Posted 3/31/2004 10:35:00 PM by Douglas

Google introducing Gmail?

The idea that there could be a better way to handle email caught the attention of a Google engineer who thought it might be a good "20 percent time" project. (Google requires engineers to spend a day a week on projects that interest them, unrelated to their day jobs). Millions of M&Ms later, Gmail was born.

"If a Google user has a problem with email, well, so do we," said Google co-founder and president of technology, Sergey Brin. "And while developing Gmail was a bit more complicated than we anticipated, we're pleased to be able to offer it to the user who asked for it."

Added Page, "Gmail solves all of my communication needs. It's fast and easy and has all the storage I need. And I can use it from anywhere. I love it!"

Today, a handful of users will begin testing the preview version of Gmail. Unlike other free webmail services, Gmail is built on the idea that users should never have to file or delete a message, or struggle to find an email they've sent or received.Key features of Gmail include:

• Search: Built on Google search technology, Gmail enables people to quickly search every email they've ever sent or received. Using keywords or advanced search features, Gmail users can find what they need, when they need it.
• Storage: Google believes people should be able to hold onto their mail forever. That's why Gmail comes with 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of free storage – more than 100 times what most other free webmail services offer.
• Speed: Gmail makes using email faster and more efficient by eliminating the need to file messages into folders, and by automatically organizing individual emails into meaningful "conversations" that show messages in the context of all the replies sent in response to them. And it turns annoying spam e-mail messages into the equivalent of canned meat.

According to Page and Brin, Google will make the preview test version of Gmail available to a small number of email aficionados. With luck, Gmail will prove popular to them – and to the original user who sparked the idea.

Those interested in learning more about Gmail can visit http://gmail.google.com.

Uh, a Gig of free hosting? April 1st? Methinks I smell an April Fool's Day joke. But why did Yahoo and The New York Times pick it up? I think Google has just enough money to pull this off, and they'd love the April Fool's press they'd get by rolling it out on 4/1 and then saying it's not a joke. Hell, I'd sign up. . .

Posted 3/31/2004 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

The Atkins people are going to love this one. Turns out bread really is bad for you.

Attention cooks -- a recipe for rolls in the current issue of Southern Living magazine could be hazardous.

The magazine, published by Time Warner Inc.'s Southern Progress Corp. subsidiary, said it is alerting readers about potential dangers from a recipe for icebox rolls in its April issue. The magazine said it has requested the removal of all copies of the April issue from newsstands.

"It has been determined that heating the water and shortening, as described in the recipe, is potentially dangerous and may pose a fire and safety hazard," the Birmingham, Alabama-based magazine said in a statement.

Don't fool yourself: given the chance, those rolls would kill you and everyone you care about.

Posted 3/31/2004 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

Come for the crappy Mexican food, stay for the strip search.

The latest incident occurred last week in Arizona, when a Taco Bell manager received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer who urged the manager to strip-search a female whom the caller said had stolen a pocketbook.

Authorities said the male manager pulled aside a 17-year-old female customer who fit the description given by the caller and then carried out the search, which included a body cavity search.

"We have a very bizarre situation occurring not only in Fountain Hills, Ariz., but across the nation, a very bizarre scheme," said Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Marciopa County, Ariz. "My detectives are working full time on this investigation."

You should always be a bit skeptical when someone wearing a paper hat wants you to consent to a strip search. Always ask for some ID if you're a 17 year old girl and someone asks to see your taco.

Posted 3/31/2004 04:52:00 PM by Douglas

Sounds like a good day to be on the north side of Texas City.

A series of explosions erupted Tuesday night at the BP Refinery here, sending 10 people to the hospital for chemical exposure, prompting local officials to tell nearby residents to remain indoors for about 2 1/2 hours and sending oil prices higher.

At least three blasts at one of the nation's largest refineries were heard about 6:30 p.m. at the site on FM 519 East, and the fire lit up the night sky.

Officials said the gasoline unit exploded and firefighters were letting the fuel that powers the unit -- naphtha -- to burn out.

Although Mainland Center hospital spokesman Harold Fattig said 10 people reported to the hospital complaining of exposure, there were no reports of injuries from the blasts themselves.

"The house rumbled," said Cindy Hendren, 42, whose home is about a mile north of the plant. "You could feel the rumble."

I guess it's good that the winds were from the north.

Posted 3/31/2004 04:48:00 PM by Douglas

Sounds like a good day to be on the south side of Wellington.

Authorities evacuated the north part of the city of Wellington on Tuesday evening after an accidental release of anhydrous ammonia.

Evacuated residents stayed at Wellington High School for several hours before being allowed to go home, said Eddie Langford, a dispatcher and jailer for the Collingsworth County Sheriff's Office.

About 25 people went to Collingsworth General Hospital in Wellington for treatment of symptoms such as chest pain and difficulty breathing, said Mike Easley, hospital administrator.

He said some patients were transferred to hospitals in Shamrock and Childress because the 15-bed hospital in Wellington ran out of space.

Langford said the anhydrous ammonia was in a tank at a business. A 911 call about the release came in at 6:42 p.m., and responders were able to close a valve on the tank by 8:30 p.m., he said.

I guess it's good that the winds were from the south.

Posted 3/30/2004 09:29:00 PM by Douglas

Now that's one long duck dong.

Posted 3/30/2004 09:13:00 PM by Douglas

This is just awful. I can't believe this guy is OK:

By the time the other driver approached Theisen's car, he had inexplicably disappeared. When police arrived he could still not be found. They assumed he had fled the scene of the accident.

What they did not know was that Theisen had climbed over the traffic barrier to get out of the way of the traffic and suddenly collapsed. The minor accident had caused major injuries.

For 36 hours, while his family filed a missing person's report and searched for him, he lay there paralyzed with a broken neck, talking to God and thinking about his life until Rodriguez came to the rescue. After learning that Theisen's car had been involved in a traffic accident and that the driver had supposedly fled the scene, the family concluded that he had been carjacked.

36 hours on the Gulf Freeway; my greatest fear. For being as un-lucky he is, this guy is pretty damn lucky.

Posted 3/30/2004 08:53:00 PM by Douglas

Long thought to be the sport of participation where everyone gets a trophy, a soccer league in England has even more ideas how to keep from damaging the precious egos of the losing team: Not publishing the scores.

A British soccer league wants to spare children the pain of being trounced on the fiend and then having to read all about it afterward.

The Sheffield and District Football League has forbidden its members from sending scores to the Derbyshire Times after the newspaper reported how an under-nine team was "trounced" 29-0 in a crucial match.

The league, believing this description could heap even more humiliation on children from the losing side, told the newspaper it could not cover any more junior league matches until it agreed not to publish results in which the score exceeds 14 goals.

Derbyshire Times editor Mike Wilson refused and thinks the league is overreacting. "The league is being a bit too politically correct," he told Reuters.

"My son Adam is so disappointed," she said. "He loves to collect cuttings of all his match reports from the newspaper. He understands that winning isn't everything and that football involves taking the good with the bad."

As a lifetime loser, I can say that a good trouncing is all you need sometimes to really get your ass in gear and not get trounced the next time. Ah, public humiliation. Those were the days.

Posted 3/30/2004 08:49:00 PM by Douglas

I really don't know who this Jason Patric guy is, but you'd think that anyone that's going to play Jim Bowie in the movie The Alamo would know better than to Mess with Texas, especially when he's drunk on 6th street in Austin.

After Saturday's red carpet festivities, Patric headed to Austin, where he ran into trouble with the local police late Sunday night.

According to Austin's finest, Patric was standing on a downtown street with a group of people at around 3 a.m. when police asked them to move.

Patric started to move towards the sidewalk, but then positioned himself in an aggressive stance, police said.

When they tried to arrest him, Patric resisted and allegedly shoved an officer. He claimed e wasn't drunk and told the officers to test him. Instead, they slapped cuffs on him and took him to jail.

But it's good that he made it to the armadillo races in San Antonio before he got busted for public intox.

Posted 3/29/2004 06:26:00 PM by Douglas

Damn. Now I'm going to have to go somewhere else for my cockfighting needs.

Galveston County sheriff's deputies busted a cock-fighting operation in Santa Fe late Sunday after receiving a complaint from a resident there.

About 75 roosters were recovered from a dilapidated barn in the 5400 block of Franks, said Alice Sarmiento, a spokeswoman for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Houston.

Sadly, there were even some kids that missed school because they were involved with this. It's a crazy world.

Posted 3/28/2004 03:35:00 PM by Douglas

Less than two months after the good folks at CCISD received over a quarter Billion dollars from a bond election, the teachers get a pay raise. Coincidence? I'm thinking not.

As part of a three-year program to make salaries competitive with those of other schools districts in the area, Clear Creek will give its 2,159 teachers a raise.

Starting salaries will get a $1,500 boost, which means recent graduates will make $37,000 instead of the $35,000 salary plus a $500 stipend. All other teachers have been guaranteed at least a $1,500 increase.

