The current and ongoing Occupy Wall Street (twitter tag #Occupywallstreet ) protests have certainly started to gain some traction in the media. Outlets in the US such as CNN have been giving the event some good coverage, as have a number of other news organizations. Of course, twitter, facebook, and other social media sites have become meccas for this movement, but these social sites have also revealed the strangeness and lack of focus of these protests.

In theory, Occupy Wall Street originally was all about bitching that the banks got bailed out of the recession, the bank owners continued to get paid big salaries after screwing up, and now the banks are back making profits and getting rich – while the US (and much of the world) sites in the middle of an economic downturn / recession / depression that has been incredibly hard to shake. On that basis and that basis alone, the protests have some merit, but perhaps are more than a little ineffective.

What has swelled the ranks of the protests however has been the muddled message. Everyone and their dog with an axe to grind (real or imaginary) is part of the protest now, from the standard “protest everything” anarchists to students complaining about their student loans, from the unemployed to the never going to be employed, from grad students to squeegee kids. They are all in there in a mish mash of ideas, causes, and general displeasure.

Sadly, what has ended up happening is that the protests have become more and more directly anti-capitalist. It seems that the same types who show up at G8 or G20 meetings to protest, to break windows, and to cause mayhem are slowing coming to the fore in the OWS “movement” as well, and the message is becoming more and more directly against any capitalist activities at all. It takes away from the true initial idea of OWS, and instead has turned it on it’s head.

The movement of course isn’t helped by people chanting anti-capitalist slogans, while tweeting on their new iphone, wearing Tommy Hilfiger clothes, Oakley sunglasses, and Nike running shoes. It doesn’t play well when the most important thing in the park is power to recharge smart phones, rather than sanitary facilities. People defecating on the street while others use their smart phones to tweet the picture is a symptom of the bigger problem: They think that everyone else except themselves should suffer – and that most of them don’t seem to understand that they are really protesting anymore.

My suggestion for the OWS crowd is to give it up and go home. Go occupy yourself for a while. Go look at your own life and find ways to make it better. Work on the political level in your area with the part of your choice to find candidates that support your stand against wall street. If you want to change the way things work, you have to change the laws for everyone. Lower your own expectations, take the Mc Job and stop waiting for everyone else to fix your life. Don’t blame others for where you are at, move forward and you can get it done.

Occupy Yourself. Change starts with us.

As I wrote before about Wikileaks, just because you can do something doesn’t make it right. Technical ability to do something doesn’t make it legal, doesn’t make it morally acceptable, and doesn’t mean that you can get away with it. Rep. Weiner has found this out the hard way (pun intended), as the use of social media platforms and digital cameras have left him hanging out to dry.

Yes, digital cameras allow us to take naughty pictures that we don’t have to get someone to develop for us. With cell phones and such having high mega pixel count cameras these days, it is possible to take some pretty darn good pictures of your naked body for your lovers and so on, if that is something you want to do. Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, allow us to communicate rapidly, and sometimes this combination of easy to make naughty pictures and fast internet sharing leads to these images getting sent around. It’s almost faster than you can think, and the deal is done. Once done, you cannot take it back.

Sexting, the sending of text messages on a phone with photo attachments is another avenue for this sort of thing. There have been a number of cases discussing underage nude images being shared this way, as willing girls send naughty pictures of themselves to their boyfriends, who sometimes share them around. One of the problems is that this sort thing is actually child porn, and legally unacceptable.

Sexting is also big in colleges and universitys. The scary part about that is that we have perhaps an entire generation of women who have traded naughty pictures with guys, who perhaps have archived them for later display. Maybe in 20 or 30 years when they are running for political office, an old boyfriend will pull out an image of them naked or engaged in a sex act, and run them out of politics. It has taken much less to cause a fuss in these oddly politically correct times.

My advice? Don’t take pictures of yourself naked, and don’t send them to people. Certainly don’t do it if you are a politician, married, and so on. Duh Weiner, you did it to yourself. I hope your few minutes of sexual pleasure makes up for all that you will lose. Maybe you can get a talk show on CNN.

A while back, I wrote a piece about Wikileaks and how just being able to do something didn’t make it right. There are so many things that have happened around Wikileaks in the last little while that raise all sorts of red flags about the true intent of the organization, and it’s true goals.

The latest piece of stupidity is a report on Wired that says that Wikileaks leader Julian Assange is making employees sign non-disclosure agreements, effectively trying to stop leaks from an organization that is about leaks. Yeah, I know, it’s a head shaker for sure. However, when you think about it, it is just another piece of the puzzle that reveals the true intentions of Wikileaks.

