The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected [...]]]> To the relief of many who will later be crushed to discover that unfollowed them on purpose, Twitter finally admitted that a bug exists that unfollows other tweeters without any action or warning:

The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected people to visit its support page and go to fellow tweeters’ profile pages to check whether they are still following them or not.

Desperate times call [...]]]>

Click the pic to donate!

Appeals to our better angels rarely go heeded. Such is the case with my quest to raise $1,000 for the Special Olympics of NY through the Over the Edge event. And now I have a teammate – Meghan Nolan – who I also want to help get to that grand mark.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so I’ve decided I’m going to provide more services in exchange for donations.

That’s right. I’ve become a prostitute. But for a good cause!

My first occurred yesterday, when I offered to do a dramatic re-enactment of a video of composer Adrian Munsey’s “Lost Sheep,” where he holds a goat and bleats behind an orchestral accompaniment.

In addition to the StuntRaising announced on this blog, I’ll be making side deals with folks through Twitter – @KevinMarshall. These will consist of both proposals from me, shout-outs, and solicitations from other Tweeters that send an @ reply to me. For example, yesterday Chuck Miller offered to up his donation to $50 if I read out loud a chapter of his choosing from his novel The Robins of Iverhill, and I took him up on it (post with full audio forthcoming).

Mind you, if you make an offer, whether or not I accept is solely at my discretion. Make them intriguing, but not ridiculous. For example, I’m not going to run head-first into a brick wall for a $20 donation. I may, though, post a video on the blog wishing your mother a happy birthday for a $30 donation.

So keep an eye on this blog and follow me on Twitter for more opportunities to maximize your donation!

And of course, you can still donate even if you don’t partake in these challenges. Even as little as $10 goes a long way. For more information and to donate, click here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news,

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In case you haven’t heard yet: Congressman Anthony Weiner (stop giggling) of New York’s 9th Congressional District created too many opportunities for bad jokes when he – or someone from his Twitter account – sent a shot of his crotch – or someone else who took a picture of Weiner’s crotch – and sent it to a 21-year-old college student.

After initially refusing to refute the allegations and saying people should move on, Weiner had a change of heart (re: a prominent member of the Party read him the riot act over the phone) started doing brief sit-down with reporters. One from MSNBC had the idea to ask him whether or not that was his crotch, which is surprising given the ineptitude at that network.

Weiner’s reply? He can’t say “with certitude” that it isn’t his crotch.

Firstly: how is a guy not able to recognize his own crotch? When I was North of 210 pounds, I rarely saw my nether-region from an upward view and might have had some trouble, but that was some years ago now and Weiner is not a chubby guy by any means.

Secondly: couldn’t Weiner have shown the class and restraint of his peers in Congress and put that junk on Craigslist instead?

Thirdly, and perhaps most damning and alarming: what kind of weirdo says “with certitude?”

The President finally took the podium a full hour after his scheduled [...]]]>

In Washington, DC and New York City, people took to the streets and celebrated. Why couldn't I join them?

As I write this, it’s 11:35pm on Sunday night and we have known Osama bin Laden has been dead for about forty-five minutes. Strangely, I don’t feel the same joy and exaltation that I hear and see other people expressing over the news.

The President finally took the podium a full hour after his scheduled announcement and delivered an eloquent speech. There was a particularly powerful statement he made about the worst images of the terrorist acts unseen by most of America, such as the empty seat at the dinner table reserved for those loved ones taken away from us. He finished by reciting the end of the pledge of allegiance and walked away from the podium to silence. It was, I suppose, to allow us a dramatic moment to reflect. Instead, to me, the silence was deafening. As I watched and read reaction on Facebook, Twitter, and from texts of friends, family, and loved ones that came through on my phone, I became confused as to why I didn’t feel that level of joy that everyone else seemed to be expressing.

I turned off my phone’s alerts, closed my Macbook, and went outside to clear my head. Yesterday had been a gorgeous and productive day, capped off by an equally gorgeous evening. The cool night air blew gently on my forearms and neck. Yet, as I looked around, I did not see or feel the world any differently than I had before the news broke; not like I had on that weird day a little less than ten years ago where men under the direction of the now deceased bin Laden crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This realization made me angry. It seemed unfair that he could take away so much from us and leave permanent scars, but when we finally succeed in our mission to capture or kill him the scars didn’t automatically heal. There was no great fix and no restoring that sense of loss of life and security. I felt disappointed at the lack of karmic balance, then ashamed that I thought there somehow might be.

