The Bees Bounce

Karl Rove isn’t the only one getting out of town; it looks like the Earth’s bee population is taking off as well. Up to 60 percent of bees have vanished from the West Coast and 70 percent from the East Coast and Texas. The mass exodus is attributed to a vague syndrome called Colony Collapse Disorder, but I’ll get to that in a minute…

What I think is amazing is that not very much is being made of this mysterious Bee vanishing. You might say to yourself, “what do I care if the bees disappear?” Honey is just bee puke and the thought of a bunch of bulimic bees collectively puking a jar full of thick amber throw up… well that’s just disgusting. Besides who likes getting stung? And an animal that hasn’t evolved past suicide as a defense measure is sort of suspect anyway, right? Plus they’ve been around for millions of years and their society hasn’t progressed one bit. Matriarchal totalitarianism, that’s hardly a meaningful contribution to civilization. And while all those statements are totally valid and understandable, it might surprise you to know that bees don’t just puke honey and sting people. They also pollinate a sizeable portion of the fruits and vegetables we humans eat.

According to Zac Browning the vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, “Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food.” They pollinate at least $14 billion dollars worth of crops in the U.S. alone, including apples, nuts, pears, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash, tomatoes, sunflowers and cucumbers. Along with citrus fruit, peaches, kiwis, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries and melons. (From here.)

Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then Man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more life.” So no bees equals no food. (And no food equals no us.) So unlike losing Karl Rove, losing the bees is something that we definitely need to be upset about.

What makes matters worse is that nobody is quite sure what’s causing Colony Collapse Disorder, only that the bee’s aren’t coming home to the hive and they haven’t left a forwarding address. Some theories blame pesticides, some blame mites or UFO’s, and others claim that cell phones are disrupting bees navigational systems causing them to spazz out and get lost in the wilderness. (Steve jobs I’m looking at you.) There’s even a theory that claims the missing bees evolved into Namura Jellyfish causing the vast Jelly plague in Japan.













Some scientists doubt that theory.

Whatever the cause, one thing’s for sure. We can add disappearing bees to the long list of possible cause for impending human annihilation. Put it right after global warming, but at least three stops up from the Rapture. (Sorry Bushies.)

Think of the bees the way we should be thinking about the polar ice caps. And I don’t mean as inconvenient barriers to Arctic oil reserves, but as the metaphorical canaries in the coal mine. Without the bees, we’re fucked. What does it say about a society that is so disconnected from its food supply that it barely understands or cares that no pollinating insects equals NO food supply?

But hey why trouble ourselves with it too much? Big Love’s on tonight and that show is awesome. Instead lets take a collective walk through the park, and maybe even stop to smell those beautiful, fragrant flowers… while we still have them.

And speaking of (birds and) bees...

Meet Bush? No thanks.

The last line of a New York Times article about Jeremy Hernandez, a Minneapolis bridge hero, says:

“When President Bush’s staff contacted him to request a photo opportunity, “He was just, like, ‘Nope,’ ” she said.”

Whether you believe Mr. Hernandez is skirting publicity or making a political stance, it’s a telling statement that Digg users have gotten into an uproar about the post. It’s number one as of this moment, and comments regarding the article make more of a statement on our society than the article subject itself.

1. Mr. Hernandez is worried about publicity. Except how weird is that? Shouldn’t EVERYONE want a photo-op whenever possible? Or wait, maybe he’s making a political statement trying to prove to society that celebrity status isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Oh crap, maybe it’s just too much work. He didn’t want to waste all his time flying and being escorted to DC, just to shake a mans hand. I mean, he wanted to go fishing.

OR

2. Mr. Hernandez dislikes Bush. By snubbing this photo opportunity he says to our government, “I don’t support you. Take that.” Or wait, maybe he should have taken the photo op, and told off Bush to his face. Oh crap, it’s too late, now he’s on the “against us” list.

If you think he hates Bush or hates Publicity, this Digg post and its surrogate comments amuse.

A sampling:

“Owned. I wouldn't want to be in a picture with that assclown either.”

“The article does not say why he declined, yet everyone assumes his reasons are political.”

“He's already had one brush with disaster - my guess is he doesn't want another one.”

“He should have gotten an "I'm with stupid ->" t-shirt!”

