According to relevant theory they do. They're even strapping plastic bags on cows to catch their farts now.

I'm not sure if this is for research or an attempt to delay the cataclysm. Either way it's pretty funny and I bet you could get a load of cash for a bag full of cow farts if you put it on eBay.

But let's look at this rationally for just a minute. Cows are being targeted because of the volume of ass gas they produce. Why do they fart so much? Because of their diet. Farts start out as the air you ingest when you eat. You take in a lot more air when you consume foods like greens and leafy vegetables.

So...

If cow farts cause global warming, and;
Vegetables cause cow farts, then;
Veggies cause global warming.

The solution to the global warming problem is very simple. Start feeding cows meat and outlaw vegetarianism*. Vegans should probably be shot on site just on general principle.

Hat tip to Peppers Ghosts.

* Helen would get exempted due to her exceptional hottie factor.

Some people collect Hummels, other people collect, you know, dead babies.

OCEAN CITY, Maryland (AP) -- Investigators found three tiny bodies wrapped in plastic at the home of a woman who was charged last week with killing her newborn child, police said Monday. Authorities were still searching the property, and there was a backhoe at the site Monday morning.

Two were found in bags along with what investigators believe to be a placenta in a trunk in Christy Freeman's bedroom, and another was in a garbage bag found in a motor home parked in her driveway, police said. The remains were sent to the chief medical examiner in Baltimore to determine the causes of their deaths, their ages and whether they were related to Freeman, 37.

Christy: So, what do you think of my collection?

Neighbor: My, that's quite a lot of fetuses? Where did you get them? E-bay?

Christy: Oh no! I made them myself. And let me tell you, it takes a long time to make one. The easy part is suffocating them in plastic bags. But it's all worth it.

Neighbor: Wow! It is a very impressive collection. But if you're going to go to all that trouble to make them and kill them, why hide them in bags. You need a little nick-nack shelf to put them on.

Christy: Ya think? Golly, you're right. First I'll have to dig up the ones in the yard. Damnit, I knew I shouldn't have buried the old ones.

The End

Quick question: Who's fucking crazy Christy? I mean really.

Having never met the guy, nor even talked to him on the phone, I had no idea what to expect. I called his cell phone to see when he would be arriving.

“Yeah?”

“Shank?”

There was a long silence. “Yeah?”

“It’s Paul. What’s happening?”

“I’m driving. Fast.” His voiced seemed calmer and deeper than I imagined. I could detect no outward signs of a mental disorder.

“How far out are you?”

“A couple of hours.”

We talked about beer for a minute and it was over. I was somewhat relieved that he didn’t sound crazy—I had a very real fear he would sound like he was on meth or something.

When the doorbell rang I was still apprehensive. I opened up and there he was; a normal looking guy. I would go so far as to say innocent looking. Life hadn’t yet beaten him into the ground.

Once inside the questions started from both sides. He seemed very polite. Too polite. I thought maybe I was being duped. He’d act all polite and everything and then go berserk and pee on the carpet or something. We discussed the serial killer theories from both viewpoints, seeing as how we didn’t really know each other from Adam. He would accept nothing from us except bottled beer. Maybe he thought we’d try to poison him, or at least drug him up.

About fifteen minutes after he got there my wife went outside and backed into his car right in the driveway. I guess that loosened things up because the cocktails started flowing, the shoes came off and we relaxed and started talking shit about other bloggers. Much shit was dished out as is often the case when the other people aren’t around to make it a fair fight. Somehow I expected him to talk faster and be more aggressive, but he was pretty laid back and comfortable in his skin.

He made some classic comments, like, “Your wife really looks a lot younger than you.” I’m not sure if it was a compliment to my wife or a statement about my age. Anyway, he turned out to be a very intelligent guy and not a raving lunatic. In fact he was really nice guy who I consider a friend.

The next morning he was hammering beers by 8:00AM, much to my wife’s amusement. Somehow I don’t think she’d be amused if I did that alone, but Shank was a guest and was on vacation, so it seemed reasonable. Then we talked more shit about other bloggers and how we dislike most everything about the human race.

I wish he could have stayed longer.

Lovely Wife sent me this article that details the long-awaited suppression of a violent and incredibly dangerous "game" in a Massachusetts elementary school.

Tag, you're out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

It's about time! Most people don't realize just how dangerous "tag" really is. More kids die each year from tag-related injuries than hopscotch and tiddlywinks combined!

In addition to the physical dangers, "tag" has massive potential to cause emotional trauma. Being "it" is not a good thing in this so called game. The "it" kid is a social pariah - somebody to be avoided at all costs, even to the extent of running away and screaming if they approach. Shirley Maclaine and Oprah, among tens of others, have described the buried tag-related anxieties and fears they relived under regression therapy.

The third facet in this playground axis of evil is the touching. Little kids, forced by peer pressure, to touch and be touched. It's a well known fact that "tag" is a gateway game to other touching games like "doctor".

Thanks the stars that there are principled and honorable administrators like Gaylene Heppe who are willing to put it all on the line to protect our kids.

I'm not sure how many of you caught Dan Simmons' post last April. I found it to be a particularly riveting peice of short fiction; and it seemed to get visceral responses from many people.

So I guess I wasn't surprised after all the blog hubub that he came back this month with a decidedly non-fiction peice that revists many of the ideas and supporting thought that went into Dan's original story. I found it to be at least as equally riveting as the first.

Considering the commotion the first peice caused, and Dan's thorough rebuttal; I highly recommend them both. The pretty much refute for me any moral equivalency arguments against the war; but also clarify what kind of enemy we're at war with, exaclty; as well as how we should approach such transformational faiths and ideologies that threaten society by seeing other human beings as means to their ends rather than as ends in themselves. As Dan would say.

I'm telling you, it's a real eye opener; and you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it some time.

Whether you liked him or not, you probably read him at one time or another.

Acidman is gone.

I'm pretty much speechless.

So the thesis thing went okay. Actually, the professor basically shredded my thesis into little bits; which she sprinkled on the floor of her office while skipping cirlces around the chair I was sitting in. I could swear she was humming a tune too. Hmm... At any rate, I'll be reworking it again this week and probably this weekend, the good news is I get to chop huge portions of it out as long as I enclose the pertinent data. Which really is nice, because when it comes to writing papers and analyses; I'm a pretty brief guy. Hate that academic mumbo-jumbo BS. Give me the info I need to make a decision, everything else can go in some appendix somewhere.

On an unrelated note, if you're petitioning for full citizenship in a country; and demonstrating hundreds of thousands strong in the streets of a major metropolis, it might aid your cause if you were to, let's say, avoid mugging photogs milling about. Oh, and even more importantly, please don't disgrace the flag:

So, I don't now where you live, but unless you live under a goddamn rock you probably have a Wal-Mart in your area. Well, around here we've been having a rash of robberies in the Wal-Mart parking lots. Apparently, they're big enough that a team of two can overtake someone, steal their wallet, and bail before getting caught. I didn't believe this shit until it happened to me this week.

I'm coming back from the store out to my car, and I've got two armloads of merchandise on me. I walk up to the car, and there's these two fine, barely dressed broads washing my windshield. They're rubbing their bodies all over the place, gyrating, moaning for Chrissakes. Except I'm a fucking nut about the damn car and I'm thinking I have to go home and dry the fucking thing off now. So I get ready to toss some money at these skanks to get them outta here; and they say they don't want the money. Whatever. I'm putting my shit in the trunk, and they're like "Can we get a ride down to Fairfield?"
"What the fuck ladies, do I look like I work for the fucking transit authority to you?"
"But we'd reeeeeally appreciate it," they say; fondling eachother. Unfair.

I let them in the backseat, and as we're cruising down the street these freaks start to make out. I'm trying to hold the fucking wheel, shift gears, check my blindspots, and watch these hot chicks covered in suds make out in my backseat. I was never good with over stimulation. Completely derails my focus.
Halfway there, the two of them climb into the front seat and start doing things to me that are illegal in 16 states. I'm trying to navigate rush hour traffic through a sea of knees and elbows; and the goddamn windows are fogging up.

I drop them off at Fairfield Shopping Center, and as I'm driving away I realize one of the wicked bitches lifted my goddamn wallet off me. Just wanted you guys to be on the look out. They go from shopping mall to shopping mall doing this shit to people and then lifting their wallets.

Happened to me this afternoon, Wednesday, twice on Sunday, and last Saturday as well. Fucking theiving bastards.

Here's the way I figure it. Hot PETA chicks* stage naked protests** against killing animals. If we stop killing animals, they won't get naked any more. Conversely, the more animals we kill, the more chicks there will be protesting in naked fury.

I'm off to get me a fur coat and a Big Mac.

* There's some man ass in there too for the ladies.
**The answer to the lead naked chick's question is "It depends ... are we talking bush babies or bengal tigers?".

With all the brouhaha about Christmas displays this year, here is a change in pace:

Murderous Santa display outside Manhattan mansion draws stares

Jason, Michael, and Freddy meet Santa, anyone?

California is looking to take the cigarette tax crown from Rhode Island. Rhode Island, at $2.46, currently has the highest per pack tax in the nation. A ballot measure in the land of nuts and money would raise California's per pack tax to $3.47.

Funds raised would be earmarked for health initiatives:

"It distributes the funds in a well-thought-out and comprehensive array of health programs that will make a frontal assault on the major diseases and causes of death in California, maintain and expand access to health care, and improve the health of all Californians," said Jim Knox, vice president of the American Cancer Society, one of the measure's sponsors.

Well hot damn, what a great idea. Cigarettes are bad for you, right? So the gub'mint puts an onerous tax on them and applies these gains to addressing health problems. As a side benefit they drive down the sales of the offending product and hopefully, in time, drive the offending companies out of business. Sweet.

It works both ways, you see.

