The Al-Qaeda Chatterbox

Used to be that whenever we heard "increased chatter about potential terror attacks," Grand Moff Ridge would bump us up a color or two on the Official Fear-O-Meter and all the New York yuppies would go out the Hamptons to get outside the blast radius. Now, we just make vague references to "chatter" and New Yorkers plan their vacations to coincide with the Republican convention.

Lemme ask this...Who's doing all this chattering? Why don't we pay them a visit to find out who they're chattering with? Or is the Department of Homeland Security getting its information from AOL chatrooms again?

And how about releasing information on suspects before we have a "credible threat" so that maybe we can run a two-hour primetime America's Most Wanted special or something.

Label Your Songs Correctly, Dammit!

RIAA Disclaimer: I only use file-sharing networks to download bootlegs and unreleased live recordings

Dammit, people. Learn to label your songs correctly! The Stevie Ray Vaughan instrumental version of "Little Wing" shouldn't be labeled "Jimmy Hendricks [sic] - Little Wing (live version)"

Furthermore, don't rip recordings of your shitty bar band playing Van Halen's "Mean Street" and label it as "Van Halen - Mean Street rare bootleg!"

And if you tell WinMX that you're on a 14.4 modem when you're sitting on a T1 connection, just to discourage people from downloading your stuff, you're a biscuithead.

Even Abbreviations Are Illegal

A Wisconsin man was arrested and fined for displaying a sign that read "F U G W" as President Bush's motorcade passed through Platteville. The usual "won't somebody think of the children?" nonsense was played up, per usual.

I love living in a country where mere abbreviations of naughty words will land you in the pokey.

Ugh!

This is probably the most misguided "ethnic outreach" site I've ever seen. What is McDonald's thinking? And what were they hoping to say with this website?

Here's what I got out of it...

• Hi, we're McDonald's and we like people of Asian/Pacific Islander heritage.
• Your culture is important to McDonald's, which is why we've included a section of this website that will show you what holidays you should be celebrating, whether you're Cambodian, Laotian or Japanese.
• McDonald's really respects Asian people, which is why we're providing you with external links from our website to articles like "Top Asian American Professionals" and "The 20 Most Inspiring Asian Sports Stars in America."
• We have Asian people working for us! Here are profiles of them.
• Wanna browse meaningless McDonald's trivia? Haven't you always wanted to know what Ronald McDonald's shoe size is?

Perhaps the most profound statement this website makes is its raison d'etre. It's obvious McDonald's looks at Asian-Americans as a media audience against which it needs to beef up its ad presence. Which is why they built this exceptionally lame Asian "culture portal" and why no one will ever spend any significant length of time there.