Posted 1/31/2005 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

And now, to lighten the mood a bit, a coon hound.

Posted 1/31/2005 05:52:00 PM by Douglas

More on the presidential helicopter deal. Guess what? The Senator from Connecticut, home state of Sikorsky, isn't happy.

"It looks like the U.S. Navy just shot down an American helicopter," said Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn. "This deal results in a net loss of American jobs. We're going to over this with a fine-toothed comb."

DeLauro added, "'Made in America' should mean something. The Defense Department has some explaining to do."

The $6.1 billion program includes $2.5 billion for development and $3.6 billion to buy the aircraft. Lockheed will receive an initial installment of $1.6 billion.

Again, is there some reason they need $2.5 Billion in development for an aircraft that's been flying for the last 18 years? And if so, how the hell can they justify spending $6.1 Billion on 23 helicopters? Does $265 Million per helicopter sound right to anyone?

Posted 1/31/2005 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

The welfare state, and the answer to the question, "what could possibly go wrong?"

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services" at a brothel in Berlin faces cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany two years ago and brothel owners - who must pay tax and employee health insurance - were granted access to official databases of job seekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile" and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did she realise she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month, to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest level since reunification in 1990.

Lovely. Uh, sorry, grandma, you've got no excuse for being unemployed. . .there's work to be done. Sadly, this makes sense to some people.

Posted 1/31/2005 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

If ever there was a reason to raise the voting age, this is it.

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

I'm speechless. No witty rejoinder, no pithy quote to Ben Franklin (OK, maybe just one). I got nuthin'. Not only do at least a third of these kids not understand that most of the media that saturates their lives is hopelessly biased, but State approval is a good thing! And just think, some adult idiots want to let these people vote?!?

My new ebay business: Selling brown shirts by the gross. I'm obviously on the wrong side of history.

Posted 1/30/2005 02:49:00 PM by Douglas

I keep looking at the date on this article, and I can't figure out what in the hell it's talking about?

NASA confirmed to its international space station partners on Wednesday that it plans to return the U.S. space shuttle to flight this year with test launches in the late spring and late summer and to resume assembly of the orbital complex starting with a shuttle flight in December.

Starting with a shuttle flight in December? NASA is going full bore to get STS-114 off the ground this summer. What the hell is CNN talking about? CNN is never wrong, is it?

Posted 1/30/2005 02:32:00 PM by Douglas

It's that time of year again. The busy "Awards Show" season. Generally, I'm not one to watch, or even be aware of the Grammys, but this piece is spot on perfect. [Thanks, Frank!.] A suggestion I particularly liked:

GIVE DYLAN A GRAMMY EVERY YEAR. Worth it just to hear the insanely random magnetic-poetry-style speech. If we recall correctly, a couple of years ago he thanked Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg, his handheld vacuum cleaner, and the letter Q. Priceless.

That's pretty funny, but not as funny as the thought of Sting farting in a ziploc bag. I bet it'd at least go Gold.

Posted 1/30/2005 02:29:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting new blogs of note:

nessie alliance. Only two posts, but I hate walmart.

Life in "The Patch": Showing the Soft Side of Big Oil. Oil companies are people, too!

And finally, here's Dave and Melanie's blog, Dave & Mel Go Around the World. I expect pictures, and soon, jerky!

Posted 1/30/2005 02:22:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting website designed to pick a movie for you. It must be doing something right, because all its recommendations were movies I've already seen, and liked. I gave up when it wouldn't stop suggesting Pedro Almodóvar movies, though.

Posted 1/30/2005 02:07:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, some good news about an idiotic lawsuit getting thrown out. Turns out, if you get hit by a truck because you jumped out of a moving cop-car, it's not the city's fault.

An appellate court ruled that the family of a teenager who escaped from a Sugar Land patrol car and was killed by a passing 18-wheeler cannot sue the city for negligence.

In its ruling Thursday, the 1st Texas Court of Appeals stated the city is protected by governmental immunity.

Wow! It's amazing that this sort of thing makes the news, but it's infinitely better than the news of the family winning $14 million. But what really happened?

Mark Ballard, 16, was arrested Aug. 17, 2002, after officers found him and two other suspects inside a restaurant. An alarm had alerted police.

Police said two officers were taking Ballard to the juvenile detention center in Richmond when he managed to get his shackled arms in front of him and opened a car door.

He jumped out of the moving car on a U.S. 59 service road near Sweetwater.

Ballard ran across the freeway's southbound lanes, climbed over a median guardrail and started across the northbound lanes when he was hit by a tractor-trailer and killed, officers said.

Geez, what balls. The kid runs from the cops, and the family sues because the cops didn't restrain him properly. How do they keep a straight face when they file these suits?

Posted 1/30/2005 01:51:00 PM by Douglas

Why?

The '80s pop phenom, whose hits included "Foolish Beat" and "Into Your Eyes," bares it all in the March issue of Playboy, which hits stands Feb. 11.

It's 2005. I'd think that anyone that ever wanted to see Debbie Gibson naked already has. So why do I mention it? Two reasons:

1. The misinformed pseudo-political drivel has been showing up way too often around here
2. Shamelessly trying to increase traffic by including the words "Debbie Gibson naked"

Posted 1/30/2005 01:46:00 PM by Douglas

Considering the great luck I've had with class-action lawsuits, earning 24¢ and a whopping $13.86 here, I think I'd be a fool not to jump on this graveytrain. I actually bought five of the DVDs on the list.

Posted 1/29/2005 02:38:00 PM by Douglas

For the first time since 1957, the Presidential helicopter known as Marine One isn't going to be a Sikorsky, but don't look too deep under the "Lockheed Martin" placard.

Lockheed Martin Corp. is celebrating its victory in a fierce competition to build the new fleet of presidential helicopters.

The Navy announced Friday that the $6.1 billion contract for 23 high-tech, high-security aircraft would go to Lockheed and its international partners.

International partners? Where did this aircraft, patriotically named US101, come from?

Lockheed's winning entry, the US101, is based on a British-Italian AgustaWestland aircraft, now owned by Finmeccanica. The helicopter has several key components, including the main transmission and rotor blades, that will be built overseas.

"Based on" may be a bit of an understatement here. It is an AgustaWestland helicopter, specifically, the AgustaWestland EH 101. So they're going to build them in New York and Amarillo, where is that $2.5 billion for "development" going to go? This model has been operating since 1987. Surely that money's not going to go to the International partners, England and Italy, that originally developed it, is it? Who were the two biggest European supporters of Bush war in Iraq?

The Lockheed bid, designed by AgustaWestland, was backed by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, both supporters of the US-led military campaign in Iraq.

"This is good news for the UK and AgustaWestland. It will sustain and enhance vital leading edge helicopter design capabilities in the UK." About two-thirds of the new helicopter will be built in the US, with the remaining production split between the UK and Italy.

Hmmmm. I'm going to have to agree with Sikorsky on this one:

Sikorsky, a unit of United Technologies Corp., and its backers argued that the VH-92 Super Hawk's all-American parts provided greater security than a helicopter built in part in other countries.

Having key pieces of military hardware vital to the defense of your country being manufactured in other countries? What could possibly go wrong?

Posted 1/29/2005 02:24:00 PM by Douglas

Let's say you want to slaughter a lamb that will later be used in religious ceremony. Is it ok to slaughter it if you work in a State Veterinarian and Diagnostic Lab? And when exactly does a slaughter become a sacrifice? These are all very good questions, and would you believe they're being asked in Amarillo, Texas?

Last week's slaughter of a lamb prior to a religious feast has embroiled a state laboratory in controversy and apparently caused deep divisions among the staff.

