Posted 5/31/2006 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

My best Samuel L. Jackson voice: "When I got done with the world cup soccer ball, it didn't look like a gawd-damned maxi pad.

Seriously. Is it part of a world-wide effort to make 90 minutes of pointless running seems that much more menstrual?

Posted 5/31/2006 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

The best writers on Law&Order couldn't have come up with something this weird if they tried.

A couple sat by their daughter's hospital bedside for weeks after an auto accident until she came out of a coma and they realized she was not their daughter after all, but another blond-haired young woman injured in the wreck. Their own daughter, it turned out, was dead and buried.

In a tragic mix-up, one family had been incorrectly told their daughter had died in the April 26 crash in Indiana, and another was erroneously informed their daughter was in a coma.

The two young women — both students at Indiana's Taylor University — looked remarkably alike, and the one in a coma suffered facial swelling, broken bones and cuts and bruises, and was in a neck brace.

The family of Laura VanRyn, 22, disclosed the mix-up Wednesday on a Web log that they had used to record detailed updates on the young woman's recovery.

Blogs: Is there anything they can't do?

Posted 5/31/2006 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

I grew up in the sticks, so I never really understood the Houston/Dallas 'rivalary', if you can even call it that. The problem with a State like Texas, where its average resident has an ego bigger than their pickup, is that when two of the nation's top ten largest metropolitan areas are in one state (and both refuse to admit the existence of San Antonio), there's bound to be some bad blood. So it's no surprise that Dallas wants to be a total douche bag when it comes to the pending hurricane evacuation of the Gulf Coast.

With hurricane season bearing down, a crucial part of the state's elaborate disaster evacuation plan has already hit gridlock: Dallas is balking at a request to harbor as many as 40,000 of Harris County's neediest evacuees.

Well really, who can blame them? This has been hotly debated, but Houston's murder rate has definitely shot up (no pun intended [ok, a little bit it was]) since Katrina gave us the worst New Orleans had to offer. So what's their excuse?

"It would be a little bit of a chaotic situation if we got 40,000 people," Shaw said. "We are not going to be able to house anywhere near a 40,000 special needs population."

The state can't make any city take special needs evacuees, meaning if "Big D" ultimately refuses to open shelters for them, they'll have to be transported even farther away to wait out the storm.

The American Red Cross has said it can provide shelters for 15,000 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and surrounding counties.

As part of that total, Dallas could handle up to 6,000 evacuees by opening Reunion Arena and the convention center, said Shaw, who also estimated that Fort Worth could open shelters for 3,000.

Wow, that's just amazing. The article goes on to say that Houston sheltered over 27,000 people after Katrina, with little notice, but Metro Dallas and its almost Six Million residents could only endure 9,000? A good tornado through Hurst-Euless-Bedford and on through the trailer parks of Keller would create many more than 9,000 homeless in the D-FW area, so what, pray tell, would Dallas have these people do then? Just don't send 'em to Houston, cause we're full

Fucking snobs.

Posted 5/30/2006 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

Every mother has a hard time making excuses as to why her baby is acting like a little devil. So why pass up on this one chance at an incredible excuse?

PREGNANT Melissa Parker is battling to have her baby induced before June 6 as she is terrified of giving birth to the DEVIL.

Superstitious Melissa said her blood ran cold when told her child was due on 06/06/06 or 666 — the number of the beast.

Come on. It's just a day. There are many more examples of bad parenting why your kid is going to grow up to be a whining pain in the ass other than his birthday. Get over yourself.

Posted 5/30/2006 05:47:00 PM by Douglas

What to do with that stack of worthless AOL CDs you've got in your office. Ok, maybe I'm the only one, but I've got a few thousand of them. Then today, I saw this and it embodied everything sacred to me. Collecting crap, Legos, trap shooting. Of course I'm talking about a the Lego-CD thrower. Of course there's video! [here and here.]

