Posted 4/30/2007 07:18:00 PM by Douglas

As I've stated before, red light cameras are about money, not safety. So what if they have proof.

After one year, the set of fifteen red light cameras installed in Providence, Rhode Island have failed to produce any measurable safety benefits -- contrary to the promises made when the devices were installed. Although the number of accidents at intersections has not declined, Providence intends to add even more cameras to city streets for safety reasons.

Well of course they are. Why admit they're wrong when there's so much money to be had?

Labels: red light cameras

Posted 4/30/2007 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

Corruption in New Orleans' FEMA contracts? No! Rule numero uno. If you're writing the bid with the company's data because you've already 'selected' them for the contract, at least correct the typos from their technical specs.

When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found.

The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.

That sounds bad. I'm sure they are top quality pumps, though.

Labels: New Orleans

Posted 4/30/2007 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

This is funny, yet kinda cruel. Maybe not. I didn't make it through all of it, but be sure and see where it ends. Pictures are NSFW, as the goal is to get the spammer to take multiple pictures of his wiener, which probably means this guy wanted to take pictures of his wiener in the first place.

Posted 4/30/2007 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

There's something about fainting goats that's intriguing. Check out this video. I'm not kidding! (ok, that was bad)

There's something about this that's a bit cruel, kind of sad, and yet at the same time, fucking hilarious. So they pass out and fall down when they get alarmed? Sounds like a girl I knew in college. She was real popular.

Labels: goats

Posted 4/30/2007 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

Been playing around today with some of the blogger tags. Had they been around when I started, I could find all my rants about ethanol as a fuel or hydrogen powered cars with one click, and boy howdy, what a boon to society that would be. But today I realized I needed another tag: Panda love.

Yeah, I've got a few panda posts in there, but it was today's news that got my attention.

After Thailand's most popular animal couple failed to mate, zoo officials are gearing up for plan B -- a DVD they hope will get Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui in the mood for love, CNN's Narunart Prapanya reported

Just where does one get a DVD of Panda porn? Do Panda video stores have a "back room" of DVDs for mommy Pandas and daddy Pandas? I'm gonna have renew my NetFlix subscription and see if they have one.

Since I can't claim the moral high ground in claiming I've never posted pictures of Pandas doin' it, here's another picture of some other Pandas doin' it.

I feel a little bad for exploiting them like this. . . .

Wait! The porn didn't do the trick.

Thai zoo keepers artificially inseminated a female panda on Monday after her male partner failed to perform despite video 'panda porn' aimed at teaching him how to impregnate her, officials said.

Chuang Chuang, the male at Chiang Mai Zoo, 700 km (435 miles) north of Bangkok, would rather play than mate and Lin Hui had to be inseminated artificially because her annual three-day fertile period was due to end on Tuesday.

Too bad about that porn thing. I wonder if the Pandas were more into Lemur porn? Lemurs will freakin' do anything.

Labels: animals doin' it, panda

Posted 4/29/2007 05:49:00 PM by Douglas

873 people in 77 seconds? I call bullshit! [thanks, long-time reader!] It takes WAY longer for 130 people to get off a 737. Yeah, I know that's out of just one hole (looks like at least 16 in this video) and you know those people were coached. But still. That many people on an airplane? Does this still sound like a good idea? I sure hope I never have to get on a single aircraft with 800 of my closest friends.

Posted 4/29/2007 05:00:00 PM by Douglas

I hate comics. They're generally trite, and poorly drawn. This one's an exception, because the quotes are real. I know. Hard to believe. Your government lied to you. I feel so betrayed. . . .

Posted 4/26/2007 05:52:00 PM by Douglas

Racist search? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing's obvious. The C.O. has probably been to Albuquerque.

The commander of New Mexico's National Guard is demanding an apology from the Army brass after dozens of his soldiers in a mostly Hispanic unit were ordered to strip to their gym shorts and searched for gang tattoos while on duty in Kuwait.

Army officials said the searches last May of 58 New Mexico National Guardsmen in a unit called Task Force Cobra were proper and legal.

But Brig. Gen. Kenny Montoya, head of the state National Guard, said he believes ethnicity played a role in the episode — the unit is 55 percent Hispanic.

Wait, what? We're not letting gang members go to Iraq now? Crap, that's who we should be sending. They've already got their own guns!

Also, if there was anyone in Albuquerque that didn't have at least one tattoo, I didn't meet them in the six weeks I was there.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

A hungry bird finishes a tourist's breakfast eggs in Kona on the Big Island.

It's a little troubling watching a bird eat scrambled eggs, but hey, even in paradise you gotta do what you gotta do.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Pop-up books scare me, too.

Just because Bush is an idiot doesn't mean the global warm-troopers are right.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:30:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting perspective of the Virginia Tech murders by Gary Lavergne, who did extensive research and wrote a book on the first "school shooter," Charles Whitman.

In Sniper in the Tower I concluded, and later the FBI's premier profiler, John Douglas, in his book Anatomy of Motive would agree, that "[Whitman's] actions speak for themselves." Any cause-and-effect theory, whether organic (brain tumor), chemical (amphetamine psychosis), or psychological (military training or child abuse), embracing the idea that Charles Whitman's judgment or free will was impaired, is not consistent with what he did. He carefully planned every move and detail, and he succeeded in doing what he set out to do -- murdering people and getting himself killed in spectacular fashion. The Whitman case taught me that sometimes our zeal to champion causes important to us or to explain the unexplainable and be "enlightened" blinds us to the obvious.

I think that's an important distinction that's getting glossed over in the 24-hour news cycle. But just as 'a cigar is just a cigar,' sometimes a murderer is simply that. It's easier for the survivors to say he's crazy, or intoxicated, or abused, or whatever, but that doesn't detract from his actions.

Time will not erase the horror witnessed on the Blacksburg campus. But in time the university will return to its work of granting degrees to thousands of individuals who lead us to better lives. That, after all, is what magnificent institutions like the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Tech do.

