Breaking Down the Walls
Well, there goes any pretense that Faux News is anything other than the propaganda arm for the Bush regime.
Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Culture War
4.26.2006
4.19.2006
The Punching Bag Gives Up
Looks like we won’t be seeing Scott McClellan’s deer-in-the-headlights look for much longer, as he’s officially resigned from his post as the White House’s designated liar.
You can’t help but think that there was at least a part of him that was never entirely comfortable with having to get up in front of all those reporters and lie his ass off. Don’t get me wrong — he was great at sticking to Duh-bya’s prepackaged talking points (to the point of caricature), but he never looked happy about it. He knew he was lying, and he knew that everyone in the room also knew he was lying, but dammit, that was what he signed up for, and he was going to live up to his commitments. No matter how patently ludicrous he sounded in the process.
Really, I can’t wait to see what idiot they get to take over that job.
You can’t help but think that there was at least a part of him that was never entirely comfortable with having to get up in front of all those reporters and lie his ass off. Don’t get me wrong — he was great at sticking to Duh-bya’s prepackaged talking points (to the point of caricature), but he never looked happy about it. He knew he was lying, and he knew that everyone in the room also knew he was lying, but dammit, that was what he signed up for, and he was going to live up to his commitments. No matter how patently ludicrous he sounded in the process.
Really, I can’t wait to see what idiot they get to take over that job.
4.18.2006
A Family Celebration
I’m glad they had the White House Easter Egg Roll after all. I half expected that — with the foreknowledge that (gasp!) about 200 gay and lesbian parents would be bringing their children — the White House wingnuts would use the dreary weather as an excuse to cancel the whole thing.
Of course, it wasn’t completely without incident, as about a half-dozen closeted homosexuals decided to mount a protest (and were apparently supported by an unnamed “soldier” — definitively demonstrating that there are homosexuals in the military as well, hidden though they may be). But still, it was nice to see that, lunatics aside, the thing didn’t devolve into some mass protest event. The whole point was to show that gay and lesbian parents are normal, and not some caricature.
Of course, it wasn’t completely without incident, as about a half-dozen closeted homosexuals decided to mount a protest (and were apparently supported by an unnamed “soldier” — definitively demonstrating that there are homosexuals in the military as well, hidden though they may be). But still, it was nice to see that, lunatics aside, the thing didn’t devolve into some mass protest event. The whole point was to show that gay and lesbian parents are normal, and not some caricature.
4.17.2006
The New Springtime Colors
As the latest Post-ABC News poll demonstrates, pink is the color of choice this season.
An older gentleman commented to me while I was out shopping last week, “Brooks Brothers sure didn’t have shirts that color when I was growing up.” No, they didn’t. But thankfully, times change. Even for those who might have worn bright red in the past.
An older gentleman commented to me while I was out shopping last week, “Brooks Brothers sure didn’t have shirts that color when I was growing up.” No, they didn’t. But thankfully, times change. Even for those who might have worn bright red in the past.
4.14.2006
Ma Bell Becomes Big Brother
So here’s one that Orwell would have loved.
AT&T is spying on you for the NSA.
Did that get your attention?
Forget Duh-bya’s garden-variety illegal wiretaps everyone’s talking about — AT&T’s decided to just go ahead and divert a copy of all Internet and phone traffic that passes through its San Francisco switching center (and, one presumes, its other switching centers across the country) to a secret NSA spy center. No warrants, no evidence of individual suspicion, no terrorist ties — they’re just giving the NSA everything. Of course, that’s along with the data-mining equipment necessary to sift through all that data. Make sure that the spymasters can interpret all of that noise.
It’d be easy to dismiss this as a disgruntled ex-employee making up a story to discredit his former employer. Except that he’s got the documentation to prove it — documentation that was filed, under a temporary seal, with the court as a part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit (Hepting v. AT&T) against the company. (You can see additional information at the EFF’s site — I love their tag line: “Your world. Delivered. To the NSA.”)
Furthermore, AT&T isn’t denying anything.
They’ve just filed a motion not only to keep the files sealed, but to have them returned — so they can’t be used as evidence in the lawsuit. In essence, their claim is that sure, we’re illegally wiretapping our customers’ phone and Internet traffic. And sure we’re funneling that information — again, illegally — straight to the NSA. But hey, those documents contain corporate secrets as to exactly how we did all that, so you can’t actually tell anyone about them.
I’ll be up-front about this: I am not an AT&T customer. (Even before Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless, the latter was completely divorced from its original parent company.) But I guarantee you one thing — no matter what the outcome of this case is, I will never do business with AT&T in the future. Frankly, consequences to the economy be damned, I’m going to do everything in my power (which may not be much, admittedly) to ensure that they go the way of Enron.
And step one is making sure that this story becomes front-page news. Starting right here.
AT&T is spying on you for the NSA.
Did that get your attention?
Forget Duh-bya’s garden-variety illegal wiretaps everyone’s talking about — AT&T’s decided to just go ahead and divert a copy of all Internet and phone traffic that passes through its San Francisco switching center (and, one presumes, its other switching centers across the country) to a secret NSA spy center. No warrants, no evidence of individual suspicion, no terrorist ties — they’re just giving the NSA everything. Of course, that’s along with the data-mining equipment necessary to sift through all that data. Make sure that the spymasters can interpret all of that noise.
It’d be easy to dismiss this as a disgruntled ex-employee making up a story to discredit his former employer. Except that he’s got the documentation to prove it — documentation that was filed, under a temporary seal, with the court as a part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit (Hepting v. AT&T) against the company. (You can see additional information at the EFF’s site — I love their tag line: “Your world. Delivered. To the NSA.”)
