3Horn.Org

Last week, it came out that News Corp, the parent company of (among others) The Fox News Channel gave a 1 million dollar donation to the Republican party.

It also came to light that the second largest share holder of News Corp is a Saudi named “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal”. Prince bin Talal has been accused of being not a only terrorist sympathizer, but an active supporter of terrorist organizations.

So the question must be asked, does the Republican party accept money from terrorists? And if not, why won’t they return the News Corp donation?

Following the example of some friends on LiveJournal, I submitted three posts to “I Write Like…” to have them analyzed, here are my results:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
J. D. Salinger

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Guess I need to buy some new towels…

Incidentally, I’d imagine that if it took my LJ as a whole, all of the burlesque photos would probably create this one:

I write like
Hugh Hefner

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

The CoreLogic data suggest that the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind, especially when it comes to investment and second homes. Nor do they appear to be particularly worried about being sued by their lender or frozen out of future loans by Fannie Mae, possible consequences of default.

Wait, you mean to tell me that the rich don’t give a fuck about the civic good? That they really only care about making more mony for themselves and are willing to fuck anyone that gets in their way? I’m shocked!

I particularly like this guy:

His five-bedroom house, drained of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity over the last 13 years, is scheduled for auction July 20. Nine months ago, after his latest business (he has had several) failed in what he called “the global meltdown,” the man, a technology entrepreneur, said he quit making his $9,000 monthly payments.

Think about that for a second, nine-thousand dollars. A month. My (admittedly modest) apartment doesn’t cost much more than that for a year. This guy was spending as much in a year, as some people spend in twenty to cover their mortgage.

But by far the most interesting statistics are these:

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars is seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

The delinquency rate on investment homes where the original mortgage was more than $1 million is now 23 percent. For cheaper investment homes, it is about 10 percent.

What does this really mean? It means that the poor and the middle class are actually trying to cover their debts, even if it isn’t necessarily in their best interests, the rich on the other hand, have no such qualms.

I’ll close with this piece, which best sums up the situation:

“Those with high net worth have other resources to lean on if they get in trouble,” said Mr. Khater, the analyst. “If they’re going delinquent faster than anyone else, that tells me they are doing so willingly.”

Or, in other words: Fuck you, I got mine.

Take a 10-day trip to Europe with a twink prostitute.

CLYMER – An Indiana County woman has been charged with having sex with a horse, state police at Indiana said Tuesday.

Dovie Lee Kerner, 46, of Plumville also allegedly had sex with other animals including a dog and a pig, court documents state.

Jason Chen, the guy who leaked the photos of the iPhone G4 came home last night to find police executing a search warrant on his home for materials used in “committing a felony” apparently the felony being posting photos of the new iPhone. Chen and the Gizmodo lawyers are protesting the seizure because both federal and California state law expressly forbid seizing the property of journalists.

First off, please allow me to say “FUCK YOU APPLE”. You got your phone back, there’s absolutely no reason to pursue this in the court system; the only damage done to you, is that everyone now knows the new iPhone is going to look like a metallic ice cream sandwich.

Now then, the bigger issue, is whether or not the courts (and we can be assured that no matter the outcome, there will be appeals) will accept Chen’s claim of being a journalist. There’s no shortage of people, particularly those employed by newspapers who make the claim that bloggers aren’t engaged in journalism, and as such, aren’t entitled to legal protection as such.

I have mixed feelings about this, on one hand, I strongly believe that “news” should be fact checked, and it’s certainly no secret that most “citizen journalism” is slanted bullshit. The best example of this, is CNN’s “iReport”, although I will give them credit for the following disclaimer: The stories here are not edited fact-checked or screened before they post. CNN’s producers will check out some of the most compelling, important and urgent iReports and, once they’re cleared for CNN, make them a part of CNN’s news coverage.

This is also the reason why I very rarely give captions to the photos that I include in my “journalism” directory, while I may have personal opinions about the people and things I photograph, I prefer to leave it up to the viewer to form their own opinion. I guess you could say “I report, you decide”, too bad that one has already been taken (and defiled). All that having been said, bloggers when engaged in journalistic endeavors, are journalists. In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers made no comments regarding what defines “the press”, and as such, anyone is entitled to take up it’s mantle, likewise those doing so are entitled to legal protection when acting as “the press”.

From the lonestarteaparty.org comments:

Two billboards in Marsa advertising the Pope’s visit to Malta got the unlikely addition of two stencilled images of what looks like a panda. It is not clear why the “artist” in question juxtaposed the bears with the Pope. The organising committee was alerted yesterday morning and it plans to erase the images.

The ‘Full Version’ of The Wikileaks Video Is Missing 30 Minutes of Footage

What happened during that missing half-hour? The Jawa Report cites the sworn statements of the pilots involved in the attack. One pilot said in his statement that between the attack on the journalists and the second attack, two events occurred which may have softened the picture of the pilots provided by the video: 1) The pilots went to assist soldiers under attack, but saw a child and other “noncombatants” and held their fire. 2) The pilots saw a red SUV that may have contained insurgents, but held their fire because they couldn’t get a positive identification.