OK, let me be the one to dispel the myth how "underpaid" teachers are. Let's say they make $36,000 right out of college. That's about $23 an hour, when you figure in three months of vacation.

Look at all the professions that make considerably less than $23 an hour with a four year bachelor's degree before you start crying that teachers are underpaid.

Update: Cool! I got some hate-mail!
In all fairness, the last sentence from the original post has been replaced. This is how it originally read:
Show me another profession where you can earn $23 an hour right of college before you start crying that teachers are underpaid.
That was kind of misleading. The blog would like to apologize for any confusion this might have caused, but since $23 an hour is still pretty good scratch, we won't be capitulating on this issue.

Posted 3/28/2004 03:20:00 PM by Douglas

I love League City. Also, yet another story of violence being averted through responsible ownership of firearms without a shot being fired.

Police Lt. Charles Slade said a man entered Tex-Glass in the 1100 block of Interstate 45 South shortly after 4:30 p.m.

The man pointed a chrome pistol at the 68-year-old woman behind the counter and demanded money, Slade said. The woman complied, handing the robber at least $70 from her purse, Slade said. She refused, however, to hand over a ring she was wearing.

The gunman then demanded her car keys, Slade said. The woman told the robber the keys were in the car and he should just take it and leave, which the robber attempted to do, Slade said.

The keys weren’t in the car, though, and while the gunman was trying to find them, the woman ran to the business next door for help. There, two men came to her assistance — one with a pistol he was licensed to carry, the other with a shotgun.

Slade said the robber pointed his pistol at the pair but then realized two weapons were pointed in his direction and fled into a wooded area near Boot Kikkers bingo hall.

I think I've reported earlier that League City has more concealed handgun permits than any other city in Texas. So this isn't the place to be pulling this kind of crap. I'm kinda surprised the lady working the desk at Tex-Glass wasn't packin'. . . She's only 68!

Posted 3/28/2004 03:10:00 PM by Douglas

I guess I need to include this disclaimer before anyone tries to kick Buzz in the nuts: He might just kick your ass. Here's some pretty grainy video of the event.

Buzz Aldrin was defending himself when he swung at a man who asked him to swear on a Bible that he had been to the moon, the former astronaut's publicist said.

"Buzz Aldrin was forced to protect himself and his stepdaughter when he was aggressively confronted outside a Beverly Hills hotel," publicist Robert O'Brien said in a prepared statement.

Don't mess with Edwin.

Posted 3/28/2004 12:58:00 PM by Douglas

Everyone that claims that the space program hasn't done anything for them can bite it. Literally.

Long John Silver's President Calls Discovery "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Giant Shrimp"

NASA's March 23 announcement of evidence of the past presence of "a body of gently flowing saltwater" on Mars is big news for America, and giant news for seafood fans.

In January, Long John Silver's offered to give America free Giant Shrimp if NASA found conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars. To celebrate the success of NASA's Mars Rover project, the company is going to give America free Giant Shrimp on Monday, May 10.

"This is the big announcement that Long John Silver's has been waiting for since January - that there is evidence of a past salty sea on Mars," said Mike Baker, Chief Marketing Officer for Long John Silver's, Inc. "We can't wait to celebrate NASA's out-of-this-world success, and there's no better way to recognize their giant accomplishments than with free Giant Shrimp for America."

On Monday, May 10, between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., customers can stop by any participating Long John Silver's restaurant and enjoy a free Giant Shrimp (one piece per customer).

This is exactly the "shot in the arm" PR that NASA needs. I can think of no better oxymoron to commemorate finding water on Mars than a 'giant shrimp.'

Something tells me the LJS on the corner of El Camino and NASA Road 1 is going to be busy on May 10th.

Posted 3/28/2004 12:50:00 PM by Douglas

Someone needs to tell Buzz Aldrin to shut the hell up, right after they kick him square in the nuts. Turns out that some of our nation's elite astronaut corps are hocking their wares for a quick buck [site may require registration. Sorry, the Washington Post now officially sucks].

Saturday, devotees of the authentic right stuff will gather in New York at Swann Galleries for an auction of more than 300 lots of NASA items, many of them consigned by former astronauts or their families: flight apparel, maps and charts, autographs, flags, postal commemoratives and personal belongings related to U.S. space missions.

This is government property, plain and simple, and the fact that NASA let any of these boneheads keep this stuff shows incredibly poor judgment on their part.

But back to Buzz. Buzz got paid to do something that only twelve men on the planet can claim to have done. Their government paid them to ride a rocket to another world. They walked around on another planet, and while some see this as the pinnacle of technological achievement, Buzz has decided to hold a grudge.

"I don't think the government has adequately compensated us," Aldrin says when asked by phone to explain the sell-off. "Rarity makes things valuable. There were only three flown toothbrushes" on that mission.

Considering how Buzz has cashed in on his fame, it's obvious that he is overly compensated. If it weren't for NASA and Apollo 11, hell, he wouldn't even be Buzz. He'd be Edwin, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch in Montclair, NJ, complaining about Social Security to people that don't even pretend to listen anymore. Do yourself and NASA a favor: Shut the hell up. You used to be a national hero. Try acting like it.

Posted 3/28/2004 12:33:00 PM by Douglas

Does Steven Weinberg get paid by the word? It certainly appears that way judging from his latest ad hominem attack on the manned spaceflight program. I'm going to have to agree with Keith on this one: Weinberg started with the "manned spaceflight is worthless" premise and worked his way backwards.

Forgetting for a second that Bush is in the middle of a uphill battle for a second term as president, let's take a look at his January 14th statement about returning to the Moon and on to Mars. The man can barely read the teleprompter, so forget about any grandiose vision for science, technology, NASA, or any other polysyllabic enterprise. He's after what every politician is after. Votes. And wouldn't you know it, some swing states critical to his reelection, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, are also the home to some pretty big NASA centers. Coincidence? Not a chance. So what's it all about, the money? Starving orphans and underfunded head-start programs?

But as long as the public is so averse to being taxed, there will be even less money either to ameliorate these societal problems or to do real scientific research if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on sending people into space.

There's a shocker: It's always about the money. I'm beginning to bore myself with this rant, so I'll keep it short. NASA gets less than one penny out of every tax dollar, and the manned spaceflight program receives about half that. I'm not trying to imply that NASA doesn't waste its share of money. Far from it. But if you're concerned with the bottomless money pits where the government wastes your hard earned tax dollar, NASA is somewhere on page three.

Would another Lunar mission bring back legitimately viable science? Would the development of a new spacecraft create commercially successful spin-off industries? There are many good questions about our future in space, but these aren't those questions. Whatever the reason: freeze-dried ice cream, beating the Russians, immense national pride and identity, Tang. There were compelling factors that started us to the moon 40 years ago. Sometimes just going is all the motivation you need, and in this political climate, we're going to have to do a lot better than that this time to get off the ground. But just because robots are cheaper doesn't make it a very compelling argument not to go.

Using an almost insignificant portion of our national budget, America can do things that no nation on the planet is capable of achieving. That's got to be worth something, isn't it?

Posted 3/28/2004 12:31:00 PM by Douglas

No wonder just about every bluebonnet patch you see has a starburst pattern of foot paths leading to its center. There's actually someone encouraging their destruction by asking people to plop their progeny in the middle of the flowers for a photo-op.

Maybe I'm just being selfish and cold-hearted, but isn't there a way we all can enjoy the wildflowers that doesn't destroy them? The flowers we saw yesterday were all pristine, but that's just because we stuck to the road less traveled. I can imagine what they look like along I-35, after 10,000 Gunner and Katlins have trounced through them.

Update: Well here ya go. Now I know why so many Houstonians are looking for some fresh bluebonnets to decimate. It ran in The Houston Chronicle right here.

Just imagine the ass-sized imprint this kid made in an otherwise perfect patch of bluebonnets.

Makes ya want to slap them from the side of the road, doesn't it?

Posted 3/28/2004 12:05:00 PM by Douglas

You never know what you'll find when you look under the cushions.

Finding change under the sofa cushions is one thing, but the office manager of an Alvin low-income medical and dental clinic found more than $2,500 under a cushion in a lobby Thursday.

The money was proceeds from a roast of television newsman Wayne Dolcefino hosted by the Alvin Evening Lions Club last weekend. It disappeared Tuesday from an office at Alvin Community Health Endeavor.

Staff members reported it stolen. They theorized that somebody took the money from an office two doors from the lobby and only got it as far as the lobby sofa before leaving it under a cushion.

Posted 3/28/2004 12:00:00 PM by Douglas

I'll see you, in the grudge match:

Hey Donald, do you think you could at least try to look a little less evil?

Posted 3/27/2004 08:54:00 PM by Douglas

Spring has sprung all over Texas, as evident in the vast array of wildflowers all across the state. The bluebonnets were everywhere. It really makes all the money the highway department spends seeding them seem worthwhile. And I didn't see a single patch that had been trampled to death by fat suburbanite kids getting their pictures made. That's gotta be a first, but it's early yet . . .

