Bohemian Rhapsody

I read the news today, oh boy. It's just SSDD; the wrongwingers are upset with Obama, people killed their families on the holiday, and houses burned down, (Hey, they got footage!)

So I decided to amuse myself, and hopefully you.

This place is awesome, I spent a whole evening just following these links:

Two Words Obvious Trope

Fridge Logic

Lampshade Hanging

Kick The Dog

Sadly, No! is always brilliant, but you reeeeealy have to read the comments to get the full effect:

Three Turkeys for Thanksgiving

Who knew Howie Klein went to a WH dinner!?

David Bowie Has Still Never Attended A State Dinner At The White House

I have a half-baked reason for telling the story of the state dinner I went to in September, 1998

Read it all, it just gets funnier every time I do.

Jon Ronson of The Guardian says:

'I'm going to tell my son the worst swearword in the world'

Fafablog! Need I say more?

Breaking Terror Update!
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his friends are going to stand trial! It's taken about six and a half years for this to happen, during which they were all presumably kept waiting in the parlor of a sumptuous mansion along with the Colonel, the Countess, the jewel thief, the butler and the maid while a brilliant but eccentric sleuth attempted to discern the identity of the true culprit through the use of the deductive method, the thorough examination of evidence, and simulated drowning.

Everybody else has to stay in Special Torture Jail forever on accounta they have all come down with Schrodinger's Guilt. If they stay in the box they might be guilty, but if we open the box they might not be.

And now, since you've been wondering about the post title, here is the bestest ever version of Bohemian Rhapsody:




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

If You Don't Know Me By Now

If you don't know these blogs by now, check them out, you might find you have a new daily read.

Siri at WTF Is It Now?!? has an excellent post about a new monument we need in DC:

NAMING NAMES: THE LIST!

It occurs to me that what we really need here in this country is a national memorial, perhaps like the Viet Nam memorial, a wall, upon which is carved each and every American's name who has lost his or her life, made the "ultimate sacrifice", because of the lack of or inadequate health care/insurance. Only this memorial would be more like a 9/11 memorial than the Viet Nam wall because none of these names volunteered or signed up for their ultimate UNECESSARY demise....

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Cookie Jill at skippy's place caught this at the LA Times. Read it and weep:

97 years old and homeless

..."it makes me feel like i'm a bum," bessie said. "i don't mind living at the mercy of the public because some of the public is good -- they're nice to me. but there are some that are nasty. some of them laugh at me and my sign. they say they don't think i'm 97 years old."

reaching slowly into a pocket, she pulls out a laminated california state identification card that shows her date of birth: march 2, 1912.

*************

Heather at Crooks and Liars watches Grayson's Anatomy:

Rachel Maddow talks to Rep. Alan Grayson
[...]
Maddow: On health reform let me ask you right now how you feel about the two sides right now. We talked about it at the top of the show. Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican, this weekend saying he doesn’t believe that death rates are higher for people who don’t have health insurance. The chair of the Republican Party says we just don’t need health reform. How do you see the two sides right now.

Grayson: I think that the Democrats have been fooled now for months by this fantasy of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is a concept that’s become a weapon of mass distraction to keep us from actually doing what we need to do—to give people in this country universal health care—to give them affordable health care—and to give them comprehensive health care.

**************

Dr. Sardonicus is in at Pole Hill Sanitarium and is doing a project on The Beatles. I think everyone, whether a Beatleologist or just curious about them could learn something. I know I did.

Album project: Beatles For Sale

The Beatles spent most of 1964 touring the world, In June, they did 19 shows in 32 days, visiting Denmark, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand. They folowed this with a triumphant return to the United States in August, performing 30 shows in 23 cities during the month. The tours became a monotonous grind, with the time before shows spent with promotional appearances, and dealing with obnoxious promoters, journalists, and DJs. The shows themselves were frustrating experiences, the group usually hurrying through 15 songs in 25 minutes that neither band nor audience could hear over all the screaming - as John Lennon remarked, "We might as well had been playing broomsticks."

Full disclosure: Dr. S occasionally writes for SteveAudio. He was invited to write there because I think he writes well and suggested him to Steve.
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edroso at alicublog constantly covers the outer wingnuttia, (by outer, I mean mainstream wingnut blogs), so that we don't have to. The whole blog is great so I'll just give you this small sample:

Being a bit of a crank myself, I generally applaud non-joiners, holdouts, and antiquarians. But to go on for over 2,200 words about all the things he hasn't seen and won't see suggests, despite his insistence to the contrary, that Hanson is proud of it. He's proud as an observantly religious man might be that he scrupulously avoids the near occasion of sin, and has done so long and faithfully enough that he can truly say he's untempted.

