FeralBlog

This morning I saw a truck for the area pest control company Truly Nolen. Their car ads are everywhere, from the yellow bugs to yellow work trucks to antiques with the logo on the side. It’s fairly effective advertising, as I wouldn’t be able to name another local pest control service.

The work truck I saw this morning was different. It was a little too far away to get a cameraphone snap, but it was a white truck with a green stripe down the length of the side. In fact, it looked exactly like a US Border Patrol vehicle.

Towards the back, instead of saying Border Patrol in the stripe it said “Pest Prevention”. Now, I don’t want to be part of the alarmist left-wing blogger media, but I found that fairly offensive. Just being here for the short time that I have, I’m pretty aware of the uneasy menage a trois between Arizona residents, illegal immigrants slipping over the border to work and live, and the Border Patrol agents. Witness the recent flap over the Minutemen Project, which was quite a large story in this part of the country. So it’s hard for me to think of this particular paint scheme as anything but a xenophobic view of Mexican immigrants as pests or lower creatures. Not cool.

Is there a Cold Stone near you? You can get a “free” slice of cake today from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. if you make a donation to the “Make A Wish” foundation.

Woman won’t sue Wendy’s for alleged finger

Walter Sobchak: You want a [finger]? I can get you a [finger], believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me.
The Dude: Yeah, but Walter…
Walter Sobchak: Hell, I can get you a [finger] by 3 o’clock this afternoon… with nail polish.

Walter Sobchak: That’s not her [finger], Dude.
The Dude: Then whose [finger] is it, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: How the fuck should I know?

Walter Sobchak: No, without a hostage, there is no ransom. That’s what ransom is. Those are the fucking rules.
Nihilist #2: His girlfriend gave up her [finger]!
Nihilist #3: She though we’d be getting million dollars!
Nihilist #2: Iss not fair!
Walter Sobchak: Fair! WHO’S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?

Walter Sobchak: Fucking dipshit with a nine [finger]ed woman.

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Pope at Buca di Beppo, originally uploaded by feralboy.

Word today is that Buca di Beppo is going to take back all their PJPII busts.

While I normally like to leave matters of politics to Moon, I heard a segment on NPR this morning about Sen. Ted Kennedy trying to attach a rider to the bankruptcy bill making its way through Congress that would raise the minimum wage by about $2/hr. Points to Ted for trying (he’s made several attempts over the last few years to raise the minimum wage, actually) and also kudos for trying to attach his rider to something that’s actually related to what the bill is about.

The minimum hasn’t been raised since 1997, and according to this site the “actual” value in constant dollars today is only $4.42/hr. I don’t know how anyone reasonably expects that a person could actually have this be a living wage, especially not if they have dependants. If you happened to read Nickel and Dimed then you have an idea as to what a struggle it is to make a living on low-wage jobs.

The Republican argument against the wage increase is a good one; they claim that this will price workers out of jobs. Um, I didn’t think that slinging burgers at McDonalds was something you could outsource overseas (although you can outsource the drive-through, weird). Of course Congress has voted 6 pay raises for themselves in the last 8 years. Good thing they haven’t priced themselves out of their jobs.

I hope everyone watched the lunar eclipse last night; it was pretty spectacular. I saw pretty much the whole thing sitting out in the courtyard. Of course my new camera comes today, so I was unable to take any pictures, but suffice to say that it was very red out west, because it was passing through more atmosphere than at my mom’s in NJ, where it was already much higher in the sky.

Those al-Qaeda motherfuckers! They’ve already struck New Jersey!

The terror alert level is now at Pink.

I’d love to think that Rick James is up in Heaven, smoking the stickiest of the icky.

Here, have a Rick James soundboard.

Just got done listening to the press conference, but the upshot is that Howard is back on after getting yanked a few months back. He ranted about the FCC and bush, and talked about the 5 markets he’s back on in, as well as 4 new ones. Most all of them are in battleground states (Florida, Pennsylvania), so it’ll be interesting to see how much of an effect, if any, he’ll have in November.

I’m not really a huge fan of Stern’s. I think he got very dull after his movie came out. I was briefly interested again when his divorce happened, and he spoke very openly about it, but the show content got pretty predictable again. Now with the FCC crackdown, he seems to be revitalized; a man recharged. While I still probably won’t listen very often, I think it’s really important for free speech that he’s back on, and I’m hoping he can at least avoid fines until after the election.

Caught this story on the drive home yesterday, discussing asprin’s possible anti-cancer properties for women. The general gist is that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) inhibit cyclooxygenase (COX) activity. I pretty much almost crashed my car when I heard an NPR reporter use the phrase “blocks COX”.