Kettle robbery suspect found dead

Lee J. George has been mugging Salvation Army fund raisers (the folks with the kettle on a tripod and that annoying bell*) since November 28. On Monday they found him dead in his car, which was overturned and at the bottom of a creek.

* A kinder, gentler Army. This weekend we saw a bell ringer at Wally-World without a bell. She had a red sign with big white letters saying "Ding!".

Just a short while ago President Bush took responsibility for federal shortfalls in Katrina relief efforts. Now what are the odds that all of the people who were screeching about "only wanting to hear him take responsibility" will shut their foam flecked gobs?

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll go buy a lottery ticket instead.

A bit over two years ago somebody outed Valerie Plame ne-Wilson. This may or may not have been a crime. Nobody knew for sure. Two years later it has turned into a massive kerfuffle with independent investigators, grand juries, millions spent on investigation. And nobody knows if a crime was committed.

Here's a clue - if two years ago something happened and nobody knew if it was a crime and you've spent millions of dollars and taken up tens of thousands of man-hours investigating it and you still don't even know if a crime was committed, it's pretty safe to assume that no crime was committed.

For the love of Pete, put this sucker to bed already.

Trey posted his opinion on smoking bans. He just happened to post pretty much the exact thing that I was working on for a post. But being the resilient and dynamic writer that I am I will shift to another topic with the grace and agility of a ballet dancer. An incredibly well hung and hairy chested ballet dancer, I might add.

Cell phone use while driving. It's evil incarnate. It's dangerous. It causes accidents. Cell phones kill!

Fortunately, the Georgia Assembly is considering just how they are going to word a law that will make it illegal to use cell phones while driving unless you use a hands-free set. The people who are pushing for a law against cell phones aren't happy. This law isn't strict enough. You see, they want a complete ban on using cell phones while driving. They say that it isn't the act of holding a phone that distracts a driver, it is the attention he* pays to the conversation.

A complete ban on cell phones in cars just doesn't go far enough. We also need to make a law against talking to the driver. If a conversation on a phone is so distracting how could anybody argue that a conversation with the person next to you isn't? Maybe we can mandate that each new car has a sticker like the ones on busses: "Do not speak to driver while vehicle is in motion."

I need an unabridged thesaurus to properly express my contempt, disgust and outrage at this situation.

Mukhtaran Mai was invited to speak at a conference on women's abuse in America. A few days ago she was put on house arrest and listed officially on government enforcement lists as a person not permitted to leave Pakistan. Today she was arrested and brought to Punjab.

If the name Mukhtaran Mai seems to ring a bell for you it's because it was well publicized in 2002, shortly after she was gang raped on the order of a tribal council. Her 12 year-old brother had offended a powerful tribe by befriending and then being sodomized by a clan member. To punish the boy for his affrontery the local law (tribal council) subjected Mukhtaran to being gang raped by four men of that tribe.

After her story was publicized internationally the Pakistani government gave her a pile of "shut up about it" money. She used that money to start a school. Her students include the children of the men who raped her.

The shut up money didn't work so now the Pakistani government has kidnapped her. They have coerced her into making a statement that she does not want to come to America to speak about her experiences. Mukhtaran managed to contact a foreign reporter and explained that she and her family had been threatened with serious repercussions if she did not issue the statement.

Pakistan is our ally? Personally I want nothing to do with "friends" like this.

Muhktaran needs to be freed immediately and her right to travel returned to her. Any other action by the Pakistani government will say far more than she ever could about just what sort of place Pakistan is.

(Items from after she was placed on the No Exit list were from an NPR story I heard on the way home today. I can't find a link to it and am too pissed off to try very hard right now.)

Heard this on the news this morning. Couldn't wait to get home and find it online so I could post it:

Boy gets trapped inside vending machine

I enjoy Jim's stories about his kids getting in trouble, but I'd like to see him top this one.

For that matter, can anyone else with kids top this?

SIDE NOTE: I goofed earlier. I posted with a different, though similar, story about another child who crawled into a stuffed animal machine. Trouble was, it was 18 months out of date. In my panic, I deleted the original entry rather than edit it and ended up just rewriting the post. Sorry for the brain-fart.

I guess this activity about crawling into game machines isn't all that uncommon, after all.

From Da Professor comes word the Supremes have ruled states cannot ban direct out-of-state wine shipments. This fills me with joy, as I live in Maryland, one of those backwaters where direct wine sales are banned. Worse, I live in Montgomery County, which regulates the sale of alchohol out the wazzoo. OUT THE WAZZOO, I SAY!!!.

Cheap Mad Dog! Cheap Mad Dog! Man, my life is COMPLETE!

Here's an interesting tidbit I found at Rhymes With Right. The animal shelter at PETA's Norfolk headquarters isn't a no-kill shelter. In the past five and a half years they've killed over 10,000 puppies and kitties (Figure doesn't include murders in 2005).

Here's the numbers.

PETA had income of over $29,000,000 (that's TWENTY-NINE MILLION, in case you're having trouble with all of those zeros) last year. Obviously that wasn't enough to house the thousands of companion animals they killed. There must be something wrong with my math though because when I multiply 2,000 pets times $600 (average annual cost for a shelter to keep an animal) it comes out to way less than a single PETA advertising campaign.

There is no notice anywhere on PETA's website that they kill animals. There's lots of begging for money to save the animals though.

So donate to PETA and kill a kitten today!

Gimme a free frosty ... bitch.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

I got some more information on GreenZap, the soon to launch alternative to eBay PayPal. They won't be using a percentage fee system like PayPal. It will be just a flat $1 fee to transfer funds. That means that any transfer or purchase over $28 will net more cash if you use GreenZap over PayPal.

And if you sign up before the launch using that nifty link in the first paragraph your account will start with $25 in it and I'll get a $5 finder's bonus. What's not to like about that?

In February an editor from the Dallas Morning News contacted me requesting an editorial. I happily wrote one for them but they've never used it so I posted it at Zero Intelligence.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

[profanity alert]

I heard about this on NPR the other day and it pissed me off to no end.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, a magnificent bird long given up for extinct, has been sighted in the cypress and tupelo swamp of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, scientists announced yesterday.

That's not the part that pissed me off. I actually thought that was pretty cool.

Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who led the effort to confirm the sightings, said at a news conference in Washington, "This is really the most spectacular creature we could imagine rediscovering."

That didn't piss me off either. I'm happy for the birders. This is like finding the holy grail for them and it really is an impressive looking bird.

The Nature Conservancy and other conservation groups have bought land in the region of the refuge to help preserve a larger area.

Nope, that didn't piss me off either. Private groups spending their money to preserve nature is okay in my book. People can do what they want with their money.

[Fitzpatrick] was joined by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who announced that the agency, along with the Department of Agriculture, had proposed to spend $10 million of federal money for research, habitat protection and law enforcement efforts to protect the bird.

That's the one! What the fuck!? The government wants to spend $10fuckingmilliondollars to protect one damned bird? That's right - ONE bird was found. It took them an entire year to verify that ONE ivory-billed woodpecker was alive and they want to spend TEN MILLION DOLLARS on it!

What in the ever living fuck are these worthless shits thinking of? If people care enough about this bird then they'll pony up the cash to protect it. And guess what? They do care and they did pony up. The bird's habitat is already purchased and protected! By private organizations! The way it should be!

Damn, am I pissed!

(This rant spurred because I was reminded of this travesty by a post at I Hate My Cubicle)

Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Well it is!

I found the Draw a Pig Personality Test over at AAAVelociman's joint.

Meet SnoozePig!

You are a realist. You believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.)

You are emotional and naive, care little for details and are a risk-taker.

You are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.

The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are. The bigger the better. You drew large ears, you are a great listener!

The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life. And again more is better! You drew large tail, WOW!

It's frightening just how accurate these things are.

Two instructors at Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended while the school investigates their part in inciting hatred and violence against Jews.

One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.

The other teacher had written comments on the student's paper, praising the boy's story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"God bless you, your efforts are good," the teacher wrote on the title page. "The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there."

Holy jihadi, Batman! An actual Islamic institute doing internal investigation into terrorist incitement! I might have to turn off the Internet here so I don't ruin the moment.

UPDATE

Dammit, I knew I should have quit while I was ahead.

The students who have aired complaints claim that some professors in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture [at Columbian University] suppress opinion sympathetic of Israel and inappropriately substitute political activism for teaching.

An assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, is accused of threatening to expel a student from his classroom because she defended Israel's military actions. Mr. Massad denies the charge. Mr. Massad is undergoing his fifth-year review. According to a source, a committee within the Middle East studies department evaluating Mr. Massad has recommended that he continue teaching in the department.

Mr. Cole on Tuesday night cast Mr. Massad as an exemplary teacher who is under no obligation to give equal weight to student opinions expressed during class. Just as a Jewish history professor doesn't have to take seriously a student who denies the Holocaust, Mr. Massad is not required to give equal time to an argument denying the 1982 Shatila refugee camp massacre in Lebanon, he said.

No, I'm not getting into this one. Not the meat and potatoes part, anyway. I did want to address two things that happened recently that are getting a fair share of hoopla and generating lots of righteous indignation.

Congress passed a law for one person.

Yes, they did. They do it all of the time. This is part of the normal course of business for our lawmakers. Although I find the practice reprehensible it is neither unusual nor (as clarified by the Supremes) unconstitutional. It is normally done to grant boons or give away money. It has been used to allow immigrant families to stay in the USA. It is used regularly to bail out industries. Need to give a couple billion in tax dollars to the airline industry? Just write a law. Easy pleasy mac and cheesy.

What these personalized laws cannot be used for is to target and harm individuals. I think that this particular law will fail the test because no matter who is right in the Shiavo case this law is specifically targeting and interfering with them. I don't think this law will pass constitutional muster.

As Ilyka pointed out so very well, stop barking at Congress for doing their job.

I've just got to get this off my chest right now: One bit of idiocy that needs to die is the ranting and raving about what an abuse of government power it is that Congress got involved**. Let's at least be clear about why Congress got involved: It's because people have been bothering the living daylights out of them. It's called representative government.

