Nobody's that stupid

So, Little Rock has decided to change its nickname from "The City of Roses" to "The Rock." That's pretty lame. But check this out:

[Mayor Jim] Dailey said he wasn't concerned that "The Rock" would be confused with the former Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay or with the professional wrestler-turned-actor.

Now, I tend to think that people are pretty stupid, but it's hard for even me to believe that anybody could confuse the capital city of Arkansas with this:


Then again, they did keep electing Bill Clinton.

Boche or Blighty

Allahpundit has post over at Hot Air about a wounded British soldier who was confronted in his hospital bed by an angry Muslim. You should check that out.

But I took a look at the article he linked to, and I saw something else that was interesting.

There is also resentment among serving troops unhappy about being treated in a NHS hospital that they believe is unsuitable for military patients.

Soldiers on operations say they would rather receive a more serious injury and go to the top American military hospital in Ramstein, Germany, than end up in a NHS hospital.

They now half jokingly refer to getting "a Boche rather than a Blighty" in reference to the wounds that would send them home. Ramstein has an outstanding unit for brain surgery, and neurological intensive care beds in Britain are in short supply. "The blokes see it that if you are unlucky you get wounded and go to the UK at the mercy of the NHS, but if you get a head wound you get sent to Ramstein in Germany where the US has an outstanding medical facility," said an officer serving in Afghanistan.

"It also does not do morale much good knowing that within 18 hours of being wounded you could wake up in a NHS hospital with a mental health patient on one side and an incontinent geriatric on the other."

It really says something about the quality of Britain's socialized medicine that some of these troops would rather get a head wound that would send them to Ramstein than a more minor wound that would send them home to the tender mercies of the National Health.

The next time somebody tells you that the government ought to be handling our health care, you might want to point them to this.

Fine steep for creepy peeper

I guess the lesson here is that you should be fully clothed while you spy on your neighbors:

A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to his former neighbors who he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.

A jury Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, of Des Moines, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away.

Andrianse pleaded guilty in 2004 to harassment and public exposure. After the Weissingers filed their lawsuit, he countersued claiming his neighbors violated his privacy by videotaping him with a night-vision camera they borrowed from police.

Jurors decided that Andrianse owed the Weissingers, and that they owed him nothing.

So he gets busted for getting nekkid and looking at his neighbors, but when they use the tools of the fascist police state to make salacious videos of him, um, looking at them while nude, they get a free pass? And it gets even worse—he was provoked!

Court records showed that Andrianse claimed that Julie Weissinger provoked his actions by"walking around in the house wearing a black teddy and bending over."

The police report said that Andrianse thought it was a mutual act and that he did not know Weissinger was "an unwilling participant."

Go figure. So, does that mean my neighbor's wife doesn't want me to spank myself or rub ice cubes on certain "sensitive areas" of my body?

I just lost my appetite

I like Chinese food as much as the next person, but I have my limits. Those limits most definitely include things like this:

The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.

"Russian dog," says my waitress Nancy.

"Big dog," I reply.

"Yes," she says. "Big dog's penis..."

We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.

Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.

They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.

Nestling beside the dog's penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.

"Donkey," says Nancy. "Good for the skin..."

I don't care if it's going to give me heat vision, Nancy, much less good skin. I am not going to eat any kind of penis.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Click on that link, by the way, for some horrifying pictures and plenty more descriptions of awful, awful things you can order at Nancy's evil restaurant.

Update: Is this place Jade Garden? After all, "they put mega ding dongs in their food!"

Coup not cool

If you weren't concerned about that coup in Thailand, well, you should be now. The leaders of the coup sound seriously uncoool.

Thai coup leaders have banned go-go girls from dancing near tanks and troops on Bangkok streets as a distraction from the serious business of power, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

"It is not appropriate to entertain soldiers while they are on duty," Colonel Acra Tiprote told Reuters after a troupe of 10 women in tight camouflage vests and shorts posed with soldiers and tanks while making a music video.

What kind of topsy-turvy world are we living in when people are placing restrictions on where Thai go-go dancers can perform? And seriously, these coup leaders are just begging for a mutiny. If they were smart, they'd be requiring go-go girls to dance near soldiers. That's how things will work when I rule the world.

How to get cheap hits (and lots of them)

Write a post like the one I wrote yesterday with the word "sex" in the title and you'll have to beat away the perverts Googling "sex" with a stick. I've had more than 100 visitors today.

I bet a lot of them were disappointed with what they found here, too. I know I would be.

Dirty British sex perverts

Pastiness. Bad teeth. Snooty costume dramas. Horrible food with funny-sounding names. These are the things we tend to associate with our cousins across the pond. But not red hot dirty sex, right? Right?

Historical attitudes to sex in Britain will be laid bare for all to see this week in archives which reveal a nation rich in sexual experience and enthusiasm.

Oh boy. I can hardly wait.

The historical documents, to be given a public outing by the Center for Archive Studies at Liverpool University, include Britain's first ever sex survey, conducted 57 years ago but deemed too shocking for publication at the time.

The survey shows many British men had homosexual experiences, many were frequent visitors to prostitutes and many British wives were active in the pursuit of sex outside marriage.

Well, that all sounds pretty healthy. Buncha whoremongering poofters and cheating wives. Swell.

Caroline Williams, of the Center for Archive Studies, says the archives show that while sex has always been a part of major part of British -- and human -- life, attitudes have changed and broadened over the years.

What a scoop! Sex has always been important to humans! Who knew? Attitudes have changed? Whoah, that's some insight there.

I'd tell you to read the whole thing, but it's really oned of the more boring articles about deviant sex that I've ever read. Then again, we are talking about British people having sex.

Fools

I was at a party this weekend when some of the other guests started talking about how great Loose Change is. Unfortunately, we were all about to leave, so I didn't have time to sit them down and explain in detail why the movie is a travesty of a joke of a piece of shit. I did, however, get them to grudgingly admit that the "controlled demolition" theory of why the towers came down was dubious at best.

Speaking of Loose Change and 9/11 conspiracy theories, this takedown from a humor website is worth a look if you haven't seen it already. I think one of Ace's guest bloggers linked to it a week or two ago. And of course there's Screw Loose Change, your one-stop clearinghouse for debunking and fact-checking Dylan Avery's dumb ass.

Do you like surprises?

Yeah, me neither. But thankfully, I've never had one like this.

A western Iowa woman is recovering from the shock of finding a drowned bat in her tea mug after she sipped from the cup all day.

The brown bat, about the size of two tea bags, was found a few weeks ago by a 60-year-old Woodbury County woman, said Chuck Cipperley, an environmental director for the Siouxland health office in Sioux City.

"I knew the person, so I knew it was no joke," said Cipperley, who took the call from the woman.

The woman, who declined to identify herself, told Cipperley she found the bat when she was cleaning out the mug at night. She said she put the bat in a plastic bag before alerting the Siouxland health office the next morning.

Cipperley said the bat was sent that day Sept. 1 to the University Hygienic Laboratory in Coralville. Results showed the bat did not have rabies.

Just how big was this mug, anyway? (Or, I guess you could ask how small the bat was.) I mean, she was sipping from the mug all day and she didn't notice the dead animal that was in it. That's nice about the lack of rabies, though.

More genius at work

Getting drunk and getting behind the wheel is a bad idea. Trying to bum rush a bunch of bikers with a pool cue—also pretty stupid. Getting hit by your own car in the process? Well, then you've reached a new low there.

An alleged drunken motorist who brandished a pool cue while driving at a group of motorcyclists was hit by his own car after he stopped and attempted to approach the bikers on foot, the California Highway Patrol said.

Richard Brooks, 50, of Concord was pulled to safety by several of the motorcyclists after his car — which he left in reverse — knocked him into the highway Thursday morning...

And why did this potential Nobel Laureate try to attack the bikers? You'll love this:

Brooks, who was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and driving under the influence, told authorities he was offended by skeletons some of the riders wore on their leather Harley-Davidson jackets and what he perceived as their attempts to appear tough.

