HAWT action [hot ak-shuhn]

The Onion has been dominating fake news for years before Jon Stewart's face popped up on Comedy Central.  Their faux newspaper lives on the internet at theonion.com, and if you're in a major metropolitan area, you'll probably find physical copies at your nearest CD store (if you can find one) or tattoo shop. 

If you aren't familiar with the Onion, become so.  Brilliance.  It's the reason for our Breaking Knews.  I'll never forget this Onion headline from years ago: Midget Falls Equivalent Three Stories.  More recently, they had an article from Wasilla, Alaska: Area Woman Becomes Republican Vice Presidential Candidate.

In the past few years, the Onion has branched out into The Onion Radio News and Onion News Network. 

In today's Web_geM, the Onion takes on Apple in their video-based Onion News Network.  Today's Macworld was the last one, ever, so it was Apple's last chance to blast the tech world with new products around a pre-determined schedule.  Before these product-bonanzas, speculation runs rampant.  Apple keeps a tight lid on the product announcements. 

Well, the Onion breaks the funniest story.  Ever.

Sometimes there are TV shows that are really, really good that few people watch, and I feel compelled to draw attention to them.  Now I have a blog to power that drawing.  I drew attention to Arrested Development sans-blog and it, single-handed, pushed the show's canceling back by about 4 minutes, which is like a year in TV time.

Once again, FX Networks pounds us over the head with TV that needs to be recommended.  Damages, coming back January 7th for its second season (10PM, FX), is a mind-bending show, dense with turns and twists and characters that sit right in your head and build a house and throw a party while you wait for the second season to come back.

As a countdown to Bush leaving the office of the President of these United States, we at HAWT will look back at his addresses to the Union in an 8-part series, starting with his Inaugural Address in 2001 and ending with his State of the Union in 2008.  (Yes, THIS one!) 

"Political rhetoric."  It is empty, hollow and is rarely followed through on.  Of course, we all want schools to be better.  We all want the economy to get better.  We all want lower taxes, added safety.  We all want those basic things that political contenders blabber about... and when they get into office, they continue to blabber.  It seems like blabbering is politicking.  Policy-making isn't politicking. 

Knowing how everything has turned out for Bush's stay at the helm, let's look back at George Bush's choppy, poorly delivered political blabber.  In this series, you will see cherry-picked excerpts of George W. Bush's speech.  These are all his own words.  There are some gems in here.  A new entry in the series, State of the Union, will appear on the first of every month until January 1, 2009. (Or January 5th)



"Seven years have passed since I first stood before you at this rostrum. In that time, our country has been tested in ways none of us could have imagined. We faced hard decisions about peace and war, rising competition in the world economy, and the health and welfare of our citizens. These issues call for vigorous debate, and I think it's fair to say we've answered the call. Yet history will record that amid our differences, we acted with purpose. And together, we showed the world the power and resilience of American self-government."

"The actions of the 110th Congress will affect the security and prosperity of our nation long after this session has ended."

"[I]n all we do, we must trust in the ability of free peoples to make wise decisions, and empower them to improve their lives for their futures."

The last day of the month brings the Review and Update for the HAWT action [hot ak-shuhn] posts!  We have a high volume of output here, and I want to walk you through the month's content. 

Catch up on any story you missed!

I take photos like a madman. I click gigabytes like they were... bytes.  In this massive collection, I've got some decent sHAWTs (statistics, really). I'm sharing them with you in this series: HAWTsHAWT [hot shot].

I simply have no New Years' photos.  I tend to stay in on New Years, not interested in dancing around falling cava and beer bottles while growing up in Spain, nor peeing my pants in frozen Times Square in NYC.  In fact, I make my New Years resolutions every other day of the year, completely bucking the trend.  In the spirit of drunken screaming and sloppy kisses with strangers, I found a pic that's worthy. 

This is the 4th of July at Scituate, MA in 2004.  My first digital camera was an Olympus C-50, bought in 2002.  Check out the deliciousness on this bad boy. 

1. Keep camera perfectly still by balancing on rock wall
2. Hold open shutter
3. Capture picture

Happy holidays, everyone!  I'm hoping to line up a fun New Year's post, JLF style.  Let's see if I can get it done!

