Harry Potter, Florida Recounts, Calista Flockhart

Spray of the Day:
Totally Juicy News
12/21/00

Top of the morning!

In case you didn't see yesterday's update:
Welcome to the second installment of what is going to be a daily feature! News Juicy style! Is nothing sacred?

Politics

Recounts begin again:
12 news organizations, and some other people that I have too much seizure activity to remember, right now, are doing an unofficial recount of the ballots in Florida. Once the count is finished, more likely than not, the entire country will know that we have a loser for President. Did I mention I had seizure activity? Although this section is the first you read, it's the last I write, and I'm pretty much unable to write it, currently. Please enjoy all the news below, which I wrote before my fucking brain went traitor on me. Thanks.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Corporate Watch (Business):

Why online shopping is screwing the world and Amazon.com is fucking you:
Getting a good deal shopping online? Have you done all your Christmas shopping in your underwear, without leaving the house? Of course you have. Ever thought of how you're damaging your world, your community and even yourself? Of course you haven't. First off, let me get this out of the way: AVOID THE HELL OUT OF AMAZON.COM (The Juicy Cerebellum has refused to put up profitable Amazon advertisements from day one)! I know it's the biggest e-commerce site that there is, and all of your friends say that it'll change your life for the better, if you use it, but, like anal-sex, it will only hurt you in the end. Amazon sent out a memo, which was leaked to The New York Times, with anti-union rhetoric such as, "Attention, supervisors! Are your underlings whispering more? Spending too much time in the bathroom? Complaining about their hours? That could mean clandestine union organization." The New York Times also reported that "over the last two weeks, managers have held a half-dozen 'all hands' meetings for customer service workers in Seattle, where managers have argued how unionizing would be bad for Amazon." I personally saw an interview, on one of the cable news networks with Amazon.com CEO and Founder, Jeff Bezos, who was down in the guts of Amazon.com, where Amazon.com employees were gift-wrapping items for the greedy masses, claiming they didn't need a union because, well, "they didn't need one." That ten bucks an hour they're being paid is more than enough. Now, if Amazon.com playing Big Brother to its employees, all in the name of stifling their legal right to unionize, doesn't bother you, how about the fact that Amazon.com uses its buying power to sell at prices just low enough to put all its online, and offline, competition out of business? Then, as competition lessens, Amazon.com slowly raises their prices back up, and you end up paying even more than you would have at a neighborhood store. Seen this pattern before? Think Microsoft. Of course Amazon.com isn't the ONLY problem with online shopping, unless destroying the environment means less to you than getting a bargain. Driving to the mall and picking up your Christmas gifts is actually better for the environment than having the junk delivered right to your door. Think of the packaging (usually Styrofoam or those plastic bubbly things that are so fun to pop), think of the fuel-guzzling, mass-polluting trucks and planes used to send it across the country, and to your mailbox. Then, finally think of the fact that you aren't paying any local or state taxes on the item, and that NOTHING is going back to state or community. The more people buy online, the less money the state or city has to clean up the mess made by all of those people throwing out all of the excessive packaging they received along with that discounted price on an item sent from a business that has no interest in giving back to the community the item was sent to. The world you live in is more important than saving a few bucks at Christmas time, folks. Buy local.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Mail Abuse Prevention Systems keeps on abusing:
Netside Corporation (I know, it sucks it's a corporation) has joined the battle against cyber-tyrant MAPS, and the dictator that runs the organization, Paul Vixie. Netside has done a lot of investigating, and have dug up some pretty scary (although not shocking to any of us that have watched MAPS over the past couple of years) information on the company. In Netside's own words: "Did you think that Paul Vixie, the 'outspoken advocate for responsible Internet citizenship', rigged sendmail simply because he loves you? Hell no! The 'crusader against spam and the abuse of online communications' furthers his hidden agenda as a board member of Whitehat.com, Inc, a de-facto spam mill." I haven't brought up MAPS in a while, on this page, and for those of you that thought it had gone away, well . . . it hasn't. For those of you new to the page, or new to the issue, and for those of you who have been following along, since I first updated about it, here is a link to my NEWLY UPDATED MAPS page (which features links to plenty more) and a link to Netside. I suggest setting aside your plans and reading both of these pages thoroughly. MAPS and your ISP could be deciding what mail YOU do or don't get, without your even being aware of it. Don't let them tell you what is "acceptable!" (To find out if your server is currently using MAPS, click here. If it says the page isn't available, cannot be found, or whatever else, you are being censored by your ISP and MAPS-RBL. The page IS readily available, MAPS has just decided that you shouldn't be able to read it.)
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Health