"It was his impression that they thought they were better than him," [CHP Officer Scott] Yox said. "They were irritating to him and he felt he needed to do something about it." [my emphasis, of course]

Well, you can't argue with that. And I don't mean that his reasons were sound—it's just that they're so crazy-stupid that it would be futile to try.

I hate California Nazis

Oh, this is just lovely.

Two flags or signs depicting swastikas were reported to be hanging from freeway overpasses Friday, the day the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana begins. Another swastika flag was spotted over the 101 Freeway in Encino, north of Los Angeles.

An officer removed one of the symbols reported to the California Highway Patrol around 5:55 a.m. at eastbound state Route 78 at Escondido Avenue in Vista, CHP officer Alicia Contreras said.

The second emblem, reported at the Sea World Drive overpass off of southbound Interstate 5, was not seen by the time officers responded, she said.

Some dickweed obviously did this because the Jewish new year began tonight at sundown, showing that even here in enlightened, tolerant California, you've still got knuckle-dragging troglodytes.

Update: On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that something like this would happen in a "Blue" state.

(via IndeedPundit)

Who are you?

Man, this story is just bizarre:

An undercover police operation took an odd turn Thursday when a Syracuse police officer pretending to be a john met a suspected prostitute who pretended to be a police officer.

The encounter ended with two women under arrest. Police charged Lisa Greene, 31, with first-degree criminal impersonation, prostitution and fifth-degree conspiracy. Elena Irwin, 20, was charged with fifth-degree conspiracy and possession of a hypodermic needle.

Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said a male undercover officer driving in a neighborhood known for prostitution was flagged down by Greene. The woman got in his car and the two went to a nearby parking lot to negotiate a price for sex.

She asked the cop if he was a cop and the police officer said no.

"That's OK, because I am," the woman told the officer as she pulled out handcuffs and a two-way radio and barked a command into the radio: "Move in!"

The officer, concerned the woman was armed and looking to rob him, forced her from the car, Connellan said. Moments later, officers who had been monitoring the situation arrived and grabbed Greene with the radio and cuffs at a nearby intersection.

A male officer pretending to be a female used the radio to find out who was on the other end, Connellan said.

Police found Irwin waiting in a car in a nearby alley.

So, let me get this straight...A cop pretending to be a john picks up A hooker pertending to be a cop, and when she bails, a male cop pretends to be her to pick up her partner, who seems to be the only one in the story who wasn't pretending to be somebody else. You just can't trust anybody these days, can you?

Well, I guess you never really could trust anybody when trolling for hookers, could you?

How much is too much?

Damn those European socialists, always stifling the entrepeneurial spirit:

A fee of 25,500 euros ($32,000) is way too much for a woman to charge a man for fondling her bosom, a Finnish district court ruled.

The court jailed a couple in their twenties for more than a year for charging a 74-year-old who suffers from dementia a total of 25,500 euros to enjoy the woman's breasts on 10 occasions.

"Based on general life experience alone, it is indisputably clear that a 25,500 euro charge is disproportionate to the compensation in question," Judge Hasse Hakki, who heard the case, told Reuters Friday.

So, uh, Judge Hakki...has "life experience" with paying to cop a feel? Or is he saying that experience has taught him that the old man should've been entitled to, um, more than a feel?

But he said the court in Kokkola, about 300 miles north of Helsinki, would not decide "the proper financial value of the compensation."

Well, why not? I mean, if you can determine that 32 grand is too much for ten boob grabs, shouldn't you be able to set a reasonable price? You never know when that kind of information could come in...handy.

It's for your own good

Do not, under any circumstances, click this link. I'm warning you.

Okay, so you're going to click it. I know, I know. You're curious. Well, whatever you do, don't watch the video over there. Seriously, DON'T.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go see if they make a mouthwash for your mind.

(h/t Dave at Garfield Ridge)

Kind of slow, eh

Uh-oh. I guess this means I should get my "Serial Killer" tattoo removed.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Shylo Kujawski -- who has "Grand Theft Auto" prominently tattooed on his back -- was spotted acting suspiciously in a Vancouver suburb where several stolen cars had been reported.

Using the tattoo to identify Kujawski as a convicted auto thief, police said they then set up a stakeout that nabbed him attempting drive away in a stolen car.

Police said during the stakeout they also watched Kujawski thwart his own attempt to drive away in another stolen vehicle by accidentally disabling the car with the owner's steering wheel lock.

Somehow, I don't think that guy is going to be winning any Nobel Prizes. Unless they create a category for inept auto theft. But how likely is that?

Media figure silenced

In yet another shocking abuse of freedom of speech and the press in Chimpy McBu$hitlerburton's Amerikkka, a member of the media has been bullied into silence after making "controversial" remarks. Oh, wait...this happened in Canada.

The chairman of the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has resigned after remarks about bestiality and ruminations about defecation, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda said on Tuesday.

Guy Fournier created an uproar in Canada's Lebanese community and in the media when he claimed that Lebanon allowed men to have sexual relations with female animals, but reserved the death penalty for those who did so with male animals.

In comments made in May, and replayed in a CBC weekend interview, he talked at length about the joys of bowel movements.

Now, I don't know where he got the idea that Lebanese men were allowed to have sex with female animals (although this website makes the same assertion--scroll about halfway down the page), but if you're a public figure, you might want to keep your feelings about pooping out of interviews that could be played on the teevee or the radio. After all, that's why they invented internet message boards and forums.

Oh, snap!

So, Hugo Chavez went to the U.N. and called Bush "the devil." Big deal. You can find that kind of thing on a thousand lefty blogs every day. What I liked most about this story was something John Bolton said:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Chavez's remarks were "not becoming for a head of state."

"I am not going to dignify a comment by the Venezuelan president to the president of the United States," Rice told reporters in New York. The main U.S. seat in the assembly hall was empty as Chavez spoke, though the U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told The Associated Press that a "junior note-taker" was present, as is customary "when governments like that speak."

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

So, how long do you think it will be before some Dem politico expresses outrage over Bolton's "insensitivity"?

Update: Video of Chavez's freakout is available at Hot Air.

Offense taken

When I began to read this article, I expected there would be obscenities or racial slurs, but...well, you'll see what I mean.

A book of rhymes handed out to kindergarten classes across Maine is being criticized by some parents as inappropriate. "Schoolyard Rhymes" is a compilation of 50 verses included in bags given to 18,000 pupils through the Read With ME literacy project supported by Gov. John Baldacci and his wife Karen.

Get ready to be scandalized, people...

A few of the rhymes have raised some eyebrows. For example, one says, "Ladies and gentlemen, Take my advice, Pull down your pants And slide on the ice." Another one says, "Girls go to Mars to get candy bars. Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

Erica Smith of Hampden, mother of a 5-year-old son who goes to the McGraw School, said the book is "completely inappropriate."

"It's rude. There are words in there that I don't allow in my house," said Smith, who complained to her son's teacher as well as the school principal. She also called the governor's office to voice her displeasure.

Man, what a letdown. That kind of stuff was covered with dust and cobwebs when I was a little kid. Heaven forbid any frogs, snails, or puppydog tails get mentioned. There would be statewide fainting spells and they might even have to recall the governor.

"The game of the century so far"

That's what Cindy Brunson of ESPNews called this see-saw gem between the Padres and Dodgers, and I'm finding it hard to argue with that assessment. Seven home runs for the Dodgers (including four consecutive shots to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth--only the fourth time in history that that's been done, by the way), a rare blown save by star Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, two times that the Dodgers came back from four run deficits, and a walk-off homer by Nomar...wow. I just wish I'd been at Dodger Stadium to see it. The fans who were there are going to be talking about this game for years, especially if the Dodgers can gut it out and make it into the postseason.

We're doomed

Scientists have found a shark that can walk on its fins. Next thing you know, they'll be using tools and weapons. And smoking.

