Prophecy Girl has a really shitty day...AND THEN SHE MEETS AL GORE!

Seriously. I don't even care about the shitty stuff anymore. I found out yesterday that one of my all-time favorite people/actual winner of the 2000 presidential election (my very first election!) was going to be signing copies of the book version of An Inconvenient Truth at a bookstore about 2 minutes away from my place of employment. I, of course, immediately hurried over to said store to buy my copy and pick up my "line ticket" which ensured I would have a place in line, but not necessarily that I would get to meet Al. As is frequently the case, I was apparently a bit slow on the uptake because my line ticket put me in group "L." Starting from the letter "A," each group had 50 people...meaning there were between 550 and 600 people already ahead of me in line. Typically, this is not where I like to be the grand scheme of things.

I rushed over to the bookstore right after work today and, as I often suspected, found that Al is apparently slightly superhuman when it comes to getting the job done. He got through those first 600 people in about an hour and 15 minutes (the line was to at least letter "R" by the time I showed up). Because apparently I was due for a stroke of good luck, a girl I went to college with happened to be the one handing Mr. Gore the books to be signed. So even though he didn't personalize anyone's copy, she was nice enough to say, "Here's Becky's copy," when she handed him mine. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Al Gore heard my name (for the two of you who don't already know, yes, I'm a Becky by birth). He signed it, shook my hand, and I said, "I very much enjoyed your interview in Rolling Stone. I just read it last night." And yes, I sounded just as dorky when I said it as it sounds written out. But he thanked me and smiled and then I had to get out of the way because my parents happened to be behind me in line (what are the chances?) and they said things like, "Excellent movie," and "We've already written to all of our congressmen," which kinda made my Rolling Stone comment seem lame. But I didn't really have time to tell him that he was the first presidential candidate I ever voted for and that I have actively pushed his movie both here and on MySpace and also I that loved that sketch he did on Saturday Night Live and about a hundred other things that if I'd ten minutes with him...but alas I had only about 2 seconds.

Speaking of Rolling Stone, I initially picked it up because Johnny Depp was on the cover, but I was delighted to see that Al had an interview inside...and it was damned good! I mean, damned good! You can read it here and then you will again lament the fact that he was not our 43rd president.

Also, no one was allowed a picture with Al, but several people snapped cell phone pics. I was among them, but I quickly found out my brand new pink Motorola Razr has the shittiest camera in the history of phones. Or maybe I should have cleaned off the lens or something. Whatever. You can still totally tell it's him.

But what's an Al Gore post without some good environmental info? If you haven't seen the movie, go flog yourself, and afterwards, check out this. Also, hooray for college roommates!! Kathryn, sent me this highly appropriate article a couple days ago.

Dude, I can't believe I met Al Gore. That's just awesome.

WTF Moments in Local Editorials!

While I would never single someone out simply because of their religion (or the religion of their grandparents, as it were) nor would I ever find pleasure in pointing out inaccuracies to old people, I'm afraid I'm gonna have call out Mr. Manning here. Dude. It's called "separation of church and state." I believe it's in our Constitution; you know, one of those founding principles of the good ole U.S. of A. There's a trend here in the South (and elsewhere, I'm sure) of talking about "back when we had prayer in schools." Let's think about this: when was there ever prayer in schools (see "separation of church and state" argument above)?

By the way, the courts of this country can be called many, many, many things, but I'm fairly certain "atheistic" isn't one of them. In fact, I found it interesting that this editorial (from today's Commercial Appeal) was located in the same section of the paper as this little tidbit:
Clearly, Americans feel more comfortable with people who have some sort of religion, regardless of what it is, than with people who have none. And that's totally why we filled our court system with atheists. Also, great to see that we've made such huge strides in race relations. Go, America!

Stewart/Colbert '08!

Oh, if only it was true! I heard about this and thought maybe there was some fun website where people could pretend that this was going to happen...sounds like something I would do if I wasn't already completely out of my mind running half the internet. Needless to say, there's no fun website (that I could find in my short and non-all-inclusive search) but there was lots of fun merchandise to be bought (check out Cult Classic T's for starters)! Oh, how American.

