A lark in the park

Everybody loves a day in the park, but it seems some...er...love it more than others.

Litter from sexual activity is unpleasantly evident in High Bridge and People's parks, reflecting years of lewd conduct in the open air, police and park officials say.

Discarded underwear, lubrication packets and condoms are regularly found in the bushes, and Officer Jennifer DeRuwe says police have received a growing number of complaints.

"It's just kind of one of those knowns in Spokane," DeRuwe said.

"We've been aware of it for a number of years," said Mike Stone, city parks and recreation director.

[...]

A 22-year-old park worker who asked not to be named out of fear for his safety and his $11-an-hour position said that in two months on the job, he has been propositioned, has seen evidence of public sexual activity and now warns unwary visitors attracted by a new disc golf course and a new bicycle trail link.

"I tell them, 'Don't let your kids go in there,'" he said.

Supervisors have advised the worker to wear clothing identifying him as a parks employee, said Tony Madunich, assistant parks and recreation manager.

Well, that ought to work. Except for the parks employee fetishists. They'll just get all hot and bothered.

Anyway, several Spokane officials are quoted in the article as basically saying "Eh, what can you do?" Which is refreshing, since most public officials these days seem hellbent on abridging our constitutional freedom to have dirty, nasty sex with strangers in public places. I swear, Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.

What are the odds?

When you steal someone's driver's license, it would probably be a good idea to take a look at the picture before trying to use it.

A bar waitress checking to see if a woman was legally old enough to drink was handed her own stolen driver's license, which was reported missing weeks earlier, police said.

"The odds of this waitress recovering her own license defy calculation,"police Capt. Guy Turner said Monday.

Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland and was jailed in Westlake to await a court appearance.

The thing I don't get is that the chick was over 21. If she was underage, well, I guess it would make sense to use someone else's ID to buy booze. It just doesn't make sense. Unless, maybe she had a really bad picture on her own license and looked crosseyed or something.

Give her hell, Jeff

A lot of people who read this blog on a regular basis are also readers of one of my favorite blogs, Jeff Goldstein's protein wisdom, so you guys probably know about this situation. But if you're not one of those readers, this might interest you. Actually, I'm not sure if "interest" is the right word...

You see, earlier this month (around the 4th of July, actually), a troll by the name of Deb Frisch showed up and started acting like a jackass. That's not so bad. After all, birds have to fly, fish gotta swim, and trolls generally annoy the hell out of people.

But then, she started to come unhinged in a serious way. She left a series of comments saying that she wouldn't mind if Jeff and his two-year-old son were murdered because she didn't consider Jeff to be "human." She also left suggestive comments about sexual molestation regarding Jeff's little boy. Over the next couple weeks, there was a shitstorm of controversy. Frisch, who was a psychology instructor (!) at the University of Arizona, resigned from her job and moved back to Oregon after pw fans deluged her department with angry messages about her reprehensible conduct. She made some half-assed apologies, but later claimed on her own blog (which I'm not going to link--you can Google it, if you're so inclined) that she'd been planning on quitting and moving back to Oregon, anyway, so it didn't really look like the act of contrition that she initially made it out to be. The story even hit the big time on Fox News. You can read about it here.

And then, things were relatively quiet for a while. Until last night.

Deb, or someone using an IP address very similar to hers, began posting really vile sexual comments about Jeff's family on this thread of his. She also left a similar comment at ace's blog. He redacted it, but you can find the details about the IP address she posted it from here. If you're not squeamish, Patterico has a screen cap of that comment (seriously, it's VILE--you've been warned) and a rundown of what went on last night.

In the end, Jeff has decided to suspend his blogging activities and pursue legal action against this woman, who needs to be stopped before this escalates into someone getting harmed in the real world.

Anyway, you might want to drop by Jeff's blog and give him a few words of support, or, if possible, a donation to his tip jar or paypal account. This is a bad situation for Jeff and his family, and all of his fans are pulling for him to get it resolved once and for all. After all, a Friday without excuses about why the armadillo ain't dancing just doesn't feel right.