This post, though, I'm hoping to reach out, and like... say, like how Condoleezza Rice (what a great name - it took me like 10 minutes to make sure I like had it spelled correctly) said, that Bush has been a great president.  Yay!  Our fearless editor, John, forwarded me an article from CNN.  He said I'd find it interesting, and I really did.  (That last paragraph reads really awkward... oh, well.  My posts aren't about writing good.)

So, Condoleezza was on CBS's Sunday Morning, which is a show I never watch.  I don't know anyone who watches it.  It's no Gossip Girl!!!  Looooove Vanessa!  Anyway, Rice decided to show up there and speak about Bush, who, it turns out, is like her boss?  I agreed with everything she said, as I'm sure the beautiful Monica Crowley, Ann Coulter and almost-president Palin all agree, too.  How can five hot ladies be wrong?

So, what did she say?

Johnny Lead Foot here, and I'm taking on Bush's State of the Union...

John continues an 8-part series that explores President Bush's addresses to the U.S. population called State of The Union, from his first inaugural speech in 2001 to his State of the Union in 2008.  John brilliantly pastes Bush's words.  Just his words.  He left it up to us to figure out what to make of them.  I had to comment on our General's comments.  Enjoy.  The bold is necessary for my fury.  This post, I've decided to post comments as if G.W. was saying my genius, himself. 

Click on State of The Union (there, or to the right) to see all posts. 

I originated this "Evolution of "Our" series last Christmas, and it's one of the most brilliant things I've done.  John's asked me to repeat my post this year... and every year...  because I'm the man.  I am, after all, the best blogger ever.  I'll add to that that I'm the best lover ever.  And listener. 

Enjoy my good work.  Learn something!

Johnny Lead Foot here, and I'm celebrating...

I define Christmas as the days around the 25th with the trees and lights, presents, Santa Clause, birth of the son of God to a virgin, snow, eggnog, etc.  I will also use the label "buffoon" on anyone who claims this has always been the way with Christmas.  People like Ronald S. Martin have drawn a line in the manger to say, "THIS is the story of Christmas because there was a scribe there taking notes: 'Ah, yes, born to a virgin with lots of cattle around (no vacancy at the inn,  because it's Christmas!), a star instantly appeared in the sky over him, and then he was circumcised 7 days later (still a holy day of obligation for the Catholics), men showed up with gifts on the 5 days after that.'"

The Nazareth-Voice-intern-reporter-trying-to-get-the-story-of-a-millennium who took those notes only would have had one thing right, the no vacancy at the inn deal, because Nazareth was busy partying!  Everyone back then, all over the globe, was celebrating the heck out of the winter solstice, commemorating their version of the God of Light because they survived the year's darkest days and the cold of winter was yet to come (in the northern hemisphere).  It was a celebration of a "new sun."  The year's wine and beer had finally fermented and farm animals were slaughtered so they didn't have to be fed during the winter months.  Fresh meat was a luxury back then, and you couple it with booze?  Holy party, bat boy.  And I mean EVERYONE.  Stonehenge was lined up with the winter solstice as its focus.  There are altars in Guatemala lined up with the solstice (1800 B.C.E.).  Check out this list of solstice parties that span from Inca to Jewish to Hindu.  It wasn't a coincidence that this date was labeled as the birth date of The Light of the World, Jesus H. Bomb Chrizist.  Heck, the Jews were already called it the time the Festival of Lights.

I'm way into big buildings.  They do a lot more for a city's character and future than most people recognize.  So, I think it's HAWTaction [hot ak-shuhn] to keep tabs on new projects like the Shanghai Tower, Russia Tower, Anara Tower, Okhta Tower, Nakheel Harbour and Tower, Bahrain WTC, Honeycomb Skyscraper, Burj Dubai... in Dubai... in Pictures, CCTV and TVCC Towers, Tokyo Sky Tree, Burj Dubai (Revisited), Dancing Towers, Dynamic Tower, Dubai Towers, The Lighthouse (Paris), The Lighthouse (Dubai), Antilla, London's Super Tower, Eiffel Tower, Shuffle Tower, Full Moon, Caspian Bay, Chicago Spire, Chicago's Aqua Tower, Infinity Tower, Teardrop, Christmas Tree or the Burj Dubai.