Links and fancy formatting over at Ilyka's. Go read, I'll wait for you.

The federal judge in Tampa did not follow the law - he didn't order Shiavo's feeding tube replaced.

Apples and oranges. The law isn't about Terry's feeding tube, it's about the overall case being heard in federal court.

The judge would have been breaking the law if he had ordered the tube replaced, based on the information provided to him in court. At the least he would have been trampling all over proper jurisprudence. In order to find immediately for Shiavo's parents (the requirement to replace the tube) their lawyers had to show they had an expectation of winning the federal court case. They couldn't show that they even had a minuscule case according to law. No precedents, no arguments, nothing. They have been working on this for years, there are 30,000 pages of court documents already filed, they have ostensibly been preparing for this exact case and they still didn't have squat ready for this court. Their argument boiled down to "We didn't prepare anything but you need to decide in our favor because we're right".

Don't blame the judge for following the precepts of law, blame the Shindler family's crappy lawyers.

That's it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the meat and potatoes post. Then again, maybe not - I enjoy having readers.

It started innocuously enough. On an ostensibly cooperative "humanitarian" mission to the tsunami ravaged Far East, the senior George Bush connived to get ex-President Bill Clinton, a post-operative heart surgery patient, to sleep on the cold, hard floor.

The next morning, Bush said he peeked in and saw Clinton sound asleep on the plane's floor. [The article does not mention how Bill then slept through Bush's cackling, maniacal laughter. - ed]

Now we learn that Clinton must undergo another round of surgery to attempt to repair damage to his lungs.

Former President Clinton will undergo a medical procedure this week to remove an unusual buildup of fluid and scar tissue from his chest, six months after he underwent quadruple bypass surgery [And just a few weeks after being forced to sleep on the cold, hard floor. - ed], his office said Tuesday.

You don't have to take your tin foil hat off to connect the dots here, people. You can almost taste the taint of Karl Rove on this plot. This is obviously an attempt by the Bush Monarchy to head off the Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2008. If they succeed in killing off Mr.Clinton they will send poor Hillary into a trough of despair from which her broken heart will never recover. Even if they have a near miss and only turn Bill into a bed-ridden differently-abled individual they know that Hillary will immediately resign her Senate seat and forgo all political ambitions to nurse him and be constantly by his side.

Now the truth is revealed. Who has the guts to brave the stormtroopers of Halliburton to do something about it? The first step is obvious. Everybody needs to link to this post and spread news of the plot. Eventually, if we all do our part, somebody at Reuters who isn't compromised by the jackbooted government thugs will pick it up and spread the truth to the world.

Only the truth, shouted loud and proud, can save Hillary and Bill from this diabolical threat. And as we all know, only Hillary can end the neocon threat, restore us to a life of liberty, and deliver the holy grail of free medical.

Here's your big chance to share the love. Phillip Coons needs your help to make Delusional Duck the successful multi-poster newsblog it wants to be.

Participation is incredibly easy. Just create an account and you've got posting power. The article entry form is clear and well laid out - just put the link, source, news blurb and your comments in the correct boxes and they come out the other side all Ducky. That is to say, formatted nicely in the Delusional Duck format.

Like Phil says, "If the article you post interests you, chances are it will interest our other readers as well."

Go for it!

So, Hunter S.Thomson is dead. Who, you may ask, was Hunter S.Thomson? No, of course you won't ask that as you and every other person in the free world, with the notable exception of yours truly, knows who the hell he was. Not only that but everybody also seems to either despise or adore him unconditionally.

Here's what I've been able to pick up from reading tribute posts:

• He was a poet
• He had some very meaningful works a long time ago
• He coined the term "gonzo journalism"
• He used a lot of drugs
• He had a hobby of introducing drugs to others
• He was a bitter and depressed man
• He killed himself
• He wrote a Johnny Depp movie*

My thoughts run something along these lines:

Hunter? Dude? Suicide? How freaking stereotypical!

Come on now! This isn't news. A depressed poet past his prime offs himself and people are acting shocked and amazed. Suicide and murder are the only ways that depressed poets past their prime leave this mortal coil. It's stipulated in their job contracts so the publishing companies can get residual sales.

That's not news. It's what lets obituary writers work ahead a bit.

You want news? Show me a poet that lives happily to a ripe old age and dies peacefully in bed. Now that's news.

* This item may be out of proper order.

Eminent domain is the power of the government to seize private property to put it to public use. They might do this to put in a railroad line or an interstate, perhaps a parking lot for the court building or to demolish slums. It's also been used by various nefarious officials to blatantly steal people's property.

The Supreme Court is hearing an eminent domain case now. They will rule whether or not the government of New London can kick landowners out of their homes so a new Cosco can be built. Okay, that's a bit of a paraphrase but it's essentially the way it is. New London wants to seize 15 homes and then give the peninsula of Fort Trumbull to private developers.

The government argues that they need to redistribute this land in order to build up the tax base, create jobs and improve the very sad economy of New London. They say that developers are not interested in building up Fort Trumbull unless all of Fort Trumbull is given to them. The land owners refuse to give up their family homes and legal property so Pfizer can build another parking lot on free land.

The repercussions of this case will be widespread. If the Court determines that "public use" includes gifting one person's private property to another private interest every single land owner is in danger. There is no private home (possibly excepting Graceland) that would not be a better income generator if it was replaced with a WalMart.

My position is pretty obvious: The profit of the many does not outway the rights of the few.

The bastards!

(Hat tip to Delusional Duck)

Google weighs options after legal decision

Internet search engine Google said on Monday that it was weighing a possible appeal after a Paris court ordered it to pay $260 000 (about R1,6-million) plus costs to luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton for breach of trademark.

The high court in central Paris awarded the damages in a decision late on Friday and ordered Google to stop displaying advertisements for Vuitton's rivals whenever Internet users typed Vuitton's name or other trademarks into the search engine.

The case centered on Google's AdWords program. This allows advertisers to bid for high responses in the "Sponsored Links" areas of Google search returns. Google does not restrict the words that advertisers can bid on. Ford, for example, could target an advertisement to appear when people searched for Chevy. The French courts have determined that this is trademark infringement on Google's part.

Um...what?

A Jordanian couple fell into anonymous love over the internet and met to consummate their relationship. Their tryst ended quickly and vociferously as soon as they saw and recognized each other. The two were a married couple, separated for months.

Budding Jordan cyber love ends in divorce

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" -- the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the agency said.

Bakr then went home and beat off to porn.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

This is pretty neat: Private, home school students added to Perdue's virtual school bill.

Home schoolers and private school students would be allowed to take online public school courses under changes a Senate committee made Monday to a bill backed by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

The Senate Education committee approved a plan to create the Georgia Virtual School - giving students in small school systems computer access to advanced placement classes and other courses that may not be available to them locally.

Students not enrolled in public schools would be allowed to take up to 6 courses. I don't like the limit there but this is better than the original proposal that was limited to enrolled students only. Of course not everybody is happy with providing educational opportunities outside of the classroom.

The amendment was opposed by Democrats on the Republican-controlled committee and by representatives of teacher's groups, who said the change would effectively take money away from school systems.

"This is one more step in weakening public schools," said Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, a committee member who voted against the amendment. "Public school students should not have to wait in line."

In the words of the great Arlo Guthrie, "Have a nice steaming cup of shut the fuck up". Teachers, teachers' unions and the people who depend on those unions for their kickbacks payola bribe money support will always be against anything that takes away their money. In this case they are working not only against homeschoolers but also against progress. The web is a fantastic tool and the more it is developed for scholastic opportunity the less we will need schools and teachers. You can't fault somebody for working in their own self interests but you surely can call them fucknuts when that puts them directly at odds with our kids.

Defeating Nazi Germany

Do: Invade Germany.

Don't bother: Turning off Hitler's speech with a very forceful twist of the radio's knob.

Ending segregated busing

Do: Sit in the front of the bus.

Don't bother: Sending a 'strongly worded letter' to the CEO of the bus company.

Getting your own holiday

Do: Dedicate your life to a worthy goal, motivate and move your people toward it, live as an example of it, die in the pursuit of it.

Don't bother: Bitching at the TV set.

Send a man to the moon

Do: Put a guy in a big ass rocket and launch it.

Don't bother: Blasting loud music at the neighborhood Luddite.

Change the world for the better

Do: Put on your Birkenstocks and your best hemp shirt, get out of your house and actually fucking do something constructive that works toward the goals you profess to have.

Don't bother: Protesting against a welcome back party.

Bitching and whining will never change a thing. Jesse Jackson will never make the world a better place because he doesn't actually DO. Bill Gates made the world a better place because he does things in the real physical world to support and promote his ideals.

These protesters are the worst sort of hypocrite. They want only to scream their disillusionment in the hopes that somebody else will do something about their problems.

(Tip credit to DCeit)

...before the Islamic terrorists start killing relief workers in Indonesia?

Relief and aid workers are a favorite target of Muslim extremists and there are shitloads of Muslim extremists in Indonesia. Right now the whole country is a target rich environment for these murderers. Chaos, unknown people everywhere, lots and lots of westerners with limited security.

In fact the Indonesian government is now setting up American forces for murder by these monsters. In an effort to remain in country to continue providing assistance our Marines will now be unarmed.

In a major compromise, the Marines agreed not to carry guns while on Indonesian soil and for the vast majority of troops to return to ships stationed off the coast after each day's operations.

I do not see good things coming out of this compromise.

(Hat tip to e-claire)

There's some controversy about perennial favorite band Nickelback. Mikey Smith noticed a disturbing similarity between their older hit How You Remind Me and a newer hit Someday. He synched the songs up to play together and found that they do indeed share a baseline. That really pissed him off.