More creeping fascism

So, a guy in Springfield, VT, wants to get his drink on with some of his pals, and quite naturally wants them to chip in for the libations. Doesn't sound unreasonable, does it? Well, the town bluenoses (a bunch of uncool Xtian fundie teetotallers, no doubt) have killed his modest dream.

Town officials have nixed an idea for a jailhouse bar. The Select Board, acting as the town liquor board, rejected an inmate's application to sell liquor from the state prison.

Paul Murphy of Worcester, Mass., is serving time at the Southern State Correctional Facility for aggravated assault, escape and passing bad checks.

He said in an application for a first- and second-class liquor license that he wanted to sell liquor from his home, which he listed as 700 Charlestown Road. That also happens to be the address of the state prison just east of downtown Springfield.

Why do they have to nitpick over every little detail? Fascists.

Radio free porno

If you're in the Fresno area, my condolences. And if you're looking for that religious-issues talk show on the radio dial, you may be in for a bit of a surprise.

KFYE-FM hasn't budged from the Fresno-area dial, but it's about as far as you can get from the Christian music, sermons and Bible stories it was broadcasting until about a week ago.

Now it calls itself "Porn Radio" _ "all sex radio, all the time," with a suggestion that people under 21 not listen.

Now, before all you perverts rush off to pack a bag and move to Fresno, it seems that the station's programming consists mainly of songs with "suggestive" titles and lyrics, although some of the songs are "heated up by adding recorded moans and groans." Meh.

The "bravery" of opinion

This is gonna be a long one, so bear with me.

I saw this post by Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House yesterday, and plenty of people have commented on it already, but I had a thought this morning, and I thought I'd flesh it out in a post of my own.

I'd encourage you to read the whole thing. It's a fairly long post, and it deals with, as the title says, "Redefining the Already Defined." The main thing I want to focus on, however, is the "chickenhawk" meme.

For those of you who might not be familiar with this already, over the past few years (especially since the war in Iraq began) certain lefties have employed this shabby "argument" against supporters of the war. In its most common form the argument has been that if one hasn't ever served in the military but still supports the war, one is a chickenhawk, whose pro-war views thus aren't valid. Another variant that some of these people will use, often while trolling on pro-war blogs, goes: "If you think this war is such a good idea, why don't you join up and fight?" The final, and most ridiculous version is similar to the second, in which the lefty urges a war supporter to "sign up their kids" for our all-volunteer military, which is made up of willing adults. You get the idea.

These arguments are dishonest for a number of reasons, one of the most important being that our nation has always had a tradition of civilian oversight of the military. If you were to suggest a system in which the opposite were true to the people making "chickenhawk" charges, they would recoil in horror, of course, but that just demonstrates the hollowness of their argument. As many people have pointed out, the real purpose of flinging "chickenhawk" insults at someone is to stifle debate.

Anyway, the thing that bothered me most about within Moran's post is where he points out an attempt by a certain blogger (and bestselling author!) who Ace likes to call "Gleen Greenwad" to redefine what a chickenhawk is. Moran links Greenwad, so you'll forgive me if I just excerpt what he said instead of throwing him any (miniscule) traffic:

Something more than mere support for a war without fighting in it is required to earn the “chicken hawk” label. Chicken-hawkism is the belief that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. A “chicken hawk” is someone who not merely advocates a war, but believes that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require.

Now, Moran points out that Greenwad has basically conjured up "a brand spanking new addition to the word’s meaning," and that's dishonest enough. But it's not what really bothers me.

If you really think about it, which righty bloggers out there are slapping themselves on the back about the "courage" of their positions? Where are the war supporters who tout their convictions as a sign of their personal bravery, even if they haven't served in the armed forces? I think they're actually few and far between.

No, I think you're much more likely to see people on the left talking and writing about the bravery of their speech, right? These are the people who talk about speaking "truth to power", a tired cliche if there ever was one, without a hint of irony.