“The summary is taken way out of context. Shame on you Blakovitch for stooping to this level to make this kid look like he hates Bush.”

“He should have taken him up on the opportunity and called him out on some shit when he was there. The article also says that a college offered him a full scholarship so good for him, its good to see good things come to those who do good deeds.”

Funny. And Sad.

Funny. And Sad.



Funny. And Sad. (Murphy's Law at it's finest)





Funny. And Sad.



David Segal from the Washington Post wrote quite possibly the best article on how 15 seconds of fame has a whole new meaning thanks to online video. He starts:

There was a time, not long ago, when a 10-year-old boy could head to a neighborhood fair, get his face painted like a Halloween zombie and blurt out something utterly inane to a local TV news correspondent and nobody would ever think about it again... more.

Bush is no expert

This is a funny Daily Show bit, linked to on RawStory.com all about Bush's self proclaimed lack of expertise:

He's no expert on forming coherent sentences either.

Top 10 Words of Wisdom: Hitler to Bush

I’m hesitant to post this blog, mainly because it was put together rather hastily, but also I know it will more than irk people. I’ve sited each quote with a link to where if was found. Most of George W. Bush’s quotes have links to the whitehouse.gov official releases. Adolf Hitler’s quotes come from thinkexsist.com and brainyquote.com, which I’m not sure how reliable they actually are. Also, keep in mind that these are quotes, meaning they're mainly one-liners that have been pulled from a longer speech. If you'd like the larger context to Bush's quotes please follow the respective link.

With that aside, I thought this subject would be interesting to research. There is obvious disgust with our President. A few weeks ago an article titled “Holocaust Survivor Leaving the US: ‘I’ve seen this before,’” received 4444 Diggs. Whether this article is true, or merely an allegory, either way it intrigued me to find similarities of Hitler and Bush quotes. I’m not saying Bush is Hitler. I’m not saying our government is becoming the Nazi’s. I only set out to see if there were any relevant quotes that were somewhat comparable.

This is what I found. Similarities, words of wisdom, and lessons are below. Any thoughts or comment (no matter what your opinion) are encouraged.

1.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. link
Adolf Hitler

May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. link
George W. Bush

2.
Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless. link
Adolf Hitler

Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. link
George W. Bush

3.
I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few. link
Adolf Hitler

Our nation is somewhat sad, but we're angry. There's a certain level of blood lust, but we won't let it drive our reaction. We're steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we'll have to start displaying scalps. link
George W. Bush

4.
As soon as by one's own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one's own right is laid. link
Adolf Hitler

If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This is not going to happen on my watch. link
George W. Bush

5.
Strength lies not in defense but in attack. link
Adolf Hitler

The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom. link
George W. Bush

6.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. link
Adolf Hitler

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction. link
George W. Bush

7.
The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. link
Adolf Hitler

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. link
George W. Bush

8.
Who says I am not under the special protection of God? link
Adolf Hitler

I believe that God wants me to be president. link
George W. Bush

9.
What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. link
Adolf Hitler

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on. link
George W. Bush

10... Bush may have taken this one a little to seriously:
Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction. link
Adolf Hitler

You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. link
George W. Bush

If one is the lonliest number...

Apparently two can be as sad as one, but I’ve always wondered about three through six. What are they? Why don’t they get to have any intrinsic qualities? Good thing we know seven is the luckiest number.

So, I guess that makes this month (July) the luckiest month during the luckiest year (‘07). How fitting that the new Seven Wonders of the World were announced recently? It’s hard to believe the Pyramids in Egypt didn’t make the cut. I also must admit, I didn’t realize we could actually change the Seven Wonders of the World. I mean, if there were more Wonders, shouldn't we just make Eight, or Nine Wonders? I guess people just like keeping it lucky.

And speaking of Seven Wonders, did you know Gandhi made a list he dubbed, “The Seven Blunders of the World?” Now, I guess I’ve never met Mr. Mahatma, but I didn’t think he was that cheesy. The list however, is something right up his alley. The Seven Blunders are:

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

Some relate this list to the seven deadly sins. I guess they could redo the movie "Se7en", but this time Brad Pitt’s job would be really easy. He would just arrest the President and the Vice President.

