Attack of the Internet Of Things

The ID chip in my brand-new shoes
And the ID chip in my jeans
Have been talking to strangers I pass on the street
And I’m not really sure what that means

The chip in my shirt holds a brief conversation
With chips in the windows of stores
It talks to the bagels and talks to the books,
But me, it politely ignores

Are they planning surprises? Sharing some gossip?
Just talking behind my back?
Are they sentient beings with minds of their own
Using software to plan an attack?

Is it companies working to track their consumers
To figure which items are hot?
Is it Microsoft, Apple, McDonald’s or worse,
Some sort of a government plot?

I’m ripping the tags from my shoes and my clothing
To frustrate the spies and the moles
So no one will know as I walk down the street
With my clothing in tatters and holes.

Paranoid rant, after the jump: [Read more…]

One Million Moms Don’t Like Schweddy Balls

“One Million Moms” are marching
In the grocery stores and malls
To protest execution? No!
To protest Schweddy Balls!

They’ll send their waves of emails,
With their keyboards at the ready;
It’s not the excess calories—
The name says “Balls” and “Schweddy”

“We’re looking for a million moms”
They have not got them yet
But still, they’ll claim their million
Lest the media forget

Health care? Bullying? Abuse?
Education? Gun control?
A million moms could take a stand
But that’s not how they roll

They want their Christian values
On the television screen
While death, and pain, and prejudice
Are blissfully unseen

Via NPR, the inspiration for Schweddy Balls in the first place.

Seriously, go take a look at their “other issues”; if ever there was a group dedicated to tone and not substance, this is it.

And nowhere do they state their actual numbers. How many moms do you need before you can legitimately call yourself “one million moms”?

Edit–if you are the type who never reads comments, make an exception! Interesting information about the Million Moms, from commenter “freebird”. (thanks, freebird!)

Advice For An Executioner

Brush away the doubts you had
If ever they existed
Forget the hints of innocence
You must be iron-fisted
Forget that seven witnesses
Were pressed, they say, to lie;
Cos someone killed a cop, you see
So someone’s got to die.

Push aside the arguments
Of bias in the system
The courts have heard them all before
And this time, they’ve dismissed them
Forget the lack of evidence
To say he is the one
It’s eye for eye, and life for life,
And justice must be done

Sleep with guiltless conscience
That’s assuming that you can
Do what it takes; convince yourself
You’ve got the guilty man
You may have killed the man you blame
But in your dreams, you’ll see
The man you killed was not the one…
The killer has gone free

If Cole Porter Were An Evolutionary Psychologist…

It’s a reproductive message
And I’m passing it along
I read it in my DNA
And wrote it in this song
It’s just a reproductive message
A reproductive message to you

It’s an imperative of nature
It’s not just my excuse
There is no greater calling
Than “survive and reproduce”
It’s an imperative of nature
A reproductive message to you

I’m enamored of your phenotype
I’d love to share your genotype
I never thought I’d see no type like you
Your lovely physiology
Has triggered my biology
And now, no simple “golly gee” will do

So now my message is embedded
In meter and in verse
With music as the medium
I guess it could be worse
So long as someone gets embedded…
A reproductive message to you

We all are in the bidness
Of reproductive fitness
But now I fear I’m witnessing the end
Biology is boom or bust
And when it comes to love and lust
No future comes from being just a friend

And that’s the purpose of my singing
You’ve probably deduced
The music is irrelevant
Unless you’ve been seduced
And that’s the purpose of my singing
My reproductive message to you

Sciency stuff after the jump:
[Read more…]

The Spiritual Guide To Losing

When life gives you lemons, when life steals your hope,
When tragedy o’erflows your cup
When suffering comes, amidst crisis and loss
The key is to learn to give up.

The things you’ve achieved, and the battles you’ve won
Your possessions—your piece of the pie
Your retirement savings from decades of work,
It’s much better to just let them die.

Refocus your mind from the things of the world
To redemption, forgiveness from sin
The key to it all, in the spiritual sense?
Re-defining a loss as a win.

Rant, after the jump:
[Read more…]

Texas Eats Puppy

Having dried up the lakes, and dehydrated guppies
The governor now sets his sights on the puppies
Since his prayer-fest for rain, which the whole region lacks,
It’s been sunshine and drought, and the land now has cracks
Not spiderweb cracks—that would almost be luck—
Big enough that a puppy fell in and got stuck!
If Perry has got a connection to God
Then these cracks that eat puppies are more than just odd—
Either way, the conclusion’s a little bit scary:
Either Perry hates puppies… or God hates Perry.

The drought has left the earth in Texas cracked and hurting. The cracks are familiar to anyone who has seen a dried-out lake bed, but of course, everything is bigger in Texas. In Texas, the cracks are big enough to have trapped a puppy, who needed to be rescued. Yes, the puppy is cute. Yes, there is video at the link.

More Trouble For Giant Cuttlefish

As if things were not bad enough
Point Lowly now has seals
Who may decide that cuttlefish
Make very tasty meals.
For now, they dine on snappers, but
They still are a concern
With fur seals by the dozen…
Will the cuttlefish return?

Via email from John Morales, minutes ago, more bad news for the Giant Cuttlefish at Point Lowly:

Fur seals have been spotted in upper Spencer Gulf at the breeding ground of the giant cuttlefish.

Whyalla fisherman Alan Hall says dozens of seals have been feeding on snapper at Point Lowly.

So they are eating snapper now, but giant cuttlefish are basically a protein popsicle. Just the cuttlebone, no nasty needle-shaped bones, no nasty scales. Seals aren’t dumb; I am worried.

While I’m talking about Point Lowly, let me remind any of you who have not signed the petition to do so ASAP. In my opinion, international signers are every bit as important; this is a huge tourist destination as well as a local treasure.

Headline Muse, 9/13

When he said “the earth orbits the sun”
Huntsman’s spin-men cried “what have you done?!?”
And alas, his reliance
On non-Bible “science”
Has him polling at negative one!

Headline: Perry Leads but Romney Gaining in GOP Favorability

Ok, again, it’s not technically a headline, but work with me.

The money shot (to be fair, it’s “strongly favorable – strongly unfavorable”):

Just Haggling Over The Price…

When Bachmann accused him of selling his vote
Perry quickly composed his rebuff;
It wasn’t the principle, viewers may note–
But five grand wasn’t nearly enough

There are hundreds of donors who’ve given donations
Of one hundred thousand or more
If you want to be one of Rick Perry’s temptations
It’s six figures to get in the door!

There are two different worlds–there’s the people with money
And the people without it, like me
Which is why I just laugh, even though it’s not funny
When they tell me that freedom ain’t free.

Brief comment, after the jump:
[Read more…]