(no subject)

You've already seen this, but to any D&D fans who missed it:

The 2008 campaign.

The fine art of astroturf

So I'm doing my daily blogsurfing when I come to an advertisement for MercuryFacts.org, which claims that women and children are being put in danger by the warnings about mercury in tuna; they're curtailing their consumption of tuna and therefore not getting enough fatty acids. This was interesting to me because I'd recently read this article about mercury in tuna, which did indeed make me cut down on my tuna a little.

So it turns out that MercuryFacts.org is run by the Center for Consumer Freedom, and that's a fishy-sounding name if I ever heard one - just like you know that the Organization for Balanced Energy Choices is always going to be funded by coal and oil groups. And MercuryFacts.org doesn't disguise that they're supported by restaurants and food companies.

Well. It turns out that in 1996, Phillip Morris started the "Guest Choice Network" to oppose regulating smoking in bars and restaurants. And the "Guest Choice Network" has now renamed themselves... the Center for Consumer Freedom.

The point here isn't about mercury in tuna, or any of the CCF's other pet causes. But: if their cause is righteous, then they shouldn't need to be getting their money from the fast food industry and the meat industry. And they shouldn't need to disguise where they're getting their money from. As long as they're not honest about that, it seems like they're trying to put the a happy-face sticker of "freedom" on top of things like unknowingly consuming unsafe levels of toxic chemicals.

WOE.

Had a very very stressful day at the library - I ended up being on desk for six hours altogether, and a riot just about broke out the last hour I was there. And then, as I was on my way to the bus stop, I threw my bag over my shoulder...

And heard a snap somewhere around my right pinky finger. I don't know how it happened; I just know that if it turns out that I broke my finger with a Hello Kitty handbag, I will never live it down for as long as I live. But I might put it in a book.

Then I tried to get on the bus and it turned out I'd lost my Metrocard and had to walk the mile to the subway station.

I don't know that it's broken. It's swelly and painful, and I just don't have enough cope left to go to the ER because they wouldn't get through with me till after midnight. I'll try to go early in the morning before other people have had a chance to have emergencies. I'm icing it and taking Advil...

I still have so much left to pack. Such bad timing.

I knew my life had been going too well lately, but I thought it was the mob that was supposed to break fingers, rather than karma.