“Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.” – Unknown
I am still troubled by the death of a Wal-Mart employee who was on the unfortunate end of a stampede on Black Friday. Being in Atlanta at the moment I was able to obtain a copy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Thanksgiving Day edition. The advertisements must have outweighed the paper by a margin of 3 to 1. What I found was very troubling indeed.
On big ticket items such as flat screen televisions, computers, and all sorts of other electronic goodies, there were some serious deals to be had. The only problem is that in the fine print of these deals to good to be true is the fact that there is a minimum number of these goods available at each store. When you have thousands of people lining up to purchase a limited supply of goods is a recipe for disaster.
Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart are all guilty of this practice. Its like dropping a sack of rice into a refugee camp expecting the distribution to proceed in a timely and orderly fashion. Just ain’t gonna fucking happen. What is equally disturbing is the fact that there seems to be no method of crowd control. Maybe if that Wal-Mart on Long Island had some type of security in place, this tragic death could have been avoided.
America needs to wake up and stop being manipulated by the retail industry and the news media. The same deal you would get on Black Friday will be repackaged in one form or another leading up to Christmas. When I used to participate in the idiocy of the holiday season, I always found the best deals to be on the day after Christmas or the retailer’s websites.
Ever wonder why Santa’s catch phrase is “Ho, Ho, Ho?” Think about it if you can!
I wonder if this is what Ayman al-Zawahri had in mind when he refered to Barack Obama as a house negro? This towel head reared his ugly head again today. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27951773/ That’s okay… Fear the eagle asshole!
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” – George Carlin
This morning at a Wal-Mart store on Long Island in New York, an employee was trampledto death as the store opened. At that same Wal-Mart, a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after being bumped into numerous times. It is amazing what people will subject themselves to a media and retail created event. Today, Black Friday, truly deserves its name.
To save a perceived buck or find a buy one get one free deal at five in the morning, often in freezing temperatures just reinforces the Carlin quote. So to all you morons out there buying flat screen television sets, where will you hang it when you get your foreclosure notice? Black Friday should change its name to Avarice Friday. The real Black Friday is the day when you get called into your bosse’s office at 4:30 p.m. and handed a pink slip!
Unfortunately, HBO is not scheduling this amazing movie anytime soon. You can rent it or download it from Amazon.com. This is must see T.V. Your government is full of war criminals!
“Put people in crazy situations and people do crazy things.” – Pfc. Damien Corsetti, Bagram, Afghanistan
Winner of the 2008 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature as well as a 2008 Peabody Award, Taxi to the Dark Side takes a disturbing in-depth look at the highly questionable interrogation practices used by United States military guards on prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in the years following 9/11. Beginning with the story of an innocent young Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was killed while being held in Bagram prison in 2002, Taxi to the Dark Side tells the grim, cautionary saga of how the U.S. government, desperate to draw out information from a top Al Qaeda leader detained in Guantanamo Bay, approved the use of cruel and unusual interrogation techniques that bordered on torture – which were systematically imported to other US prisons abroad. In examining the interrogation practices used in Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the film includes shocking photos, archival footage, expert commentary, and interviews with several soldiers stationed at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq. These guards admit to using unorthodox techniques – including isolation, ceiling handcuffing, sleep deprivation, strip humiliation, “water boarding,” threats by menacing dogs, sexual abuse and more – that they say were condoned and even approved by their superiors, despite being in clear violation of the humanitarian rules outlined in the Geneva Conventions.
The title of Taxi to the Dark Side refers, first, to an Afghan cabbie named Dilawar, who was apprehended by U.S. soldiers in 2002 and detained in the Bagram Air Base prison, where he died of wounds to the lower extremities after four days. Second, it evokes a statement VP Dick Cheney made to Tim Russert a few days after the 9/11 attacks. “We also have to work the dark side, if you will,” said Cheney of our strategy to bring terrorists to justice. “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.”
Taxi to the Dark Side examines the growing abuse within U.S. military prisons abroad, starting with the case of Mohammad al-Qahtani, a suspected “20th hijacker” of 9/11 who was subjected to new, humiliating interrogation tactics in an attempt to get him to reveal information in Guantanamo Bay. With the apparent approval of Sec. of State Rumsfeld, these tactics were imported to Iraq and Afghanistan, where guards subjected detainees to increasingly sadistic acts. As the film shows, after the now-famous Abu Ghraib prison photos were published in 2004, many soldiers were brought to trial, discharged and/or imprisoned – but the damage had already been done.
Taxi to the Dark Side opened to stellar reviews upon theatrical release, earning numerous awards including Best Documentary at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and Best Documentary Screenplay at the 2008 Writers Guild of America Awards.
Taxi to the Dark Side was written, produced, directed and narrated by Alex Gibney, who is also responsible for the Oscar®-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Trials of Henry Kissinger and other films. Gibney’s father Frank, a U.S. veteran who died before the documentary was completed, had urged his son to make the film.