Several employees of Amarillo's Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, which is associated with Texas A&M University, have said during the past two days that they and their co-workers are outraged that two veterinarians sacrificed a lamb prior to their observance of the Muslim holiday Feast of the Sacrifice.

Ok, that's a bit strange. But it gets better.

Dr. Lelve G. Gayle, executive director of the lab system, said Wednesday that he conducted an investigation and found no evidence of any religious ceremony during the slaughter. He did find, however, that the slaughter violated lab regulations about taking animals from the lab for personal consumption, which could be problematic because the lab tests animals from across the state for a variety of dangerous diseases.

That was my first question. . . who would buy meat from a "Diagnostics Lab?" Well, apparently lots of people.

Topliff pointed out that if the procedure is truly religious, then a lot of state agencies, including WT, would find themselves in a bind. WT's meat lab, which sells meat to the public that is slaughtered for educational and research purposes, has often followed the Halaal procedure in the past and sold the resulting meat to Muslims.

This sounds like a bunch of inter-office squabbling among a bunch of people that don't get along. But research veterinarians performing religious sacrifices may go down as the very best example as to why you shouldn't blur the line between your personal and your professional lives.

Posted 1/29/2005 01:27:00 PM by Douglas

Variations on a theme: Instead of 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters, how 'bout 1,000 cat owners with 1,000 digital cameras?

Posted 1/29/2005 01:19:00 PM by Douglas

Sometimes the headline says it all:

Man peed way out of avalanche
A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.

Beer, Is there anything it can't do? This has got to be the understated quote of the year:

It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt.

We've all had mornings like that, but not everyone has pissed their way out of an avalanche.

Posted 1/29/2005 01:17:00 PM by Douglas

Anyone that wants to criticize the current Republican administration had better damn well get their shit together. There are too many things going on right now that are worthy of ridicule, and the Washington Post is pointing out what Cheney is wearing?

Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

I've got a question? Who the fuck cares what Cheney was wearing? It's cold, he's wearing a coat. It's not a damn fashion show.

Democrats: Make note of this and review it later when you're scratching your head wondering why you lost the next election.

Posted 1/27/2005 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

I was really trying to ignore this vitriol, but I think I'm going to have to make some comments, as narrow-minded and biased as his. [Thanks, Allison.] But my main point: No place is perfect, and Houston isn't without its faults, but hey man, and I mean this in the nicest way I know how to say it, Houston's not for you. It's still a free country, so don't let the state line hit ya where the good lord split 'ya. I can already tell this is going to pointlessly ramble on for a while, so you should probably bail now, and don't say you weren't warned. Here we go.

My image of Houston has always been and continues to be defined by the cheap little map you get when you rent a car.

See, right off the bat, he shows how much more informed and sophisticated he is. When I land in a new city, I always judge the whole city by the terminal, and assume that the entire city is a garish as the airport.

Houston is like a big, fat, overgrown cell, the membrane formed by interstate highways. It has no real shape -- just a blob. A giant splat on the Earth. There are some mitochondria here and there, but it's rather undifferentiated.

I like the fact he referred to "pockets of mitochondria," since it's mitochondria that are responsible for supplying energy not only to the rest of the cell, but for other cells that are incapable of producing their own. Like Florida. Don't like Houston? Have fun shivering in the dark, pal.

Someday this cell might grow into something interesting, like part of an eyeball,

Why just an eyeball? Why not shoot for the stars and really aspire to greatness like Florida and D.C.? You know. . . an armpit?

But for the moment it is a stem cell, devoid of personality. The nucleus is almost invisible -- apparently it's somewhere in there in the middle, where the interstates knit together.

Too bad he didn't get a chance to go downtown while he was here. The middle is hardly empty anymore, and I was shocked and amazed recently to find the entire downtown area jumping with activity on every corner. All on a Monday night.

Houston is the least vertical city in America.

Again, you should have stuck around long enough to go downtown. At least once to see some of his work.

The land is flat, the buildings are flat, even the food is flat. Steaks, tortillas.

And delicious. Let me get this straight: he's complaining about steaks? Talk about sinking any creditability he even might have had.

The motto here seems to be Spread It Out. You drive down I-45 and the sprawl keeps going, flatly, everything having precisely the vertical profile of a car dealership.

I'm not going to defend urban sprawl, which is of course not unique to Houston, but Texas is blessed with a whole bunch of space, and we unapologetically use it. Maybe not always to it's fullest esoteric architectural potential, but we're not going to apologize for not stacking ourselves on top of each other when the next block is empty, either.

I'm not trying to ridicule it.

Uh huh. Yeah.

Not me! I'm from a place that would fit into the parking lot of your average Houston shopping mall.

Jealous?

I don't believe in condescension. Condescension is beneath me. I'm sure the Houstonians like living in a place that has yet to discover the concept of zoning.

Ok, fair enough. Houston has no zoning, or at least it didn't used to. For some reason when I moved here, I found it oddly comforting to find a 10 story office building, a strip club, and a Chinese buffet all on the same block. Hell, if I worked there, I'd never have to leave!

I'm getting hungry for a heapin' helpin' of Houston food, maybe a slab of beef the size of a banjo.

Again, of all the fair and deserved criticisms of Houston, you want to go with this one? Do you go to New York and bitch about the bagels, and to Maine and complain about the lobsters? If you want a steak the size of a hubcap, you've come to the right place. If you don't, order the salad and shut your fucking mouth.

Weirdly I am driving a pickup truck, as that was the only car available at Thrifty. Feel like I ought to go pick up a keg somewhere.

Again, this is a problem? Want my address?

The pickup cost $113 a day, not including vicious taxes, like the "Stadium tax."

Ok, this is a fair jab. This is monumentally stupid that the City has chosen to collect money for its overpriced sports arenas from hotel and rental car tax. I didn't vote for it, nor did I bust out cryin' when I had to pay the exact same tax in Orlando.

I was told that the rates were so high because an oil and gas convention is taking place in town, but that's confusing: I thought Houston WAS an oil and gas convention. This is one of those how-can-you-tell situations.

He kinda went out with a whimper on that one, but I can only hope that he gives Houston a kind thought as he gets in his car, turns on his heater, or uses any of the billions of tons of plastic products that are processed and manufactured in Houston before he totally writes it off.

Look, Houston isn't perfect, but with the MALLification of America, what place is? If you awoke blindfolded in any city in America, I'd say "what the hell are you doing just now waking up, and why do you have a blindfold on?" Then I'd ask if you could distinguish this generic city from any other place in the country [it's called Generica for a resaon]. After a quick survey of landscape, similar urban planning and ubiquitous fast food, I contend that you could not, at least 90% of the time.

So lay off of Houston. I know that Bush-whacking is now considered haute couture among most blue-staters, but leave Texas, and specifically Houston, alone. Please?

Keep in mind that sum'bitch is from New Haven, anyway.

Posted 1/27/2005 05:14:00 PM by Douglas

Remember that Navy submarine that ran aground killing one, injuring 20? Check out pictures here and here. That's a pretty damn big hole. I hope they were wearing their seatbelts.

Posted 1/25/2005 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Michael Moore, your bluff has been called.

The reason is that Michael Moore was too arrogant to allow his movie to be considered among documentaries. Instead, he hoped his movie would have solid chances in the best picture category. Yet, with no nominations, Moore’s strategy completely backfired.

2003 for his documentary “Bowling for Columbine” and probably would have had a strong chance among documentaries again this year with his anti-Bush hit piece. Yet, Moore became too heady and was caught up in the Hollywood scene.