These are the people who count Tim Robbins as a hero, as he recounts the congratulations he's recieved from various people for his anti-war views and then complains about a "chill wind" in this country...in front of the National Press Club. Again, no trace of irony.

And how about the Dixie Chicks? They took an embarrassing remark made overseas and parlayed it into a whole new career image, of the brave dissenters whose free speech rights had been trampled by knuckle-dragging Red State troglodytes.

I could go on and on, but my main point is that I think Mr. Greenwad (Senators read his blog!) might be projecting just a little bit when he tries to redefine his political opponents to suit his own notions about their opinions.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pat myself on the back for my support of the Iraq war. Hopefully, this time my arm won't break.

Via protein wisdom.

Pervert!

You know, maybe I just have a dirty mind, but parts of this story sound kind of filthy:

If Morio Sase has his way, hungry teenagers around the world will soon be snacking on something more exotic than McDonald's hamburgers...

"When I was a small boy, it...made me feel good and warm inside," Sase said at a recent interview at the Tokyo headquarters of HotLand Corp., which runs Gindaco.

Of course, I've "Dowdified" things a bit, just to make it seem more salacious. But hey, smut sells, right? (Oh, crap...I give this stuff away for free.)

Follow the link if you want to see what Mr. Sase hopes teens around the world will soon be putting in their mouths.

Here she comes, Miss Sharia...

Oh, for God's Allah's sake...

A militant Islamic group has filed a police report against Indonesia's Miss Universe candidate accusing her of indecency, a lawyer for the organization said on Tuesday.

Nadine Chandrawinata's participation in the contest and display of her body in a swimsuit there "is actually insulting for Indonesian dignity and women", Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attorney Sugito told Reuters.

[...]

Sugito said FPI had also filed complaints against four people involved in sponsoring and organizing Chandrawinata's participation.

Now, she didn't win, so I guess her chances would've been better had she worn a burka throughout the whole competition, right? Oh, silly me! She shouldn't have been there at all. She shouldn't even venture out of the house without a male relative to chaperone her around. And those sponsors, letting the filthy infidels look at her! What were they thinking? I smell a Zionist plot!

Oh, and I looooove this next bit:

The offences involved carry potential sentences ranging from two to six years in jail, Sugito said, adding that the posing requirements of the competition offended the standards not just of Islam but other religions.

Yeah, right. Like this "militant Islamic group" gives two runny shits about the "standards" (or anything else) of other religions. I thought the whole point of militant Islam was to, you know, disregard other religions. At least.

Comments

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

(That's the post HaloScan generates when you automatically install their comment and trackback system, which I did earlier this evening. I just thought their comment interface was a little less cumbersome than Blogger's, and hopefully more of you will weigh in with comments now. Enjoy.)

Thanks for sharing

Hey, everybody, did you know that there's an annual Swinger's Convention going on in Vegas? This assignment has to be a feature reporter's dream come true, since the participants obviously aren't very reticent about...sharing. Ahem.

Vera Rhodes has come a long way from her conservative upbringing in Pennsylvania's Amish community.

There she was a virgin until she married at age 30. Now, she is an enthusiastic 54-year-old member of the millions-strong "swinging" community who speaks openly of her encounters with multiple sexual partners.

"Last night it was really special," said Rhodes, who is divorced and makes a living giving massages in the Midwestern state of Iowa. "There was a couple from Mexico, a couple from Virginia and a couple from Ireland, from Australia."

How are you going to keep Vera down in the Amish country when she could be out there swinging with...the Irish? I hope she enjoys freckles in interesting places.

Oh, and let's hope the following people have relatives and friends who don't read the papers:

For all their enthusiasm, few of the swingers tell family and friends about their hobby.

"Socially, we're pariahs," said Drew Alexander, 40, who attended with this wife Tina, 38. "We're behaving in a way that's completely against the ingrained Catholic values."