Posted 3/27/2004 08:40:00 PM by Douglas

Somehow I figured we hadn't heard the last of Catherine Bosley when we first heard about her losing her job for flashing her sweater puppets at a wet t-shirt contest in Florida.

Internet sites can now show naked pictures of a former anchorwoman who bared all in a wet T-shirt contest in Florida.

A federal appeals court lifted a temporary restraining order Thursday that had blocked Web sites from showing photos of Catherine Bosley.

Bosley, a news anchor for 10 years at WKBN in Youngstown, resigned earlier this year after nude pictures of her taking part in the wet T-shirt contest surfaced.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the ban restrained free speech.

Bosley and a Seattle Internet site have until March 29 to file legal briefs about First Amendment issues raised in the case.

She has said that she wouldn't have participated in the contest if she knew pictures would have ended up on the Web.

That's what they all say, isn't it?

Posted 3/25/2004 09:50:00 PM by Douglas

The Drive-In picture show. I'm sure Joe Bob would be proud, even though I don't think that 50 First Dates and Big Fish are really good drive-in fare, but hey, you gotta dance with who brung ya. Here's the drive-in anthem from Joe Bob, but it probably won't work, since Real Audio sucks so bad.

Posted 3/25/2004 09:40:00 PM by Douglas

I shouldn't post this for several reason. Most obviously, its sophomoric salaciousness. Secondly, I think it originated with Bill Maher, who is a card carrying idiot, hiding behind the thinly veiled guise of a Libertarian. But, I think some of this is pretty funny, especially considering it was emailed to me from my South-Asian readership in Bombay (sorry, Mumbai). But apparently they received this email from a Muslim fella in India.

Five British Muslims who were recently sent home from our prison at Guantánamo charge that their American captors brought in prostitutes to taunt them, because most had never even seen a naked woman before. It made me wonder how many members of al-Qaida have ever even dated a girl. We should hire women to infiltrate al-Qaida cells, and fuck them.

Things would change quickly. Because young Muslim men don't really hate America, they're jealous of America. We have rap videos, the Hilton sisters and magazines with titles like "Barely Legal." You know what's barely legal in Afghanistan? Everything. Young men need sex, and if they don't get it for month after month after month, they wind up cursing the day they ever decided to go to Cornell.

Have you ever wondered why the word from the Arab street is so angry? It's because it's a bunch of guys standing in the street! Which is what guys do when they don't have girlfriends, or aren't allowed to even talk to a girl -- of course they want to commit suicide. Unlike this country, where it's the married guys who wanna kill themselves.

But here, we always have hope. You can at least talk to a girl, and one might be crazy enough to go for you. Or you could get rich, and buy one, like folks do where I live in Beverly Hills.

The connection between no sex and anger is real: It's why prizefighters stay celibate when they're in training, so that on fight night they're pissed off and ready to kill. It's why football players don't have sex after Wednesday. And, conversely, it's why Bill Clinton never started a war.

So to paraphrase the sign in his old war room: It's the pussy, stupid. We need the Coalition of the Willing to be really willing. We need to mobilize two divisions of skanks, a regiment of ho's, and a brigade of girls who just can't say no. All under the command of Col. Ann Coulter, who'll be dressed in her "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S." uniform.

Forget the Peace Corps, we need a piece-of-ass-corps. Girls, there's a cure to terrorism, and you're sitting on it.

You should never post the "F" word when you know your mom (or worse, her students; you know who you are) may be reading it.

Although, if they start recruiting for the 69th Skank Division, Wellington might not be a bad place to start. No wait, Memphis. Memphis has always had the best skanks. . .

Posted 3/25/2004 09:32:00 PM by Douglas

Jet engines are noisy? There's lots of noise by the airport? Surely this is the first instance of this happening, ever, in the course of recorded human history.

Johnson, 39, and other residents in about a dozen nearby subdivisions want officials to lessen the noise or buy their homes through Federal Aviation Administration grants before property values tumble.

They admit they knew airport expansion was a possibility when they bought their moderately priced homes, which were built in the 1970s. But they were assured such expansion would not significantly increase the noise.

Airports are noisy. So they build airports out in the middle of nowhere, like Bush Intercontinental, and then people move out there for the cheap housing and pre-existing infrastructure. Forgive me if I don't bust out crying because they built a runway that puts the 8:15 flight from Detroit right over your wading pool. Maybe you should have found a "moderately priced" home somewhere farther away from final approach from IAH.

Posted 3/25/2004 09:21:00 PM by Douglas

Lilly found a home.

A four-eared German kitten has been given a new home after a German animal shelter was deluged with requests to adopt the animal born six months ago with the genetic defect.

"We wanted to make sure the people were looking for a normal cat and not a gag to make an exhibition out of her," Enrico Schlag, a worker at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen animal shelter, said on Thursday.

"We've found a completely normal family for her that has already adopted cats from us in the past."

It's good that she didn't go to the freak show.

Posted 3/25/2004 09:01:00 PM by Douglas

If you're going to verbally insult Richard Simmons at an airport, you'd better hope he doesn't hear you.

Then, while waiting in line for his flight to Los Angeles, he was spotted by another man. According to the police report, the man said, "Hey everybody, it's Richard Simmons, let's drop our bags and rock to the '50s."

Simmons, who'd obviously left his sense of humor at home, told cops he took offense and had to "bitch slap" the man, or so a Phoenix police sergeant recounts to Reuters.

The alleged victim, 23-year-old Chris Farney, claims Simmons' smackdown came with the warning, "It's not nice to make fun of people with issues," per the police report, a copy of which is online at The Smoking Gun.

Farney, a 6-foot-1-inch-tall Harley Davidson salesman and cage wrestler, was not injured, but he told police he wanted to press charges against the 5-foot-seven, 155-pound 55-year-old aerobics impresario--despite receiving a personal apology from Simmons. Farney told police he didn't think it was right for people to go around and slap others.

I can imagine a tense day after this event in the Harley Davidson dealership: "So lemme get this straight, Chris. You got bitch-slapped by who???"

Posted 3/24/2004 06:45:00 PM by Douglas

Let's not beat around the bush: overwrought clichés are getting old

At the end of the day, it's the most irritating cliché in the English language. So says the Plain English Campaign which said the abused and overused phrase was first in a poll of most annoying clichés.

Second place went to "at this moment in time," and third to the constant use of "like," as if it were a form of punctuation. "With all due respect" came fourth.

"When readers or listeners come across these tired expressions, they start tuning out and completely miss the message — assuming there is one," said Plain English Campaign spokesman John Lister.

If I never hear the term "My Bad" ever again in my life, it'll be too soon. Also, "It's not rocket science" is one that gets old in my office after a new-hire uses it once.

Posted 3/24/2004 06:27:00 PM by Douglas

Who doesn't have enough money to have a kitten neutered, especially if he has four ears?

A kitten born with four ears is desperately seeking a new home because her owners can't afford to have her neutered, German animal shelter officials say.

Six-month-old Lilly, born on a farm in the southern state of Bavaria, has an extra pair of slightly smaller, non-hearing ears just behind the normal two. Vets attribute the phenomenon to a gene mutation.

If ever there was a kitten that needed to be neutered, it's Lilly. That's just wrong.

"She is healthy and can hear perfectly well but only through the front pair," said Tessy Loedermann, from the animal protection group in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which runs the home.

Posted 3/23/2004 08:58:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, some good news. Turns out I don't have to stop drinking, after all.

Men with high blood pressure can enjoy their favourite tipple in moderation with a clear conscience, according to a study released that found the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption extend to men with hypertension.

Researchers who studied the medical records of more than 14,000 male doctors found that the ones who drank moderately but regularly had a much lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than the non-drinkers.

The men who drank six or seven units of alcohol a week cut their risk of dying from heart disease at least 27 percent compared to non-drinkers, and the risk reduction was even higher for the heavier drinkers.

I'm sure that if they were to quantify moderate, I might not find much in this story to celebrate about.

Posted 3/23/2004 08:54:00 PM by Douglas

More bad news for NASA. Turns out we've been flying OV-103 with the actuators on the rudder speed break installed backwards for the last 20 years.

Gears were installed backward on the speed brakes in Discovery's tail section and could have failed under the stress of an emergency landing, said William Parsons, the shuttle program manager.

"The bottom line was, it was not good," said Parsons, who told reporters the Discovery had flown safely 30 times since 1984 without the gears causing a problem.

The reversed gears were found in an actuator that works the speed brakes, which are essentially flaps that flare out from the tail section to create aerodynamic drag and slow the shuttle. Small cracks and some corrosion were also found, surprising NASA engineers.

After the original actuators were replaced, NASA also tested extra replacement parts built 17 years ago, and found that one of the spare actuators also had the gears reversed.

As the man said, "this isn't good," and what I don't know about the RSB could fill a dumptruck, but after 28 safe flights with it installed upside-down, it's hard to see how this is a Crit 1-1 failure:

"Loss of the rudder speed brake would be loss of vehicle [and] loss of crew," Parsons said during a March 22 teleconference with reporters.