What is Charles Whitman or Cho Seung-Hui compared with that?

Exactly. It's amazing how The University of Texas has moved on. Other than the random bullet holes spattered around the South Mall and the peppering of return fire that ended up on the observation deck of the tower, there's no memorial for those that died there. I think it's more important to forget about the event than to memorialize those that tragically died there.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

Wow. In the Virginia Tech shooting, there's plenty of blame to go around. I'm glad someone's keeping count with all this nonsense.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

I like cat pix as much as the next guy, but I just don't think I "get" lolcats. This one's pretty cute, though. I mean, I like the pictures, but what's funny about the spelling/grammar. Kinda reminds me of those Chick-fil-A billboards where the Holstein cows want you to "eet mur chikun." Is that clever? I think it's stupid to assume a couple of cows have the means and opportunity to obtain a bucket of paint, scale a billboard tower, yet lack the spelling ability to express their thoughts on the sign.

Maybe I'm overthinking this one. Here's your very own lolcat generator.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:02:00 PM by Douglas

Wow, there's a warrant out for Richard Gere for an obscene act, and it involves a woman and not a rodent. Weird, eh?

An Indian court has issued an arrest warrant for Hollywood actor Richard Gere after he kissed Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in public.

Gere, 57, kissed Shetty, 31, several times on the cheek at an Aids awareness event in Delhi earlier this month.

The court in Jaipur in Rajasthan state called it "an obscene act", after a local lawyer filed a complaint.

Ok, fair enough, and after all, who cares? But this don't look like a "peck on the cheek" to me.

Posted 4/26/2007 05:15:00 AM by Douglas

I guess it was just a matter of time. Here it is, Republican Call Girls.

Awww man! I'd like to trickle down their supply side!!!

Posted 4/25/2007 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

I'm pretty sure The New York Times thinks I'm a mouth-breathing gastropod living out in some fly-over state eating a moon pie and listening to talk radio in-between lewd sex acts with my sister. But if this is what educated bourgeoisie discuss over cognac and tweed blazers, then I say no thanks.

The director Robinson Devor apparently would like viewers who watch his heavily reconstructed documentary, “Zoo,” to see it as a story of ineluctable desire and human dignity. Shot on Super 16-millimeter film, with many scenes steeped in a blue that would have made Yves Klein envious, “Zoo” is, to a large extent, about the rhetorical uses of beauty and metaphor and of certain filmmaking techniques like slow-motion photography. It is, rather more coyly, also about a man who died from a perforated colon after he arranged to have sex with a stallion.

A bestiality-themed snuff film. Not really my speed, yet I read on:

The prowling camera and dusky colors give much of “Zoo,” which opens with the portentous image of what appear to be miners emerging from a tunnel, a sumptuous, almost velvety look and vibe, an effect enhanced by the repeated use of slow-motion photography. Characters don’t just walk in this film; they float across the frame, pouring like liquid toward their inexorable destinies.

Written by Mr. Devor and Charles Mudede, “Zoo” is nothing if not artful.

I don't care how "prowling" the camera work is or how "velvety" the colors are, no amount of lens filters is going to soften the blow from Mr. Ed corn-holing Clyde the barber. So maybe Devor should save some of his prowling for a Ferris wheel, or a plastic bag in an updraft. But it gets worse.

In “Zoo,” three of those voices belong to men who, along with a group of unnamed, unnumbered other men, regularly met at a farm near the small city of Enumclaw, about 45 minutes southeast of Seattle, to party with one another and animals, occasionally recording their activities on video. Some of the men are identified only by their Internet handles (they met online), like the dead man, “Mr. Hands.”

Or "Mr. Bagel Anus" or "Señor can't fart."

Far more interesting is Mr. Devor’s decision not to name the dead man, identified in news reports and even the film’s production material as Kenneth Pinyan, a divorced Boeing employee.

Didn't see that one coming. . .

Reality is in the eye of the beholder, and so too, Mr. Devor would seem to have us believe, are death and deviance. Not that he labels man-horse sex deviant or comic or icky or anything much at all.

Of course not! Who are we, who is anyone to pass judgment on anyone's lifestyle. You're OK, I'm OK, right? It's really quite remarkable in our society that we're so obsessed with offending anyone that we're afraid to even insinuate that it might be "icky" for a bunch of people to video tape themselves gettin' jiggy with Miss Piggy. I know shame is extinct, but what happened to just plain gross?

That’s too bad. After all, Bible-believers notwithstanding, if you eat and wear animals and agree that it’s O.K. to torture them in the name of science and beauty, what’s the big deal? Human beings subject animals penned in factory farms to far more grievous abuse than anything apparently done to the horses in “Zoo,” and on a daily basis human beings also subject themselves to greater risk. One zoophile’s fond memories of cooking up ham for his brethren indicate that theirs was not a PETA-approved animal love, true.

Yeah, but probably not the kind of animal love you're thinking about, either. Definitely not the kind you see on old Lassie re-runs.

I know there are those out there that think that bestiality is the last sexual taboo to be broken, and to them I say, good luck with that. I'll be rooting for the horse to pierce all of your colons.

Posted 4/25/2007 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

Anyone that followed this story over the past year knows how brutally vicious David Ritcheson's attackers were, and how callus they were to leave him for dead in the yard. As horrible as that was and the fact that he will most probably never forget the emotional trauma (or the colostomy bag he'll deal with), I think it's fair to say the State of Texas was quite fair with their punishment.

Tuck, 19, and Keith Turner, 18, both of Spring, eventually were convicted of aggravated sexual assault for attacking Ritcheson in the backyard. Tuck was given a life sentence, Turner 90 years.

Can anyone say justice wasn't done? What else could be done? Enter the "Hate Crime" laws, or as I like to call it, the Thought Police:

Today, Ritcheson will be in Washington, D.C., to testify before a congressional committee about why he feels federal hate crime laws need to be expanded. As much as he doesn't want to be a "poster child," Ritcheson is convinced he can do some good.