The examples he gives are proof that peak wingnut can never be achieved. As Einstein said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around Blogtopia

skippy, in skippy's snark tank asks "is it obama's economy yet?"

Cookie Jill, in skippy's arboretum has a great rundown of the 20 largest cases of companies bilking the government
Hint: The 1st 3 are 'health care' companies.

Extra bonus feature: stan by your lee for folks like me who grew up Marveling at comics books.

Crooks & Liars has the goods on repub lies about Health Insurance Reform: Grover Norquist Distributes Lies - Uh, Helpful Talking Points on Health-Care Reform

And last, but never least, WTF?!?

From the GOP harassment memo, entitled “best practices”:

Artificially Inflate Your Numbers. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive.

Be Disruptive Early And Often

Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate

Notice the complete lack of anything resembling "have your facts well-prepared for Q&A sessions."

Gosh, it's nice to know that all the 'conservative', corporate funded 'grass roots' folks are disrupting meetings where members of congress can talk to their constituents and then answer questions.


* y! wksctp! (yes, we know skippy coined that phrase!)


Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Blogtopiates!

Alicublog has a Black Comedy post about RedState's outreach to American Blacks. I would have linked directly to RedState but I ran out of eye bleach after seeing DarkBlack's [way too] graphic.
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Why newspapers suck, by Walter Pincus.
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Glenn Greenwald runs down a conflict of interest regarding an anonymous sourced article smearing a potential Supreme Court nominee.
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AMERICAblog has an example of the leader of the Grand Obstructionist Party calling for a smaller tent.
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Also via AMERICAblog we bring you a chance to sound off about Tales of bad bosses (p.s. Sound off to us, not AMERICAblog, even I couldn't make it thru their registration process. Hint to John: You're getting 2 to 48 comments per post. It shouldn't be that onerous to chime in.)
**************
skippy is looking forward to the new Star Trek movie almost as much as we are. But skippy gets to see it in IMAX!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Welcome to the White House, I think you're gonna like it

Big props to our blog buddy John Aravosis at AMERICAblog for his invitation to the White House!

Nope, it wasn't because he was a blogger, or maybe not just because he was a blogger, he was invited to the White House to attend a reception that President Obama and the Greek archbishop were hosting for Greek Independence Day.

Georgia [Georgia10 of DKos] and I got up to the side of the stage and didn't move. Fifteen minutes later, Obama came in with Biden and Greek Archbishop Demetrios, and Obama preceded to stand about three feet away from me.
[...]
When Obama shook my hand, he looked at me and said "God bless you." It was rather odd. I've never had someone say that to me when I wasn't sneezing. It became immediately evident that this is a guy who takes his faith seriously.

I just got blessed by the president. Gotta call mom.

Read the whole thing and see the pix he took while he was there.

Wow, it seems like the White House is The Peoples House again!


Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Blogtopiates

Via WTF?!? we bring you the GOP Problem Solver (Psst, click on the "That Doesn't Make Sense" button after your first disappointment.)
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No More Mister Nice Blog has J.D. HAYWORTH: CHANNELING ANTI-SEMITES ... AGAIN
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Media Matters for America documents Michelle Malkin taking a photo with a man holding a swastika Obama sign
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skippy congratulates our friends at Crooks and Liars for being named a Top 25 Blog of 2009 by Time Magazine!

We agree, John Amato & crew do an excellent job and are a daily read for us.

(Updated for accuracy of blog names.)


Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Not just news, it's Farking news!*

What's da matta wit Brooklyn!?

Ex-city cop wins huge award after chair he sat in broke, sending bullet into his knee

Former New York City Detective Anderson Alexander was sitting in it in Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct on Jan. 1, 2002, when his partner handed him his gun so the partner could interview a suspect.

Alexander leaned back to put the gun in his waistband, but the back of the chair gave way, his finger slipped and the 9-mm. Smith & Wesson fired a bullet into his left knee.
[...]
"This case is not about him shooting himself," Alexander's lawyer Matthew Maiorana told the Daily News. "This case is about a broken chair and an unsafe workplace.
[...]
Alexander, 49, who retired on a three-quarters-pay disability pension, moved to South Carolina, where he works as a sheriff's deputy. He declined comment.
[...]
Alexander made more than $90,000 a year before he retired, including overtime.

