Posted 1/30/2006 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

And now for today's dismal economic forecast. We're not only spending more than we make, but more than we have.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing.

The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs.

With employment growth strong now, analysts said that different factors are at play. Americans feel they can spend more, given that the value of their homes, the biggest asset for most families, has been rising sharply in recent years.

Wow, this hasn't happened since the Great Depression? And what the hell was so damn great about it? Anyhoo, we still have our homes, right? That 10% increase per year is pretty much guaranteed, right? Oh Shit!

Paradoxically, the sudden halt to sharply rising home prices put a squeeze on many borrowers, analysts said. Homeowners who stretched their finances to the limit to buy a home found it more difficult to make their payments on variable-rate mortgages as interest rates rose, but they were less able to refinance their loans at more attractive rates -- or sell and pay off their debts -- because the value of their homes fell or remained flat.

''When prices are skyrocketing, you have the option" of selling the house for a gain or refinancing, said Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

''In an economy where price appreciation is more modest or doesn't exist, what option do you have left?" he said. ''Sadly, one of those options is foreclosure."

Well what the hell did you expect? Is it going to go up forever, and if so, then why did that ignorant asshole sell it to you? It could be worse, I suppose. You could have an wosre. You could have an interest-only mortgage. The understatement of the century:

Interest-only payment periods almost never run for the entire term of the loan, even when a fixed-rate mortgage is the underlying instrument.

Sure it does. It's called a banker's wet-dream. What they don't tell you is that the term of the loan is infinity.

Posted 1/30/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Happy Birthday, Timmy. I baked you a special cake because I know how much you like cats.

Regardless of age, is there anyone that thinks that feces is funny?

Posted 1/29/2006 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Why do American cars so voraciously suck? Because that's the kind of cars we want.

America's tempestuous affair with the car has become a passionless marriage. Americans still need their cars, but the world has changed and they no longer really love them. Chrysler was taken over by Germany's Daimler. Japanese firms, such as Toyota and Honda, are opening plants as Ford shuts down.

There's a lot more to it than that, but it's true that we no long really want to be identified with our cars. But there's some chicken&egg going on with that aspect as well. Do all new cars look the same because we don't identify with them, or do we not identify with them because they all look the same? I don't know, but I do know if they started making a car that looked like a 1940 Chevrolet, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But all the "nostalgia" styling Detroit can come up with is the PT Cruiser and the HHR, both of which look like a hearse.

The Age of the American car is passing into nostalgia. Latham once studied a slew of road movies from the early 1990s in which old American cars were nostalgically treated. The most famous was Thelma and Louise, in which two put-upon women find freedom in an open-top T-Bird. At the end of the film, the heroines hold hands and drive off the edge of a cliff.

It is a fitting image for the death of a slice of the American Dream. After decades of the car being so much more than just a mode of transport - of symbolising industry, art, freedom, sex, a triumphant America - it has now become simply a way of getting from A to B.

Sad, but true. Toyota will soon overtake GM as the world's largest auto maker, and while I can't decry corporate Darwinism, I can be saddened by the day when every car is a Toyota Camry, a boring car for boring people.

Posted 1/29/2006 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

A year flies by so quickly. I just know I'm going to be writing "cock" on my checks all next week.

Colorful "lion dances," red and gold banners, and traditional foods prepared for good luck are symbols often used to mark today's start of the Lunar New Year.

Lunar New Year is a 15-day celebration that starts every year in January or February, depending on the moon's cycle, and is celebrated by many cultures, including the Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans.

And no, I never tire of that joke.

Posted 1/29/2006 05:03:00 PM by Douglas

There are liars, damn liars, and then there are statisticians. I couldn't get that phrase out of my head as I was reading this new study claiming private school students scored lower on math tests than kids in public schools. Well, "scored" is a relative term, because the private school kids actually "scored" higher, but when you reduce the data the way theses guys did to take into account factors that would give private school kids lower scores, then you would be correct.

Though private school students have long scored higher on the national assessment, commonly referred to as "the nation's report card," the new study used advanced statistical techniques to adjust for the effects of income, school and home circumstances. The researchers said they compared math scores, not reading ones, because math was considered a clearer measure of a school's overall effectiveness.

The study found that while the raw scores of fourth graders in Roman Catholic schools, for example, were 14.3 points higher than those in public schools, when adjustments were made for student backgrounds, those in Catholic schools scored 3.4 points lower than those in public schools. A spokeswoman for the National Catholic Education Association did not respond to requests for comment.

And who conducted the survey? It was funded by The National Assessment of Educational Progress, the keeper of the DoE's statistics [and this study's findings can be found here].

Survey bias? Oh, I don't know. What would the DoE have to gain by claiming that private schools aren't any better (or actually worse) than government schools which are funded with confiscatory taxes paid by people that have absolutely no say in their funding, but also in choosing what schools their kids get to attend? Hmmm, that's a real noodle scratcher.

Posted 1/28/2006 02:49:00 PM by Douglas

I saw this guy on The Daily Show this week, and it seemed like even Jon Stewart had a hard time sucking up to his new book, American Vertigo. Apparently, Garrison Keillor didn't find much use for it, either:

Any American with a big urge to write a book explaining France to the French should read this book first, to get a sense of the hazards involved. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French writer with a spatter-paint prose style and the grandiosity of a college sophomore; he rambled around this country at the behest of The Atlantic Monthly and now has worked up his notes into a sort of book. It is the classic Freaks, Fatties, Fanatics & Faux Culture Excursion beloved of European journalists for the past 50 years, with stops at Las Vegas to visit a lap-dancing club and a brothel; Beverly Hills; Dealey Plaza in Dallas; Bourbon Street in New Orleans; Graceland; a gun show in Fort Worth; a "partner-swapping club" in San Francisco with a drag queen with mammoth silicone breasts; the Iowa State Fair ("a festival of American kitsch"); Sun City ("gilded apartheid for the old");a stock car race; the Mall of America; Mount Rushmore; a couple of evangelical megachurches; the Mormons of Salt Lake; some Amish; the 2004 national political conventions; Alcatraz - you get the idea.

But every 10 pages or so, Lévy walks into a wall. About Old Glory, for example. Someone has told him about the rules for proper handling of the flag, and from these (the flag must not be allowed to touch the ground, must be disposed of by burning) he has invented an American flag fetish, a national obsession, a cult of flag worship. Somebody forgot to tell him that to those of us not currently enrolled in the Boy Scouts, these rules aren't a big part of everyday life.

