Newsblast!
The Sierra Club will be running ads against Ford. They point out that Ford's first car, the Model T, got 25 miles to one gallon of gasoline, but Ford's 2003 fleet of vehicles only averages 22.6 MPG. Let's hear it for innovation!, and all that other crap..

My 1993 Saturn SW-2, a station wagon, gets 35 MPG on the highway when I'm the only person in the car. With my father in the car, the car filled up with my stuff and a 4x8 trailer in tow that was too heavy to begin with, my car got 23 MPG. That little dinky engine of mine could tow what an SUV could easily tow, and I still had better mileage then an SUV. From a 1993 car! What the fuck at engineers at other car companies (besides Honda and Toyota, who have come out with hybird vehicles) doing? There's no excuse for this. It's 2003, my car is 10 years old, and I'm hardly even thinking about getting rid of it. It's still going strong at 232,000 miles and gets better MPG rates then most other cars that I could buy new. Talk about engineers not doing their jobs, these people need to be fired so we can bring in some new engineers who won't sit on their duffs and knock back a couple brews for the next decade, and maybe, just maybe, they will use that time to design a better, more fuel-efficent car.

Prozac has been blamed for the suicide of a British woman. I thought this quote from a doctor in the article is interesting: "There is a preponderant body of medical opinion throughout Europe that antidepressants can cause people to commit suicide. In the United States it might be a bit contentious, but in Europe it is not."

As Matt pointed out, the House of representatives passed a partial-birth abortion ban. Expect no help from the Senate, which passed a nearly identical bill, or from the Democratic Party. The vote in the House was 282-139, which means that a lot of Democrats voted for the bill. Yup, it's nice to know that that Democratic Party continues to tirelessly tole on behalf of the people. Keep up that great work guys! Maybe Bush will win in 2004 and you can continue to agree with him while the American people have to choke down the fact that you're his "opposition". And hey, the last time I checked election totals, this country is pretty much 50/50, Republican/Democrat. Gore/Nader received more votes from the popular election then did Bush/Buchanan, which means that most of the country is for abortion. So what's this 282-139 vote shit? That's not even close to 50/50, like it should be. Does the government even fucking listen to it's constituants anymore?

In other news about our closed minded government, the House turned in a much closer vote giving approval to add an amendment to the Constitution which bans desecration of the national deity. Excuse me, flag. What's next, an amendment saying that we can't criticize the government?

The Savage Asshole
Have you ever listened to Michael Savage? It's great, really entertaining. The man rants and whines about how liberalism is a disease, everyone who doesn't agree with him is diseased and they should be thrown in prison, Hollywood idiots, rabid commie ACLU lawyers, etc. If you can stomach his lies and blatant racism, his immature, crybaby manner in which he presents himself is absolutely hilarious. And sometimes ironic, because one of the things he complains about are all of these liberal trial lawyers suing people for no good reason.

Well, Savage has decided to sue takebackthemedia.com, savagestupidity.com, and michaelsavagesucks.com. Why? Because they dared to use their Constitutionally-given right of free speech to criticize Michael Savage and organize a boycott against him.

This lawsuit is indicative of how much the Fox News gobbling rabid rightwingers respect the rights of people with common sense and more than a couple brain cells. You know, readers of this website. :) I thought it was bad when Rush Limbaugh, when networks that invited him onto political discussion panels, demanded that he get the last word on every topic and nobody could question him. But Savage has always made Limbaugh look like a pussy in comparison.

These "patriots" don't give a damn about your rights, all they care about is their paychecks, and they will do anything to smite ther enemies. Since right wing talk show hosts make their fortunes off an audience that doesn't think, no one from that audience is going to question their blatantly hypocritical actions that a literate teenager can smell the stench of bullshit emanating from. They question whether or not boycotts against groups that they favor should be protected as free speech, but they have no problem with calling for boycotts against Hollywood and French industries. They will complain about liberal trial lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits and ruining our country, but yet they run to these same lawyers when they feel threatened. These morons think that everything someone who leans to the left says is hypocritical, but yet they see nothing wrong with their own actions. If Michael Savage claims that "liberalism" is a disease, then I see no problem with claiming that he has a disease: Dipshitism.

I remember listening to Savage's show when boycotts against him first started to gain steam, and he was furious (thus the show put me in stitches), claiming that he had a Biblically-ordained right to do his radio show while saying that those who launched boycotts against him were trying to kill him. He claimed that the Bible says it is a sin for someone to try and take away how a man earns his living and makes his money, therefore it's a sin to launch a boycott against him, and those that do should be tried for attempted murder. Yes, folks, this is how far off the deep end Michael Savage is. Appearently, he hasn't taken his Dipshitism pills in a while.

