Poor Mojo's News Show Podcast No. 55 for Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Poor Mojo's News Show Podcast No. 55 (64 kbps .mp3 10:31 4.8 Mb)

A daily roundup of things that seemed important.

Avenging the death of our parents.



IT’S POOR MOJO’S NEWS SHOW! FOR WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST, TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN



A DAILY ROUNDUP OF THINGS THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT .



POOR MOJO'S ALMANAC(K) EDITOR IN CHIEF THE GIANT SQUID PENNED THIS EPISTLE REGARDING FAT TUESDAY SOME YEARS AGO, BUT THE MESSAGE IS STILL TIMELY.

http://www.poormojo.org/cgi-bin/gennie.pl?Squid+74+bi
This past Yule Time, it seems, Sang acquired a most curious chart. This is a paperboard diptych, mounted vertically (the one paper pane directly above the other.) The upper pane features a depiction of human infants disguised to appear to be various fruits, vegetables and other flora, and the bottom pane consists of a grid. This paper grid tracks the days present in each surface month, and while such a makeshift calendar is quite insufficient (lacking any notations viz. the movements of embracing-cold and treacherous warm currents, migratory patterns of clams or whales, or any real tracking of astral events apart from a simplistic charting of the phases of Earth Moon), it is a nonetheless the sort of quaint folkcraft which seems to brighten the drear of many an office chimp's day.

And, while this calendar grid is quite deficient in managing any of the important data of the day-to-day, it does contain a great wealth of information on the spiritual events which do not simply dot or punctuate your year, but quite nearly overrun it altogether, like barnacles about the stubled jaw of a hunchbaked whale. I was unaware that you grunties exist in such an ecstatic state of perpetual religious and civic zeal. It is impressive, indeed.

While gazing at the buttercup-themed babies-- or, quite plausibly baby-corpses, for the infants photographed do have a terrible stillness about them-- adorning Sang's day-grid, I happened to note an annual celebration most fascinating:

February the Twentieth: Chinese New Years Lincoln's Birthday Mardi Gras.

TO READ THE REST, AND LEARN THE SECRET OF THE POONCHSKI, HEAD TO POOR MOJO'S NEWSWIRE.



http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/02/indignant_and_illegal_fictions.html
FREE SPEECH? WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT MEAN? IT MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS IN DIFFERENT PLACES... IN THE UK, FOR EXAMPLE, THERE'S THE Terrorism Act of 2006. CHARLIE, FROM ANTI POPE DOT COM, WILL EXPLAIN: Among other things, this piece of legislation created several new crimes — including the rather peculiar one of "glorifying terrorism". The proximate justification for this offense seems to be public indignation at the sight of preachers praising suicide bombers in Iraq and Israel from the pulpit, but the effect of it is corrosive — it undermines political free speech. Just consider for a moment the vexing question of who is, or isn't, a terrorist. Is Nelson Mandela? Certainly if this law had been on the books in the 1980s it's possible that supporters of the ANC would have been prosecuted. Is the animal rights movement supportive of terrorists? Is Sinn Fein? Once you get into the gritty business of trying to pin down who is and isn't a terrorist you end up with a peculiar conjugation: "I am a freedom fighter, you are a guerilla, they are terrorists"



THIS IS POOR MOJO'S NEWS SHOW!


http://consumerist.com/consumer/clips/jetblue-announces-passenger-bill-of-rights-238037.php
IF YOU'VE BEEN FOLLOWING THE JET BLUE SAGA, YOU KNOW THAT NEW YORK CITY'S BUSIEST AIRLINE COLLAPSED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF LAST WEDNESDAY'S SNOW STORMS AND HAD TO CANCEL HUNDREDS OF FLIGHTS ALL WEEKEND TO BECOME FUNCTIONAL AGAIN. DURING THE STORM, PASSENGERS SPENT UP TO ELEVEN HOURS IN ALUMINIUM TUBES THAT SOUNDED LIKE SCREAMING BABIES, SMELLED LIKE URINE AND MOVED NOT AT ALL. IN AN EFFORT TO NOT BECOME DEFUNCT, JET BLUE IS NOW MAKING LOTS OF NOISE ABOUT ITS PASSENGER BILL OF RIGHTS. THE MOST NOTABLE THING ABOUT THE BILL AS FOUND ON CONSUMERIST IS ITS COMPLETE LACK OF SEMBLANCE TO BILLS OF RIGHTS WRITTEN BY ACTUAL PASSENGERS. POOR MOJO'S NEWSWIRE EDITOR MOJO SAYS: On one hand it's great to see JetBlue responding to their eleven-hour fuckup so quickly with this fairly awesome policy. On the other hand, I'm sure they are voluntarily creating a non-binding, quasi-legal "bill of rights" just so Congress doesn't feel the need to create a binding, legal Passenger Bill of Rights to slapP on them. WHAT IS JET BLUE'S BANDAID?