Pay attention, morons

I'm becoming more and more convinced that a lot of trouble and heartbreak could be prevented if people would just pay attention to what the hell they're doing. Case in point:

School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Officials with the Monroe-Woodbury School District in Orange County [New York] apologized last week after parents at Pine Tree Elementary School were given the spelling packet at an open house.

Administrators said the teacher did not use the font intentionally.

Well, that's comforting. And hey, it could've been worse—at leasst it was handed out to the parents and not the kids themselves.

Appreciate modernity.

India may be the world's largest democracy, but in a lot of ways it's still a pretty screwed up third world country. Take this, for example.

The leaders of a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan ordered 150 men to dip their hands into boiling oil to prove their innocence after food was stolen from a local school, a newspaper reported Sunday.

In late August the school's principal informed police that rice and wheat had disappeared but no action was taken, the Sunday Express said.

The council, or panchayat, of Ranpur village, 340 km (210 miles) south of state capital Jaipur, then decided to take the law into its own hands.

After 10 days spent trying to identify those responsible, it issued what the paper called the "medieval diktat."

The 150 men from Ranpur and two neighboring hamlets were told to pick a copper ring from a cauldron of boiling oil. The council elders then announced that the 50 who refused the order must be behind the crime. Many are now nursing their burns.

As they say on South Park, dude, that's pretty fucked up right there! Seriously, edcucated, well-adjusted people just don't do something like that in this day and age.

"I really didn't have a clue."

Sometimes it pays to be detail-oriented. This would be one of those times.

When moviemakers told Gallatin, Tennessee, Mayor Don Wright they wanted to use his office to film a scene with a superheroine, he kindly obliged.

But Wright was startled when the movie's title, "Thong Girl 3," and his role in its making was splashed across the front page of Friday's editions of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

"I had no idea what the movie was about," Wright said on Friday. "They told me it was about a superhero woman and there was no nudity or offensive stuff in it. Other than that, I really didn't have a clue."

No clue? You don't say. You know, you might've been spared this sort of embarrasment if you had, oh, I don't know, asked them what the fucking title of the movie was!

Please tell me they cut out the vocals

Speaking of skinny chicks with minimal talent, Paris Hilton's new album has been remixed by Danger Mouse and snuck into British music stores, where the remix CDs replaced 400 copies of the regular version of the CD on the sly. For the remix version, graffiti artist Banksy also redid the artwork. You can see the slightly NSFW artwork here.

(First link originally left in a comment thread here at Treacher's other blog.)

Plus-size models to attack Milan

I'm outraged! If this fascist gets her way, people watching fashion shows in Milan may have to watch models who weigh (GASP!) more than eighty pounds!

Italy's fashion capital is in a tizzy over a ban on overly thin models at Madrid's fashion week, fearing it could be next with its own catwalk extravaganza less than two weeks away.

Milan's mayor, Letizia Moratti, told a newspaper this week that she may bring the Spanish ban on underweight models to Italian shows.

Madrid is turning away models whose body mass index, based on weight and height, falls below a certain level.

"With those kind of rules, we'd have to turn away 80 percent of models. Naomi Campbell wouldn't be able to walk down the catwalk, she'd be too thin," said Riccardo Gay, head of the model agency of the same name that used to represent Campbell in Milan.

He also said Madrid had exaggerated the issue.

"Some designers have used extremely thin models, but we haven't. We tell models to exercise, eat well, go to bed early — sensible rules," he added.

Yeah, and I'm sure they make sure to tell the girls to keep it to three lines of cocaine a night.

Madrid's regional government imposed the rules on fashion week to protect the models as well as teenagers who may develop anorexia as they try to copy underweight catwalk stars.

Mario Boselli, head of the Italian fashion industry's chamber of commerce, said anorexia was a "rare phenomenon" in the fashion business.

And drunkenness ia a "rare phenomenon" at frat parties. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go die of laughter.

Harshing mom's mellow

Education is important, and some parents decide to reward their kids when they do their homework, but this doesn't seem like a very good idea...

A woman facing drug charges admitted in court that she smoked marijuana with her 13-year-old son, often to reward him for doing his homework.

Well, just so long as she didn't smoke with him before he did his homework...

Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several misdemeanor drug charges Monday in Adams Country [PA] court and will be sentenced Nov. 27.

She admitted she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11 and said she had also smoked with two of his friends, ages 17 and 18.

And thus ends the reign of the neighborhood's "cool mom," who, if you do the math, gave birth to her son at the tender age of seventeen. Sounds like someone needs some better decision-making skills.

The article doesn't mention whether or not the authorities were going to bogart her son.

Five years ago

I don't really have anything deep or original to say about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that someone else hasn't already said (and said more eloquently).

I just remember my brother waking me up that morning, telling me to turn on the TV. Something was going on in New York. We watched the events unfolding all day, unable to look away from what was happening in spite of the horror.

And then I remember the silence in the skies on that day and the following days, as all the flights were grounded. It was unnerving, not seeing or hearing anything up there.

I'll never forget that day, and that's the way it should be.

The chilling of dissent

No, I don't mean that Bu$hitler has forced the Dixie Chicks to play in Canada. I'm talking about the fact that a certain political party is calling for a teevee show to be yanked from the air before the public has seen it.

"Those fascist Rethuglikkkans ought to be stopped," one might say. But "one" would be wrong.

Who are the fascists now? I thought so.

Nude until winter

(Or, Another transparent attempt to lure pervert search engine hits to my blog by using the word "nude" in the title of a post)

Remember the Vermont town with all the nude teenagers that I posted about last month? Well, they're not going to put a ban on public nudity, deciding instead to rely on shrinkage to take care of it for them.

Mother Nature, not an ordinance, will draw the covers over public nudity in Brattleboro.

The town's Select Board decided Tuesday to take no action on an anti-nudity ordinance that was introduced in response to a clothing-optional movement launched by local teenagers this summer.

"Winter is coming. If spring comes and we still have a problem, we'll take another look at it," said Select Board Chairman Steve Steidle.

As I noted in my previous post, there's some hippy-dippy bullshit behind all of this public nudity, some of which was on display when the town debated a ban on public nudity:

One of the nudists, 19-year-old Adhi Palar, told the town board the issue was freedom.

"Our acting in nudity is an act of celebration of this history and traditional values as a place where you're allowed to be nude," he said. "I find that important, and I find that proud."

Uh...yeah. Take another hit off that bong, dude.

Not everybody is having fun here, though:

Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the town's image was tarnished by the uproar.

"We have been the brunt of phone calls from all over the world," Remillard said. "The media made this into nothing less than a circus."

Hard to believe that, in this day and age, people would show any interest in a bunch of teenagers parading around nude in public, isn't it? Next thing you know, they'll be attracting (gasp!) tourists.

Mom and Dad burn out

If your parents sell the house and make you live with them in a VW bus or move the whole family to some stinky hippie commune, don't say I didn't warn you. It seems they're reverting to their stinky hippie ways.

Some moms and dads might want to take a lesson from their kids: Just say no.

The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year - from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

"Rarely have we seen a story like this where this is such an obvious contrast as one generation goes off stage right, and entering stage left is a generation that learned a lesson somehow and they're doing something very different," said David Murray, special assistant to the director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The annual survey on drug use and health involves interviews of about 67,500 people. It provides an important snapshot of how many Americans drink, smoke and use drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Actually, I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of these surveys. I mean, when someone contacts the average person and says, "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'd like to ask you about your illicit drug use," I think a lot of people are going to lie. I think a lot of people will even lie about how much they drink in situations like this.

But still, for some reason it's deeply satisfying to imagine a bunch of paunchy, gray-haired baby boomers smoking dope to regain some of their former hippie glory.

Excuse is unconvincing

Do you ever see a string of words which, taken one by one, each make sense, but as a whole are very tough to comprehend? That's what happened to me when I saw the following words: "Speeding driver blames lack of goats." I decided to investigate further (okay, I didn't really "investigate"--I just read the damn article):

A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday.