Nickelback, you lazy, talentless bunch of wankers. What, did you think nobody would notice that you're recycling your hideous dirge and selling it all over again to your deluded fan base? You bastards, you're taking advantage of those tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats who are too thick to notice you're releasing songs that are EXACTLY THE SAME as ones you recorded earlier. And here's the proof, people. Listen to their first godawful hit, played through the left speaker. At the same time, an equally shite single (released two years later) will be played through the right speaker. Can you spot the difference?

He maintains that this is effectively theft by deception. While I agree with some of his points ("deluded fan base" and "tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats" to be precise) my overall impression of his argument is "So what?".

In order to be popular a group must produce an identifiable sound. Think of any band that has had more than a single hit and you should have no trouble finding similarities in their songs. In this particular case they are recycling a base line. In three chord rock. How do you not recycle a baseline when you've only got a handful of them to work with?

They aren't talentless wankers, they are wankers of limited talent. Successful wankers of limited talent. Rich successful wankers of limited talent. Rich successful wankers of limited talent that get a whole lot more pussy than Mikey Smith.

And they deserve it. They made a sound that people like. They're smart enough to keep making the sound that people like. Eventually people will get bored with that sound and they will either come up with a new sound that people like or they will descend into obscurity like almost every other band in the history of music to resurface only as guests on Hollywood Squares or the occasional Trivial Pursuit question.

Koffi Annan:

"Our response to this unprecedented catastrophe must be equally unprecedented."

Since the tsunami deaths and displacement are more than assuredly precedented in numbers he must mean that the genocide in Sudan does not qualify as a catastrophe. Doesn't the systematic murder and forced displacement of the black populace of Sudan by the ruling Islamic power seem catastrophic to you?

There are some serious differences between these two catastrophes though. One was an unpredictable natural disaster, the other is an ongoing disaster perpetrated by man against man. One has garnered massive international aid, the other has been largely ignored. One has Koffi Annan calling for a billion dollars for assistance, the other is a UN budget item. One has the full backing of the UN, the other is a footnote to partisan byblows.

Most importantly, one has absolutely nothing to do with the UN charter while the other is precisely what the UN was formed to deal with.

The UN is dead in all but name. They function adequately as a substitute and support mechanism for international humanitarian aid but this is not their purpose. For the crises they were created to deal with they have the same success and authority as a crackpot in the woods writing letters to the editor.

When they need life-saving prescription medication they are a kid, therefore not permitted to carry prescription medication.

When they want a tan they are a kid, therefore not permitted to use a tanning bed.

When they want an abortion they are not a kid. They can leave class with the school's blessing, escorted by a non-guardian and unrelated adult, and go get an abortion.

In California (and too many other states), a kid is a kid when a special interest group has bullied or bargained their narrow focus into law.

Stop legislating morality. Let kids be kids and let their parents raise them.

(Inspired by an excellent post at Different River. Go there for links to all of those news items.)

I just finished an excellent article on Evil SQA Practices that would bore the vast majority of you into a stupor the envy of major drug manufacturers. But one bit of it rang a big ol' bell in my noggin:

There was a small Polynesian island in a remote part of the Pacific Rim where the inhabitants lived in grass huts and raised pigs for their skins. One night, during an intense tropical storm, lightening struck a hut with a pig inside. The hut burned to the ground, and the next day, as the locals were sifting through the charred remains of the hut, they came across the burned up and still smoldering pig. It smelled pretty good, so a young boy broke off a piece and tasted it. It tasted good. This is how the islanders discovered roasted pig. A week or so went by and the islanders got hungry for roast pig. So they put a pig inside another hut and burnt that hut to the ground.

So the practice was to burn down huts. The principle was wanting to satisfy their hunger, specifically for roasted pig. If the islanders would have continued to focus on practices, they would eventually become homeless. To, instead, focus on principles could have lead the islanders to the invention of the barbeque and have spared their huts.

So terrorism is a practice. Do they even remember their principles?

I heard a story about Venezuela on NPR this morning. A political action group is being charged with treason for encouraging citizens to vote against the sitting president. The group receives funds from the US through the National Endowment for Democracy. The gist of the story is that American money is being spent to further American interests instead of bolstering a democracy.

Well...duh. (Issue 1)

Generally speaking a strong democracy is in America's best interests. As an ostensibly democratic nation we deal better with other ostensibly democratic nations. However, not all governments perform admirably in following our wish list, whether the government is democratic, oligarchic, despotic or other. American money should most definitely be spent to further American interests. One of our great interests is fomenting democracy so our money is very often spent supporting democratic causes but this does not and should not mean that we will spend money on supporting a democracy against our national interests.

Um...excuse me? (Issue 2)

How exactly is giving money to a party working within the democratic framework of their country not supporting democracy? Isn't one of the tenets of democracy the ability to organize change from within? The money here is being spent in support of a candidate in a democratic election. Since when is it not democratic to support a candidate in an election?

Conclusion

NPR really pisses me off sometimes.

Okay, so I'm getting pretty experienced with pain management. The crap I've got requires some form of external medication in order for me to function like a relatively normal person. I say relatively because, let's just face facts here, I ain't never gonna be accused of being normal. Hehe.

Anyway, the specialist I saw (the last doc I saw about whatever I've got) gave me Vioxx. This worked pretty well. When i was taking Vioxx I was pretty much back to regular function. General lack of pain, free body movement, wrestling with the kids, lifting heavy objects, stuff like that. The only thing it didn't really tackle was my feet. Still, it worked and I was in better shape for using it.

Then Vioxx was recalled because it kills people. People on Vioxx have a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Fuck.

I kept taking it anyway, seeing as I didn't have that many left and am not in any particular risk category for heart problems. I looked forward to the day when I could see the doc again and get a prescription for Celebrex, which was the drug that Vioxx users were being switched to (in the majority).

In the meantime I needed something of the over-the-counter variety. I went to my old friends acetaminophen and acetylsalicylic acid. They'd carried me through many a hangover and headache. They sucked. Didn't really get rid of the pain at all. I tried ibuprofen. That worked pretty well but not for a very long time and I had to take a pretty large dose for it to work. It also started to make me violently ill.

Enter naproxen sodium. More commonly known as Naprox or Aleve. Aaaaaahhh!!! (<--- Angels singing)

It worked. Really well. Maybe not quite so well as Vioxx but well enough to function and no stomach problems, no need to overdose. I was happy and relieved that I had found something that worked to take me through to when I could get Celebrex.

Then late last week some problems surfaced regarding Celebrex. It seems that it kills people. People on Celebrex have a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Fuck!

What the hell is up here? Now the FDA is looking into the entire class of drugs and it's possible that they might all be classified as unsafe. The entire class of drugs! This is the class of drugs specifically designed to get rid of the pain I've got.

Fuck!!

But wait, there's more. On my ride into work this morning I heard about a test that is being aborted because the drugs being tested were greatly increasing the risks of patient's suffering heart attacks and strokes. The drugs involved? Celebrex and naproxen.

Fucking Aleve, which has been on the market for 30 years, over the counter for more than a decade, regarded by all as one of the safest pain killers available, is suddenly found to increase risk factors for heart attacks and strokes but this isn't discovered until I need it?

Fuck you, universe!

You're in your van and your two year old daughter is asleep in the back seat. You've got to stop and pick something up from the office. Do you:

A) Wake the tyke up and bring her inside with you?
B) Lock the doors and roll up the windows and go in alone?
C) Leave the van running and unlocked with your sleeping child inside while you go into the building alone?
D) A or B
E) Anything except "C". Really, just about anything you can possibly think of besides "C". Don't pick "C"!

If you picked "C", how would you feel while watching the van drive away?

Lovely Wife comments on a local woman who chose poorly.

Lycos has invested a lot in anti-spam infrastructure for their users but spam is still a huge problem. How do you stop the spammers? Passing laws doesn't work - they just rent servers in places where there are no laws against spamming. The spammers themselves don't seem to be susceptible to anything.

But their customers are. Lycos has designed a tool to give those customers exactly what they want - traffic. Lots and lots and lots of traffic.

Lycos launches screensaver in fight against spam

Haarlem (pts) - The Internet portal Lycos http://www.lycos-europe.com has developed a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, the company is hoping to make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers rocket by keeping their servers running flat out. According to the Internet firm, if enough people sign up and download the new tool, spammers could end up having to pay to send out terabytes of data. By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity.

The individual burden isn't much (about the same as downloading an MP3 file over the course of a day) but the combined requests of thousands of trial users in Sweden have already had a dramatic effect. Response times from targeted sites have already dropped by 85 percent.

For the sites advertising through spam there are two damaging effects. First, they have performance issues. As huge numbers of requests come in their servers can't respond as quickly. Secondly, the Cialis and fetish gear merchant sites are using massive amounts of bandwidth - something they must actually pay for.

This is great. Spam is used because it is cheap. Make the use of spam expensive and people will stop using it.

Yay for Lycos!

(Tip credit to Dopple-G)

UPDATE
Kate has more, including a link to the download.

And don't shit where you drink either. The Georgia Supreme Court denied Gwinnett County's permit to dump 40 million gallons of sewage into Lake Lanier.

Sewage has been dumped there since before there was a lake. This permit was axed because it would allow Gwinnett to dump sewage that was less clean than they already have the capability to process and would allow them to avoid the per instance fines for violating the sewage quality requirements.

Lake Lanier is the main drinking water source for Atlanta and the sole source for the 700,000 residents in Gwinnett County. That number includes the five local members of the Peacock clan. Poop water, ewwwww. Thank god for Britta filters.

They rape women and children, force people into prostitution, and run sex slave rings. It's all in a day's work for United Nations Peacekeepers.

The United Nations has dispatched two teams to investigate 150 charges of sexual exploitation and abuse by civilian and military personnel serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a senior UN official.

The allegations include criminal activity, paedophilia, rape and solicitation of prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), at a press briefing Monday.

And people look to the UN as a proto-governing world body? It staggers the mind. That's like putting Clinton in charge of the secretary pool.

