Monthly Archives: August 2006

TWAT roundup

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Just a quickie roundup of TWAT news buzzing around the blogosphere.

Yes, I've used this before, but it just keeps on applying

British schoolchildren are being fingerprinted without parental approval, and on pain of suspension for non-cooperation. So Guido was late to it; I’m later than anyone, but not too proud to post!

Ah yes, and they’re being fingerprinted by the same corporation that trains interrogators for Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. We all love a strong corporate culture, don’t we? Mind you, this isn’t the same company that’s being sued by all those war widows for the wrongful deaths of their husbands. I know, it’s just so hard to keep them straight!

A Florida company is looking for permission to stick RFID chips in all service personnel in the US. Look for legislation making it an offence to remove these chips, if such legislation’s not on the books already. And don’t expect an out when you retire. We’ve already covered in this blog the fact that there IS no meaningful retirement anymore.

VeriChip Corp, based in Delray Beach, Fla., and described by the D.C. Examiner as “one of the most aggressive marketers of radio frequency identification chips,” is hoping to convince the Pentagon to allow them to insert the chips, known as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips under the skin of the right arms of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen to enable them to scan an arm and obtain that person’s identity and medical history. The chips would replace the legendary metal dog tags that have been worn by U.S. military personnel since 1906.

And if they can’t get your children or yourself, they’ll at least get your garbage cans. Fighting TWAT in the back alleys, in the Rubbermaids…Churchill would be so proud.

 Half a million household wheelie bins have been secretly tagged with hidden electronic “bugs”, it has been reported.

The tiny devices identify each bin so that records can be kept on the waste disposal habits of its owners, and up to 500,000 bins in council districts across England are thought to have already been fitted…

A similar controversy also emerged in Ryde, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, earlier this week.

Residents accused the local authority of acting like “Big Brother” after workers suddenly began fitting the devices to the rims of an estimated 90,000 bins.

The devices use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology which have also been used to identify objects as diverse as animals, vehicles and expensive goods.

Like cannon fodder units.

marketing ploy o’ the day: Lakehead University

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Hmmm, wonder what that says?

Hey, that’s kind of a nifty-looking poster. Wonder what it actually says.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Yale Shmale we say to the male

Graduating from
an Ivy League university
doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.

Lakehead University, a teensy-tinsey little school out in the boondocks near my aunt’s place (which actually describes all of the places near all of my aunts, come to think of it, except Dodie) has come up with a killer of a marketing ploy, if a bit late for September registrations.

A little background; it’s not exactly Ivy League, but it was considered appropriate for His Royal Highness Randy Andy when he did his time in the Colonies. It has a vaguely preppy, vaguely party reputation, but the draw for parents is that it’s so isolated you can’t really end up passed out at Younge and Bloor at dawn; that they assume you’ll dedicate your time to studying instead of drinking is a testament not only to their optimism, but also to the scarcity of really good booze up there. When I went to university, Lakehead had about 2500 students, roughly as many as my sister’s high school.

Apparently, they’ve decided to do a bit of outreach and in this their historically quirky, smartassed attitude has done them proud. Check out the Yale Shmale website and, if you’re still looking for something to do in September, keep them in mind.

We wouldn’t want you to end up like that guy in the poster!

TWAT: the war against t-shirts

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the war against tees

That’s a fine looking fellow, the guy on the left. And a fine looking shirt he’s got on, too. Can you read it? I can’t, which is why I had to read the article about him and his shirt and why it’s illegal at JFK.

The article that informs me that it is now illegal to wear a shirt with Arabic writing on it in American airports.

Yes, TWAT is now The War Against Tees.

Then I once again asked the three of them : “How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn’t this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?”

so inspector Harris answered “you can’t wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads “I am a robber” and going to a bank”.

I said “but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says “we will not be silent“. I got this t-shirt from Washington DC. There are more than a 1000 t-shirts printed with the same slogan, you can google them or email them at wewillnotbesilent@gmail.com . It is printed in many other languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, English, etc.”

Inspector Harris said: “We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don’t have a translator. Maybe it means something else”.

I said: “But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English“.

He said “maybe it is not the same message“…

At the point of almost missing his flight, he allows JetBlue to buy him another shirt to wear over the “illegal” one. Apparently, lots of people had called and ratted him out. Remind me to dig out the story of my Arabic necklace and the nice lady at US Customs and Immigration.

I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: “I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don’t want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon”.

If you want to call Jet Blue and ask about their regulations against Arabic script, you can use the following numbers:
* If calling within the U.S., Bahamas or Puerto Rico: 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583)
* If calling from the Dominican Republic: 1-200-9898
* If calling from outside the U.S. or Dominican Republic: 001-801-365-2525
* Customers who are deaf or heard of hearing (TTY/TDD): 1-800-336-553

Raed Jarrar’s blog Raed in the middle

this man has ten inches, huge stones

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This aught to be good for hits: welcome, pervs!

via Fark. Seriously, this man has ten inches, huge stones, and they’re worth a helluva lot of money. Check them out:

Twin EmeraldsYou would have to admit, looking at them, that those are some seriously impressive rocks.

And much easier to make into decorative accessories, don’t you think?

According to this report, there are ten inches and 581 carats of emerald there, not exactly gem quality (note the chartreuse colour, rather than…uh…emerald green) but it would still make a pretty nifty museum exhibit.

Not to mention it would make the world’s prettiest and most expensive wind chimes, should he care to sliver some slices off.

I shall leave you with this image, from the article.

“I had a fit,” the ever-energetic Hill said Thursday. “I about hyperventilated.”

After Hill cleaned up … and his staff took photos of him holding it, he laid it in a box filled with cotton batting and called his marketing consultants.

Who probably spent too much time working up a press release and not nearly enough asking bloggers to come up with dirty headlines!

Survivor: South Park Tribes

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South Park Tribes

From Defamer, cuz you just knew they were gonna be all over this story.

So it seems that the Australian genius behind Survivor isn’t completely immune to stereotypically uh…Australian behavior. He and his flying monkeys at the prodco have decided that what Survivor really needs is blatant racial conflict, and who among us can say they’re wrong?

I’m of the opinion that what it needs is a swift dose of euthanasia, but that’s just me…

Yes, this year for Survivor: Cook Island, they’re dividing the teams up by race. Simple, efficient, and already worth about 30,000 words of press.

The Defamer commentors have all the best lines in this case, not to mention the best illustration, which I stole and posted above.

BoHan says:

Scientology vs. Kaballah. That would rock. Plus you wouldn’t have to search to hard to find the token gay person. I’ve heard of one Scientologist today whose dance card is now wide open.

and the immortal:

Toothy_Tile says:

Welcome to CBS’ “Fun with outdated stereotypes and gross generalizations!” This will be a difficult one to handicap. With no cars to drive on the island, Team Asian‘s traditional achilles heel will be out of the picture. Team Latino will be pretty good at gathering the fruits and vegetables, no doubt. Team African-American will of course sweep the athletic challenges.

Team Whitey can go a few different ways, of course. If the team is mostly Jewish, it’ll waste its time starting conflicts and lending conch-shells-as-currency to the other teams, which will distract it from the challenges at hand. If the team is mostly Italian-American, expect the other teams to suffer random kneecap injuries, and lots of impromptu ways of cooking maggots and cockroaches in marinara sauce. And if the team is WASPy, expect it to get ahead by hacking into the other teams’ Sidekicks, spewing racial epithets all around, opening an outdoor nightclub or boutique hotel on the Westside of Cook Island, and gaining extra boosts of energy by doing lines of coke off of stray coconut husks.