From the five minute interview I saw, it didn't seem to me that Lévy had any real insight about America, and I find the Tocqueville comparison totally overblown. I'm sure he did his homework, and he writes with enough alliteration to make most blue-staters nod in agreement as they renew their subscription to The New York Times Magazine, but it just doesn't sound like he connected with the real America. It sounds like he found the America he was looking for: NASCAR races, Mega-churches, Mt. Rushmore, the dedication of the Clinton Presidential Library, and of course, Sharon Stone.

Keillor fires the closing salvo:

"I still don't think there's reason to despair of this country. No matter how many derangements, dysfunctions, driftings there may be . . . no matter how fragmented the political and social space may be; despite this nihilist hypertrophy of petty antiquarian memory; despite this hyperobesity - increasingly less metaphorical - of the great social bodies that form the invisible edifice of the country; despite the utter misery of the ghettos . . . I can't manage to convince myself of the collapse, heralded in Europe, of the American model."

Thanks, pal. I don't imagine France collapsing anytime soon either. Thanks for coming. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. For your next book, tell us about those riots in France, the cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was that all about? Were fat people involved?

What he said. It sounds about as deep as a book I'd write about my trip to France. Hey, guess what? They have rude, smelly waiters and like, gosh, a hundred kinds of cheese. Who knew?

Posted 1/28/2006 02:29:00 PM by Douglas

Twenty years ago today. Have we learned anything since then? And here's the obligatory link to MSN's "7 things you didn't know about the disaster." Nothing particularly remarkable about the list. What's interesting omitted from all this is the "NASA Culture" and the mechanism in place to make decisions. Putting humans on top of flying bombs is never going to be as safe as an afternoon flight to Cleveland. It's exciting. It's dangerous, and there's a line out the door and around the corner of people that want to do it. Now.

Posted 1/28/2006 02:17:00 PM by Douglas

It really isn't any wonder Ford is hemorrhaging money when they have to try cases in front of juries like this.

A Nueces County jury hit Ford Motor Co. with a $29.5 million judgment Friday for a San Antonio woman who was partially paralyzed when the 1992 Mazda Navajo she was riding in rolled over.

Rose Muñoz was traveling with a friend to the Poteet Strawberry Festival in April 2002 when an 11-year-old tire blew, causing the accident. The Navajo is a Ford Explorer with a Mazda nameplate. Her lawyers argued that the tire, a spare, still had a significant amount of tread remaining.

"The Mazda Navajo is a safe reliable vehicle and not the cause of either the accident or Miss Muñoz's injuries," Vokes said. "This is another tragic reminder that seat belts can help protect passengers only when they are worn. In this case the court did not allow Mazda to present evidence to the jury about Miss Muñoz's failure to wear her seatbelt or how she was injured. For this and a number of other reasons Ford is confident this verdict will be reversed on appeal."

I don't care if the car was hit by a meteorite sitting in the driveway, a jury should not award one penny to anyone injured in a car crash that wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Ford is somehow responsible for her safety more than she is? She doesn't care enough about her own well-being to put on a seatbelt? Overlawyered has more:

A Nueces County, Texas jury held Ford 75% (and Mazda another 10%) responsible for $29 million in damages, on the grounds that Ford should have done more to warn consumers about the dangers of ten-year-old tires—even though the tires in question were the notorious Bridgestone/Firestone tires that had actually been recalled in 2000, but had been left on the SUV.

If the tires were recalled in 2000, why were they still on the car in 2002? After the total media saturation of the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall, I can't imagine how anyone could have been unaware of this problem.

Jurors said they were influenced by the fact that Ford has since added a warning in their owners' manual about replacing tires more than six years old. Firestone settled the case, allowing the plaintiffs to focus blame on Ford at trial.

So warning people of a possible problem is an admission of guilt. Boy, that sets up a great precedent, doesn't it?

Posted 1/26/2006 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

First there was dancing at Baylor, and yet the sun continued to rise in the east. But will Waco and Western Civilization as we know it be able to survive this next tragedy? Hooter's in Waco?

Hundreds of patrons — mostly men — munched on chicken wings and hamburgers served by waitresses in low-cut tank tops and tight shorts Tuesday at Hooters' grand opening, months after about 60 ministers tried to stop the restaurant's construction.

The Rev. Greg Brumit, who disapproved of the increased traffic in the neighborhood as well as the skimpy outfits, said no more protests were planned.

"We've done all we can do. We'll just leave the rest to the Lord," said Brumit, pastor of Kendrick Lane Baptist Church. "They're welcome to come down the street to our church."

Wow, how tragic. Hooter's is just awful. Horrible food (and no, I'm not counting the wings in that assessment) and a waitstaff whose mission statement is to act dumb and take as long as possible to bring you your beer, in the vain hopes that you'll tip them more if they bend over when they bring it to you. Which is why I've never understood Hooter's. If you want to go to a place to eat or to drink beer, there are places for both of those activities. If you want to see boobies, there are even more of those places (in Houston, at least). If you want to waste your time and money for what passes for food (and boobies, for that matter), go to Hooter's. It's the worst of both worlds.

Posted 1/26/2006 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Sounds like some people are somewhat less than happy in Happy, Texas.

Kenneth Plumlee was arrested last week on suspicion of assaulting a family member, and his employment as superintendent of Happy Independent School District is the subject of a school board meeting tonight.

You gotta be having a really bad day to get arrested for assault in Happy.

Posted 1/26/2006 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

Filibuster? Awww yeah, beyotch, it's on!

Sen. John Kerry will attempt a filibuster to block the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

"Judge Alito's confirmation would be an ideological coup on the Supreme Court," Kerry said in a written statement explaining his support for a filibuster.

"We can't afford to see the court's swing vote, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, replaced with a far-right ideologue like Samuel Alito."

Is this an attempt to block Alito, or an attempt for the democrats (especially Kerry) to prove that they're not as ineffective as everyone thinks they are? Who cares? I find it interesting that he's trying to pull this now, considering that his confirmation is almost a lock. But no one ever accused Kerry of having good timing.

Posted 1/26/2006 05:18:00 PM by Douglas

Reaching for another new low, I'm posting another combination of words I never thought I'd see, well, pretty much ever: Panda Porn.

Because of that, Prasertsak has prepared a DVD of pandas having sexual intercourse to show the couple, hoping the demonstration -- call it panda porn -- will inspire them to make a love connection.

