Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Our good friends at Rashomon reference a recent Gallup poll that suggests a popular backlash against gay rights. I must say that I don't find that poll particularly credible in the long run -- at the very least, the acceptance situation has never been better for homosexuals in North America, and I suspect, even with temporary regional setbacks, things will only get better.

Seven of the nine Democratic presidential candidates recently spoke in a Human Rights Campaign forum. Three said they support same-sex marriage. (All nine answered a questionnaire [.pdf] from the HRC.) The right to marry (or at the very least its legal equivalent) is a very real possibility, within the very near future.

I notice two things from the poll: One - "[T]he level of support for legal homosexual relations has dropped 10-12 points in a period of just two months." This indicates to me that these are the people whose support was weak at best, and who probably shouldn't have been counted upon too strongly in earlier polls. Two - "The same basic patterns exist in both samples: (1) young Americans are more tolerant than older Americans..." I, for one, believe that children are our future. Today's youth has grown up with the idea (by and large) that you don't discriminate against gays, and they're going to stick to that notion.

David Brooks, every liberals' favorite conservative pundit, recently had this to say, on PBS's Newshour:
By almost two to one, people under 30 approve of it and say homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. I see it in my own conservative insular world like many conservatives and people in the Bush White House, when I wake up in the morning, I log on to Andrew Sullivan.Com, a gay conservative web logger writing from Provincetown. All these Republicans, their first human contact in the morning is with a gay Catholic. That's just typical of the way the whole issue is changing. So there is another saying that intellectual history moves forward in a hearse. And I think there will be a gradual move as this young generation goes through the age groups of a greater and greater acceptance of gay marriage.

Now, I'm not fooling myself -- things ain't perfect. But we've come a hell of a long way. And the complaints of a few medievalist zealots isn't going to turn the momentum around.

America is ready.

TERROR AT THE BEACH

Ah, summer -- there's no better time to, ah, hang out at the beach.

Don't be hatin', y'all.

Place yer bets!

Almost alone among generally lefty media outlets, TAPPED isn't coming out with a knee-jerk anti attitude toward DARPA's now-cancelled FutureMAP program. As TAPPED points out, "Though the terrorism futures market sounds grotesque -- and the notion of betting for or against future terrorist attacks is undeniably macabre in conception -- it's simply a tool." (At Eschaton, too.)

The question we need to be asking is not "Is this unseemly?" but rather, "Does it work?"

UPDATE: Here's how newsfutures.com is looking at this story. (They're a site that does much the same thing, only without getting yelled at by the Senate.)

Monday, July 28, 2003

Friendster - Glenda

Glenda is the first person I've come across who I'm linked to though two completely different pathways (Kelli -> Daniel -> Kimberly ->Glenda and Tom -> Tulip/Joan -> Beer -> Glenda) And, as she lives in Brooklyn, I think that makes her the anti-MRJEFF.

We must never meet.
Cha-ching!

From: THE DESK OF MRS. COMFORT OKOCHA
The Board of Eco International
Bank with head office in Lagos,
Nigeria.
Date: 26th/July/2003

President Ceo,

Permit me to introduce myself. I am Mrs.Comfort Okocha, a member
of The Board of Eco International Bank with head office in
Lagos, Nigeria.
I am the executive director in charge of Accounts and
Managements Department of the bank.

The Board of directors have mandated me to contact the next of
kin to our late client Mr. Ramash Hoh, may his soul rest in
peace. Mr. Hoh died in a ghastly auto accident on his way from
vacation along with members of his family, on the 21st of April
last 2002 year, and all efforts to contact his immediate family
members have been in vain,Mr. Hoh is a Malaysian citizen and the
Managing Director of Deep Blue Sea Services, his company was
involved in Oil exploration and drilling in Nigeria.

The late Mr. Hoh had both current and saving accounts with us,
estimated at, US $41,500,000 ($41.5Million) and I happen to be
his account manager when we received the unfortunate information
about his death and of his family members, we contacted his
country embassy to assist us to locate members of his family
back home in Malaysia, so that they can come forward to claim
his funds, but unfortunately after three months, the embassy
informed us that all efforts to trace his immediate family was
unsuccessful.

It was at this point that we decided to notify the Nigerian
authorities in line with laid down regulations. The authorities
then instructed our bank to place the fund in a special account
until the relatives of Mr. Hoh are found, which we did, but the
events of the last two weeks made the Board of our bank to hold
an emergency meeting to decide on what step to take.