Airtight logic there, basing your speed on what you're not going to hit. Anyway, here are some more odd words:

"A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident.

Who is this traffic officer? Yoda?

"I've never been to Switzerland but obviously they must have a problem with that there," said police spokesman Joel Doiron, adding that in his 20 years of service he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario.

It doesn't sound like they have a "problem" to me. Sounds like they have the solution. Want to cut down on speeders on Ontario highways? You need some goats out on those roads.

And to think, the ingrates actually fined him!

Obvious

I'm watching the Dodgers play the Brewers on the teevee right now, and I had forgotten that this guy is one of the Brewers' outfielders. It's a night game, but he hasn't been wearing sunglasses.

I bet he never gets tired of that joke.

An eternity

I'm a baseball fan, and I'm not the kind of fan who leaves a game early. I don't even mind when a good game goes into extra innings, but this is just effing ridiculous.

Talk about extra innings. A baseball game that began at 10 a.m. on Saturday in Alliance [Nebraska] ended Sunday at 4:05 p.m.

That's 30 hours and five minutes between the first pitch and the final out. Game organizers are counting on the contest being long enough to break a world record.

Forty players, ranging in age from 18 to 44, rotated in and out of the 84-inning game in hopes of setting a new Guinness World Record for the longest baseball game.

The record stands at 25 hours, set in Canada nearly three years ago.

There were a total of 234 runs scored in the game. How do you even do that? I'm guessing that they just didn't bother to play any real defense.

Anyway, after reading about that, I don't think I'll ever be bored by an extra-innings game in quite the same way again. I sure as hell hope they didn't cut off beer sales after the eighth inning, which is the biggest problem with games that go long. People would've gone homicidal.

Perspective

Sometimes, it takes an outsider to remind you of the better points of your hometown. This weekend, that perspective was provided by D.C. resident Dave of Garfield Ridge, who's been in SoCal visiting his brother.

He had a great post with great pictures about their trip to Dodger Stadium, which is one of the most beautiful temples of baseball the world has ever seen. He enjoyed one of the tastiest hot dogs available to man and even saw some celebrities. And his bro survived a nasty encounter with a foul ball. As they say, read the whole thing.

I haven't been to Dodger Stadium for a season or two, and his post actually filled me with longing for the place. And for Dodger Dogs. Mmmmmmm...Dodger Dogs.

Dave also got to enjoy the best fast food burger anybody's ever eaten soon after touching down here. Seriously, In-N-Out is one of the reasons why I don't think I could ever live anywhere but California, and Dave reminded me about what a treat it is to have something so good nearby.

SoCal has its faults, but it's a pretty good place to live. Dodger Stadium (and The Big A, too), In-N-Out Burger, and a myriad of other things make this a great place to live. Sometimes, you just need a reminder.

The saddest thing

But what would the Taliban be doing in a diner? Maybe the food is Halal.

You learn something new every day

Hey, did you know that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Stephen King conspired to murder John Lennon? And that they used headlines in news magazines to spread "government codes" announcing their intentions to do so? Well, thanks to the voices in this guy's head, now you do!

Seriously, the internets have to be the best thing to happen to crazy people since Xerox machines allowed them to cobble together their paranoid manifestoes for distribution to their fellow freaks.

(via Ace of Spades commenter krakatoa)

Put some pants on, dude

I tend to get excited by the prospect of seeing other people—women, actually—naked. The thought of other people seeing me nude, not so much. This guy is apparently an altogether different story.

Police arrested a motorist accused of twice visiting a coffee stand while naked from the waist down.

Garry Scott Harding, 37, of Bend [Oregon] was arraigned Tuesday on public indecency and stalking charges.

A 16-year-old worker at the stand told police that a man without pants or underwear visited the stand twice over the last few weeks and returned Monday fully clothed, according to a report written by Roberto Robles of the Bend Police Department.

She called police during the last visit and officers stopped Harding before he could leave. During an interview with investigators, Harding explained that his ex-wife had once removed his pants before the couple visited a drive-thru window in Montana, according to authorities. Harding apparently said he couldn't stop thinking about the experience and wanted to try it again.

Having gone into the place sans trou once, it's pretty interesting that the guy got away with it a second time. I get that—he got his dirty little thrill again. But what I want to know is why he'd go back to the same place, fully clothed.

Maybe he figured they wouldn't recognize him. After all, I'm pretty sure his face probably wasn't the most distinctive thing about his appearance those first two times.

Stripping for the children

Here's a story to warm the cockles of your heart. And also your pants.

The Clark County School District kicked off the first day of school Wednesday with scant resources. But it got a major donation from the scantily clad.

The same day the nation's fifth largest school district began the year with some 400 teaching vacancies, the nonprofit corporation that supports it, the Public Education Foundation, accepted a $2,500 donation from a strip club, Scores Las Vegas.

[...]

Scores raised the funds at an Aug. 23 back-to-school event called "Detention" that featured strippers dressed as teachers, schoolgirls and librarians.

"It's back to school time and you know what that means. Detention for everyone who has been bad!" one advertisement read.

The performers peeled off clothes and offered lap dances to customers, [Scores Marketing Director Shai] Cohen said. Patrons also left more than $1,000 donations in a jar that the club said would go to the Clark County School District. Scores matched the donations roughly dollar for dollar, he said.

"In this town, money is money, regardless," Cohen said. "We're a respectable business. We pay taxes like everybody else. We have a business license. It's for a good cause."

"Education is very important," he said.

And really, who knows the importance of a good education better than someone who works with strippers? But seriously, good job you dirty, dirty girls.

No parking

Parking in most big cities is a real bitch. That said, I don't think this is really an appropriate response to a parking dispute. Unless you're a magician.

A street parking attendant in Brazil's crime-ridden city of Rio de Janeiro was charged with sawing a woman in two over a parking space dispute, police said on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old male suspect was arrested on Tuesday night and confessed to murdering businesswoman Edna Souza, 51, in a house she was trying to rent in the middle class Botafogo district, a police spokeswoman said.

"Only the bottom part of the corpse has been found. Today police are going in force to the city waste dump, which will be combed to try to find the upper part," the spokeswoman said.

Well, now, doesn't that sound like fun?

The parking attendant told police he had had an argument with Souza some time ago when she left her car in front of a building where parking was banned, ignoring his protests. The last time she came to the neighbourhood on Monday he followed her inside the house and killed her.

Police received information that the two had quarrelled and questioned the man, who confessed the murder. He killed her with a knife and then used a handsaw to dismember the body, police said. The man said Souza had humiliated him.

One can only wonder what depraved depths of violence he would've sunk to had she, say, parked in front of a fire hydrant.

Gas and hump

This is funny, especially because of the use of the phrase "pump prices." That's just how my mind works.

Hot and bothered by rising pump prices? Australian brothels are offering clients discounts based on their gas bills.

Brothel owners claim the system works much the same way as supermarkets which offer shoppers discounted gas prices by presenting their grocery bills when they fill up their tanks.

"If you come in and spend time with one of our lovely ladies, we'll give you a discount of 20 cents a liter," Kerry, manager of Sydney brothel The Site, told Reuters Wednesday.

There is no link between brothels, petrol providers or supermarkets but brothels like The Site and Madame Kerry's say the system is simple.

Once you've filled up your car, bring your receipt to the brothel and they'll discount the price of your visit.

The bill for a full 50-liter tank at 126.9 cents per liter comes to A$63.45 ($48.22). With the offered 20c a liter discount, the petrol bill would have instead come to A$53.45.

That A$10 difference is taken off the A$150 cost of a 30-minute session with one of the brothel's "service providers."

As the article notes, brothels are legal in most of Australia. They're illegal here, so I don't know how we could work something similar--and, hey, it's a good deal--out. Maybe you could consult your local pimp, though I don't think most pimps are big on the idea of discounts.

Oh, and I love the use of a term like "service providers." C'mon, foax. They're prostitutes. Next thing you know, crack dealers are going to be called "amateur pharmacists."