I'm not Panda expert, but does anyone think that maybe the reason they don't mate is that someone's there taking a picture of it? Some animals might have a few reservations about doin' it in front of a camera. Then again, some animals are Paris Hilton. In any case, I sorta feel more guilty about posting it last week for a cheep laugh. Poor Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui. They're just trying to get busy and some smart-ass in Texas is laughing at them.

But why porn? Do they think that these animals are stimulated the same way drunken college kids are? And if so, why not take 'em down to the bar on dollar beer night? The polar bear can drive, the brown bear can show 'em how to dance and who knows, maybe the black bear can score some weed for 'em that's not bamboo.

Labels: panda

Posted 1/26/2006 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

I have never even been to Norman, Oklahoma!

Norman police are investigating a half dozen reports of a naked man being seen near the University of Oklahoma campus in the past two weeks.

The reports follow reports of a naked man on January 14th, 17th and 19th. The January 17th report says the man was seen inside a sorority house and describes him as white and about 30 years old.

Just a guess, but not much to do in Norman?

Posted 1/25/2006 05:47:00 PM by Douglas

The Most Loathsome People in America, 2005. And while it's easy to see what side of the political aisle the authors sit on, this one about Lucas made me laugh out of my nose:

Charges: It needs to be said: George Lucas is an awful writer and a shitty, shitty director. His second Star Wars trilogy absolutely sucked from beginning to end, and was in fact the least brave creative endeavor he could possibly have chosen, a guaranteed grand slam. Lucas has grown so accustomed to massive commercial success that he has no idea he’s putting out the worst work of his career, and no one dares to tell him. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because an army of sexless, sedentary thirty-something dweebs with an unhealthy fixation on Princess Leia will insist that his schlock is brilliant as if their lives depend on it, and an absurdly disproportionate media blitz always brings the kids in. But everything that was great about the first trilogy—reasonably decent acting, an engaging storyline and cool model-based special effects—is gone, replaced by detestably unsympathetic characters reciting torturously bad dialogue in a manner so wooden that coaching from Keanu Reeves would have helped, and CGI effects that, while painstakingly crafted down to the nanopixel, somehow looked less real than plastic spaceships and Muppets.

Dear god, how 100% true!

And check it out, I show up at #4! It's like they've known me all my life!!

Posted 1/25/2006 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Two words I never thought I'd see in the same link here at the blog: perverse knitting. This one has to be my favourite:

Posted 1/25/2006 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

I didn't understand half of what this Cranky Brit was railing about, but I sure as hell liked hearing him say it. Especially this:

Before embarking on a sentence, work out first of all what’s the shortest way of saying it, not the longest. There seems to be a general sense that using more words than is strictly necessary is somehow polite. That’s almost certainly why, on another flight the other day, I was offered some “bread items”.

Sounds a lot like a Carlin routine from about 15 years ago: Stupid people use more words than necessary to sound smarter than they actually are.

This problem isn't improving.

Posted 1/22/2006 03:19:00 PM by Douglas

Remember that old joke about the "suggested" headline in The New York Times?

World to end Friday; women, minorities hardest hit.

Apparently these folks don't, or didn't realize it was a joke.

Global Warming Could Spell Disaster for Blacks
If you thought Hurricane Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, think again. Concerned environmentalists say that unless the United States gets real about the threat of global warming, African Americans and other people of color can expect a repeat of disasters like Katrina.

Because nothing discriminates like a natural disaster.

Crap! Just got to the bottom the article.

Environmentalists blame the fierce new storms on global warming – the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Scientists attribute the phenomenon to gases produced by fossil fuels like gasoline, petroleum and coal. Though critics dismiss global warming as junk science, reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have continually found a discernable human influence on world temperatures.

Relatively, Blacks are environmental Good Samaritans. Per capita, we emit approximately 20 percent less carbon dioxide than Whites – well below 2020 targets set by the U.S. Climate Stewardship Act. Not only do we use more energy-conserving public transportation, we spend considerably less per capita on energy-intensive material goods.

What? WHAT?!? I'm pretty sure that the author meant that blacks are responsible for the emission of 20% less CO₂, but it doesn't sound like it, does it? If it means that whitey farts more, I'd like to see their data on that one.

Posted 1/22/2006 03:15:00 PM by Douglas

Smoking; Sure it causes cancer, halitosis, emphysema, stinky clothes and recently become ridiculously expensive. But what a great way to meet chicks.

Sure, we'll all live longer, but how will this affect the future of flirting?

Cigarette etiquette is ancient stuff, stowed in the cultural marrow back when men wore real hats and glam movie stars with impossible cheekbones gave come-hither looks through unfiltered haze. What relics of chivalry still surround this tiny lethal object, the cigarette! What other than a cigarette could a person request of a total stranger? What but splendid pretense prompts a fellow to flick a lighter for a girl who already has a match?

Cigarettiquette anyone? Did I just make that up? [Quick googling. Nope, someone beat me to it. But I still like it.]

Pinup Betty Grable in a turban, circa 1935, her eyebrows thin as starving commas: She rests a cigarette on her lips, cradled between two dark fingernails. The man beside her stares at the lit match he's holding out, while she looks intently into his eyes. That look was part of the ritual, you figure; even if she didn't mean it, that was the polite thing to do. He made her feel like a lady and she made him feel like a man. It seems a whole lot of silliness now, but everyone knew their parts.

These days, Americans flirt feebly, liquor-soaked and anxious.

As others have noted before, smoking a cigarette allows you instant admission to what used to be a nationwide brotherhood of polite strangers. Except menthol smokers: why don't you just go eat a tube of toothpaste? But anyhoo, I can't think of an easier way to approach a total stranger and instantly strike up a conversation. Although if you're paying $7 a pack, I can imagine that the "bumming a smoke" might be received less than warmly.

But I particularly enjoyed what's not sexy about smoking:

Not sexy: those people outside office buildings. One hand clutches an unbuttoned coat collar. The other holds a cigarette. There's no draped wrist on a bar, no whiskey and low lighting. Delivery trucks rumble past and there's gray gum by the ash-and-trash and it's cooold , and you wonder what kind of demon could drag them out here. When they return to their cubicles, they drag a stale, grubby smell behind them.

Not sexy: smokers at a party, relegated to the back yard, where the backdrop to their conversation is a girl vomiting by the garage.

I think I've been to that party. Several of them. And what will happen when smoking is banned everywhere?