The Federal Government of Nigeria wrote to us giving us till the
end of August this year 2003 to locate the relatives of the late
Mr. Hoh and release the funds to them or the money will be used
to assist the rebel forces in both Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.

Our bank was not happy about this development because we felt
the money should be used to support charity organizations and
improve the poor health care system among other decaying social
infrastructures here. I then decided to act very fast to
intercept the government from their inhumane intentions. It was
at this point that I was mandated to contact you with the hope
that you will understand the urgency of this situation and
assist us prevent the government from achieving their selfish
intentions.

I have made arrangements that your acceptance to cooperate with
us, I shall present you as the next of kin to the late Mr. Hoh.
So that the money will be released to you. Your nationality does
not matter as we have arranged provisions,as you could be an
uncle from his mothers side which equally makes you the next of
kin.I shall provide you with the vital informations about the
late Mr. Hoh as contained in our file. I have decided that 20%
of the money will go to Charity homes while the rest will be
shared between you and us.Some of the benefiting charity homes
will be nominated by you in your country while I shall nominate
the rest from my country.

Also my share will be invested for me for a period of two years
by you in any profit making venture you may decide and you will
be absolutely free to use your share in whatever you decide.

Sir, should you be interested to assist in this matter kindly
send to me your private Telephone and fax numbers for safe
communications. I however, want to assure you that your
in your ability to effectively handle this matter successfully.
Do not hesitate to contact me should you need additional
information or any clarifications so that we do not waste
anytime.

I thank you very much while I look forward to your anticipated
prompt response.

Best regards.
Mrs.Comfort Okocha

A couple of new twists on this old favorite. It's good to see the scammers keeping up with current events.

Saturday, July 26, 2003

MRJEFF3000, your one-stop gateway for all things MRJEFF, has finally given in to the hype and has dispatched an agent to investigate the behemoth of hipness known as Friendster. Which almost certainly means that it is no longer hip in the least.

Friday, July 25, 2003

Elderly Man Crashes Into Farmer's Market (washingtonpost.com)

I'm surprised it took this long: a 79-year-old man has crashed his car into a northern Florida farmers' market.

And thus is born the hot new trend of the summer.

Thursday, July 24, 2003

"Knock knock!"
"Who's there?"
"WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!"
"So there you are!"
Get your war on!

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Anti-gay motive believed in Fairfax man's death
The Associated Press
Last Updated 6:20 p.m. PDT Thursday, July 17, 2003
QUINCY, Calif. (AP) - A Fairfax man beaten to death here last weekend may have been killed because his alleged assailants thought he was gay, authorities told a Marin County newspaper.

During a two-day court hearing in this small Northern California town, two Plumas County men were charged with the beating and strangulation death of Marc Oldham. The Marin County resident was killed Sunday while vacationing at Bucks Lake, about 150 miles north of Sacramento.

Kevin Glen Rikard, 21, of Quincy pleaded innocent Thursday to the charges. Rikard and Johnathan Grant Appley, 21, also of Quincy, are accused of clubbing Oldham with a tree limb and strangling him because they allegedly thought he was gay. Appley didn't enter a plea.

A third defendant, 21-year-old Jesse William Rath of Cromberg, pleaded innocent to an accessory to murder charge.

While Oldham's family and friends say he was heterosexual, Plumas County Deputy District Attorney David Hollister said prosecutors have reason to believe the trio thought Oldham, 37, was gay, the Marin Independent Journal reported Thursday. Hollister wouldn't provide evidence to support that claim.

Appley and Rickard are also accused of robbery, a special circumstance charge that could carry the death penalty if tied to a murder conviction. Rath faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

It's unclear if Oldham knew his assailants before he was killed, but witnesses told authorities the group was seen together at a local bar that night, Hollister said.

Appley and Rikard were being held Thursday without bail in the Plumas County jail. Rath's bail was set at $50,000. All three men are set to appear back in court Aug. 13, when Appley is expected to enter a plea.

Sunday, July 13, 2003

You are in a twisty maze of passages, all alike.

>You are in a debris room filled with stuff washed in from the surface. A low wide passage
>with cobbles becomes plugged with mud and debris here, but an awkward canyon leads upward and west.
>
>A note on the wall says, "Magic word XYZZY."