Well, OK. I guess with the corrosion, we're just incredibly lucky. Aren't we all?

Gratuitous Orbiter picture. Pop quiz to anyone listening: Is this shuttle taking off, or landing?

Posted 3/22/2004 06:59:00 PM by Douglas

No wonder I spent most of the day writing lyrics for bad Country & Western songs. . . .It's National Goof Off Day! Why am I always the last to know about such things?

Posted 3/22/2004 06:43:00 PM by Douglas

If you've ever wanted to prehumously write your own obituary, with or without the split infinitive, you're going to have a hard time topping Louis J. Casimir Jr. [Thanks, Car Talk!]

LEWISBURG - Louis J. Casimir Jr. bought the farm Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004, having lived more than twice as long as he had expected and probably three or four times as long as he deserved.

Although he was born into an impecunious family, in a backward and benighted part of the country at the beginning of the Great Depression, he never in his life suffered any real hardships.

Many of his childhood friends who weren't killed or maimed in various wars became petty criminals, prostitutes, and/or Republicans.

He survived three years overseas in an infantry regiment in excellent health, then university for four years on the GI bill, and never thereafter had to do an honest day's work.

He was loved by good women, had loyal friends, and all his children were healthy, handsome and bright.

For more than six decades, he smoked, drank and ate lots of animal fat, but never had a serious illness or injury.

His last wish was that everyone could be as lucky as he had been, even through his demise was probably iatrogenic.

Lou was a daredevil: his last words were "Watch this!"

A memorial service and barbecue will be held on Labor Day at Lou's place.

Perfect. Rest in Peace, Louis. Car Talk said he was an English professor, which would explain why it was so well written.

Also, if anyone's offended that I looked up iatrogenic and/or impecunious, you obviously have better things to do than read this.

Posted 3/22/2004 06:31:00 PM by Douglas

And you thought your HMO sucked?

A MAN treated for 13 years for a terminal illness he never had yesterday won the right to continue legal action over the misdiagnosis.

Michael Garry Clarke was just three when diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the Royal Children's Hospital in 1974.

But the County Court heard he was given the all clear in 1987 after 13 years of adhering to a strict medical regime that included twice-daily physiotherapy and 29 pills a day.

Mr Clarke, whose younger brother is still battling the debilitating genetic disorder, is suing the Women and Children's Health Care Network and a doctor for injury, loss and damages.

This is pretty sad, and you might even say the lawsuit is warranted, but has this guy ever heard of a second opinion?

Posted 3/21/2004 07:00:00 PM by Douglas

"This here's the Rubber Duck. You got a copy on me, come on?" Dave, looks like today's bloggin' is all for you:

Riley's Rally - A Huge Success -- Riley's Rally broke the Guinness Book of World Records' on Saturday, March 20th, 2004, by having over 300 semis take part in a convoy! For photos, click here!

"Them smokies was as thick as bugs on a bumper, they even had a bear in the air. I say "callin' all trucks, this here's the Duck, and we're about to go huntin' bear."

10-4, good buddy.

Posted 3/21/2004 06:52:00 PM by Douglas

I didn't want to comment on this story, just because it's so stupid, but I can't pry it loose from the back of my noodle.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals yesterday ordered the dismissal of claims against a woman who had been found negligent for leaving her car keys within reach of an allegedly drunken friend who crashed her car.

A man seriously injured in the crash sued the woman and her friend.

A three-judge panel ruled in favor of Tina Cox, who said there was no proof she allowed her friend to drive her car after a night of drinking in December 1998 in Shelbyville. After she had gone to bed, the friend took her keys from her purse and went for a drive. He struck a pickup driven by Joseph Waits. Waits eventually recovered from his injuries but still complained of pain and walked with a limp.

In a 2002 ruling, Shelby Circuit Judge William Stewart said Cox was negligent because her friend had easy access to her car keys, which were in her purse on a coffee table. She also knew her friend had prior convictions for driving under the influence, the judge said.

The judge awarded Waits nearly $223,525 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in punitive damages. He ruled that Cox was 40percent negligent and her friend 60percent negligent. He divided the damages accordingly.

This is just scary. Considering how many stupid things I've actively done, I can't imagine the litigation I've exposed myself to in the past if you consider the stupid things that others have done after I went to bed.

Posted 3/21/2004 06:47:00 PM by Douglas

Go Rosie! Here's a woman you don't want to mess with. Man, that's a long trek across Siberia. Hope she makes it.

Your move, Dave.

Posted 3/20/2004 01:12:00 PM by Douglas

Great article on American Bad-ass, William Faulkner.

Faulkner did not like having his reading interrupted, and the sale of stamps fell alarmingly; by way of explanation, Faulkner told his family that he was not prepared to keep getting up to wait on people at the window and having to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had the two cents to buy a stamp.

When he died, piles of letters, packages, and manuscripts sent by admirers were found, none of which he had opened. In fact, the only letters he did open were letters from publishers, and then only very cautiously: he would make a tiny slit in the envelope and then shake it to see if a check appeared. If it didn't, then the letter would simply join all those other things that can wait forever.

Ain't that the truth? Thankfully, he never had to deal with tele-marketers.

"You know, a woman should know only how to do three things." He paused, then concluded: "Tell the truth, ride a horse, and sign a check."

Personally, I don't think that list is all inclusive.

Posted 3/20/2004 12:39:00 PM by Douglas

As if women didn't have enough trouble picking out a pair of shoes on their own, now some egghead had to go and throw algebra into the mix.

In the battle to tell you the sort of information you didn't know you need to know, scientists have explained the formula that wearers of high-heeled shoes can use to work out how high they can go - just as the most famous Blahnik-wearers, the stars of Sex and the City, totter from our screens.

Physicists at the Institute of Physics have devised a formula that, based on your shoe size, tells you the maximum height of heel you can wear without toppling over or suffering agonies. And it is:

h = Q.(12+3s/8)

Whaaaa? Let's look at the formula a bit closer:

• h is the maximum height of the heel (in cm)
• S is the shoe size (UK ladies sizes). This factor makes sure that the base of support is just good enough for an experienced, and sober, high-heel wearer not to fall over
• Q is a sociological factor. It equals p.(y+9).L, divided by(t+1).(A+1).(y+10).(L+£20)M

This is already making my head hurt. Now we've got to go into Q (yet it doesn't say what M is)

• p the probability that wearing the shoes will help you "pull" (in a range from zero to one, where one is a certainty and zero is stick to carpet slippers). If the shoes are a turn-off, there's no point wearing them
• y is the number of years experience you have in wearing high heels. As you become more adept, you can wear a higher heel. Beginners should take it easy
• L is the cost of the shoes, in pounds. Clearly, if the shoe is particularly expensive, you can put up with a higher heel
• t the time since the shoe was the height of fashion, in months (0 = it's the "in thing" right now). One has to suffer for one's art, and if the shoes are terribly fashionable, you should be prepared to put up with a little pain
• A is units of alcohol consumed. If you're planning on drinking, be careful to give yourself a little leeway for reduced co-ordination.

"Hold on, I don't know if I can have another glass of wine: It may throw off the calculation I did on my footwear."

Now that's just dumb.

Update: I just realized something! Instead of trying to figure out what kind of shoe to buy, men could use the same formula to determine how drunk a woman was going to get.

Posted 3/20/2004 12:37:00 PM by Douglas

Happy Spring!

Posted 3/19/2004 08:49:00 PM by Douglas

Since all the major strife has been settled in Dixie, Alabama's Legislators are trying to settle in on an Official State Whiskey.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama is in a fight over whether to name an official state whiskey, one that has its origins in Alabama's rich history of bootlegging.

The Legislature overwhelmingly passed a resolution declaring Conecuh Ridge Fine Alabama Whiskey as the "official state spirit," but Gov. Bob Riley vetoed the resolution Thursday.

"I'm so disappointed," said Kenny May, founder of Conecuh Ridge.

Look, just drink whatever is condensing out of the radiator of the '87 Honda and be happy you're drunk.

Thankfully, we don't have these kinds of arguments in Texas. If we had to determine who was smuggling the best weed into Texas, we'd have to settle that argument with a shotgun. But. . when it comes to weed smuggling, really, are there any losers?

Posted 3/19/2004 08:42:00 PM by Douglas

Gorilla warfare in Dallas today.

DALLAS - Police shot and killed a gorilla that escaped from its enclosure at the Dallas Zoo on Thursday and injured three people.

One adult and two children, ages 10 and 2, suffered minor injuries from the gorilla and were taken to area hospitals, Deputy Police Chief Daniel Garcia said. He said the three were bitten and scratched.

The zoo was evacuated after the animal escaped and police were notified. When the gorilla charged two officers, getting within 15 feet of them, they opened fire, Garcia said.

"We were forced to put this animal down," he said.

I hate zoos. If, though no fault of your own, you were forced to live in Dallas against your will, you'd probably charge a cop if you ever got out of your 8 by 8 cage, too.

Posted 3/19/2004 08:07:00 PM by Douglas

Women, are you having trouble getting men to gawk at your boobs? Have you tried lights? That might put your miracle bra to shame. . . .