Will people be reduced to approaching one another under the guise of borrowing something as dreary as a pen?

Why bother?

Posted 1/22/2006 03:07:00 PM by Douglas

People want to lose weight for all sorts of reasons. Reunions, summer pool season, or even that Mötley Crüe concert T-shirt you got in 1983. But ultimately, we're all going to end up in the four by eight foot hole in the ground. Unless. . . .

Welcome To Goliath Casket
A Family owned business for over 20 years. Specializing in the needs of the "bigger people" while offering peace of mind that your loved one will have a fitting memorial.

We understand the problems associated with selecting the proper casket. Choosing a casket is a very personal decision. We are here to provide your local funeral home with an oversize casket that provides dignity and integrity for your loved one.

I start my diet tomorrow, I swear.

Posted 1/21/2006 03:39:00 PM by Douglas

To anyone wondering, it's not just your imagination. College graduates are getting dumber

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

The survey examined college and university students nearing the end of their degree programs. The students did the worst on matters involving math, according to the study.

What do you expect? Math is hard.

Posted 1/21/2006 02:57:00 PM by Douglas

And now, the Web Museum of Vintage Calculators. It's easy to forget that the adding machines we buy at the gas station for 99¢ used to look like this:

And I pity the dork that tried to put this "pocket" calculator in their pocket:

Pocketronic sounds like a bad 90s techno band.

Posted 1/21/2006 02:46:00 PM by Douglas

Time to get off your ass, manned space flight!

Posted 1/20/2006 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

If there's a more horrible way to die besides being sucked into the engines of a jet, I can't imagine what it would be.

A mechanic sucked into a Continental Airlines jet engine in El Paso on Monday was the first to die that way in the United States while an aircraft was being prepared for flight, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

"It has not happened a lot, but it has happened before. Just not while boarding," NTSB spokeswoman Lauren Peduzzi said.

While boarding? So the people that were seated behind the wing got to witness the crimson sluice pouring out of the engine that used to be Donald Gene Buchanan? How sad is that? I wonder if Continental gave a free drink (Bloody Mary, anyone?) to the people on the Houston flight when they changed planes?

Posted 1/19/2006 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Now that Big-Brother can tap your phone anytime they please, it's time for them to stick their nose into whatever it is you're googling as well.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to force a handover of the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

Really. And just what are they looking for?

In a separate case in Pennsylvania, the Bush administration is trying to prove that Internet filters don't do an adequate job of preventing children from accessing online pornography and other objectionable destinations.

Obtaining the subpoenaed information from Google "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current Web users, (and) to estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches," the Justice Department wrote in a brief filed Wednesday.

"Won't someone please think of the children!" We need to invade everyone's privacy because we don't know how kids are getting porn on the internet. I think it used to be an exaggeration, but the government really is that stupid.

Posted 1/19/2006 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Do not push the button. Loser.

Posted 1/19/2006 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

The next time you see a kid flipping out and throwing a 3-alarm fit in public, relax. The kid's not a spoiled brat. He may just have a blue aura.

Dina Melendez was taken aback when her 4-year-old started talking about his past lives, describing brothers, sisters, two dogs and a cat.

"And then he told me he died when he was 6 and that he waited before being born again - waited for me so I could be his mommy," Melendez recalls.

But it's what Matthew says about the future that really rattles this young mother, and leads her to conclude that he is one of the so-called Indigo children - believed to be a new generation of high-energy, sometimes difficult youngsters who have psychic abilities and a deep-blue aura.

Wow. There's a reason adults don't listen to children. But doesn't this description apply to all children?

Carroll and Tober define Indigos as "restless, fearless" individuals who "believe in themselves ... have difficulty with absolute authority," and "often see better ways of doing things, at home and in school." They are in every country, on every continent, the authors say, and only a clairvoyant can see their auras.

Of course, wiki's got the full story. Creepy.

Posted 1/19/2006 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

I feel kinda bad for posting it, but something about this picture of pandas gettin' it on made me laugh.

Just because I'm naked and covered in panda-love doesn't mean I've lost my dignity.

Labels: animals doin' it, panda

Posted 1/18/2006 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Welcome to Alabama, or as I like to call it, Nazi Germany!

If the bill becomes law, people could drink draft beer only at a bar, restaurant, private club or other retail establishment licensed for beer sales by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, the bill's sponsor. People could not buy a keg and take it elsewhere to drink.

Singleton said he proposed the bill in an effort to stop teenagers from drinking beer.

When kegs are outlawed, only outlaws will have kegs.

Posted 1/17/2006 05:52:00 PM by Douglas

Mmmmm. . . . Chocolate:

"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," he said. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

What an interestingly unique problem he has. Not only is he the mayor of the only American City to get wiped off the map in the past 150 years, but he's up for re-election, too. Pity. Hey, I've got an idea. Instead of whining to Washington for the Billions of dollars it's going to take to rebuild New Orleans to the festering cesspool it was before Katrina, how 'bout you fax your appeal straight to God? After all, it's the way he wants it, right? But nothing is funnier than Nagin in his "damage-control" mode:

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he said. "New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special."

'Cause the milk has all the money, dumbass, and everyone knows you're still at least 15 feet below sea level. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: New Orleans = Indianola. It's time to move on.

Posted 1/17/2006 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Sometimes stupid DWI laws have a different effect. Instead of throwing generally law-abiding people in jail to the tune of several thousand dollars, they can bring about change to the landscape of public service. That is, if the public can find adequate representation.

A woman who wants a Panhandle district attorney to pay with his job for a drunken driving collision with her daughter can't persuade any lawyers to help, and her complaint could get tossed out next month, she said Monday.

Since last fall, Betty Holland has been trying to unseat District Attorney Clay Ballman through a seldom-used Texas statute that allows jurors to remove county officials for intoxication.

Ballman is the top prosecutor for Hutchinson County and its northern neighbor, Hansford County.

"You call the attorney, and they want your name and a receptionist wants to know what you need, and you tell them," said Holland, of Borger. "Basically, they don't want the case, or they say the lawyer's (schedule is) full and can't take the case."

Holland said she has tried to hire more than 15 lawyers in the region.

One attorney acknowledged fear of reprisals the next time he worked in the courthouse, she said.

Others complained it would take too much of their time to bone up on Chapter 87 of the Local Government Code.

