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Tuesday, November 27, 2007 This is interesting. A hit that HITGP received according to my stat logs:
Random hits from other countries is not that strange. We get them a lot. Germans love Unexpected Failure, for instance. This is mostly just interesting because of the search term they used in conjunction with where they are from. Posted by Dreqan @ 08:28 PM PST Link | 6 People give a shit! Monday, November 26, 2007 Tonight it was decided that my DJ name would be MC Girr. (say it fast) Now I just need to learn how to rock out the beatz0rz! MC Girr will now turn out the phat jams in form of unsourced news stories: ('cause I know you aren't tired of me ranting about this shit yet) Heard today on NPR: China has followed the European Union's example and banned several toxic chemicals from its electronics. That would be good for us if they had not decided to exempt their exports from the ban. This would appear to be a thundering "FUCK YOU" being sent from China to the rest of the world. A gutsy move that has probably made more than one US corporation wonder if they could get away with something similar. Maybe this is revenge for sweatshops? No link is provided as independent proof because the internet has failed me. You get to take my word on it. Oh, and I should also point out that we are kind of asking for it since we haven't banned the chemicals over here, either. We ain't no surrender monkeys when it comes to toxins, NO SIREE! Speaking of taking my word on it, probably a good year ago I heard on NPR that something like 80% of our leafblowers are imported from Japan. If I remember correctly. In fact, Japan even invented leaf blowers. (didn't know that, did ja?) The funny part is that Japan has BANNED the use of leaf blowers in Japan due to the noise and pollution that they cause. At least that's the case if I remember correctly, the internet did fail me a bit on sourcing this one as well. (I would like to see a list of things that are banned in the US that we sell to other countries for comparison (other than slave labor). I'm sure it'd be a doosy and I want to be an equal opportunity hater.) The EPA has said that the old 2 cycle motors have been said to cause more pollution in two hours than a car running for an entire year. This was referring to things like Jet Skis - but leaf blowers do use a two stroke engines as well. While I'm sure they are less damaging than a jet ski they are MUCH more damaging than a RAKE and much much more noisy as well. Despite this they are used extensively in hippie mecca Eugene, much to my amazement. Why spend countless hours buying super organic foods and pesticide free vagina cream and then go outside and munch on the carcinogens being pumped out of noisy, smelly, leave blowers? I think I saw at least one leaf blower in operation EVERY DAY for 3 weeks when fall first started. In big 'ol mean conservative Iowa I think I maybe saw 5 leaf blowers being used IN THE ENTIRE 25 YEARS I LIVED THERE! Say what you want about midwesterners, but at least they aren't afraid of doing a little manual labor. That or they realized that bagging riding lawn mowers pick up leaves even better. Who knows? Posted by Dreqan @ 09:43 PM PST Link | 20 People give a shit! Sunday, November 25, 2007 Another weekend has come and gone. We did two shows on Sunday and two shows on Saturday again at the Holiday Market. We have them all on video this time so I might be mixing a few of them down if I like the footage. I was hoping my Dad would make it out to see us perform but I guess we'll have to wait until later. Every group I perform with, be it ISUUC, Team RoadShow, and now GMJ has it's own style - and the GMJ stuff is much more polished than any shows I've done before. This thanksgiving was a weird one. We had dinner with our neighbors and it was a good time, no complaints there- but it does mark the third anniversary of our Annual Moab Unicycle Trip which, notably, is no longer annual. SOME people back in Iowa couldn't make it. Bastards. We hope to reschedule it to next spring sometime. If it doesn't end up happening I WILL be making certain people pay on RAGBRAI. And finally, Qehn just farted and the bad smell surprised her. Ha Ha, girls fart. Posted by Dreqan @ 08:32 PM PST Link | 7 People give a shit! Tuesday, November 20, 2007 You get two posts today. Congratulations. I hadn't intended to comment on this article until I saw that it was from China, and then I just couldn't help myself. The crux of our problem is the crucifix. (is that a pun?) Expanded to non-pun form (although it was already a stretch <--- (that is a pun)) the statement would read something like If you worked in a Chinese sweatshop wouldn't you fuck up the product too? Not that you can really poison a crucifix (although I'm sure the idea has crossed their