The airline announced a new reimbursement program for delayed passengers, retroactive to last Thursday, February 15.

• Delays 1-2 hours: $25 off a future flight

• Delays 2-4 hours: $50 off a future flight

• Delays 6 hours: Free round-trip ticket



http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070220/tc_pcworld/129126
WINDOWS VISTA's gonna check out all your PROGRAMS for you

WINDOWS VISTA won't let anyone dirty get through

WINDOWS VISTA's gonna wait up till you get in

WINDOWS VISTA will always find out where you've been

WINDOWS VISTA's gonna keep baby healthy and clean...

EARTH'S MOST ANNOYING O-S HAS A REALLY, REALLY ANNOYING HABIT. P-C WORLD EXPLAINS: We often worry about Microsoft playing Big Brother, but now it's playing Big Mother, attempting to protect you from your own rash impulses to run new software. Try to download a program, and Internet Explorer will block it. ("It's for your own good. You can't be too careful, you know. Who knows where that program has been!") Unblock it, and IE will ask if you really, truly want to download the software. ("These programs can be dangerous, you know. I just don't want you to get hurt.")

Once you manage to get the program onto your machine, Windows tosses up its own roadblocks, forcing you to authorize the installer program to run, sometimes as an administrator. ("You're going to have to convince me you really know what you're doing here, young man.") Click through enough dialog boxes, and you'll eventually be running your new software, but you can almost hear Windows grumbling in the background. ("Fine! Ruin your life! But don't say I didn't warn you!")



http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/20/boortz-teachers-terrorists/
POOR MOJO CONTRIBUTOR JIM BRINGS US A TRULY MIND-BLOWING BIT OF RIGHT-WING STUPIDITY, REMARKING THAT : The brave folks at Think Progress watch Sean Hannity so you don't have to do your own puking. HERE IS AN ACTUAL, ON AIR CONVERSATION BETWEEN LYING DOUCHEBAG CHICKEN HAWK SEAN HANNITY AND UTTER PSYCHOPATH NEIL BOORTZ:

SEAN HANNITY: Alright, let me ask you. Because, you — when you said about the Department of Education — you want to abolish it — when you said that the teachers unions is more dangerous to this country in the long term –

NEAL BOORTZ: In the long term, yeah.

HANNITY: Than al Qaeda.

BOORTZ: Right. Look, Al Qaeda, they could bring in a nuke into this country and kill 100,000 people with a well-placed nuke somewhere. Ok. We would recover from that. It would be a terrible tragedy, but the teachers unions in this country can destroy a generation.



THIS IS POOR MOJO'S NEWS SHOW!


http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/20/dana-priest-walter-reed/
THIS SERIES AT THE WASHINGTON POST IS INCREDIBLE. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO DESCRIBE Dana Priest and Anne Hull'S STORY that Walter Reed hospital, once perceived as the “crown jewel of military medicine,” has become “something else entirely — a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients.” THINK PROGRESS DESCRIBES THE SERIES: Priest and Hull snuck in and out of the Walter Reed facilities over the course of four months without the knowledge or permission of hospital officials. They said they wanted to bypass the hospital’s “very well-oiled public relations machine.” Some examples of what they saw:

– The “legions” of injured soldiers housed at the facility “take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army.”

– Building 18 “has been plagued with mold, leaky plumbing and a broken elevator.”

– “The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.”

– “Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs.”

JUDY WOODRUFF ON THE P-B-S NEWS HOUR SAID: While receiving treatment at Walter Reed, service members have been housed in buildings, including one with a rodent infestation. Army Specialist Jeremy Duncan can stand in the shower and see through to the room above him. And Army Staff Sergeant Dan Shannon, who lost an eye and sustained brain injury in Iraq, said when he arrived at Walter Reed, he was given a map of the facilities and told to find his room on his own. He says he was often left for weeks without an appointment to see a doctor.



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OTHER STORIES WE COVERED TODAY AT POOR MOJO'S NEWSWIRE:



world's geekiest crossword puzzle - REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE OF Klingon, Elvish, Furbish, AND Esperanto

George Takei SPECIAL MESSAGE to Tim Hardaway

Happy Pacaki Day!

How to: Track down runaway Mac apps

Use Badger to neatly package the newsfeeds of your site

AND

Mother sentenced to two years in jail for throwing a cup of ice



OUR THEME SONG IS AN UNTITLED PIECE FROM THE DISC "HIMNO NASIONAL" BY THE FIGURES, AVAILABLE AT FINGERPRINT DASH RECORDS DOT COM.



FIND US ONLINE AT P-O-O-R-M-O-J-O DOT O-R-G, AND FOLLOW THE LINK TO THE NEWSWIRE



THIS HAS BEEN POOR MOJO'S NEWS SHOW, I'M ALAN BENARD.