it. So quit complaining and start innovating a way out of this mess and we’ll all be just fine.

Sam the Koala Rescued After Australian Bush Fires

John P. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:27:11 +0000

I first learned about this heart touching story over on The Australian. It seems that a group of fire fighters, who had been battling a massive raging inferno, responsible for killing at least 180 people, came upon a dehydrated and injured little Koala in a burned out area of the forest.

One of the firemen, Dave, got some water and approached the animal to try and care for it. Amazingly, she accepted his help, and he was able to give her 3 bottles of water. This story ends well, although as many as one million animals are suspected to have perished in the blaze.

Here is a follow up news broadcast about Sam after she was rescued.

Dave Courvoisier’s Las Vegas News YouTube Updates

John P. — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:24:49 +0000

Folks, if you are wondering what is coming up on the evening news in Las Vegas, Dave Courvoisier is putting out quick highlights of the upcoming news over on YouTube. You should subscribe.

For those of you who don’t remember, or who missed it, Dave took me on a tour of the KLAS studio a few weeks ago, and it was awesome!

A Visit to the KLAS Channel 8 News With Dave Courvoisier

John P. — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:29:22 +0000

Ok folks. For those of you who missed it, last week I was in Las Vegas at the Parallel’s convention. I posted some pics and some video, but the highlight of the trip was when I got to go to the Channel 8 studios with my friend Dave Courvoisier and watch him film the nightly news!

As you guys know, at Layered Tech we have some bad ass data centers. So, I’m very used to seeing a lot of technology. But when Dave gave me the tour of the KLAS TV station it was a whole other treat! I’ve never seen so much video recording, editing and broadcasting equipment in my life!

First of all Dave gave me the tour of the facility. It was nice because since I went during the late news the station was empty and we weren’t interrupting anyone. I gotta tell you, everywhere I looked there were rooms full of digital editing equipment. Dave said that KLAS was the first station in the country to go fully digital, and believe me… it was apparent.

After getting the tour of the place, Dave dropped me off in the production room where I hung out and watched the first half of the news. It was amazing to watch a live news broadcast because the amount of coordination going on was incredible. These people are truly, truly professionals.

At any given time the folks in the booth were having to switch between multiple cameras, coordinate with on the scene reporters, and queue in commercials. There were so many monitors that I almost had an epileptic seizure! But the folks at the controls were just sitting there like there was nothing to it. Cool as can be.

After the first half of the broadcast, I got to go out on the set and actually watch as Dave and the rest of the team delivered the news live. It’s something else to stand there and know that while I’m the only member of the “audience” who is viewing this in person, there are probably hundreds of thousands of people watching it all around the city.

And the whole crew was so damn calm and collected! Heck, at one point Dave even made a paper airplane and tossed it at me! And I was scared to pick it up and toss it back even though a commercial was on! I was worried that they would go live again and then my plane would come sailing through…

Anyway, I had a fantastic time hanging out with Dave both at the studio and also while getting a little snack afterwards. He gave me a ride back to the Mandalay Bay in his SSR – which was awesome by the way!

By the way, in addition to being a wickedly cool TV news anchor, Dave is also a voice actor with the coolest voice I’ve ever heard. You should DEFINITELY check out the recordings on his voice acting site just to listen to him talk! He is also an unbelievably skillful writer, so you should check out the articles on his blog. You should also definitely follow him on Twitter, because anyone this cool just plain deserves our attention.

From the Sand Pit – Message From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan

John P. — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:27:52 +0000

Wow! I’m not sure if the letter below is legitimate or fabricated. It sounds like it could be from a real Marine, and so I’m going to publish it just in case. Either way, it gives you a lot to think about…

It’s freezing here. I’m sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains along the Dar ‘yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I’ve actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that’s where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.

It’s all about intelligence. We haven’t even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they’re in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me. I’m a romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country blows, man. It’s not even a country. There are no roads, there’s no infrastructure, there’s no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That’s it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that’s your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those ‘tent cities of the walking dead’ is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I’ve been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of ‘em, are Huns…actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It’s what they do. It’s ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves.

They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other’s barbarism. Cavemen with AK47’s. Then again, maybe I’m just cranky.

I’m freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can’t recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours.

Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban ’smart.’ They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is ‘cunning.’ The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they’re real smart.

They’ve spent their entire lives reading only one book(and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They’re still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I’m good at it. Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives.