Actually, the Alexanders' friends and family may already know. Note his use of the present tense.

Anyway, I'm not entirely surprised that this sort of 1970's type activity is still going on (hey, some people still dig fondue) in the age of AIDS, but then again, the article does note that most of the participants are middle aged, so maybe they're reliving their glory days.

Ace-o-lanche

Good God. Ace linked to three of my recent posts last night, and since then I've had more than 600 hits. If you want to see something hilarious, take a look at my Site Meter stats for this week.

I gotta say, I love you, Ace. But not in a gay way. Like a Viking.

Words fail me

Every once in a while, I run across a story that's just too weird to make fun of. This seems to be one of those instances. I give you (and I'm not kidding—this is the actual headline!) "Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job."

A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.

Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being cooked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

What the fuck? The guy sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum "on the sly"? Dogs being killed and bursting into flames? And is dog meat really such a special treat that it can keep your colleagues from ratting you out because of your illicit sale of said entire arboretum?

There are certain things about America that are kinda fucked-up, but it's an incident like this that reminds me how absolutely batshit crazy the rest of the world actually is.

What's missing?

This Los Angeles Times column by someone named Rosa Brooks is so utterly ridiculous that I almost hesitate to link to it. You can tell how intellectually bankrupt it's going to be simply by taking note of what's missing from the opening of the piece.

THINGS FELL APART so quickly.

At the beginning of this millennium, the Cold War was over, the prosperous United States was the sole remaining superpower and global opinion was largely sympathetic to U.S. aims. In the wake of brutal ethnic wars in Central Europe and Africa, the international community had forged a new determination to prevent conflict and atrocities. The volatile Middle East was quiet, and the world seemed headed toward stability rather than chaos.

Only six years later, things couldn't be more different. The Bush administration's tunnel-vision approach to foreign policy has pushed the U.S. and the world into a devastating tailspin of conflict without end.

Hmmmmmmmmm...it seems like something is missing from that equation. Something big. Something that I seem to distantly recall from the early autumn of, say, 2001.

Oh, don't get Ms. Brooks wrong. She does mention 9/11, but only to mention that afterward, "the world was on our side, and we had a unique opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph, to strengthen the alliances and global institutions that have long sustained American preeminence," and that "We wasted that opportunity." But of course. I have to deduct points from Ms. Brooks, though, for her failure to use the word "squandered."

I'd fisk the rest of it, but the bulk of the column is such a series of shopworn lies, cliches, and talking points that I'm beginning to suspect that she cribbed most of it from the placards being waved at an International ANSWER rally. It's really that bad.

Thanks, Genghis

Aside from all of the death and destruction and the pyramids of human skulls, it turns out that Genghis Khan was actually a pretty swell guy. Well, at least if you believe this Chinese guy, anyway.

Genghis Khan -- notorious as the ruthless, bloodthirsty creator of an empire that spanned Asia and Europe -- also laid the foundations for the Renaissance, China's Xinhua news agency said Thursday.

"Genghis Khan introduced papermaking and printing technologies to Europe and pioneered cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe," it quoted Zhu Yaoting, a specialist on Mongolian history at Beijing Union University, as saying.

"He brought cultural progress that helped liberate the Europeans from the bondage of theology -- in this sense, his expeditions served as a catalyst for the Renaissance," he said.

Genghis Khan's expeditions to Europe also reopened the Silk Road and laid the path for Marco Polo's historic trip to China.

You might want to take that with a grain of salt, though.

China has also in the past made numerous other unusual historical claims, including the contention the Chinese invented football and golf.

Uh, yeeeeeah. I guess those games just kind of, um, went out of style in China, huh?

Flipping out

I don't think this kid is going to be getting his driver's license anytime soon.

A 16-year-old boy apparently had a seizure during his driving test, causing him to hit five vehicles, flip his Jeep and wreck the front of a store.

The teen and other drivers were treated at a hospital after Monday's crash. The driver's license examiner, Gregory Desmet, 59, of Macomb County's Shelby Township [Michigan], was hospitalized overnight with a broken arm.