(For those who aren't American, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report (with Stephen Colbert) are "fake news" shows that cleverly mock American news programs. The irony is that they tend to report a more concise and less-biased look at world events than most actual news programs...and still get away with saying things like, "[The current administration is full of] fucking idiots!" - actual quote from Jon Stewart last night. Alas, neither Stewart nor Colbert are politicians.)

Actually, this post is a little on the lame side, too.

(click to enlarge)

I just thought this cartoon nicely summed up my fury over Bush's veto. What the hell, dude? Stop running this country like a dictatorship and do your job: representing the American people (who, incidentally, are in favor of stem cell research).

But speaking of dictatorships, this blog actually is one. No more anonymous posters. Dissenting opinions are welcomed (okay, tolerated) but if you're going to call me a moron, you're gonna have to do it to my face (or at least the internet equivalent). Fools.

I love Harry Potter as much as the next person...

...but is it really necessary to have literature experts dissecting hints that J.K. Rowling gives regarding the much-anticipated 7th book? Um, no. Aren't there still some pressing Dickinsian (sp?) questions that still need answering or something? Sounds like a case of too many literature experts running around (and I, personally, like the surprise of not knowing).

Also, in a strange metatextual twist, I now have to cite myself as part of the epidemic of ridiculousness stemming from overpopulation (!). If you Google "prophecy girl", unbelieveably, my Blogger profile is the last entry on the first page. I'm on the first page!! I don't know whether to be thrilled with my newfound search engine popularity, or disturbed that I have somehow surpassed so many references to my namesake, the Buffy episode, "Prophecy Girl" (season 1, episode 12, check it out, you won't be disappointed).

Hmm, a lackluster entry, to be sure, but if you'll excuse me, I have a movie to write.

When Rebate Offers Go Awry...

I am convinced that the general over-complicated-ness of most things (in addition to generally everything else ever) can be blamed on overpopulation. For instance, rebates; a simple concept ruined by too many people.

A couple of months ago, I upgraded from my p.o.s. phone to a trendy (and expensive) pink Razr (trendily misspelled) which I could get for the bargain price of $100 as long as I emptied my life savings into the Cingular vault and signed away my life to them in blood. It sounded reasonable enough so I made the move and walked out with a bit of purchased coolness, 'cause everyone knows money is good for nothing if not improving one's image.

A mere 3 years after I signed my soul over to the devil, I was mailed not one, but two "debit" cards of differing values as my rebate. Remember when people used to send you checks in the mail? All joking aside, I listened to the "rules" for using my new "debit" cards and found that I can't use them to buy gas unless I take one into the cashier. No pay-at-the-pump option here. I must run it through as a credit card, even though it has "DEBIT" written boldly across the front, and if I need to pay more than what is left on my card, I have to pay the difference first, which is really going to come in handy when I use my $30 card to fill up my car, which holds approximately $24.57 worth of gas. I guess I should mention that I was planning on using said cards exclusively for gas purchases since I only have 3 days (OK, months) to use them and want to make sure I spend the money. I'm sure the cashier's really going to appreciate me going in and saying, "Can you take $5.43 off my total and then let me pay the rest and then run this debit card through as a credit card? I promise it's all legit."

Thank you Cingular and VISA for making the rebate process so horrendously dumb that most people will give up before they use the money you give them. I'm not most people, though, and I plan on getting my revenge somehow, probably when I gain some power in the world and use it to stick it to The Man.

I also have to give a shout-out to my homies over at Alloy.com where I buy 90% of my clothes, even though a disturbing percentage comes in such a shoddy display of craftsmanship I'm pretty sure that I'm supporting some global child-labor ring. But they have great sales and I'm poor (or maybe just cheap). As a result of this awesome product quality, I was forced to return some jeans I bought and buy some that were 3 sizes larger than those I usually wear. They rebated me with "store credit" which is shit seeing as how it's an online-only operation and then added that I couldn't actually use the rebate online, meaning I had to wait for a catalogue and call in the old fashioned way, meaning I wasn't eligible for free shipping (which is an online-only offer). Meaning I gave them back their two pairs of nice (if mis-sized) jeans, and I got just enough money back to buy a pair of flip-flops and maybe cover the shipping.

Obviously there are too many people giving out rebates and too many people getting rebates or else this system would be more better. When too many people get involved in anything, simplicity goes out the window.

In other news, OP briefings may be a bit slower than usual for the next couple of weeks because I'm manning the booth over at Jake Watch while britpopbaby is cavorting in Italy.