This is not the first time that Michael Moore believed his own press clippings. Last year, he thought his one “documentary” would change the outcome of the presidential race. By the way, a more accurate description of Fahrenheit 911 would be propaganda, instead of documentary. Nonetheless, he believed that his movie was so effective in trashing George W. Bush that millions of Americans would be persuaded to vote for John Kerry. However, Bush won with a much greater margin in this election than in 2000 and the Moore movie may have actually had the opposite effect of mobilizing Bush voters.

"Michael Moore believed his own press clippings." I love it. That's a lot nicer thing to say than "Michael Moore is a big fat idiot and attention whore." Would he have won again for best documentary? Kinda a moot point, really, since it wasn't so much a documentary as it was 90 minutes of his opinions about Bush's connection with the Saud royal family. Did it reveal some things most Americans didn't know? Probably. Ground-breaking cinema? Not really. Did it have the momentum to turn the tide of the election? Obviously not, but it'd doubtful that any film could overcome the negative inertia that was John Kerry.

I don't know how much of this story is actually true, but I can't imagine Moore is too happy today's announcement. But if his movie was omitted from the Oscars due to the hubris of his own ego, which is only slightly larger than his ass, then I can't help but laugh.

Posted 1/25/2005 05:42:00 PM by Douglas

Another mouth-breathing neo-con diatribe, this time about the silliness of sovereignty.

But sovereignty often has nothing to do with ethics and one can respect sovereignty and commit ethical crimes in doing so.

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read (but hey, it was short). There is no caveat on invading another country's sovereignty, just like there's no justification for rape. The rapist can claim the woman consented, just like the invading country can claim sovereignty was breeched for good reason (which is doubtful), but at that point, you've got to admit you don't give a damn about sovereignty. If you did, it wouldn't even be an issue.

But this guy is off the scales loony toones. Besides being incredibly poorly written (and consider who that statement is coming from), it has all the brilliant political analysis and subtle examples of a high school newspaper. And this last part really sealed the deal:

President Bush understands that "sovereignty" can be the greatest cover for evil and that respect for sovereignty is a minor if sometimes necessary virtue compared to ignoring it in the interest of doing what is right and easing human suffering. We do this in our personal life and we should do it as a nation. What the President has chosen to do is accept the challenge of doing the right thing. Sometimes you can get away with it. If he achieves only 25% of his immensely difficult goals during his tenure, he should be enshrined on Mt. Rushmore.

What's hilarious about this assertion is that it didn't come from The Onion, nor does Mr. Goldberg (or any of his readers, sadly) find this the least bit hyperbolic.

The other part about this I find fascinating is that the very group to cry the loudest about "loss of sovereignty" every time a blue helmeted U.N. troop showed up anywhere in the world are now the exact same people to say that sovereignty is only important in some situations. Namely, in instances when the US thinks it isn't. Somehow, it's ok if the troops are wearing Old Glory on their shoulder. Welcome to the empire.

Posted 1/25/2005 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

I'd really like to forget the inaugural address, but there's just too much there to ignore. Besides, if Republican lapdogs like Peggy Noonan [from The War Street Journal] are criticizing his speech, he must have gone, as she says, "over the top." But what about the neo-cons? I can't believe I never thought about the similarities between them and the Jacobins:

Bush’s crazy talk has even upset rah-rah Republicans. One Republican called Bush’s speech "God-drenched." It has begun to dawn on the formerly Grand Old Party that a bloodless coup has occurred and that Republicans have lost their party to Jacobins, who cloak themselves under the term "neoconservatives."

Unlike America’s Founding Fathers, who exhorted their countrymen to cultivate their own garden, Jacobins were not content with revolutionizing France. They were driven to revolutionize the world.

President Bush’s second inaugural speech is Jacobin to the core. It stands outside the American tradition. Declaring American values to be universalist principles, Bush promised to use American power to spread democracy and to end tyranny everywhere on earth.

Considering how the current Republican party (helmed now almost completely by neocons) is now the complete antithesis of anything previously defined as "Conservative," it's easy to see how quickly a party in power will give up on its core beliefs.

Posted 1/25/2005 05:15:00 PM by Douglas

This is a pretty interesting stance to take, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.

Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.

Personally, I don't want to sit next to a chimney while I'm eating in a restaurant, but if you do and I don't have to smell it, fine. In America, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want to that doesn't affect others, but we know where that's going. Try driving down the street with a BAL of 0.078% without your seat belt on and eating a double cheeseburger. So if I want to smoke a cigarette on my own time, what business is it of my employer?

But on the other hand, the employer is in business to make money, and if he's paying out claims on his company provided insurance plan for smoking related illness, doesn't he have a right to dictate the behavior of his employees? I'd like to say yes to that, because the beauty of America is that if you don't like it, you have the freedom to rise as far as your potential will take you. But this guy goes too far.

It's not mandatory that the employer provide health insurance. They do so to be more competitive in hiring good people that actually want to work for you. So if that's eating too far into his profits, why not scrap the plan he provides altogether? Or even better, scrap the plan, and give a percentage of that contribution to the employees? But singling out one group is incredibly short sighted.

There's another group of people that are incredibly draining to health insurance. They're always going to the doctor, incur astronomical costs to group health plans, and just like smoking, their condition is 100% preventable.

Parents.

People with children are a huge drain on health plans, not to mention lost time at work. If they want to start trimming the fat from his company's health plan, it's time the get serious. But your employeer shouldn't take the liberty to "pick and choose" which conditions they're going to cover with their health insurance. Becasue if you look at this on a dollar per dollar basis, I'd be surprised as hell to find out that people missing work becuase of their children didn't outnumber smoking related illnesses 10 to 1.

Posted 1/25/2005 05:14:00 PM by Douglas

This has got to be the very best prom dress I've ever seen. [link goes to NY Post, but and I'd call it Safe for Work, but it's kinda close]

And I thought a prom dresses couldn't get any trashier when they started making a two-piece formal. Boy, was I wrong, but what does the dress's maker have to say about it?

"I was shocked when I first saw it, but now it's one of our top 20 dresses nationwide," says Nick Yeh, the CEO of Xcite, the Stafford, Texas, company that designed the dress and some 200 other styles this season.

"I have a 15-year-old daughter and, no, I would not recommend she wear this dress.

"As a businessman," he adds, "I'm not judging what a teenager should wear or not wear. It's up to the parents to decide for their own children."

Of course not, Nick.

Picture this: You're a 17 year old boy, you've got a full tank of gas and you're filled to the brim with hormones and you've got a perpetual boner that could cut glass. You've been drinkin' with your buddies all day, but you sober up long enough to put on your rented tux and go over to your date's house to pick her up, and she's wearing this. You've got to stand in front of the mantel while her dad clumsily points the autofocus Polaroid at you and his little baby girl, all grown up. Awkward? It was, as they say, "back in my day," and I'm not that old.

Ok, now WizBang is saying that The Post has the model displaying the dress backwards from its originally designed state of modesty.

Whatever. Why bother with the pretense? How 'bout a sequined miniskirt and some pasties?

Posted 1/23/2005 02:52:00 PM by Douglas

So, women can't read maps. I think we've all known this for some time, despite the new evidence this study claims to encompass. My evidence? When I was trying to give directions to a complete stranger and she said "don't draw me a map, I'm a woman, that crap means nothing to me."

In all fairness, I think she was drunk, and she had Michigan tags on her beat up station wagon (she asked me for directions south of Houston, Texas), so she obviously had a long day behind her. But anyway, let's get on with the lame joke, shall we? It's a visual.

Why do women have a hard time reading maps? Because they've always been told that this

is eight inches. . .

Thanks, Condi, and I'm sorry.

Posted 1/23/2005 02:28:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, an interesting use of my newfound bandwidth. This site has some of the most incredible photographs from American history [thanks Frank.] From Frank Lloyd Wright to this woman, who became the face of the Great Depression to those born 40 years later. Quoth the photographer:

I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Wow. And I was bitching about how there's nothing good on TV tonight. Kinda puts it in perspective, don't it?