Tequila sale causes mild annoyance

So, the company that makes Jack Daniel's bought up some tequila maker down in Mexico, and now the locals are furious. Well, somewhat upset, anyway.

"Nothing is sacred. Look, now Herradura tequila has gone," said Heriberto Zuniga, slugging back an aged Herradura tequila in Ardalio, a classic no-frills cantina in Mexico City's Escandon neighborhood.

The 26-year-old plumber said he'd boycott the drink if only he had the willpower. "I'd like to say this is my last Herradura, but it won't be, I like it too much."

Um, Heriberto, up here in El Norte, that's what we refer to as a "drinking problem." You might want to work on that willpower.

I'm just saying is all.

Is multiculturalism dead in the UK?

Well, that's what the author of this article, one Ron Liddle, says. Furthermore, he posits that the Labour politicians who put the multicultural policies in place are responsible for its demise.

Quick, somebody buy a wreath. Last week marked the passing of multiculturalism as official government doctrine. No longer will opponents of this corrosive and divisive creed be silenced simply by the massed Pavlovian ovine accusation: “Racist!” Better still, the very people who foisted multiculturalism upon the country are the ones who have decided that it has now outlived its usefulness — that is, the political left.

It is amazing how a few by-election shocks and some madmen with explosive backpacks can concentrate the mind. At any rate, British citizens, black and white, can move onwards together — towards a sunlit upland of monoculturalism, or maybe zeroculturalism, whatever takes your fancy.

That multiculturalism really is officially dead and buried can be inferred both from Ruth Kelly’s comments last week and, indeed, from the title of the commission that the government had convened in the wake of the July 7 terrorist attacks last year and to which her observations were made.

In fairness, Kelly, the communities and local government secretary, merely posed the question as to whether the creed had resulted in division and alienation. “Have we ended up with some communities living in isolation from each other?” she asked. That she was speaking wholly rhetorically is evident from the title of the commission: the Commission for Integration and Cohesion. You don’t get either of those things with multiculturalism: they are mutually exclusive.

It has all been a long time coming. Some 22 years ago Ray Honeyford, the previously obscure headmaster of Drummond middle school in Bradford, suggested, in the low-circulation right-wing periodical The Salisbury Review, that his Asian pupils should really be better integrated into British society.

They should learn English, for a start, and a bit of British history and a sense of what the country is about; further, Asian (Muslim) girls should be allowed to learn to swim despite the objections of their parents (who did not like them stripping down even in front of each other). Muslim kids should be treated like every other pupil, in other words.

For these mild contentions, Honeyford was investigated by the government, vilified as a racist by the press, ridiculed every day by leftie demonstrators outside his office and was eventually hounded from his job. He has not worked since.

[...]

This is how far we have come in the past year or so. When an ICM poll of Britain’s Muslims in February this year revealed that some 40% (that is, about 800,000 people) wished to see Islamic law introduced in parts of Britain, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality responded by saying that they should therefore pack their bags and clear off. Sir Trevor Phillips’s exact words were these: “If you want to have laws decided in another way, you have to live somewhere else.”

My guess is this: if such a statement had been made by a member of the Tory party’s Monday Club in 1984 — or, for that matter, 1994 — he would have been excoriated and quite probably would have been kicked out of the party. “If you don’t like it here then go somewhere else” was once considered the apogee of “racism”. People who did not like it here were exhorted to exert their political muscle and change the status quo.

Read the whole thing. It goes into some things about British politics that I'm not really familiar with, but the main point seems to be that even "progressive" Labour politicians are waking up to the idea that having large, unassimilated, hostile groups of people living in their country might be, you know, a bad thing. Dangerous, even.

(via Andrea Harris)

God bless the nude heroes of Florida

I don't throw around terms like "heroes" very often, but in this case, I feel it's appropriate.

A nudist getaway that received top mention in "Playboy" magazine was the recent host to a very enticing fundraiser.

The Caliente nudist resort in Land O'Lakes, Fla. hosted Relay for Life, raising money for cancer while baring it all in true nudist fashion, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

Various methods were employed to raise funds for the American Cancer Society, including topless kisses for $5 and "Titty T's" shirts available for $10 a pop.

The main event, the relay, had naked participants prancing around resort grounds, strolling pool-side and crooning on the karaoke machine. At least one attendee was said to be dressed, namely, Giggles the clown, also known as the county commissioner.

That's good, because clown nudity is just wrong. But seriously, raising money for cancer research is always a good thing. And when you can pair that with topless kissing booths, well, that's something special. Heroes, I tell you.

[wipes away single tear]

Yikes!

Man, what the hell happened to Ray Liotta's face? He's got some kind of Joker thing going on with his mouth.

Image via The Internet Movie Database.

Go for the syrup, stay for the nudity

Hey, perverts! What are you doing hanging out here, reading my pathetic little blog, when you could be ogling nude teenagers in Vermont?

Some have appeared naked in a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply strolled the streets in the nude.

Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity.

So far they haven't been arrested or ticketed: public nudity isn't illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless it's done to arouse sexual gratification.

And yet, here in California, if I "forget" to wear pants when I go out to get the paper, everybody makes a big deal about it.

Of course, somebody had to spoil it for everyone else...

Nobody, including the police, seemed to take offense until one local, Theresa Toney, went before the town government in August to complain about a group of youngsters naked in a parking lot.

"The parking lot is not a strip club," she said. "What about children seeing this?"

But it's natural, maaaan! You need to get over your hangups.

Of course, we're talking about Vermont, the land that brought us Ben & Jerry and Howard Dean, so some of the nudity is, how shall we say, idiot-related.

"We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting bombed," said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore. "So why's it such a big problem if we chose to get nude?"

I honestly don't know how to respond to a statement like that. My brain hurts.

Auf Wiedersehen, Hitler Gaststätte*

Remember the Hitler-themed restaurant in India that I posted about the other day? Well, it looks like the owner has decided to scrap that idea.

The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said Thursday he will change its name because it angered so many people.

Puneet Sablok said he would remove Hitler's name and the Nazi swastika from billboards and the menu. He had said the restaurant's name _ "Hitler's Cross" _ and symbols were only meant to attract attention.

Sablok made the decision after meeting with members of Bombay's small Jewish community.

"Once they told me how upset they were with the name, I decided to change it," he said. "I don't want to do business by hurting people."

I still can't believe this guy didn't realize that having a theme restaurant which was based on Nazism was, let's say, in poor taste.

Sablok said he had not yet decided on a new name.

Let's see...how about Stalin's Gulag Experience Russian Tearoom? Or perhaps a sushi joint based on Japanese atrocities in the Pacific? I can see it now: "Tojo's--a Place for Sushi."

*title courtesy of Alta Vista Babel Fish

Cheers to Milwaukee!

While nearly everybody knows that there are rankings released every year for best "Party School" (I think the University of Texas won this year), I honestly didn't know that they had a ranking for Party Cities. I guess you learn something new every day.

Milwaukee has been ranked by Forbes.com as "America's Drunkest City" on a list of 35 major metropolitan areas ranked for their drinking habits.

Forbes said Tuesday it used numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rank cities in five areas: state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism.

Minneapolis-St. Paul was ranked second overall; followed by Columbus, Ohio; Boston; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Cleveland; Pittsburgh and then Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., in a tie for ninth.

[...]

But officials at Visit Milwaukee, the area's convention and visitors bureau, contend that the city has come a long way in ridding itself of its beer-guzzling image.

Milwaukeeans have plenty of other ways to entertain themselves without drinking alcohol, said Dave Fantle, a spokesman for the group. He noted a new convention center and baseball park had been built and the Milwaukee Art Museum expanded in recent years.

Now, I don't know about the museum or the convention center, but the ballpark...well, it's Miller Park where the Brewers play. So much for that "beer-guzzling image," huh?

Gee, I wonder how they'll celebrate winning the title.