The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We’ve got this one under control. The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we’re doing over here because you have no idea what we’re doing and, really, you don’t want to know. We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help? Buy Bonds America.

Saucy Jack

Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi

California to Go Bankrupt in February

John P. — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:37:34 +0000

Leave it to the Brits to properly report on US news. According to the Independant, California will run out of money in February.

The State of California will run out of money within two months, forcing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to start settling bills and paying employees by issuing “IOU” notes, his chief financial officer has revealed….

Unless taxes can be raised, or spending reined in, millions of public-sector employees and private contractors face having their salaries paid in “registered warrants,” a piece of paper which the Governor will promise to exchange for cash as soon as he is able.

The effective bankruptcy of an entire state is unprecedented in American history, even during the Great Depression. Yet despite California’s standing as one of the most prosperous regions of the wealthiest nation on earth, its Governor seems powerless to stave off disaster.

So-called “direct democracy,” through which small interest groups can enact laws by making them the subject of an electoral “proposition” or ballot measure that attracts more than 50 per cent of the vote, has severely limited his ability to manage finances.

Property taxes, the mainstay of any state’s income, have been frozen for many homeowners since a proposition was passed in the late 1970s. A separate measure, introduced in the 1980s, means that income taxes cannot be raised without the agreement of two-thirds of the state’s lawmakers.

Meanwhile, a raft of other ballot measures control spending, meaning that only 25 per cent of California’s spending is considered “discretionary”. The rest has been “earmarked” for a particular cause or project….

So to summarize:

The state is OUT of money.
They are not allowed to raise income taxes.
They are not allowed to raise property taxes.
No one is willing to stop spending!

Well, I guess we’re all about to learn what happens when a state goes bankrupt! As if we couldn’t already learn that from the History channel when every major global power eventually gave up the ghost because they were broke.

California is about to lose it’s place as one of the world’s great super-states. Yee-haw for Texas!

Thugs Riot All Across Greece Over Student Shooting

John P. — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:11:49 +0000

From the BBC:

Fresh clashes have broken out between police and protesters in Athens and other cities, after a night of rioting triggered by the police shooting dead a youth.

Greek authorities say the shooting took place after youths attacked a police car with stones and petrol bombs.

Two police officers have been arrested in connection with the killing of the teenager.

So, just to interpret for you guys, some cops get attacked by a huge group of “students”. These youth are actually anarchists. (And I mean that, politically speaking. There are a bunch of moronic teenagers who think that Anarchy is cool.) But back to the story… the kids are stoning the cops and throwing Molotov cocktails, and one of the cops actually shoots a student.

In case you’re thinking, what do the cops have to fear? Here is a sample video from Jan 17, 2007 to demonstrate:

Oh, and after they attack cops they make videos of it and post them on YouTube, like this one, or this one, or this one. Hell, they even attacked the Greek Police headquarters!

So back to the story, after the kid gets shot, what happens?!? All the little anarchists in the entire country are going to revolt and burn the cities down!

There is absolutely nothing I hate more about Greece than the fact that they have become a nation of complete wussies.

There has not been a minor killed by police in Greece since 1985. That is over 2 decades since a cop has killed one lousy kid! Now, I know that I go on about police abuse of power quite often, but this is the entire other end of the spectrum. If kids are going to hurl Molotov cocktails directly at police riot squads they should be shot!

Let’s examine the logic here shall we?

The kids in Greece are against the concept of killing.
A kid (anarchist) gets killed by police.
All the kids then burn down the cities and throw bombs at police – putting countless people in mortal danger.

Brilliant. You morons have truly mastered the philosophical arts. How proud Socrates would be.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about the Government reaction. Instead of the Prime Minister coming out with a strong statement that “criminal activities such as arson, assault and battery, and resisting arrest will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”, they arrest the officers who were being attacked and exercised self defense.

I’d call them a very terrible name if my mother wasn’t going to read this article tomorrow.

I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for the people rioting in Greece. I’ve been there several times, I have family there, and I know that they have no reason whatsoever to riot like this. The only reason this happens – is because the society at large allows it to.