The FBI had no grounds to investigate the attack because it occurred in a private yard. Under federal law, perpetrators can be charged with a hate crime only if the event occurs in an area of public access.

Ritcheson will testify in support of a bill that would allow people to be charged with a hate crime even if the incident happens at a home or other private property.

Wow. We all know what Hate Crime laws do: Either overzealous prosecutors another chance at high-profile suspects when the "real" trial acquits them, or allows prosecutors the justification to seek stiffer penalties in race sensitive trials. Both should be illegal.

Guess what? Beating the shit out of someone and kicking a pipe up their Rove is already illegal, and two young men found guilty of such acts won't see another day of freedom until they're very, very old. I'd say this is a perfect case to exemplify why Hate Crime laws aren't necessary, and in fact, inflammatory. The State of Texas locked these monsters up and are preparing to throw away the key, so I fail to see how additional statues would do anything the State isn't already doing.

Labels: Ritcheson

Posted 4/23/2007 05:30:00 PM by Douglas

After last year's reaming by Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Bush went safely with Rich Little. No one would know how safe. Or how so unspeakably lame. Holy. Crap. First key to comedy death: If everyone you're making fun is dead.

Not only do you feel bad for poor Rich for bombing worse than Dresdsen, but you kinda feel sorry for those that had to sit there and put forward a fake smile/laugh for the third time he looks out past the podium and say "you don't get it."

No they don't Rich, but at least you're not as inflammatory as Colbert was last year. It would be a tragedy if this administration was ridiculed, dontcha think?

Posted 4/22/2007 01:06:00 PM by Douglas

Happy Earth Day, suckers. Yeah, I know, their motives seem benign enough, and who in their right mind would be against the earth? But as with any movement, it's really important to look at their motives. I'm not going to put on my tin-foil hat for this one; I don't think I have to. It's painfully obvious the Green movement is an extension of the extreme Left dedicated to controlling industry through "environmental" means when their labor policies were failing in the late 60s. That's why they say "The green tree has red roots" in Europe.

But even more obvious is the date. Why April 22? Don't think for a moment that it's a mere coincidence that The first Earth Day in 1970 fell on V. I. Lenin's 100th birthday. Also, Wiki tells me that it's also the first publication of Pravda 1912.

So enjoy the day. Go recycle something and take care of mother earth. You should probably be doing that every day. Just know who is manipulating you on April 22, and why.

Posted 4/20/2007 06:43:00 PM by Douglas

It's official. There are no longer any significant issues in Texas that the State Legislature needs to address. That must be the case. After the idiotic marriage bill I figured those in Austin would find something to do besides get drunk. Nope, they're at it again, this time attacking the things that keep most Texans up at night worrying: Adults buying cigarettes. Yep, you read that right:

You're old enough to vote and serve your country at 18, but you'd have to wait a year to buy cigarettes under a bill approved Thursday by the Texas Senate.

"The further you can put this (legal age) off, there's a much better chance that people will not start to smoke," said Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio.

His Senate Bill 448, approved 26-4, moves to an uncertain future in the House, where it doesn't yet have a sponsor. Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat on the House Public Health Committee, said he doesn't have a position on the bill but would like to see it aired.

The maturity vs. adult argument is so arbitrary that we as a society have decided to draw a line in the sand, and that line is 18 years old. At 18 you can vote, enlist in the military and even consent to have sex with that hot teacher in your high school math class. So why try to raise the 'smoking age' (geez, it even sounds funny saying it) to 19? You can legally consent to sex, yet you can't smoke afterwards? Why push to raise the smoking age when there's a current push to lower the drinking age to include all adults?

Look, you're either an adult member of society or you aren't. For too long, alcohol has been given an unreasonable exemption at 21 instead of the universally accepted 18. It's time to push drinking back down to 18, too, not bring smoking up to 19. There have been 28 brave men and one woman that gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan that never saw their 19th birthday.

Someone tell them they're too young to understand the consequences of tobacco.

Posted 4/20/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

I'm no Catholic, but does this mean babies are going to go to heaven now just because Pope Hitler Youth says so?

"The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation," it said.

"There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptize them)."

The Church teaches that baptism removes original sin which stains all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden.

If a good Protestant is someone who could care less what the Pope thinks, says, or does, boy howdy am I ever devout.

Posted 4/20/2007 04:35:00 PM by Douglas

What a way to end the week:

NASA evacuated a building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston after an employee with a gun was seen and a shot was fired, a NASA spokesman said Friday.

A SWAT team with the Houston Police has been dispatched to building 44 on the Johnson Space Center property, a source told CNN. Building 44 holds a laboratory.

The man with the gun is white, slim in build, about 5 feet 9 inches, 50 to 52 years old and has blond hair, police said. He is clean shaven, wearing glasses and a blue-grey shirt with grey or blue jeans.

Lots of hysteria here, but really a non-event, especially for those that work off-site at JSC. Weird to drive home under four orbiting news helicopters, but other than that, the only thing out of the ordinary is that by the time this hit the cable-news cycle, every cell phone in my office rang at the same time.

Posted 4/19/2007 05:02:00 PM by Douglas

I can't decide if this girl is incrediably lucky, or not:

"It’s going to take time," Regina Rohde told Matt Lauer on TODAY. "People are living minute to minute, not being able to cope with anything. Eventually it becomes hour by hour, week by week. It takes a lot of time."

Rohde knows. Eight years ago, she was a freshman at Columbine High School in Colorado when two classmates, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, came in armed to the teeth and bent on murder.

She was in the cafeteria, the epicenter of the attack, but was one of the lucky ones who managed to escape the building even before the first calls went out to police. Twelve students died in that assault.

It took a long time, she said, to stop wondering whether every person she saw was going to attack her. But she finally got to the stage where "you can go about your daily life not constantly looking around you. It’s taken years to get to that point. [But] you never get back to that complete sense of security."