Posted 5/30/2006 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

This is funny. No one would ever accuse Greenpeace of overreacting, would they?

Before President Bush touched down in Pennsylvania Wednesday to promote his nuclear energy policy, the environmental group Greenpeace was mobilizing.

"This volatile and dangerous source of energy" is no answer to the country's energy needs, shouted a Greenpeace fact sheet decrying the "threat" posed by the Limerick reactors Bush visited.

But a factoid or two later, the Greenpeace authors were stumped while searching for the ideal menacing metaphor.

We present it here exactly as it was written, capital letters and all: "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]."

I'm sure being the educated Leftists that they are, the Greenpeacer that wrote that knows that "factoid" means inaccurate, right? Cause to me, this makes it even funnier.

Posted 5/28/2006 05:50:00 PM by Douglas

Thank you, state of Texas, for protecting us from the most menacing force that threatens to kill you and everyone you care about. I'm talking about, of course, the high dive.

But not this summer. When the pool opens Memorial Day weekend, the Cottonwood high dive won’t be there. The reason: Section L of Chapter 265 of the Texas Administrative Code, which prescribes clearances for diving boards, depths of water, and slopes of pool bottoms as they rise from deep end to shallow. The new rules became effective in September 2004. To oversimplify, they call, respectively, for greater, deeper, and gentler. Many municipalities gave their noncomplying pools a reprieve last season. But this summer, no exceptions.

I hoped the link was to The Onion, but alas, this appears to be legit. And how sad. The high dive is such a rite of passage. That's where the "big kids" played. To ignore the hierarchy of the pool and try to jump off the high dive prematurely would ultimately result in mere embarrassment, but you were sure it meant death. I guess that's why the first time I tried it, I went over with a life jacket. But I digress. Who is responsible for this madness?

Cast in the role of natatorial killjoy in this sad story is Katie Moore, a registered sanitarian with the Texas Department of State Health Services, the agency responsible for the new rules. While others worry about hang time and water displacement, Moore worries about broken necks—or the potentiality of a broken neck. Or, presumably, in the case of the cannonball, even a contused butt cheek.

“I sympathize,” she says. “I know diving boards are a lot of fun. But why wait until someone is injured?” Moore says “there are studies all over the place” proving that diving boards put swimmers in peril.

Preemption scores another victory. Sure they're fun, but what if? What if?!? DWI laws paved the way for this mindset, and now it's mainstream. Get ready for more of this. Crazy parent that blows everything out of proportion by comparing everything you don't like to the Nazis, drive it home for us:

“To me, it’s such a safety Nazi type of thing,” John Lanius says. “You can’t even find a merry-go-round anymore. We’re protecting our kids out of childhood.”

Yeah, what he said. I'm sure that was the first complaint made by the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto: No Diving.

Posted 5/27/2006 12:19:00 PM by Douglas

I've always had a problem when people us the term 'judgmental in the pejorative sense. Making a judgment is considering options and deciding which one is better. There's nothing wrong with that. It's what separates us from the rest of the animals.

As he puts it, "We don't have to actually have gall bladder surgery or lounge around on a Caribbean beach to know that one of these is better than another."

Gilbert has spent 15 years at Harvard's Social Cognition and Emotion laboratory investigating how people imagine what will make them happy, and why they so often get it wrong.

He has found that small pleasures like coming home to a house no worse than the neighbor's is more likely to yield long-term joy than inheriting $1 million, getting a big promotion or being elected president.

"It's the frequency and not the intensity of positive events in your life that leads to happiness, like comfortable shoes or single malt scotch," he says.

Exactly. Happiness is a path, not a destination, and you can't make the right decisions (judgments), you'll never get on it.

Posted 5/26/2006 04:26:00 PM by Douglas

What the hell is an Aluminium Falcon? Pretty funny collect call from Darth Vader.

Posted 5/25/2006 05:30:00 PM by Douglas

Global warming, raising sea levels, bird flu, cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria, blah blah blah.