Porno makes him hot

You know, if you feel guilty about what you did at the porno store, you should just do what everyone else does (so I'm told)—cast your eyes downward and try to leave without making eye contact with anybody. You probably don't want to do what this guy did.

Miami-Dade police are searching for the man who was caught on tape starting a fire inside an adult bookstore in Miami.

It happened Saturday, Aug. 12, at about 3:20 a.m. inside the store on Southwest 40th Street.

Police said a man went inside the bookstore and asked the clerk for change for the video machines. The man then went into a video booth.

"The guy came in like a regular customer," said store manager Theresa Jelley.

Police said a few minutes later, the man came out of the booth and told the clerk, "I have a guilty conscience. I'm going to set the place on fire."

"It came out of nowhere. He told the clerk that he felt guilty and then he walked to the booth, opened it up and threw gasoline on the floor and lit a lighter," Jelley said.

Surveillance video inside the store showed that the man pulled out a plastic bottle filled with a liquid and poured the liquid on the ground in the video area. He then ignited the liquid, causing a large fire.

The manager says that nobody recognized him, and that most of the store's customers are "regulars." The real tragedy here is that those people are going to have to find somewhere else for their...self gratification.

(Or, I suppose, they could just use the internets. I hear those tubes are just stuffed full of the naughty stuff. Yep, that's what I hear.)

Bunnies!

I thought I'd kind of go the other way from the psycho killer raccoons. Just because.

"Psycho Killer Raccoons Terrorize Olympia"

This story has one of the more sensationalistic headlines I've seen in a while. Not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill killer raccoons, these are psycho killer raccoons we're dealing with! They haven't swarmed and killed any people, though...not yet.

A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say.

Some have taken to carrying pepper spray to ward off the masked marauders and the woman who was bitten now carries an iron pipe when she goes outside at night.

"It's a new breed," said Tamara Keeton, who with Kari Hall started a raccoon watch after an emotional neighborhood meeting drew 40 people. "They're urban raccoons, and they're not afraid."

"Urban" raccoons, huh? I think we all know what that means.

Tony Benjamins, whose family lost two cats, said he got a big dog _ a German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix _ to keep the raccoons away.

[...]

"We used to love the raccoons. They'd have their babies this time of year, and they were so cute. Even though we lived in the city, it was neat to have wildlife around," he said, "but this year, things changed. They went nuts."

I place the blame for the raccoons' mental instability squarely where it belongs: on George W. Bush.

Joe Rosenthal, R.I.P.

We've lost an icon of journalism, from back in the day when reporters were actually supportive of our war aims. Joe Rosenthal died this weekend at 94.

Photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal image of six World War II servicemen raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, died Sunday. He was 94.

Rosenthal died of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the San Francisco suburb of Novato, said his daughter, Anne Rosenthal.

"He was a good and honest man, he had real integrity," Anne Rosenthal said.

His photo, taken for The Associated Press on Feb. 23, 1945, became the model for the Iwo Jima Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The memorial, dedicated in 1954 and known officially as the Marine Corps War Memorial, commemorates the Marines who died taking the Pacific island in World War II.

Now, try to imagine Mike Wallace saying something like the following:

"What I see behind the photo is what it took to get up to those heights the kind of devotion to their country that those young men had, and the sacrifices they made," Rosenthal once said. "I take some gratification in being a little part of what the U.S. stands for."

Oh my God, he wasn't being objective! It's like he wasn't even trying to see things from the Japanese soldier's point of view!

Anyway, the famous photo is reproduced below:

I'm warning you

Don't click on this link. Seriously. You'll thank me later.

Dining with Der Fuehrer

You know, I don't understand why anybody would possibly be offended by this.

A new restaurant in India's financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country's small Jewish community.

'Hitler's Cross', which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

"We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people's minds," owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different."

So, the restaurant is named after Hitler, has pictures of Hitler and swastikas all over the place, but they're not "promoting Hitler." Yeah, that makes sense.

I must say, though, that Hitler certainly was "different." If, by "different," you mean "megalomaniacal" or "genocidal." Anyway, back to the Hitler non-promotion:

Posters line the road leading up to it, featuring a red swastika carved in the name of the eatery. One slogan reads: "From Small Bites to Mega Joys."

A huge portrait of a stern-looking Fuehrer greets visitors at the door. The cross in the restaurant's name refers to the swastika that symbolized the Nazi regime.

Nope, no Hitler promotion there. Not at all. But for some unfathomable reason, the Jewish community in India (yeah, who knew?) is upset about this. Baffling, I know.

Perhaps it's the slogan. That is a really sucky slogan.

"All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us"

It was inevitable, really, if you think about it.

"Fun" with condoms

Everybody is wearing condoms! But, uh, not in the fun way.

Condoms are very much in style as a fashion accessory at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, showing up on strait-laced men, shy teenagers and African grandmothers.

"There's a great need to de-stigmatize condoms around the world, especially in Africa," said Franck DeRose, executive director of The Condom Project, which aims to get people comfortable about condoms, especially those living in countries where the little piece of latex is considered taboo.

To do that, the project has a program that gets people making their own condom art pin. It all starts with a craft table, packaged condoms, scraps of colored paper, candy and other double-sided tape.

Wow, doesn't that sound like fun? No, not really. And what's up with "candy and other double-sided tape," anyway? Don't these people have editors anymore?

Oh, and I love this little bit of multi-cultural liberal pap:

"We're not pushing it on people. They come to us and the information is there," said DeRose, adding his group teams up with the local information groups in the communities where his team visits.

"I don't think it's healthy or appropriate to change a culture. But we can change the risky behavior within a community."

We don't want to change someone's culture, per se. No, we just want to alter their behavior and attitudes in some fundamental ways. See the difference? What do you mean, "no"? Come back here!

Anyway, click on the link to see a picture of a little girl (seriously, she can't be more than six or seven years old) staring at a dress made of condoms. Isn't that just darling?

Historic hoes

When it comes to the preservation of historic buildings, I'm...less than passionate. Most of the time, that is. But in this case, I think it's important. Very important.

A centuries-old brothel teetering on the verge of collapse has red-faced Chinese officials pondering heritage versus morality behind closed doors, state media reported on Thursday.

A local government in Jinggang, a town in central Hunan province, must decide whether to restore crumbling Hongtaifang, a brothel established in 1733, and face the ire of residents who see it as debauched, Xinhua news agency said.

"The brothel was a place where women were humiliated in the old society," Xinhua quoted Xiao Yisheng, a retired university professor, as saying.

"Its restoration could be seen as promoting prostitution."

Tan Feng, a student from Xiao's alma mater, begged to differ, saying the site was bound to prompt different reactions in different people.

"When I entered the brothel, it reminded me that it was a place where the ancients indulged in sensual pleasures," Tan said.

In other words, he gets a tingle in his no-no place thinking about old-timey prostitutes. But really, if you can get people thinking and talking about history, isn't that the important thing?

No, I guess not.

Welcome back, Dave

Remember how the other day I said one of my favorite bloggers was calling it quits? Well, after two whole days away from his blog, he's back. I kind of had a feeling he would be, considering the fact that the movie event of the year is happening tomorrow and he's been talking about it for months. Dave quitting blogging before at least writing a review of Snakes on a Plane would be sheer madness.

Like a Viking II: Son of Like a Viking

After being ridiculed by pretty much the entire right side of the blogosphere yesterday, you might think Andrew Sullivan would think twice before floating more insane conspiracy theories. You'd be wrong.

I have long wondered whether Cheney and Rumsfeld ever believed that their job was to build a new democracy in Iraq. Rumsfeld had dealt with and supported Saddam in the past; Cheney was extremely suspicious of occupying Iraq in 1990. One subversive theory - which I'm not endorsing, just airing - is that both merely wanted to turn the Saddam regime to rubble, and then play along with neocon democracy supporters, while making sure that the military was never given enough resources to do nation-building. Then Cheney and Rumsfeld could prove their point about the impossibility of reforming the Muslim world, and promote the view that we need merely to pummel enemies, project military fear across the region, and deter Islamo-fascism by "shock and awe." The Likud strategy, in other words.