This sort of move shows that Wikileaks isn’t about putting information out there, but rather about putting information out there if and when it is useful for the Wikileaks organization or the causes / political parties / political concepts they support. Right now, Wikileaks continues to sit on massive amounts of information from the Manning leaks, which they have not released. Instead, those documents are in an AES256 Password encrypted file, not viewable by the general public until Assange feels the need. Why would an organization about leaks not make the information public?

You have to look at the connections that exist between the Pirate Party, The Pirate Bay, Wikileaks, and various “rogue” politicians that support the cause. Releases of information appear to be done not so much to inform the public, as much as to embarrass officials or to cause the most harm possible. More than once, Julian Assange has threatened companies or governments with disclosure of information, more often then not with an indirect reference to stopping some action or allowing something to happen as a key to stopping the release of information. That seems to be getting very close to blackmail, at least on the surface.

The latest “stop the leaks at Wikileaks” document shows that Assange isn’t about getting the information to the public, but rather to getting control of information and being able to use it to further his agenda. For supporters of transparency and information flow, it seems that Assange has hijacked the entire process to his own ends. The question now is how long Wikileaks remains relevant before people start working around this blockage.

What a weird world we live in. Since President Obama became the candidate for President of the US a few years ago, there has been a group of people who think he that he wasn’t born in the US. These so called birthers are the mouth breathers of US politics, a group that makes Sarah Palin supporters look bright. They ragged on about the birth thing, called Obama a Kenyan, pointed out his middle name is Hussein (trying to paint him as a hated Muslim, which he is not), and so on. They were a persistent, annoying circus, egged on by the Republican leaders and conservative media types who would sidestep the issue and by their silence, encouraged the wingnuts to keep up their crusade. Donald Trump, seeing this as a chance to ride the wave, took the concept very public, and attacked Obama about his failure to release a birth certificate.

Of course, all of that changed a couple of weeks back when Obama’s Birth Certificate was released. Suddenly, the birthers were left out in the cold, Trump was busy eating his words, and the nut jobs didn’t have anything to rag on about anymore. The more extreme went into the last defensive position that it took 2 years for them to fake the birth certificate, and in the end, the release of Obama’s birth certificate pretty much shut up the birther movement and made them useless.

Skip ahead a few days, and Osama Bin Laden gets taken out by US forces. Now it’s a double down time for Obama, not only did he shut up the birthers, but he accomplished the very mission that Bush and the Republican’s could not do, taking out the biggest terrorist target in the world. What does that get us?

The birthers were reborn, this time as deathers. Yup, now that Osama Bin Hiding is now Osama Bin Killed, the wingnuts are on the warpath, alternately claiming that Bin Laden isn’t dead, was killed for no reason, was killed illegally, or was in fact killed years ago and that Obama is just trying to get a boost by killing his ghost.

Some people will never be satisfied.

2011 started on an up note for the NASCAR nation (or is that Napcar Nation?). Daytona was a weird race with two car drafts and all sorts of off stuff, and a surprise, nay, shocking win for the part time Wood Brothers team and their rookie drive Trevor Bayne, who isn’t even running for points. That was a nice pickup, the TV ratings were good, and important for NASCAR, Dale Jr did pretty good too. Plus with the NFL Superbowl and all being out of the way and the Pro-bowl nowhere to be seen, NASCAR was running without any competition. Full throttle!

On to Pheonix. Good move for NASCAR to take California out of the 2nd race of the season spot. The TV ratings were good, attendance was good, and overall, a reasonably interesting race. Vegas was pretty much the same thing, pretty darn good crowds, uptick in ratings, and things were actually looking pretty good.

However, it looks like someone forgot to tighten a few lugnuts on the last pit stop, because when the circus came to Bristol this past weekend, few people seemed to care.

Yes, it’s March madness. Yes, the economy is hurting. Yes, it’s spring in an area that sometimes still gets snow this time of the year. But Bristol was the home of 55 consecutive sellouts, filling it’s 160,000 seats with a 20,000 name waiting list for tickets. It was the big deal. It was possibly the poster child for NASCAR success, a modern gladiator arena, with rough and tumble action, hard driving, chrome horns, and more than a few frayed nerves. It was poetry with a sledge hammer, ballet with a baseball bat. It was about surviving the event, being aggressive and being contained, not blowing your top as you get sent for a spin. Not anymore, it seems.

In 2007, SMI decided it was time to redo the track (it needed it, the rebar in the old concrete was showing through). In an absolute bout of stupidity, they decided to add “variable banking”. The idea is to give the track a second groove. They succeed, but in doing so they removed much of what the fans came looking for. Since that time, attendance has been on a steady decline, and a race that so many people looked forward to has sort of slipped away.