Too poor to save the earth.

My father always said, “if I had a nickel for every ______, I would be rich.” I wish that statement were true, and that the ______ was filled with the words: Toyota Prius.

Mainly because if I did receive five cents for every one I saw, I might have enough to actually buy one.

San Francisco is a cesspool for hybrid hysteria- particularly the cute, but slightly cockroach looking Prius. I’m pretty sure every block has at least one. At almost every stoplight you can see the electric-gas vehicle smugly waiting it’s turn to burn less fuel.

South Park- Cartman In San Francisco

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And the Prius isn’t cheap. In fact, this weekend I found out I could purchase a Nissan X-Terra SUV for about the same price. However, I’d like to jump on the bandwagon and help save the earth.

So I’m proposing an idea for every hybrid owner in San Francisco: Donate one dollar to my "TeamJaded wants to save the earth fund,” and together we can reduce our carbon footprint. (There’s a donate button to the right… feel free to click away).

Furthermore, I’d like to go on record. I would actually like to own a plug-in electric car. Yes, they exist. Let me rephrase that. They existed… ten years ago. And they were good. No, the batteries didn’t suck. No, they didn’t pollute using electricity. They were awesome, and they were killed (smashed to be exact).

The California Zero Emissions Mandate is probably the reason we even have the hybrid. Ironically, they come NOT from US companies, but from foreign countries who were scared of the now defunct policy. Want to know more? Go rent “Who Killed the Electric Car.”





And for those of you who think the electric cars are ugly, we have the technology to change every car into a plug-in. It's just expensive, and will be until the demand is there.

deja vu

The Democrats are telling Bush that it's time to end the war, they even had the gall to suggest a loose date... 2008. Well Bush just had to remind them that he's the one in charge and that they should to go back to their kiddie table and mind their manners while his crew destroys the planet. It's not like they were serious anyway. We all remember this. Lawless.

...ummmmm.....

...and speaking of silly skate coverage, back in 2003, Ocean Howell wrote a fascinating article on The Topic, about the way skateboarding is marketed to the mainstream. Skate Daily linked to it today, and it's worth checking out. I know some people at a certain media company who probably should have given it a read before launching a multi-million dollar web project...

Also via the Daily, Underskatement is back on.

Displace Us.

TeamJaded was fortunate to participate in Displace Me in San Francisco. Above is short documentary about the event and our experience.

Some may say this generation is apathetic. Often it is believed the privileged youth hibernate in their comfort; carefully sheltered by cell phones, wireless Internet, and Starbucks. However, on April 28th, 2007 that theory was shattered.

Local News networks may have briefly covered a glimpse of what happened that night. But the stories, the experiences and the aftermath of the evening still penetrate deep in the hearts and minds of those who raised their voices for Invisible Children.

About 2 months ago, over 68,000 people across the US attended “Displace Me,” an event to change Northern Uganda. Why Northern Uganda? And why did tens of thousands of youth and young adults care enough to leave the comfort of their homes and sleep on the ground?

Simple. They are not apathetic. They care about people they’ve never met. They rally to end a war they’ve never experienced. They raise money to create schools, they speak to congressmen to raise awareness, they contribute to a cause they desperately believe in: To end a war that’s ravaged a nation for over 21 years. It’s a war the US media and the US government have thrown aside ignorantly unable to establish a rationale to become involved. A war that has gone on longer than most who participated in Displace Me, have been alive.

For over two decades citizens of Northern Ugandan have been subject to war. The nature of what one UN official calls “the world's worst neglected humanitarian crisis,” is complex. According to the Uganda Conflict Action Network:

The war is essentially two conflicts in one: first the fighting of the LRA [the Lord’s Resistance Army], which is waging war against the Ugandan government and terror against civilian population in the north, and second, the real grievances of Ugandans in the north against the existing government.

The statistics are appalling:
-1.7 million civilians have been displaced
-1,000 people die every week due to inhumane living conditions
-30,000 children have been abducted by the LRA and forced to join its army
-Tens of thousands of people have be maimed or killed since the war started

Invisible Children, Inc. was formed after three young filmmakers set out in search of a story. In 2003, they found a tragedy that “not only disgusted but inspired them.” Four years later, a movie, a mission, and a movement have led a nation of youth to end a war. Through compelling podcasts, national events, short documentaries, fundraising campaigns, video diaries, house parties, cross-country road trip screenings, and a mind-blowing multimedia, interactive website, Invisible Children is a non-profit that’s changing the world- literally (physically, emotionally, and mentally).