Posted 1/23/2005 02:05:00 PM by Douglas

I find this amusing for some reason, and I'm really not sure why

Why are the bunnies trying to kill themselves? Are they sad?

Posted 1/23/2005 02:02:00 PM by Douglas

For a state legislator, doing nothing is actually worse than doing something remarkably stupid. Enter Rob Eissler. He wants to raise the legal drinking age in Texas from 21 years to 21 years and 7 hours.

To prevent others from binge drinking on their 21st birthdays, state Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, has filed a bill that would delay the celebration a bit.

The bill would make it illegal for someone to drink alcohol at a bar or restaurant before 7 a.m. on his or her 21st birthday. And if your birthday falls on Sunday, you would have to wait until noon.

So, he wants you to drink yourself to death the next day instead?

The "Cinderella bill," as Eissler calls it, is one of three pieces of legislation he has written aimed at reducing binge and underage drinking. Another bill would require Texans purchasing kegs to register with the state. And the third would prohibit bars and restaurants from serving alcoholic beverages with more than half an ounce of pure alcohol in them.

I'm hesitant to say this is the dumbest idea they've had, especially since it's coming so soon after they wanted to put BMI on kid's report cards.

But isn't a 21 year old drinking age ridiculous, anyway? An 18 year old adult can vote, marry, and be executed by the state, yet they're too irresponsible for a beer? Maybe if the state (and the rest of the country) didn't take such a puritanical stance towards alcohol and had a more moderate approach to young people drinking like say, the rest of the developed world, 21 year olds wouldn't go completely ape-shit the first chance they get to have a legal drink.

But specifically in this instance, it's sad that Michael Wagener died of alcohol poisoning. I guess. His story certainly isn't unique, and they're going to be people that die of alcohol poisoning no matter what the drinking age is. But has the Texas Legislature taken it upon themselves to enact a new law every time a dumb aggie kills themselves doing something stupid? They can't make being stupid illegal, so why not just outlaw aggies?

Posted 1/22/2005 08:37:00 PM by Douglas

Admit it: If this is true, you've got some serious health issues:

And who could resist this one:

Exactly the reason I was dragging my feet on the whole broad-band-wagon. I knew I'd just waste it on crap like this.

Posted 1/22/2005 08:29:00 PM by Douglas

Almost a week with broadband, and I have a few observations: worth1000.com does, in fact, pointlessly waste more bandwidth than legitimate pornography.

I've downloaded a few songs, and I must say that Celine Dion should be beaten with a tire iron at her earliest convenience.

Fark.com photoshop contests are highly overrated. I thought my dialup was prohibiting the hilarity from ensuing. Imagine how surprised I was to find out my crashing dialup connection was more entertaining than the photoshop threads?

Posted 1/22/2005 08:02:00 PM by Douglas

Holy crap! I hit 1,300 posts this week. I had no idea this was going to go this far. So I guess it's time I throw up my blogger profile. I'll actually put some time in on it when I hit 2,000 posts.

Posted 1/21/2005 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

Let's say you need a custom pen, but you want a lot smaller than 500. Where are you going to go to find a "pen as unique as you are?" I think you should probably reconsider hiring these guys. If they put as little thought into their URL, www.penisland.net, then their business model is in trouble.

This has to be a joke.

Whether you're looking for a long and skinny pen, a thick pen, a fountain pen that squirts ink, or even a black pen, we have just the one for you.

Nobody could be that dumb to have done this by accident.

Posted 1/21/2005 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

Kids! Tired of doing homework? Why not try what this asshat did and sue your school to get out of homework.

A student whose vacation plans were spoiled has sued to end summer homework in Wisconsin, claiming it creates an unfair workload and unnecessary stress.

Peer Larson, 17, had lined up a dream camp counselor job last June, but honors pre-calculus homework turned his summer into a headache.

"It didn't completely ruin my summer, but it did give me a lot of undue stress both at home and at work," the high school junior said Thursday. "I just didn't have the energy or the time for it."

Oh stop. You're going to make me bust out cryin'. What a loser. I would say that this kid is going to get out of school and have a very rude awakening in the "real" world, but since now everyone is suing everyone, he's just learning that aspect of the real world that much earlier.

Also, it says he's in Honors classes. Isn't that optional? If it's so hard on him, why doesn't he just drop them?

What a whiner.

Posted 1/21/2005 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

How weird is this?

A 40-year-old woman held sex and drug parties with teenage boys, telling police she wanted to be a "cool mom," authorities say.

Sylvia Johnson allegedly provided marijuana, methamphetamine and alcohol to eight boys at parties held at her suburban Denver home in 2003 and 2004. According to court papers, she admitted having sex with five of the boys.

Ewwww. Throwing a party for your teenage boys with booze and drugs? Pretty cool. Nailing five of your teenage son's friends? Definitely not cool.

That takes "your momma" jokes to a whole new level.

Posted 1/21/2005 05:31:00 PM by Douglas

More on Bush's second inaugural address. ][link may be hozed; try this one.] Holy crap! Who would have thought that Bush's speechwriters have read Dostoevsky? And why paraphrase him in an inaugural address?

In Dostoevsky's novel, that fire in the minds of men is not a yearning for liberty, but a nihilistic will to power that can only end in destruction. Put in George W. Bush's mouth, those words are not a paean to freedom, but a manifesto of pure destructionism. Like Governor Lembke, President Bush has no dearth of hardline advisers who counsel him in ways calculated to provoke a violent reaction: unlike Lembke, however, there is little chance George W. Bush will learn his lesson, even if it comes too late.

This is quite possibly the most worrisome and even frightening speech ever delivered by an American president. Its imagery of a fire burning up the world, coupled with the incendiary promise to aid "democratic reformers" against "outlaw regimes" worldwide, evokes the spirit of another murderous "idealism" – one that made the 20th century the age of mass murder. As he ranted on and on – "the expansion of freedom in all the world"; "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation"; "When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you." – Bushed sounded more like Trotsky addressing the Red Army than an American president addressing his people. The militant, overtly ideological tone had about it a distinctly Bolshevik air:

This is quite disturbing, and yet eerily prophetic.

The Hitler analogy has become so overused that it lacks all meaning. Nazis in Germany in the 1930s were very efficient at a great number of things, and there are similarities between the way the Nazi propaganda machine was operated then and the fourth estate of today, but extrapolating that out to say Bush is anywhere close to Hitler is about as valid as saying the jet engine is evil because it was developed by the Nazi. And the haphazard comparisons of Bush (or anyone) to Hitler (or Stalin) not only makes people find crap like this amusing, it desensitizes us to the things we really should be concerned with. Has Bush taken steps to limit the civil liberties of all Americans? Yes. Is he rounding up and executing large numbers of minority citizens? No, but when you focus on the latter, it robs creditability from the former.

It's much more troubling, to me, anyway, that Bush has lent his ear to the millenarial dispensationalists intent of expediting the end of the world. Google "red heifer" +Bush for some interesting reading.

Posted 1/21/2005 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

To the person that found this blog by searching for "christian belief hooter's", get help.

Posted 1/20/2005 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

The Innagural speech. I read as much as I could, but here's the synoposis of his keywords:

tyranny 5
liberty 15
freedom 27

How long 'til 2008? Not like there's anything to look forward to with the next round of losers.

Posted 1/19/2005 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

So you think that Long John Silver's is crappy fast-food? Well, you haven't been to the LJS in Conroe and asked for the green box special.

