Brendan Frasier retard-clap Remix

pretty good internets

DC Council Considers Banning Single-Slice Pizza

One of the more ridiculous legislations to be put up for vote: Washington DC is considering banning the sale of single slices of pizza. Yup, that’s right—a slice of cheese and pepperoni will no longer be available for purchase after a drunken night of bar hopping around Adams Morgan. The real issue at hand is a recent rash of street fights, stabbings, muggings, and even a shootout involving two plainclothes police officers.

Councilman Jim Graham is trying to combat the late-night wrongdoings by putting an end to the throngs of drunken folk scarfing pizza after hours at the city’s late-night slice joints. Clearly, banning pizza by the slice will end stabbings. I can’t believe they haven’t done this before!

DC is stupid.

Blackwater is now Xe: seriously

Blackwater Worldwide, the world’s largest private security company, made the wrong kind of headlines in 2007 when Blackwater contractors allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqis in a crowded square in Baghdad. This resulted in protests, congressional inquiries and the Iraqi government refusing to allow the organization to operate there. As a result, Blackwater is changing its name to Xe (pronounced ZEE).

Most organizations declare that a change in name is necessary to allow a company “better define” what it does, or “clarify” a shift in services, and this is often in tandem with a repositioning of services or a shift in core competencies. Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the company, explained that Blackwater was changing its name because “the idea is to define the company as what it is today and not what it used to be.” I'm pretty sure it's still a company that gets paid to kill people. Not really sure what's changed over the past few years.

The Blackwater name has being expunged from all of its business units: Blackwater Airships (which offers surveillance services for intelligence gathering) has become Guardian Flight Systems. Blackwater Target Systems (the unit that develops and builds targets) is now being called GSD Manufacturing, and Blackwater Lodge and Training Center has been named the U.S. Training Center.

Not everyone agrees with Tyrrell. RJ Hillhouse, a national security expert and author of the blog called The Spy Who Billed Me, said the company is “obviously trying to distance itself from their image as reckless cowboys that’s etched into the world’s mind from the…shooting.” With a new name, “there are a lot of people who probably won’t connect the dots,” she said. “In a year or two, people won’t remember that’s Blackwater.” And she's right. The American public is stupid as shit and this terrible logo and rebranding should throw them off the Blackwater scent.

When asked about the name change, Robert Passikoff, president of the New York marketing research firm Brand Keys, Inc. offered this: “There’s an old saying about brands: ‘When you can’t change the product, you change the packaging,’” he said. It’s common for companies to rename in an effort to distance themselves from bad publicity, but in Blackwater’s case, things have gotten so bad that the company had little choice but dump the brand.

Tyrrell disagrees. She countered that Blackwater’s past was only one of several factors involved in the decision. “The company leaders came up with and considered several new names,” she said. “Xe had the best potential for brand identity but has no special meaning, she added.”

No special meaning indeed. The same can be said for the identity, which is a bizarre cross between a bad rendition of the old Xerox logo and the logo for Xena: Warrior Princess. As a result, the only X this rebrand deserves is for a new identity that has gone terribly, terribly wrong. This logo seems better fitted for a lame tech company, not a murder for hire outfit.

Steal a Post: You've Been RickRoss'D

YOU'VE BEEN RICKROSS'D

Rick Ross is scheduled to do an autograph signing at the Midtown Best Buy tonight at 7pm. These happen every week, with lines of varying length. But today’s… today’s was special. Here’s the timeline:

9AM:

1PM:

2PM: This report came in from the street:

There is a guy outside the Best Buy cajoling/begging people to go to the signing. No joke.

2:15PM: A flyer is handed out:

“2 CDs Max Per Person.” FUCK!

3PM:

4PM: ACTIVITY!!!

What’s that in the distance? Is that someone in line?!?!?

Rick Ross will always love you, Rick Ross.

When I took this picture, I was asked, “Hey, you wanna meet Rick Ross?” like it was free comedy.

4:30PM:

Note the little cardboard cutout, all alone. Having the #1 album ain’t what it used to be, huh?

UPDATE!!! 5PM:

We sent our man Jayson down for recon (and to pose with the empty barricades). He asked a street teamer where the line was, and he responded, “Oh, I think people are just circling the block because there’s so much to see around here.” OF COURSE!

5:31PM: I SEE PEOPLE

The two guys are street teamers, but the three girls are real. YAY!

What’s up, Hot 97?

And finally, 6PM:

There you have it. That’s what flyers, Hot 97 promos and a huge promotional push’ll get you. Congratulations!

Peanut Corporation of America: Hates Kids and Old People

FDA: Peanut plant knew product was tainted with salmonella

Story Highlights

1. Government confirms PCA shipped salmonella-tainted product without further testing
2. PCA had said it shipped products only after subsequent tests returned negative
3. FDA: Data provided by company "not consistent with the subsequent analysis"

(CNN) -- The Georgia company whose peanut products have been blamed for a nationwide salmonella outbreak shipped some products even though they had tested positive for the bacteria and no other tests indicated they were safe, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

Previously, Peanut Corporation of America had said it shipped products only after subsequent tests on them came back negative. Items made with its peanut products have been linked to more than 500 cases of illness, including eight deaths.