Where to even begin? One subversive theory--which I'm not endorsing, just airing--is that we are dealing with someone who is crazier than a shithouse rat. Oh, and by the way, good job insinuating that the Joooooooooos! are secretly pulling the strings.

Once again, Ace is right on top of this. With graphics this time, too.

Like a Viking

Ace has been relentless today, just beating the hell out of one of his favorite targets, Andrew Sullivan, who wrote this incredibly stupid post, basically "questioning the timing" on the UK terror bust. Sullivan writes:

I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

Been there. Done that. Learned my lesson.

Well, that does it. St. Andrew of the Sacred Heart-ache has finally gone round the bend with his BDS. Of course, when people like Ace began to point out the idiocy on display here (that Tony Blair and British law enforcement would consider Joe Lieberman's defeat in a primary election as a factor in making the arrests and announcing them is patently ridiculous) Sullivan backpedaled here, falling back on the line that he was merely "asking questions," which is passive-aggressive bullshit.

Ace printed a comment of mine here, and I think what I wrote then still applies, and I'm too lazy to write something new, so I'll just copy it here:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...While it's fun to pile on "Excitable Andy," this really is a tragedy. The guy is a good writer, and he's one of the people who got me interested in reading blogs after 9/11. And I didn't even really mind when he started criticizing the way the WOT was being fought.

But then, somewhere along the line, he stopped criticizing and just started bitching about the Bush administration. And that pretty much coincided with the time where he started fixating on gay marriage as the be-all and end-all of issues. And on that specific issue, he could've made some more persuasive points (I'm open to some sort of civil unions that would give gays hospital, inheritance, etc. rights), but he seemed to view nearly everything through the prism of his own emotions.

Couple all of that with his bullshit bandwidth pledge drives and his dissembling about who he was going to endorse on his blog while he had already denounced Bush in the gay press, and you've got a lot of former fans like me. And this was way before he had any "heart-ache" about how Catholic the Pope was. I'm just glad that I've always been too poor to contribute to his European vacation fund. And didn't he promise to shut up for a while, too?

Let's be honest, Sullivan, like a lot of other guys, thinks with his dick. And that kind of thinking has turned an otherwise thoughtful commentator into a hack.

Really, I don't think that's ever been more true than right now. As someone else (I forget who) Jeff Goldstein said in the link below, he ought to just start a diary at Daily Kos.

(More here. And a classic here, where Ace gives a list of St. Andrew's greatest hissy fits.)

So long, Dave

Aw, man, one of my favorite bloggers, Dave at Garfield Ridge is calling it quits. I'd like to wish him luck, and express my sincere hope that he'll return to blogging sometime soon.

Tom Cruise: weirder than we thought

I know, I know. You read the title of this post and immediately thought, "how is that even possible?" Well, it turns out he was allegedly stalking Joe DiMaggio.

While people have been spooked by Tom Cruise of late, Joe DiMaggio was one of the first.

The actor, who seems weirdlier and weirdlier to fans as he continues to refuse to show his and Katie Holmes' baby, Suri, scared the Yankee legend by following him, our source reports.

This was in the mid-'90s, after Cruise had already starred in "Top Gun" and "Born on the Fourth of July," but the baseball great, once married to Marilyn Monroe, didn't realize - or didn't care - what a big star Cruise was.

"He'd show up at baseball-signing shows and wait for Joe to come out," says the source. "One time, he waited outside a restaurant for him for three hours. [DiMaggio] called him 'a short little guy.' He didn't like it. He felt like he was stalking him."

Ah, Tom Cruise, the crazy-ass gift that keeps on giving. Makes you wonder what he's going to do next. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that he'll declare himself a direct descendant of Neptune, god of the sea, and start perading around in a toga, toting a trident. Yeah.

One-man crime spree

This guy must really like jail, since he seems to spend a lot of time there.

Kevin Holder's rap sheet is 43 pages long, dating back to 1980, and he just got another entry -- his 226th arrest.

Police say they caught him Sunday morning after a brief chase and found burglar tools in his possession.

"He's very well-known to Lincoln police officers," Police Chief Tom Casady said.

Holder's convictions include criminal mischief, marijuana possession, violation of a protection order, assault, resisting arrest, assault on an officer, possession of cocaine. Many were misdemeanors, but he also has been sentenced to at least three prison terms for felonies, including a four-year stretch starting in 1996.

The article says he could face 60 years in prison if he gets convicted of another felony.

Here's the kicker, though: Holder is actually something of a piker compared to some other habitual criminals in the area.

Holder's list of arrests doesn't come close to setting a record for Lincoln-Lancaster County. He's only No. 40, police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell said Tuesday.

A number of people have more than 500 arrests in Lincoln, a city of 226,000 people. The record is held by Edward Rooks, who died in 2004, with 652 arrests.

There must be something in the water down there in Nebraska. Or maybe it's the corn.

Surprise, surprise

Remember the dumbass who changed his name to Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com? Well, it seems—shockingly enough—that the name change didn't stick.

The animal rights activist formerly known as Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com is now just plain, old Christopher Garnett.

The staffer at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was one of three workers who changed their names to support the organizations goals. Two have now returned to their given names.

"I think maybe its time had come and gone," said Karin Robertson, who had been known as Goveg.com since March 2003.

The switch was intended to draw people to the organizations Web site, Roberston said.

It worked: Web traffic to the site shot up, as did requests for vegetarian starter kits.

Following their college's lead, Garnett and Brandi Valladolid went to the courthouse and, with the stroke of a judge's pen, became Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com and Ringlingbeatsanimals.com.

It seems that he had some trouble getting a passport and a credit card with his ridiculous new publicity stunt of a name, so he decided to switch back to his given name.

"Since Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com doesn't have a social security number, it became a big hindrance," he said. "From what I've been told, it's a real nightmare to go through the whole process."

Way to stick to your guns there, Chris. Gandhi himself could learn a lot from the courage of your conviction. If he wanted to learn how to fold when facing an inconvenience, that is. Oh, and if he was still alive.

Wedding bell blues

So, an old friend of mine from high school got married on Saturday afternoon. It was a really nice ceremony at the local Catholic church. The thing is, there were a couple of problems with the reception.

First of all, it was held in a college auditorium which is a really nice, old building. Old enough, in fact, that it has no air conditioning system. That is what you might call a serious problem on a hot August weekend in Southern California, especially when most of the guests are dressed in formal attire. Not pleasant.

The other serious problem with the reception was that they didn't have a bar. I don't mean that there wasn't an open bar. I mean no bar. There were just three punchbowls with non-alcoholic beverages. When one of my friends was apprised of the situation, he said, "Oh. Excuse me." He and his girlfriend returned about twenty minutes later with a flask-sized bottle of Stoli. We ended up making another run and bringing back three more bottles. I felt like a sixteen-year-old, sneaking booze into a wedding.

So, ladies, to recap: scout out a location for your reception that's going to be appropriate for the weather. And, for the love of God, have some booze on hand. Unless everyone attending are Mormons. They don't tend to drink.

Wow

The Los Angeles Times has a great piece on Reutergate by media critic Tim Rutten here. (Login via BugMeNot = yuggins@yahoo.com, password = yuggins) The column ends thusly:

That brings us to the most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It's a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly.

Johnson and his colleagues have done the serious news media a service. Failure to follow up on it would be worse than churlish; it would be irresponsible.

He's talking about Charles Johnson of little green footballs, who broke the story. Read the whole thing, and be surprised.

I couldn't just leave something this snarky in Ace's comments

I think it's terrible that Ace is ripping on German Nobel Laureate and anti-American douchebag Gunter Grass for things that happened all the way back during World War II. After all, a friend of the "respected" author died at Auschwitz. Yep, it turns out that his best pal fell out of a guard tower and broke his neck.

When you gotta go, you gotta go

Some people are deeply, deeply stupid. These guys happen to be a couple of those people.

