Electric Cars Aren't Green!

The Chevy Volt, The Next Big Hybrid, is getting a lot of buzz.



The Nissan Leaf, the first all electric plug-in auto is up next in the batting circle.



In the wake of BP's crude splooge in the Golf of Mexico, everyone is clamoring to dump their fossil fuel powered vehicles and jump on the electric car bandwagon.

But electric cars are just the latest cup covering the unavoidable fossil fuel pea in an elaborate environmental shell game.



OK, so you buy your electric car and free yourself from fossil fuels thus reducing your carbon footprint, slow Global Climate Change and make the world a better place. You can feel good about yourself and look disdainfully upon those gas-guzzling, JO Co, SUV driving bastards.

WRONG!

Where do you think electricity comes from? It's not transmitted through the ether to your home through unicorn horns and rainbows.



Almost 70% of electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels! All electric cars do is cause us to burn more coal to generate more electricity.

Sure, you can load up your recyclables in your electric car and brag about how you don't have to pay $50 to fill up your gas tank any more. "I just plug it in and recharge it!"

But now your electric bill has gone from a couple of hundred dollars a month to double that because your car is sucking on your electric tit all night long, drinking electricity generated by burning coal!

You can be all smug about driving a "zero-emissions" car that doesn't even have a tailpipe, but the local utility company's power plants spewed tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to generate the electricity that powers your "zero-emission" vehicle.

The only way that electric vehicles make any sense is if we transition away from electricity generated by coal and natural gas to electricity generated by solar, wind, geothermal and tidal forces.

Until then, electric car buyers are just masturbating to images of Ed Begley, Jr. while continuing to kill the planet.

Rihanna's a showstopper

A red-headed Rihanna hit the New York restaurant Da Silvano's recently for a romantic dinner with her boyfriend Matt Kemp. Lawd, I'm still trying to get used to that fire engine red hair.....



Do you, girl.

Images: Young, Black and Fabulous

I Don't Care

Just for the record...

I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut who the mayor of Kansas City is, who serves on the City Council or why, who the political power players are, whether or not the KC school district is accredited (it's not), or how many urban criminals kill each other this summer over drug deals gone bad.

Fix your shit or not Kansas City. Makes no difference to me.

I. Don't. Care.

Crop Over Review

Well, Crop Over done for another year, and it's back to reality after a few months of 'serious wukking'. I must admit that I was feeling the Crop Over spirit more so than last year, partly because the music was way better this time around.

Anyhoo, here's my list of the high and low lights of Crop Over 2010:

Highs

The Dream Box funeral. Wuhloss. Dem Madd Boys too sweet. For those of you who don't know what a Dream Box is, it's an electronic device used to access cable channels free of cost, and Bajans have been making it snort for years. Well, the lone tv station CBC found a way to shut it down, so for the past few months folks have been reduced to watching only the local channel 8 or paying for the cable packages.

The comedy duo of Eric Lewis and Kevin Hinds of Madd Entertainment cooked up a stirring tribute to the demise of the Dream Box, and it was a Crop Over hit.


Dale "Mr Dale" Rudder - Mr. Dale charmed soca fans a few years back with his smash Soca Junkie, and he was back this year with a song that was made to make waists wine, Drop It. And it netted him a second People's Monarch win as well.


Rick "Lil' Rick" Reid - I'm not a huge fan of Lil Rick. Though talented, he appeals to the lowest common denominator when wearing his DJ hat, and I'm really not into that scene. But there's no denying that in 2010 he meant business, with a whole album of hits, including Big Hail , What A Feeling and the infectious Go Down. Good job, Rick.


Anderson "Blood" Armstrong - 2001 was Blood's year. He not only captured the Party Monarch title, but copped the Road March as well. Bloody good, I say.

No Pong or Contone - Look, I know that "entertainers" Pong and Contone have their fans but for real, but if we're serious about producing a quality festival, then this underwhelming duo should take a back seat. Or at the very least, bring back the Clown Prince competition just for them....

The extended route - As one reveller said, more time to wuk up! Nuff said.


Lows

The not so Soca Royale
I was winging my way to Grenada when the Soca Royale was taking place at Bushy Park, so I didn't hear of the result till the next day. I never understood why the NCF would decide to have a sweet soca competition, distinguishing it from the party monarch competition, only to have a face-off between the two. Sounded like a way to get out of providing two prizes to me....

TC/Gabby getting booed
Even though I too was surprised when TC and the Mighty Gabby won the Sweet Soca Competitions and the Pic-O-De-Crop Finals respectively, at the end of the day the judges decision is final. Booing competitors is stupid and plain rude, peoples.


The Gabby/Admiral dust-up
Okay, I confess. I laughed when I heard that the venerable Anthony "Mighty Gabby" Carter had allegedly engaged in fisticuffs with the lippy, opinionated broadcaster Anthony "Admiral" Nelson. But, really, we're all adults here, and violence never solves anything! *snicker*

CAPTION: Announcer Admiral Nelson (right) speaking after the incident with Stedson "RPB" Wiltshire


Images: nationnews.com/boycevoice.com

An Open Letter To Dean Wescott, Owner Of Minsky's

Dear Mr. Wescott,

This is to inform you that I have recently become disinclined to continue doing business with you and henceforth I shant be availing myself of your victuals.