A restaurant manager accused of selling marijuana packaged in Long John Silver's to-go boxes from his car was arrested on felony drug charges after a three-month investigation by Conroe police.

They say that location is everything, so did he sell the weed before customers ordered at the drive-through, or after? I'm sure the LJS corporate office would have a different story if they were making some money off of stoned peopled buying fried fish because of this guy.

Posted 1/19/2005 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

What is Boeing doing to keep passengers happy? Increasing the humidity, of course.

When Boeing puts its 7E7 jetliner into service sometime in 2008, passengers will be able to breathe easier, literally. The sleek aircraft, made from corrosion-resistant materials, will have a fuselage that can accommodate much higher cabin humidity -- a boon for frequent travelers.

But passengers likely will place one benefit above all others: increased humidity. The 7E7 could end the stuffy noses, irritated eyes and scratchy throats that now make long flights an endurance test for passengers.

Cabin air in all current jetliners is very dry -- from 5 percent to 15 percent relative humidity, depending on where one sits, how long the flight lasts and how full the cabin is, said Boeing cabin environment expert Dave Space.

Outside air at 35,000 feet averages 68 degrees below zero, Space said -- far too cold to hold moisture, so relative humidity runs less than 1 percent. When that air is drawn into the cabin, it is heated by air conditioning packs in the plane's belly to become breathable. But cabin humidity remains low, humidified mostly by evaporation from food and beverage service and from passengers' exhalation. In first class, where there are fewer bodies, cabin humidity is 5 percent to 10 percent; in a crowded coach section, it's 10 percent to 15 percent. (By comparison, humidity in a relatively dry climate, like Southern California's, is about 30 percent.)

ECLS leads the way.

Posted 1/18/2005 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

Yesterday I finally joined the ranks of the 20th century and dumped my dial-up for DSL. When I ordered it, it was probably the least exciting purchase I've made since my last set of tires. But now that I've got the modem/wireless router up and running, I have to say wow! Since I've already got the car analogy going, I'll say that DSL makes my dial-up seem like I was driving around in a brand new car with only three wheels.

I still think that voluntarily giving a company I loathe (rhymes with horizon) an additional $30 a month makes me want to puke a little bit, but I can't complain about the service.

Now, bring on the pr0n!

Posted 1/18/2005 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

The FBI has cut its Carnivore program the same week I get DSL?

The FBI has effectively abandoned its custom-built Internet surveillance technology, once known as Carnivore, designed to read e-mails and other online communications among suspected criminals, terrorists and spies, according to bureau oversight reports submitted to Congress.

Damit, I knew I should have gone with cable!

Posted 1/18/2005 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

Hey, Fox, here's an idea. Instead of self-censoring the most cleverly written show you've had since The Simpson's, how 'bout trying not to churn out so much crap?

Fox says it covered up the naked rear end of a cartoon character recently because of nervousness over what the Federal Communications Commission will find objectionable.

The latest example of TV network self-censorship because of FCC concerns came a few weeks ago during a rerun of a "Family Guy" cartoon. Fox electronically blurred a character's posterior, even though the image was seen five years ago when the episode originally aired.

"We have to be checking and second-guessing ourselves now," Fox entertainment president Gail Berman said Monday. "We have to protect our affiliates."

Fox hadn't gotten any complaints about the cartoon. But the move follows the FCC's decision in October to fine 169 Fox stations $7,000 each for airing an episode of "Married By America" that showed people licking whipped cream from strippers' bodies and a man in his underwear being spanked by strippers.

"It's certainly confusing when you have to do something like that," Berman said. "It's just that we were trying to find our way and do what's responsible."

Am I the only one that finds it odd, no, hilarious, that a TV executive can't discern the differing levels of inappropriateness between an animated ass-crack and "people licking whipped cream from strippers' bodies and a man in his underwear being spanked by strippers?" There are really people in this world that are that stupid, and they probably make seven figure salaries.

Meanwhile, the funniest parts of the The Family Guy are getting blurred, or even worse, cut entirely. Why? So they don't piss of the sponsors of Trading Spouses: Meet your new mommy.

Those looking for evidence that we live in a just universe need to keep looking.

Posted 1/18/2005 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

So Airbus wants to build the largest commercial aircraft in the world. Should the rest of the world care? Should Boeing be scared? Probably not. Check out what the BBC has to say about it.

In fact, the presence of the politicians is far from spurious. Without government assistance, the A380 would probably never have been built.

Billions of euros have been handed over in "launch aid loans" in recent years - under generous repayment terms - to assist Airbus's development of the A380.

This has angered the US, which is home to rival aerospace giant Boeing.

Basically, this is the same airplane Boeing launched in 1969, but instead of the distinctive hump towards the forward section, its double decker runs the entire length of the fuselage, allowing Airbus to cram inside as many as 800 people.

But the main point about this super tanker-sized aeroplane is that it can fit up to 840 people into its generous hull - although a more typical seating arrangement with a large first class and business class will seat about 555 passengers.

This, Airbus insists, will change forever the market for long-haul flights.

What's new about 500 people in an airplane? The 747 can hold over 500 people, but airlines don't make any money off of that configuration because (here's the big shocker) no one wants to fly in a sardine can for 10 hours. Either case, this is hardly going to "change forever the market for long-haul flight."

Plus, what's the reason for the waning sales of the 747 over the years in favor of a smaller wide-body, like the 757? This graphic tells the whole story. The A380 can carry 33% more passengers 11% farther than the 747. Is that reason enough to spend over $11 Billion on a plane that the rest of the world has already decided is too big? Somehow I doubt that.

Posted 1/18/2005 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

Hey kids! Want to convert your bulky CDs to MP3, but you're much to ignorant and lazy to download some freeware that will rip your CDs? Have no fear, RipShark is here!

I wonder if they ever turn a profit?

Posted 1/18/2005 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

The Texas Legislature wants to put body-mass index (BMI) on kid's report cards? Does this sound like a good idea to anyone that's not dumb enough to be a state legislator in Texas? How 'bout we make BMI a re-election criteria for fat-assed lawmakers that can't pull themselves away from the buffet at Austin strip clubs?

Texas school districts would be required to include the body mass index of students as part of their regular report cards under a bill introduced today by a lawmaker seeking to link healthy minds with healthy bodies.

When the measurement, which calculates body fat based on height and weight, indicates a student is overweight, the school would provide parents with information about links between increased body fat and health problems, said Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte.

Nobody's going to argue with the "healthy mind, healthy body" approach, but does the legislature, in all its infinite wisdom, think people are fat because they just don't know it's unhealthy? Since constant ridicule isn't enough, the legislature thinks that if overweight students are publicly and officially pointed out for being fat, it will motivate them to put their physical education on par with their academic advancement. Wait a minute, where was I going with this?

Posted 1/17/2005 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

The sounds of the Cassini-Huygens probe.

Posted 1/16/2005 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

All cat owners have invariably dealt with the occasional trophy-kill their cats drag home, and while they're usually birds, squirrels or lizards, I guess it's possible in the Northern latitudes for your kitty to get a taste for moose.

Posted 1/15/2005 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting test of concentration. But my evidence shows, it only works on men. [NSFW]

Posted 1/14/2005 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

The snow peaked, tropical Mauna Kea, as seen from the Hilo side of the island.

Posted 1/14/2005 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

Looks like Huygens made it and found some oceans. No sign yet of a drunk guy in a fishing boat.

Posted 1/14/2005 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Fascinating perspective on the tsunami, and it quite possibly could have only been written by an Australian. The largest Muslim country on earth suffers the worst natural disaster of the modern era, yet it's Christians from Western nations that provide the lion's share of relief, while the Saudis have given a mere $30 Million, less than a tenth of their daily oil exports.

