OMG! I'M FREAKING OUT!! (False Alarm)

A couple of days ago, I received this email:

WALTER WHITE IS FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER!!!  HEISENBERG!!!

It's a phony Twitter account.  :(  Cranston's real account is here.

I'm going to go hang my head, and eat a box of Little Debbie oatmeal cookies now....

Tweet Of The Day

This tweet, which was later deleted, was sent by Washington State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, shortly after the Seattle Seahawks lost to the Arizona Cardinals, 17-10.

He forgot to mention that Arizona is a white trash/Juggalo Mecca....

Tweet Of The Day

Sylvia's is a soul food landmark in Harlem.  It's celebrating it's 50th year in the neighborhood.  I have seen it a number of times on the Food Network.  Sylvia, the restaurant's founder, is known in New York City as "The Queen of Soul Food".

Very cool move on the part of Ochocinco.  Harlem is going to be packed tonight.  He currently has 3,295,330 followers on Twitter. 

Tori's Ta Tas Tipped Off On Twitter (NSFW)

Last night, Tori Spelling's husband, Dean McDermott tweeted a picture of his son with something on his forehead.  Awww.  How cute.

Wait.  Aren't those Tori Spelling's bare breasts in the background?  What the hell?

For anyone interested, an uncensored version is available after the break.  You have to wonder, how did he not notice her boobs in the picture before he uploaded it to Twitter? 

Coincidentally...or not...season 6 of 'Tori and Dean' premieres on the Oxygen Network on November 29th.  Could this have been a way to get some cheap attention towards their Twitter feeds?

Tweet Of The Day

Samuel L. Jackson is now on Twitter.

Expect a lot of expletives, and tweets with the CAPS LOCK on.

I must say, I am a little disappointed.  I was hoping that his first tweet would say, "YES THEY DESERVED TO DIE AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!!!!"

Tweet Of The Day

Mikey Welsh is the former bassist for the band Weezer.  He played on their "Green" album.  He tweeted the following on September 26th.  A second tweet said, "correction - the weekend after next".

He was found, dead, Saturday in a Chicago hotel room by hotel personnel, after he didn't check out of his room.  He was in town to watch his former bandmates perform Sunday night at Chicago's RIOTfest.  According to CNN, cause of death is yet to be determined, pending autopsy.

Tweet Of The Day II

Margie Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church has received a lot of publicity in the last 24 hours.  She posted a tweet from her iPhone yesterday, announcing that the church would be picketing the funeral of Steve Jobs, because he "taught sin".

She sent a follow up tweet to explain herself this morning.

According to Phelps, god created the iPhone, ergo, Steve Jobs is god.  Nerds have been preaching this for the better part of 30 years.

Breaking: Twitter Hashtags "#occupywallstreet/#takewallstreet" Being Censored Within U.S.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS HARDLY COVERING ANY OF THIS!!  SPREAD THE WORD!!

Massive protests have been underway on Wall Street in New York City for the last 36 hours.  Thousands of people are camping out, protesting not only corporate greed, but the role that many in Washington have in lining the pockets of those at the top of the corporate ladder.

Throughout the day, the hashtags #occupywallstreet and #takewallstreet have been used on Twitter in reference to the protests.

Within the hour, it has been learned that somehow, those hashtags that have originated from within the United States have been blocked.

Trendsmap.com is a website that tracks the location of where hashtags are trending.  If you go to the site, and do a search of #occupywallstreet and #takewallstreet, you'll find not one tweet coming from the U.S.  According to Twitter, neither of the two hashtags are even trending within New York City.  I'm only following #occupywallstreet, and have at least 20 new tweets every 30 seconds popping up.  Keep in mind, that it is currently after 3:00AM EST.  Something illegal is happening, pure and simple.

I will try to keep you posted as I get more information.