Despite its structure and pretense to the contrary, al Qaeda is a personality-driven organization with bin Laden as a figurehead. His death is definitely a blow to their morale, cohesion, and sense of central purpose, even if it doesn’t destroy the organization in the long run. But the fight of free nations against terrorism isn’t over, and realistically, it may not be in our lifetime. Too many things have to fall into place and much more effort and loss of life will be put towards this venture. It will also require us to perform an honest introspective examination of ourselves and our history, which we as human beings find difficult to do on a large scale. The man is dead, but he’s been a ghost to me for ten years and I can’t help but feel like no great change has occurred, nor can I bring myself to celebrate.

Last night I took the time to thank people like Kate, Tom, John, and so many others I know who opted to serve our country during and after the events of September 11th, 2001, and I’ll do so here again. I will not fault them any revelatory excitement over the news. They were a part of that search and their joy is at a mission accomplished and the justification of the death of compatriots. Nor will I fault any other American who first saw that news confirmed at 10:40pm or thereabouts and said “good” or opened a bottle of wine. Because, to be honest, I envy that sense of closure. What I feel is not a feeling of sadness over a death, but regret that I can’t join in on the celebration.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to look back on last night differently and convey its meaning in a more eloquent manner. For now, all I know is that Osama bin Laden is dead. Also dead, still, are those three thousand civilians in New York City, hundreds of thousands of our soldiers and civilians on both sides, and even more who didn’t know they were on a “side.” No operation, no celebration, no clandestine Presidential announcements, and no assassination of a targeted figurehead can bring them back and fill those empty seats.

———-

On an unrelated note, I want to bring to your attention the fact that you can make a $10 donation to help victims from last week’s tornadoes that swept through the South by texting “REDCROSS” to 90999.

“What if God was tired of the way they treated [...]]]>

According to some, she deserves this agony.

Reader GenWar linked me to one of many articles I’ve seen lately that I’ve found disturbing and, as an American, a bit embarrassing. It concerns the reaction some have had to the disaster in Japan, this time coming from WNBA guard Cappie Pondexter:

“What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes,” the guard, now with the WNBA’s New York Liberty, tweeted on her account, cappa23.

“u just never knw!” she Tweeted later on. “They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”

It’s not a sentiment that Pondexter is alone in. A glance on many Facebook walls and Twitter feeds will show the same sentiment being expressed ad nauseam, some of which have been collected on various websites for posterity.

There’s also Gilbert Gottfried, whose tweeted joke about the disaster resulted in his dismissal as the voice of the AFLAC duck, which was the one thing keeping him in the limelight (since it clearly wasn’t his material).

The amazement I have with this reaction is two-fold: that people whose parents weren’t even alive when Pearl Harbor happened still harbor resentment towards them for it, and also that they’d be stupid enough to share this with anyone – let alone on a public forum – while the body count continues to climb.

So what exactly for these people are the statute of limitations? What’s the statute of limitations? Will we refuse help for England because of the revolution? Do we look past a disaster in our own soil because it’s in the South, which once seceded from our Union?

It was sixty years ago. It was another time. It was a completely different world.

There can’t be an excuse for this behavior. It’s ugly, wrong-headed, and monstrous, and anyone harboring those sentiments at this time needs to do some very deep soul-searching.

Well, let me be your Catholic Priest, except instead of advising you to recite thirteen Hail Marys, I’m asking you to give $20 (or whatever you can afford) to any of the following organizations helping out with the relief:

• Shelterbox in Japan
• Red Cross
• UNICEF

Your conscience requires it.

And if you’re not one of those select few, why not donate anyway to show the world that Americans are better than that?

The combination of pure cheese and earnestness struck me as funny, particularly since if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a joke. But no, it’s quite real.

After sharing my astonishment of its existence on Twitter, I was tweeted this [...]]]> At work the other day, I heard this jingle come on:

The combination of pure cheese and earnestness struck me as funny, particularly since if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a joke. But no, it’s quite real.

After sharing my astonishment of its existence on Twitter, I was tweeted this from local PR dude Andrew Mangini:

I love picturing two guys sitting down to write this jingle and one of them going “hey, I got an idea. Check this out: COUGARCOUGARCOUGARCOUGARCOUGAR!”