And now, on Monday morning, it was happening again. Rohde wasn’t in the direct line of fire, but she knew that a gunman was on the prowl, and she found herself experiencing the same emotions as she had in 1999.

I'm going to have to go with lucky, yet unfortunate.

PS: NBC? We didn't need to see the videos.

Posted 4/18/2007 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

Blogged this back in ought two. Kinda kooky now, considering how things turned out with Ms. Vicky Hogan. Of course, the quote:

Later she told us she would rather die gracefully than be embarrassed at any cost." If that is truly the case, look for Anna Nicole to be cashing out at any moment.

Cry for help, or matter of time? Who knows. The only surprise is that it took this long.

Posted 4/18/2007 05:47:00 PM by Douglas

I would expect such an article from the Onion, but the fact that this is a semi-serious article really goes a long way to crystallize what is wrong with the left in America: You are stupid and the Government is smart.

I just paid my taxes, and I have to say, I always take pride when I do so. I don't like having less money to spend, of course, and the complexity of the process is really upsetting. But I am proud to pay for democracy, and I feel when I do send money to the DC Treasurer and the US Treasury that that is what I am doing. The right-wing likes to pretend as if taxes are a burden instead of the price of democracy. And I suppose, if you hate democracy, as the right-wing does, then taxes are the price for paying for something you really don't want. Personally, I find banking fees, high cable and internet charges, health care costs, and credit card hidden charges much more abrasive than taxes, because with those I'm just being ripped off to pay for someone's summer home.

Way to show you're an idiot right off the bat. First off, let's not confuse "the right" with "Republicans." To say "the right" hates democracy is a complete bastardization of the term 'democracy' and 'the right.' Refined minds might disagree, but some would argue that the true "conservative" movement was a response to rampant Leftisim of the first half of the 20th century which felt that the government could solve the problems of the country better than the people can. This makes for extremely entertaining coffee shop debate, but when it comes down to it, it's about the money and power, and how much you're willing to give to your government, and how much you're comfortable with them taking. Exhibit B:

Our tax code is the DNA of our nation's moral compass. I am proud to pay taxes because I take pride in America, and paying some tiny burden to keep our society running is an extremely small price to pay for being able to call myself an American citizen. The old expression 'you get what you pay for' is apt for all sorts of situations. People tend to express what they value in how much they are willing to pay for it. I am willing and feel privileged for the right to pay for my country.

What a privilege! Why not donate all your money to the government? To make such an asinine statement is to concede that the State knows best how to spend your money. That they have your best interests at heart and will provide for you in your time of need.

Outside the beltway and the unenlightened self interest of the politicians themselves, can you name one instance where that's the case?

I'm no anarchist, but I'm anti-tax and anti-state because they're just so horribly bad at administrating it. Other than the tax collecting part. They can confiscate property for non-payment like nobody's business.

But back to this jackhole. If paying taxes is such a privilege, there's no one stopping you from doing it every month and not just in April. The Treasury will cash your check every month if you just want to feel that much better about yourself.

Posted 4/17/2007 05:57:00 PM by Douglas

I started this blog over five years ago with one simple goal: to force a paradigm shift in American journalism, thus securing the continued and future financial success for my family for years to come. After I sobered up, I decided to post random crap I find on the internet along with hysterical rants that those around me have become bored with. Five years later, this is my 3,000th post. Hard to imagine I actually believed that on 3,000 separate occasions, anyone gave a shit what I think about electric cars. Even more hard to believe is that almost 40,000 people, through no fault of their own, have clicked on this site. In their defense, most of them were looking for pr0n. So in keeping with my tradition of pointless milestones, I thought I'd compile something meaningful. But since I'm apparently incapable, here's a list of crap. Some of it's actually true.

• I once met Dan Aykroyd at the 6th floor Museum in Dallas
  
• I've been forcibly ejected from more than one keroke bar for singing louder than the person with the microphone
• To this day, I'm still ridiculed by my family for naming my childhood dog after myself
• I don't believe in the existence of Delaware
• When are we as a society going to develop another name for unsalted saltines?
• The teapot dome scandal was not the beginning of the decline of Harding's control of his administration
• My brother can eat his own weight in okra
• In 6th grade I won an essay contest and got to ride on a wagon train
• I've been rejected for Mensa, Jeopardy, and my local chapter of the Junior League
• Cucumbers taste better pickled. Deal with it, cucumbers
• I've taken a course taught by the inventor of the Lithium-Ion battery
• Tarantino loosely based the character of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs on a conversation we had at a Denver Waffle House
• I know π to 11 decimal places

And it goes on like this. . .

I might add to this later, but for now, this is it. Thanks for stopping by, and by all means, send me an email to tell me how nuts I am.

Labels: 3000th post, pointless milestone

Posted 4/17/2007 04:37:00 PM by Douglas

I wonder if the editorial board at The New York Times has a macro or some kind of subroutine to generate this stuff? It sure would save time if they could just hit F5 after these kinds of tragedies and generate their ad hominem gun control op-ed.

But it seems a safe bet that in one way or another, this will turn out to be another instance in which an unstable or criminally minded individual had no trouble arming himself and harming defenseless people.

Way to go, Times and way to hedge your bet with an assumption you can't validate. Why not ask the question of why the students were defenseless? Unless you're totally delusional, even New Yorkers must accept that they live in a world where firearms exist, so why take them away from the only people that know how to lawfully use them?

What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

Well guess what? They got it at Virginia Tech, last fall.

Virginia House Bill 1572 was proposed in 2005 by Shenandoah County, Va., Republican Del. Todd Gilbert after a VA Tech student with a state-issued concealed handgun permit was arrested and charged only with "unlawfully" carrying a handgun on campus. The bill would have prohibited state universities in Virginia from enacting "rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit ... from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun."

I'm sure the families of yesterday's victims will sleep easier knowing the person responsible for this senseless tragedy broke the law by possessing a firearm on campus.

