Category: Uncategorized

In a bold move that will save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, placate whiney customers, and provide a huge amount of free advertising, Whole Foods has announced that it will continue to pander to the lowest common denominator and ban the sales of live lobsters in its stores. In a statement released by the company, Whole Foods Vice President for Politically Correct Marketing said, “We feel its inhumane to point out to our customers the far-worse processes and conditions that result in many of our other products. By no longer offering live lobsters for sale in our stores, we can eliminate expensive storage systems and shipping process, as well as free up considerable space for our meat department.”

Whole Foods did not announce today that it would ban the sale of any product containing or substantively made of any of the following animals: chickens, cows, sheep or lambs, salmon, scallops, shrimp, mussels, or tuna. Widely regarded as a politically correct place to shop, Whole Foods has carved a large market for itself by offering organic and up-scale groceries in above-average-income communities. A favorite place to be seen in many areas, Whole Foods will continue to market itself to the pseudo-environmentalists and jogging-suit mafia. Calls from scientists pointing out that lobsters may not, in fact, experience pain were summarily ignored as bunk. Those ignoring these statements about lobsters then proceeded to quote scientific statistics about other causes that were more convenient for them.

A representative for the lobster community had no comment.
Inspired by this MSNBC article

Tesco, the largest retailer in Great Britain and Wal-Mart front, has seen a 47% increase in the sales of mangoes this past week in the run-up to the England vs Trinidad & Tobago match tomorrow. Apparently the Scots, who aren’t the biggest fans of their Southern Lords, are throwing rum-soaked calypso parties to cheer on Trinidad & Tobago. Ah, the World Cup; uniting nations once again.
Link

Short and sweet article on the new football used in this year’s games. Basically, the ball was designed to frustrate goalies and produce higher-scoring games. It’s essentially designed to behave like a baseball; slow the rotation and the stability goes to hell. It’s interesting to note that, so far, the games have been scoring in the normal range. Of course, the first game that goes 6-0 will raise some eyebrows.

[via Digg] 

ESPN’s site for the World Cup doesn’t work in Firefox. The entire site is driven by a DHTML drop-down menus which disappear whenever you move your mouse to choose something. So most of their content is locked away behind a menuing system that (I’m guessing) was designed with only Internet Explorer in mind. I don’t have time to debug their site, but I’m assuming it’s broken in other browsers as well.
Nice work ESPN, guess I’ll head back over to Fox Sports. Their coverage isn’t as good, but at they don’t lock me out of their content because my browser doesn’t work.

ESPNsoccernet – World Cup Index

Robin van Persie took Arjen Robben to task for the one-man show Robben decided to put on Sunday. Robben, who did have the games only goal, was virtually unaware that other teams members were actually on the field at points, choosing instead to take low-percentage, high-risk shots on goal. The Dutch, long known for solid team and precision play, played Robben’s game this past week. Serbia and Montenegro made it a nail biter in the second hald as they took advantage of Robben’s new-found solo career but didn’t manage to get the equalizer.

Hopefully the coach means it when he says that he means to balance the play. They have Ivory Coast to polish up their play before the Oranje play Argentina on the 21st. Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of another bickering Dutch team.
Dutch dissent as Van Persie criticises Robben

Back to more mundane topics, the House of Representatives today voted against Internet neutrality. Why should you care? Because now your Internet Service Provider (ISP), which is often given a monopoly by your local government, can choose not to deliver certain kinds of content.

Say you have SBC as your ISP. They get into a dispute with eBay over something that SBC doesn’t want sold (say a modem that can be modified to allow faster web surfing) and eBay refuses to pull auctions for that modem. SBC can now, legally, give preferential service to an eBay competitor. They can also block access to eBay, if they so choose. Read that again. A phone company can legally block traffic to any site they want.

This will, of course, be sold as a “for the children” measure; your ISP can protect your kids from the evil porn sites. But this law didn’t start this way. It started as a pissing match between telephone companies, who missed the boat on providing Internet service, and the big players like Google and eBay who have built their businesses on the backbone of a free and open Internet. Your representatives (which, I have to say, voted almost straight down party lines, mostly Republicans voting for more laws) have put this on you. You no longer have the right to choose what content you get via the Internet. Thanks to government mandated monopolies, you can’t even choose a different ISP.

Remember this the next time you vote. Did you ask your representative to take away your rights? Because that’s exactly what they did today.
House rejects Net neutrality rules

Have to scroll down a bit. Thanks to Comcast for not partnering with anyone to provide expanded coverage. You do know that this is the largest sproting event in the world, right? (That’s right, America, Super Bowl isn’t the biggest.)
soccerTV.com

Ah, Flickr is going to be an endless source of entertainment for the games. Check out this Dutch fan. Better yet, check out the Oranje photo pool.

Hup Holland!

It’s finally here and once again the Oranje are set to face Argentina (although not until June 21).

As always, one of the best places for World Cup coverage is the BBC. Their World Cup page is here and you can download a PDF wallchart here.

Of course, for all the latest, check out The Official Site of FIFA World Cup site. More posts to come.

This is an open question to any of any conservative: How can anyone support someone who says about the widows of people killed on 9/11 “these women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it.”

Right. The widows have profited from the deaths of their husbands. I’m sure that whatever money they received more than compensated for losing their husbands. Ann Coulter does one thing well: she hates very, very well. The marketing obviously works because I’m giving her press. But the inconceivable idiocy of this woman has reached a level that makes one’s head spin. If you call yourself a Christian, a Conservative, or a Republican and support this tripe, you are just as she is: the worst this society can produce.

Tune in next when Coulter calls for Arabs to wear a patch sown to their clothing. If anyone should shut up, I think we know who that should be.
For a nice breakdown about why Ann is a flaming idiot, read this Crooks and Liars article about Keith Olbermann’s breakdown of the evil this woman has unleashed.