The results? Well, backed with a weekend off (never a good thing so early in the season), Bristol has probably it’s lowest attendance since SMI bought the facility in 1996 (they had 86,000 seats for the summer race). While some suggested 120,000 or even 130,000 this weekend, it was painfully obvious even the casual observer that the place wasn’t much more than half full. That would put the number in that 80,000-90,000 range. While it is still a large crowd, it is a disappointing result at a facility that had a waiting list just 4 short years ago.

More importantly, TV ratings also dropped, another 9% off of last year’s disappointing results, and somewhere near 40% off the viewership in 2008.

Plenty of people make the standard economy, costs, and what have you excuses, but that would only hold water if people were not attending but still watching. NASCAR started the season well and pulled some viewers back from their down season last year. But Bristol shows that the fans just aren’t liking the changes. The drivers say the racing is better, but in a world where it is about putting on a good show, it is clear that the fans no longer think Bristol is a good show.

The real challenge for NASCAR comes this week: California’s Auto Club Speedway. This is the only NASCAR event there this year, they lost one race, and have moved this remaining event later into the season (from race 2 to race 5), and chopped 100 miles off a race that is often considered a snoozer. Things aren’t looking that good, a quick check on their website shows plenty of prime “top rows of grandstands near pit entrance” and “pit exit” are available without issue. They have had horrible attendance problems, and TV ratings that mostly seemed to live in the runoff from Daytona, as the fall race (during the chase even) last year pulled a stunning 2.5 rating, which is nearing test pattern range.

With staggeringly bad attendance and TV ratings from Bristol, California may be another case of “do or die” for NASCAR, as we find out if things are on and upswing, or if the start of the 2011 season was just a dead cat bounce.

When I heard that TLC was picking up Sarah Palin’s new reality show, I couldn’t help but think the timing was perfect. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, considering commentaries like this one on CNN that shows more than a few people picked up the vibe.

When it comes to playing in the grey areas of politics, Sarah Palin is a pro. The whole Tea Party movement (which appeared to fall flat on it’s face in many areas during the midterm elections) was her baby, but she very carefully made sure she wasn’t running it. Sure, she will turn up and give a speech, but she won’t run anything. She stays away. The TV show? In her own words, “Now there you go again”, Palin takes advantage of wide media coverage without having to commit to anything.

It isn’t surprising coming out of TLC, who’s roster of programs on the channel often reads like a conservative Christian manual, cheering on oversized families, putting people of Christian beliefs front and center on their network. TV shows such as the insane 19 Kids and Counting seems to celebrate old Monty Python “every sperm is sacred” song. What is truly stunning is that the people running TLC either didn’t consider for a second that Palin is very likely using her show to springboard a campaign, or is at least using it to create a more favorable profile to the public, a very controlled image where they can edit out the bloopers, eliminate the ugly phrases, and show Sarah as the tough mom, hardened outdoors person, and just swell gal you want to spend your time with.

Shame on TLC for getting caught on this one. Shame on Sarah Palin too, for being one of the most incredible self-promoting political shills.

Well, it seems that the programming people over at Spike TV woke up and realized that doubling the amount of ads is just not a very good idea. After experimenting with a new format that turned an hour long show into something like an hour and 15 to an hour and 25 minutes (without adding any programming, just commercials), they appear to have tucked tail and given up, as the schedule appears to be back to normal.

Following up on our story of Spike TV extra ads, other stories started to appear, like this one in the LA Times, that shows we aren’t the only ones seeing this stupid trend. Advertising Age ran this story that showed that not only were consumers getting upset, but advertisers as well, as super long breaks mean that up to 20 advertisers are crammed on top of each other in the breaks, which they suggests were long enough to “take a brisk walk around the block” or “brown a chicken”. It is suggested that part of the problem is that Spike overpaid for programming, specifically $600,000 an episode for Entourage, the raunchy HBO hit that has to be severely edited to make it onto basic cable.

It appears that the MTV networks people that run Spike woke up and realized that they were making nobody happy, that they were not helping their bottom line, and so on. Rather than taking their programming mistakes out on consumers, perhaps they should look at themselves and work it out internally. You have to wonder how much this blunder has cost Spike in viewership.

Now, on the the birthers.

What are birthers? These are the people who are somehow convinced that Barrack Obama cannot be the President of the United States because he was (according to them) not born in the US. Now, there is a record of birth for Barrack Obama in Hawaii, but they take his Indonesian school records (where he was listed as barry soetoro, his fathers last name). Now, if this is the smoking gun, the “clue” that they all point to, I would suggest that they need to get a clue themselves.

It isn’t unusual for school records to show a shortened version of a kid’s name (especially when the name is in English in a country where English is NOT the main language) and combine it with his step father’s name (which is why he went to school in Indonesia). But it is clear that his mother only remarried when Barrack was 6, and this man (Pak Lolo Soetoro) is not Obama’s father. So this smoking gun is debunked pretty much right out of the gate.