Within the next century, hotter weather in Central Texas will lead to longer droughts, the amount of water making its way into the Edwards Aquifer will drop, crops may wither, and the tree line that divides lush East Texas and bone-dry West Texas — it now sits just along Interstate 35 — might push east. Austin, in short, could start looking a lot like San Angelo.

Maybe all the freaks and hippies will go back to Cali, then? I can dream, can't I?

Texas can expect "more heat waves, worse air quality, increased risk of disease, droughts, wildfires and coastal erosion," warned the report, titled "Fair Warning: Global Warming and the Lone Star State."

Heat waves? In Texas? Nooooooo!!!!

The report acknowledges that the scenarios it presents are "not a guaranteed list of date-certain predictions," and, indeed, the report is peppered with woulds, coulds, likelys and mays.

And lots of "We just pulled this out of our collective asses.

But the authors say that global warming itself has already begun, and climate change will not be stopped unless there is local and international action to curtail emission of greenhouse gases.

This is what I really love about people that pump out this drivel. They think that global warming is caused by a lack of legislation or funding.

The report paints a bleak picture of Texas' future, especially along its coastline. The sea level will rise, threatening low-lying communities along Texas' coast and destroying species that rely on coastal ecosystems. A 1-foot increase in sea levels would cover about 400 square miles of Texas coast, displacing many of the 1.6 million coastal county residents and flooding barrier islands, according to the report.

I invite these Leftist do-gooders to visit the Texas coast. From Bacliff to Port Aransas, the vast majority of coastal Texas is one giant turd, one that narrowly avoids getting flushed to the sea by a string of hurricanes each and every summer. Think how much classier Coastal Beeville and Port Katy would be? I for one am submitting the charter for the Alice Yacht Club right now.

But what's the big picture?

"West Texas will simply be drier than it is now, if that's possible," he said. "The tree line will simply move to the east." College Station will look like Austin, and Austin will look like cities to the west.

"Water will become increasingly expensive," he predicted. "But it doesn't mean the end of Austin: A lot of people live in Phoenix."

Oh my gawd, the sky is falling? We're all gonna die! Salamanders will die!! We've got to get the government to do something about this, and fast!!! But, if we don't, don't worry about being personally inconvenienced. They're be plenty of electricity for your A/C at your Lake Travis house, and gas for your SUV and water for your lawn. It works in Phoenix, right?

Self-serving Leftist crap and their narrow, unenlightened self-interests. How they amuse me so. Kinda goes with this cartoon.

Labels: global warming

Posted 5/25/2006 05:09:00 PM by Douglas

I've been looking for an article like this for a while. Not really all to poignant, but it says what I've been noticing. Stupid is cool:

The deadliest business hazard of our time is the result of a sea change in the American approach to education that occurred early in the 1970s. Across the United States, conventional educational standards were tossed out the window, replaced with feel-good theories like "whole-language learning" that emphasized personal fulfillment over the accumulation of hard knowledge. As a result, we now have two generations of men and women who expect gold stars not for succeeding, but simply for trying. And, sometimes, merely for showing up.

But sheer stupidity is not the greatest danger presented by the current crop of blank slates. It is the arrogance bred of ignorance that constitutes an unparalleled descent into goofiness. The most profound risk they represent springs not from their cluelessness, but from their inability to recognize their own limitations.

The arrogance bred of ignorance. What a perfect description. Being the smart nerd has never been cool, but as I recall my primary education, equal ridicule was bestowed on the dumbass that didn't know anything, either. Not the case now. I was speaking with a graduate from one of the best engineering schools in the country when I was informed the answer to my question was something that they weren't "supposed" to know. I was floored. When this trend can zap the curiosity out of engineer, I don't think there's much hope for anyone.

Posted 5/22/2006 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Civil War photographs. I could spend a few days here.