I gave up worrying "Why do they hate us?" on the evening of September 11, 2001. But, if I were that Osodden bin Loser guy watching the infidels truck in water, food, medical supplies and emergency clothing for villagers whose jihad-chic T-shirt collection was washed out to sea, I might ask myself a more pertinent question: "Why do they like us?"

The path of the tsunamis tracked the arc of the Muslim world, from Sumatra to Somalia; the most devastated country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the most devastated part of that country is the one province living under the strictures of sharia.

But, as usual, when disaster strikes it's the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force – coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. Since then, with the help of its Anglo-Australian allies, it's liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's not how the West's anti-war movements see it. I found myself behind a car the other day bearing the bumper sticker, "War Is Costly. Peace Is Priceless" – which is standard progressive generic autopilot boilerplate, that somehow waging war and doing good are mutually exclusive. But you can't help noticing that when disaster strikes, it's the warmongers who are also the compassion-mongers. Of the top six donor nations to tsunami relief, four are members of George W. Bush's reviled "coalition of the willing".

Where is Saudi Arabia's Billion dollar contribution? Where's the hundreds of millions of petro-dollars from Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait? How dare they just stand idly by and let their misfortunate brethren be catered to by these heathen Christians? What are they waiting for? Aren't they going to do something to stop this blatant Christian proselytization? I think Mark says it best:

Colin Powell was foolish to suggest that, in its response to this crisis, the Muslim world would come to appreciate the true nature of the US. Fat chance. "It's OK that aid from the US is here," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, spokesman for the Islamic Defender Front. "But if they open bars, sell alcohol or open prostitution centres, then we will fight them." Almascaty also warned the Australian charity Youth Off the Streets that its plan to open homes for 35,000 Indonesian orphans was all very well, but on no account was it to try converting Muslim children. Jeez, man, would it kill you once in a while just to send a box of chocolates and a card saying "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs", and leave it at that?

Exactly. "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs." Is that too much to ask? It's OK to take our aid money while you openly hate our guts. Just do me one favor: Could you take off your "Osama bin Laden ain't done with his bombin'" T-shirt? At least while you're on you way to the bank to cash your American Red Cross Aid check.

Literally, it's the least you could do.

Posted 1/14/2005 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

Before the yellow "LiveStrong" wristband became totally ubiquitous, I thought it was a good idea, but I was under the impression that it was for cancer research. At first, most people I saw wearing them were athletes, cyclists specifically. But since most Americans have the attention span of a hungry Chihuahua with ADHD, it didn't take long to turn the yellow wrist band into a meaningless fad (and a DNR order, in some places). But that wasn't enough. Of course, a collective light bulb simultaneously went on over the heads of countless symbol-minded Americans. Not content to simply rely on trendy wrist apparel to show support for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, they thought quietly to themselves, "how else can I display my one-dimensional personality to the rest of the world that doesn't involve a cap or a T-shirt?" Well that's just the kind of forward thinking that made America great!

After spending 10 days in London with friends who were outspoken about their disdain for President Bush's policies, Berns Rothchild came home wishing she had a way to show the world she didn't vote for him.

"I sort of felt ashamed, and didn't really want to be associated with being an American," said Rothchild, who lives in New York City and voted for John Kerry.

Her mother had a suggestion: bracelets, inspired by the Lance Armstrong Foundation's popular "LIVESTRONG" bands, that would signal opposition to Bush.

Finally, an idea who's time has come: When your bumper sticker just isn't adequate for displaying your political beliefs, and your "Bush Sucks" T-shirt is just a bit too gauche. Now you can have your very own blue bracelet. Or, if you think the "Count me Blue" moniker is too vague, how 'bout the more subtle hope approach? Or, if you're a New Yorker and you'd like something to go with that black turtleneck you got for Christmas, you can't go wrong with this one: It shows your disdain for the Bush Administration, and it goes with everything!

But what if you actually voted for Bush? Is there anyway you can show your support for the President when you're away from your "I support our troops" magnet on your SUV? You betcha.

And of course, you can also show your support for breast cancer research (I think) with a pink wristband.

Where's this all going? I don't know, but I can imagine a day in the not too distant future, when everyone's wrists are covered with silicone bands in every color, each one more earth-shatteringly important than the other. So get started with the new idea/color. You can order 'em here (or here) and there's a price break when you buy 50,000.

Posted 1/13/2005 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

Tony Blair, my hero!

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is defending new laws that could allow pubs in that country to stay open round-the-clock.

Later this year, pubs can apply for permission to open any hours they want.

Blair insists the longer hours won't mean a spike in drunken violence.


Licensing laws now require most pubs in England and Wales to close at 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and at 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

Blair says most people are law-abiding citizens who just want to get a drink at their convenience.

The government says flexible pub hours will result in a more relaxed attitude toward drinking. Many Britons slam down several drinks because of the early closing times.

I wonder if he'll run for Governor of Texas? He's already shown he's good at kissin' W's arse.

Posted 1/13/2005 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

The squabbling between military advisers in the Department of Defense and the actual military isn't anything new, but this article takes squabbling to a whole new level.

In the movies, it’s usually the military eager for war and combat, and the civilians and the defense department pressing for restraint. But it hasn’t been that way with the war in Iraq.

Long before President Bush gave the orders, using force to topple Saddam was a glint in the eye of the civilians who would become key players in the Bush administration.

In 1998, a neoconservative think tank called the Project for the New American Century wrote to President Clinton, “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to ‘undertake military action.’”

Even the name sounds made up: The Project for the New American Century? Who comes up with a name like that? Oh yeah, those guys. But what does the Army's top brass have to say about them? What does the commander of Iraq's ground forces have to say about the #3 guy at the pentagon?

After leaving Iraq, General Tommy Franks accused Deputy Defense Secretary Douglas Feith of underestimating Iraq’s resistance and described Feith as “The f**ng stupidest guy on the face of the earth.”

But seriously, General, tell us how you really think.

I'm not political strategists, but could this be the sign of, oh, I don't know, maybe something ain't workin' right? Why is it that none of these clowns have even lost their jobs?

Posted 1/13/2005 05:13:00 PM by Douglas

The War on Drugs has taken a temporary cease-fire in Dickinson, Texas, after 27 people got thrown in the pokey Wednesday morning. I know these stories are supposed to have a "gee, look what a good job we're doing" effect on the public, but I don't understand how. Read this quote from the Dickinson Police Chief:

"This has been going on since the late '70s in Dickinson in that area and it has progressively gotten worse," Morales said.

Ok Mayor, your turn:

Mayor Veta Winick said the arrests should have an impact on narcotics trafficking. "It shows that we are on top of it and very well aware of it and watching it and maybe they (drug dealers) will just decide to go someplace else," Winick said.

You're on top of it? It's been a known drug area for 30 years, and 27 arrests in 2005 shows you're on top of it? I sure am glad Dickinson didn't elect incompetent city officials.

Also, anyone that thinks it's now impossible to buy cocaine or crack in Dickinson, please let me know. I've got some ocean-front property for sale in Dickinson you'd probably be interested in.

Posted 1/13/2005 05:09:00 PM by Douglas

It's days like this that make me wish I lived in San Francisco. Where else in the country could we find elected officials so diligently protecting the rights of animals that they've set up building codes for dog houses?

The "backyard dog" ordinance, which is due for a final vote today, aims to "insure the humane treatment" of all dogs by tightening what have been ill- defined standards for sheltering and confining outdoor pets, most notably sentry and guard dogs.

For example, dog owners are now merely required to provide "proper" shelter -- at times that has meant a tarp to deflect rain while the dog lies belly-deep in mud. Such vagueness has made it nearly impossible to enforce laws against animal cruelty. The new law mandates a dry, off-the-ground shelter large enough for the dog to sit in.

