the tindog coffeehouse

Messiah, Superman, Neo.

Source.

Writer Donald Miller (author of one my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz), has a great analysis on his blog about how Apple’s marketing is made to exploit the insecurities of its customers.

Apple products are defended with near-religious zest. But in our zest are we defending a company or our own identities? Perhaps what we’ve been offered is a brand to associate ourselves with, a brand that triggers our survival instincts, revealing we don’t believe we have enough to survive without this association? Perhaps the use of Apple products reveals insecurity more than it reveals confidence. …

In a culture where we are made to feel socially inferior if we don’t use certain brands or products, what does a true counter-culture look like?

If you think about it, the most confident of counter-culture heros aren’t talking on i-phones, wearing designer jeans or jumping in the air in their facebook photos (why are all the hipsters suddenly jumping in their facebook photos? Why didn’t anybody call me to say we were doing that?) but instead are the people most of us might not notice. The reason we don’t notice these people is because they offer us no beneficial association. They buy products because the products work, they buy jeans because they cover their asses, and coats because a certain coat will keep them warm. A true counter culture is not manipulated by the whims of fashion and therefore is not made up of fashionable people.

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Not content to pass a $700,000,000,000 financial bailout and a $787,000,000,000 “stimulus” package, Congress is now pushing a $410,000,000,000 spending bill that includes a whopping $7,700,000,000 worth of pork barrel appropriations.

So what are we getting for all that money? Just ask Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who’s been detailing some of the earmarks on Twitter:

• $4.6 million for oyster restoration in Maryland and Virginia
• $10 million for blue crab disaster assistance in Maryland and Virginia
• $8.5 million for grants to zoos and aquariums
• $25 million for the DOJ’s Weed & Seed program
• $7 million to NASA for science museums
• Another $7 million to NASA for visitor centers
• $1.5 million for pinniped research, marine mammal rescue, and Resurrection Bay salmon enhancement in Alaska
• $1 million to “collect accurate, reliable data on red snapper catch, bycatch and mortality”
• $250,000 for Bluefin Tuna Tagging
• $150,000 for lobster research
• $139,000 for the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference
• $7.1 million for conservation of Hawaiian sea turtle populations
• $2 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in Geneva, NY
• $250,000 for Lahontan cutthroat trout restoration

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Ah, to be a U.S. senator. While the common rabble are stuck in our beige cubicles all day, Senator John Cornyn is busy dashing off on a ‘fact-finding’ trip to the Caribbean, courtesy of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford. Yep, the same Allen Stanford accused of committing $8 billion in banking fraud.

“It was strictly a fact-finding trip. They have offices in Houston, and they were doing a lot of business out of Antigua,” said Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin. “There was nothing untoward or unseemly about the company five years ago.”

Cornyn made the trip with his wife, Sandy, in early November 2004, and he disclosed it within days as required: $7,441, paid for by Stanford Financial Group. …

Cornyn received $19,700, making him the fifth-largest recipient, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

It’s fair to say US Bancorp CEO Richard Davis isn’t a fan of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $700,000,000,000 government financial bailout rushed through Congress last October.

“It’s just troubled,” the 50-year-old CEO said at the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ Business Leaders Forum. …

Davis went on to say in his talk that while government officials marketed the program as a way to entice banks to lend again, TARP actually was designed to give solid banks like U.S. Bancorp some extra cash to buy weaker banks in the system. U.S. Bancorp did just that late last year when it acquired the assets of two failed banks in California, Downey Savings and Loan and PFF Bank & Trust.

“We were told to take it so that we could help Darwin synthesize the weaker banks and acquire those and put them under different leadership,” he said. “We are not even allowed to mention that. … We were supposed to say the TARP money was used for lending.” …

“Now they’re punishing you for having the capital,” he said, adding that he refuses to stand by and let his company become “collateral damage” in an attempt to nationalize the banks.

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While aggressive black “super squirrels” in the UK are busy extinguishing their inferior grey and red brethren in preparation for the ultimate showdown with mankind, it appears that squirrels in France are busy, well, being French.

Previously:
Squirrel Uprising 2: The Revenge
Squirrel Uprising: Rise of the black ‘super squirrel’