Now, let’s assume for a moment that the cops had murdered that kid in cold blood. I mean, there was no justification for the murder whatsoever. What is a proper reaction to this situation? Well, rather than causing untold amounts of destruction on innocent civilian populations, I would suggest the following:

Hold a peaceful, non-violent, demonstration. Have a spokesman, such as the president of the student government at the university, calmly speak to the media denouncing the act and invite not only students but concerned citizens to gather at a particular time and place for a candlelight vigil to remember the slain student.
Bring political pressure to bear on the police force in general, and the officers involved in specific and ensure that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

By acting like thugs all they do is lend credibility to the police officer’s actions. I can see how he might have been scared for his life and reacted with deadly force.

Bottom line is that Greece’s entire police and judicial system is out of control. Any country that tolerates repeated riots is not at all protecting freedom, because in these instances the people who are hurt the most are the innocent homeowners, merchants and other citizenry who’s lives are damaged by the reckless disregard for basic humanity.

Law and order is a basic civil right for any free people. It distinguishes us from the savages.

Photos courtesy of the BBC.

533,000 US Jobs Lost in November 2008

John P. — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:48:10 +0000

Well, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published their unemployment news yesterday, and it was nothing to smile about.

November 2008 US Unemployment Rate

Nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply (-533,000) in November, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. November’s drop in payroll employment followed declines of 403,000 in September and 320,000 in October, as revised. Job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors in November.

Oh, and by the way, these numbers only count the people who are actively looking for a job. An additional 422,000 people exited the work force for any number of reasons — they went back to school, retired or simply abandoned job searches out of sheer frustration.

Here is a link to the government’s full report in PDF or HTML if you are interested.

Where did all those jobs go? Well, we hear about a lot of the high profile losses:

Citigroup’s 52,000 layoffs will impact IT
Circuit City to Close 155 Stores, Lay Off Thousands
1,300 from Fidelity Investments
1,000 from toy maker Mattel
2,600 at Ford
850 from La-Z-Boy

But the reality is that the majority of the losses come from smaller companies who still make up the greatest number of people in the workforce. If the entire economy is hurting, a few jobs from each company adds up quick.

According to an Associated Press article:

President-elect Barack Obama said the crisis “is likely to get worse before it gets better,” and no one was going to argue that point. Economists predicted the unemployment rate, which rose to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent in November, could soar as high as 10 percent before skittish employers begin hiring again….

Employment shrank in virtually every part of the economy — factories, construction companies, financial firms, accounting and bookkeeping, architectural and engineering firms, hotels and motels, food services, retailers, temporary help, transportation, publishing, janitorial and building maintenance, and even waste management. The few fields spared included education, health care and government.

The United States — already in recession for a year, may not be out of it until the spring of 2010 — making for the longest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, economists are now saying. Recessions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s last 16 months.

Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in 1982, terrible but still a far cry from the Depression, when roughly one in four Americans were out of work.

What does all of this mean? Well, if you’ve got a job – work hard and do everything you can to make your company one of the survivors so you can keep it!

O.J. Goes to Jail for 9+ Years on Las Vegas Robbery Charges

John P. — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:17:59 +0000

So, the big news of the day – deserving or not – is that OJ is going to jail. No, not for the murder of Nicole and Ron 14 years ago, but this time for a robbery conviction in Las Vegas on last Friday.

The LA Times reported:

Reporting from Los Angeles and Las Vegas — Brushing aside a tearful apology from O.J. Simpson, a Las Vegas judge today sentenced the former football star to at least nine years in prison for the kidnapping and robbery last year of two sports memorabilia dealers in a casino hotel room.

Under the sentence handed down by Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass, Simpson would be eligible for parole in 2017. The maximum time he could serve is 33 years.

The sentence came after an emotional address in which Simpson sought to justify his conduct at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino. His eyes red and his voice wavering, the NFL Hall of Famer said he went to the down-market hotel in an effort to recover family heirlooms, including his slain ex-wife’s wedding ring, to pass down to his children.

“In no way did I mean to hurt anybody, to steal anything from anybody,” Simpson said. “I just wanted my personal things.”

Next, here is what happened when OJ was taken to jail, or more specifically, this is after his booking at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas following his arrest on January 11, 2008 for violating bail terms relating to his arrest for armed robbery in September 2007. These never-before-seen images include a candid interview with Simpson, providing his first-hand reaction to the arrest.

I find it amazing how non-chalant he is about the whole thing.

Anyway, here’s more of the backstory from the LA Times articles:

Simpson, 61, was convicted Oct. 3 for kidnapping and armed robbery, among other charges stemming from the Sept. 13, 2007, encounter at the off-strip casino. He led a rag-tag band of men, two carrying handguns, to confront dealers hawking mementos from him and other sports stars.

