buzz

Welcome to the latest fad, robotripping. No this isn’t a variation of some 80’s dance, but rather a serious issue plaguing America’s teens.

Robotripping is abusing different over the counter cough and cold medicines in hopes of getting a buzz. In 2008 some 8,000 teens were hospitalized from this new rave and now the government, in their typical strong-fisted fashion, is looking at the extreme ways of handling it:

The FDA could require a prescription to purchase the drug, move sales of the medicines behind the counter, or banning purchases by those under the age of 18.

Numerous states have already started requiring identification to buy these drugs. Yeah, because when you got a major cold you just feel like standing in line and having to whip out the ID to get some relief.

But this idea by the FDA will surely hurt America even more. When you got a case of the sniffles, you won’t be able to just take some Robitussin, get a good nights sleep and wake up able to go to work. Instead you will have to take off work, go to the doctor and end up with a product of America’s biggest drug cartel – the pharmaceutical companies. Instead of spending $5.00 to cure your sudden cold, it will now costs hundreds.

Yeah – that’s really a plan chalked full of awesomeness.

And will it fix the problem? Using history as our guide, the answer is a very obvious “NO”. You ban it or limit the purchase of it, they will find a way to get it or move on to some other new fad.

There is a lot of buzz about the new GOP website today. Most notably is the fact that the site is incomplete. Ben Smith points out that the “future leaders” page is still blank.  While there is a certain level of snark to this, being in the web development field myself I can’t really point and laugh. That is just the nature of the beast after all.

One thing I will point out that is a major fail in this new design is the fact that when you hit their home page you are quickly startled by Michael Steele walking onto your screen and talking. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but this is a major no-no in the world of web development. Even sites that offer advertising with audio generally state that the audio must be “user initiated”. People don’t want to open up a site then get startled by a bunch of talk.

Overall the feel of the new site is rather amateurish. Its hard on the eyes and the amount of red is just too much, as well as very harsh. I still prefer the democrats.org site, not for partisan reasons, but rather from a usability stand point. Its easy on the eyes, easy to find what you want and you don’t have people talking to you.

But that only scratches what you see on the outside. On the inside far more errors occurred that made it look like amateur hour:

In their haste to get their new Web site up and running, the Republican Party has posted online a slew of things you wouldn’t normally expect.

Such as instructions on how to operate the Web site.

In checking to see who was in the New York State section of the site, (in addition to the other gaffes people have noted) we noticed three members. One was the “rnc-admin.”

Joe “the Plumber” tells a room full of media-bashing conservatives that he is “horny”.

It looks like it wasn’t taken very well either:

It seemed that all of those who were gathered in the ballroom of Washington's Grand Hyatt hotel for the Media Research Center's annual "DisHonors Awards" ceremony designed to bash the dreaded liberal elite media were stunned. Buzz immediately commenced.

"Did Joe the Plumber really just say he's horny?" "Did you hear Joe say 'horny'?" "Why is he horny and why is he telling us?"

Is it any shock that this would end up happening with Joe the Moron?

There has been a lot of buzz of Rupert Murdoch slamming the media, saying they have dug themselves into a hole. Of course he is just stating the obvious, but reading through the article, there was one thing that really stuck out at me:

The 77-year-old Murdoch, recalling a long career in newspapers that began when his father's death forced him to take over the Adelaide News in 1952, said the profession has failed to creatively respond to changes wrought by technology.

(emphasis added)

Sure Murdoch owns MySpace, which is a monster in terms of internet real estate, but let’s look at his other big division – FOX News. Earlier this month, Drudge was touting how he beat out the NY Times in ratings. In those same ratings is something else very interesting:

Last night Keith Olbermann ran this segment on McCain's ties to former Senator Phil Gramm:

Today all the blogs are a buzz about this "breaking news". I guess they should read my blog more often, where I started talking about McCain and his ties to Gramm back in March.

I'm glad this story is finally getting out there. People need to know that the man McCain has said could be his pick for Treasury Secretary is one of the key players in causing this mortgage mess we are in now. It shows that McCain can't be trusted at all. He will destroy this country as much, if not more, than George W. Bush.

With the assistance some of my friends over at Bill Maher's forum gave me, I was able to find more information regarding the Truth Tour. This is big news. It should actually be an announcement made by the President some evening here. I think it should of been done already, but I guess he is waiting for the perfect time, but let me go ahead and tell you what has been reported back:

"It’s over—and we won"

Yup it seems the war in Iraq is over and we haven't even heard about it. This is what is being reported on the Swift Report. Here let me share rest of the summation with you:

And boy have we found plenty of it here inside Baghdad’s exclusive Green Zone! While you all back at home are being fed nothing but negativity, we arrived here earlier this week to discover that the war is already over, and guess what? We won! My handsome colleague Buzz Patterson said it best: “The war is being won, if not already won, I think.”

I guess the troops will be home in a matter of weeks then.

Actually it is not shocking they would say that. Just today a car bomb went off just outside the "green zone", killing 14. Now for those not familiar with the actual green zone, let me show you a satellite photo so you can see the area that it encompasses (got to love Google Earth).