The teen, whose name was not released, drove the 2004 black Jeep Cherokee above speed limits, hit four cars and rolled over before going airborne and crashing into another car, which was pushed through the window of a rug store.

Well, at least nobody died. And it doesn't sound like there were any explosions, which would've looked cool, but might have hurt people.

By the way, check out the headline on the article:

Mich. teen flips Jeep during drievr test

It's been up like that since early this evening. Don't newspapers hire proofreaders anymore?

What the hell is Hollywood thinking?

Anybody else seen the commercials or trailers for the movie Barnyard? It looks like at least two of the ostensibly male bovine characters have udders. Now, I'm no farmboy, but even I know that bulls don't have udders.

Oh, and this is really friggin' creepy. Not to mention incredibly stupid-looking.

Junk in the dunk

The lesson here? Always wear underpants when participating in a sporting event.

A young New Jersey man is sticking to his legal guns in a lawsuit against his high school yearbook that shows his genitals in a basketball photo.

Although Tyler Bennett, 22, has so far been turned away in his bid for damages by a New Jersey trial court and appeal court, the new graduate of Montclair State University has filed a petition in New Jersey Supreme Court claiming he suffered psychological harm due to the inclusion of the photograph in the 2001 Colts Neck, N.J., high school yearbook.

In it, he is shown making an elongated jump to score a basket. Bennett claims it also clearly shows his genitals in the absence of underwear, which he claims has left him scarred.

"I was shocked, embarrassed and upset," Bennett told the New York Post. "I remember a student taunting me and asking, 'How's it hanging?'"

Right. Because it's sooooooo unusual for one high school student to say that to another. And I can see being embarrassed by people getting a look at my nethers, I think "scarred" is a bit of a stretch.

But seriously, wear some underpants. I mean it. Unless you're a dirty, dirty girl. In that case, it's okay.

Birds hate me

Actually, they hate my car. They've crapped on it twice in the last three days. I didn't mind so much the first time, since it was already filthy, but then I got it washed. Stupid birds.

Sit carefully

I don't know how long it takes to fly from Sydney to Bangkok, but this doesn't sound like the most comfortable way to fly.

A man caught with six eggs from endangered species in his underwear as he was preparing to fly to Bangkok was fined $20,000 Monday by a judge who rejected his claim that he only wanted to surprise his girlfriend.

Wayne Frederick Floyd pleaded guilty in February to exporting regulated native specimens without a permit or exemption, an offense that carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

Although Judge Martin Sides called it a commercial venture, he said he didn't mandate jail time because the eggs had come from a collection of birds at Floyd's home and hadn't been taken from the wild.

Floyd was about to board a flight from Sydney to Bangkok, Thailand, last November when a customs officer frisked him and noticed a suspicious bulge around his groin, the New South Wales District Court was told. A strip search revealed six eggs hidden inside a stocking in his underwear.

The sad thing is, I bet his girlfriend would have been surprised, but the authorities spoiled all that. I know I'd be surprised if someone I knew reached into their underpants and pulled out a stocking full of rare eggs. Heck, they wouldn't even have to be rare.

Somebody for everyone

In what amounts to good news for me, it looks like even nerds can find someone to marry.

Ross Savedra fought aliens to rescue his girlfriend, then popped the question in an out-of-this-world proposal. Savedra, 32, staged his elaborate proposal Sunday afternoon for Ariana Ash, 23, with the help for family members and Roswell's UFO Museum.

Savedra and Ash were touring the museum when a silver-suited, masked alien from an exhibit called "alien autopsy" suddenly abducted Ash from in front of a group of tourists. Savedra dashed through the crowd, fought two aliens and rescued her.

Then he dropped to his knees, presented her a ring and asked her to marry him.