Safety off and a chambered round is a recipe for disaster!

Brooklyn cops can make $90k a year!?

$4.5 MILLION for being an unsafe idiot!!!

A disability so bad he gets 3/4 pension ... but well enough to join another police force!!!!

What professional stuffs a gun in his waistband while sitting at his desk when he could just put it in a drawer? He shouldn't get squat, except maybe a Darwin Award.
****************
The Cane Mutiny!

Man wielding plastic candy cane subdues attacker

Police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong says the man used the two-foot-tall plastic ornament to subdue the attacker until officers arrived.

He says the 49-year-old suspect became intoxicated, went over to a neighbor's home on Thanksgiving and began waving a kitchen knife at people gathered on the lawn.

He cut several peoples' clothing before one of them decided to fight back.

Police say the man with the knife was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The guest who took up the candy cane was not arrested because police determined he acted in self-defense.

Sounds like he got a Frosty reception.
**********
Moving up we have

Lawmaker to Homeland Security: Don't forget to credit God for keeping Kentuckians safe

A lawmaker is upset with his state's Department of Homeland Security for its lack of credit to a "higher power" for its work in protecting the state's citizens.

Kentucky State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister who helped establish a requirement that the federally funded agency credit God with keeping the state safe, is upset that under Gov. Steve Beshear, the department's 2008 annual report did not do so.
[...]
Among the requirements of the 2006 anti-terror law is that a plaque be placed in the department's Emergency Operations Center. Part of the statement on the plaque reads: "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

Yeeeees, because god has worked so well in protecting people, excluding his son of course.

Dude, your 'kingdom' is in heaven, I suggest that Rep Riner (R-U stupid) pray in one hand and defecate in the other. See which one is full of the lord's loving bounty first. Oh, and read the Constitution, 1st amendment.
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Your DHS at work AKA FearFactor:

TSA ads aim to get fliers on board with security measures

A passenger focus group conducted for TSA by New York City business consulting firm Blue Lime found that "unquestioning compliance has diminished." Passengers say they are more afraid of missing their flight than they are of an airplane being attacked, the 73-page Blue Lime report found.

In a 97-second video, Washington National Airport screener Stephanie Naar gently explains that homemade bombs "are the No. 1 threat to aircraft, and we know terrorists have concealed these items in shoes."

So they use our tax dollars to say "homemade bombs "are the No. 1 threat to aircraft."

Ummm, no, no and a resounding NO!

The major threats to aircraft & travelers are bad inspections and lax enforcement of standards in the FAA as decreed by Bush et al.

Of course the prize statement the TSA propaganda video is "unquestioning compliance has diminished" 'Unquestioning compliance' is only called for by tyrants.
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And speaking of tyrants:

State justice confirms he yelled "Tyrant!" at Mukasey before AG collapsed

Richard Sanders, a justice on the Washington State Supreme Court, has never been one to shy from controversy or blunt language. And last week, as he sat at a Federalist Society dinner and listened to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Sanders reached his tipping point.

After listening to Mukasey defend the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies — its detainment practices at Guantánamo Bay, its interpretation of the Geneva Conventions' reach — Sanders stood and shouted "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!"
[...]
In his speech, Mukasey said that almost every article in the treaty is "plainly addressed to armed conflicts among the nations that signed the Conventions. It is hardly surprising that the United States concluded that those provisions would not apply to the armed conflict against al-Qaida, an international terrorist group and not, the last time I checked, a signatory to the Conventions."

Sanders, on Tuesday, said that being a signatory was beside the point. "I didn't sign the Geneva Conventions, you didn't sign the Geneva Conventions, but the United States did sign the Conventions. And that's the point, isn't it?"

He also took umbrage at the Bush administration's detention policies at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, saying: "I think it's a disgrace to hold people without charge, without trial, to hold them incommunicado."

My hero!


* These stories aren't all from Fark, but they could be!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Just Farking Around

Flying Blind Has A New Whole New Meaning!
I'm a private pilot and this feat just amazes me:

Pilot blinded by stroke is guided safely to ground

A British pilot who was suddenly blinded by a stroke during a solo flight was talked safely down by a military pilot, the Royal Air Force said Friday

Jim O'Neill asked for help after he was went blind 40 minutes into a flight from Scotland to southeastern England last week. The BBC reported that O'Neill, flying a small Cessna aircraft, lost his sight 5,500 feet in the air.