The next birther theory is that Obama was born in Kenya. Now, it is true that his real father Barrak Hussein Obama Sr, is from Kenya. However, there is absolutely no indication that the birth happened in Kenya. In fact, an American living in Kenya would very likely return to the US to assure that their child was born in the US, that they got high end care during and after child buirth, and that their child was a US citizen.

It takes all of about 30 seconds to dismiss the Birther’s logic, as none of it adds up. That some seemingly intelligent people such as Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, a doctor in the military. He refused to take orders because the commander in chief (the president) was not born in the US, and therefore cannot be President. I am amazed to see seemingly smart people turned into slack jawed mouth breeders.

The reality is that many in the birther movement are there because they have racists tendancies. Rather than saying they do not like a black man in the White House, and don’t want to serve under a black man. They can’t say that because they know everyone will mark it down as racist. Instead, the create this amazing birther conspiracy, which has been debunked any number of time (and can easily be debunked as I have shown above). They call him Barry Soetoro, they call him a muslim, they call him all sorts of things, but in the end, Barrack Obama is the lawful and elected President of the United States.

Between the Birthers and the Tea Baggers, it would appear that the right wing of US politics is sinking into angry little groups of political infighters, rather than a force that can take on the Democrats in the long run. The Republican party really needs to step up to the plate and take charge, or risk being run over by the mouth breathers and yahoos that are currently running the show.

One of the amazing things about the internet is how fast news spreads. The other things that is amazing about the internet is just how slanted major media sources can be. Once again, Matt Drudge and his Drudge Report site lead the way with ignorance and hateful attacks. This is a site now solely dedicated to slamming President Obama and the Democratic party, such that almost any other news is either second place or not mentioned at all.

Today’s big headline? “Whitehouse Blocks Chef Tweets”. That’s right, the most important news of the day in the Drudge universe isn’t the fiery rioting in Thailand, it isn’t taliban claims to have attacked a US base overseas, and it certainly isn’t the sex scandal that has multi-term Republican Mark Souder resigning after being caught in an illicit affair with one of his staff. Nope, it’s all about how the Whitehouse isn’t allowing a guest chef to tweet his every movement leading up to a formal dinner later this week. All this combined with Matt’s wonderful selection of images, always trying to find the one image that shows people off at their worst.

Do you feel informed? You should feel outraged. Drudge claims 30 million visits in the last 24 hours, and means that 30 million people are now more informed about a tweeting issue instead of a Republican involved in a sex scandal. How can that be good or useful? This isn’t the first time that I have mentioned the drudgereport’s tendacies to sit on the conservative side of things, but damn,this is blantant and willfully trying to cover something up. Nasty.

It’s a shame, Drudge use to actually do news. Now he just does one sided slams. Maybe he is angling for a seat as Rush Limbaugh’s side kick or something.

A recent rash of celebrity sex scandals has made me wonder how all of this has come about. Is there more cheating going on in Hollywood, or has scandal become so fashionable that nobody tries to avoid it anymore? Actually, I think the real answer is money and the 15 minutes of fame.

Tiger Woods’ well publicized sex scandal has made instant stars out of any number of girls. Many of these girls appear to have either sold their stories for cash to the tabloids, or have used their Tiger connections to boost appearance fees or generate press. Anything connected to Tiger Woods is money, that is for sure, and being attached to him in such an infamous way is certainly not hurting these girls too much. In fact, more supposed players keep coming out of the woodwork, so it isn’t like shame is driving them to hide, now is it? Tiger has done a well publicized stint in rehab, and his near triumphant return to golf has be closely watched – and well marketed by one of his few remaining sponsors, Nike.

Jesse James situation is even a little weirder, because he is married to Sandra Bullock, who many consider just too damn sexy to stay away from. Yet, Jesse has been connected to a collection of tattooed girls, odd Nazi references, and even weirder group sex stories that will have you shaking your head. When you look at those girls and Sandra Bullock, it is really weird to think anything would have happened at all. It seemed that pretty much every nut job with a tattoo was coming out claiming to have some sort of sexual relationship with the West Coast Choppers builder. Jesse has apparently also gone down the rehab road, and already fallout comes with the cancellation of his “Jesse James is a Dead Man” series, which had actually done pretty well on SpikeTV.

The latest scandal involves movie star, cop, and martial arts master Steven Seagal. This one is particularly weird, if only because the charges leveled by a former model are so out of character for him as to be a little hard to swallow. Kayden Nguyen alleges that she was hired to be a personal assistant, but upon starting the job she discovered it was more about being his personal sex toy. It’s a bit of a head shaker for sure. The question now will be how many more girls will suddenly come out of the woodwork to claim their 15 minutes of undeserved fame?