There are Tall Building posts, then... there.... are.... TALL BUILDING posts.  This is one of those all-caps, tell-your-friends, what-the-hell-are-they-building bonanza posts.  We aren't just talking about a building in Kuwait.  We're talking about an entire city being built in Kuwait, and its crowning jewel will just so happen to be the tallest building in the world.  This is Kuwait's City of Silk.

Now, it's a lot to wrap your eyes around, and I think that's the point.  It will sit across the Kuwait Bay from from the capital, Kuwait City, and spread over an amazing 250 square kilometers (97 square miles) with 25 neighborhoods and a 23.5 kilometer bridge (14.6 miles) leading to Kuwait City.  The bridge will cut the commute to the capital to twenty minutes from over an hour and a half. 

This will be a full city, accommodating 700,000 people.  Unlike anything in the Arab world (that I've seen) it's also going to designed to be "in tune" with nature.  Oh, and it'll have the tallest building in the world... so we're interested.  You?

I take photos like a madman. I click gigabytes like they were... bytes.  In this massive collection, I've got some decent sHAWTs (statistics, really). I'm sharing them with you in this series: HAWTsHAWT [hot shot].

Rarely do the lines... um... align to the point that I'm dizzy, but they did for this shot.  Taken years ago, this HAWTsHAWT still makes me smile.

Many months ago, I posted a Web_geM: a video of our moon passing in front of (our) Earth.  [Web_geM: The Earth and Moon]  It left the HAWT staff dizzy with sass.

Well, NASA's newest video release has us falling over.  It's still a moon.  It's still in our solar system.

Jay Leno's coming to primetime, and HAWT is going to give it to you, Boiled Down.  Leno's move will go down as one of the key programming moves in the history of the television medium.  Let's take a look, shall we?

Personally?  I'm not a fan of the Leno and his NBC Tonight Show.  I think his monologues are boring, the bits are shallow and the interviews are mind-numbing.  But for every one of me, there are tens of people who click over to him every night.  Leno's a powerhouse, maintaining a hefty ratings lead over Letterman for over fifteen years.  That is a hell of a feat, especially considering Letterman's good, and others have tried to steal some thunder: Kimmel, Magic Johnson, Colbert...  Despite his ratings dominance, Leno (insanely) has capped his salary, saying he isn't worth more than $25 million a year.  He wants no more money, even though he could boost it $20 mil and it'd still be a good deal for the network. 

A couple of years ago, NBC planned to walk away from the powerhouse, signing a deal with Conan O'Brien to take over the Tonight Show and oust Leno, their gray boy.  The move made little sense to me (ratings are sooooo hard to get), and Leno threw his net into the water of new gigs, talking to a slew of networks, but nothing panned out.  In the end, Leno's coming back home to NBC.  This time?  Primetime.  What the heck does that mean?  Why does it matter?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A fight broke out between Lush employees at their West Armitage, IL location last Thursday.  The altercation escalated as the employees were offering holiday gift ideas to Rita Chester, a 50-year-old, first-time customer.  "I had come in to ask for a simple face cleanser, and they, like couldn't stop recommending different products and things, getting in each others' faces."

Lush has opened an investigation into the incident, having suspended Carlos Gomez and David Ball for two weeks.  Gomez allegedly approached Chester first while she was scanning Buffy Body Butter (107.36 $/kg | $48.80 $/lb).  "Oh, I love that," Gomez said.  "I get it for my nieces all the time.  It's handmade, as everything is here, and just fantastic.  They say their skin is so smooth now, like, all the girls in school are jealous.  And if you like that, can I recommend the Soft Touch Body Butter (152.00 $/kg | 69.09 $/lb).  I get this for my mom and she says it turned her life around!"

Ball, a manager, overheard the recommendations and piped in, "The Body Butters are great, but if you really want to wow someone, why not look at the face masks?  They are all handmade, as everything is here, and I do one every night.  If not, I don't think I'd be able to sleep!"

"Then things went nuts," customer Rita Chester said.  Store security cameras caught the action.

Johnny Lead Foot here, and I'm pissed...

I haven't been this mad in a long time.  I mean, I've written about the melamine hypocrisy and I've been doing my State of the Union rebuttals, but I've been bottled up about President George Bush, and now that we're coming into an end of his era of the rape of human rights, I've bubbled over.... which means you readers get a treat.  Put your seat belt on.  It's going to be a bumpy ride as my head explodes with thoughts.

