Just when you thought it was safe to go out.

Can you think of any captions to suit this Virginia Snow Angel pic?

The first thing that sprang to mind was, "Somewhere for Santa to park his bike." or "Snow angel clearing driveway while whistling Jingle Balls"

I hope you have something funnier!

The caffeine-pumped anchorman for the CNBC financial news channel was interviewing a British fund manager who looked like a retired colonel with a heart rate of 40bpm. He congratulated him on the 42% profit he had made on his emerging market fund and asked the Brit some general stuff, like,

"Can you do it again next year?"

He said he could, but not so spectacularly as before, but he would still kick ass. (My words not his!)

When asked about his tactics, the Brit mentioned that he had a team scouring the world investigating companies. He had interests in India, Russia, Brazil...

Remember yesterday? The world absorbed the news of the death of Bhutto. The anchorman was straight in with his shit- stirring stick.
"In view of the events unfolding in Pakistan over the last 48 hours, is that going to change your strategy for the coming year?"

The Brit looked at him like he had just been asked to stick a red hot poker up his jacksy and sing Rule Britannia.

"I don't think so. For a start I have no investments in Pakistan, and if you check your facts you will see that the Indian stock market just closed at a record high. That tells you what the neighbors think about the troubles in Pakistan."

Slap that idiot down. Sensationalist, uninformed - and that describes one of the better US news stations!

Where's the perspective?

Whatever happened to balanced reporting? There is just so little perspective behind the news here. For instance, following the assassination of Bhutto, her supporters were distraught and angry. I am not saying that there will not be major issues to come, but within minutes the news stations were reporting insurrection - illustrated by something akin to a tire burning outside a hospital. The fire filled the frame.

It reminded me of the shots of the recent White House annexe ablaze. The camera was trained on smoke billowing from an open window. It looked really bad, until the cameraman put some perspective on the whole event. As he panned out, you could see that the conflagration (that the reporter confirmed was not a terrorist attack) was little more than a glorified fire in a wastepaper basket. From potential terror attack to a cigarette in a basket and back to normality again.

Endless destructive cycle

This is a really sick and draining cycle of info overload that is acted out hour after hour, day in day out. And the problem is, it is counter-productive. ie if you are trying to plan for the future you need some sense of stability and order. So why are there so few restrictions on the news people who seem to revel in trying to destabilise the economy, society etc with this incessant over reporting of every day life?

The whole country is caught up in this surging tide of BS news. It is like a big suction pad, drawing everybody into the melee. It isn't healthy, and is so unnecessary. Can the powers-that-be not instil some standards of decency and accuracy in the media for everybody's good?

Surely it is obvious that something needs to change when a cold Brit who made 42% profit acting cool can so easily show a jacked-up anchorman for the sensationalist idiot that he is, without even trying.

When I was in the construction business, for many contractors, Christmas was a time to relax and put feet up at least a week ahead of the 25th. No one would resurface until the second week of January. Many of those guys were not a pretty sight after 2 weeks of beer, chocolates and turkey.

On the other hand, we were heavily into painting, and December and early January were usually the busiest months of the year for us, go figure. Many a time, we would be asked to start a big job in early December. We'd tell the customer that the job was going to go past Christmas, and they would still give us the go ahead, because they wanted the place to be nice for the relations and friends! OK.

We never worked out the logic of "Nice for Christmas". Often we would be packing our kit away at 5pm on Christmas Eve. The house would be frozen because all the windows were open in a desperate attempt to clear the place of paint fumes; the lady of the house would be hanging the shivering, complaining kids. It was a joy.

And a couple of days after the big fumey festivities were over, we would be back to paint like idiots until an hour before their New Year's party guests arrived.

We didn't care, it was all good fun and we got paid pretty well. And best of all, we would be able to take time off just as everybody else was getting suicidal about being back in the work groove.

I am well out of that scene now, so I don't know what other contractors are up to these days. If they are anything like the guys I knew, they are probably at home right now, wondering where the housing bubble came from. The ones with panic mode etched into their skulls are now slapping on a coat of paint, trying to make their own places look good enough to sell at knock down prices. Welcome to the buy high sell low happy days of 2008 housing hell.

I was writing a review of a certain local crap mechanic in Yahoo Yellow pages and I noticed the members' profile page. From there you can search people by name for their telephone and email address! I know where this guy lives, so it doesn't interest me to go snooping for his personal details, but I tried a little experiment, and searched my father's name by email address.

Bloody hell, judging by the extensive results, I could have a hundred fathers! It was like a reversal of a girl in every port. A father in every state.

Anyway, the point is, I can barely remember my father's private email address, and I am his son, so why a complete stranger should be able to find it... Basically, I thought that access to that sort of info was a bit too intrusive for my liking.

And from there I followed a couple of clicks and found a site, Intelius, where you could enter a name and for $49.95 find the Social Security number, name, address, neighbors and all sorts of personal details. Now that I thought was well spooky. Why would I want to know about my father's neighbor?

That lead me to People You will see in hell. A site full of nasty people located all around America. And of course, that explained why people like to search for neighbors!!

Right or wrong?

If you are a sex offender you should be labelled as such your whole life. On the flip side, it is only right that society be well educated about how to deal with such people.

I am not on the side of the bad guys, but I do wonder if anyone can be trusted to do the right thing with publicly available info. For instance, if you are not a sex offender and have nothing to hide, what is the big deal about knowing my address? How about lots!

How about if you were the upstanding pediatrician whose house was vandalised by neighbors. The neighbors were so literate, that after coming across her personal info in public records, they thought that her job title meant she was a child molestor! Seriously, that happened in the UK a few years ago.