OK, that was the Cliff Notes version.

Here is the original BBC article with audio goodness:

Blind pilot guided to land by RAF

In aviation when we speak of 'flying blind' we mean that we are in clouds and relying on instruments to fly and to get somewhat close to landing where we can visually acquire the runway.

This guy actually became blind in the air and had an RAF pilot flying on his wing, who along with ATC, talked him down.

I'm amazed. I don't think I could have done any one of their jobs.

Well done my fellow aeronauts, well done RAF!

Next up is a 'truth in advertising' post:

If State Signs Were More Truthful

C'mon, you know you want to see that! (p.s. The comments are as good as the original site!)

If this was a separate post I'd title it Pink Floyd's Animals, but this is pure Fark:

Swedish bestiality ring exposed

[...]
But the man was quick to defend his relations with a bitch he bought online from a city-dwelling family who said they wanted the dog to have a better life in the countryside.

"Any of the times I did anything with her she was the one who backed into me and provoked it. She was in heat and made herself available. There were also times later when she didn't want to and then I backed out immediately," he told Expressen.[...]

Gosh, how gentlemanly of him, he backed out if ... ewwww!

If you think that was baaaaad, check out

"I was tricked into a church abortion freak show!"

[...]
It started with a young woman who went to have an abortion. The woman laid on a table and spread her legs. The lower half of her body was covered by a sheet.

"Then she started screaming bloody murder," Smith recalled. "All of a sudden, the doctor pulled a naked doll out from between her legs."

The doll, which was supposed to be a fetus, appeared to be wet. The doctor then threw the doll into a metal bucket.

At that point, Smith recalled, the clown took the doll out of the bucket and whipped it in the air, spraying the audience with the liquid that was on the doll.

And finally:

Your Guide To Holiday Romance

Me thinks the writer has avoidance issues.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around Blogtopia (y, wksctp!)

Dr. Sardonicus is keeping a breast of events:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Delurking for the cause

[...]
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is important to me as Peggy struggled with breast cancer in her last years, and I also have a few other family members and friends who have had to deal with this disease as well. So in order to spread awareness, and in hopes of one day finding a cure, I will donate to The National Breast Cancer Foundation one Yankee dollar for each individual who leaves a comment on the thread below.

It's a great cause and doesn't cost you anything except a comment.

The incomparable Digby notes

Inflationary Numbers


Man, that ACORN sure is despicable with it's underhanded registration practices. Something should be done about it:

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

VIA skippy we discover 'I am Sparticus Joe The Plummer!'

cbsnews blog tells us that several everyday joes are taking up the rallying cry "i am joe the plumber!" only, not so much...

the republican national committee is sending around this associated press photo of overall-clad mccain supporters standing outside an obama rally, clutching plungers and a sign proclaiming "i am joe the plumber":

the only problem? at least two of the members aren't quite as similar to the newly famous joe wurzelbacher as they might like you to think. as cbs news' maria gavrilovic, who is traveling with the obama campaign, reports, the man on the right does say he's an actual plumber – though he is from melbourne, australia, and will thus not be casting a vote this november.

and the man on the left, plunger thrust high in the air, is charlie smith – the national chairman of the college republicans.

Pandagon has more on Republican voter suppression:

The Nut Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree

Republicans tend to point to things like ACORN to justify the far sketchier actions that are the bread and butter (and delicious melted cheese) of their voter suppression activities. Republicans rely on “no match” lists, where voters whose information from, say, their driver’s license doesn’t exactly match their voter registration.

And BradBlog, as always, is the go to site for all the voter suppression news.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around Blogtopia (y, wksctp!*)

Ohh, ooh, witchy woman:

skippy, VIA mudflats informs us of Sarah Failin's gushing remarks 3 months ago about a witch hunter who helped her get elected.

[...]
The witch hunter, aka Pastor Muthee, was the guest pastor from Kenya that appeared at Palin’s church, The Wasilla Assembly of God, and “prayed over” Sarah to help her become governor.

Muthee began his life in ministry in Africa by hunting down a local woman named Mama Jane after proclaiming her a witch.
[...]
“And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.”