Sometimes when nature calls, there's no time to delay, but a Kentucky man sure picked the wrong spot for a pit stop.

Michael Ray Hunter, 37, found out Wednesday night that the parking lot of the West Virginia State Police headquarters in South Charleston isn't the right spot.

Trooper J.S. Crane just happened to be walking nearby as Hunter was relieving himself.

As Crane approached, he smelled alcohol. That discovery led Crane to the pickup truck where Hunter's buddy, James Alan Richardson, 40, was checking phone messages.

During a search of the truck, Crane and another trooper found a marijuana pipe and pills for which Richardson had no prescription.

I understand that these guys were probably pretty trashed, but when pulling into that parking lot, the presence of all those police cars should have raised a red flag. Usually, you want to drive your drugs away from the cops. Or so I'm told.

Just wondering

Now that Neddy the Freshmaker is the golden boy and Mean Old Joe is the new Emmanuel Goldstein, can all those "progressives" out there finally scrape those dingy old Gore/Lieberman stickers off the backs of their Volvos?

And hey, now that I think about it, we really did you guys a solid with Florida back in 2000. Just think...that guy could've been the Veep! A heartbeat away from Manbearpig!

Randi Rhodes: idiot

Actually, idiot isn't a strong enough word. She repeatedly talks about the idea that Hezbollah has agreed to disarm without ever mentioning the fact that they're, uh, you know...firing rockets into northern Israel.

Seriously, you have to watch this thing to understand just how badly Neal Boortz destroys her.

Via Allah.

Dude, just let it go

So, somebody tosses a cigarette butt on the ground, a daylong fight ensues, three people wind up in the hospital, and four go to jail. I think we're probably dealing with some more serious underlying issues here.

Police said a guest visiting Bobby Joe Ray, 42, tossed a cigarette butt toward the edge of Ray's yard on Aug. 4. The butt landed near a fence belonging to Ray's neighbor, Michael Alan Bradford, 24. Bradford got angry and started shouting about it.

Several residents of the neighborhood said Ray and Bradford argued about the butt all day, Mathews said, and eventually Ray's sister, Shirley Lynn Ray White, 32, who lives across the street, tangled with Bradford's wife, Heather Mills Bradford, 27, and the men soon joined in.

At least three went to the hospital for treatment of injuries, and all four were arrested Tuesday and were released on bond the same day.

Shirley Lynn Ray White is charged with third-degree assault. Bobby Joe Ray and Heather Mills Bradford are charged with harassment. Michael Alan Bradford is charged with harassment and third-degree assault.

Now, call me crazy, but somehow I doubt that these people were on friendly terms to begin with. Add in what I imagine to be some rather heavy daytime drinking and a pinch (okay, a few pinches) of crystal meth and, voila! You get this.

Prank is unfunny

I always thought that pranks were supposed to be, uh, funny. But apparently, that's not always the case.

MARION, Ind. -- Ten to 15 people wearing masks left six 40-gallon trash bags full of taco sauce packets at a Taco Bell restaurant in what police described as a prank.

A note attached to the bags said the group had been accumulating them for the past three years, storing them in the trunk of a car, authorities said.

Police have suspended their investigation into the Tuesday night prank in the city about 50 miles northeast of Indianapolis without any arrests, said Marion Deputy Police Chief Cliff Sessoms.

"From everything we've got here, there doesn't appear that there has been any crime committed," he said. "It looks more like a prank than it does anything else, but not a very funny one because you've got that number of people coming in there with their faces covered up."

I beg to differ. The masked people aren't what make the prank unfunny. It wasn't funny because it was so incredibly fucking lame.

And actual police resources were used to investigate this? I'm glad Chief Sessoms was on the case, though. It takes a seasoned law enforcement professional to deduce that returning a bunch of hot sauce packets to a fast food restaurant isn't actually, you know, illegal.

British police foil "terrorist plot to blow up planes"

Chalk up another win for the good guys:

A terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said.

It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled on aircraft in hand luggage.

Police have arrested about 18 people in the London area after an anti-terrorist operation lasting several months.

Security at all airports in the UK has been tightened and delays are expected. MI5 has raised the UK threat level to critical - the highest possible.

According to MI5's website, critical threat level means "an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK".

[...]

Scotland Yard said in a statement that their investigation into the alleged plot was a "major operation" which would be "lengthy and complex".

More on this story, which I'm sure we'll be hearing quite a bit about in the morning, here, here, and here. Jeff, Ace and Allah note that the men arrested seem to be (gasp!) British-born Pakistanis. Shocking, I know. I bet you were expecting the IRA.

Meanwhile, there's no mention of the story here as I write this. I'm sure you're just as surprised as I am.

Any bets on who's going to be the first to Question the Timing™?

Dirty, dirty internets

Man, you can find just about anything on the internets these days. Even, it turns out, hoes. And I don't mean the gardening tools.

Police have arrested four women in an investigation into prostitution ads that were posted on a popular Internet classifieds site.

The women were arrested over the last three weeks at hotels near Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, police said. They were charged with illegally soliciting sex.

Anne Arundel County authorities began the investigation after reading ads posted on Craigslist.org that offered sex services for $140 to $300.

Police said Tuesday the women allegedly arranged several weeks' worth of appointments in advance, then flew into a city to meet with clients. They then traveled to their next destination.

Experts said Craigslist has become a favorite way for prostitutes to find clients and set up operations in cities where they don't have a network. Classified ads in a variety of categories are free on Craigslist.

Next thing you know, you'll be able to buy sex on Amazon. You'll definitely want to shell out for the next-day shipping on that.

Swiss miss

This could have ended badly.

An 85-year-old woman was found in the vault of a Swiss bank when she set off motion detectors hours after the bank was already closed, according to a statement released Wednesday.

Employees at the Zuercher Kantonalbank apparently forgot about the woman.

The director of the bank's safe allowed the woman into the vault on Monday before closing it punctually at 4:30 p.m. local time -- with the woman still deep in study of her documents, ZKB said.

She triggered some motion detectors after a while, and was let out four hours after being locked in.

But the end of the article is what's interesting to me, because it seems to indicate a big difference between Swiss and American society. Aside from the neutrality and cuckoo clocks, I mean.

The bank gave the woman a bouquet of flowers for suffering from the ordeal and said it would decide on further nonfinancial compensation.

Flowers and "nonfinancial compensation"? Hell, this woman would have lawyers beating down her door, trying to get her to sue the bank if this had happened here.

Lesson learned

Now, I don't get linked by many other blogs, though I appreciate the ones who do, but sometimes I get a lot of traffic from search engines. Case in point. The lesson here: write posts with words like "nude" in the title. You'll rake in hits from the sex perverts.

Thanks for stopping by, sex perverts! I won't judge you.

Ob *hic* jesshun

Uh, counselor, maybe you should wait until after your important court date to tie one on.

A judge ordered a blood-alcohol test for a defense lawyer who was slurring his words, then declared a mistrial after declaring him too tipsy to argue a kidnapping case.

"I don't think you can tell a straight story because you are intoxicated," Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt told lawyer Joseph Caramango as she declared a mistrial for his client, Dale Jakuchunas.

Caramango, 41, acknowledged that he had been drinking the night before his Thursday court appearance, but maintained he was not drunk. Jakuchunas, 32, faces life in prison if convicted.

"I don't believe I've committed any ethical violation," Caramango said Tuesday, disputing the accuracy of the breath-alcohol test. "If it proved anything, it proved I was not intoxicated."

Leavitt announced Caramango had a blood-alcohol level of 0.075 percent, just under Nevada's legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers of 0.08 percent.

Now, to be fair, the guy claims to have been in a car accident on the way to court which he says gave him the latest of nine (!) concussions he's suffered over the years. I'm not really sure that if he was representing me in a case that could end up sending me to prison for life that those nine concussions would be very reassuring, though.

Anyway, I found a picture of the guy on Google images:

Care to join me in a belt of Scotch?