The agency said the company's management told FDA inspectors last month during an inspection of the plant that they shipped products that first had tested positive for salmonella, but only if they later had tested negative.

But, it said, "FDA determined that certain information provided by PCA management during the inspection was not consistent with the subsequent analysis of the company's records."

As a result, the agency amended its report Thursday.

"In some situations the firm received a positive salmonella test result, followed by a later negative result, and then shipped the products," said the FDA report, which was included in an e-mail to CNN. "In some other situations, the firm shipped the products [which had already tested positive] before it had received the [second] positive test results."

In some cases, it said, "no additional testing appears to have been done."

No one from the company returned a call seeking comment.

Federal authorities have initiated a criminal investigation into the company.

To the Peanut Corp of America, allow me to say; Fuck you. Peanut butter is bad enough but to have an entire company just say 'fuck it!' lets push this tainted peanut stank out the door is sad. These stupid bastards were complicit in poisioning their own product for almost a year and a half. That's not right.

I understand that all of these hacks live in Georgia, so they already have 1 strike, but to display such callous disregard for safety is quite stunning. Never mind the complete lack of product pride and satisfaction of a job well done.

It boils down to this: their primary product is consumed by kids and old folk. Little kids and old people eat peanut butter. You could safely say that the Peanut Corporation of America hates kids and old people. It's a fact. It's been typed.

ok City thunderclaps

lame.

lame like being forced to watch the RNC and DNC simulcast on two tvs right next to each other while restrained to a wheelchair made of nails dead center at a WNBA game. and your feet are in a bucket of hot coals. and your eyes are peeled open like that guy in Clockwork Orange. that lame.

Clay Bennett (owner of the Sonics/Thunder) has totally missed the opportunity to create something refreshing and innovative. By choosing to puss out with this terrible font and color package the Thunder might as well relegate themselves to hot lunch status. Its that bad. Where's the creativity here? What kind of color palette for a professional team consists of blue, orange-red and yellow? this is NBA man, not the CFL or the NBDL, cmon.

this looks like a WNBA logo and color package. I just don't understand how an organization worth all that money would seriously green light some crap like this. laughable.

"The guys in the jerseys, if they play, the jerseys are going to look real good," coach P.J. Carlesimo said.

General manager Sam Presti told the crowd designing a logo "takes an immense amount of work, and it does take some time.

"Not that anyone was really paying attention to the amount of time it was taking," he quipped.

Team officials said they hope they can make the qualities of character, perseverance, selflessness, community and winning synonymous with Thunder.

motherfucker please. Some kid at a art design college could have drafted a better logo and color scheme in 3 hours. seriously. Perhaps the most misguided, dispassionate and lackluster professional sports logo produced in recent time. There is nothing unique, memorable or thunderous about it and the cornucopia of elements thrown in there never make a cohesive whole. Quite dispiriting to see a blank-slate opportunity missed so harshly.

my OKCity Thundercats was way better

rip Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.

A family member found Hayes unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known.

In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap. (Reuters)

people are sick @ National Airport (DCA)

Emergency Crews Tend To Ill Travelers At National Airport

Last Edited: Friday, 04 Apr 2008, 12:46 AM EDT

Created: Thursday, 03 Apr 2008, 9:11 PM ED

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- A dozen travelers became sick at Reagan National Airport after attending a convention at a Prince George's County resort yesterday, but health officials aren't sure what might have caused their illnesses.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's fire department received calls for sick people at various locations around the airport starting around 5 p.m. yesterday.

Authority spokesman Rob Yingling the 12 travelers had similar symptoms, including nausea and seven were taken to area hospitals in non-life threatening condition.

Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center spokeswoman Amie Gorrell says the patients had attended a private convention. About 400 people attended the event, but no other guests or employees had reported illnesses.

Arlington County Public Health Director Reuben Varghese says the patients appear to have gastroenteritis and seem to be recovering quickly.

Brandon Marshall attacked by McDonalds

Zumaya's guitar hero. Jeff Kent's "car washing". Smoltz's self ironing. Sosa's sneeze.

all of these stupid assed injuries have all been eclipsed by the newest and quite possibly most random injury I've ever read.

"The physical Denver wideout will have his arm in a cast for at least two weeks after slipping on a fast food wrapper, NFL.com reported. When he slipped, Marshall reached his arm out to brace his fall and it went through a TV entertainment center. That injury required stitches.

"I want to thank everybody for their concerns and let everyone know that I'm okay," Marshall wrote in a text message Sunday to NFL.com. "It's funny because I pride myself on YAC (yards after catch) and being one of the toughest players to take down once I have the ball in my hands.

"So for the next couple of days I'm going to take the time to build my confidence back up after allowing that McDonalds bag to take me down and send me through the entertainment center."

story via Fox Sports

congrats Marshall, once this story gets run around the news networks your going to be in hollowed ground for stupidest sports injuries of all time.