D.A.R.E. to investigate Cindy McCain's drug abuse scandal:

Raw Story finds the news about how McCain's Keating 5 lawyer pressured DEA investigators on wife's drug abuse

John McCain's powerful Washington, DC, lawyer, who secured a slap on the wrist for the Arizona Senator following the Keating Five scandal, was in close contact with federal investigators probing Cindy McCain's prescription drug abuse, throughout their nearly yearlong investigation, according to a new report Friday.

Digby at Hullabaloo finds that

John McCain still thinks Social Security should be 'privatized.'

Crooks and Liars has the transcript of 60 Minutes interview of John McCain where this exchange takes place:

Scott Pelley: In 1999 you were one of the senators who helped pass deregulation of Wall Street. Do you regret that now?

McCain: No, I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.

And now for some good news! Happy blogiversary to Dr. Sardonicus & Pole Hill Sanitarium on his 2 years in blogtopia!**


* Yes, we know Jeralyn Merrit of Talk Left coined that phrase!
** yes, we know skippy coined that phrase!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around blogtopia (y, wksctp!*)

via Eschaton it seems Time is not on John McCain's side:

Back in 2000, after John McCain lost his mostly honorable campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he went about apologizing to journalists--including me--for his most obvious mis-step: his support for keeping the confederate flag on the state house.

Now he is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it, but here's the McClatchy fact check.

via AMERICAblog we discover that Sarah Failin's head procurer sez selling off her jet on eBay wasn't her idea, it didn't sell on eBay, and Alaska lost 1/2 a million dollars on the deal.
Yet another republican 'fiscal conservative.'

via skippy we learn that Sarah Failin has earmarked more pork than Oscar Mayer.

And last, but certainly not least via WTF?!?:


* Yes, we know skippy coined that phrase!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Blogtopiates

Bad Hosts or Just Crackers?

Here's a story that will destroy your hopes for a reasonable humanity
Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn't eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

This isn't the stupid part yet. He walked off with a cracker that was put in his mouth, and people in the church fought with him to get it back. It is just a cracker!

Catholics worldwide became furious.

Would you believe this isn't hyperbole? People around the world are actually extremely angry about this — Webster Cook has been sent death threats over his cracker. Those are just kooks, you might say, but here is the considered, measured response of the local diocese:

"We don't know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was," said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. "However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it."

We just expect the University to take this seriously," she added "To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated."

Wait, what? Holding a cracker hostage is now a hate crime? The murder of Matthew Shephard was a hate crime. The murder of James Byrd Jr. was a hate crime. This is a goddamned cracker. Can you possibly diminish the abuse of real human beings any further?

It seems like the uproar is about the cracker actually being the body of Jesus once the cracker is consecrated. I'm pretty sure cannibalism is illegal in this country.

Of course, I thought necrophilia was illegal too ... and in that case Wisconsin agrees with me:

Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies

Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in reinstating charges against three men accused of digging up a corpse so one of them could have sex with it.

The court waded into the grisly case after lower court judges ruled nothing in state law banned necrophilia.

Well, I guess I was only 1/2 right, you can eat dead bodies, but you can't have intercourse with them ... or it's OK to eat live bodies, but you can't have sex with them?
I'm so confused.

Continuing my confusion: Longtime readers, (yes, I'm talking to both of you), know I'm a fan of Justice Bedsworth's online column. What is there not to like about a judge who titles his column "A Criminal Waste of Space"?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

Bronko Nagurski and the Magical Penis Thieves
[just read the whole thing, the title makes sense.]

Speaking of blogtopiates, skippy, (who coined the phrase 'blogtopia'), had his 6th blogiversary* yesterday!!! Happy blogiversary to skippy and all his crew! Here's to many more!

*(y, wkjmctp!)



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around Blogtopia*

From From the archives we find out that

"it is WAY BETTER TO BE LESBIAN THAN A DEMOCRAT!"
[...]
Being lesbian would be great! You get to be a hot chick and date hot chicks! That's, like, hotness squared!
[...]
By contrast, being a Democrat is pretty miserable. [...] You have to look at really painful, expensive truths and do more than hope for unicorns to bring cheap energy or hold levees in place.

We agree, but seriously, read the whole thing, it's not that long or hard. (h/t to MC!)