Another Canadian who hates us.

Ali Ismail Abbas, the 12-year-old Iraqi whose arms were blown off and whose family was killed in the Coalition bombing of Baghdad, is on his way to Canada, possibly to be adopted by Falath Hafuth, an Ontario doctor.
On finally watching Minority Report:

Ya know what? Spielberg, and Cruise, and god knows how many other people involved with the making of this film, are just waaaaay too humanistic (and really, this applies to most Hollywood actors, writers and directors) to make a good, believable science fiction movie. The whole thing feels as though they came up with the plot twists and the ending first, and then with the rest of the story, and only then did they add just enough of a veneer of science and technology to make the effects look really cool...I mean -- cops with jetpacks? What's up with that???

Okay, I understand that nearly all directors, and nearly all writers, and every single actor has a worldview that is basically hostile to scientific thinking. Or, I suppose, legalistic thinking. I mean, this movie completely ignores the idea that there are lawyers in America, and millions of Americans who really do worry about innocent until proven guilty. Or all those personally targeted billboards -- whatever happened to opt out? Or, why hasn't the Defense Department taken control of the precogs? One might suggest that they'd be better put to use guarding the entire country against attack, than just guarding DC against random murders. (And, if after six murder-free years, anyone in DC still considered killing as a possible course of action...)

Or (to be heretical) one might suggest that it is worth it to commit one single murder in order to prevent hundreds.

Saturday, July 12, 2003

CNN.com - Tenet admits error in approving Bush speech - Jul. 12, 2003

Harry Truman: "The buck stops here."
George W. Bush: "Hey, don't blame me, man..."

CIA Director George Tenet has accepted the blame for that Iraq-buying-uranium-from-Niger line in Bush's State of the Union speech. So: Tenet takes the blame because he's the boss...but what abouthis boss?

Of course, the full analysis can be found at TPM.

Friday, July 11, 2003

c o r k d o l l . c o m

Blast from the past! Corkdoll: Philosopher

Mp3 Madness

I'm downloading mp3s like crazy tonight -- and it's all legal, thanks to epitonic.com. It's madness!

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Who the FUCK is Mister Jeff?

I don't find this amusing in the least.

In Which Elyse Calls Her Lawyer And Asks, "How Much Is A Restraining Order Again?"

And so we kick off Stalkwatch 2003 with an interview (from Steppin' Out magazine ("NY & NJ's #1 Entertainment Magazine!") with our current obsession, Elyse Sewell. Choice excerpts:

Does the winner automatically reach supermodel status?

I think that to attain true "supermodel" status, a girl must be more recognizable to the public than the vice president of the United States. Dick Cheney's last fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine occurred over two years ago, and his Revlon contract was terminated in the mid-'80s, so I think that the winner will fit the "supermodel" definition immediately.

...

When did you first start to realize you had what it takes to model?

At the age of 16, I was perusing the silk slipper selection in the open-air markets of Bangkok when an orange was thrown from a second-story window and struck me on the back of the head. As I tenderly caressed the contusion, it began to throb rhythmically. I whipped out my Morse Code decoder ring and deciphered this message: "Elyse, you have what it takes to model." I raced up a narrow staircase into the room from whence the orange had flown, but found only the remains of a Dionysian feast and six jet-black hairs plucked from the bonny head of the princess. As our ship was to leave port in five minutes, I was forced to abandon my sleuthing and race up the gangplank, for otherwise how could I gain passage back to Cape Hatteras? The source of the message remains a mystery to this day.


So, obviously, you can see why I blog so.

UPN

Okay, I'll admit it -- I watched most of last night's episodes of America's Next Top Model (the recap and the finale). Why? Because earlier that day I saw a clip of final candidate Elyse in the confessional bitch-booth ripping into the other next-top-model wannabes and I fell in love.

And then I watched and she turned out to be an out-of-the-closet atheist.

And then -- I shit you not -- she correctly used the word "hypothesis" where an ordinary moron would've said "theory".

It could happen, right?



Do I have time to add this excerpt?
When discussing who should win AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, Adrianne remarked, "I think I deserve it because I came a really long way since I came here. I just try to do my best every time we do anything." Shannon explained, "When you give something like your best, you just give your all, you feel like you should be rewarded." Elyse differed completely in her assessment of the competition, saying, "I don't think that it's acceptable to say that anyone deserves to win this competition. It's really not a basic human right to get a modeling contract."
I think I need to do laundry tonight.