Posted 5/18/2006 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

The number of airports that can accommodate the Airbus' behemoth A380 has increased by 100%. Now there are two.

The compatability tests, meanwhile, were being carried out with BAA, which is spending 450 million pounds (664 million euros, 848 million dollars) on work to accommodate such huge aircraft.

The A380, which can transport between 555 and 840 people, or 40 percent more than the Boeing 747, was to return to Berlin early Friday.

Good for them. I still wouldn't get in the damn thing.

Posted 5/18/2006 05:13:00 PM by Douglas

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And if involves a large, up front payment and long-term commitment and you're required to establish a 'base,' chances are you're getting screwed, and not in a good way. Good to see that someone has a pyramid scheme direct marketing approach to high gas prices.

A small, smelly green ball marketed as a "gas pill" that saves fuel when dropped into a car's tank is worthless and part of an illegal pyramid scheme, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Wednesday.

Abbott announced a lawsuit against the maker of the pill, a day after a San Antonio judge signed a temporary restraining order forcing the company to cease alleged deceptive acts and freeze its assets.

The pills are dropped into vehicle gas tanks with the promise of drastically improved mileage at a time of skyrocketing fuel costs, but Abbott said they are merely the same chemicals used in mothballs and toilet bowl deodorant bars.

According to the lawsuit, the company makes money by getting consumers to purchase in bulk, then sell the pills to others. The company has hosted seminars throughout the state to find new customers.

The company Web site says "area managers," who buy in with 13 bottles for $499, can earn up to $730,000 a year. It also boasts that 1,000 new customers are signing up every two days. The company claims about 4,500 members in Texas.

Abbott said his office investigated after getting complaints, and tested the pills at the University of Texas.

Ronald Matthews, a mechanical engineering professor, said he studied the chemical compound of the pills last week and found them to be mostly naphthalene and high molecular weight alkanes, which he said are worthless to improving gas mileage.

Dr. Matthews to the rescue! What a joke. I found this after some quick googling, and my initial reaction is that it's total bullshit. Not that I have any idea about the chemical composition of the 'gas pill', but I seriously doubt that this many people know how to calculate their car's mileage. And to calculate the percentage difference? Not likely. And this isn't encouraging, either.

We are right now working with OUR Attorneys to vigorously defend OUR Company. Over the next few days you will be hearing and seeing some negative press. When you are successful in your industry a lot of people take shots at you because they want to obtain the success that the BioPerformance family has created. Just like Amway, Herbalife and Mary Kay we will come out of this challenge stronger than ever!

Yeah, if you want to compare yourself to the cult of Amway and Mary Kay (don't know about Herbalife, but judging from the number of fat people around here, I might as well lump 'em in, too) then I think you are casting your own die.

Posted 5/18/2006 05:02:00 PM by Douglas

I understand the act of toppeling the statues of dispotic tyrants, but Bob Wills?

Vandals toppled a wooden statue of the King of Western Swing. Now he has to wear a sling.

We came in (Wednesday) morning, and he was laying on his back with his arm broken off," said Clair Devers of the Lone Star Music store in Gruene, home of the 8-foot-tall carving of Bob Wills by local musician Doug Moreland.

The music store and a radio station offered a $500 reward for information leading to an arrest. The vandalism apparently happened early Wednesday and could not have been accomplished easily.

Good thing this didn't happen in Turkey. You'd get your ass kicked for pulling that kind of crap up there.

Posted 5/16/2006 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

The war on drugs is absolutely lubricious, but this article makes some sense, no matter how wacky this guy is:

If you think we've got a wasteful bureaucracy now, just wait until the American state is the cocaine kingpin. The government can't even deliver hurricane aid, much less heroin to all the Americans who need it.

At any rate, like any decent proponent of American capitalism, I would far prefer to see Afghan warlords and Mexican organized crime figures make the money and provide these key medical services. The American government will simply use the increased revenue to fund the war/torture machine.