Correction: The #occupywallstreet protests have been going on now for 8 days, since September 17th.  There has been absolutely zero media attention given to these protests, even though hundreds of people have been arrested (93 on the 24th alone), and dozens have been injured by NYPD officers.  I first caught wind of the protest through Buzzfeed.com last night, after police brutality had taken a sharp up swing in recent days.  What outside media personnel that are trying to get into the protests are being refused entry.  According to numerous sources, two PBS journalists were arrested and detained Saturday morning.  Most information from the scene is coming from bloggers and amateur cameramen.

Update 4:07AM EST:  It appears that #takewallstreet is finally starting to show up on Trendsmap.  When looking at an image of the globe, you cannot see the United States.  It is completely covered with the hashtag.  #occupywallstreet still is not showing.

Tweet Of The Day

I just realized...this was when I became an Atheist.

Goodnight.

Tweet Of The Day

Alec Baldwin is a dick.  At least his daughter wasn't serving him.

Tweet Of The Day

As governor of Texas, Rick Perry has taken a very moderate stance in regards to illegal immigration.  He supported the DREAM Act.  He even sought ways to create a pathway to citizenship for those undocumented workers currently in the country.  Now that he is courting extremists like Arpaio, it's almost as if he's changing his belief system in order to get Republican support.

Interesting fact:  Between 2007 and June 2010, the United States deported a total of 115,841 illegal immigrants.  Arpaio's office was responsible for 26,146 of those deportations, a whopping  22.5%.  If that isn't extremist, I don't know what is.

Marriage Bigots Miss Out On $100K Matching Donation

On June 24th, the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay group that some say has ties to the Mormon church, raised an ambitious fund-raising challenge to their supporters.  For every new Facebook like, Twitter follower, and new text supporter they receive, an anonymous donor would donate one dollar up to $100,000.  The deadline for new supporters was today, September 1st.

I never thought that they would hit $100,000, but even I didn't think their efforts would be this pathetic.

Jeremy over at Good as You has been keeping track of NOM's stats over the last couple of months, and the results are just sad.  931 Facebook likes and 298 Twitter followers.  That's $1,229.00, people.  Unless NOM received 98,771 text messages in the span of two months and six days, it's highly unlikely that they received the $100,000 donation from their "anonymous donor".  That is, if there was an anonymous donor in the first place.  How much would you like to wager that this was a clever ploy to try to garner more support for their organization?

I would like to see their spin on this.

Video: New Yorkers Knew Of Earthquake Via Twitter Before Ground Shook

For a seismic wave to travel the 230 miles from Washington D.C. to New York City, it takes approximately 30 seconds.  That's roughly 27,600 miles per hour.

It only takes 25 seconds for someone to feel the ground shake, and post a tweet that says "I think we just had an earthquake", that can be read by someone in New York.

That is exactly what happened last Tuesday when a 5.9 earthquake struck near Richmond, Virginia.  When buildings shook near Washington Tuesday afternoon, the internet exploded, primarily on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter claims that readers in other areas were aware of the coming quake via their site before local seismographs registered any readings.  They're so proud of it, in fact, check out their new promotional video:



Twitter announced Wednesday that the D.C. earthquake created more site traffic for them than the death of Osama Bin Laden, and tied the level of traffic that they saw at the time of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March.  This tells me one of two things.  Either Twitter has quickly gained a large number of users, or Americans seriously have their priorities fucked up.

As an interesting side note, Eric Fischer created an animated map of the earthquake related tweets that afternoon.  The green dots represent earthquake related tweets.  Gray dots are tweets about other topics.  During the 28 second piece, each frame is one second.  The entire piece represents 12 minutes of elapsed time.

THE Coolest Thing On Earth You Can Buy For $350

Fuck the IPhone.  To Hell with a year pass to Disneyland.  (Depending on the terms at which you buy them, you can't those things for $350, anyway.)  Check this out:



When I go to an aquarium, my favorite exhibit is always the jellyfish.  They're spellbinding.  I have always wanted to have jellyfish in a home aquarium, but have never seen them available in a store.  Turns out, jellyfish cannot go into normal rectangular aquariums, because they'll get stuck in the corners.  If you think about it, every jelly exhibit you've ever seen has been in a cylindrical tank.