You'll be happy to know that she said yes. Of course she did. You never hear about someone planning out an elaborate public scenario to pop the question to his special lady, only to have her say, "You know, maybe this isn't the best time to tell you this, but I've been banging your best friend for the last two months, and I think we're in love."

That would be hilarious.

Fasting looks tasty

This is worth watching for Michelle Malkin's Mother Sheehan impersonation alone. Check it out.

Via some guy who probably wouldn't pee on me if I happened to be on fire.

Something to watch

If you've got cable or satellite teevee and your package includes Cartoon Network, you should check out what I think is the funniest show around, The Venture Bros. Seriously, it kicks something like a dozen kinds of ass.

And if you don't have cable or satellite, you can still watch episodes here, though you may need a broadband connection.

Balls of steel

This German thief may not be very smart, but he has a lot of chutzpah.

A 61-year-old German on trial for theft got himself into more trouble when he stole from the judge during his court hearing, police said Thursday.

Police in the central town of Coburg said that while facing her at the bench, the man pocketed a bunch of keys from the judge, who did not notice until he had left the room.

When confronted by court officials in the toilet, the man, who had a string of convictions for theft, told them he had been shocked to discover the keys in his pocket.

"He told them he realized how suspicious his story would sound and that he had therefore hidden the keys under a toilet brush," said police spokesman Bernhard Schmitt. "He'd been stealing all his life so it was probably just an intuitive act."

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and I guess that guy's just gotta steal. But there are certain times when you've just got to restrain yourself. Or at least steal something valuable.

Do they have eBay over there?

If they do, this is going to be big. We're talking Virgin Mary grilled cheese big.

A chicken in a Kazakh village has laid an egg with the word "Allah" inscribed on its shell, state media reported Thursday.

"Our mosque confirmed that it says 'Allah' in Arabic," Bites Amantayeva, a farmer from the village of Stepnoi in eastern Kazakhstan, told state news agency Kazinform.

Actually, the farmer says they're going to keep it. I don't know if that's a good idea, though. I mean, food that purportedly says "Allah" doesn't always go over very well.

So...

...anything interesting happen today?

Oh.

Civil rights heroes

No, I'm not talking about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. I'm actually talking about these brave souls, who are taking a stand against The Man's oppression.

Two inmates have filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Correction to overturn a policy that bars magazines such as Playboy and Hustler.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 20,000 state prisoners and challenges a policy that went into effect July 1 barring adult magazines and other printed material that depict nudity or sexual content.

The policy could prohibit sexually explicit letters and publications such as National Geographic magazine and daily newspapers, according to the complaint, which said the new rule violates the plaintiffs' civil rights.

"The policy is written so broadly that it includes within its prohibitions such things as personal letters between prisoners and loved ones and much of the world's great literature and art," said the complaint, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

Ah, yes. Because I'm sure these guys are looking to better themselves by reading great works of literature. Oh, and art, too. Mustn't forget the great works of art. And by "literature" and "art," I'm sure they're not just talking about things like Penthouse Letters and Swank. Of course not.

Good luck, you brave scholars and art lovers!

Heh. "Man-pooter."

You know, something tells me Ace really doesn't like Andrew Sullivan, but I just can't put my finger on what it is, exactly.

Puzzling.

"You look gaytarded."

Brian Posehn + making fun of heavy metal videos = awesome.



The song is called "Metal by Numbers," by the way. If you hadn't figured that out.

Oh, yeah, I'm there

Watching the All-Star Game just now, I saw the commercial for Snakes on a Plane for the first time on the teevee.

Badass.

Born under a bad sign

How come nothing like this ever happens to me and my family?

An 18th century Chinese vase given as a retirement gift to a cleaning lady 60 years ago netted a small fortune for her family on Monday when it was snapped up after being proved to be a missing Imperial treasure.

The eight-inch high Qianlong vase, which has stood unrecognised next to the family's television for years, fetched 92,000 pounds [about $170,000] at London auction house Bonham's sale.

I won $50 on a lotto scratcher once. That's about the extent of my good luck.

