because, Goddamnit, God told 'em to!

brainfreeze

after the Phillies' much-delayed victory in this year's (ho-hum) World Series, nobody wanted any other word to put on the headlines.

(clockwise, from top: NY Post, ESPN, NY Daily News)




at least the hometown paper had other ideas.

who's next? the aliens in Independence Day?

wow, they're so desperate!

WWJD?

McCain would have ended the world already.

balling

13 minutes in and he's out. looks like he's older than we all joked about.


in other news, way to go to support the current Knicks roster, Mitch. yeah, like i ever did.

reach out and strangle her

she did what?!? i only have $5 to my name, but i'll give it to you if you can whack her for me. no one gets away with using Depeche Mode in a shitty manner.

watch your skanky ass, Duff!

singlemind

i'm posting this super late but will be Coors Lite material for years to come, along with Dennis Green's.

and he had the balls to say it was his daughter.

hasta la Vista, baby!!!

hah!

ve arr sinking, capten!!

WTF is this bitch doing?

... one would like to ask her whether, like some of her co-religionists, she is a "premillenial dispensationalist"—in other words, someone who believes that there is no point in protecting and preserving the natural world, since the end of days will soon be upon us.

Holy Shit!!! why bother to live, Sarah?? in fact, let's all bring about Armageddon right now. start World War III and save God the trouble.

Jesus freakin C. He must be laughing at us. Laughing hard.

goddamn robocalls

540-350-4194

if its not a fucking robocall, its still a fucking scammer.

state of rogue

Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says [CNN]

what, you mean she's like this now?

so you're telling me you're not even offering me a loan?

what a jackass

continuing the Thomas OD story. man, this guy's just a few marbles off being OJ.

Beyonce did it!!!

never thought i'd feel this way

woooooo-hoooooooooooooo!!!!

grey lady endorses the B

pepperspray

maybe you should be Boston-bound, Daunte. Randy Moss needs his catches.

dirty rotten stinking rich

which was the whole point of the Bush/Cheney administration all along.

today's the day!

i loves the smell of money

hey, i could have used that 150K! i'm Joe (Not) SixPack, but i actually pay taxes, dammit!!! Alaska residents get an annual check of $2,400 because of their gas/oil and they don't pay state income tax. try living in New York, i dares ya.

craving for a new laptop

yes, yes, dammit, yes!

having have to live with XP and Microsoft stuff in the office, at home i want BS-free computing. i usually bring home my XP-loaded Lenovo R60 (work laptop) every night, and last night i timed it from a cold boot. the thing took 5 minutes to come up to readiness mode (that's when the hard drive light isn't flashing anymore because it loaded all the junk it needs to load). compare that to my Ubuntu-loaded Shuttle which brings me to my desktop in a minute or less (and shuts down even faster).

i've been e-window shopping for the last few months for a Lenovo that's cheap, light, and preferably, no O/S loaded so i can just load a Linux distro in and start from the ground up. i found a couple (although with XP or - shudder - Vista loaded) but for financial considerations, i always abandon the plan whenever i go to bed. only to revive the dream within a couple of days. sigh.

maybe this Christmas?

hooray for the internet!!!

those mad men

buses with digital ads about to become the rage, coupled with ad-wrapped subway cars.


and you still think about cutting back services and raising fares?

shame on you, MTA*.


* MTA is in fact the reverse of ATM, and instead of giving you money, takes it.

but is he paying his taxes?

Joe the Plumber comparing the plumbing at Obama's and McCain's houses

early Halloween

c'mon, Jets, you're not scared of this, are ya??

sarah night live

the Palin appearance on SNL was a little less than i expected ... i actually thought she was hosting the whole thing (which i believe she would have done a better job than Michael "You Can Use My Abs for Washboarding" Phelps).

since NBC didn't allow embedding this time (or maybe its too early on a Sunday morning), here's the Alec Baldwin segment. the Josh Brolin skits were much better than the Amy Poehler rap, although my wife was laughing about the mock moose shootings.

white trash dumbfuck bitch

well, DUH!

i wonder how some people only manage to realize this shit, after the fall, despite the fact that they had history to learn from.