Clark County Dist. Atty. David Roger described Simpson as a “ringleader” who deserved a stiffer sentence than Stewart. It was Simpson, he said, who secured the two handguns and rounded up accomplices.

“He chose to use force and violence to take this property,” Roger said.

Simpson’s defense had asked for what they said was the most lenient sentence possible — six to 17 1/2 years in prison. State parole authorities had recommended at least 18 years in prison.

A lawyer for Simpson noted in court today that the dealers, Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, did not take the witness stand to ask for prison sentences for the convicted me, as victims often do.

“I think that says a lot,” said attorney Gabriel Grasso.

In his remarks, Simpson said he had been in contact with the men, who both said they did not want him incarcerated, and asked their forgiveness.

Yale Galanter, another Simpson lawyer, told the judge that while the gridiron great’s actions “reeked of stupidity,” they were not meant to cause harm.

“In Mr. Simpson’s mind … what he was doing truly was a retrieval of his own property,” Galanter said. “What it was was a highly emotional stupid act that violated the law.”

Simpson accepted an opportunity to speak to the judge, a surprise to Glass, she later said. Dressed in a blue jail-issued uniform and shackled at the waist, he spoke haltingly. He said that before the confrontation with the dealers, he had contacted his ex-wife’s family and told them, “I had a chance to get some of our property back.”

Items stolen from him over the years, he said, included Nicole Brown Simpson’s ring and a photo of him with President Gerald Ford. He said he hoped to give these to his younger daughter and eldest son, respectively.

“This was the first time I had an opportunity to catch the guys red-handed who had been stealing from my family,” he said.

Hey, the good news is… maybe OJ can save the country by taking our minds off the terrible economic woes!

Man Gets Ticket While Wife is in Labor!

John P. — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:55:26 +0000

From the Associated Press:

Mass. man ticketed on a gridlocked highway while wife in labor on way to hospital
Dec 5, 2008

(BOSTON) A man in Massachusetts is appealing a $100 ticket he got for driving to a hospital in the breakdown lane of a gridlocked Boston highway while his wife was in labor. John Davis of Dracut says his wife Jennifer’s contractions were three minutes apart on Nov. 18 when a state trooper pulled them over for using the breakdown lane.

The couple says the trooper made them wait five to 10 minutes while he wrote a ticket for another car on Route 2, asked to see Jennifer’s belly to prove her pregnancy, then issued them a ticket.

The couple made it to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. Their daughter was born five hours later.

State police say no discipline is likely for the trooper.

I sure would love to see one of Colby Jones’ cartoons about this one!

“Black Friday” Shopping Becoming a Deadly Affair

John P. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:10:05 +0000

Recent deaths during “Black Friday” sales give a whole other meaning to the phrase, and they illustrate how completely out of control some people are getting based on the mindless greedy rush to get a deal.

A worker at a Wal-Mart in Nassau County, N.Y. was trampled to death on Friday as a crazed crowd of shoppers broke down the door and proceeded to run right over him. The exact Wal-mart location is 77 Green Acres Rd, Valley Stream, NY‎ (at the Green Acres Mall), and here it is on a map:

View Larger Map

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island, New York, store Friday morning, police and witnesses said. The 34-year-old worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was knocked to the floor during the mad rush. She was hospitalized for observation, police said. Early witness accounts that the woman suffered a miscarriage were unfounded, police said.

Three other shoppers suffered minor injuries, cops said.

This next video, filmed by some guys who were waiting to get in the actual Green Acres Mall Wal-Mart, captured the lead up to the brutal event. WARNING: there is a LOT of bad language in this video because it’s a few excited young guys. Of course, the entire crowd sounds like a riot, so you know something bad is going to happen.

And after the deed was done, some people stood around and filmed paramedics while laughing and joking about it. Nice.

So, you may be wondering what happens at all the other Wal-marts and stores across the nation even when it works out properly? Pandemonium.

And how people are acting when they are actually inside the stores? Like freakin’ animals!

So, what can we all learn from these experiences? How about this. Stay at home and shop online!!! The stupidest thing of all is that while these morons were lining up outside the Wal-mart, they could have already been purchasing the sale items at home on Walmart.com!

Yes, that’s right. Walmart, and just about every other retailer, made their Black Friday deals available online long before the stores ever even opened. Oh, and I had already dished out the sites that help you do that early bird shopping well in advance.