That means I ain't ordering no more pizzas from you.

Which is a goddamn shame because I'm quite partial to your EYEtalian steak sandwiches and I have the bloated physique to prove it.

No, Dean, the problem is with the prehistoric, Amish manner in which you handle your financial transactions.

Let me tell you a little bit about XO, Dean.

Unlike you, I don't own a chain of fucking restaurants. You probably don't have any trouble making ends meet. In fact, I bet your ends are overlapping and looping back around each other like a couple of snakes giving each other oral sex. I'm sure you're doing just fine.

But I, on the other hand, am just a middle class working stiff living paycheck to paycheck. Other than my fat ass, I don't have any cushion. No savings, no credit, no investments, no prospects or provision for a cushy retirement. In fact, if I live long enough to retire, I'm pretty much fucked. Which is why I order your EYEtalian steak sandwiches with extra fries and wash it down with a bottle of bourbon. Think of it as hedge fund approach.

But I digress.

My point is, I sometimes have to manage my finances uncomfortably close to the wire. To this end, I stepped into the 21st century several years ago and quit writing checks. In fact, other than my octogenarian parents, I don't know anybody who writes checks anymore.

I use my debit card for EVERYTHING. This allows me to rely on the balance shown on my statements and receipts from the ATMs because I KNOW that I don't have any latent charges (or "presentments", as they are called in the biz") floating around out there. A debit card transaction is as immediate as it gets.

This has been working for me PERFECTLY, without exception, for several years. Until this week.

My girlfriend was coming to my house on Tuesday and I needed to swing by Price Chopper on the way home to pick up some snacking goodies and libations. I checked my balance at an ATM on Tuesday and had a bit over $80. So I stopped at Price Chopper and dropped a little over $40 on munchy/drinky stuff. No problem, I was getting paid today. Just had another 48 hours till payday.

On Wednesday morning, just to make sure (because that's how carefully I manage things), I checked my balance at the ATM again expecting to verify that I had around $30 left to limp on till payday.

Imagine my SHOCK and PANIC to discover that my account was overdrawn by (-$4.67)! I never, EVER, overdraw my account! Fucking NEVER! I suspected identity theft.

I pull up my last 30 days of transactions and what do I find?

TWO "PRESENTMENTS" FROM MINSKY'S FUCKING PIZZA THAT BOTH CAME THROUGH AT 8:21 TUESDAY NIGHT WHILE I WAS HANGING WITH THE GIRLFRIEND AND NOT EATING MINSKY'S FUCKING PIZZA! One for $19.21 and the other for $16.80. Which was just enough to send my delicately balanced account over the edge!

Now, luckily, that morning I had decided to grab the Tupperware container full of my collection of daily pocket change just in case things got tight. The change yielded a bit over $50 in the change counter. Damn good thing or I literally would not have had enough gas to drive home from work!

I took $5 of that $50 and deposited it in my account to avoid any overdraft charges from my bank.

I called Minsky's in Independence and asked to speak to your manager (Tom). His initial investigation came back with the conclusion that no calls were received from me the previous night and that no transactions went through on my card the previous night.

:: blink ::

"Umm, Tom, I know that. Because I didn't order any pizzas last night. That's kind of EXACTLY THE FUCKING PROBLEM, TOM! FIX IT!!!"

I sent him back for a Mulligan and he concluded..., OK, wait for it... the charges were for orders that I had placed "sometime" between the beginning of JUNE and MID JULY. Their card swiper had been busted so the charges never went through until they got their card swiper fixed which apparently happened on Tuesday while me and the girlfriend were bumpin' uglies!

Tom can't understand why that should have overdrawn my account since the original transactions never went through the money should have still been in my account.

I don't have the time or patience to explain to Tom the difference between the way the Ancient Sumerians balanced their books and the way 21st Century technophiles do things.

When a consumer swipes a debit card in a transaction they have a reasonable expectation that an IMMEDIATE transfer of dollars (or 'credits' as I like to call them) has taken place between the consumer and the merchant and the transaction is COMPLETE. No follow up or audit is required. That's exactly why I stopped writing checks! So that there would never, ever be any unaccounted for, pending charges floating around.

I escalated on Tom and told him I needed to talk to the owner. That would be you, the aforementioned Dean Wescott.

Over the course of a couple rounds of telephone tag and voice mails, your investigation concluded that the charges were for orders placed on July 8 and July 15 when you were having problems with your credit card machine, my credit card wasn't charged then, the credit card machine has been fixed and you are "just swiping the money now", transactions are good for 30 days, and "that's the way it is".

Well, fuck you Dean.

It's not my fault your fucking cheap ass card swiper was busted.

It's not my fault you sent your delivery people out with faulty fucking equipment.

No one ever told me "Hey, this charge didn't go through tonight, so you might want to jot down the amount and keep track of this as a pending charge".