Please, please, please let it be true

Of course, the All-Star game is the biggest news for baseball fans today, so this isn't getting quite the attention it might on any other day. But I hope it's true.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, several sources within Major League Baseball expect a San Francisco grand jury to indict Giants slugger Barry Bonds, possibly even as early as next week.

The senior sources said they have no inside information, but expect Bonds to be indicted before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence against him expires within the next couple of weeks.

Several sources within MLB said they found plenty of damning information about Bonds in their own investigation, launched secretly a year before commissioner Bud Selig appointed former U.S. Senator George Mitchell in March to head an MLB inquiry into steroid use.

Bonds faces possible indictment for perjury and tax evasion. When he appeared before a grand jury in December 2003, Bonds testified that he did not knowingly take performance-enhancing drugs.

Anybody who knows me in real life knows how much I hate the San Francisco Giants. And inside of that hatred is my hatred of Barry Bonds, which burns with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. And it's not just because he's a cheater. He's also an asshole, and (allegedly) a racist to boot.

And while I doubt muscle-head will ever spend a single day in prison (plea bargain), perhaps this will be enough to shame him into retirement before he can break Hank Aaron's career home run record, and maybe, just maybe keep him out of Cooperstown. Oh yeah.

Blood on the tracks--again

Note to other members of this family: stay the hell off the friggin' train tracks!

A train killed a man at just the spot where his father met the same fate eight months previously, a Malaysian newspaper said on Saturday.

The 34-year-old man, V. Marathai, was cut in half when a moving train hit him early on Friday in the northern Malaysian town of Ipoh, the Star reported.

His father, N. Veerapan, 64, died at the same spot last November when he crawled under a train he thought was stationary.

Like I said, stay the hell off those train tracks, people. And pay closer attention to whether or not the trains are, you know, moving. That may help, too.

World Cup claims final victim

I've been trying for nearly a month to warn the world about the dangers of World Cup Soccer, which seems to do nothing but claim innocent lives. Well, the tournament is over, but it looks like a final innocent life has been lost.

A 77-year-old Italian man fell off a ladder and died as he tried to attach Italy's flag to a pole ahead of Sunday's World Cup final against France.

The man, Rodolfo Profili, was raising the flag on a patch of land he owned near the central Italian city of Viterbo when he apparently lost his balance and fell eight metres into a precipice, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The good news is that the Frogs lost, and we're safe from the World Cup for another four years. But it's going to roll around sooner than you think, and then the bloodbath will begin anew. Just you wait and see.

Hindsight is 20/20

Well, that took some time.

The Witch of Pungo is no longer a witch. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Monday gave an informal pardon to Grace Sherwood, who 300 years ago became Virginia's only person convicted as a witch tried by water.

"I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood," Kaine wrote in a letter Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf read aloud before a re-enactment of Sherwood's being dropped into the river.

"With 300 years of hindsight, we all certainly can agree that trial by water is an injustice," Kaine wrote.

Nothing's more fun than a re-enactment of a terrible injustice. Except, maybe, a meaningless pardon.

Strong, smart, homicidal

I don't know if Alec Baldwin is really a tough guy, but he plays one in the movies on the internets. I'll get to that in a minute.

But first, Baldwin writes about how he's proud to be an American (he roots for our athletes in the Olympics--really!), likes to hang out at the Lincoln Memorial, and is concerned about government waste. He's even for lower taxes...sort of.

He's all for a strong military, but wants it to be strictly controlled by civilian authorities. "Some extremists," he says, think it ought to be the other way around, but he doesn't (of course) say who they are.

He waffles a bit on illegal immigration, calling the issue "a pathetic, conservative think-tank attempt to take people's minds off the debacle of Iraq in order to fend off the threat to the GOP Congressional majority in the 06 election." It's a conspiracy, you see.

Oh, and Bush and Cheney stole both of the elections they won. He knows it in his heart, he sez. Compelling evidence, that.