Posted 3/18/2004 04:48:00 PM by Douglas

The Bush propaganda machine is hard at work. Let's forget for a moment that the new Medicare bill signed last December is $134 Billion dollars over-budget already, but now we've found out that what we've suspected all along is true: they're just making stuff up. So in lieu of actually finding doctors to praise the new bill or reporters to cover it, what does the Department of Health and Human Services do? Hire actors, of course!

Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.

The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.

I've pretty much laughed it off when liberal Bush-haters compare the administration to Nazi Germany, but this is an egregious use of deceptive propaganda by a President. The Department of Health and Human Services paid actors to blatantly lie to the public. I can't believe this story isn't getting more ink. I heard about it on Comedy Central.

But let's not overlook the amount: $540 Billion dollars over 10 years just for Medicare? To put that in perspective, that's 20 times the amount it cost to put 12 men on the moon.

It's important to put government spending into the realm of your own narrow, unenlightened self-interest. Because really, isn't that what democracy is all about?

Posted 3/18/2004 04:46:00 PM by Douglas

Dennis Hope, I salute you. Anyone that can get Germans to give you money for land on the Moon is a freakin' genius.

More than 60 worried owners of lunar real estate have written to the White House warning Bush not to let astronauts soil their property.

The campaign is being coordinated by the Kurier, a local newspaper in the Sauerland region, an area of western Germany noted for its rolling hills and pastures.

Three years ago more than 1,200 people there paid 30 to 40 marks (15 to 20 euros, or 18 to 24 dollars, in today's money) each to buy pieces of moon rock in parcels of 700,000 square metres.

This is some very compelling reasons to go back to the Moon: to piss off these people. Anyone dumb enough to actually give someone money in this transaction deserves what they get, which is hopefully nothing.

Sendler told them to write to the White House. Earlier this week the paper sent off a first batch of 60 to 80 letters, but more are arriving every day.

Some warned Bush that while they didn't mind a space station being built, "they didn't want landing flags or rusting vehicles dumped on their land."

Others refused permission for Americans to step foot on their property or suggested they should build fences to protect them.

There's a good idea: Go up there and build a fence around it if you don't want "flags or rusting vehicles" on your land (although I'm not sure how anything would "rust" since there's no oxygen up there).

I think they should look at this optimistically. Think how much the property value would go up if we built a Starbucks there?

Posted 3/18/2004 04:43:00 PM by Douglas

America to be half minority by 2050? Well then it's not really a minority anymore, is it?

Posted 3/17/2004 08:59:00 PM by Douglas

Maybe it's just me, but this urinal doesn't make me want to pee:

Posted 3/16/2004 04:26:00 PM by Douglas

Why does RFID sound like a bad idea? For starters, any time Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense are in agreement, you know nothing good is going to come of it.

The two organizations have become poster children for radio frequency identification (RFID), a technology that will undoubtedly help businesses and other enterprises do a better job of tracking goods, but also makes privacy advocates uneasy. Both organizations are requiring their suppliers to use RFID tags if they want to continue doing business with them.

With RFID, tiny radio transmitters are attached to products. These tags, as they're called, emit radio waves carrying data that's read using special scanners. RFID tags are like high-tech bar codes, only they can hold more data and their signals can be received over a far greater distance.

I'm sure the aluminum-foil hat crowd is all over this one, but my question is who is going to pay for this madness? Is it really going to save retail outlets that much money, and if so, does that mean we could expect to see a dip in prices? I could personally care less who knows how much mayonnaise, grapes, or Blue Bell ice cream I eat. But it ticks me off when stores make me carry "discount cards" so they can save money.

The Department of Agriculture wants to use RFID to track livestock from birth to the dinner table to avoid breakouts of mad cow disease. And grocery stores envision a day when your shopping cart is so full of "smart" goods that they can alert you to specials in the next aisle based on what you've already picked, then tally your bill without taking anything out of the cart.

Sure they are. They want to be able to point out how to save you money.

Posted 3/16/2004 04:24:00 PM by Douglas

I feel a bit guilty for each and every post I do about Jessica Simpson, but I couldn't pass this up.

Simpson, whose verbal gaffes are also legendary, pulled another one Sunday visiting the White House, our sources say. The singer was introduced to Interior Secretary Gale Norton and gushed: "You've done a nice job decorating the White House."

If she gets any dumber, she's going to have to be watered. It's just a sad footnote to our culture that she's a singer and she's making a career out of being dumb and blonde.

Posted 3/15/2004 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Why in the hell is Toyota developing a robot that can play the trumpet? Is this something that the world was actually lacking? A trumpet playing robot? Where is all the development for a robot that can clean a toilet, or a cat box? I think a "Sara Connor finding robot" is long overdue.

Posted 3/15/2004 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Dihydrogen Monoxide: the silent killer.

"It's embarrassing," said City Manager David J. Norman. "We had a paralegal who did bad research."

The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as "an odorless, tasteless chemical" that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled.

As a result, the City Council of this Orange County suburb had been scheduled to vote next week on a proposed law that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events. Among the reasons given for the ban were that they were made with a substance that could "threaten human health and safety."

I don't think the paralegal did bad research. It sounds like they did no research. Either that, or they're as dumb as a box of hammers.

Posted 3/14/2004 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

What would you do if you got a new cell phone and the number previously belonged to a celebrity? Like most of us, Laura had fun with it.

Omigod! I have Chris Rock's old cell phone number!! But it's not that old, because people are still calling!! This is such a crazy, random thing that's happened to me!

She could have had much more fun with it, but she's obviously a very nice person.

Posted 3/14/2004 03:35:00 PM by Douglas

Correction, again. It turns out, you can see China's Great Wall from low-earth orbit, according to Gene Cernan. He'd know. I guess Colonel Yang Liwei just wasn't looking hard enough.

Confirmation of this comes from a person who knows what he's talking about.

He is veteran American astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, who logged 556 hours in space, of which 75 hours were spent on the lunar surface.

He told The Sunday Times when he was in Singapore recently for the Asian Aerospace 2004 show: 'At Earth orbit of 160km to 320km high, the Great Wall of China is indeed visible to the naked eye.'

NASA says no, Gene says yes. Who knows. Maybe I'll ask a drunk astronaut the next time I run into one at happy hour.

Posted 3/13/2004 08:17:00 PM by Douglas

Come for the education, now get the hell out. Texas Tech introduces a plan to encourage students to get out in four years.

The school will pay for all required courses beyond four years if students are kept from graduating on time because classes weren't available. The same deal's available for five-year academic programs.

In return, students must select a major by the end of their freshman year and take 15 credit hours a semester, allowing them to get the 120 hours required for most degrees. For degrees that require more hours, students must take summer classes or more hours in the fall or spring semesters. There is no penalty if a student fails to comply with the terms.

This, like most things in life, has both good and bad associated with it. It's trying to discourage the "professional student" status that is rampant at most colleges, but it will also hinder those in college that are utilizing that narrow band of four years of their lives to actually discover which direction their lives are going. While I wouldn't think it's a tragedy if there no more "American Studies" graduates in the world, it's just as bad if everyone majors in business, finance, engineering, marketing or accounting just to get out the door on time and find a cookie-cutter job. That would reduce the University experience to that of a glorified trade school.

"I think it's a great deal," said Jeremy Brown, Tech's Student Government Association president. "It shows the administration is looking at ways to bring down the cost of education."

Good for you, Jeremy, and I hope your father gets you a great job in his firm after you graduate. But with skyrocketing tuition costs in Texas, I think it's myopic of you to think that it's going to be of much savings to the students if they leave in four years. It's going to be a huge savings to the universities, because by then, they'll have another batch of wide-eyed freshmen that don't have a clue.

Posted 3/13/2004 04:55:00 PM by Douglas

I've known lots of girls like this:

But not usually in public. Typically, in a bathroom of a college apartment in Austin. This scene is common right before the second keg floats.

Posted 3/12/2004 07:15:00 PM by Douglas

"Did you check your Hotmail today?" I didn't think so. Here's why:

The Hotmail online e-mail service, operated by Microsoft Corp. was down for most of the working day on Friday, affecting "a significant portion of MS customers."

The world's largest software maker said that Hotmail, as well as MSN Messenger and other related services operated by its MSN Internet business, were down from around 8:30 a.m. Pacific time (1630 GMT).

"We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption this may be causing our customers," a Microsoft spokesman said.

So there's your answer, DOD. It wasn't you, it was MicroSoft.

I'm waiting for the day when they don't issue an apology, but rather a statement like this: "Yeah, we suck, but what are you gonna do about it? Go somewhere else? Go ahead and try it, sucker. We dare you. . . ."

Posted 3/12/2004 06:50:00 PM by Douglas

We've been lied to for so long about this, it's good to see that the ChiComs are finally dispelling the myth.

For decades, the Chinese propagated the myth that their most famous creation was visible from space. Elementary-school textbooks in the world's most populous nation still proclaim that the structure can be seen by the naked eye of an orbiting cosmonaut.