Alex is currently having petit-mal seizures:
I'd like to see YOU write an update while having petit-mal seizures. Bethcha you couldn't, ya pussy.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Entertainment

Another billion-dollar bully:
Warner Brothers proves it can sue with the best of them. In a move that would make George Lucas proud, the oversized, over-merged corporation is having their lawyers send out intimidating letters to people that register Harry Potter domain names. Each letter costs significantly more than it would for Warner Brothers to simply register the domain name themselves, so, in this writer's opinion, it seems like this is nothing more than that old fashioned corporate need to puff out their chest and show the world how big and powerful they are. Does anyone really believe Warner Brothers was stupid enough not to think of buying up the domain names, themselves? I guess, when it comes to the corporate mind, anything is possible. No wonder their stocks are dropping.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Clinton the next Babs?:
An unnamed source who reportedly talked to an ABC News executives says that Barbara Walters would "eventually retire" and "Bill Clinton" is "being considered as her replacement." The source went on to claim monkeys would be flying out of his butt in early 2001.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Calista Flockhart Dies:
Okay, not really, but you can never be too prepared.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

World
Canada's elk go mad:
A Canadian agency was forced to order 1,700 elks to be slaughtered after it was discovered that something resembling the mad-cow disease was being spread between them. The reason I print this is because I can't believe it made news anywhere, being that the elks were being bred on Saskatchewan farms for human consumption and their immature antlers which are used in a health food supplement called "Velvet Antler", meaning they were scheduled to die, anyway. The things people will print these days, to avoid real issues, such as Bill Clinton replacing Barbara Walters as a celebrity interviewer.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you pesky Americans!:

The identity of one of the two suicide bombers suspected of attacking the USS Cole on October 12 has been confirmed. His real name? Saeed Awad Al-Khamri (Hmmm, looks strangely like "Seaweed Mad Hell Camry." Could it be an ocean-dweller conspiracy to keep the sea safe for compact cars?), a man from the same province as terrorist nutjob Osama Bin Laden. Investigators told somebody that wasn't me, amid bites of danish, that evidence might link Bin Laden's "Al Quaeda" group to the Cole (not related to Nat King) incident. However, they are not yet ready to accuse (translates to "glare at" in common English) Bin Laden of ordering the attack, even if all the evidence that they may or may not have points to him. Officials say that l-Just-Call-Me-The-Unabomber-Khamri wore a beard, and was wearing sunglasses at the time of the bombing. The second bomber has not yet been identified by name, as the charred chunks of his body strewn around the bomb-site were not intact enough to tell, and the inherent bad hygiene of suicide bombers produces a toothless grin that cannot be used on dental records. Then again, investigator's are probably just too lazy to bother.
-Sariel Lehyani, Contributing Writer
(With a few additions and subtractions Sariel may or may not approve of by Alex Sandell)

Sariel's rendition of scary Terrorist.

Weather

People expected to ask other people whether or not it is cold enough for them:
It's called "talking about the weather." It's the human equivalent of a dog sniffing another dog's butt to get their scent.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Horoscope
This segment is coming as soon as I find a self-deprecating astrologer with a good sense of humor.
-Alex Sandell, Editor

Email me about the second issue of "Spray of the Day: Totally Juicy Headlines"! (And this time, actually do it.) Write about the news. Write about the update. Just write! If people are interested in this, I'm going to put up a new message board to discuss the issues and I just may keep this up for a long time (like my penis during sex)! (Oh, and if anyone is interested in doing a headline type graphic for it, get in touch.)

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