"My life was basically a disaster," Hornig said. "I was working all the time, didn't have a lot to show for it. I came to the conclusion that there was more to life than money."

and you call yourselves smart and intelligent??? i beg to differ. this is evolution??

sit down, old man!

post-3rd debate, i don't think you can stop the Barack truck! (expect objective critical treatment from this page once you get to 1600, Mr. O)

at least we got funny stuff during the Alfred Smith dinner.



and we got Palin on SNL this weekend!

the other pacman

we should have this bout, now that Pacman (the one who makes it rain with dollar bills) has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL.



no doubt they'll be arguing who's the real Pacman. a scrappy kababayan who speaks potentially-mangled English versus a new generation gangsta spouting street ebonics as only they could. it'll be hilarious.

awesome!

Palin as President

six inch nails

guess who's waiting to click on the "download torrent" button.

collateral damage

once again, the (stupid) law on illegal immigration rears its ugly head.

"They turned people into cattle," he says. "If they wanted to stop this problem, if they wanted to scare everybody away, all they had to do is go into Los Angeles [California] and they could've taken out 1 million people in a day. But they don't because there's too much political clout.

"So they go to a place where there's no political backbone. They go to a place where the government's willing to throw us to the dogs."

yeah! just go to any borough of New York! hell, the delivery guy for the Chinese takeout bringing lunch to Federal employees is most likely an illegal immigrant!

dog poop

maybe its best i didn't have ESPN, and missed the shellacking the Jints got from the Browns.

i dunno, but i played the Jints against Cleveland - twice - in Madden 09 over the weekend prior to MNF. both times, i lost, one very badly. must be an omen. or it was Eli just being Eli.

one eighty

just wondering ... the NYT has made a complete about-face, right? since this particular time?

warm it up, cris

maybe its time to revisit this?

wait, guidos ... put those luparas down. c'mon!

phishy

well, isn't that creepy?



its called Ariel's Beginning, and it shows her and her dad in a kind of awkward moment. it may all be so innocent just like this:


what do we know huh?

look who's endorsing who.

system dump

i am not mincing words: the American immigration system is missing the human element.

otherwise, they are full of dumb human elements.

let me tell you a long story. but i don't really care if you click away past the end of this sentence.

my wife and i just made the July 2007 cutoff for our adjustment of status for permanent residents. this was done for practical reasons, one of which is filing under the old fee scheme, which, post-July 2007 the DHS/INS have raised 200%. this also meant eventually, that if you got away scot-free from paying the higher filing fees, they will get you somewhere, somehow along the line. i will explain that later.

so, we filed for permanent resident (read: green card) status. things look rosy no? we didn't actually have our medical papers done yet, because we felt it was better to err on the side of caution in terms of, if this thing stretches out past a year, and the medical certification is good only for 365 days, they would ask us to submit new certifications. which means additional fees. which is not cool for lower middle class people like us, who are subject to the whims of the system. so we figured, let them notify us that they need our medical certifications, when they need them.

by december 2007, my wife had our biometrics scheduled and those got done in a jiffy. we weren't going to jeopardize our status. we were optimistic that the papers were indeed moving along somehow, even though with that July 2007 cutoff, thousands of people had the same idea and we were just a couple of fish in the sea.

also by that time, my wife also got her Employment Authorization (EAD), which we filed along with the Adjustment of Status. this was prescient, because she needed to work in a legal way. i didn't apply for the same because i was much more optimistic than her that we could get approved within a year.

by early summer 2008, we didn't hear back from DHS, and i now had to file for my own Employment Authorization. still within the rules; however, those who filed post-July '07 don't have to pay a fee for their EAD. schmucks like me who filed under the cheaper fees must now pay another $340. see what i mean about them getting you no matter what? you know what i think? with the money they got from thousands of people like me who filed for Adjustment of Status to make the cutoff, then after the cutoff (higher rates), i think that was intended to finance the Iraq Surge that started that winter.

or ... or ... at least some of those went into bailing out mismanaged financial institutions who have caused this horrific financial crisis. hey, glad i could help out, mr. rich man. want me to shine your shoes too, before you board your helicopter with your fucking golden parachute?

so, around mid-June, i filed for a first-time EAD, and my wife filed for renewal of hers (expiring September 2008). i got mine within 3 to 4 weeks. well, well, well ... somebody likes to cash checks!

at the same time i got mine, my wife got a notification letter that we sent her renewal papers to the wrong place. it should be Mesquite, Texas, not St. Albans, Vermont. huh? really?