No one called me or emailed me to let me know "Hey, XO, I know you're a regular customer and we've had some problems with our equipment lately. Just wanted to let you know we'll be sending about $30 worth of charges on your card tonight that we weren't able to send through before. Sorry for the inconvenience, We'll toss in some free bread sticks next time you call. Love you, love your show!"

No. Instead what I got was we're "swiping the money now" and "that's the way it is".

You know what the balance was in my checking account yesterday Dean? .33 fucking cents. What was the balance in your checking account yesterday Dean? Somewhere north of that?

Did it ever occur to you that your archaic, check processing era policy of holding onto charges for weeks before sending them through might pose a hardship for people who actually live in this century?

Did it ever occur to you that tossing out a $30 comp to a loyal customer might be a really cheap and easy way to fix a very real problem that YOU HAD CAUSED with your faulty equipment and antiquated transaction policies?

Have you ever heard the statistic that an unhappy customer will tell 8-10 people?

That was old school, Dean. This unhappy customer just told the entire fucking Internet, blogosphere, Facebook and twitter verse! SKIDOOSH!

OK, when you add up all the people who follow me in all those arenas you're probably talking less than 8-10 people. But still, I'm just sayin'. I'm an unhappy customer.

So this is it for us Dean. The end of the line.

I'm sure that in time, you'll find another fat lethargic bastard to order your tasty fucking EYEtalian steak sandwiches with extra fries.

But I'm done. I hope overdrawing my account by (-$4.67) helped you make your boat payment on time. I'd hate to inconvenience you in any way.

Go fuck yourself Dean.


Yours In Christ,

Xavier Onassis

Crop Over Wind-Down

Hey, peoples! I'm just back from a few days out of the island, just in time for the last lap of the Crop Over Festival.

Tonight, the contenders for the Pic-o-de-Crop will face off at Kensington Oval, and I want to wish them all the best of luck.

About two hours ago one of my faves Mr. Dale took his second People's Monarch title with his catchy tune "Drop It", beating out another fave Blood.

My picks for the Pic-o-de-Crop are RPB, Blood and Gabby, in that order, while for the Road March I predict Edwin, Blood and Lil Rick will be the favourites of revellers.

Anyhoo, we'll see on Tuesday.

Have fun, be safe, y'all.

Journalism vs. Blogging

A lot of bloggers like to think they are journalists just because they blog about things that journalists cover.

Politics is the most common area where this perceived blurring of the lines occurs.

Local bloggers think that because they cover City Hall, and accredited journalists cover City Hall, there is no difference between journalists and bloggers.

To a certain extent, they are right.

You need a license to drive a car. You need a license to practice medicine. You need a license to be a lawyer. You need a license to dispense pharmaceuticals.

You don't need a license to practice journalism. All you need is a media outlet.

In the past, corporations controlled the media outlets. Newspapers, radio, TV. One of these mainstream media outlets needed to agree that you were a "Journalist" and give you access to their news gathering and fact checking resources. You could then report the news you had gathered to your employer's audience.

Not so anymore. These days, any fucktard with an Internet connection and the minimum savvy necessary to create a blog or a twitter account can declare themselves a journalist and start posting shit that can be consumed immediately by the entire planet!

But there is an impenetrable wall that separates bloggers from journalists. The bricks of that wall are facts and the mortar holding the bricks together is fact checking.

Last week we saw a classic example of the difference between blogging and journalism.

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a video of Shirley Sherrod (a HUGE PUBLIC TARGET, being Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture) addressing the NAACP.

The video appeared to show her exhibiting a racist attitude towards a white farmer who came to her seeking help. In a knee-jerk reaction by the racially sensitive Obama Administration, Shirley Sherrod was immediately fired.

But guess what? The 2 minute video had been intentionally and maliciously edited down from a 44 minute video to make it appear that she was saying exactly the opposite of what she was actually saying!

She was actually making the point that she had been able to recognize her prejudice, overcome it, and go on to help the white farmer keep his land. A point backed up by the white farmer in question!

Andrew Brietbart is clearly not a journalist. He is a conservative blogger with an agenda to forward so the actual facts weren't important. All that was important was the firestorm, the press, the knee-jerk political responses and the publicity.

That's fucked up and irresponsible. A real person lost her job because some Internet asshole used selective statements from her to further his own political agenda.

Despite this depressing example of lazy, self-promoting, egotistical, irresponsible idiots corrupting the concept of journalistic integrity, there are still examples to be found of True Journalism.

The Washington Post published Top Secret America, the culmination of an investigative journalism piece by Dana Priest and William Arkin.

"The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it's fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe."

Trained, accredited, experienced journalists (one of them a Pulitzer Prize winner) spent TWO YEARS developing sources, vetting those sources, finding corroborating sources, checking facts with experts in the field, filtering their data through experienced editors and making GOD DAMNED SURE they had their facts straight before they went to print.

That, my friends, is Journalism.

Cutting and pasting selective content from real journalists, adding snarky comments to boost your hit count or push your agenda is blogging.

Know the difference.