Or maybe we have to take a deeper look at this. These comments are the first reactions from a man who just had a boycott launched against him. This is the man who sees no problem with attempting to launch boycotts against Hollywood, the ALCU, French industries, media networks which he deems to be too "liberal", trial lawyers, colleges and universities, and anybody else who doesn't agree with him. Sure, he hasn't organized and led a full-fledged boycott through his show like the one that was organized against him, but he has supported other organized boycotts and called for funding sources of other groups and corporations which he has spoken out against to stop donating money. Sounds like a boycott to me. But wait!, Savage claims that boycotting is a sin and attempted murder if the action is directed against him. Yet he supports the very same actions directed against those he hates, and he does not consider himself to be a sinner or a murderer.

If Michael Savage's logic and grip on humanity is this twisted, can one really trust anything that comes out of this man's mouth? (Only those affected with Dipshitism are allowed to answer this rhetorical question.)

And Savage wonders why people want to boycott him.

Maybe the absolute monarch of Swaziland had something to do with US federal route 666 being renumbered to 491. The government said that the change was made because the route number discouraged tourism and economic development. Sure, right, uh huh, whatever..

It should come as no surprise that this idiocy happened during a Republican administration.

Well, I guess this is one road trip that will never happen. Stupid religious fruitcakes. These people don't care that innocent Iraqi children were just blown into a million little pieces by bombs that their taxes paid for, but if a US route is numbered 666, well we just can't have that! Great to know that the priorities of the church are in order. Morons. Don't forget that women wearing pants is the cause of all the problems in the world, and that gays caused 9/11 to happen. God Bless Bush!

Just in case anyone was wondering..
I'm back in Rhode Island now. For good, or until I get bored with the state and meet a girl halfway across the country again and decide to make a huge mistake by moving there only to break up in a few months. Yup, that was smart.

Moving, like I said before I started my trip, is hell. Nothing's changed. Once I dig out the USB cable to my camera I can post the photos of how packed my trailer was. Because I drive a compact station wagon, the largest trailer I can get is a 4x8, which when you are moving all of your worldly possessions, that's not a lot of space. I tried renting a truck, but I was met with resistance by the moving mafia, er, dualopoly, of U-Haul and Budget. Budget brought out Ryder, so there goes my third option. U-Ass, er, Haul, and Budget both charge uniform prices, and renting a truck would have run me $1100. Seeing that I purchased all my furniture for $600, this is an incredibly outragous price.

There are more options, as far as companies, if you want to get a moving company to haul your stuff for you, but the price quotes didn't get any cheaper. Most were around $1100, and on company even had the audacity to give me a quote of $1600, then asking me if I wanted to make a reservation. Feeling polite at the time, I didn't scream, "Are you fucking insane!?", but politely declined. At least I didn't run into any pushy salesmen. The last time I moved, I called a company to cart my stuff and had to deal with the most pushy salesman on Earth. After dealing with this man, I was ready to drive out to wherever he was and beat his head into a brick wall repeatedly. He was purposely leaving out information and would personally insult me if I strayed away from the sale, so I finally got sick of it and hung up on him. So, 5 seconds later, he called me back, said that we were "accidentally" disconnected, so I informed him that we we disconnected because I hung up on his sorry ass, and hung up again. He called back again 5 seconds later, I picked up and screamed "STOPPED CALLING!" at the top of my lungs and hung up. He called back AGAIN, and this time my father took the call, and he couldn't get the guy off the phone. While talking with my father, he lied about me and insisted that he never left anything out of what he told me, I must be lying, get him on the phone, blah blah blah. Finally, he stopped calling. I mean, honest to god, get a fucking clue.

Of course, these people will never get in trouble for this because you can never speak to their supervisors. I called the same company back at their main number, making sure that I got a different person on the phone, calmed explained what had just happened to me and demanded to speak with a supervisor NOW. Given what had just happened, I think this is a very reasonable demand. Was it met with satisfaction, though? Nope. "Well, I can't transfer you directly, but you can leave them a voice mail.." You know, what the fuck is this shit? These companies are meant to serve the PUBLIC. Which, case in point, is ME. If I goto a restaurant and order food and I get the wrong order and the waitress is rude, I can see the manager on shift. But for any of these call centers that you have to call, you never get to speak to the supervisor, therefore making these workers untouchable. And I wanted this man fired for what he just did. I didn't care if he had a wife and a sick child at home, you do NOT treat me that way. If it gets to the point where I have to scream "STOP CALLING!" at the top of my lungs and you STILL callback, and then try to tell my father that I'm a liar, I want you fired. Period. End of discussion. You have abused the priviledges of your position and you should be relieved of them.

I wouldn't have had to go through all that if the assholes that seem to populate most freestanding U-Haul outlets would actually do their fucking jobs, which they never do. When I first moved, I had to deal with U-Haul for 3 days. They sent me running around in fucking circles for 3 goddamn days. What pissed me off even more is that I had my girlfriend at the time call U-Haul and put me on in a three-way call, and I weas silent the whole time. What I had tried, unsuccessfully, to accomplish with U-Haul in three days she accomplished in 5 fucking minutes. My blood was boiling.