Those are some lucky dogs out there in SanFran. So now when they're licking their own genitals and eating their own poo, they'll be safe from the harsh San Francisco weather.

Posted 1/12/2005 05:49:00 PM by Douglas

Ladies! Always wanted to know what it's like to piss down your leg? Well wait no more, because your opportunity is only a Magic-Cone away!

This is the kind of mail you get from long-time readers when you have things like this and this in your archives.

Damn, I need a life.

Posted 1/09/2005 04:43:00 PM by Douglas

Check out these snazzy new iPods! [h/t Frank]

Some of these are pretty funny, but I don't think anyone at the RIAA knows how to use one.

Labels: RIAA

Posted 1/09/2005 04:41:00 PM by Douglas

There's just something so hilarious I find in stories like this. Not that this story is funny in and of itself, but that the same scenario is repeated time and time again, and people just never seem to learn.

WACO, Texas - Swarms of Asian lady bugs, introduced in this country to control pests, have themselves become a nuisance on golf courses and in homes and gardens around Texas.

The insects are beneficial in the summer, but in the winter they infest houses — unlike native lady bugs, which prefer to stay outdoors.

Agriculture experts say the Asian bugs deposit waste and shed skins that become allergens inside homes. They can also leave blood stains on curtains and clothes.

"You hate to say lady bugs are terrible, but they've been terrible for about 60 days now," said McLennan County gardener Doug Quicksall. "They were swarming all around us like houseflies ... and the little rascals stink too. They have a distinct odor about them."

Damn, what were these things trying to get rid of, and how what that worse? What do tree aphids smell like? Just like in Cane Toads, a new species introduced into a foreign environment is going to have repercussions that far exceeds anything that humans could have planned for.

Principal Skinner, do you have any advice in this situation?

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

As usual, The Simpson's beautifully demonstrating that the line between satire and real life is razor thin.

Posted 1/09/2005 03:57:00 PM by Douglas

The headline says it all, doesn't it?

Women like men who like cats

That's not much of a surprise, is it? They're moody, easily spoiled, and if you piss 'em off, they're claw your eyes out. Of course, I'm referring to cats, so if a woman saw that one already had their proverbial (and literal) hooks in a man, seems to me that it would tell the woman that this road had already been paved, and she can proceed at her leisure without 4-wheel drive.

But we've heard that before, and the rest of the article was equally unenlightening, except for this part.

And men chose a cat's "independent spirit" as the animal's most desirable trait, while women thought that trait was a cat's least desirable trait.

Wow, really breaking some new ground with this one. Women find least desirable the same trait that 90% people who hate cats find undesirable. Go figure.

Now go check out The Carnival of the Cats at Leslie's Omnibus

Posted 1/09/2005 03:51:00 PM by Douglas

A note on this weekend's postings. If you've noticed postings this weekend are more sporadic and less coherent, and chances are, you haven't, it's because I'm as sick as a New York hooker after Fleet Week. Maybe I'll do some editing after the fever breaks.

Posted 1/07/2005 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

Not content with being the fatest city in American, Houston is now vying for the dumbest, as well. What other possible justification could there be for the City of Houston to give tow-truck drivers the authority to steal your car?

Under the program, disabled vehicles on Houston's freeways — including the shoulders — must be quickly towed for a fee of $75 for the first five miles and $1.50 for each additional mile, excluding any storage fees, if necessary.

Towing companies that have contracts with the city under the new program must try to reach stranded vehicles six minutes after they are called.

So, if you're a bored tow-truck driver and want to hook a quick $75, you can tow any car on the Houston freeway, even if it's not blocking traffic. What if you ran out of gas, and come back with a gas can in ten minutes? Sorry. What if you're changing a flat? Too bad. You're going to get towed, and the drivers have the authority to call HPD to enforce this insanity, should you get a littly mouthy in your protests.

During his helicopter ride, White said he witnessed two tows, but in both instances there were delays in getting authorization from law enforcement to complete the tows.

I love it. "Authorization from law enforcement" means that there was a person there with their freakin' car trying to keep their car from being towed, and they had to call the cops to enforce it. So why is the city intent on such an asinine plan? Hmmm, I wonder

The companies are collectively paying the city about $1 million a year for exclusive rights to serve sections of freeways within the city limit.

It all comes back to the money, doesn't it? How disgraceful. Under the guise of improving Houston's traffic problems, Mayor White has become the worst kind of shill. Contracting out a horrible policy to thugs that drive tow-trucks that have to enforce them. Isn't this guy a Democrat? Aren't they supposed to be the guys that don't screw over the little guy on the side of the road with car trouble?

Posted 1/07/2005 05:07:00 PM by Douglas

Time for some Friday cat blogging. Here, yet again, is Gatisima, with the only look on her face she's ever had: Pissed off.

Leave. Me. Alone.

Labels: gatisima

Posted 1/06/2005 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

This may be a frivolous lawsuit, but at least they're thinking.

Watching contestants eat dead rats on NBC's gross-out stunt show "Fear Factor" so disgusted a Cleveland man that he has sued NBC for $2.5 million, saying he could not stomach what he saw.

In a handwritten four-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Cleveland on Tuesday, paralegal Austin Aitken said, "To have the individuals on the show eat (yes) and drink dead rats was crazy and from a viewer's point of view made me throw-up as well an another in the house at the same time."

His suit added, "NBC is sending the wrong message to its TV watchers that cash can make or have people do just about anything beyond reasoning (sic) and in most cases against their will."

He said the show caused his blood pressure to rise so high that he became dizzy and light-headed, and when he ran away to his room, he bumped his head into the doorway.

With the flood of crappy reality shows on TV right now, I'm personally glad to see someone trying to chip away at that armor. You can't sue them because they're crappy, but if it caused you physical illness, then hey, it's a start. Maybe the guy was mad because he couldn't get on a crappy reality show, and figured this was the next best thing. Maybe that would make an interesting reality show? You get a dumb attorney and you try to figure out which one you're going to sue and on what grounds. The winner of the show gets to argue their case in front of a brain-dead, California jury.

It's not any dumber that "Who's Your Daddy."

But I think this line in the article really sums up the integrity of the plaintiff's intentions, and that he's not just out for the money:

In a brief telephone interview with Reuters, Aitken said, "I am not at liberty to discuss the complaint unless it is a paid-interview situation."

God Bless America!

Posted 1/06/2005 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

So you want to be a lawyer. You study (albeit not very hard) for that history, spend a fortune getting ready for the LSAT, wait a million tables putting yourself through law school, and send a color copy of your bar association card to your mom when you get finished. Then, after a few years of practicing as a defense attorney, you spend two plus years tirelessly researching and writing motions trying to overturn the conviction of a mother that drowned five of her own children. Way to go, George Parnham, you're an inspiration to aspiring bottom-feeding sludge suckers everywhere.

Andrea Yates' murder conviction for drowning her children in the bathtub was overturned by an appeals court Thursday because a psychiatrist for the prosecution gave erroneous testimony that suggested the Texas mother got the idea from an episode of "Law & Order."

Yates, 40, is more than two years into a life sentence after a trial that stirred national debate over mothers who kill, postpartum depression and the legal definition of insanity.

The appeals court ruling turned on the testimony of Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who consulted for "Law & Order" and helped prosecutors land a conviction in 2002. Dietz testified at the trial that shortly before Yates' crime occurred, "Law & Order" ran an episode about a woman who drowned her children and was found innocent by reason of insanity.

This is really baffling. First off, you know she's not going to walk, so the only motivation from this motion was to improve her sentence. She didn't get the death penalty (which clearly fell within the statute of a capital offense), so why bother? Are they pinging on the "Law&Order" witness trying to get shot at being a guest star?