On August 10, Alex Andon of Jellyfish Art posted a project on Kickstarter.com, as a way to gauge interest for his design and possibly get pre-orders.  His initial goal was to raise $3000 by September 12th.  The very next day, they reached their goal.

The day after that, their project received some unexpected advertisement in the form of a Tweet from record producer Jermaine Dupri:

Soon, every aspiring rapper and music producer in the nation was jockeying to get a jellyfish tank.  News of the Kickstarter project went viral.  The blogoshpere came alive with the story of how the internet could instantly take someone's idea, and make it a reality.  I have to admit, it's a pretty powerful thing.

As of the time of this posting, Jellyfish Art's Kickstarter project is currently at $96,055, with 260 people in line to get a tank when they're completed.  Keep in mind, the project is not set to expire until September 12th,  some 17 days away.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or would like to purchase a tank of your own, you can either click the link above or click on the widget below.

Earthquake Tilts Washington Monument?

At 1:51PM, 45 minutes after the 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Eastern seaboard, Fox News reported:

"Megyn Kelly just shared word that a D.C. police officer told a Fox News producer that there is concern that the Washington Monument may be tilting following a 5.9 magnitude earthquake."  

You know, Fox News:  The bastion of misinformation.  Well, despite the source, the news went viral.  Twitter was aflutter with the news that Washington had inherited it's very own Leaning Tower of Pisa.  According to USA Today, however, this is a picture of the Washington Monument, moments after the quake hit:

Um....not leaning.  Still phallic.  Still perfectly erect.  Quoting Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson, there was "absolutely no damage" to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial or other memorials along the National Mall.

Fox News has yet to recant or remove their story from their website.  In fact, it's still highlighted as one of the stories in their "Fox News Spotlight".

Now that's journalism.

UPDATE:  NBC Washington is reporting that upon a secondary inspection, cracks have been discovered in the stones at the top of the Washington Monument.

"The NPS said it is evaluating the structures to ensure that they are structurally sound and safe for all visitors. Agency spokesman Jeffrey Olson had told the AP that there was "absolutely no damage" to the Washington Monument, contrary to media reports elsewhere that it was leaning.

"Absolutely incorrect," U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said of media reports that the Washington Monument was leaning.  "It stands tall and proud."

The NPS said said a preliminary inspection of the Washington Monument and found it to be structurally sound. The NPS will continue to inspect the interior of the Monument before any decisions are made about reopening it to the public."

House Republicans Threatening To Impeach Obama

This whole "debt ceiling" issue is just starting to get childish, now.  GOP House Rep. Steve King, from Iowa, sent the above tweet this morning.  That's right.  Republicans are now threatening impeachment if a deal isn't reached, and the nation is forced to default on any debt after August 2nd.  

The tweet was in reference to the "Cut, Cap and Balance"(along with the Slice, Dice, Weigh, Measure, Julienne, Cover and Bake at 375 Degrees For 45 Minutes) plan, introduced by Republicans in the House, that includes a Balanced Budget Amendment.  The Democratic led Senate shot it down immediately.  The president now finds himself in a 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't' type of situation.

The 14th Amendment, Section 4, of the United States Constitution says in part:

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

One of Obama's options as a solution to this stalemate is to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional approval.  The idea, according to inside sources, has already been presented to the president.  He is constitutionally afforded that option.  Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina, has already made it clear that if that were to happen, Obama would be facing impeachment as well.

“This president is looking to usurp congressional oversight to find a way to get it done without us,” Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told a gathering in Summerville, S.C., “My position is that is an impeachable act from my perspective.”

Scott added: “There are a lot of things people say, ‘Are you going to impeach the president over that?’ — No. But this? This is catastrophic. This jeopardizes the credibility of our nation if one man can usurp the entire system set up by our founding fathers over something this significant.”