By comparison to Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, drug cartels are positively benevolent.

Ouch, but true.

What I find most humorous about all of this is that the drug dealers and the neo-prohibitionists are on the same side. I can recall back to the college days when my druggie friend's worst nightmare is that they'd make weed legal. At 19, it was much more difficult to get beer than it was to get weed: Legalizing it would have killed his business.

Posted 5/16/2006 05:36:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting map representation of the world we live in and even more interesting categories. What about literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy? The Left doesn't have those topics to demonize the West with any longer.

Here's an even more interesting world map site, but from all I can tell, you can't compare/overly maps. That would be interesting to see the total land area overlayed with the fruit imports.

Posted 5/16/2006 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Make babies, white people! Wait, why do I hate Fox News so much? Oh yeah. This shit.

Posted 5/16/2006 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers that invaded America on September 11, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia. Is this going to become important? Oh, I don't know, maybe, as long as we're not talking about a long, protracted culture war with these good folk:

"One must think, do they want their daughter, their sister, or their wife to appear in this way. Of course, no one would accept this," the newspaper Okaz quoted Abdullah as saying.

Shudder. Your daughter, sister, or wife in the paper. Get this guy a copy of Juggs, stat!

King Abdullah has told Saudi editors to stop publishing pictures of women as they could make young men go astray, newspapers reported Tuesday.

The king's directive, made in a meeting with local editors, caused surprise as the monarch has been regarded a quiet reformer since he took office in the ultra-conservative country last August.

In recent months, newspapers have published pictures of women - always wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf - to illustrate stories with increasing regularity. Usually the stories have had to do with women's issues. The papers have also started publishing a range of views on causes that are not generally accepted in Saudi Arabia - such as women having the right to drive and vote.

The king told editors on Monday night that publishing a woman's picture for the world to see was inappropriate.

If a picture of a woman in a burka is going to be inappropriate and "lead men astray", then the occupation is going to go on for the next 200 years. That's about how long it will take the MTV culture, our largest export, to permeate their culture.

Posted 5/14/2006 03:53:00 PM by Douglas

I'm not too worried about "preventing identity theft," because it's just the tip o the iceberg.

Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.

They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.

ChoicePoint is but one. Identix, Acxiom, just to name a few of the biggies. See, I read this book, and now I can't seem to shut up about it.

Posted 5/14/2006 03:26:00 PM by Douglas

Four words: Chuck Norris Action Jeans. Or maybe "Won't bind your legs."

This ad was in every Boy's Life I've ever read. My brother and I thought it was lame in the mid 80s. Imagine my dismay at his resurgence.

Posted 5/14/2006 03:09:00 PM by Douglas

I like animals as much as the next guy, but this is getting absurd, and no, it didn't come from The Onion:

The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act states that anyone depending on an animal to function should be allowed full access to all private businesses that serve the public, like restaurants, stores and theaters. The law specifies that such animals must be trained specifically to assist their owner. True service animals are trained in tasks like finding a spouse when a person is in distress, or preventing people from rolling onto their stomachs during seizures.

But now, because the 2003 Department of Transportation document does not include language about training, pet owners can claim that even untrained puppies are "service animals," Ms. Froling said. "People think, 'If the D.O.T. says I can take my animal on a plane, I can take it anywhere,' " she said.

Aphrodite Clamar-Cohen, who teaches psychology at John Jay College in Manhattan and sees a psychotherapist, said her dog, a pit bull mix, helps fend off dark moods that began after her husband died eight years ago. She learned about psychological support pets from the Delta Society, a nonprofit group that aims to bring people and animals together, and got her dog, Alexander, last year. "When I travel I tell hotels up front that 'Alexander Dog Cohen' is coming and he is my emotional-needs dog," she said. She acknowledged that the dog is not trained as a service animal.

He is necessary for my mental health," she said. "I would find myself at loose ends without him."