This guy needs to go down. DWI (much less, fleeing the scene of an accident after you hit a 17 year old girl) is a crime in and of itself. How the hell could this guy even prosecute any more DWI cases if these facts are made public? And before anyone reads yesterday's posts and tries to paint a thick coat of hypocrisy on my standings on DWI laws, here's where I come out:

• Driving home from the bar when no other laws are broken? Legal
• Fleeing the scene of an accident that you caused? Illegal already, but shouldn't be more so if alcohol is involved.
• Being able to keep your job as a D.A. after you're convicted of any of the previous? Yeah, that's a no-brainer. Dude, you need to learn how to weld.

I don't know how I missed this in the Amarillo Globe News, but I did. So here's the summary. [sadly, registration required. try bugmenot.com first.] Here's the chronology of this sorted case:

• DA jailed on felony charge May 14, 2005
• Corrections May 15, 2005
• Ballman to face more charges May 17, 2005
• 84th District attorney faces DWI charge June 23, 2005
• Ballman to spend 3 days in jail July 23, 2005
• Prosecutor faces removal October 5, 2005

Sleep tight, Ballman. Just think: Next time, someone will stick a needle in your arm!

Posted 1/17/2006 05:21:00 PM by Douglas

Hey, ex-astronaut, shut your fucking pie hole!

Astronaut Mike Mullane has flown on the shuttle three times and would go again in a heartbeat, but in a new memoir he called this ship the most dangerous spacecraft humans have ever ridden.

Hey guess what? Your boring job awaits you, writing pithy books no one will read, somewhere below low earth orbit. Still want to complain? Get in line. Get in line of the people that are waiting to fly in the same vehicle that you did.

Further humiliations lay ahead, like the time Mullane tried on a NASA-issued condom -- used for urine collection in weightlessness -- and watched the too-large sheath drop off and fall to the floor.

Tell-all book = tiny penis. A trend perhaps? Maybe all ex-Astronauts don't have the right stuff.

Posted 1/16/2006 05:49:00 PM by Douglas

It's just a matter of time before every county in the state is out for blood when it comes to DWIs. [via]

The county, which borders San Antonio to the southeast, is joining a small list of jurisdictions in Texas to enact a program that could require motorists suspected of drunken driving to submit to blood tests.

County Attorney Russell Wilson said every law enforcement agency in the county, including state troopers, will be able to seek a court warrant for a blood sample when a motorist refuses to take a Breathalyzer test.

Wilson said he wants the program to target weekend offenders, and a local justice of the peace has volunteered to be on call to issue the necessary search warrants if needed.

Forget for a second that DWI convictions are a huge cash cow for the county. You're talking here about police actively seeking out people that may not even be a threat to the roads they occupy. Hell, they might not even been drunk. Yet Wilson County [along with others I've ranted about in the past] are setting up the system to deal with the "instant warrant" approach. Does this seem right to anyone that doesn't work for MADD?

And what about this "local justice of the peace" that's volunteered to be on call to issue warrants at all hours of the day? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a judge issuing a search warrant? If all the DPS troop has to do is call up the JP and say "I got another one" and the warrant is on the way, doesn't that make the fourth amendment seem like little more than a technicality? But there's more:

But no one has fought the blood test, Waybourn said. He estimates the department has acquired warrants for blood in about 30 cases since the campaign, dubbed "We just can't take no for an answer" began in late July.

"Everybody has complied that was presented with a warrant," he said. "We've not had to use any force in taking the blood."

Doesn't that seem to imply that they're willing to use force to do so if necessary? I don't know how many state troopers it'd take to hold me down to stick a needle in my arm, but the only way anyone from the State of Texas is going to stick a needle in my arm is only after a lengthy appeals process and my death-row conversion to Islam. The State using force to draw blood from your body without your consent to collect evidence against you in your own conviction. Did I wake up in Nazi Germany all of a sudden?

Picture this: It's a typical Thursday afternoon and you decided to accompany a couple of co-workers to the bar to have a few beers and complain about your boss. You have three beers in 40 minutes and decided the queso sucks, so you head home. While driving home at 3 miles per hour under the speed limit, you reach down for your old Robert Earl Keen CD (the one that doesn't suck) and you briefly break the white on the adjacent unoccupied lane, all in plain sight of your local police officer, who happens to be a trained phlebotomist. He says you're drunk, you say you're not, and the next thing you know, you're strapped to a gurney and Johnny Law is shoving a needle in your arm to gather evidence to use against you in court, and thanks to the legal BAL being so ridiculously low, you'll probably be convicted, lose your license, car, and face between $5,000 and $10,000 in fines, depending on how much you can afford to shell out for an attorney. Sound fair? What the hell happened to America?

Posted 1/16/2006 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

The Broken Obelisk has been repaired.

On Thursday a crane lowered Broken Obelisk, one of the city's best-known sculptures, back into its reflecting pool in front of the Rothko Chapel, and tomorrow or Wednesday, conservators expect to finish their 18-month restoration project. But today, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the rusty, elegant sculpture once again stands as a reminder that much of Houston once considered King to be more a rabble-rouser than a saint.

And not a moment too soon. I was wondering if The Broken Obelisk was ever going to be repaired. But rest assured, The Broken Obelisk has been fully restored and is now prominently displaying its broken glory in front of the Rothko Chapel.

Posted 1/15/2006 03:51:00 PM by Douglas

Thug Culture:

Is this why the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made the ultimate sacrifice? Is this why Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat? Did countless civil rights veterans put everything on the line so that, someday, a handful of black men and women could make a fortune encouraging young blacks to lawlessness?

The popularity of thug culture is among the most serious of modern-day threats to black America, far more dangerous than any lingering institutional racism. Its mores mimic prison culture: the ubiquitous droopy-pants-look drew its inspiration from jail procedures, where men are stripped of their belts upon arrest. It romanticizes casual violence, helping to ensure that black fratricide will go on unabated.

In the time it took you to read that, fifty-cent made $50,000.

Posted 1/15/2006 03:48:00 PM by Douglas

New book out on the famous Tulia drug bust. It sounds like it might be an interesting book, but it sounds like the focus is centered much more on race than the insane drug-war.

Vanita Gupta, a Philadelphia lawyer and Yale graduate who was a child of middle class Indian immigrants, was a leader of the post-conviction representation of the Tulia defendants. She saw the case as a window into another century. Watching a television filming of blacks lined up by burly white guards in Tulia, she listened to a black teenager tell reporters, "The only difference between 1920 and now is they can't take us out and hang us on a tree. They can just send us to prison for life. It's the same thing. We'll never be free."