Furthermore, AT&T isn’t denying anything.
They’ve just filed a motion not only to keep the files sealed, but to have them returned — so they can’t be used as evidence in the lawsuit. In essence, their claim is that sure, we’re illegally wiretapping our customers’ phone and Internet traffic. And sure we’re funneling that information — again, illegally — straight to the NSA. But hey, those documents contain corporate secrets as to exactly how we did all that, so you can’t actually tell anyone about them.
I’ll be up-front about this: I am not an AT&T customer. (Even before Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless, the latter was completely divorced from its original parent company.) But I guarantee you one thing — no matter what the outcome of this case is, I will never do business with AT&T in the future. Frankly, consequences to the economy be damned, I’m going to do everything in my power (which may not be much, admittedly) to ensure that they go the way of Enron.
And step one is making sure that this story becomes front-page news. Starting right here.
4.10.2006
Happy Monday!
Oh, yeah, I know it’s all too easy to get all upset about having to get back into the daily grind. But then a little ray of sunshine comes in to brighten even the dreariest of workdays.
“Bush’s Job Approval Rating Continues to Swoon: Forty-Seven Percent of Americans ‘Strongly’ Disapprove of Handling of the Presidency”
There’s no way I can be bummed out after reading that.
“Bush’s Job Approval Rating Continues to Swoon: Forty-Seven Percent of Americans ‘Strongly’ Disapprove of Handling of the Presidency”
There’s no way I can be bummed out after reading that.
4.06.2006
Call to Action
Please, everyone who’s reading now, click on the following link (it’s safe, I promise). Read the entry. Then if you’ve got a website, please post a comparable entry on yours.
Michael S. Cox is a spammer.
Thanks. It’s all about each of us doing our part to make the ’net a better place.
Michael S. Cox is a spammer.
Thanks. It’s all about each of us doing our part to make the ’net a better place.
4.04.2006
Hammered
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Tommy Boy.
Maybe retiring will give you time to prepare for life in a six-by-nine prison cell, scumbag. (I’d suggest spending a lot of time in broom closets.)
On the bright side, you’ll likely be seeing a lot of your old friends in there soon.
Maybe retiring will give you time to prepare for life in a six-by-nine prison cell, scumbag. (I’d suggest spending a lot of time in broom closets.)
On the bright side, you’ll likely be seeing a lot of your old friends in there soon.
4.03.2006
What, No Cake?
So, Apple’s 30th birthday has come and gone, and apparently, the rumor mill was wrong (at least about the date).I even went to one of our local Apple stores on Saturday. I wasn’t expecting anything major (okay, so maybe I was hoping for some kind of “birthday sale” pricing, as I wanted to pick up a gift for my dad), but I thought there’d be some sign that this was pretty big milestone.
Nothing. For all intents and purposes, this was going to be like any other day of the year.
So (tongue planted firmly in cheek) I asked the resident genius why there was no recognition of the big day; without missing a beat, he gave me what I think is the most accurate reason for the distinct lack of hoopla:
“Yeah, you know how it is when you hit the big three-oh. You really don’t want people making a fuss, reminding you that you’re no longer in your twenties. Apple’s gonna be going out to the bar with a few friends later, but that’ll be about it.”
(My daughter, who was with me on our little excursion, chimed in with a little cheer: “Twenty-nine again!” Don’t know where she might have heard that before.)
4.02.2006
Well, This Just Sucks
I hate it when April Fool’s Day falls on a Saturday.’Cause it means that pretty much everyone who has a life is actually out living it, instead of following every little development on the ’net.
So no, for anyone who’s still wondering, this site was not shut down by Homeland Security. But that gag was the best I could do on short notice (meaning not that I didn’t know April 1st was coming, but that I was swamped with end-of-fiscal-year goodness and couldn’t prepare anything really remarkable). I suppose I was helped out by the fact that any actual shutdown notice probably wouldn’t have resulted in a particularly well-designed error page. Though I thought that the bit of code that actually tracked the visitor’s IP address might have caught a few of the more... cautious among you.
If I really wanted to catch folks, I suppose I could have left the fake site up for a few days. But really, the whole point is to do it on April first. Otherwise, it’s just called “being a dick.”
So for anyone who still wants to see what this site looked like on the first of April, I’ve archived it here. And for those of you who are curious about the degree of my prank-playing obsession, I did at least take the time to alter the most common search-result pages (like the ambigram entry) to automatically forward to the shutdown page. But I still wish I’d managed to catch a few more people. I still miss the days when the number-one Google search for my name brought up a site dedicated to pointing out what an asshole I was.
Ah, those were the good ol’ days.
Maybe next year.
4.01.2006
WEBSITE SHUT DOWN - UNDER INVESTIGATION
Please click here for further information.
Case number 3245-2534BD USDHS
About Me
- Name: Bill Coughlan
- Location: Burke, Virginia, United States
William R. Coughlan is one of the founders of Tohubohu Productions (so even on pictures he doesn’t direct, he can squeeze in an Executive Producer credit) and in-house video producer for The Advisory Board Company. He dabbles in screenwriting, acting, 3-D animation, and writing autobiographical comments in the third person. He is also a published illustrator, has provided schematic graphics for several HBS case studies, designed the acclaimed Protégé clay poker chip line, wrote for the (now-dormant) online literary magazine Inkblots, and acts as editor for the MotherReader weblog (which is not-so-coincidentally written by his wife). He currently resides at a secret compound in Burke, Virginia, with his wife Pam and their two daughters.
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