[...]

These days people rely on a veritable Noah's Ark of support animals. Tami McLallen, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, said that although dogs are the most common service animals taken onto planes, the airline has had to accommodate monkeys, miniature horses, cats and even an emotional support duck. "Its owner dressed it up in clothes," she recalled.

There have also been at least two instances (on American and Delta) in which airlines have been presented with emotional support goats. Ms. McLallen said the airline flies service animals every day; all owners need to do is show up with a letter from a mental health professional and the animal can fly free in the cabin.

What does an untrained pit bull mix do for the emotional anxiety of the other 130 people that are stuck in the plane? Does it help anything if its owner is calm when it starts eating the face off a baby? I guess I'm kinda torn by this lunacy, because while I can't imagine sitting in a plane for several hours next to someone's therapy goat, I also can't imagine how that would be any worse than sitting next to most children. A goat might shut up every once in a while, and probably could be trained to not kick the back of my seat, unlike most children. And it definitely couldn't possibly smell any worse.

Posted 5/12/2006 05:55:00 PM by Douglas

For everyone that has a brother. Happy Mother's Day!

Posted 5/12/2006 05:52:00 PM by Douglas

I don't live in Dallas, so the Wright amendment affects me minimally, so I guess that doesn't afford me an opinion in this matter. But as a libertarian, I'll say that there's no way that more government imposed regulation is keeping prices down. It's laughable.

Of course, those that want to close Love Field (in favor of D/FW) have their spin machines, too. Check AA's site here, and I don't even know who's paying for this one.

Short answer: Southwest Airlines is making money, in a time when other airlines claim they need support from the Fed to stay afloat. Maybe instead of stifling SWA's market we look at what they're doing right and transpose that on the rest of the industry, instead of trying to trample on their hub.

Posted 5/12/2006 05:31:00 PM by Douglas

A great story of the lack of decorum in the civilized world. This time, Austrailia.

WHAT a human catastrophe is the doctrine of human rights! Not only does it give officialdom an excuse to insinuate itself into the fabric of our lives but it has a profoundly corrupting effect on youth, who have been indoctrinated into believing that until such rights were granted (or is it discovered?) there was no freedom.

Worse still, it persuades each young person that they are uniquely precious, which is to say more precious than anyone else; and that, moreover, the world is a giant conspiracy to deprive them of their rightful entitlements. Once someone is convinced of their rights, it becomes impossible to reason with them; and thus the reason of the Enlightenment is swiftly transformed into the unreason of the psychopath.

Posted 5/12/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Ring Tones. Apparently to the stupid, they've become a multimillion dollar industry. To the non-stupid, they've become an annoyance at work, at restaurants, and even at diplomatic events, as exemplified here.

Before Mashhadani ordered television cameras switched off, he clashed angrily with Gufran al-Saidi, a woman legislator from the Alliance, who said Mashhadani’s security men had beaten her aide on Monday when her phone went off in the parliamentary lobby - playing a Shia religious chant.

Saidi and three other members of parliament from the dominant Shia Islamist bloc insisted Mashhadani had told them the bodyguard was dead.

And let's not forget the ones right here in Texas.

A ringtone about deportation that Cingular Wireless LLC pulled for being "blatantly offensive" was satire and shouldn't be taken seriously, said the company that developed the lyrics.

Barrio Mobile apologized Thursday but said "La Migra" — a slang term for Border Patrol agent — written by Mexican-American comic Paul Saucido was not meant to be racist.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but what the hell's wrong with your phone ringing like a phone? Do we have to maintain our individuality and oppress a minority with each and every phone call?

Posted 5/07/2006 03:40:00 PM by Douglas

From the generator.

Smoe pelope hvae too mcuh tmie on tiher hnads and wstae it winritg spiutd cdoe on the ieterntns

Posted 5/07/2006 01:49:00 PM by Douglas

Man, this website is fun. Check it out.