Nearly finished, Baldwin paraphrases Ben Franklin on the need to balance security and civil liberties, but misses a chance to misquote Thomas Jefferson as saying that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Disappointing, Alec.

At long last, we come to Baldwin's tough-guy fantasy, which you'll have to read to believe:

I offer a patriotic fantasy for all of my fellow Americans today, on this 4th of July. It's a fantasy, so bear with me. I am in a large apartment complex. I turn a corner, and there are a couple of Muslim men wearing headsets, whispering tersely into the microphone. Suddenly, one man erupts and says, "Where is the car? Where is the car? You fool!" They sprint off down the hall. At that instant, Osama Bin Laden comes out of a door. He is oblivious. I make my move. Bin Laden reacts, but too late. We tumble into his upper floor suite. I have him in my grasp and, conveniently, I spy a box cutter on the table. (Hey...it's a fantasy.) Osama struggles, swearing at me in his native tongue, until I jam the box cutter into his neck. I do it again. Fading, Bin Laden says (this time in English for my benefit) "Good luck with '30 Rock'. I am a big Tina Fey fan."

Um, what is Bin Laden doing in an apartment complex? How did he manage to sneak into the country unnoticed? (I know, I know--through Bush's incompetence, of course.) And is Baldwin really comfortable profiling these "Muslim men"? Not very racially sensitive there, Alec. I understand he acknowledges that this is a fantasy--nay, a "patriotic fantasy"!--but would Osama really be a fan of the non-burqua-clad Ms. Fey? Or is that the direction "30 Rock" is going in? These questions will have to remain unanswered, though, because he's not quite done...

I gather up the body of the world's most notorious terrorist and hurl it over the balcony. Then, in the final stroke of luck, Bin Laden lands on Dick Cheney.

God bless America.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed Alec Baldwin, internet tough-guy, admitting in public that he fantasizes about killing the Vice President of the United States of America.

What a patriot.

(Via Expose the Left.)

Adventures in legal idiocy

If there's any justice at all in this universe, this guy will get laughed out of court.

A Portland, Ore., man is suing Michael Jordan because, he says, he's often mistaken for the basketball superstar and is tired of it.

Allen Heckard is also suing Nike founder Phil Knight for making Jordan one of the most recognized men in the world, KGW-TV, Portland, reports.

He's asking for a combined $832 million -- $416 million each. [my emphasis]

So, he wants nearly a billion dollars because he's annoyed about getting mistaken for a celebrity. Ohhhhh-kay. I wonder how he came up with that figure.

Oh, and the article goes on to say that the guy wears Air Jordans, which I'm sure adds to the effect.

The first rule of threatening Goldstein's son

Don't talk about threatening Goldstein's son.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days. Very interesting.

A whale of a tale

What are the odds that something like this has never happened before?

About 80 tourists were aboard the trawler Reine, which was headed for areas off the Arctic Lofoten Islands known for their abundance of whales, when the incident happened on Saturday, the boat's skipper Geir Maan said by telephone on Wednesday.

Hmmm...an area with an "abundance of whales." Who else is that going to attract? Why, whalers, of course!

"We were on our way out to the whale watching area when we passed a whaling boat,"Maan, the boat's skipper, told The Associated Press. Usually, whaling and tour boats maintain a distance between them.

"This time, we got close, and right when they were passing, I realized they had a minke whale in firing range,"he said.

The whaling boat fired, and Maan said he later learned through the hunters that it had made a kill in front of the tourists.

"Some were pretty upset,"he said."Many thought it was awful to see."

I wonder if they got their money back.

Take that, yankees!

America is humiliated, humbled before the rest of the world on its very birthday.

Joey Chestnut, a San Jose college student who over the past 12 months rose to fame in the competitive eating world, failed in his bid to defeat five-time champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Tuesday.

I don't know why and I don't know how, but George W. Bush is likely to blame. Yeah. Bush.

Happy 230th birthday, America!

Really, you don't look a day over 221.