Think Progress always points out stories we might have missed. This one is amazing. Johns Hopkins' website titled "Your connection to the world's reproductive health literature" blocked the term 'abortion' in their search engine

Debbie Dickson , who replied in an April 1st e-mail that the university had recently begun blocking the search term because the database received federal funding. “We recently made all abortion terms stop words,” Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”

To their credit, when the Dean was informed he immediately corrected this mistake.

In related news

ShortNews reports Florida teens think Drinking Bleach Prevents HIV, Mountain Dew Prevents Pregnancy

Since drinking bleach will kill you I guess they got 50% correct.

That's 'abstinence education' at it's finest.


*(y, wksctp!)



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

I'm a Day Late and a Dollar Short ...

... but here are The Top 100 Pranks of April Fool's Day

Minor correction to hoax #7. This actually happened, but in Indiana, not Alabama:

Bill #246 was initially sent to the Committee on Swamp Lands. The committee deliberated gravely on the question, decided it was not the appropriate body to consider such a measure and turned it over to the Committee on Education. The latter committee gave the bill a "pass" recommendation and sent it on to the full House, which approved it unanimously, 67 to 0.

In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. (One begins to suspect it was silly season in the Indiana legislature at the time.) It passed first reading, but that's as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill "was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics [at Purdue] who happened to be passing through." Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, "A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death. According to a local newspaper, however, "Although the bill was not acted on favorably no one who spoke against it intimated that there was anything wrong with the theories it advances. All of the Senators who spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of the proposition. It was simply regarded as not being a subject for legislation."

As for Representative T.I. Record--well, I haven't been able to confirm this. But some say he changed his name to Quayle.

Around blogtopia (ywksctp!)

From the 'How Could They Tell the Difference' file, WTF?!? informs us:

Homeland Security office filled with feces

ST. PAUL, Minn., March 19 (UPI) -- Someone with an urge to purge took it out on the Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management office in downtown St. Paul, police said.

An unknown man defecated in several rooms Friday afternoon and left on foot before an officer arrived, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Tuesday.

Mooing on, Cookie Jill over at Skippy's place catches another example of the taint that is Bushco:

USDA might limit meat recall information

Under pressure from the food industry, the Agriculture Department is considering a proposal not to identify retailers where tainted meat went for sale except in cases of serious health risk, The Associated Press has learned.
[...]
The plan is being considered as the USDA puts the final touches on a proposed disclosure rule. It had lingered in draft form for two years until getting pushed to the forefront in February, when 143 million pounds of beef were recalled by Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., after undercover video by an animal-rights activist showed workers abusing crippled cows.

I have a quick correction for the AP, they weren't 'crippled cows', they were 'downer cows.' And I have a question for the USDA, did your scientists decide it wasn't a 'serious health risk' or did your politicians decide?

And we're late in wishing I Miss FafBlog, Spot a happy blogiversary!

And once again, the only across the aisle blog we link to, the infamous Jon Swift continues to fan the flames of the dems meltdown.

Obama supporters also understand that voting should never be about picking the lesser of two evils or about making a strategic choice. If you don't agree with everything your candidate says, believe he or she can do no wrong and think that the other candidate is evil and that everyone who supports him or her is a traitor, then you really have no business voting at all.

We agree to a point, but we would add that no one but us, actually me, should get to vote.

After all, it worked for Cheney and his vices.

Thanks, you've been great! We'll be weak all here, don't forget to tip your cows and milk your waitresses ... wait a minute! That was supposed to be blow the guards and tie up the safe!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

A winter's day, In a deep and dark December

I'm so sick of the Winter Blues that I thought you might be too. I've seen the verse, the chorus, the bridge, I'm just waiting for the break. One break coming up!

Anyone else remember Cracked? It was like an even more juvenile Mad Magazine. Here are a couple of articles I found on their website that made me smile:

6 Music Industry Tricks That Must Die

The 40 Most Inappropriate Children's Book Covers (So NSFW!)

Yep, that's Cracked.

A friend sent us this geek breakfast flowchart:

Pic from Accordian Guy
(Click for full size)

While just Farking around I came across these:

Big breasts win verdict for Japanese pin-up

I guess I should spend more time keeping abreast of Japanese High Court decisions.

Wow, that hardly seems Cricket!

This has been a Pubic Service Announcement.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Around Blogtopia*

Happy blogiversary to Maru and all the crankpots at WTF is it now?!?

