photoshop – (fó´tó – shôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image.

I’m one of those geeks that turn cultural trends into verbs. I was one of the first people I know to use “google” as a verb. In the same manner, I have been “photoshopping” images for years and preaching that you can not believe your eyes anymore.

A couple of days ago I posted my first submission on Worth1000. If you have any doubt about the power of digital editing, spend some time over at Worth. You’ll be amazed. (The tutorial about artificial aging is my favorite.)

Now, it’s all well and good to photoshop for silly online contests. It’s another thing entirely to create images for the media that create a story where none exists (also known as lying). This is what you see on all those spurious tabloid covers and it’s called photo-chopping.

photo-chop – (fó´tó – chôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image for malicious or duplicitous purposes.

This is certainly not a new practice among the media’s dirtier dogs, but with the latest technology it’s that much easier and thus that much more tempting for journalists to make news rather than report it. I strongly encourage you to read this article about the history of image tampering. It will open your eyes to some of the things you may have seen but should not have believed.

I can always remember the Marine Corps’ birthday, because it’s mine too: November 10th.

Funny. My Uncle Robert (former Marine) can always remember my birthday because of the Marines.

God bless the USMC! Say a prayer for the boots on the ground today.

It took me a while to figure out the riots that are tearing France apart. I read a few news blurbs trying to discover the reason behind the civil unrest, but all that was reported was that a couple of “youths” were “accidentally” killed by police. That just didn’t register with me.

That was until I finally found this piece which gives us a peak at the truth behind the riots. The “poor suburbs of Paris were set ablaze” by North African Muslim immigrants.

France has long been courting the Islamic community and welcoming any immigration that might “diversify” France. Now, according to Paris’ police union, the mostly Muslim “ghettos” around Paris are in a state of “civil war”. I am not making this up! The violence has spread to other cities with large Muslim populations and, if you can believe what you read on the internet (yeah, I know), there is currently an influx of illicit money and guns into France with the purpose of arming this “unrest”.

Why is it that mainstream media continues to call this “civil unrest” and the perpetrators “youths”? How can they continue to insist that all this “unrest” was caused when “two youths jumped over the wall of an electrical substation and died, thinking they were being pursued by the police”?! Can someone explain to me the difference between the “unrest” in Paris and the “war” in Chechnya? Could some on clear up the distinction between French “youths” and Iraqi “terrorists”? Yyyeah. That’d be great.

This should come as no surprise to anyone level headed enough to see the modern democratic party for what it is. Still, the hypocrisy of the left has reached new lows in recent weeks.

Maryland’s first black lieutenant governor, Michael Steele, has fallen under increasingly ugly attacks from the black democrats in his state. Steele is running for the US Senate and he represents an increasing trend in conservative Republican minorities. This trend is stealing minority votes from the liberal Democratic party, something Democrats can ill afford. Desperate times… so they say.

Lt. Gov. Steele has been pelted with Oreo cookies (implying that he is “white on the inside”). He has been caricatured as black singing minstrel on liberal web sites, and even faced gross racial slurs that, if uttered by a WASP like me, would result in riots in the streets.

But, what-ho? Do you mean it was not some calloused white hate-monger hurling these opprobrious epithets? Nope. It was members of his own race such as former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. In justifying his bigotry, Mr. Mfume said, “There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names.” By that argument I could say that Kweisi Mfume, by virtue of his African name, is obviously a nigger. But I wouldn’t say something like that because I’m better than that. (Apparently, Mr. Mfume is not.)

According to Maryland State Senator Lisa Glidden, also a… person of African descent, “Party trumps race.” Frankly that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a very long time. (Well, no, it’s not. Keep reading. It gets worse.)

Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said, “Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community. His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people.”

So that must been that Ted Kennedy, the whitest cracker in the Democratic party, knows more about what blacks need than the quite black Mr. Steele. And according to Mr. Kennedy and his Democratic party, blacks need more handouts from the government to make sure they don’t get a real education, leading to a real job, leading to real housing and real opportunity for advancement. Forcing blacks to rely on federal welfare keeps them in federal slave camps… oops! I mean federal housing projects… where they can continue to attend the worst schools in the nation and be taught by the most underpaid and bitter teachers the important lessons in life, which are, of course, vote Democrat and use condoms. Why just think how the world would fall apart if those kids found out the truth and became Republicans!!