Now after these investigative teams come back with the results of their investigations the UN will issue recommendations. Yes, recommendations! They're not going to actually do anything about it at all. They're just going to go have a look-see and then say "Hey guys, please don't do that any more". Wanna know why? Because the UN has no authority over UN troops! Ain't that grand? There are 10,000 troops from fifty countries and each country is responsible for disciplining their own troops. If the boys from Stickitinmyassoslavia (that's a made up name, don't bother Googling it) don't have a problem with their troops raping kids and extorting sex from women then nothing at all happens.

Wow. Just...wow.

The Georgia legislature has made the Department of Motor Vehicles subservient to the Georgia public school system. Schools may now tell the DMV to suspend student licenses for up to a year. The idea behind it is to give the schools another stick to threaten truant and disruptive kids with. The reality is quite frightening, especially when you consider how existing school legislation, zero tolerance laws and zero tolerance policies aggravate and interact with each other.

Much more on this at Zero Intelligence.

So, the world's oldest terrorist lies in a coma and the world is waiting for him to breath his last. Anybody else thinking of this as an early Christmas present?

Don't get the wrong idea here. I'm not the sort that goes about wishing that people die or wishing bad things on anybody. Doing things like that tends to warp you. But that doesn't mean I can't be just as relieved as the next guy when the right person buys the farm.

Does that make me inhumane? Cold? Twisted? No, I don't think so. Look, if you have cancer do you cry when the surgeon excises it? If you've got a tick on your arm do you feel sorry for the tick when you're putting the lit match up against its shell and it pops like the world's smallest firecracker? Of course not.

Arafat is a parasite, just like that tick. Nobody got through to him with a lit match over the past decades but we can be just as happy when the bloated blood sucker dies naturally.

Israel and the Palestinians have serious problems. One of the worst of them is going away. For that I am very, very happy.

Side note: Anybody else notice that once again the French military is trying to keep an Arab dictator in power? Humanitarian aid, my ass.

Rodney Dangerfield has died of complications following heart surgery. He was a lousy actor but damn was he funny.

Rest in peace, Mister Dangerfield.

So what's the problem then? After all it has recently been shown that swimming through syrup is just as easy as swimming through water.

Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum, an edible thickening agent found in salad dressings, ice cream and shampoo, and dumped it into a 25-metre swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. "It looked like snot," says Cussler.

How's that for a pick-up line? "Hey Baby, want to swim through my pool of snot?"

The pair then asked 16 volunteers, a mix of both competitive and recreational swimmers, to swim in a regular pool and in the guar syrup. Whatever strokes they used, the swimmers' times differed by no more than 4%, with neither water nor syrup producing consistently faster times, the researchers report in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal.

I seems that although there is more drag on the body as it passes through a thicker liquid there is also more thrust from pushing against the liquid and the two cancel out for a human sized object.

Now we know. Isn't science grand?

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Dad Says School Duct-Taped Son's Pants

The dress code says no pants hanging off of your ass. Assistant Principal Patricia Walters takes that shit seriously. When Spencer Allison wore his baggies down low his teacher sent him to see her and she corrected the problem in impeccable fashion.

"She then proceeded to duct tape his waist, three times around the waist," said [the boy's father Scott] Allison. "Then she sent him back to class, in front of his peers."

He said he worried his son would be mocked by his classmates at the school in the town about 20 miles east of South Bend.

"This outrages me and shocks me," Allison said.

Of course he's going to be mocked. The Assistant Principal taped his pants! That's beautiful! Talk about fodder for mocking. And what are the chances that lil Spence violates that particular section of the dress code again?

Actually, Spencer is pretty lucky. Whenever I see an example of this particular fashion statement I always think of a staple gun, not duct tape.

(Hat tips to Jason Trommetter and Jack Mitcham.)

Kelley of Suburban Blight was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, along with a bunch of other bloggers who are less important simply because I don't know them. The article is here and you can avoid the annoying registration here.

Congrats Kelley!

The new federal dietary guidelines have been submitted for approval. Salt and alcohol are still bad for you but fortunately sugar is still A-okay!

The recommendations included noncontroversial language advising consumers to choose their fats and carbohydrates "wisely" and to limit salt and alcohol.

The experts stopped short of directly urging Americans to cut down on soft drinks, cakes, cookies, pies, candy and other sugar-filled food, saying more research was necessary.

Record numbers of kids are clinically obese and up to two thirds of adults are overweight to some degree or another. Diabetes rates have skyrocketed, riding in tandem with soft drink sales. More research is necessary to see if eating junk food contributes to weight gain?

I found this bit of news all over my regular reads this morning. Tiffany, Joanne Jacobs and Kimberly Swygert are all over it.

It seems that red is losing favor as the ink to use when correcting papers. It's too authoritarian and bold. It intimidates kids and could even harm their self esteem. Purple is soft and comforting and it is much better for their little psyches.

"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red."
...
A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.
...
"I do not use red," said Robin Slipakoff, who teaches second and third grades at Mirror Lake Elementary School in Plantation, Fla. "Red has a negative connotation, and we want to promote self-confidence. I like purple. I use purple a lot."

Tiffany asks what Lovely Wife and I, as homeschoolers, feel about the red/purple issue. Well, Tiffany it's like this: We've found that it's best not to correct at all. Pointing out that a child has made an error can be very damaging to their self esteem. We review things with the child and for the correct answers we give positive feedback like "Yay! You got that one right!" For the ones that are not 'traditionally correct' we will say something like "Oh, wow! That is certainly an exciting alternative!" Using this method we can quickly build up our boys' self esteem without exposing them to damaging concepts like "being wrong".

Um...right. That actually hurt me to put down on paper. The reality is we haven't done much written correcting at all yet. Bear starts book school next week. For the writing that he had done, we're generally right there with him and we correct him as he's doing it. If he brings me something he's done and there are errors I'll point them out to him and we'll fix it together if a writing instrument is handy.

Verbally I'm using red ink though. I guarantee.

POINTS: 3 points to the first person to source the title of this post. No searching, y'all.

Minutes spent listening to NPR this morning: 27
Number of times Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses were mentioned: 4
Coming up with new cuss phrase "lefty francostein news bitches": Priceless

I was particularly impressed by an exchange between the stateside newsposer and the man on the street reporter in Iraq, which I'll paraphrase:

Stateside Newsposer: I understand that there was terrific fighting in Najaf and large sections of the city are without power, water and phone service while Hakuna Ma-sadr's private army hides in one of Islam's most holy sites. But today is also the anniversary of something that is being noted here in the States and all over the world. A year ago today the United Nations building in Baghdad was bombed. Is that anniversary being noted in Iraq?

Man On The Street: No. The Iraqi's couldn't honestly give a good fuck about a single bomb that went off a year ago. You schmuck.*

Kudos to the man on the street in Iraq.

* The "you schmuck" part was implied in his tone and the 3 seconds of stunned silence before he answered the question.

Unrelated: Is there any mosque, plaza, pizzeria, etc in Iraq that isn't "one of Islam's most holy sites"?

Students allege liberal bias

Ruth Malhotra is a student at Georgia Institute of Technology. When she told her instructor that she would be missing her public policy class to attend a conservative political conference her instructor replied that Ruth would be failing her class.

Malhotra ... ultimately filed a grievance with the school, saying the professor used her public policy class to push her outspokenly liberal viewpoints on students.

"We’re there to learn the foundations of policy, not the professors’ personal platforms," said Malhotra, 20, of Atlanta.

Ruth isn't alone in her persecution. A growing number of conservative students are rebelling against an overwhelming liberal bias on their campuses. The group Students for Academic Freedom collects stories of bias and organizes students to respond. They have over 130 chapters at universities around the country.

Conservative legislators are also moving to help this persecuted minority.

They have proposed a measure that would encourage colleges to present “dissenting sources and viewpoints� in the classroom and to “promote intellectual pluralism� in selecting outside speakers and financing student activities.
...
Republican Rep. Howard P. “Buck� McKeon of California, chairman of the House subcommittee in charge of the reauthorization bill, said the proposals are designed to send a message to liberal academic officials: “You’re using the school in many cases to brainwash and not to educate.�

Dateline: Atlanta

Local blogging celebrity Jim Peacock has been profiled in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (annoying registration required, yech). Friends and family admit to being underwhelmed by his stark rise to fame. Mr.Peacock was unavailable for comment but his spokesman Bear Peacock released a tersely worded statement "He's pukey in the toilet. Can I have ice cream?"

New visitors to the site "Snooze Button Dreams" have been advised to examine the right sidebar where sections such as "People Love This Place / Best of Snooze Button Dreams" and "Blogrolls etc / Constant Reads" will expand to show them lists of hyperlinks to some of Mr.Peacock's favorite posts and favorite other bloggers.

This reporter was furnished with a short list of links to items mentioned in the article:

Posts mentioned in the article:

men's room at work

sour cream

kids in the parental bedroom

the gross guy stuff

dog's fear of water

cog on corporate culture

poetry in the soul

Hunting Todd



Jim's other blogs:

Protomonkey

ZeroIntelligence



Other blogs mentioned in the article:

Suburban Blight (Kelley's blog)

Pork Tornado (Dusty's blog)

Salami Tsunami (Dusty's other blog that he actually gets paid money to write, the lucky bastard.)

In addition, the following posts don't suck too badly:

Dirty White Boy

Learning to Speak

Hot to Trot

Why Oh Why Do I Have To Love Women?

Why Do Elephants Paint Their Tonails Red?

The Infection Spreads

I Sure Do Miss Those O'Grady's Chips

In closing, please do not look at the bageldonut. Seriously, it's nasty.

And he is offering his help in the healing process, to whoever might need it.

This is just so out of this world.