Note to MRJEFF3000 aficionados: The MRJEFF3000 Weblog ExperienceTM is not just a link-oriented blog. From time to time we will branch out into the microjournal category as well, in order to bring you, the MRJEFF3000 customer, the very finest in Internet Lifestyle EnhancementTM. We at MRJEFF3000 realize that you have your choice of literally hundreds of websites when you "surf" the Internet -- thank you so very much for inviting MRJEFF3000 into your home or workplace.
One of the MRJEFF3000 staffers was googling around today, and he came across an entertaining new blog from a fresh new voice. This young lady's writing style, it turns out, is quite clever, and we predict big things in her future. (***1/2!)

Of course, if fame and fortune pass her by, she can always continue at her data entry job, even if everyone there is "comatose or mentally retarded."

Friday, July 04, 2003

Although we at MRJEFF3000 have long been aware of the NPR news quiz show Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, we have only just recently been made aware of Adam Felber's Fanatical Apathy. A sample:

Review of Less-Publicized Rulings from the Supreme Court’s 2002-2003 Term

Baird vs. Texas
– Ruling overturned the conviction of a Laredo man in a robbery wherein the prosecution’s case consisted solely of the facts that "he was black, and he was nearby."
Vote: 8-1
From the dissenting opinion (Clarence Thomas): "The man clearly looked guilty. This ruling opens the door for more and more "uppity" behavior from negroes everywhere. As Frederick Douglas might have written, black people don’t need your charity, they need a little discipline."

Kradick vs. Texas: Ruling overturned a murder conviction against a Tomball man who opted not to sleep with his girlfriend, thus failing to impregnate her.
Vote: 6-3
From the dissenting opinion (William Rehnquist): "Have we come to place so little value on human life that we can deafen ourselves to the cries of an infant whose right to be conceived was so grossly violated? Shame, shame…"

Turling vs. Black People: Ruling found a new Texas law making black people illegal to be unconstitutional.
Vote: 8-1
From the dissenting opinion (Thomas): "Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that it’s "okay" to be black. This is affirmative action at its most dangerous. Honestly, I don’t know what the other guys were thinking on this one."


What're you waiting for? Go on, check it out.

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

URGENT CORRECTION ALERT!
We at MRJEFF3000 are very sorry to report that there seems to be no Discovery Channel documentary titled Seven Minutes to Impact. (We were relying upon Mr. Renkin's curriculum vitae in this matter.) There does seem to be a Three Minutes to Impact, which may be at best tangentially related. If this is the sort of reliability we can expect from "Dan Renkin" -- if such a person truly does exist -- then MRJEFF3000 cannot in good conscience recommend his little Civil War puppet show.

Good day to you, sir.

I said, Good day!

Some people at MRJEFF3000 have pointed out that Mr. Renkin's printable resume does indeed have the correct title. Those people have been fired.
As usually brain-damaging as the FARK forums usually are, sometimes they will take an irritating grain of sand and create a beautiful pearl. Like when "RagingLeonard" compared Anne Coulter to Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls.
Longtime friend of the MRJEFF3000 organization Dan Renkin (dot com!) writes, with information:
Last Weekend!

- Friday, July 4th at 7:00 pm in Washington Square Park (by the dog-run)
- Saturday, July 5th at 5:00 pm in Central Park, at the Lawn Below the Dairy
(around 65th Street).

After two weekends of torrential downpours and iffy-looking cloud cover, we
seem to be in the clear--this past weekend saw wonderful audiences and
fine-tuning of the piece:

A modern history play: The American Revolution! In verse, mingling low
comedy and high brows, lots of props and far too many wool jackets!

More information available at Inverse Theater

Note: "Last Weekend!" does not refer to the Saturday and Sunday that just passed. Rather, it tells us that this upcoming weekend will be the final -- last, if you will -- opportunity to view Mr. Renkin treading the proverbial boards in this particular theatrical work. We at MRJEFF3000 are confident that Mr. Renkin brings the same joie de vivre to, well, whatever the hell it is that he's doing in this play that he did to his groundbreaking work as "Doomed Man with Coffee" in the Discovery Channel's Seven Minutes to Impact. ****1/2