That may be a bit hyperbolic, but sadly, not by much.

It also raised the question of why reasonable doubt did not enter the thinking of Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart, who hired Mr. Coleman, district attorney, Terry McEachern, who prosecuted the cases "with zeal, " or the jurors who handed down "staggeringly long" sentences even for defendants with no prior records. As Mr. Blakeslee put it, the case in many aspects "defied logic."

What the hell does logic have to do with the drug-war? If you're associated with "drugs" in any way, you're guilty, right?

Posted 1/15/2006 03:46:00 PM by Douglas

When you've given up on perfection (wherever that is), you can always set your sights on suburbia:

The point is, there's nothing new about attacking the suburbs. A quick look at their history shows us that their image as a conformist prison is as old as the suburbs themselves.

Perhaps the only dirty little secret left to tell about life in suburbia is that, despite what you've heard from books, movies and television, it isn't really all that bad.

Quick, burn this story. One of the greatest status-quo ideas of the intelligentsia in the last generation is that all suburbanites are brain-dead drones that hate their spouses and jobs and can only fill the vacuous chasms of their psyche by simultaneously coveting sex with their babysitter or buying an even bigger, shinier SUV than the one that occupies the neighbor's driveway. I call bullshit. If urban (or rural, for that matter) dwellers were exponentially happier/fulfilled, then why are they leaving in droves?

For many North Americans, however, suburbia is seen as exactly the opposite. Filmmakers and authors, punk bands and folk singers have all attacked suburbia as a center of mindless consumption and stifling social conformity. The suburbs may represent the "American dream," they argue, but that dream is perverted and corrupt.

Ah yes. Who could eschew the wisdom of filmmakers, authors, punk bands and folk singers when tasked with venturing out into this vast world and finding happiness for oneself? Why the hell would I live in the 'burbs when Greenday says it's lame?

The suburb is a victim of its own success, and thus the target of ridicule which can be likened to Radley Balko's Tyranny of Mustard. To say that every suburbanite is morose in their surroundings is about as ridiculous as saying that everyone in urban settings are either crack-heads or afraid to leave their home; that dog just don't hunt. Now I'm going to go have a drink on the porch and think about how miserable I'd realize I am if I just weren't so durn stupid.

Posted 1/15/2006 03:27:00 PM by Douglas

Sometime I think these on-line questions are all bullshit. Yet other times, I think they're right on the money:

While drunk with friends, you fall down a flight of stairs and break your neck. Thinking you've simply passed out, your friends ignore your lifeless body for hours.

A chilling vision of things to come!

Posted 1/15/2006 03:14:00 PM by Douglas

Islam means peace.

Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's "honor" -- a crime that shocked Pakistan.

Bibi recounted how she was awakened by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter, Muqadas, and cut her throat with a machete. She said she looked on helplessly from the corner of the room as he then killed the three girls -- Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4 -- pausing between the slayings to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm.

Ahmed, who did not resist arrest, was unrepentant.

"I told the police that I am an honorable father and I slaughtered my dishonored daughter and the three other girls," he said. "I wish that I get a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire."

Makes ya wonder what kind of honor is preserved by murdering 4, 7 and 8 year old girls, but dare I say it's a kind of honor not worth keeping.

Posted 1/13/2006 06:07:00 PM by Douglas

Good morning Fairbanks! In a few months.

Posted 1/13/2006 06:03:00 PM by Douglas

Hey doc, it hurts when I do this. Well, quoth the doctor, don't do that.

A 9-year-old boy in California who suffered from uncontrollable head jerking movements after long hours of video game playing stopped the twitching after his doctor banned him from playing PlayStation, according to a report.

Nicholas Lavin said that he played PlayStation constantly over the holidays at his home in San Diego and began to notice that his head would jerk back and forth.

"I would do funny things with my head," Nicholas said.

Lavin's mother said her son began to twitch so badly that she took him to the family's pediatrician.

How embarrassing. Not that your kid plays too many video games, but that you took him to the doctor for it. Moron.

Posted 1/13/2006 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

Fermat’s last Theorem. Boy, it was a doozie.

"It is impossible for a cube to be written as a sum of two cubes, or a fouth power to be written as the sum of two forth powers, or, in general, for any number which is a power greater than the second to be written as the sum of two like powers...

....I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."

Sure it was!

Posted 1/13/2006 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

Sometime I read articles about stupid government programs wasting money and I just shake my head, make my pithy little comments as I post the link here, and go about my day. But something about the following story has got even the blog scratching its head. How could anyone be this stupid? Anyway, I noted some time ago that one of the greatest threats to drivers on the high plains of the Texas panhandle were errant trees littering the Texas roadway and jumping out in front of even the most careful of drivers. Well, it looks like the good folks at TxDoT have finally cemented a plan to deal with the most heinous threats to the safety to those traveling the highways of the panhandle: TREES! I'm sure there's a corollary in there for "fear of the unknown", but I'll skip that part for now.

Scattered stands of Siberian elms, hackberry trees and towering cottonwoods crop up every few miles along the rural roads that wind throughout the Texas Panhandle.

To Panhandle residents, they're precious islands of nature's beauty in a sea of brushy scrub and brown grasslands. But state highway officials envision errant motorists careening off the highway and deadly accidents that don't need to happen.

About two years ago, the Texas Department of Transportation unveiled a controversial plan to cut down 1,185 trees along roadways in Hemphill, Roberts, Lipscomb, Ochiltree and Gray counties to improve highway safety. But the plan quickly drew a firestorm of criticism from tree lovers across the region.

Now, TxDoT officials plan to meet with concerned residents in the next month or so and finalize a whittled-down, compromise plan that would add highway safety improvements and cut down only 115 trees.

Paul Braun, a TxDoT spokesman, said tree elimination is just one part of a much larger project aimed at keeping motorists safe. The original project cost was about $840,000, but costs could change after the meeting, he said.

Well I guess that's a start. 1,070 trees in the otherwise treeless desert of the high plains got a stay of execution. Anyone want to give me odds on the total cost actually going down after the meeting? But that's not all we're getting for the better part of a million dollars is it?

"The tree part is not the biggest part of this project. A very big part of this project is redoing some very steep slopes that are along these roadways, making them more gradual, and taking care of some other obstacles like box culverts and so forth that need to be redone," Braun said. "Trees are just one part of this hazard elimination project, but it's the part that got the most attention."