I don't like forking over my money to these bastards, but, yet again, I have to because renting a trailer is cheaper and the only place you can rent a trailer from is U-Haul. So, I made a reservation 2 weeks in advance of my move, and they told me that everything would be fine and there would be a trailer available for me at the U-Haul place a mile away from my house.

Well, come the day of the move, surprise surprise, there wasn't. In fact, I was informed that there might not be a trailer available for me at all. But eventually they found one, at a U-Haul place 35 miles away. Excuse me for not being grateful. I had to rush down there to get it, because even though I made a fucking reservation, it was first come/first serve. If I didn't make it there in time, somebody else would scoop it up.

I get there, and they people they have working are a couple of 18 year old know-nohing jerkoffs. That doesn't give me too much confidence. I'm polite, but stressed, and I ask them if they can give me a discount on this since I have had to go through a lot of trouble and I was originally told that the trailer would be available to pick up a mile away from my house. They refused, but they were "nice" enough to give the rental to me at the price I was originally quoted instead of the higher price that they wanted to charge me that day. So I asked them of they even pay attention to reservations, and they told me no. Argh! Why the fuck am I making a reservation in the first place?!

This trailer is small, and had to be packed tightly. In turn, this made it very heavy. Couple that with the fact that it rained during my move making the roads wet, the heavy trailer put me in danger of injury because it would keep my car from stopping, pushing it while I stood on the breaks, and only quick thinking and jacking up the emergency break stood in the way of something bad happening. For putting me in this situation, I'd personally like to thank U-Haul and Budget for pricing their truck rentals to where I can't afford them, along with all the moving companies for keeping those prices in the same, high range. I wonder how many people you have inadvertently killed or injured all because your rich CEOs feel the need to line their pockets.

Well, time to give U-Haul's 800 number a call and bitch somebody out, I still want some money back through all the shit they have put me through in the past 9 months, with 2 moves. I hate giving these fuckwads my money, but unfortunately, they are a monopoly and if I want to move, I haven't got a choice.

Michael Powell must Die
Well, shit happened. The FCC has voted for media deregulation.

Can you recall a time when you have ever felt more useless in a country that always preaches its democratic values? I realize that technically, America is a republic, but even that doesn't excuse the crime that the FCC committed today. The FCC received thousands of letters about media deregulation, and only 11 of those letters were in favor of it. Do you realize what that means? Most of the media you see, hear, and read is already owned and controlled by just six large corporations who all favor media deregulation, and it took a grassroots uprising from activists just to keep this story from being sweep under the rug. Before leaving Cincinnati, I listened to the local Clear Channel station, that had a syndicated Clear Channel show on the air, with the host very propagandistically denoucing those who are opposed to media deregulation as being unpatriotic. As we all know, Clear Channel couldn't get enough deregulation of the radio markets, and as soon as the FCC relaxed radio deregulation rules, Clear Channel went from owning 40 radio stations to having over 1000 under their belt. And they are supposed to report about media deregulation objectively?! Like fuck they are!

Your senators and congressional representatives received thousands of letters and phone calls protesting media deregulation. The FCC said that they received 9000 letters, and only 11 supported the vote the three Republican commissioners on the FCC board rammed down our throats today. That's it, 11. That's less than 1% of the people who registered their opinions. I think one can safely say that today, the FCC went against the wishes of 99% of this citizens in this country that they are supposed to serve. Pair that with the fact that our current president was never elected, and can you honestly say to yourself that you live in a democracy? Or a republic? This is facism.

And I love the fact that the FCC commissioners received all expenses paid vacations, excuse me, business trips, and media corporations picked up the tab. Nope, no corruption there, not one bit. Those vacations didn't influence the FCC at all, nope. Nothing to see here folks, just go away.

Colin Powell's son, Michael, the current head of the FCC who just changed the media landscape forever told us that these new deregulation rules will help to "localize" the media. Nevermind the fact that deregulation of the radio market consolidated it more and that corporations are hungry to gobble up a few more companies, nope, the media won't even question Powell this comment. Why couldn't one reporter ask, "So Mr. Powell, if you are for localizing the media, how come you are against small, low-powered community radio stations?"

But the reporters who give us our news are already owned by six large corporations. Now that these corporations can own more television and radio stations, and newspapers, all in the same market, just expect things to get worse.

(On the topic of Indymedia or Salon being bought out, I don't think that would ever happen. In the case of Indymedia, they are an autonomous collective of media organizations, very decentralized. Since it's not a single company, there is nothing to buy out. Of course, when Big Media also owns all the ISPs, they could just block Indymedia. Salon, on the other hand, is a centralized corporation with stock on the OTC market, a market which I have no knowledge about. But I don't see a situation happening to Salon like what happened to, for a non-media company example, Ben and Jerry's. B&J were offered a buyout by Unilever (Unilevel?) that they had to take because if they didn't, their stock holders would have been pissed, dropped the stock, and there would have been a lot of layoffs in Vermont. They basically didn't have a choice. I don't think Salon is large enough of a company to be in that situation.)