Posted 4/17/2007 04:34:00 PM by Douglas

Turns out that annoying idiot at the grocery store having an inane conversation about baseball isn't responsible for the mysterious bee disappearance.

Toxins in the environment could be causing honeybee populations to dwindle in New Brunswick, Ontario and the northeastern states, an American researcher says.

Beekeepers in the New Brunswick region are reporting an 80 per cent decline in hive population. Insects have been leaving their hives and not returning.

The cause of the problem is still unknown, but researchers at the University of Illinois think they may be on track to linking the bee losses with increased pesticide use.

May Berenbaum, head of the entomology department at the university, said chemicals may be causing bees to forget the way home.

They get lost on their way home? Maybe they're just drunk? Happens to me all the time.

Labels: Bees

Posted 4/17/2007 06:39:00 AM by Douglas

Ten years.

At age 18, she wept in 2005 after being convicted of murder for running over a Katy-area kindergarten teacher. She wept again a day later, after a sympathetic jury gave her probation instead of a prison sentence.

But after hearing Zipf's emotional testimony Monday that she had violated probation because she was overwhelmed by an unexpected pregnancy, state District Judge Brock Thomas sentenced her to the maximum 10 years behind bars.

"You sent yourself to prison," Thomas told Zipf.

Good lord, this has been going on for a while. And isn't there a difference between an unwanted pregnancy and unexpected one?

Posted 4/15/2007 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

Where the hell have all the bees gone? [here, too.]

In 24 U.S. states, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks: their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the most profitable crops.

"I have never seen anything like it," Bradshaw, 50, said last week from an almond orchard that was beginning to bloom. "Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home."

I know! They're at a pro-union/Barak Obama rally in Poughkeepsie! Well, did anyone even check?

Researchers have dubbed the syndrome the "colony collapse disorder." They say the bees presumably are dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or disoriented and eventually dying from exposure to the cold.

Or, it could just be that the bees are stressed out.

Stressed out? Bees don't have a day job after they collect pollen. They don't pay tax and they don't have to run the dial on the tube when they get back to the hive to find only American Idol and Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader.

Last week about 20 worried beekeepers convened in Florida to brainstorm with researchers about how to cope with the loss of bees. Investigators are collecting samples and exploring a range of theories for the colony collapses, including viruses, a fungus and poor bee nutrition.

I'm sure there are a lot of theories (Al Gore, please tell me your global warming hotline has lit up because of this!) but is there another corner of convenient society we could blame this one? Of course there is.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

OK, fine. Now my phone is destroying the planet. Somehow I'm ok with that. My phone is much more useful to me than that plastic bear full of honey, anyway.

Seriously, if they're that important to our food supply, I think it's about time those commie bees form their own union. But I'm afraid that some scab mosquitoes will do the pollinating in their absence. Those fuckers will work for anyone.

Labels: Bees

Posted 4/15/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

What the heck is going on in South Texas?

A member of one of Texas' oldest ranching families has locked horns with an oil company in a bizarre dispute involving pet rhinos, steel pipe and allegations of radiation poisoning and a corporate vendetta.

Rancher Jimmy McAllen, the 10th generation of his family to work the 70,000-acre ranch in South Texas, says that the old pipe he used to build a corral for two African black rhinoceroses in the mid-1990s proved to be loaded with radioactive material.

He blames the radiation for the mysterious 1995 death of one of his rhinos. And he says he suspects it caused the rare form of cancer that cost him his lower right leg in 2005.

Moreover, he says the Forest Oil Co. — which holds a lease to drill for gas on his property and gave him the old pipe for the corral and other projects around the ranch — deliberately poisoned his land in retaliation for a dispute the two sides had over gas payments.

"It's like giving someone a poison apple on Halloween," the 69-year-old said.

And then it got weird. . .

Posted 4/15/2007 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

This is going to end well.

Russia began construction of its first floating nuclear power plant Sunday, and plans to build at least six more despite long-standing environmental concerns that they are vulnerable to accidents at sea, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia justifies the program as a way of bringing power to some of the country's most remote areas, also saying some of the plants could be sold to other nations.

The head of Russia's atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said the plants will be safe.

Well what else could they say? It's not like they've got the world's best track record.

Posted 4/15/2007 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Don Ho had a vacation most people dream of, yet he made a career out of it. What a lucky man.

Legendary crooner Don Ho, who entertained tourists for decades wearing raspberry-tinted sunglasses and singing the catchy signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," has died. He was 76.

He died Saturday morning of heart failure, publicist Donna Jung said.

Ho had suffered with heart problems for the past several years, and had a pacemaker installed last fall. In 2005, he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand.

Promoter Tom Moffatt said he attended Ho's final show Thursday and Ho received a standing ovation. Afterward, Ho reminisced about his many years in Waikiki and talked about how Judy Garland sang with him one night.

Enjoy the big luau in the sky, Don!

Posted 4/15/2007 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Because really, what's $28 Million when your company lost $12.7 Billion?

With the domestic auto industry limping through the most brutal stretch in its 100-year history, the Dearborn, Mich.-based car company shelled out more than $28 million to Alan Mulally after just four month as Ford's top executive.

Mulally, who left Boeing Co. following 37 years on the job, received $666,667 in salary since Sept. 2006. That goes along with his $7.5 million hiring bonus and $11 million to offset the loss of compensation he would have received for performance and bonuses at his former employer. Add to that, more than $8 million in options and other stock-based awards.

The system ain't broke, is it? These guys earn this money, right?

Posted 4/14/2007 05:49:00 PM by Douglas

Then why in the hell am I paying my bills?

Want to pick up the check for every homeowner who got saddled with a risky mortgage? It's a big one - on the order of $120 billion.

On Wednesday, Congressional Democrats led by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) advocated steering hundreds of millions of dollars into nonprofits to help the growing number of homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgage.