He'll be getting whacked in jail. I give him a year tops before some patriotic convict slips a sharpened spoon between his ribs and does what our courts can't seem to do correctly.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

Scene: Dining area in the Kerry/Edwards tour bus. Big John is behind the table wearing a short sleeve dress shirt (pinstripe, power tie pulled a bit loose, top button undone). He is drinking from his coffee mug (Kerry/Edwards logo on white mug) and watching the scenery go by. He puts the mug down and begins speaking, still watching the landscape zip past.

Kerry: (sadly) Some people are saying some pretty strong things about me. Things that my opponents are starting to pick up and run with. They are questioning my ability to lead and questioning my behavior in the Vietnam theatre. Heck, they aren't questioning - they're practically yelling it at the tops of their voices.

Big John turns to face the camera. He picks up the coffee, takes a swig, puts it down. The slightly sad look on his face is replaced with a bemused grin.

Kerry: Good! Those individuals are Americans and they are entitled to their opinions. What's more, as Americans they are entitled to say them out loud, on the radio, on the television, on the Internet, wherever and however they can. That is what America is about and I applaud them for taking a stand about something they believe strongly in.

But those are opinions that they are saying. My opinions are markedly different from theirs. My friends and supporters have very different opinions. The men who served on my boats with me while I was in Vietnam sure aren't voicing opinions like theirs. The good people of Massachusets who have elected me to almost two decades of service in the United States Senate certainly have different opinions.

Now we might not state our opinions so...forcefully, but we believe in them just as strongly. I hope that their message won't make you feel pressured into making your own opinion. I hope that you'll take the time to get to know me a bit before you take anybody else's opinion as your own.

Thank you, America.

Big John picks up the mug again and takes a sip as he turns back to the window to look out at the passing amber waves of grain. Cue mellow version of campaign rock song. Voiceover with legal mumbo jumbo.

(Link via Ace of Spades)

There was a brief period when it was in doubt whether Moore's movie would be eligible for the award. It was broadcast in Cuba recently and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a rule that a documentary cannot be broadcast on TV or Internet for 9 months after theatrical release. The Academy has decided that F911 is still eligible.

Realistically that's the only decision they could have made. The Cuban government broadcast the movie illegally. You really can't disqualify a movie because a hostile foreign power pirated it. What you can do is ask why governments like Communist Cuba and terrorist organizations like Fatah are distributing the movie but that's neither here nor there.

This decision will, of course, guarantee that F911 will win the award for best documentary. The culture in Hollywood is such that it is a sure thing. They'll wait until the ceremony to make it official but Mikey can clear off some discarded KFC buckets from the shelf right now to get a spot ready, should he choose to be proactive.

I had always thought that documentaries were supposed to be truthful. Sadly, that's not the case. Although every dictionary in the world indicates that a documentary should be a collection of truths the Academy does not. Jen detailed this nicely a while back. Here's some excerpted bits (emphasis mine):

Encarta: giving facts and information rather than telling a fictional story

Dictionary.com: Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film; A work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration.

Miriam-Webster: of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE (a documentary film of the war)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.

Essentially the Academy redefines documentary to substitute "creative" for "objective" and "emphasis on fact" for "factual".

Factual? We can't do that! That would be boring! Just make sure that there are a couple of facts in there somewhere. For the rest, get creative.

If you want to find dictionary definitions for Moore's movie it isn't very hard. This one fits very well:

the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person; ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; deceptive or distorted information that is systematically spread.

That's the definition of propaganda.

(News bit gleaned from Phillip Coons)

UPDATES:

More info from Photodude. Reid is the fellow who got resolution last month when this problem first surfaced. (Only Atlas happened to be lying out of their ass then, of course.)

Chief Wiggles has an update too. In brief, Operation Give (OG) is in contact with the Georgia State Attorney's office, they are getting legal counsel here (chances are good for pro bono), at this time only Atlas Line can actually prove where any money is and they aren't talking, the goods in the two containers stuck in Kuwait are going to be transhipped by the US military so the donated items will get to where they need to be and OG will stop incurring daily fees for the containers sitting in Kuwait.

Atlas Line is a shipping company headquartered here in Atlanta. Click on that link for one of the most painful websites I have seen since late 1997. They are not members of the Atlanta Better Business Bureau and appear to be in violation of Trademark against Atlas Van Line. They have only been in business since July 2002. They also appear to be thieves.

Brief history: Atlas Line was the shipper used by Chief Wiggles and Operation Give to ship three containers of donated goods to Iraq. The first container was delivered and was late coming back. The leery shipper on the other end then required a $10,000 deposit for the containers. Operation Give sent $10,000 to Atlas Line. It turned out that the amount needed was $10,000 per container. Operation Give sent an additional $20,000 to Atlas Line. The $30,000 was never received by the overseas shipper. Operation Give was not refunded.

I called Atlas Line today but was unable to speak to any of the principles. They're all out for the day. I did speak with Mary, who did not want to tell me her last name. She is an Operation Clerk there. She assured me that Atlas did not steal Operation Give's money, checks were sent overseas, they were in fact cashier's checks and Atlas does not now have any of Operation Give's money in their own bank account. According to Mary, they would not have been in business so long if they "ripped people off". I guess Mary thinks that two years is an exceptionally long time.

Like most people who read about this my bullshit detector is going off the scale. To that end I'm more than happy to have sent a missive similar to this post to every local news channel and paper.

She became a moderator for the local Freecycle group. That's where we got our big-ass gas grill (say that five times fast), ping-pong table and magnolia trees (all for free). Anyway, the local paper interviewed her and another moderator about the group and the article was published today.

Way to go, Baby!

A Perfectly Cromulent Blog has odds posted for which Simpsons character will be coming out of the closet. There's pretty good analysis there but there's one glaring problem - no Duff Man.

That's right, the hidden gay character in the Simpsons is none other than Duff Man himself. That's right. Duff Man. The symbol of drunken debauchery, high times and overconsumption is the closet gay. Hard to believe? Think Spudz McKenzie. The beer drinking world was shocked to the core when it was discovered that Spudz was a female dog. We'll be seeing Homer and the rest of the lushes questioning their own masculinity as Duff beer sales crash. Of course a certain segment of the population will gain an appreciation for the beverage but it won't quite make the transfer to trendy drink.

We'll see a suddenly effeminate Duff Man tossed out on his fabulous keister and befriended by Homer and family who, in typical fashion, will build him back up to the point where he challenges Duff corporate types and wins back his job. During the recovery watch for a scene at Moe's and interaction with many of Springfield's more "sensitive" characters. At least one (probably Smithers) will be drafted by Homer to provide a source of inspiration for DM.

I should be a comic writer. I really should.

It's pretty exciting that Lance Armstrong has taken the lead and is poised to win his 6th race. I do have one comment though: Where else but France do they reward the leader by letting him wear a yellow shirt?*

* And does it come with a little white flag?

Wow! Is there anything that people won't do to impress The Cheesmistres of Chaos? If there is, I certainly can't think of it:

Police Arrest Cheese-Covered Naked Man

Police found Monn's Jeep parked near the pool and then noticed his clothes and a bottle of vodka in the vehicle.

Then, they saw the naked man running toward the Jeep. Officials say he had cheese in his hair, on his face and on his shoulders.

(Hat tip to Phillip Coons)

Well, maybe not quite as confidential as you believe. Clancy reports on a state mandated violation of doctor/patient confidentiality. The public perception of doctor/patient confidence comes from TV shows and movies. It is very wrong and is worlds away from actual legal standings.

Doctor/patient confidence is a professional courtesy, not a legal requirement or legally defined right. Its legal standing is based on precedence and not legislation. Unfortunately for those who want to use it to avoid testimony there is just as much precedence going the other way.

The news item that Clancy posted about involves a law requiring that Pennsylvania doctors notify the Department of Transportation when they believe a patient has a substance abuse problem. The DOT may then revoke the patient's license based on the medical testimony. A more common example would be the laws requiring medical and scholastic personnel to report suspected child abuse.

What you end up with is a strong professional courtesy supported by tradition and some legal precedence that is being legislated away as more and more professionals are being legally forced to violate it. Be careful what you tell your doctor and do it with the understanding that even though he might not want to repeat it, if push comes to shove he'll have no choice but to do so.

Question for the lawyers in the house: How strong is the client/attorney privilege?

Any priests around? I'm also interested in the legal standing of the "seal of the confessional".

Arab Muslims in Sudan have displaced over a million blacks, killed tens of thousands of them and destroyed hundreds of their communities. You know, because their peaceful religion demands it and all.

"They say they don't want to see black skin on this land again," said Issa Bushara, whose brother and cousin were gunned down in front of their horrified families during an attack by the Janjaweed militia.

The Arab Muslim militants are being assisted in their 17 month slaughter by the Arab Muslim government forces. Fortunately the UN has decided to take an active role in stopping the wholescale murderous regime almost issue an official condemnation. They decided not to at the last minute for the past year and a half because Sudan deserves another chance is an Arab Muslim country is only slaughtering blacks might be able to turn it around by themselves in another year and a half just as soon as all the blacks are dead or driven off.

At the Kounoungo refugee camp, 50 miles from the Sudan border, Zenaba Ismail sits on a dirt floor. In her arms, she cradles her sister's sleeping infant.

Janjaweed fighters burst into their home early one morning and shot the child's pregnant mother in the stomach. The shooting induced labor, and she died while giving birth.

"He cries all the time, but I have no milk to give him," said the tall woman with traditional scars etched on her hallowed cheeks. "Every time I look at this child, I see my sister, and I can't stop the tears."

Refugee camps in outlying areas and neighboring countries are now seeing massive deaths from starvation, malnutrition and epidemic. These are outnumbering the actual murders.

Update: Rachel Ann asked if there wasn't some sort of award that we could give these folk. Since they are unfortunately still alive they are disqualified from the Darwins. Enter the Flaming Asshole, designed for just such a circumstance. Good call Rachel!