But the myth was shattered upon Yang Liwei's return from a 21 1/2-hour space jaunt last year, so schoolbooks will be rewritten, the Beijing Times newspaper reported Friday.

The wall stretches thousands of miles across northern China but is only a few yards wide, making it impossible to see from space.

I guess the only man-made structure visible from Low-Earth Orbit is John Glenn's ego.

So now the question is, who started the rumor that it was visible in the first place? American Astronauts, or Russian Cosmonauts? It had to be one of the two.

Posted 3/12/2004 06:28:00 PM by Douglas

How many fist-fights have erupted over the hotly contested Guinness bubbles moving downward?

A new experiment by chemists from Stanford University and the University of Edinburgh has finally proven what beer lovers have long suspected: When beer is poured into a glass, the bubbles sometimes go down instead of up.

''Bubbles are lighter than beer, so they're supposed to rise upward,'' said Richard N. Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Sciences at Stanford. ''But countless drinkers have claimed that the bubbles actually go down the side of the glass. Could they be right, or would that defy the laws of physics?''

''Indeed, Andy and I first disbelieved this and wondered if the people had had maybe too much Guinness to drink,'' Zare recalled. ''We tried our own experiments, which were fun but inconclusive."

I can't imagine what's so unappealing about science and engineering when these eggheads are researching such a fascinating topic. I personally devoted over a decade to this very problem. If only I could find my data. . .

Posted 3/12/2004 06:14:00 PM by Douglas

Speaking of conspiracy theories, try this on for size:

There were 911 days in-between the terror attacks in Madrid and Sept. 11, 2001 -- or 9-11 as it has become known -- when al-Qaida-backed terrorists slammed planes into the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center towers in New York, destroying them.

The Madrid bombings -- which happened on 3-11 -- also came 2-1/2 years to the day after the 9-11 attacks.

Let the conspiracy theories begin. Remember, when making your alumnium foil hat, always: Shiny Side Out.

Also, not to ruin anyone fun, but isn't it 912 days?

Posted 3/12/2004 06:11:00 PM by Douglas

"And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power." Revelations 9:3

OK, so they're not locusts, they're periodical cicadas, but I doubt that makes much difference to those who live in effected areas, or the millenarian dispensationalists that are sure to see this as a sign from God.

"This is one of those years we kind of dread," said Paris Lambdin, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee. "We had an emergence a couple years ago around Nashville, but nothing like what we expect this one will be."

There's no question that the class of 2004 will be a nuisance. The cicadas will make plenty of noise, and adults are poor fliers that tend to bump into things.

This sounds pretty freaky. Are the frogs next?

Posted 3/11/2004 06:35:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, the EPA is going after the things that threaten us the most: pop corn:

The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the chemicals released into the air when a bag of microwave popcorn is popped or opened.

Exposure to vapors from butter flavoring in microwave popcorn has been linked to a rare lung disease contracted by factory workers in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has said it suspects the chemical diacetyl caused the illnesses.

However, health officials insist people who microwave popcorn and eat it at home are not in danger.

I guess it's good to know that it's safe to eat but it'll kill you if you breathe it.

Posted 3/11/2004 06:28:00 PM by Douglas

Know when to say when. Hopefully, it's not when you went to pick up your son for his weekend custody.

A Texas man did the drinking and decided to let his 11-year-old son, who was barely able to see over the steering wheel, do the driving, police said.

Police said Wednesday that they had arrested Robert Lee Crider on charges of child endangerment, public intoxication and having an open container of alcohol in his vehicle.

And an open container? Ok, if you're so drunk you let your 11 year old drive, maybe you should slow down a bit, cowboy.

Crider apparently was taking his son home for the weekend as a part of a custody arrangement with his ex-wife.

I wonder who got custody 4.3 seconds after this story hit the AP?

Posted 3/11/2004 06:23:00 PM by Douglas

After 10 seconds of looking at this website, I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. Then, after about 2 minutes, I was laughing hysterically. Don't miss Visiting emotioneric.com for the Very First Time and Realizing You are Really Stupid and Have a Stupid Website!

Posted 3/11/2004 05:02:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, a real headline:

Here's some good news for horny married men: 45 percent of women are willing to let their hubby have sex with another woman.

That is, as long as the other woman is Nicole Kidman.

Not that I think I'd ever have to worry about it, but my wife isn't among the 45%

I asked.

Posted 3/11/2004 04:53:00 PM by Douglas

It's good to see where CCISD is using some of their (read: my) money: Training high school students to be machinists.

LAGUE[sic] CITY - Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 8 astronauts are conducting 19 science experiments. Some 220 miles below, inside the metal shop at Clear Creek High School, students are building and assembling 30 custom- designed lockers made to hold similar experiments.

Forty-five Clear Creek students grouped into teams of seven to 10 members are participating in the HUNCH project, an initiative coordinated by engineers at JSC and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

HUNCH stands for High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware.

It's good to see that they carry on the rich NASA tradition of coming up with stupid acronyms. But is this the image of CCISD they want to project? A glorified trade school? They got a quarter Billion dollars for bonds and they're producing sheet metal workers?

Tim Bourn, 16, said touring the space station ground support facilities at JSC at the beginning of the project, seeing what the products he's manufacturing are supposed to look like and what they will be used for was a jaw-dropping experience.

"Manufacturing parts for NASA is pretty cool," Bourn said. "You can put in your résumé that you worked for NASA in high school."

That's just great, Tim, but NASA and its contractors already have machinists to build space hardware. What do you think they were doing while you were playing around in shop class?

Posted 3/11/2004 04:50:00 PM by Douglas

The now famous Tulia drug-bust. Almost five years later, and they're still paying through the nose for the reckless actions of one idiot cop:

A $5 million settlement for Tulia residents targeted in a now-discredited drug bust many said was racially motivated will also end the narcotics task force that ran the sting, an attorney for the plaintiffs says.

Considering this has already cost Swisher county $250,000, I would hope that the $5Million would get someone's attention that the idiotic war on drugs is in dire need of a cease fire.

Posted 3/11/2004 04:42:00 PM by Douglas

Why was this web site removed?

AUSTIN -- A Web site for doctors that blacklisted patients who file medical malpractice lawsuits has vanished from the Internet.

The site's sponsors posted a farewell message posted this week, saying that DoctorsKnow.Us had drawn attention to malpractice litigation, and the sponsors hoped it resulted in "changes that are equitable to both patients and physicians."

If you file a malpractice lawsuit against a doctor, "frivolous" or not, it's a matter of public record. If other physicians want to find out about them, what's the big deal? That information is out there, anyway. All Dr. Jones did was put it together and charge $4.95 a month for it. It's a stretch to say that this is damaging doctor-patient relationship, the cornerstone of the medical profession. More like the "attorney-client" relationship.

Posted 3/10/2004 08:44:00 PM by Douglas

Gilligan sets up a radio station in his house. One can only assume that it consists of two coconuts and a strange coiled vine.

Even more tragic? That this is news and that a 69 year old man is still referred to as a character he played on a sit-com 40 years ago.

Posted 3/09/2004 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

I had to post the million dollar bill:

Looks real to me. . .

Posted 3/09/2004 04:45:00 PM by Douglas

Poor Cady Wells. I had a molecule of sympathy for her until I got to the bottom of this piece and I realized she didn't even have the balls (pun definitely intended) to use her real name or to divulge the school where she taught.

I just resigned a tenured position. I did everything right. I worked hard to earn a Ph.D. I landed a tenure-track job at a small, liberal-arts college. I excelled in teaching, research, and service. The year I earned tenure I also received the highest faculty award given at the college. And then I quit ... with no other job in sight.

Blah, blah blah. . .and the pity party keeps going on like that. Look. If academe is treating you so unfairly, haul your Ph.D in Psychology out in the private sector and get a real job. This is America, lady, and there's nothing prohibiting your brilliance from attaining the lifestyle to which you've become accustom. I know, it may be hard, considering you won't get summers off, but after reading that heart felt tale of oppression, how could it possibly be any worse?

Apparently, David Lester wants you to look at the big picture and shut the fuck up, too. I like his idea: Work in a coal mine for a while, and see just how bad you've got it, then start bitching about your tenure.

I can't help it, but it reminded me a quote from the classic film, Ghost Busters:

Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been in the private sector. They expect results.

Ray's obviously worked for the man before. It's obvious Ms. Wells hasn't.

Posted 3/09/2004 04:43:00 PM by Douglas

This is just stupid enough to pass.

A proposed amendment to California's constitution would give 16-year-olds a half-vote and 14-year-olds a quarter-vote in state elections.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, among four lawmakers to propose the idea on Monday, said the Internet, cellular phones, multichannel television and a diverse society makes today's teens better informed than their predecessors.

That sounds about right. After 4 hours of Nick & Jessica and the midget dating shows on Fox, the informed electorate needs to head out to the polls to determine the fate of this great society.

"When we gave the vote to those who didn't own property, then to women, then to persons of all colors, we added to the richness of our democratic dialogue and our own nation's integrity and its model for the world," Vasconcellos said, calling it time to further extend the vote.