From Crooks & Liars we find out that

Pentagon balked at pleas from officers in field for safer vehicles
Iraqi troops got MRAPs; Americans waited
[...]
The MRAP was not new to the Pentagon. The technology had been developed in South Africa and Rhodesia in the 1970s, making it older than Kincaid and most of the other troops killed by homemade bombs. The Pentagon had tested MRAPs in 2000, purchased fewer than two dozen and sent some to Iraq. They were used primarily to protect explosive ordnance disposal teams, not to transport troops or to chase Iraqi insurgents.

Even as the Pentagon balked at buying MRAPs for U.S. troops, USA TODAY found that the military pushed to buy them for a different fighting force: the Iraqi army.
[...]

So the Pentagon has known since at least 2000 about these vehicles, refused to buy them for US troops, and one version costs about as much as an 'up-armored' humvee. Tell me again how bush et al support the troops?


VIA Talking Points Memo we learn that a US court shut down a whole website with a permanent injunction. Here's Wired's article about it:

Cayman Islands Bank Gets Wikileaks Taken Offline in U.S.

Wikileaks, the whistleblower site that recently leaked documents related to prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, was taken offline last week by its U.S. host after posting documents that implicate a Cayman Islands bank in money laundering and tax evasion activities.

In a pretty extraordinary ex-parte move, the Julius Baer Bank and Trust got Dynadot, the U.S. hosting company for Wikileaks, to agree not only to take down the Wikileaks site but also to "lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar." A judge in the U.S. District Court for Northern California signed off on the stipulation between the two parties last week without giving Wikileaks a chance to address the issue in court.

Why would a US judge, (Jeffrey Steven White) rule for a Swiss company operating in the Caymans and order a US ISP to scrub their Domain Name Server(s) of the existence of this website?

And the judge, (Jeffrey Steven White), didn't rule that only the offending documents should be removed, he didn't say it was TRO while he resolved the litigation, he told the ISP to scrub their entire DNS as if the site had never existed.

Yeah Judge, good luck with that. Maybe next you can rule that the pee be taken out of a swimming pool.

But the scariest part is that Judge Jeffrey Steven White ordered the site to maintain records of anyone who had ever accessed the site.

You can still access the site thru their IP# and they also have mirrors worldwide.

Not to mention the 3rd party sites that have mirrored the Wikileaks site.

Here are some lowlights of the court's ruling.

The whole ruling can be viewed here (warning PDF.)

BTW, guess who appointed Judge Jeffrey S. White to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California?

Yep, that would be Bush.



SteveAudio: I agree with Happy Blogiversary to the crew at WTF is it now, great stuff!


*(y, wksctp!)



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

I know I'm a little late to this dance, but my good friends at CorrenteWire had a little fundraiser:

Final results: $138 total recurring monthly contributions (new and previous Patrons combined) and $120 in one-time contributions.

Mighty Corrente Thanks to all for sharing your hard-earned dollars. Especially with the looming recession it means a lot.

We didn’t reach the goal but there is enough to keep the hamsters going at full speed for another couple of months.

To make up the difference we are looking into advertising and maybe another Pr0n-based pledge drive since that one worked out so well last time.

While the drive is technically over, they still would love some help. Lambert, the Maitre d' over there, was the first Big-time Blogger™ to add me to their blogroll, and he was the first to extend front-page privileges to me. For that, I'll always be grateful.

Also, not known to many, he doesn't use Blogger, or WordPress, or Movable Type, or any of the mainstream blog-writing tools. Instead, like a real mensch, he codes the whole thing using Drupal, and that means he doesn't just sit down and use pre-built tools, but built the whole thing, brick by brick, by hand. It's really a rich place, with great writers, including Leah & MJS here in L.A., and the truly lovely and talented ChiDy.

Great job, Lambert, Applause all around.

Get around round round I get around

In this episode I get around blogtopia*:

In the "nice work if you can get it" category ThinkProgress reports

Former Attorney General: Ashcroft’s No-Bid Contract Was ‘As Wrong As It Can Be’

Last fall, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie awarded his former boss, John Ashcroft, a lucrative no-bid contract to “monitor a large corporation willing to settle criminal charges out of court.” Ashcroft’s consulting company is set “to receive payments of $28 million to $52 million” in the deal, one of the biggest payouts ever reported for a federal monitor.

Crooks & Liars reminds us that the GOP is hard on rhetoric but soft on terrorists

Former Republican Congressman indicted in terrorist fund-raising conspiracy!