You've all seen this, no?


In my opinion, the world doesn't have a big enough shoe to throw at this man.

I take photos like a madman. I click gigabytes like they were... bytes.  In this massive collection, I've got some decent sHAWTs (statistics, really). I'm sharing them with you in this series: HAWTsHAWT [hot shot].

FCB?  Some think advertising powerhouse DRAFTFCB.  Outside of those ten people, though, the world thinks of Fútbol Club Barcelona, one of the finest sports teams in the world.  I had the incredible pleasure of attending a game last weekend.  Oh, the HAWTsHAWTs [hot shots].

Of course, HAWTaction is nothing without the readers.  Trust me, I ran a blog off-line for ten years, and it really wasn't the same.  With that in mind, we called on our super-reader and super-commenter, Jason, to pick his favorites of the year.  Regular visitors to HAWT will recognize Jason as our most frequent commenter, even beating out the staff with regards to volume of comments.  We at HAWT headquarters wanted to recognize Jason's dedication by letting him pick his favorite posts to end the celebration of our first year.

I'm, like, totally shocked that I'm even at HAWTaction, much less a part of this HAWT Anniversary.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jenn Cloutier [Clue-Tea-YAY!], a contributor here at HAWTaction.  I haven't posted in a while... :(  I met John at a Mitt Romney rally last year - I still don't know why he was there - and we just totally hit it off.  Yay!  I had no idea that my ideas would ever make it into a really professional-like operation like HAWTaction.  I'm just really, really, really happy to be here, Yay! with the ability to pull up a browser and plunk my ideas out for the world to see.  I know lots of HAWT readers don't like my opinion, but I can respect that.  Everyone has a right to his or her opinion, and I think I am a "one" and, therefore, have a "right" and, therefore, have an "opinion" about some things.

I'm I really, really, really want to thank John for pulling me on board and backing me up when the readers beat me down in the comments.  ;-(  Now, on to my favorites.

Sometimes it's important to step back from the achievements and embarrassments of man to remind there's a sassy world out there.  "Terra" posts will embrace that concept and highlight something you probably don't know about the planet's eco-systems, from weather to fauna and flora.  Today, I'm going to cover the cheetah.

When I launched this blog a year ago, there were a few posts I knew I had coming, and this post was at the top of the list.  You could say the entire Terra series was created so I could write this post.  The amazing cheetah.  This animal is evolution perfected, and it makes me giddy.  It's the perfect way to continue our week's celebration of HAWT's Anniversary. 

In order to become the fastest in the world, the cheetah dumped all non-essential parts.  They don't even have room for extra muscle.  I mean, look at them!  An adult male only weighs up to 65 kg (140 lbs).  Place a cheetah next to its not-friendly neighbor, the lion, and they don't look like the same species.  Male lions grow to over 245 kg (540 lbs).  Every additional pound the cheetah has is an additional pound they have to carry to -- and maintain at -- their sprinting speed of 120km/hr (75 m/hr).  If there is a muscle in its body, you can be sure it makes them run faster.  Nothing else.

Because of that, they are very weak and only have one sure-fire way to kill prey.  Their favorite food is the Thompson's gazelle, also one of the fastest land animals in the world, getting over 80 km/hr (50 m/hr).  (Oh, evolution, how great you are.)  To hunt a gazelle, the cheetah chases it down (not that much of a problem if within a certain distance) and takes a swipe at the prey’s rump to knock them off balance.  As the gazelle flips around in the desert dirt, the cheetah finds the wind pipe and bites on it to suffocate the animal.  That's the only way they kill.  They can't break its neck or disembowel it, like lions and wild dogs do, respectfully.  They can only use that small mouth and teeth to halt windpipe flow and wait for the animal to fall into death.

I can't help but think that this exercise is pointless.  My favorite posts for the HAWT Anniversary?  All the ones I've written.  Why would I waste anyone's time by sitting down and not typing out brilliance?  I'm not Jenn.  I bring you a fresh, brilliant perspective that everyone should worship, like I was Obama.  Or Jesus.  So, John's made me pick my favorite posts in this year.  So, read on.