Posted 5/06/2006 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

And be sure and tune in next week when they wear red shirts with their khaki pants and hang out at target.

Posted 5/06/2006 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Because on some level, every guy secretly wants to shave his
nads.

This is as hilarious as it is creepy. Check out the music video.

Posted 5/06/2006 02:40:00 PM by Douglas

I have no idea how I missed this one this Thursday:

May the Fourth be with you!

Also, it looks like director turned whore Darth Greedious doesn't have enough money, so he's re-rereleasing the original (read: good) trilogy in its original (read: non-fucked up) form:

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

See the title crawl to Star Wars before it was known as Episode IV; see the pioneering, if dated, motion control model work on the attack on the Death Star; groove to Lapti Nek or the Ewok Celebration song like you did when you were a kid; and yes, see Han Solo shoot first.

See the movie as it came out before Lucas had to fuck up everything and ruin my childhood.

Also, what a perfect opportunity to stick it to all the loyal fans that bought the "remastered" versions in 2004 when they came out. Now those suckers have to shell out even more money to Darth Greedious just to see Han shoot first.

Posted 5/06/2006 02:01:00 PM by Douglas

Here's some video of Bush's reaction to Colbert's press secretary audition tape. His reaction to Helen Thomas' questions about the Iraq war are classic Bush: Smug and condescending. Transcript here.

And if you have the time/bandwidth, be sure and check out Colbert at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. His Coalition of the Whining may be the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV.

Posted 5/06/2006 10:24:00 AM by Douglas

Much ink has been given to Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, but I really like this one. As it says, the truthiness hurts.

His point was spot-on. Irony is dangerous and must be handled with care. But America can rest assured that for the moment its powers are in good hands. Stephen Colbert, the current grandmaster of the art, knows exactly what he was doing.

Yes he does, but does anyone else? I know that (most of) the people in the room at the WHCAD have above average intellect, but as I've said many times before: Turn on Colbert for 10 minutes and then compare with Hannity O'Reiley. The only difference is Colbert is trying to be funny, and the others don't know how ridiculous they seem. It's still hilarious, but something about his performance at the WHCAD left me cold. The irony of his satire is lost when he's performing in front of the people he's satirizing. And apparently I'm not the only one:

Political Washington is accustomed to more direct attacks that follow the rules. We tend to like the bland buffoonery of Jay Leno or insider jokes that drop lots of names and enforce everyone's clubby self-satisfaction. (Did you hear the one about John Boehner at the tanning salon or Duke Cunningham playing poker at the Watergate?) Similarly, White House spinmeisters are used to frontal assaults on their policies, which can be rebutted with a similar set of talking points. But there is no easy answer for the ironist. "Irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function," wrote David Foster Wallace, in his seminal 1993 essay "E Unibus Pluram." "It's critical and destructive, a ground clearing."

The direct assault is always easier to defend. Leno's wise-assery is easy to detect and refute. It's not obvious to everyone that Colbert is joking, and that's his genius, and why he bombed.

But nearly half a century later, the ideas of the French, as evidenced by our "freedom fries," have not found a welcome reception in Washington. The city is still not ready for Colbert. The depth of his attack caused bewilderment on the face of the president and some of the press, who, like myopic fish, are used to ignoring the water that sustains them. Laura Bush did not shake his hand.

It's one thing to say the emperor is wearing a funny hat. It's quite another to say that the emperor has no clothes, and that's exactly what Colbert does every night at 10:30.

Posted 5/06/2006 10:00:00 AM by Douglas

They always know which cars to pull over.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers beat the odds Thursday and hit a jackpot of drugs worth more than $195,000 and two arrests.

Two separate busts - about 40 miles apart along Interstate 40 at the exact same time Thursday - yielded 467 pounds of pot.

If you've got 400 pounds of marijuana and you're going through Texas on I-40, drive the speed limit, and if you get pulled over, don't consent to a search.