U.S. Humanitarian Group Arrives in Cuba

120 supporters of Pastors for Peace violated the US embargo on Cuba. They arrived in good spirits with their contraband goods and t-shirts calling for regime change in the USA.

Try that again - they went to Cuba and are calling for regime change in America.

Thank God they've moved to Cuba so we won't have to deal with them any longer. What? They aren't staying in the workers' utopia? They prefer the horrific boot of the oppressive Bush regime against the back of their collective neck to living in Cuba? Damn.

That's "Fucking, Austria". Not "fucking Austria".

(Hat tip to Common Sense & Wonder)

This post is:

Why? Oh, why?

Why is it illegal to shoot these people?

McDonald's hit with lawsuit over fat in french fries

You see back in September 2002 McDonalds announced that it was planning to switch to a healthier fry oil by Feb '03. In Feb '03 they announced that the new oil wasn't happening yet because it made the fries taste like Burger King's as there were concerns over how it made the food taste.

Now a fucknut in California is suing because McDonalds didn't follow their original plan. A corporation in America made a plan, discovered it wasn't workable and changed it. This bitch thinks that entitles her to compensation? What the fucking fuck?

Listen up you fry sucking loser, McDonalds corporation is not personally beholden to you in any way whatsoever. Are you suing Ford because their concept car from 2002 isn't a production model today? Why not? They certainly planned on implementing it but they haven't. That should mean that your rights have somehow been trampled, right?

If you are so concerned about the fat content of McDonalds french fries that you take it as a violation of your personal rights of citizenship then what you need to do is put down the McBurger and McFries, push your fat ass away from the table and walk down to Salads-R-Us. Better yet, buy yourself a fucking pot and cook a meal for your damned self for a change.

And whatever lawyer or group of lawyers is representing this bullshit should die. Literally die you sons of bitches - you are less than worthless, you are an active drain. Your removal would make this country a better place.

(Hat tip to Phillip Coons)

Neither did I and this is a good thing because 12.6 million people didn't march on Washington yesterday and if you heard about it that would mean that the press was doing a worse job than usual at making stuff up. They did march in Hong Kong though and you probably didn't hear about that either.

Not 12.6 million of course - they don't have that many people there. But the number of Hong Kong residents that rallied are proportional to 12.6 million Americans, if our populations were equivalent. Simon has the scoop and an excellent commentary about it.

Barbie dumped Ken and is now diddling Blaine, an Aussie surfer. Now look at this picture and tell me this doesn't look like a gal just a bit past her dance club days snagging some sweet teen meat.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

(Found at Jen's place)

I had the opportunity to listen to a bit over a minute of National Peoples Public Radio yesterday morning. The story I caught was a blurb about gas prices. Now if you're like me and you use gasoline you might have noticed that the price of gas has plummeted over the past month and a half or so. Locally we're down a good 40 cents a gallon over that period and they're continuing to fall. NPR's take on this?

Gas prices are an average of 45 cents a gallon more expensive than this time last year.

I can't believe I used to think of them as an impartial news source. Bloody posers.

The insane Arab fundamentalists have murdered South Korean citizen Kim Sun-il. Kim was one more foreign national working to make Iraq a better place.

Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles.

That's a very old Korean saying and it's very true but in this case I need these words to travel quite a few thousand miles as I wish peace of heart and deep sympathy for Kim Sun-il's family and loved ones.

The three thousand South Korean troops that were scheduled to ship to Iraq are still coming. Now they have one more reason to do so. Good hunting, gentlemen.

Terrorists in Saudi Arabia have carried through on their threats to kill their American hostage. I'm not going to hot link to anything because I honestly don't want that traffic. It's going to be everywhere you look in a few hours anyway so you don't need my links.

Paul M. Johnson Jr. was a contractor in Saudi Arabia, our "ally" in the fight on terrorism. His captors beheaded him as they previously murdered American Nick Berg.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the majority of the 9/11 suicide mass murderers. Saudi Arabia is where Osama bin Laden was born and where he made the millions of dollars that started his criminal empire. It is the stronghold of Wahabiism, the ultra strict fundamentalist Islamic sect that makes all of this possible.

In the past several months, foreign (pronounced "American") facilities have been attacked by terrorist strike teams and bombings. In each instance the Saudi police have allowed terrorists to escape, either through negligence or by disengaging contact.

I won't be saying anything at the moment that I might have some slight chance of regretting later. Instead I will just take this space to express my deepest sympathies for Paul Johnson's friends and family.

The Supreme Court overturned a 9th Circuit Court ruling against saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools because of the controversial word "God". Unfortunately they didn’t actually rule on the Constitutionality of “under God�. The lower court ruling was overturned because part-time dad Newdow didn’t have proper custody to sue in his daughter’s name.

Which means we’ll be seeing this again sometime soon.

Incidentally, today is Flag Day and the 50th anniversary of the addition of "under God" to the Pledge.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

Phylicia Rashad made history yesterday as the first black woman to win a Tony award for Best Actress. This begs two questions. The second is why hasn't a black actress won a Tony award before now? The first is what is Claire Huxtable doing in a play? We'll completely ignore the second question and concentrate on the first as there's more comedy potential there (trust me, this does pick up in a bit).

Broadway is Phylicia's first love and her notable successes in the silver screen were basically just placeholders in her career as a stage actress. A way to pay the bills you might say. That decade long stretch as the affluent lawyer mom of a gaggle of dark skinned and white souled children was but a diversion. How does one get 'diverted' from the love of their life for such a long time? A year here or there could be understood easily but a decade?

There's only one answer and that is cashola. Moola. Dough. Money. Greenbacks. Hey, you don't get to snort coke off a whore's ass by showing her your playbill, even if you are first billed. Well, not any classy whore anyway. I'm talking high class hookers where your people call somebody who knows somebody who sets things up. And she brings the coke too. That's right, I'm talking F-I-N-E fine.

Hell, you don't even get "people" without serious cash and clout. Yule Brenner WAS the freakin' King and he never had people. Guy danced around bald and half nude for twenty years and all it got him was an aneurysm. Couldn't even beat out Captain Picard for sexiest bald dude. You know why? Because Patrick Stewart was the star of a popular series and he has people. Successful show equals money equals people equals hookers with ass cocaine. It's simple math, folks.

How much was Kramer getting for working on Seinfeld? Something like a million per episode there at the end, right? You think he ever seriously contemplated leaving the show to pursue his dream of being a NASCAR driver? Of course not. You get way more tang as "that loser goof on Seinfeld" than you do as "another redneck wanna-be" in Daytona.

The only person who has ever successfully left a hit series to pursue other interests was Shelley Long. She abandoned Cheers after it became the number one show on television and managed to become a wildly successful screen actress. Oh, wait a second - no she didn't. She played a couple roles as an extra flighty Goldie Hawn impersonator opposite such worthies as Steve Gutenberg in second rate comedies that nobody remembers except the occasional desperate blogger reaching through the depths of the IMDB database. Shortly after noting her dismal failure as a B movie queen, Shelley Long's career shifted focus and she now makes a living by showing up at strange houses with several grams of coke and tear-off panties.

So to sum up, congratulations to Phylicia Rashad for her historical achievement. We're sure that she would have got it much earlier if she hadn't taken such a long sabbatical from the stage and if the assholes who give out the Tony's weren't such racist sons of bitches. Hey, there's a bonus - I answered the second question too.

A study from Journal of the American Medical Association says that 1 out of every 4 Americans have mental illnesses. Think of your three best friends. If they all seem normal then it's you.

(Hat tip to Electric Venom)

It's the last day of school in Rogers, Arkansas. The 1st-grade teacher wraps up the lesson on rainforest animals and rewards the students with fish that squirt water. A summery fun toy that's also apropriate to the material. Karen Young, mother of one of the students, was not happy with this choice of gifts. Not happy at all.

A Rogers mother says she's upset after her first grader came home with a toy gun. Karen Young says her 7 year old came home with what she called a water gun on the last day of school. Young asked her child where it came from. He told her that his teacher gave it to him. Young says she considers the teacher an excellent educator but says this was a really bad decision on the teacher' part.

Assistant school superintendent Dr. Louise Standridge says the package that the toy came in says the toy is called a water squirter. It's in the shape of a fish.

We know it's not a toy gun because if it was the police would have arrested all of the children to enforce the zero tolerance policy against toy weapons. It's a squirting fish. Hello? Ms.Young? What's the dealy-o? Perhaps it has something to do with her history with firearms.

Young says two of her brothers were shot in domestic disputes, her uncle committed suicide with a gun and she accidentally shot her ex boyfriend when the gun she hit him with went off.

She accidentally shot her boyfriend while beating him with a gun. Why was she hitting her boyfriend with a gun? Is it a tradition in Rogers to beat husbands/boyfriends with guns? There seems to be a log of firearms discharging during arguments in that family.

I think a fish that spits water might be exactly what's needed in that household. When mommy starts beating on her boyfriend with a gun, squirt her with water. Hey, it worked to train the cat from eating the ferns, right?

(Hat tip to The Thief)

Shocking news, y'all. Spanky the Clown has been arrested on child pornography charges. Nambla the Strongman and Buttfuck the Lion Tamer are also under suspicion.

(Hat tip to FlipExpress, formerly Delusional Duck, formerly Phillip Coons, formerly Delusional Duck again. I'm waiting a week before I change my blogroll ;-)

I've found the story of one torture victim and it truly is horrible. Here are the highlowlights:

... forcing him to strip, eat chalk, and chew cigarette ends.

They are accused of a wide range of offences including causing bodily harm and coercion over beatings inflicted on the victim from September last year.

Prosecutors say the victim's [peers] knew about or were involved in what they call the "systematic torture" that began two weeks after he arrived at the institution.

The alleged acts include forcing the [victim] to expose his genitals, and punching or beating him with objects including sticks and a screwdriver.

The alleged abusers videotaped their actions...some of the pictures were distributed on the internet.