I remember back in 2001 I was working at military contract firm with Josh Mondragon. Back then, I got all my news and did all my web searches from my.yahoo.com. One day, looking over Josh’s shoulder I saw Google.com for the first time.

What value could that site possibly be? There’s nothing on it! There’s no information, no news, no weather, no cute customizable layout. Just a dorky logo and a search form. How worthless is that?!

Then, I started using Google when my searches on Yahoo didn’t find what I was looking for. Then I noticed how remarkablly fast Google was. Within a week, “google” had become a new verb in my lexicon. Within a month, Google was my new default home page.

There’s more to Google than fast searches. There’s something that draws people to simple design. I found an article a while back that compared Yahoo and Google over time, as Google moved from a garage company to the internet powerhouse. There’s a great image of the screen shot progression over the years. (Click here to see it.)

Now, given that simple, boring layout, and given the fact that Google’s profits are now bigger than the GNP of most 3rd world countries, which layout would you prefer on your web site?

Yeah, me too. (But blogs don’t count. I’m sticking with the silly 50’s theme, thank you very much.)

Read the complete article here.

Did you ever have one of those dreams where you’re falling?

You know, the one where you’re falling through big white clouds…

In a skimpy bathing suit…

And bouncing off the clouds…

And when you get stuck, someone uses their mouse to lift you up and drop you again…

Ever?

No. Me neither, but if you ever wondered what it would be like, check this out.

Falling chick.

This just in…

Madonna (the “entertainer”, not the mother of our Lord and Savior) has declared that, “Most priests are gay.”

In other news…

Most “entertainers” are stupid.

We now return you to your regular programming.

(via Drudge)

Yes, yes, I know. I need to post more. Good grief. No sooner than your blog actually draws a healthy following, they start taking up torches and pitch forks! Let them eat cake!!

I’m just kidding. I’m glad I have any following at all and I’m thankful that they gently remind me that they are starving for my brilliant wit and biting satire. Thank you, my people. You may kiss the hem of my robe now as I warm up my keyboard and give you some internet manna.

Is it any wonder why people like me despise advertising? It completely insults my intelligence. Now, it’s one thing to entertain. I get a huge laugh out of those employment commercials where the guy works in an office full of chimps. That’s fun. But it’s another thing entirely to expect me to believe nine out of ten doctors agree on anything. And if you know anyone who actually believes drinking a particular brand of beer will attract super models please do the gene pool a favor and run them over with your SUV.

Internet advertising is even more aggravating than ads on TV. (Don’t even get me started on pop-up ads.) Keyword based advertising is supposed to connect ads with the people interested in them. But what it really does is show just how stupid advertisers think the people are.

Case in point, I was reading an article about the mold problem along the flooded gulf coast. The keyword ad engine saw “mold” on the page and chose to display this ad for mold test kits. Now click on the thumbnail and see if your intelligence is not insulted.

The following link is rated R for foul language. I don’t generally post such gratuitous linguistic crimes, but this one is worth it.

Penn and Teller have a show called… well… Bull[Poop], on which they expose the lies behind some of our societies odd behaviors. They’ve covered topics from alien abduction to recycling programs. Penn uses lots of foul language, but makes very valid points (although I don’t agree with every topic they’ve covered).

They did a scathing expose on PETA which you can view here. (This is the rated R link I talked about.)

If you’d rather protect your virgin ears, I’ll sum up the finer points of the video.

Simply put, PETA thinks animals are more valuable than people.

• They’ve run campaigns comparing chicken and beef processing to the Holocaust. So chickens are at least as valuable as Jews.
• They espouse and financially support terrorist who firebomb medical facilities that use lab animals for testing. So mice are more valuable that the millions of humans who benefit from modern medicine.
• They insist on “total animal liberation” including the abolition of pet ownership, which they call “slavery”. So gerbils deserve the same rights as African Americans.

What this video does best is expose the wild hypocrisy of the militant animal rights movement.

• The vast majority of PETA’s contributions come from animal lovers who own pets. PETA would make it illegal to own pets.
• PETA holds protests at animal shelters where sick, injured, and stray animals are euthanized. PETA’s own shelters euthanize two thirds of the animals they receive.
• PETA would outlaw medical testing on animals and the use of animals to produce medicine. The vice president of PETA is a diabetic who uses insulin that was developed through animal testing (on dogs) and was produced with the use of animals (probably pigs).

Ahh, I love the smell of bacon in the morning. That and the sound of “activists” eating their own words.