ok, so we mail the damn thing to Texas. its still July 2008. not to worry. plenty of time. yeehaw!! plus they like cashing checks so this could be done in no time, right?


well, yes and no.


around very late August, our latest foray online to check the status of her renewal application showed that: they needed additional information, and were sending us a letter detailing what they needed. as to why they could not SAY RIGHT THERE AND THEN WHAT THE HELL THEY NEEDED is beyond me. the letter is for official purposes. what harm is there in notifying us in advance what is required of us, so we can prepare?

early September. no letter.

mid-September, still no letter, no nothing.

we start to panic. we check the USCIS website. to speak in person to an immigration officer, you'd have to go through another system called Infopass. its just an automated scheduling system, and the earliest appointment we could get was ... September 26. my wife's EAD expires in 4 days after that. and if you Google hard enough, you'll know that they don't extend interim or temporary EADs anymore. but it was our only hope, to speak at least with someone who isn't a phone robot.

my wife takes a half-day off from work, goes to the local DHS office. the consultant she spoke with checked her computer, and notified us that DHS needed additional information from us, and will be sending us a letter.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMOKING?

we already know that!!! we can look up that same information from home, dumbass.

what we need to know, is where the goddamned letter is, or if not, let us know what the hell else you require of us, so we can have that EAD renewed!

are you so dumb that you don't understand what we are presenting to you (the complete story with printed documents of what we got so far)?? in fact, we also printed out the webpage saying the EXACT SAME THING YOU TOLD my wife.

is your name Britney Spears??? or Paris Hilton?? i'm not surprised if you're chewing gum as you work (no offense to those who chew gum for medicinal purposes).

my wife explained the best she could. and the best she got out of the dumb DHS employee was they will "email the Mesquite office to ask about this and expedite the letter". as expected, they don't issue interim EADs so we should have to wait. sure, like your EAD is expiring in 4 days.

so why do we not feel confident that she followed through with what she 'promised'?

coincidentally, when we checked the status online again, on that same night, we learned that "the letter was returned by the Post Office as undeliverable".

w-haaaaaaaaaaat????

really?? my wife gets her mail delivered to the same address as me. bank statements, credit card offers, you name it. her first EAD was delivered to the same address. now, how can it be undeliverable?

i blame the Post Office and DHS in equal, venomous measure (only God knows who's at fault here; how about it, God? care to let us know?). the former for disappointing me after years of exemplary service in my neighborhood (know what? i feel guilty for not leaving the postal guy something for Christmas in the years past, but they keep changing so how would i know i credit the best one? this year, am not feeling guilty anymore), and the latter for messing this whole thing up in the first place. how suspicious is it, that the day we inquire about the alleged letter, we get notified online that the letter was 'undeliverable'?

by the way, did i mention that they already cashed the goddamned check?


it gets worse from there.

right after that, i write a semi-angry letter (on behalf of my wife) with all the pertinent documents, detailing the chain of events which led to this day. they're lucky i only used the words "extremely upset", and not the words i use here. believe me, i was very much tempted to. all we need is the info you require from us! how hard is that? with this letter, it cost us another 9 bucks and change for a certified receipt notice (not taking chances here).


today we get a big yellow envelope. could this be the real thing this time?

let me read the letter to you.

"thank you for your recent inquiry ... via letter of information regarding your case. the USCIS has an inquiry tracking system blah blah blah ... we ask that you call the National Customer Service Center toll free telephone number ... available Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5 PM ... they provide customer-friendly (emphasis mine) services which include ... change of address, non-delivery of documents, case status update ... you can also check you case status online ... blah blah blah ..."


holy fecal matter!!! methinks we spent 9 bucks on nothing!!!

by placing such a request for additional information in an 'undeliverable' status, the system is so rigid that the whole case has been flagged under a scenario where 'we' have 'changed addresses' and there is no other way out except notify them of our 'new address'. no kidding. your options are to call the hotline (which as you expect has a whole slew of automated messages and options), or submit a form online, both of which do not cater to the scenario which we are in: someone fucked up because we actually have not changed addresses. that was the whole point of the letter.

so what's a low income middle class taxpaying non-citizen to do?


are you sure you can help me?


for a simple renewal application, it has stretched out to this point that they've taken our hard-earned money already and we're stuck at a point where my wife could lose her job on a technicality, and not be able to be employed until everything is resolved.

don't even get me started on our permanent resident case, which has been pending for more than a year now, and nothing has been heard from them past the biometrics. my father died almost a month ago, and if i had a green card, i could have paid my respects and laid him to rest. what's that? you're telling me about travel parole? here's news for you, richie rich: parole filing fees + last-minute airline tickets = debt. hope you die under the rock you've been living under.



why do we bother?