To compare the "youth vote" to the sufferage of women, blacks, and even non-land owners is absolutely absurd. Granted, 18 may be an arbitrary line to draw, too, but why 14? Why don't 10, or 8? There's a reason people this age are legally dependent on adults, and Assemblyman Haynes does a good job at summing it up:

Said Assemblyman Ray Haynes: "There's a reason why 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds don't vote. They are not adults. They are not mature enough. They are easily deceived by political charlatans."

Well let's not go nuts there, Assemblyman. If we exclude immature people easily swayed by political charlatans, then we won't have any voters, would we?

But won't somebody please think of the children? What do they think? I think Robert sums up all our fears:

"If we could vote, politicians would see us as votes, not just kids, and they would take our issues seriously," said Robert Reynolds, a student at Berkeley High School.

But don't you get it, Robert, you are just a kid. When I was a high school senior, all I wanted to do was drive around, drink beer, find some easy chicks and then take a nap. And while none of that might have changed, I'm now a mature pillar of the community (scary, eh?) that realizes that there's virtually no difference between the two parties, and voting is a total waste of time.

Posted 3/09/2004 04:41:00 PM by Douglas

How to counterfeit money, if you're an idiot.

A Porterdale woman allegedly tried to pay for more than $1,600 in merchandise at the Covington Wal-Mart Friday with a $1 million bill.

According to an incident report filed Monday by Officer Allen Seebaran, 35-year-old Alice Regina Pike, 35 Hemlock St., was taken into custody on a charge of forgery after allegedly presenting the bill to a clerk at the store at 2:40 p.m. Pike, who was trying to purchase multiple items that totaled approximately $1,675, was reportedly unaware that the money was fake. The suspect told Seebaran that her husband had given the bill to her before he left town on a trip.

According to the report, when the clerk was handed the bogus bill, she called over store manager Marshall Hunt who immediately recognized the bill as a fake.

Apparently unfazed by the setback, Pike then allegedly tried to pay for the items with two Wal-Mart gift cards that had a combined total worth of $2.32. Still $1,598 short, Pike reportedly then asked Hunt if he could "cash the bill," which the manager quickly refused to do.

If you're going to jump the chasm and delve into counterfeiting, why stop with a Million dollar bill? Why no go all out and make a Kazillion, or a Bazillion-jazillion?

And why Wal-Mart? If you thought you had a Million dollars, or thought you could pass off a Million dollar bill, why wouldn't you go to the Ferrari dealer? Why blow $1,600 at Wal-Mart on diapers and Cheetos?

Sadly, there was a story I read a few years ago that claimed a fast food clerk called her manager because she thought the customer was trying to pass a counterfeit $2 bill-she'd never seen one before.

Update:The Smoking gun is there.

Posted 3/09/2004 04:20:00 PM by Douglas

Man, what's going on up at Gettysburg?

A pickup truck lost control Wednesday afternoon and crashed into a Civil War monument and two granite fence posts on the Gettysburg battlefield at East Cemetery Hill, according to the Gettysburg National Military Park.

This is the third time since October 2003 that a vehicle has struck and damaged a monument or cannon carriage within Gettysburg National Military Park.

I don't know why Gettysburg is a good place to hang out and drink, but it sure sounds like it.

Posted 3/08/2004 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Boy, this really takes me back. The most annoying things of 2003. Some of these are really funny. I don't have a lot of optimism that 2004 is going to be any less annoying.

Posted 3/08/2004 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

Aerospace Engineers: Is there anything they can't do?

'We can produce a reading from a sample in a few minutes, one that reveals just how potent the donor is likely to be,' said the project leader, Dr Richard Green of Glasgow University's department of aerospace engineering. 'Essentially, we have developed a new science - spermodynamics.'

Maybe it's just me, but this sound like what a bunch of engineering dorks do in the lab when they get bored and spend too much time ogling the girl on the Snap-on Tool calendar.

Posted 3/08/2004 05:21:00 PM by Douglas

How ironic is it that the first American to orbit the earth would be such a harsh critic of the first new vision for NASA in 30 years?

"We have projects that are planned or in the queue now, projects that people -- academics and laboratories and companies -- have spent millions of dollars to get ready," Glenn said. "That pulls the rug out from under our scientists who placed their faith in NASA, and our scientists within NASA who devoted years and years to their work."

Imagine that? The first orbital astronaut used his fame to launch his political career, then used his political clout to get a seat on STS-95 as a Payload Specialist. Now this Special Payload feels obligated to shoot off his mouth because Wright-Pat is in danger of losing some funding. Quite sad that a NASA pioneer is focusing on the narrow self-interest of his ex-constituency rather than the direction of the future program.

Posted 3/08/2004 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

Life in Clear Lake:

An 8-foot alligator was captured below a bridge near Clear Lake City Boulevard and Space Center on Sunday. The 300-pound gator did not go quietly but was eventually relocated to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.

Posted 3/07/2004 11:44:00 AM by Douglas

I can see it now on Ebay: The bottlecap off the 19th beer those drunken fools had that night.

Stupid aggies. I would have thought since they haven't had the bonfire since '99, they'd say that not having the bonfire was a new tradition.

And really, who wants to mess with tradition.

Posted 3/06/2004 12:11:00 PM by Douglas

Man, why didn't I think of this:

Manitowoc, Two Rivers, and Sturgeon Bay police departments are all investigating thefts of neon beer signs -- identical crimes they think are connected.

In each case, a thief dressed as a beer distributor stole the neon signs from grocery stores. Police say the thief is very convincing, telling the stores the signs needed to be taken down for cleaning or replaced with different ones. He took signs worth between $200 and $1,000.

It just goes to show, you're only important as you think you are. If people are so trusting that they give away anything to a guy with his name printed on his shirt, I think they can't call it theft. And what about the manager? What was he doing to stop this "theft?"

Right after the Manitowoc theft, police believe the same thing happened at a Two Rivers Pick 'N Save, where the night manager even lended a hand.

"He actually went into the back room, I believe, and helped the guy grab the ladder," grocery manager Peter Reinke said.

If the store manager helps the guy out, It's hard to believe he has the stones to call it theft. It's quite amazing that he'd even report it.

Posted 3/06/2004 11:54:00 AM by Douglas

On paper the Americans with Disabilities Act makes sense. Does anyone really want to discriminate against disabled people? Probably not, but this is a bit too much:

A weeklong trial that pitted a former supermarket bagger with Down syndrome against one of the region's top employers of people with disabilities ended yesterday with an undisclosed settlement.

David Warnes, 37, of Bethel Park, a former Giant Eagle employee, sued the supermarket chain for firing him after he ate half a donut and put the other half back in the box for sale.

A federal jury on Thursday ruled that the chain had violated Warnes' rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the jury hadn't yet decided on a damage award.

Most employers get substantial tax breaks for hiring this sort of people, so I don't really have much sympathy for them if they're not going to assume the responsibility for employing them while taking advantage of the tax break. But, doesn't the public have a right to buy a box of donuts without retarded teeth marks in them?

Posted 3/06/2004 11:41:00 AM by Douglas

Looks like it's time for a Big Mack Extra-value meal.

The giveaway follows a scheme that defrauded McDonald's and its customers. An employee at a marketing firm hired by McDonald's rigged some previous contests and gave the winning game pieces to friends.

A computerized random drawing selected five winning restaurants, and for each of them, a time of day was also randomly selected. On the days of the Instant Prize Giveaway, a team of judges in each of the selected restaurants will give the award to the first customer who enters the restaurant or pulls up at the drive-thru after the randomly selected time of day.

Imagine that? A marketing company ripping people off?

Posted 3/05/2004 06:38:00 PM by Douglas

Everything you ever wanted to know about string theory.

Posted 3/05/2004 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

Next week, from Duh Magazine. Here's a shocking headline: Americans Struggle with Credit Card Bills. No one saw this one coming.

Thirty-nine percent of the 1,000-plus people surveyed last week said they paid off their monthly balance in full, down from 43 percent a year ago, according to the survey.

39%, ya say? I find that to be surpassingly high, if anything. But wait for this blinding insight:

"The haves either don't use their credit cards at all or feel secure about paying off their credit card bills when they arrive," Jordan Goodman, a spokesman for the Cambridge group, said in a statement. "The growing number of have-nots, however, are being forced to borrow to pay for their daily necessities, and are getting deeper into debt."

Sha-Zammm! Has there ever been a time in human history when this has not been true? People with money, uh, have money, and those that don't have money, well, don't. Am I missing something that's not blatantly obvious?

Labels: Duh

Posted 3/05/2004 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Intransigence. What a great word. I can't believe I've never hear of this one before.

Posted 3/05/2004 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

One more gratuitous picture of the not-so merry widow, Mrs. Wright. Even the Amarillo Globe News has picked it up. Good deal, since the AGN has much more stable links.