The best/worst part? It wasn't even his money, it was from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

And we would be Fairly Unbalanced if we didn't mention our friend from across the Ailes aisle Jon Swift. Somehow his piece "Jonah Goldberg's Shining (Liberal Fascism with LOLCats)" was eliminated and then restored by Google. We feel his pain, (well, not like we feel our pain, but you get the idea.)

And of course I Miss Fafablog, Spot, and their Rentlord catches something I think we all miss(ed):

FEC enters election season without quorum

As the U.S. 2008 primaries begin, the Federal Election Commission has effectively shut down, without enough members for a quorum.

[...]
the FEC, with four vacancies, is unable to take any action, including suing or issuing binding opinions or regulations, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

That is also likely to delay the implementation of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Law, which requires more information from lobbyists who arrange bundled campaign contributions. Bush signed the bill last September
[...]

And last but never least, we direct you to the bLAWg of our favorite, (probably because he's the only one that actually responds to our emails,) Justice of the California Court of Appeal, (apparently in CA you only get one appeal), Justice Bedsworth and his Criminal Waste of Space. Sheesh, how can I not include Beds, who writes things like this regarding The Queen of Mean

She was worth something like five billion dollars. Five billion. That's the number five followed by a parade of zeroes and commas and floats and marching bands.

And tha, tha, tha, that's all folks!

*y, wksctp!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Fafblog Spotting

One of the jewels in Jon Swift's Year End Review of the best of the blogs is I Miss Fafblog, Spot!

I too miss Fafblog, it's the only blog I know of that still attracts comments a year and a half after it's last post.

Ahh, the fond memories I have of the antics of Fafnir, Giblets & The Medium Lobster. From their Grand Opening in March 2003 to their final post in July 2006 he, she, they, it, ... whatever, provided hours and hours of fun for the hole family!

Yes, that's right, even if you lived in a hole with your family, (but had internet access), Fafblog was educational, snarkalicious and inspiring. What more is there to say than their motto was

"This is a good blog. This is the best blog. It is about god and the universe and those horrible screaming monkeys and that time I made a pizza out of an old tire and a can of whip cream. It is the Fafblog."

But even as Fafnir et al dropped the torch, (burning down the house, destroying the village to save it, and causing a conflagration in their congregation that still burns to this day), the folks at I miss Fafablog, Spot! picked up that torch and continue to raze our consciousness.

What was my personal most inspiring episode of Fafblog? I'm so glad I asked:

Counter-Counterpoint: The Key To Victory Is This Great Big Rock

Well I know we can win the Iraq War, an I even know how we can do it. It's a pretty complicated multi-step process an I'm simplifyin it a little bit for everybody here but I got it all spelled out an ready to go an believe you me it's gonna work. The key thing is this real big rock.

First thing you're gonna wanna do is stick a great big pile a terrorist food right over here. Now terrorists just can't resist that delicious terrorist food so they're all gonna come runnin from all over to get to it, an they're all gonna be too busy eatin it to notice that it's sittin on top a this great big painted "X" (see figure 1a).
[...]

Read the hole thing and see if Bush or any residential candidates have a better plan.

What's that I say, my favorite post so far of I miss Fafblog, Spot!? That would be this, (but I haven't read the hole thing):

The True Meaning of Christmas


Christmas Eve, Sometime in the Future....

"Yap!" says Spot.

"No no no I’m not telling you!" says me.

"GRR," says Spot.

"STFU! You have to wait ‘til Christmas morning!" says me.

"Whine!" says Spot.

"Shh!" says me.

Spot wags his tail.

"I’m not telling!" says me.

Spot wags his tail.

"Nope," says me. "I won’t talk!"

Spot wags his tail.

"Stop that," says me.

Spot wags his tail.

I pretend to cave:

"Ok fine!" says me. "It’s a box of Pupperoni…"

Spot sniffs the package and growls.

I try misdirection:

"You got me. It’s a really a box of soggy old cigar butts," says me.

Spot howls.

I flat out lie:

"OK OK! Dangit! It’s a special-order New-Guinean dried-gourd phallocarp, custom made by highly skilled native craftsmen from only the finest materials expressly for a very spoiled dog!"

Spot starts tearing up.

I give up:

"Just kidding. It's a box of ham. Merry Christmas, Spot."

Spot runs around the room joyfully.

The End

And in case you were wondering, yes, I am a sick puppy.





Cross posted at VidiotSpeak