minds. Lead paint maybe?) However, the article suggests the sweatshops are all over China - which might explain a little bit of why Chinese exports are generally toxic. We all should breath a sigh of relief that most of our other sweatshops, like the ones run by The Gap, American Eagle, and the Buckle, Wal-Mart suppliers, Adidas, Reebok, Nike (yes, still), and really just about everyone else out there generally only make clothing and other goods (like crucifixes) that can't kill us. That's why we don't have all these recalls from our many sweatshops in Central and South America and Asia. Oh, Africa too. Y'know, all those poor countries where the people aren't really people. Although I could be wrong on this hypothesis. If we do get edible (and lead paintable?) goods out of those sweatshops/countries let me know. Although that would take away one of China's excuses and instead indicate that the people in charge over there are just general bastards. Oh, wait, we already knew that. Posted by Dreqan @ 08:57 PM PST Link | 17 People give a shit! We had a bomb threat today. Someone scribbled "The bomb set to go 11/20" on one of the women's bathroom walls yesterday. That made a phone call go out to all the parents last night. Then today someone added 11:35 to the graffiti. That caused us to go into lockdown for an hour while they searched the school. Wow. After words any "traumatized" students were allowed to leave - so 3/4 of the school went home at 3rd period. It was an easy day after that. Y'all remember what bomb threats were like at CF? We all went outside for about 1/2 hour. (yes, OUTSIDE, where we are much less likely to get BLOWN THE FUCK UP if there actually was a bomb.) After that 1/2 hour (if it ever really was that long) we went back in and nothing happened. None of this getting out school early crap. People called in bomb threats about 3-5 times a year to get out of tests and things like that. Nowadays all they have to do is write it on a wall and they get out of an entire day. Kids these days have it easy. Although they did announce a $200 reward for info. That kid is gonna get fucked. In other news, Saudi Arabia is a little silly. No doubt you have all heard the news about the Saudi rape victim having her sentence upped from 90 lashes (for being raped) to 200 lashes (for talking to the media about the case.) Supposedly the 90 lashes aren't direct punishment for being raped by the 7 guys, but instead punishment for getting into the car with one of them - since he was neither a relative or her husband. It's worth noting the Saudi women are far more oppressed than the women in "Mega-Evil" Iran. Not that I particularly like Iran or their crazy, nutso, "voted most likely to cause WWIII" leader. My point instead is that perhaps maybe we should like Saudi "home of the 9-11 terrorists" Arabia a little bit less. Worth Quoting from the above link:
Posted by Dreqan @ 05:29 PM PST Link | 6 People give a shit! Monday, November 19, 2007 We did two shows both Sat and Sun at the holiday market this weekend. The GreyMatter Jugglers will be performing every weekend until xmas at the market. Our first shows went really well and we were able to add some new material. We hope to add something new each week. On a side note, this news story is crazy. This gets a WTF for several reasons. Mainly for this quote: The father of one of the boys told The Associated Press no force was used and that the girl "didn't want to get in trouble with her parents." But the Acworth, Georgia, police chief said children that young cannot legally consent to sex, "so we have to go with the charges." If you cannot legally consent to sex when you are 11, how can you charged with rape when you are even younger? Either you are accountable for your actions or you aren't. FURTHERMORE Why can she claim rape and the boys can't? If no force was used then she raped the boys just as much as the boys raped her. They were all too young to consent to sex. They are all rapists and they are all victims. Maybe instead of charging these kids with crimes they should A) Get all these mega-fucked up kids some psychiatric help and B) do a little investigating into what event triggered this behavior in those kids. There are some allegations that one of the boys threatened the girl with a rock earlier in the day. If this is true and the sex was some kind of forced affair I think we can all agree that the kid who initiated this has probably been victimized by someone else, most likely an adult. Why charge the kid with a crime? Just get all the kids help. Again, if you are two young to consent to sex, you are too young to decide to rape someone. AND, since when do 8,9, and 11 year olds give reliable eyewitness testimony, especially about something as complicated as consensual sex vs rape. Since when do 11 year olds even know what rape is?