Posted 3/05/2004 04:56:00 PM by Douglas

Warning! Offensive sophomoric humor here. The net's tribute to onanism (thanks, Tuey!). But my favourite term didn't make the 'funniest' list. Made famous by Bill Clinton and Jocelyn Elders:

Firing the Surgeon General

Posted 3/05/2004 04:29:00 PM by Douglas

The convicted stripper is now appealing. I saw some of this footage on TV, and I thought it was a bit odd, myself. A district attorney (in a skirt, I might add) straddling a co-worker that's tied to a bed. . . in court? This makes Law & Order look like nothing.

"That would be the cornerstone of an appeal," said Houston criminal defense attorney Stanley Schneider. "The mistake was allowing that demonstration, which was based on rank speculation, in the first place."

After the bed and bloodstained, king-size mattress sat in a hallway outside the courtroom for more than a week, Judge Wallace ordered Thursday that they be destroyed. Photographs of the bed were ordered placed in the case file for any appeals.

Dang. And I was hoping to get it on Ebay.

Posted 3/05/2004 04:27:00 PM by Douglas

It's a damn shame that Louis Kadlecek survived the crash.

The incident began early Sunday when Kadlecek, who'd been partying since his birthday Wednesday, stumbled into the Brazoria County Airport, where he'd performed community service as part of a sentence for a previous arrest.

He started up one plane and took it for a spin around the tarmac before deciding it would be too tough to fly, Brazoria County Chief Deputy Sheriff Charles Wagner told the newspaper.

Kadlecek apparently then set his sights lower, picking out a single-engine Cessna. He loaded it up with a case of stolen beer, threw the operator's manual open onto the seat beside him, and set off.

What a moron. He was looking for a memorable 21st birthday. Looks like he found one. Ironically, he'll be going somewhere he'll have lots of time to think about it.

The Cessna plunged 100 feet and crashed into a muddy field adjoining a local prison. Kadlecek got out, crossed a highway and walked three miles home.

Unfortunately for him, several people saw the crash. One man called 911, figured the pilot was dead and went on to his golf game. Others gave police a sketch of the mystery man.

He crashed into the field of a prison? What are the odds? It's good that there's one nearby, so his mom can visit him often. Also, it's good to hear that aircraft crashing into power lines isn't going to upset someone's golf game.

Welcome to jail, Louis.

Posted 3/05/2004 04:23:00 PM by Douglas

Ah, the plea of the truly desperate. Our schools need more money. I didn't see that one coming.

The study, conducted by economists at Texas A&M University, found a "significant relationship between school spending and student performance," Lori Taylor, an assistant professor at Texas A&M, told a panel of lawmakers and citizens studying school finance.

"There appears to be a fundamental economic relationship among input prices, educational outcomes and cost in Texas public schools. Other things being equal, the analyses suggest that it costs more to produce higher levels of educational outcomes," according to a key finding of the study.

The $1 million study correlated school spending to student performance standards.

First off, notice that the study to determine that more money buys better test scores cost the state a million freakin' dollars!!! It took a million dollars to figure that out? I would have told 'em the same thing for half that amount in cash.

But more importantly, why in the hell is the state is going to listen to a bunch of stoopid freakin' Aggies when it comes to ed-u-kashen? That makes about as much sense as appointing Keith Richards to the DEA, or the Jack Daniel's safe driving academy. What the hell would Aggies know about education?

This brings up an interesting point that was discussed in my office the other day. Why doesn't A&M have a medical school? The answer is quite simple: who in their right mind would go to an Aggie doctor? They turn out some fine Vets, and when you're dog is yakin' on the rug, an Aggie may be your best friend. But they're the last people you want around when you're sick.

Posted 3/04/2004 04:56:00 PM by Douglas

25 years. I figured she'd get some real time, but Clara Harris only got 20.

But prosecutors said the former topless dancer, who they say killed her husband for his $200,000 life insurance policy, should get no less than 45 years. They dismissed the prospect of probation as absurd.

"You'd be patting her on the back and saying 'Susan, go on out there and try to cut down on that killing,'" said Assistant District Attorney Murray Newman.

She'll be out in twelve and a half. But still, that works out to a little more than fifteen stabs per year.

Posted 3/04/2004 04:36:00 PM by Douglas

Kinky for Governor! As he's said before, "how hard could it be?"

Posted 3/03/2004 06:34:00 PM by Douglas

I don't know what this guy's sentence was, but it had to be pretty bad to opt for castration instead.

A former YMCA camp counselor who admitted molesting more than 40 boys underwent voluntary castration this week in Texas, the only state where the prison system allows the surgery.

I don't know about this. I once had a psych professor tell me that once a male has reached sexual maturity, the huevos don't do much as far as directing the way the trouser demon takes care of business. So if this guys gets snipped, that just means he's going to have less testosterone and no wigglers. That's going to do nothing to cure the disconnect between the big head and the little head or prevent him from thinking it's cool to party with 10 year old boys, right? There's got to be a reason that Texas is the only state that does this.

Posted 3/03/2004 06:23:00 PM by Douglas

This is really tragic. The same week we lost satire, now we find out that shame has died, too:

Heather Specyalski, 33, was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the crash that killed businessman Neil Esposito. Prosecutors allege that she was driving Esposito's Mercedes-Benz convertible when it veered off the road and hit several trees.

But Specyalski claims that Esposito was driving, and she was performing oral sex on him at the time, said her attorney, Jeremiah Donovan. He noted that Esposito's pants were down when he was thrown from the car.

If you have to stand up in front of a jury and testify, under oath, on the record, that you couldn't have been driving because you were giving oral sex to a guy that's dead and can't refute your claim, you have now become #487 on the list of our dying society.

Look out, folks, these deaths usually come in threes. . .

Posted 3/03/2004 06:14:00 PM by Douglas

Guilty! I guess it's not much of a surprise, considering. Now, on to sentencing:

"Do you think Susan Wright could be a good candidate for probation?" Davis asked two witnesses.

Wright's mother, Sue Wyche, said, "She's very responsible."

Poor Sue. She's her mom. . . what else is she gonna say? "Susan did a really good job of covering the body." ?? I don't think so. . .

She's going to do some serious time.

Posted 3/03/2004 06:07:00 PM by Douglas

Poor Susan, the stripper with the heart o' gold.

She thought she found Mr. (w)Right, but it turns out she was subject to a vicious cycle of abuse.

After watching Susan Wright face a caustic cross-examination Tuesday, a jury began deliberating the fate of the former topless dancer accused of tying her husband to a bed and stabbing him 193 times.

She underwent three hours of cross-examination Tuesday morning by Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler, who asked why she dumped her husband's body in a hole in the back yard and covered it with gardening soil. It was recovered five days later.

"What was your plan? Were you going to make a little flowerbed there after everyone forgot about Jeff?" Siegler asked.

These are all good question. What was the plan here? Eventually, someone is going to notice that he's gone, even if it's just the insurance company when you go to collect the $200,000 life insurance policy.

Wright said she was suffering from post-traumatic stress delusions that her husband was still alive and trying to kill her.

"There was no plan," she said. "I thought I had to weigh him down because he was going to get up and be very mad."

I'm no doctor, but I think stab wounds 1 through 114 would probably be enough to keep him from getting up mad. But just to be sure, how about 79 more stab wounds for good measure? And I don't think there's any question about her "post-traumatic stress delusion" afterwards. Murder can be very stressful, I'd imagine.

Prosecutors say she used the seductive powers that she honed while working at a Houston strip club to lure her husband into their candlelit bedroom on Jan. 13, 2003, tie his wrists and ankles to the bedposts and then kill him.

Is there an easier scapegoat than Houston strip clubs? Maybe she was just mad because he stopped tipping her after they got married? I think it puts a big dent in her abuse defense if she "lured him into their candlelit bedroom" the night of the murder. He may have beaten the crap out of her the day before, but when you tie someone to the bed and stab them 193 times, it's really difficult to see that as anything but a heartless, brutal act of murder.

I love it when prosecutors become so abusive:

Siegler was skeptical of Wright's claim that she wrestled the knife away from a man who weighed 100 pounds more than she.

"It was my sheer will to live," Wright said.

"Say that again. That was good," Siegler said sarcastically. "What did you say? `My sheer will to live?' "

Siegler told jurors not to trust Wright.

Well that's pretty much his job, isn't it? "Sheer will to live?" That along with the restraints that she put on his appendages.

Earlier Tuesday, Wright broke down when Siegler showed her an autopsy photo of injuries to Jeffrey Wright's penis and accused her of torturing him.

"What you did was nick at it," Siegler said. "That's a slice, isn't it?"

"No, I didn't slice and nick at him," Wright said, raising her voice, sobbing and turning away from the photo.

Who's this Nick they keep talking about? I would think that out of 193 stabs, some of them would have to land south of the border.

Yet again, a Houston trial is getting lots of attention. The salacious details of this trial will no doubt garner some national media attention, whatever that's worth. But after Robert Durst, Andrea Yates, Clara Harris, Anna Nicole, and Enron, it's good to see a murdering stripper provide the courts of Harris County a little comic relief.