Prosecutors say the [alleged abusers] have all confessed but one of the defence lawyers...said none had been able to explain why they acted as they did.

The four alleged ringleaders have been in custody since early February.
...
The victim, who is undergoing therapy, was not present for Tuesday's hearing but has been asked to give evidence next week.

And if that's what the Europeans are doing at their vocational schools then God only knows what they're doing in their prisons.

The students, aged 16 to 18, allegedly beat and kicked their 17-year-old victim...

They were all students at a vocational school in Hildesheim, near Hanover, on a one-year course to prepare them for jobs.

(Hat tip to Angelfire)

Judges are supposed to have absolutely no place in creating laws. The way its supposed to work is that the Legislature makes laws, the Executive (Pres) enforces laws and the Judiciary makes sure that the laws are legal. That's worked really well for a very long time.

Judicial activism is what happens when rulings from the bench create de facto laws. By blatant abuse of their powers, judges take on the properties of the Executive and the Legislature. This is bad. What you have here is the body that is supposed to be a check against the creation of bad laws acting AS a body creating laws. You also get the beginnings of an oligarchy as the 9 unelected members of the Supreme Court (appointed for life, remember) become the first word on laws as well as the last word.

So judicial activism is a very bad thing and it must be stopped. The Legislature has a plan that nominally addresses the problem on the way to doubling it. The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004 would let them overturn Judicial decisions.

Let's review - the problem is that the Judiciary is using assumed powers to create laws. Congress' answer is to grant themselves veto power over the Judiciary. Put another way, in order to stop the Judiciary from creating as well as judging laws, Congress wants to give themselves the exact same set of powers.

Fucking morons.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Thanks to new FTC rules, porno spam now has to have "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in the subject line.

Now instead of "Hungry teen wants your hot cock in her cornhole"
you'll get "Hungry teen wants your hot cock in her cornhole (SEXUALLY EXPLICIT)".

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

A googol is a number followed by one hundred zeros. The word was created by Professor Edward Kasner in the 1930s and used in a book of his in 1940. Kasner's descendants are getting set to battle Google, saying that the US-based company profited at their expense.

Personally I think that Google does incorporate the theory of googol in their site. When you get a search return you get a "Gooooooooooogle" at the bottom of the page where each "o" is a link to a results page. It seems pretty obvious that these are in tribute to the many zeros in a googol. But does this constitute financial gain at the expense of the family? Intellectual property experts don't seem to think so.

"It would be an uphill struggle to try to assert any legitimate claim," said David Gourlay, a senior associate at the Dundas and Wilson Technology Group.

Gillian Cameron, a partner in the intellectual property and technology department at Maclay, Murray & Spens, said: "They would have to show the family had used the word as a trademark and it had somehow been misappropriated, which doesn’t appear to be the case.

"Or they could argue that Google were piggy-backing on the goodwill of the mathematician, and somehow people associated googol with Mr Kasner," he added. "Again, this would be doubtful.

Kasner was an intelligent and middlingly successful mathematician who's single claim to fame is the description of a number that is never used except as an example of a really big number. The only problem being, of course, that he didn't get famous for it. Could anybody have named Kasner as the creator of "googol" before reading this?

I think the Kasner clan needs to sit down and stifle.

You know that fence that Israel is building? The one that a certain [*cough* Arab *cough*] segment of the world population keeps crying about? The one that Israel says will save the lives of its civilians from Palestinian explodikazis but its detractors [*cough* United Nations *cough*] say is some sort of land grab? Yeah, that one.

Turns out it's working really well.

Which begs the question - would Israel be willing to help us to engineer a fence for Falluja?

(Hat tip to Meryl Yourish)

UPDATED: 18 May 2004
UPDATED: 17 May 2004
UPDATED: 16 May 2004

Comments have been closed.

My point has been made and I have no desire to keep dwelling on this particular horror. All of the crap being bandied about can be explained in reasonable terms without any conspiracy theory foolishness necessary.

If you have something that you believe proves something weird or odd or whatever other euphemism you choose to use then apply Occam's Razor to your supposition. If you cannot come up with a simple reason for whatever it is then contact the New York Times or a therapist. One or the other will be able to help you.

Sorry if this offends but I'm finding the continued curiosity to be somewhat macabre and disturbing and I want no part of it.

So, is £115.00 a lot to pay for an empty X-Box box? The winner of that auction seems to think so:

never buy anything from this f**king w**ker £120 for a box

The seller has little sympathy for the careless bidder and, strangely enough, neither do I. May the buyer beware!

Even our racist assholes have some redeeming qualities.

Six Men Sentenced in Cross Burning

ROME, Ga. (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced six men to prison terms ranging from six months to 46 months Friday for burning a cross in the yard of a woman whose daughter was romantically involved with a black man.

Jerrell Timothy Garner, Stacy Paul Jones, Steven Garland Jones, Jeremy Ray Sims, Eric Shane Sullivan and Billy Richards Wells -- all of Trenton -- pleaded guilty Feb. 23 to conspiracy to deprive civil rights.

They still burn crosses? What's up with that? I never understood how a supposedly militant christian could rationalize torching the symbol of their church. Anyway, the redeeming part is here:

Sims and the Jones brothers made the cross and placed it at the foot of Eva Hurst's driveway in Sand Mountain on Nov. 5. They lit the cross and left, then worried that the flames might spread to a nearby tinder-dry forest, so Sullivan called 911.

I'm not sure if the redeemable part is that they were concerned enough about the possibility of a fire to turn themselves in to prevent it or that they were so stupid that they turned themselves in when they had gotten away scott free. Given that they lit up the cross next to the tinder dry forest in the first place I'm going to go with the "stupid" option for now.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

Five Muslims behead a civilian on video.

Two Muslims agree that terrorism is wrong.

5 > 2. I have a problem with this math.

Speedy Gonzales knows everybody's seester.

Check out this drop dead headline from Finance Asia.

And just in case somebody who knows English as a primary language tells them about it and they change it, I made a screenshot.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

(Hey...where's all the guest posters?)

Rush isn't the only one, just the most prominent. Some people are comparing what was done in the Abu Ghraib prison to fraternity hazing. Here's Rush Limbaugh's comment:

This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time.

Granted, some of the pictures sure do look like what you'd see during pledge week. Guys stripped naked with a hood on, made to whack off or form a human pyramid while the Greeks ridicule them. In fact, if that ubiquitous female soldier that appears in so many of the pictures pointing at various cocks was a guy wearing a shirt with Greek letters on it you would have no problem believing the pics were shot at an ivy league school in the USA.

But it wasn't hazing. It was torture. It does not matter if the exact same things were done to those prisoners as the local chapter of Lamda Delta Phi does to their pledges. The two things are completely different. They are different in the same way that loaning your buddy $50 is different from being robbed at gunpoint. One is voluntary, the other is forced under threat of death.

If you can't see the difference between "If you want to get invited to the best keggers for the next four years you better put this hood on and jerk off on your buddy" and "Climb on your naked buddy's back or I will shove this probe up your ass and shock your genitals until they burn" then you need a serious reality check. Or a nationally broadcast radio show.

I know that California is ...er...different. Still, this is just too much:

On volunteers, state is up a creek without a clue

A law originally meant to protect union wages has been redefined to prohibit volunteer labor on public projects. Out of the window goes Adopt a Highway, student volunteers, and neighborhood or work groups pitching in to help with projects like neighborhood beautification, stream bed clean-up, etc.

It actually began with a group of students who received school credit for cleaning up a stream bed. A union rep bitched about it and the state fined the nonprofit group that organized the cleanup.

Redding is also struggling with the labor bureaucracy in its effort to build a new city park, in part with volunteer help. A member of a Sonoma County library advisory board tells me that his group fears local Rotary Club members won't be allowed to landscape the library's grounds. And it's possible that groups such as Habitat for Humanity, which use volunteer labor to build homes for the poor, could be swept up by the same regulation.

The problem started in the 1930's when the state enacted legislation that effectively granted all public works projects to union labor. Non-union contractors were forced to pay union wages to their employees if they wished to bid on public projects. In 2001 the state changed the law to define a public project as just about anything that got a dollar of taxpayer money.

So why can't this get fixed? It's pretty easy - get rid of the fucked up anti-market laws that unfairly penalize people who do not wish to surrender their autonomy to a socialist union construct. Since it's California we are talking about this will never happen. Another solution might be to specify that volunteer labor can be free. Only when people are paid money should the mandatory pay scales be used. That won't happen either though as the unions want anything that requires skill to be under the forcible pay restrictions. (Apparently at least one union boss thinks that cleaning up a stream bed is skilled labor.)

I'm just glad I'm in Georgia where I can get a bunch of my friends together and clean up a vacant lot if we want to. Not that we would, being lazy southern boys, but we could!

(Hat tip to Joanne Jacobs)

I'm getting worried about you guys. I only had 31 spam messages this morning. If you take out the 7 virus mails that's only 24 valid spams! Are you not feeling well?

I sure hope you're not getting sick. Maybe you got freaked by those four Michigan spammers who are getting prosecuted under spam and mail fraud statutes. I wouldn't worry about that too much. I mean those guys were selling a blatantly fraudulent product. Your cia|i$ might not really work as advertised but you're always careful to cover yourselves with the "diet supplement" blanket. The most they could get you for would be the five years for breaking the anti-spam laws.

So anyway, if you are getting sick I'd be thrilled to help you out. I've got this vitamin patch that is absolutely guaranteed to reduce your flu and cold symptoms by up to 50% as well as cut the duration of your illness in half. Just keep an eye on your inbox, you'll see it.

It seems like there is a battle in Japan to place the blame. Is it the Japanese government's fault for not preventing them from going to Iraq? Is it the citizens' fault for going despite warnings from the government that it wasn't safe?

Let me just drop this into the toilet bowl and see if it floats: It was the fault of the fundamentalist terrorists who kidnapped them.

It seems that the blame game isn't just an American hobby.