House Republicans are effectively holding this nation hostage until their demands are met.  They want Social Security, along with Medicare and Medicaid to lose funding, while keeping their Bush era tax breaks for their wealthy friends and oil lobbyists. 

I receive Social Security.  At the moment, it's our family's only income.  We can't pay our bills as is on the amount that is deposited into our checking account each month.  How on Earth are we expected to live if my benefits are cut?  My Medicare goes into effect in October.  Medicare Part A will only pay for one physical per year.  No other office visits.  It doesn't pay for any of the 13 medications I'm currently taking or my weekly therapy visits for my PTSD (which is what made me disabled to begin with).  My surgeon says that I will likely need at least one or two more spine surgeries before the end of the year.  Although I haven't completely healed from my last operation, I'm trying to fast track the next surgery and have it done as soon as possible.  That way, the bill will be Blue Cross Blue Shield's responsibility and not my own.

If the nation defaults on it's debt, I may not have money for rent and utilities next month.  I'm sure I'll eventually get paid, but the situation puts my future, along with millions of other Americans, up in the air.

I'm sure the threat to impeach Obama is just that:  a threat.  When you think about it, it is the worst thing Republicans can do.  If Obama is impeached, then Joe Biden becomes the president.  Biden is much more liberal in the eyes of the GOP.  He's also as loyal as a Golden Retriever to Barack Obama.  He's the last guy you want to be pissed off and in charge.  I honestly don't think it will happen.

President Obama spoke to the nation tonight, to reiterate the fact that he isn't backing down when it comes to the demands of House Republicans.  He has made it clear that cutting entitlement programs is not an option.  Speaking for myself, I would rather have my monthly check be a couple of days late, than being noticeably less down the road.  The president's address to the nation is below.

 

Viral Photo Of The Day

I have seen the following picture on nearly a dozen sites in the last hour.  Yahoo, Mashable and even The Trevor Project are posting the photo, claiming that it was taken last night at Niagara Falls.  With the photo showing up on Lance Bass' Twitter feed last night, the world has just assumed it to be true.  Some have even credited Bass with the photo.

Well, Lance Bass didn't take the photo.  Turns out, the photo isn't even from last night.  If any of these "journalists" would have done 30 seconds of research, they would have discovered that the photo was taken by Mykelle Nicole, in June of 2008.  You can see the original on Nicole's Flickr page.  It's one out of a series of pictures taken in Niagara Falls that night.  I recommend taking a look at her page.  She's quite talented.

Regardless of when the photo was taken, I think it is still a wonderful symbol for marriage equality in New York.  It just upsets me when people take something at face value, when the truth could have been discovered in one Google search in less than a minute.  Ugh.

The Pope's Tweets

As some of you may know, Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet last week from his official Twitter account.  The Vatican is trying to get the pontiff involved in social media to make him appear up-to-date to Catholics in the 21st century.  How 140 characters can make an 84 year old celibate priest come across as "modern" I'll never know.  But I digress...

Paul Rudnick has an article in next week's New Yorker magazine detailing some of the more amusing tweets from God's "Right Hand Man":

"During a papal audience, I put folks at ease by asking, “Are you gay?” Then I say, “Kidding!” Then I go, “No, seriously, are you gay?” 

"It’s hard to tell all the cardinals apart, so sometimes I put different dinosaur stickers on their backs."

  

"Certain Christians think that they have to attend church only on Christmas and Easter, and I have a word for those people: lucky."

"Whenever people doubt that angels are real, I ask them, “Excuse me, but have you seen the Jonas Brothers in concert?”

"Every day I offer up a special prayer for the entire Kardashian family, but the next morning they’re always still alive."

And my personal favorite...

"Nancy Grace: perfect name for a gay Pope?"

Tweet Of The Day

Tweet Of The Day

It's rare to see a corporation not only put a #douchebag in their place, but encourage an environment of awareness and maturity about a topic that shouldn't be taken lightly.

This is why even though I may not like most of what they have on their menu, I still eat at Applebees on a regular basis.  They're good people.