Gee, I can't imagine why spending TxDoT money to remove trees growing by the side of the road would get so much attention. Have these idiots ever been to Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Carthage or Diboll? The Piney Woods of East Texas are (surprise!) crawling with [gasp!] TREES! Big, evil trees that given then chance, would kill you and everyone you care about!!!

I sure hope the idiots in the Amarillo TxDoT office don't make a trip to East Texas, because I'm quite confident that there aren't enough chain saws in the state to make the winding rural roads of the Piney Woods safe for moronic panhandle drivers.

Posted 1/12/2006 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

Don't answer before I finish: How would you like to see a different Sci-Fi movie every month, delivered to your door, hand picked by William Shatner? Sound too good to be true? It isn't. Ya know, As much as this would suck (and I can't even begin to imagine what kind of mailing lists I'd get on if I subscribed to this), it would almost be worth it if they'd send me a copy of Incubus, which was a pre-Kirk film he did entirely in Esperanto.

Posted 1/12/2006 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

Blockbuster was horrible long before 1998, but it's good to see that DVDs have finally sounded the death nell to Blockbuster [thanks, longtime reader!]

As far the studios are concerned, other than collecting the money that Blockbuster owes them for past movies, the video chain has little relevance to their future. Viacom perspicuously divorced itself from Blockbuster by spinning it off to its shareholders, and, as one Viacom executive told me, "Blockbuster will certainly not survive and it will not be missed." It is another zombie in Hollywood.

If Blockbuster was actually superior to the untold hundreds of local video stores that they buried, I'd gladly give them my money for a movie rental. But they suck. They'd have 300 copies of Herbie: Fully Loaded but only six movies made before 1975. That, along with the fact that they made almost as much money from idiots paying late fees than they did renting movies is just further proof that when they're gone, no one will miss them.

Posted 1/12/2006 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

They came for our driver's licenses after drinking one beer, and we did nothing. They came for our ability to ride in a car with an open beer while the driver wasn't drinking, and still, we were silent. But the day they take away our cold beer is the day there is blood in the streets.

A state senator wants to force Missouri stores to sell warm beer. Under a bill by Sen. Bill Alter, grocery and convenience stores would risk losing their liquor licenses if they sold beer colder than 60 degrees. The intent is to cut down on drunken driving by making it less tempting to pop open a beer after leaving the store.

The only reason why beer would need to be cold is so that it can be consumed right away," Alter, who has been a police offer for more than 20 years, said Thursday.

He said the idea came from a fifth-grade student in Jefferson County who was participating in a program to teach elementary students about state government. He sought their suggestions for new laws and chose the cold beer ban from a list of the top three ideas.

Is this funny, or sad? Funny if it came from The Onion, but sad since it came from an actual elected legislator. Fifth-grade students are the brain children (no pun) for new legislation in Missouri? Are they really that dumb?

The first thing that came to my mind after reading this was how in the hell could it possibly be enforced? Would the Missouri Alcoholic Beverage Commission roam the streets with thermometers, making sure everyone with a license to sell beer kept it above 60ºF? What about the highway patrol? Would they whip out the thermometer and write you up and give you a ticket if you were sober as church, yet your sealed beer was 58ºF? Sadly, the answer is: Probably. But you know what they say: Missouri loves company.

Posted 1/10/2006 05:07:00 PM by Douglas

I love the fact that Steven Colbert's uncredited truthiness is the word of the year, but I can't stop laughing about Muffin-top:

In a runoff for the most creative word, "whale tail," the appearance of a thong above the waistband, beat out "muffin top," the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-riding jeans.

I've secretly wished for a word for this term for years, and I can't believe it took 'till 2005 to get one. If anything I don't think the term is pejorative enough, because muffin top might sound cute when used in the right connotation. When otherwise attractive women want to squeeze into an absurd fashion that accentuates their widest point, the terminology should lean less towards a muffin and more to what it really looks like. A Navy life-raft inflated in a squirrel cage.

Posted 1/10/2006 05:00:00 PM by Douglas

Regardless of what you think of her politics, you must admit that this eerily leering and gaunt poster sized photo of Ann Coulter is a bit creepy.

Man, the concept of that image staring back at me from a poster made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. I think I need to take a moment. Talk amongst yourselves. Here's a topic: Ann Coulter is neither beautiful nor conservative.

Discuss.

Posted 1/08/2006 06:52:00 PM by Douglas

Ever get the feeling that an article in The Onion isn't written for you, but about you? I have, and apparently it's happened again:

Returning to work after seven days off, Derek Olson, 31, confessed Monday that his plan to use his weeklong vacation to straighten out his life yielded mixed results.

Sunday was spent fretting over the wasted week and berating himself for not going to San Diego—a trip he'd strongly considered taking before committing to staying home and getting his life in order.

"Next year, I'm definitely going to San Diego," Olson said. "This was stupid."

San Diego sounds good. . .

Posted 1/08/2006 06:23:00 PM by Douglas

And I thought urban sprawl was a problem here. Check out Mexico City:

Click the picture for an amazing set of pictures from a Mexican helicopter pilot in the D.F.

Posted 1/08/2006 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

Hey snappymack, you ever gonna read your comments and email me?

Posted 1/08/2006 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

Somehow, I knew the NFL was going to dangle enough zeros in front of Vince.

Vince Young is headed to the NFL. The quarterback who led Texas to its first national championship in 36 years announced Sunday he would make himself eligible for the NFL draft.

Young, who led the Longhorns to a 41-38 Rose Bowl win over top-ranked Southern California on Wednesday, could have returned to Texas for his senior season and would have been a favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.

A Heisman would have been nice, but Heisman don't pay the bills.

Posted 1/04/2006 01:56:00 PM by Douglas

In space, it's never Miller time. Or is it?

A ban on alcohol aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could be lifted in 2006 to allow crews nips of liquor after grueling work assignments, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.

“They fly in orbit for half a year and perform a heavy workload, especially during exhausting space walks when they shed several kilos in weight over a few hours,” said a source in the Russian medical support teams for the manned space program. “Many people think a small ration of alcohol would help restore their strength.”

Moderate alcohol consumption was tolerated on Russia’s Mir space station until it was decommissioned in 2001, Independent Online website reported. But a strict ban has been in place on the ISS since Russia and the United States sent the first joint crew five years ago.

I have a feeling that there's a big gap between what NASA and the Russians considers to be "moderate."