God help the DHS. for that matter, God help the USA.


(i'm so annoyed after typing this rant, i need me some Nigella Feasts to cool me down. mmmmmm ... Nigella)

fear of change

you should be more afraid of people doing the same shit over and over again.



at least some are.

and a good friday morning to you too!!

alaskan assholes

well, well, well! who's Palin (sic) around with terrorists now?

you're not my friend!

apparently, McCain likes to use the phrase waaaaay too much, like in last night's 2nd debate.



that sounds totally bogus, like a snake oil salesman. you're not FDR, "my friend".

anybody made a drinking game out of it? can't wait for this weekend's SNL.

fulded

hey, i wish we could do this to all our bosses who suck.

they're on a roll

i don't think any group of people was happier with the emergence of Sarah Palin than the SNL writers.

clueless

just watched Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke, a perfect slam on Bush presidency on the way out, and reading Bob Herbert's latest op-ed, i can't help reprinting it here. goddamn it, it makes me angry. and i don't even have a vote.

---------------------

Palin’s Alternate Universe

Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years.

We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality:

“Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.”

Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

Here’s Ms. Palin during the debate: “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?”

If Governor Palin didn’t like a question, or didn’t know the answer, she responded as though some other question had been asked. She made no bones about this, saying early in the debate: “I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear.”

The problem with Ms. Palin’s candidacy is that John McCain might actually win this election, and then if something terrible happened, the country could be left with little more than an exclamation point as president.

After Ms. Palin had woven one of her particularly impenetrable linguistic webs, Joe Biden turned to the debate’s moderator, Gwen Ifill, and said: “Gwen, I don’t know where to start.”

Of course he didn’t know where to start because Ms. Palin’s words don’t mean anything. She’s all punctuation.

This is such a serious moment in American history that it’s hard to believe that someone with Ms. Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role. On the day before the debate, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, made an urgent appeal for more troops, saying the additional “boots on the ground,” as well as more helicopters and other vital equipment, were “needed as quickly as possible.”

The morning after the debate, the Labor Department announced that the employment situation in the U.S. had deteriorated even more than experts had expected. The nation lost nearly 160,000 jobs in September, more than double the monthly losses in July and August.

Conditions are probably worse than even those numbers indicate because the government’s statistics do not yet reflect the response of employers to the credit crisis that has taken such a hold in the last few weeks.

Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

But after Senator Biden suggested that John McCain’s answer to the nation’s energy problems was to “drill, drill, drill,” Ms. Palin promptly pointed out, as if scoring a point, that “the chant is ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ ”

How’s that for perspective? The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”

John McCain has spent most of his adult life speaking of his love for his country. Maybe he sees something in Sarah Palin that most Americans do not. Maybe he is aware of qualities that lead him to believe she’d be as steady as Franklin Roosevelt in guiding the U.S. through a prolonged economic downturn. Maybe she’d be as wise and prudent in a national emergency as John Kennedy was during the Cuban missile crisis.

Maybe Senator McCain has reason to believe that it would not be the most colossal of errors to put Ms. Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.

He’s got just four weeks to share that insight with the rest of us.

republicansdontfactcheck.org

really?? how stupid can you get???

Off (to) Jail

whenever i see a Bronco on the street, i always get reminded of OJ Simpson. well, i hope in the going forward, whenever i see a Bronco, i'll be reminded that O.J. is, in fact, incarcerated. prison's too good for you, asshole.

post-VP debate

in last night's VP debate, Sarah Palin did better than expected (what else can you do with low expectations), but Joe Biden won that match ... maybe not in a resounding big bang, but still a win. i thought Palin was a bit smirky, kind of following McCain's lead, and if that appeals to the American majority, then God help you. no, maybe even God won't help.


from the [Daily Kos]

that's it ...

... don't have kids, 'cause them and their kids will be paying thru the nose for years.

beyond the palin

if anything, Katie Couric returns to NBC in a blaze of glory!

born to run

forget the presidency, i'm gonna rule NYC!