Posted by Dreqan @ 09:21 PM PST Link | 17 People give a shit! Tuesday, November 13, 2007 I'm going to run the Eugene Marathon next spring barring any injuries incurred over the next 6ish months of training. It sounds pretty hard. I think that's why I want to do it. Besides, it will help me get in shape for RAGBRAI two months later, and that's all that really matters in this crazy, mixed up world we live in. Posted by Dreqan @ 08:11 PM PST Link | 6 People give a shit! Friday, November 9, 2007 Yes. Way to be pro-active, China, and halt the export of your coma beads. I hope that you didn't actually wait 2 days after CNN reported you screwing the pooch again to stop the export, as this later new story implies. I'd give you the benefit of the doubt but I can only trust you as far as I can throw you, and despite you keeping your populace malnourished the sheer numbers of you make you pretty hefty. Posted by Dreqan @ 11:11 PM PST Link | 3 People give a shit! Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Chinese manufacturers are bunch of douchebags. They apparently don't give a shit about killing the people they sell their products to. In fact, there are have been WAY more Chinese product recalls than you are probably aware of just in the past year. I'm sure you've heard of the lead paint on toys, the exploding tires, and anti-freeze in tooth paste and cough syrup. There have even been rumors of anti-freeze turning up in babyfood imported to the UK but I was unable to find confirmation. Even without that, the averaged 10 deadly Chinese product group recalls a month from the first 6 months of 2007 says enough. Even if HALF... no.. even if TWO THIRDS of those links from that site are bogus, that's STILL WAY TO FUCKING MANY RECALLS FROM CHINA! And how does this happen? Why China? Is it just recent media attention? Has it always been this bad? I fucking hope not, but if it has it's about time we got the media attention. Although I'd have to think that the most recent story of a toxic Chinese product that put two kids in a fucking coma would have made news even if our interest weren't already perked. (editors note: The above link also mentions a lead paint toy recall. This should not be confused with the earlier lead paint toy recalls from this summer. This is ANOTHER lead paint recall several months later. Both from China.) So, again, why is this happening? Why mostly from China and not other countries? A couple reasons... First China doesn't really fucking care. They're getting money. And, really, I don't think they give a shit if their products kill their own people, so why would they care if they killed ours? They have to be one of the most corrupt and oppressive governments in existence. They never had "non-toxic" playdough when they were growing up like we did. They apparently had toys that metabolized into date rape drugs instead. Why would they think our culture was any different? You've got a country that is an emerging world power and most of it's citizens are still living 3rd world lives. There is something seriously fucked about that. How are we to expect companies from China to not be corrupt, and workers in China to give a fuck if they accidentally mislabel antifreeze? They don't even have an indoor toilet. The government obviously doesn't care. They can pussy-whip Google and censor every word said by anybody, but they can't keep enough of an eye on their exports to prevent sending out 10 DEADLY NEW PRODUCTS A MONTH? That's bullshit! They just don't want prices to go up due to regulation because that would send US companies looking somewhere else. Which brings me to the US companies... Oh yes, our good friends in corporate America, always ready to issue a recall when it turns out that their outsourced products might just kill enough people to open them up to nasty litigation, BUT NOT A MOMENT SOONER! Those snotty little brats who weren't paying attention when their Mommies said "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Those happy little corporations who apparently don't think that it's a bad thing that 80% of our Vitamin C comes from a country that has proved to be REALLY BAD at not putting poison into things. Not to mention the fact the China isn't our best friend in the first place - combine that with their horrible corruption (and ours) and you have a recipe for a disaster. If you were a terrorist, and you wanted to poison an assload of people in the US, would you come here to do it? No, you'd go to fucking China where you could pretty much walk into any company (provided you have enough money for bribes) and drop whatever the fuck you want into the product being sent over here. (I hear antifreeze is popular one for these guys 'cause it tastes so yummy. They want us to die with a smile on our face.) Now, I'm not saying this has happened. But you all have to agree that it could. But who has time to worry about a deliberate attack when there are so many fucking accidents anyway? But oh shit, we don't want prices to rise, do we? We can't have our corporations crack down on their Chinese suppliers because then prices might rise. And if prices rise we might buy less, and if that happens the fat cats get fewer jets, and if they have fewer jets then OMGZORS RECESSION OH SHITZ0RZ!!1 So, really, I take that back. China is good because they keep prices low low low and our economy high high high, which I think is worth a few dead kids here and there. They were just going to grow up to be pinko hippies anyway. They'd probably have moved to China, the commies. Posted by Dreqan @ 08:15 PM PST Link | 10 People give a shit! Tuesday, November 6, 2007 Welp, I finally finished my first bike trailer. It's not a bad prototype. I have 3 more now on order, one for Brian, one more for me (smaller, for shopping), and one for Kris possibly made out of bamboo. Kris' is the only other one that will feature a box. Brian's will be small with a flatbed and mine will be small and made around a rubbermade container. Pictures of the construction are here. The pictures have captions and descriptions of the construction process. I still need to paint it, but for the most part it's finished. After a bit more practice I think we'll be able to sell 'em. Posted by Dreqan @ 05:58 PM PST Link | 5 People give a shit! |
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