Posted 1/03/2006 06:45:00 PM by Douglas

Obviously, there are some people mad about what's going on in Iraq, but just how is protesting at a dead soldier's funeral going to help your cause? And what, exactly, is these people's cause?

Following through with plans they announced last week, about 20 protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church staged a protest a block away from 1st Lt. Benjamin Britt's funeral Monday.

The Topeka, Kan.-based church claims that American soldiers are dying in foreign lands because of the country's support of homosexuality, according to a flier circulated by the church prior to Monday's protest.

Really? We're in Iraq because of America's support for homosexuality? I don't quite follow that one, but I'm sure they'd love to explain it to me.

Motorcycle riders opposing the protesters surrounded the group, revving their engines to drown out protesters' chants.

Well, that's mature. Yet no less asinine than what the poetasters were doing.

It's not uncommon for a church to focus (obsess) on a particular part of scripture and blame people's less than fanatical observance of it as the cause of all the world's woes. But I don't think they're doing any Christian a favor by exhibiting such behavior at a funeral.

I find the whole story unbelievably baffling in its stupidity, yet I'm a bit torn by the whole thing. I'd like to see these people get flushed from our collective conscience and never get another headline again, but there's also a part of me that thinks that if everyone knew how totally bat-shit crazy they were, my first wish just might come true. So who knows.

Posted 1/03/2006 06:27:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting post over at Althouse about the flood of "oscar-worthy" biopic movies. She asks the same question I have . . . why?

Why can't we just see actual footage of Ray Charles? It's disconcerting to imitate his mannerisms. Since there's plenty of film of the man, why not make a documentary? Is this acting stunt worth doing? I seriously do not understand why they make so many biopics, especially of people there's plenty of film of, especially when they are singers and we've got innumerable filmed recordings of their concert performances.

I'd much rather watch Ray Charles or Johnny Cash than I'd want to see someone pretending to be them. Is Hollywood that bereft of ideas? Oh yeah, they are.

Posted 1/01/2006 02:34:00 PM by Douglas

Now that's what I call some really special dark roast!

Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia?

Apparently, some coffee lovers wanting to treat themselves to something special are lapping it up.

Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat.

"People like coffee. And when they want to treat themselves, they order the Kopi Luwak," said Isaac Jones, director of sales for Tastes of The World, an online supplier of gourmet coffee, tea and cocoa.

Despite being carnivorous, civets eat ripe coffee cherries for treats. The coffee beans, which are found inside of the cherries, remain intact after passing through the animal.

Civet droppings are found on the forest floor near coffee plantations. Once carefully cleaned and roasted, the beans are sold to specialty buyers.

Although I generally don't specify, when I order coffee or pretty much anything that I'm going to eat or drink, I prefer that it not contain substances that have already make the journey through someone else's alimentary canal. I'm kooky that way.

Posted 1/01/2006 02:16:00 PM by Douglas

FEMA, once again brilliantly demonstrating their own obscelencence.

One million cans of drinking water donated for hurricane relief have been emptied and recycled because the water was never used at Texas and Louisiana hurricane shelters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.

FEMA hauled the 400,000 liters of water, or 18 truckloads, to a scrap metal business in the Dallas area last month. The water was dumped into a sewer and the cans sent for recycling.

FEMA spokesman Don Jacks said the cans were given by Coca-Cola and other donors in response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After the evacuees left, the shelters gave the unused water to FEMA, which stored them at its Fort Worth regional distribution center.

"We didn't need it anymore," Jacks said.

We don't need FEMA anymore.

Posted 1/01/2006 02:11:00 PM by Douglas

Sweeping changes are needed in the legal industry. Lawyers today, aside from there just not being enough of them, are far too intelligent, moral and principled. So I agree 100% with this guy that thinks the Texas Bar exam is just too durn difficult.

CLIFTON Eames moved to Houston with big plans. Having just finished law school in Washington, D.C., in 2002, he hoped to open a small practice here, specializing in civil rights and discrimination cases.

His dream of helping others right legal wrongs hit a snag, however, when he got the results from his Texas bar exam. Eames failed the test. Three subsequent attempts also have ended in failure, leaving him with a law school degree but no license to practice.

Now, Eames is in a quandary. The State Bar of Texas limits to five the number of times a would-be lawyer can take the bar exam. Worried he could find himself shut out from practicing law in Texas altogether, Eames has decided not to take the test again in February, the next time it is offered.

Instead, the 34-year-old, sounding like the attorney he wants to be, is making it his mission to get the Texas rule changed.

"It needs to be changed. It's not right," Eames said recently. "It has never been right, and it will never be right. There's no justification for it. I'm not going to stop until it's changed."

What a great quote. It will never be right, yet he won't stop until it's changed. Sounds like he's got his priorities straight.

The five-time limit has been in place for more than 20 years. Board records from the past 15 years indicate only 287 of 53,134 applicants who took the bar exam have been limited-out of future attempts.

So less than one percent of those taking the exam have been blocked out after five attempts? Sounds like discrimination to me. So who else is advocating changing the law?

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, authored a bill during this year's regular legislative session that would have eliminated the five-time rule. Eames testified in support of the bill.

Van de Putte argued that the rule would result in many applicants opting to leave Texas for states with looser or no limits on taking the bar exam. The rule also could hurt working students who may not have time to dedicate exclusively to studying for the test, she said.

Dumb lawyers that can't pass the test are going to leave Texas if this rule stays in place? I'm sure there's a downside that I'm imagining right now. And what about those people that can't pass the exam because they don't have time to study for it? I think every qualifying exam should be simplified when its applicants can't pass it. Just think how that would improve other areas of life if qualifying exams for engineers, doctors, and cosmetologists were so incredibly easy that anyone could pass them?

Posted 1/01/2006 01:19:00 PM by Douglas

I know the story doesn't say, but I'm a bit curious as to how seemingly "random" traffic stops on the same day could yield so much weed.

Two separate traffic stops on Friday netted Texas Department of Public Safety troopers 246 pounds of marijuana worth more than $110,000.

This just makes no sense. Why would anyone crossing the country with that much weed risk getting pulled over by driving even one mile an hour over the speed limit? But regardless as to why they got pulled over, why would they consent to a search of the vehicle if they knew they were carrying that much weed? That dog don't hunt.

Labels: I-40 Drug Bust

Posted 1/01/2006 01:09:00 PM by Douglas

Happy 2006! Don't forget your black-eyed peas today.