Friggin' idiots. How 'bout paying off credit cards for everyone that borrowed more than they can afford to pay back? Don't they know that's what's going to happen, anyway, when the FED devalues our currency to pay back the debts that they borrowed and can't afford to pay back?

Posted 4/14/2007 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Be afraid of hungry island mice.

The birds did not fight off their attackers, even as some mice fed inside the body cavity of one albatross chick.

Researchers say the footage provides the first hard evidence that mice previously thought harmless to seabirds are willing to attack prey more than 300 times their weight.

Geoff Hilton, a U.K.-based biologist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and study co-author, has compared the mismatch to a house cat attacking a hippopotamus.

Holy crap! I hope my cat doesn't read this? Right now she only stands on my head on Saturday morning when her food bowl is empty. I don't know what the hell I'd do if she was in my body cavity eating my organs.

Posted 4/14/2007 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Because I don't feel like Imus has been given enough ink in the last six years this scandal has been going on, I'll to this. I hope this isn't the first article written from this point of view, but its perspective needs to be more broadly considered.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

[ . . . ]

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

Yeah, what he said. Turn on any rap video and you'll see veneration of the prison lifestyle, and that hipity-hop culture has permeated every corner of America. Do these cRappers speak for all black people? Of course not, but neither does Imus, but making such a big deal about a comment that about 1/100th as offensive as any lyric on a Snoop CD is quite counterproductive.

Posted 4/13/2007 11:16:00 PM by Douglas

Kudos to The Chronicle for the shortest and the most poorly written article involving a fatality.

Man dies after car goes off Galveston seawall

A 51-year-old man from died when his car went over the seawall at 12th street in Galveston on Friday.

Authorities said a preliminary investigation suggests that James Lawrence Peoples, 51, of La Marque, Texas, may have fallen asleep at the wheel while traveling east between 14th and 13th street and Seawall. Peoples was thrown from the vehicle when it went over the seawall, they said..

I guess The Chronicle just "blogged" that one in.

Posted 4/12/2007 05:55:00 PM by Douglas

No sooner had I blogged a dumb law, it gets shot down.

The Texas House said no today to doubling or tripling marriage license fees unless couples agree to take a pre-nuptial class in how to be a good spouse.

Before final passage of the so-called "healthy marriage" bill today, author Rep. Warren Chisum agreed to merely double the current $30 marriage license fee to $60.

Wait, what? The class got shot down, but they agreed to double the marriage fee? Yeah, that's one way to encourage healthy marriage. Idiot.

Wednesday the House had voted to more than triple the fee to $100.

But, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, convinced the Republican-dominated House that any increase in the marriage license fee is a "marriage tax."

She said the government should not be in the game of "making a profit off the public" and if the "name of the game is marriage," it made no sense to increase marriage license fees.

That's just precious. "Making a profit off the public" is ALL the state does. Isn't it just adorable when they say things like this? The camera must have been pointed at her at the time.

The House agreed with Thompson to roll the fee back to $30 on a vote of 76-61. A couple could still avoid paying the $30 licensing fee by instead applying for a grant to pay for the counseling class, but the incentive of avoiding a $100 fee is minimized.

Yeah, minimized by about $70, if my math is correct. So there's no fee if you take the class? That might be an incentive. Pay $30 or suffer eight hours of State brainwashing. No wait, I'd still rather pay the money.

Warren Chisum, you crazy old gay-hating bigot, drive it home for us:

"Evidently the House floor is not interested in helping marriages stay together,"said a disappointed Chisum.

"I think it severely damaged the bill," he added. "Now I think people will just pay $30 and not go through an eight-hour course. What she's done is destroy the effect of the bill."

I'm sure most Texans will agree with me and thank Mr. Chisum for single-handedly ensuring the future of marriage in Texas, but geez man, you've been in Austin too long. You're starting to believe your own bullshit. Of course, just as clearly as night follows day, no one on the House floor cares about marriage in Texas because they shot down your idiotic bill.

Now go back to the sarcophagus in your lair and sleep it off. You can introduce another even dumber bill tomorrow.

Labels: HB 2685

Posted 4/12/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Don't ask how I landed on this one today. How horrible, and all the similar stories like it.

How to comprehend the terrible symmetry that returned Candace Lee Williams to the place of her triumph, the World Trade Center? A 20-year- old student in the cooperative work-study program at Northeastern University in Boston, she toiled from January to June at Merrill Lynch as an intern on the 14th floor of 1 World Trade Center. "They loved her there so much, they took her out to dinner on her last day, and sent her home in a limousine," said her mother, Sherri. "Then they wrote Northeastern a letter saying, `Send us five more like Candace.'"

After finishing midterm exams in her June-to-December schedule, instead of returning home to Danbury, Conn., Ms. Williams agreed to meet her Northeastern roommate, Erin, at her home in California. "They'd rented a convertible preparing for the occasion, and Candace wanted her picture taken with that Hollywood sign," her mother said. So on Sept. 11 in Boston, Candace boarded Flight 11, which was then hijacked and sent crashing into the same trade center tower where she had worked. "The airline told us she was seated next to an 80-year-old grandmother on the plane," her mother said, "and I know that Candace was consoling that woman to the last."

The first casualty of war is irony.

Posted 4/12/2007 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

I always knew that trampolines were unsafe.

A 7-year-old boy died after being struck by a stray bullet while he was jumping on a trampoline with other children outside a rural mobile home, authorities said.

The boy, whose name had not been released, was taken to an Austin hospital but died shortly after his arrival.

Looks like the guy that shot him was taking some pretty stupid target practice.

A man accused of shooting a 7-year-old boy in rural Hays County earlier this week told officers he was firing at a wooden target and had no idea anyone had been hurt.

"Hays County is still a rural county, and people move here and think it is OK to shoot," Opiela said Wednesday. "Houses in this area are pretty close together, and if you are shooting the wrong direction, something can happen like it did last night."