Prophecy Girl out!

Does Bush have a low IQ?

Yes. Because I got an e-mail that told me so. I apologize to anyone who has received this forward at any point during the past 5 years since this study was released, but for those (like me) who are sometimes just a couple steps behind, let's examine...

"On Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others. According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 50 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors which were then scored in the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking.

The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:

147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
132 Harry Truman (D)
122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
174 John F. Kennedy (D)
126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
155 Richard M. Nixon (R)
121 Gerald Ford (R)
175 James E. Carter (D)
105 Ronald Reagan (R)
098 George HW Bush (R)
182 William J. Clinton (D)
091 George W. Bush (R)

The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155. President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91. The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126. No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176.

Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis. The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. "All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers. Not so with President Bush," Dr. Lovenstein said. "He has no published works or writings, so in many ways that made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We had to rely more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking."

The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist. This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001 and released on July 9, 2001 to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community."

Is it true? You can check out more here. If it's not true, who cares? It's got to be close enough.

Tiny, tiny dogs!

I hate this dog. I don't know him personally, but I hate him because he represents the dark side of overpopulation.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors sat around fires with wolves and somehow this led to domesticated dogs. (I've never fully grasped the nuances of domestication.) This was a mutually beneficial relationship: we got dogs to do work for us, and the dogs got to do work for us. Everyone wins.

If you trace the history of humanity and the history of Canis domesticus, you will probably find that there is a close correlation (I can't say for sure because I'm sort of making this up as I go along) between the standard of living of both. People have forgotten that man created dogs to do things like guard the livestock and hunt birds and herd sheep. No one needs a dog anymore to do such things because we don't do these things (that's why man created corporate farming conglomerates). Dogs are becoming worthless, aside from being fuzzy companions...but that's why man created cats.

What have we done to the noble dog? We have bred him until he is the size of a small rat and put clothes on him. How is this even morally responsible?

Remember the once-valiant dog. He wouldn't have been caught dead in a jogging suit. I honestly am not that enamoured with real dogs, so you can only imagine how much I loathe this designer inbreed.

Andy Rooney Gets Topical

My 60 Minutes plug of the week. Enjoy.

Andy's Solution to Overpopulation

Speaking of people I wish were President...

Thanks to Meg and Jonathan for pointing this little snippet out to me. I used to be quite the SNL junkie but then I got a job and got old and could no longer stay up late. :( Thus, this somehow slipped beneath my radar, which is totally why I keep around my awesome friends, to keep me in the know! Al Gore? Also the man. Have you still not seen An Inconvenient Truth? Dude, what the hell are you waiting for? :)



www.climatecrisis.net

Barack Obama: My Favorite Politician (aka Deep Thoughts for Wednesday)

For those of you unfamiliar, Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois who has single-handedly renewed the hopes of many regarding the democratic process. I wish he was our President. He gave a speech the other day and said (as usual) some really good stuff. I thought I would share:

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concernes into universal, rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason," Obama said on Wednesday in a talk to the Call to Renewal group. Government action must be "accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

"Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy" of sacred scipture. "But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality... At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policymaking on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

Summary: Barack is the man!

Hoagland, Jim. "The growing clash of true believers." The Commercial Appeal. July 2, 2oo6.

WTF Moments in Local Editorials!

While nothing can quite compare to the first WTF moment, I thought this one was pretty good, too. For those of you unfamiliar with The Boondocks, it's basically the best comic strip in the history of the funnies. Sometimes I don't "get it" because I'm about as white as a person can get, but aside from offering shrewd commentary on African American culture, creator Aaron McGruder also has some pretty sharp criticism for the current inept administration, as well as American politics in general. Perhaps just as importantly, he is my friend on MySpace.

But our friend Doug here apparently does not feel the same way about Aaron as I do, and loses major cool points for using the word "gansta" and then putting it in quotation marks (I'm thinking Doug might be white, what do you think?). He also loses points for casually knocking my primary sources of news, like "The Daily Show" (third paragraph) and pretty much knocks himself into the negative column for not being able to express himself in a way that makes any sense whatsoever. What is with that last sentence? Did he think that was a good closing argument? Dude. I can't even Blacklist you because I feel so sorry for you and your inability to make yourself look smart.