The evidence is plastered all over their site. From the detailed homepage to a microsite dedicated solely to Displace Me. There you will find everything and anything from the historic event- pictures from across the nation, attendee’s YouTube Videos, movies from the evening… the list goes on.

And it didn’t stop after April 28th. The leaders of Invisible Children, Inc. have met with Senators and Congressmen. They’ve delivered to our countries leaders the thousands upon thousands of letters written from the Displace Me attendees. They are doing everything in their power to encourage our nation and our President to become involved in the Juba peace talks.

Displace Me: The Aftermath

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The hope? To end the war. Invisible Children will not give up. The thousands of people who support their vision will not give up. They will persist until it is over. They know that every war has an end.

For more info, please visit:
www.invisiblechildren.com
www.ugandacan.org

Bonna ruined

Editors Note (5/06/08): It is insane how many hits this post gets compared to our other blogs and it has nothing to do with TeamJaed, just that photo. It's funny to me, because I obsessively check our blog stats after we post anything so that I can see how many people have read the post. It's a sickness, I admit it. So when I do that what I see is hit after hit from google images for this post, not our new posts. It's been fun, but all good things must come to an end. I don't want this post to be the first TeamJaded content most people see... but I also want to keep it up, so I'm taking out the name of the festival. Let's hope that works.

Editors Note (2/16/08): This post gets a ton of hits from Google Image search because of this photo. Since this particular post was written in the early days of TeamJaded when like, we and our Mom's were the only people who knew we had a blog, we just borrowed this image from Mr. Internet, ie some other persons obscure blog. To make a long story short, this picture is from B-roo 2006, not 2007. We have no idea who took it originally, and we don't remember the url of the site we borrowed it from. Unfortunately Google Image search is staying tight lipped on this one and won't even respond to waterboarding. So thanks to whoever originally posted this image. And now back to your regularly scheduled and sprawling Bonna ruined post.

I’m not sure if you know what B-roo is. I didn’t until a few weeks before I was on a plane to Tennessee as part of the Current TV A-Team that was going to do “some sort of live coverage.” That’s all I knew because I only work for Current part-time. So beyond the fact that Mr. Mark Rinehart one of the masterminds behind Current @ Bonna roo wanted me on his team in some capacity, "probably shooting and editing” I didn't know much. Upon deeper inspection I found out that B-roo was some sort of southern Coachella, with kids in the middle of nowhere frying on mushrooms and listening to jam bands, you know that sort of thing.

Well that’s what I thought, but B-roo has developed over the years and now it would be more dryly defined as a four day music festival near Nashville, Tennessee that draws about a hundred thousand people and features a spectrum of music acts from DJ Shadow to the Flaming Lips, and has a crap load of art, and comedy, and theater, and is really quite a spectacle… (read a people in the middle of nowhere frying on mushrooms sort of thing.) So if you’re like me, and I doubt you are, then big music festivals full of dirty hippies frying on mushrooms is probably about the last place you’d want to be… and as rad as the 2 AM set that DJ Shadow put on was… and it was rad ...what's the big deal about B-roo really?

To answer that, I’ve gotta share my insane experience. I’m talking 5 days sleeping on a tour bus, working for 16 hours a day cutting pods in a trailer with no air conditioning where the temperatures peaked at about a hundred and ten in the afternoon… and it was awesome. We turned around 20 minutes of doc style programming fed via satellite to Current TV every day, and all twenty minutes of that played on the jumbo-trons at the main stage in blocks. The coverage was sick. Our crew was entrenched, on top of their shit, and just blowing the minds of each other, everyone back at the office, and really the entire TV industry.