What a tragedy. Some idiot with a gun kills a kid. I don't want to politicize this issue, but I know who will. Isn't it about time for some common-sense legalization banning idiots?

Posted 4/12/2007 05:16:00 PM by Douglas

There are too many tacks in this one to be pissed off about, I don't know where to begin. [Another registration-required but probably more stable link here.]

AUSTIN Couples who complete premarital education courses would get financial incentives under a plan tentatively approved today by the Texas House.

Well, not really. It's not really a "financial incentive" if they jack up the price from $30 to $100 just so they can push their agenda, whatever it might be.

Backers of the bill by Representative Warren Chisum of Pampa say the program would strengthen marriages.

Classes would be taught by certified marriage counselors, clergy, mental health professionals or others specified in the bill.

The course would be at least eight hours of instruction.

It would teach conflict management and communication skills, plus early childhood development and parenting.

Afterward, participants wouldn't have to pay a marriage license fee -- which is raised from the current 30 dollars to 100 bucks under the bill.

The 72-hour waiting period for a license would be waived for participants.

Some critics say the fee hike is a marriage tax on those who choose not to take the classes.

Well duh, that's the easy criticism. What about the class itself? We need some kind of state sanctioned counseling before we sign over our lives to someone else? I can't help but think that this would have the opposite effect. I don't know the number of young couples that would sit through eight hours of State re-education and say to themselves, "Forget it," but I know it ain't zero.

Is there any possible way we can get the State to stay the hell out of our personal lives? Because we know that if there's a group that understands the importance of family and the sanctity of holy matrimony, it's politicians in Austin.

Chronicle link.

Labels: HB 2685

Posted 4/11/2007 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

Just when you thought this story couldn't get any more weird.

Former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak possessed nearly $600 in U.S. cash, $80 worth of British currency and sexually explicit images when she was arrested here in February for allegedly trying to kidnap her rival in a romantic triangle, according to documents released Tuesday.

Nowak also carried "four brown paper towels with 69 orange pills," according to new documents released Tuesday. The pills were submitted to a lab for chemical analysis, but results were not included in the documents.

I'm going to do my very best to channel my inner Slim Pickins: "Road trip survival kit checklist: We've got a length of rubber hose, some diapers, a BB gun, a knife, pepper spray, a wig, a trenchcoat, some plastic trash bags, $600 in cash, some bondage pictures and a bag of pills."

No word yet on whether they were pep pills, tranquilizer pills, vitamin pills or sleeping pills.

Hell, a guy could have a pretty good time in Dallas Vegas Orlando with all that stuff!

Posted 4/09/2007 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

In the real world, you're either producing, consuming, or counting the beans as they change hands. I found this to be one of the best descriptions of our looming "service" economy:

Smart people coming out of college used to go to business school or directly into the corporate world. They used their smarts to create wealth. Today the preferred path is to go to law school, where they learn how to take wealth from other people.

And as Radley backpedaled here, it's not a slam on lawyers. But there's just so many times the money can be counted before those counting realize there's no one producing wealth anymore.

Posted 4/09/2007 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

A bit of background. I'm a tea drinker, and since I've lived in my humble abode, I've brewed up 1.5 gallons at a time and refrigerated it in recycled Jim Beam bottles that I've acquired through the years from a generous and nurturing individual, let's just for the sake of argument call him "me." Anyhoo, let's just say for many years this paradigm has worked out quite well, and being the thermal engineer that I am, I'm more than aware of the thermal shock involved in introducing near boiling liquids into room temperature glass. Safety precautions have been made and no glass has been lost due to poor thermal conditioning.

Until today.

Since I normally make three one-half gallon jugs at a time, I have a fourth, spare bottle to tide me over when I get lazy. So I don't really know when I made this last batch, but let's just say it was sitting in the back of my fridge for a while. Sitting, waiting, and getting cold.

Well, apparently the back of my fridge is colder than the front of my fridge. In my defense, I've never had any problems with the fridge freezing other liquids, and I really don't think it's set too cold, so when I looked at the neck of one of the bottles in the back of the top shelf of the fridge this morning, full of frozen tea, I kinda thought, "hmm, that's odd," and went to work.

I got home from work and didn't really feel like tea, so I get on with my day. About an hour later after The Baroness comes home she comes running in from the other room, "Did you hear that?!?" I thought it was the ice maker dumping another load in the freezer, so I didn't think much of it. Thirty minutes later, she walks in the kitchen and finds a puddle in the middle of the floor the size of Shamu with a bladder problem and yells "you better come see this." This is what we saw on the top shelf of the fridge:

So of course, I spend the next hour cleaning out the fridge from what has now become known as "Tea-splosion, '07." But just in case the event couldn't humble me any more, as I'm bent over a pile of cold, tea-sogged groceries and expired bacon and bleeding from cut glass, this is the perfect time for the spouse to point out that I'm not only in charge of brewing and chilling tea, household environmental and temperature control, but I'm also a thermal engineer for the space program. Something about the mixture of tea and blood makes that a really sore point to bring up at that particular moment.

Also, and I don't know if this is related, but we got the fridge only six months ago, and we got the "Six Months, no Interest" deal from The Home Despot after the old one crapped out in October. Well, I mailed the check to close out the account today. To-Freakin'day!! I can't help but think that this isn't a coincidence, by a vast, maytag conspiracy.

So here's what I learned from this experience today:

• 1.75 Liters doesn't look like a lot. In a bottle. But cascading down all your chilled food and onto your kitchen floor, it's quite impressive.
• As Dr. Rodin, my professor of Mechanics of Materials once told me during a mid-term exam, "never underestimate the power of thermal expansion."
• Never overestimate the patience of The Baroness when I screw up in ways that I've assured her, I won't screw up.
• If you purchase meat or fruit, place it in your refrigerator, yet don't recall eating it, look for it!! I had no idea my fridge had such good hiding places for expired bacon and string-cheese.
• Never underestimate the force of irony.