Posted 1/06/2005 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

This site has been making the rounds today, and it's pretty funny. I mean sad.

“Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times,” said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. “From the moment we raise our head in the morning off pillows that bear those famous ‘Do Not Remove’ warnings, to when we drop back in bed at night, we are overwhelmed with warnings. Plaintiff’s lawyers who file the lawsuits that prompt these warnings argue they are making us safer, but the warnings have become so long that few of us read them anymore-- even the ones we should read. Hopefully, M-LAW’s Wacky Warning Label Contest will motivate everyone to read their warnings again, and maybe even motivate judges to get tougher on frivolous lawsuits.”

I thought the rectal thermometer one was pretty funny.

Posted 1/06/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Remember back in the good old days, when there was still a inkling of personal responsibility? Back when human beings were held personally responsible for their own actions with consequences that affected them? Yeah, me neither. This story is so damn idiotic that it doesn't bear repeating, but hey, it's kinda a theme here at the blog.

Saying their daughter shouldn't be punished for being late to school because the family van wouldn't start, a Pearland couple went to school and served an hour of detention with her Thursday.

"We should be the ones who have to serve detention," said Susan Mantis, 41.

Why? In what possible way is the student, teachers, school, parents, Wal-Mart, Ashlee Simpson, or anyone else benefiting from these idiot parents serving detention in Jr. High? Is there no distinction between the child and the adult anymore?

After the one-hour punishment her daughter, Jessica Dunkley, 13, admitted that it was "a little embarrassing" to have her mom and step-father in detention with her, but said "I'm proud of them for sticking up for what they believe in."

You are an idiot, Jessica, but only slightly smarter than your parents.

It's not the kid's job to keep the car running, and it's not the parent's job to suffer the consequences when they don't. But let's just hope they've learned a thing or two in detention, and just be thankful that you don't work with the troglodytes and have to cover their slack because these "adults" were stuck in study hall.

Posted 1/05/2005 05:39:00 PM by Douglas

A parachuting probe? hope this one does better on Titan than this one did in Utah.

In two weeks, after a seven-year journey across more than a billion miles of our solar system, a tiny space probe named after a 17th-century Dutch astronomer, Christiaan Huygens, will parachute into the atmosphere of the most intriguing, least understood moon in our solar system, Saturn's Titan.

The mission marks one of the most ambitious ever undertaken by scientists and astronomers. If successful, NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian space agency (ASI), will collect invaluable data about an incredibly remote world, in many ways considered a frozen version of early Earth.

Hopefully, there won't be any Hollywood stunt pilots to catch Huygens on Titan.

Posted 1/05/2005 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Man, I never get tired of this story. So Houston is the "fattest city" in America, yet again. I'm sure a quality publication like Men's Fitness used scientific data, such as body mass and/or average ass diameter to determine this standing.

In its nonscientific Seventh Annual Fattest and Fittest Cities Report, the magazine compares 50 cities by weighing 14 factors, including fast food restaurants per capita, TV watching, air quality, and parks.In Seattle, for example, sporting goods stores and gyms outnumber fast food joints -- a key statistic.

Houston was named the fattest city for the fourth time in five years, followed by Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis and Chicago.

I'm not trying to imply that Houston isn't without its problem, but how is this not complete and utter crap? I'm no statistician, but using sporting good stores, gyms, and fast food joints per capita, to determine fatness is like using Madonna CD sales to determine homosexuality. (wait, maybe that's a bad example.) Anyhoo.

Let your freak flag fly, Houston. You're beautiful just how you are.

Posted 1/05/2005 05:31:00 PM by Douglas

Here's a guy you don't want to go drinkin' with. At the end of the night, he's the only one that's going to know what happened to your pants.

Incredulous doctors made five blood tests on a drunken man to confirm he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.914, far above the usual life-threatening range, police and doctors said Tuesday.

The 67-year-old man, whose name was not released, was hospitalized Dec. 20, when a car knocked him down on a street in the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv.

A breath test showed high blood alcohol level, but police officers thought the result was inaccurate, because the man was conscious and talked with them, said Col. Angel Rangelov, head of police in Plovdiv.

Laboratory analysis of five subsequent blood samples taken the same day confirmed that the man had had a 0.914 blood alcohol content, Rangelov said. An 0.55 blood-alcohol level is usually considered as life-threatening.

I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say that we've all been on a bender at one time in our lives. But if your BAL ever reaches 2 proof, you need to slow it the hell down.

Of course, the only way anyone could get this drunk is through severe liver failure, but how it didn't kill him is yet to be determined. All I know is that if my blood had more alcohol in it than Oklahoma beer, I'd think about quitting.

Posted 1/05/2005 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting campaign, but is this really for Chinese new year?

Something tells me that "renting" a girlfriend in China has very little to do with impressing your parents.

Reminds me of a saying I heard from my flight instructor one day. The "three F's", he called it: "If it flies, fucks, or floats, you're always better off renting."

Posted 1/05/2005 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

You'd think it'd take a lot to get booed by 72,000 fans at the Orange Bowl, or rather, it'd take very little. Talent, that is.

Ashlee Simpson's Orange Bowl halftime performance was a lemon, according to the 72,000-plus Miami crowd. The 20-year-old singer received a discernible chorus of boos following a performance of her song "La La."

Simpson was among a trio of halftime performers Tuesday night in a game that saw Southern California overwhelm Oklahoma 55-19. The camera cut away from her face as the booing began.

I think every blog entry about this trollop is going to give me acid reflux disease.

Your fifteen minutes is at 14:56 and counting. Please, just go away.

Posted 1/05/2005 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Here's a picture of a Hawaiian Sea Turtle I've named Terrance. No, he's not dead, as I saw him swim ashore on the black sand beach at Punalu'u.

What was amazing was how quickly the fat, hateful tourists quickly ignored the "stay 15 feet away from sea turtles" as soon as he swam up. I don't know, maybe he enjoys the paparazzi. . .

Posted 1/02/2005 02:37:00 PM by Douglas

Dave Barry, healing the nation.

Do we truly believe that all red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying roadkill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that all blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?

Yes. This is called "diversity," and it is why we are such a great nation - a nation that has given the world both nuclear weapons and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Right on, Dave. And here's his 2004 wrap-up that's good for a chuckle.

Posted 1/02/2005 02:26:00 PM by Douglas

The 86 rules of Boozing. No arguement here.

Posted 1/02/2005 02:18:00 PM by Douglas

Turns out, I'm not the only one that thinks Blockbuster sucks.

This is why entertainment giant Viacom divested itself of Blockbuster in October. Viacom's brass said they believed Blockbuster would be better off on its own. What they meant was that Viacom would be better off without Blockbuster.

Broadband is going to kill off the DVD eventually, too, so there's not much reason to start mourning the loss of Blockbuster, especially since they're responsible for shutting down every local video store in the world.

Just before Christmas, Blockbuster said it would lower its monthly fee from $17.49 to $14.99 for its Netflix-like service. That announcement came shortly after Blockbuster said it would cut late fees for in-store rentals. Blockbuster said it expects to lose income of between $250 million and $300 million for 2005 as a result of eliminating late fees.

Imagine that. Taking a quarter-billion dollars a year from customers who are too busy, too lazy or too forgetful to return their videos. This is a business model that deserves to die.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds this ridiculously absurd. But does this mean I'm not going to get two weeks of free DVDs from them? Of course not.

Posted 1/01/2005 02:26:00 PM by Douglas

Happy New Year! Wanna see a black sand beach on the north side of Hawai'i surrounded by sea cliffs? Sure ya do.

Pololu Point, kids.