The best part was that we got free catered food, VIP passes, and the port-o-potties where cleaned twice daily. We had showers in trailers where I came up on mad sketchy soap left behind by god knows who. Yeah I forgot to bring soap, or a towel, or anything like that. Lucky for me, Current supplied us with these yellow crew t-shirts that were great for drying off with. I didn’t make it out to the fest much, but the couple of nights I did, I rolled with Current Crew on golf carts, got the VIP treatment backstage, and had a blast (i.e. had lots of free booze). You can check out the coverage here:

Current@Bonnaroo

Since I’ve been back in the SFC the world hasn’t been so amazing, especially with things like this going down:

“A Proclamation

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

GEORGE W. BUSH”

If you don’t know the story then let me supply you with cliff notes:

Joe Wilson was a U.S. diplomat who dealt with African nations and Iraq. One of the premises for going to war with Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy “yellow cake” from Niger which would have allowed him to make nuclear weapons and thus somehow attack the United States, even though his entire military had been destroyed in the first Gulf War and his country had been under sanctions and bomb attacks from the U.S. military ever since, leaving them virtually in ruins and defenseless, but I digress.

Joe Wilson went to Niger to find out about this mysterious “yellow cake” and what he found was nothing at all. Iraq wasn’t buying anything from Niger least of all “yellow cake.” So ole’ Joe decided for the benefit of the country that he would write an article professing as much and rightly accusing the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat of Iraq against the United States.

Well the Bushies didn’t like that too much so they went to war with Joe. His weak spot was that his wife, Valerie Plame happened to be an active CIA operative, a spy, yes an undercover agent specializing in… weapons of mass destruction… an expert on the topic that Bush was pushing as a reason for war. From the Bushies stand point Joe and his wife the undercover agent were fair game in their political war, so they outed Plame with the hope that it would cast doubt on Joe’s findings… I don’t really get that either she was an expert on the subject of weapons of mass destruction and would probably know more about weapons proliferation than the Bush White House.

Now where things get real ugly is that it turns out, revealing the identity of an undercover agent, especially in a time of war is illegal. In fact it’s treason because it threatens national security… so whoever was responsible for leaking Plames identity to the press had to pay. I mean we’re involved in a war, a war on terror, you can’t be outing CIA agents. That’s just not cool. Well as prosecutors climbed the ladder, first throwing reporters in jail to get them to talk (which stirred up a first amendment hornets nest) they eventually found their way to the White House and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. The first White House staff member to go down was Mr. Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice President. Libby was convicted of felony charges and sentenced to 30 months in jail for obstructing justice. However the investigation was not over…

…Until now. I mean the investigation will go on, but in name only. By commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence, Bush effectively set a precedent that his White House is untouchable. Anyone on his staff can freely break the law, even to the detriment of our national security and it doesn’t matter. So the prosecutors can indict more members of the White House staff, a jury can convict them, and a judge can sentence them to prison, but as long as King George is in power they will never face any real consequences. Say goodbye to everything you were ever taught about freedom and justice in America.

Perhaps the best words on this latest development were spoken by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC…



Also check out the Daily Kos article.

In other news an Arkansas kid was choked by a cop for skating on the sidewalk, and the cop got off.

See it for yourself:

The Crime:


The Verdict:
Check it out at the S.F. Gate

What is this country coming to? Cops and politicians don’t have to obey they law, but kids can get choked out for skating on the sidewalk. I’m so proud to be an American.

In effort to stand up for skaters rights Emerica sponsors an annual event called Wild in the Streets where thousands of skaters descend on one lucky metropolis and skate through the streets in solidarity with other skaters around the world. This year Wild in the Streets was in San Fran at the end of the Emerica Wild Ride Harley tour. Peep the website to read all about that adventure: Emerica Wild Ride

Team Jaded homie Shrewgs was on the tour and we caught up with him at the Phoenix Hotel in the tenderloin on the night of July 3rd. We drank beers with Shrewgy, and some of the other guys, and even Johnny Roughneck showed up. We had so much fun that we pretty much missed the entire Wild in the Streets event because we slept so late, but we did eventually make our way to Third and Yo for the very end of the barbeque. Luckily Youtube came correct for all the stuff we missed:



..but it was no Roughneck BART Tour:



And speaking of Roughneck their 55-day tour, Decade of Aggression starts Saturday in Mill Valley. Catch the crew somewhere across America in the next few months.





They’ll be in my home state in August… Maybe they’ll run into this dude:



Love you Vial.

I’m out.
Jeremey Lavoi