Posted 4/09/2007 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

The Honorable Ron Paul in an interview with Bill Maher is like. . . . oh crap, this analogy is gonna suck. I can't think of anything smarter than Ron Paul, and I sure as hell can't think of anyone dumber than Bill Maher. Let's just say this is what would happen if a paperclip interviewed my cat.

I still find it interesting that Paul is clinging to the Republican ticket, considering how much they hate him and his "small government" stance. (remember when Republicans were for less government?)

But what does Maher pick out from this interview? The War of Northern Aggression and Lincoln worship. We didn't need the War to get rid of slavery, in fact Lincoln vowed to protect slavery where it existed even after he was elected in 1860, if it meant the Union would be preserved and war avoided. But don't confuse Maher with historical facts when it gets in the way of the status quo of his 8th grade education.

OK, enough of this rant. Ron Paul is probably the very last statesman this country will see that doesn't think that the solution to all our problems is more government programs. I know he doesn't have a steer's chance at a BBQ to ever become president, but I admire his conviction for throwing his hat in the ring one last time. My guess he's going to retire after this last term in the House. And the nation will be poorer without his resounding "no" vote from the floor of the House.

Literally and figuratively.

Posted 4/08/2007 05:45:00 AM by Douglas

News flash: Small town on big highway uses money from speeding tickets.

Texas' speed-trap law uses an indirect approach to discourage small towns from relying too heavily on traffic tickets.

Under the law, which applies to towns of fewer than 5,000, nearly all traffic fines that exceed 30 percent of a city's previous year's total general revenues must be paid to the state. For instance, a town that takes in total revenues of $100,000 this year can keep only $30,000 in traffic fines next year, plus $1 for each ticket over the cap.

The law, which is enforced by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, prescribes no penalties — beside payment of money past due — for violations. And cities can grow their budgets each year by writing more tickets.

This year, Estelline will keep about $110,000 in highway fines, said Connie Mondragon, the municipal judge who also is working temporarily as city clerk.

Note to self: Slow down in Estelline.

Posted 4/07/2007 04:46:00 PM by Douglas

More scenes from New Mexico. I thought I was done with that festering pit of nightmarish communist hell-scape, but I may have to go back yet. We'll see. Anyhoo, here are some picts:

A snow-covered road on top of a mountain. 5,000 feet? Rain. 10,000 feet? Snow, and about a foot, which raises the question, why on earth did my rental car company rent me a four wheel drive car? Don't they know I'm going beat any rental like a red-headed stepchild, but a 4WD? It's like they want me to flip it over. Anyhoo

Here are some rockcicles on the same mountain, a week later. Most of the snow was gone, but oddly enough, it was snowing again.

And here's one of the most industrious inhabitants of Albuquerque that I observed. He's out there busting his ass, every single day, to make a living in the desert. I can't help but kinda feel sorry for these little guys. First, I can't imagine what the hell they're eating, but they seem to be doing pretty well. Also, they're much cuter than the rest of the sun-burned junkies, pimps and whores that seem to be on every single street corner and bus stop throughout the city. So here's to ya, you little barkin' squirrel, but if it gets too much for you, remember that 33% of New Mexicans are on welfare, a fact they're so proud of, it's on their web page.

Posted 4/07/2007 04:21:00 PM by Douglas

The war on smoking heats up in Abilene, Texas.

Just ask Brian Wayne Hendrix, who was arrested and jailed on an outstanding warrant for smoking in public. Hendrix, 44, said he was "flabbergasted" by the arrest, which came after an officer pulled him over Tuesday morning on a traffic stop.

"I never thought I'd be going to jail for smoking a cigarette, but I'd do it again," said Hendrix, who was released from the Taylor County Jail after posting $150 bond Tuesday afternoon.

OK, this is stupid. He didn't go to jail for smoking. He went for failing to pay a fine. As dumb as the law definitely is, the problem is not that it's being enforced, it's that it's on the books in the first place. Smokers (or anyone else, for that matter) aren't going to "beat the system" of fighting bad laws by ignoring them.

Posted 4/07/2007 04:17:00 PM by Douglas

What word doesn't belong in this statement:

Blind hunter Stanley McGowen has relied on two things to help him "see" the turkeys and deer he stalks — the eyesight of his longtime hunting partner and a scope that allows his friend to help him aim.

Now, a piece of legislation has 59-year-old McGowen excited about the prospect of "seeing" his prey better.

Blind hunters. Great, this is going to end well. Ya know, I'm never going to be President, win an Olympic medal, nor be on the cover of a magazine. The hand life has dealt me comes with certain limitations, and for the most part, I've accepted them. That's why you'll never see me on American Idol. But I think that if I lost the use of my eyes, I'd do the rest of the world a favor and stop going out in public shooting things. This really makes those little orange vests and Elmer Fudd hats seem just that much more pointless.

Posted 4/07/2007 04:10:00 PM by Douglas

If I had terminal cancer, I'd shove Tidy-Bowl crystals down my urethra if I thought it would do any good. What giant balls the Health Ministry has to dare tell dying people, "Hold on, we haven't tested it yet."

"DCA has not been tested for this purpose. DCA might not be helpful and, indeed, might be harmful when given to cancer patients."

Hey, guess what else is harmful to cancer patients? CANCER! Freakin' morons.

Posted 4/02/2007 05:03:00 PM by Douglas

Taking the heat for any "editing" he may have done, Colbert ponys up to Emanuel with an interview green-screen of his very own. For anyone interested (who the hell am I kidding that anyone reading this besides my dad and that girl in college (Victoria, I'm still sorry) would be reading this) here's an interesting sample. Go to YouTube and search "Colbert Interview" if'n your interested.

Posted 4/01/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Google once again take the April Fool's Day joke and kicks it through the uprights.

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

I must say, this one's not quite as good as their previous jokes, in that it's not quite as plausible as google romance. Still, I have a feeling some idiots are flushing stuff down their toilets to get access to "Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines" as I type this.