Then there is risk of identity theft, harrassment from people who wish you physical harm, harrassment from people after your money, after your vote, after your approval... Let's face it, from knowledge comes power and with power comes all sorts of bad shit, especially when power is in unaccountable hands.

Too much freedom of information

Yes, I am very wary of all this freedom of information crap, but not because I have a guilt complex. Having recently been checked out by the FBI, I can proudly announce that I have nothing to hide in terms of illegalities, but I am a private person by nature, and a cynic too.

Why should I feel relaxed knowing some clerk at a commercial company is looking through all my spending habits trying to work me out? I am not interested in them, so leave me alone, and stop mailing me brochures for colostomy bags. Just because I am called the Pisstaker, jeezus.

I don't trust anybody outside of the top agencies to do the right thing with my info, and neither should you! And I guess if I were a former blonde bombshell CIA spy called Valerie, I wouldn't trust the authorities to keep my personal info private, either!

Have a good holiday, folks, and remember, in this time of festive fun, don't be paranoid, be very paranoid.

'Tis the season to be jolly - and for watching junk TV. For some reason I woke up to Scrooge playing on the box. I guess i went to sleep with the TV on last night? Anyway, it was the version with Captain Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek as Scrooge. He played the infamous character in a Shakespearean style and for the first time ever, I actually got the story.

Obviously I knew it was a tale about the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, playing on the mind of a miserable miser, but this version actually conveyed the underlying message in an understandable way.

Man has the ability to change his behavior to make the world a better place. Just because you have done wrong thing your whole life, doesn't make it right, and doesn't mean it has to be so forever.

In light of a few recent run-ins with despicable characters, I think this video should be distributed to all businesses world wide, as a reminder that it is not too late to turn the commercial hell enveloping us into a force for good.

Now it is time to go back to pissing in the wind, banging my head against a wall, striving in vain to use satire to shame the world into being more consistent.

Happy holidays to those over sensitive folks offended by the word Christmas.

Deck the cells with boughs of holly. Yahoo conspired with the Chinese government to get a bunch of dissidents arrested.The Yahoos have agreed to pay the dissidents' legal costs. That's nice. A bit like breaking my legs and offering to pay my hospital fees!

Caterpillar were sued for their involvement in the 2005 death of a protester and the destruction of homes on the Gaza strip. I am not sure this is a legitimate case. It was the Israeli army, not the manufacturer, at the wheel. Secondly, even though the instruction manual probably doesn't specify the performance of their machinery in a protest type of scenario, common sense says that if you stand in front of a 10-ton Cat, you will be crushed.

Ever heard of Nichia? I thought not. They make LEDs. They are a nice bunch of people, probably, but if you use their product, it seems that you have to acknowledge their name in your product, else you will be sued. Great customer relations. So, if you see Santa, remind him to check that he is acknowledging the maker of his sleigh lights, else it may be impounded. On second thoughts, an infringement could mean the end of Xmas. You decide.

And before you tuck into your Christmas fare, do the litmus test for lead, another test for e-coli, mmmm, and just in case, run the geiger counter over your buckling dinner table, to check for radiation poisoning.

Relax. If you find anything wrong, before, during or after you have eaten, don't despair, there will be a lawyer prepared to take your case.

Thanks MarketWatch for some of the corporate Christmas bash ideas.

Ever thought of promoting your blog the old-fashioned way? Steve says try this business card service. Sounds convenient and almost free, and cards are useful for teeth picking and rickety table legs.

Video action may soon be rolling again, if the Breaking News team can break away from their snazzy new chat room. Always lots going on there with entertainment, tech and world news.

IESP continues to rock the fun world of home, pregnancy and work. This week she gambled and won $80, had a glucose test and got a Sirius radio. Howard Stern better be on his metal if she phones in.

According to Mike, the 80-20 rule applies to most things in life. eg 80% of your rewards come from 20% of your work. I will therefore assume my point is made & I'll waste no further effort on the rest of this entry.

Having had a recent run-in with a mechanic myself, the mention of $400 to turn off a yellow light in her car caught my eye. My advice. Don't pay & for good measure, poke the courtesy shuttle driver IN the eye.

Remember when Mexicans complained that tortilla prices were through the roof, thanks to ethanol / corn policies? Now the policy is hitting US homes in the ass too. Linda laments rising food prices.

Jon Swift is a huge, I mean, humungous political satire heavyweight. I feel almost worthy to have him here this week, and recommend you head over to get his perspective on the news. He is right!

It is always a lively time with Lord Likely. When you next see the film, or read the book, Scrooge, remember it is a cheap imitation of the Likely original.


All that comes with that is an insightful blog from a cool Brit. There is some new perspective to GI Joe and cartoons and music and... I enjoyed the read. Bookmark

These guys have an interesting About page. Also, 10e20 is sitting top of my list of 1000+ images, so I guess there were advantages to the name when directories were useful search tools.

MyBlogLog Sunday week 38 comes to you from a gray miserable East coast. A true reflection of Christmas? Maybe not, if you are all prepared, wrapped and ready, and your credit card is still in good shape.

However, according to one report I read, 25% of the country will start their holiday season presents shopping today. That sounds like a recipe for a red hot heated and exciting day for many. Bring it on. (And any nutters out there, do us a favor and leave your weapons at home. Elbows and a dumb stare are usually sufficient to get you to the front of the queue.)

As per the "rules", the 10 bloggers in the screenshot will get a mini review, my finest PR4 backlink, plus a link to your MyBlogLog community... and I have been a negligent stumbler these last couple of weeks so I will try to rectify that and stumble any posts from any bloggers (featured or not) who leave a link to their own favorite post of the week.

MyBlogLog Sunday info links

Be back later.

And this video review from Breaking News will shed some light on what goes on, if you haven't called by before.