Written & Directed by Alex Gibney; Produced by Alex Gibney, Eva Orner & Susannah Shipman; Executive Producers: Don Glascoff, Robert Johnson & Sidney Blumenthal and Jedd Wider & Todd Wider; Editor: Sloane Klevin; Cinematography: Maryse Alberti & Greg Andracke; Co-Producers: Marty Fisher, Blair Foster & Sloane Klevin; Original Music by Ivor Guest and Robert Logan; Additional Music By Mario Grigorov; Narrated by Alex Gibney.
Today the national debt stands at 10.6 trillion dollars.We have just passed legislation authorizing a 1 trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street and now they are asking for 600 billion more to buy up the toxic assets that the original bailout was intended for.We have two wars going on and costing upwards of 10 billion dollars a month.We just bailed out Citigroup and are 60 days away from bailing out the auto industry.And just where was your president today?He was having lunch with soldiers at Fort Collins in Kentucky thanking them for their service.
George W. Bush has in effect abdicated the presidency.He clearly can’t wait until January 20, 2009 fast enough.As Barack Obama has stated on numerous occasions, the country has one president at a time.Someone apparently forgot to tell W. this.Well, to be fair, he did sign 14 pardons and commute 2 sentences yesterday.I think that that activity will highlight the remainder of his presidency.He might want to write one out for himself since he is a war criminal and the greatest perpetrator of malfeasance against the American people in the history of the republic.
The people of this country are miserable and I lay the blame squarely at the feet of perhaps the worst American President ever.Okay, I can’t speak for all of American but I am willing to bet that most Americans are.The foreclosure rates are off the charts, people are losing their jobs left and right, and many people have seen their 401K plans reduced to pennies.I am miserable because I don’t know if I will be able to get a student loan to finish my education.An education seems like a luxury when many people are finding themselves newly homeless.
The euphoria of Barack Obama’s election has worn off as I think about an analogy of the black head coach getting his first job.The team that hires him has no chance of winning because the team is already FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair).That is what Bush is handing off to Obama; a country that is seemingly FUBAR.That being said, I do believe that of all of the politicians that ran for the office this year, Obama’s demeanor and temperament place him head and shoulders above the rest.He is quickly assembling a team of notable professionals and academia types that will serve him well.
If Obama can pull it off and get this country moving in the right direction again, it will be nothing short of a miracle and he will deserve to get his picture printed on some currency.After all, George W. Bush’s picture will be the standard on promissory notes.Hit the ground running Mr. Obama.Use that judgment you spoke so much about during the campaign to turn things around.It won’t be easy but you have 62 million people that have your back.
Go back to Crawford Mr. Bush.Please disappear into anonymity.You will need the solace of being alone with your thoughts and your demons as you reflect on how your policies nearly bankrupted and destroyed what was once the greatest nation on the face of the earth.
I want to thank head coach Joe Taylor and the players on this year’s team as the Florida A&M University Rattlers finished with a 9-3 record.It could have been an 11-1 season had a couple of breaks went our way.While we didn’t make the playoffs this year, Coach Taylor has laid down an impressive foundation for the future and I can’t wait for next year.The seasons of 3-8 records are over.
I would like to point out that the Colonial Athletic Conference placed 5 teams in the 16 team playoff field so I think that the NCAA is slightly biased when it comes to Black college football.But once again, had we taken care of Delaware State and Morgan State I wouldn’t be making these remarks.
My personal MVP of the year is Leroy Vann followed closely by newcomer quarterback Curtis Pulley.Vann had six returns for touchdowns this year and nearly 1,500 return yards electrify the crowds every game with his hard nose running and his viciousness on the defensive side of the ball.Pulley, who won the starting quarterback job outright towards the end of the season, is a good reason why FAMU should be one of the favorites to win the MEAC next year.
My only hope is that the administration realizes the importance of having a fifth game at Bragg Stadium every year.There is no place like “The Pit” on a Saturday evening with the Marching 100 in the stands.If we want to become big time again, we must have that fifth or even a sixth game at home.So remember Rattlers:
When the dark clouds gather on the horizon,
When thunder and lightning pierce the skies,
When fate is but a glare in the eye of a fallen Rattler,
and hope….a lost friend,
When the sinew of the chest grows weary from those hard charging linebackers,
And the muscles in the legs grow tired from those hard charging running backs,
You must always remember….the Rattlers will
STRIKE!!!
STRIKE!!!
AND STRIKE AGAIN!!!
Click on Thumbnails for a larger view. Photos by Glen Beil/Tallahassee Democrat.
SOS Click to hear the Marching 100’s rendition of SOS.
Yawn! Try making your point after Malcom X converted to Orthodox Islam. Take each and everyone of your messages and stick them up your ass! I’ve got a mesage for you turban head… We are watching and waiting! You can make all of the videos you want, the house negro, and that would be the White House negro to you camel jockey, is watching, rear your ugly and we have a missle trained on your six! We will drop your and bin-Laden’s carcasses into swine blood ensuring that you will never get to meet Allah. I apologize but I have to get old school on you.. When you fuck with the wrong nigger, the nigger will fuck with you back! Bring it on dick breath!
Some whack job PAC has put out a series of thank you Sarah Palin ads. I’ve included one if you can stomach it. Check out their website if you want a laugh www.ourcountrypac.org . After the ad I’ve included some photos of those who oppose the ads.
