DERRTY Thief

I'm not a rap star, and I don't have an entourage.

However, it seems to me that the purpose of a trusted entourage is to hold your stuff while you're performing, lest it get stolen. Your entourage should be able to guard your $150,000 tennis bracelet while securing your diamond encrusted "DERRTY" pendants. I mean, they're all armed, right?

World Beard & Moustache Champions

Some men just play the game.
Other men become champions.
These men are champions.

Nothing Illegal Here, Officer

The Secret Service recently found an armed man following President Bush's daughter also had a lot of ammunition in his car. However, since it's legal to carry a licensed gun and to have crates of ammunition in your car, this is no problem.

What if the Bush Administration's policy of proactive intervention were applied to gun laws?

In the name of safety, we're content to occupy a foreign power. When worried that a country might bring some future harm, we intervene.

In the name of observing an outdated amendment, we endanger our populace by allowing almost anyone to carry a firearm. When worried that a person might bring some future harm, we stand by and wait.

Meanwhile, on the Sun...

While we silly, hairless monkeys are busy consuming products and killing one another, the Sun's busy ejecting one of the largest solar flares ever recorded. Go out tonight and tomorrow night and look for auroras.


Update: Now that the flare effects have come and gone, we can appreciate tongue in check headlines like Space Storm Hits, Earth Survives.

Sage Advice for Bay Area Sushi Eaters

Particularly if you live on the Peninsula, Josh and Mika's Sushi Guide should not be ignored. They've got humor, discerning palates, honest writing, and a web page that looks like it's from 1996.

Where's Mr. Freeze When You Need Him?

With California aflame, I'm expecting our state's Bodybuilder-in-Chief to begin sprinkling meaningless movie reference remarks any day now.

Egads!

World's New Tallest Building? Yes.

Blends in with other tall buildings?
Attractive?
Appropriate? No. (story here)

Will the Defendants Please Crumple?

A case of some forged JFK documents. Unexceptional, except that the documents themselves are listed as defendants.

Fo' Shizzle, Sir!

With each passing day, our military resembles the military in Starship Troopers a little more. This movie's military, with its cool feel and unquestioning loyalty to questionable tactics, is similar to the Army of One marketed to us post-9/11.

One of the ways to keep our military full of grunts is to step up recruiting in our cities, adapting the cool Army message in audience-appropriate ways.

I'm not sure whether or not I support urban army recruiting, for though military service may often represent a path to a better life, our enlisted military is dispropotionally staffed by minorities. Grunts in the line of fire are too frequently Grunts of Color.

All that said, I'm fully in favor of articles with titles like Salon's The Army be thuggin' it.

Not-So-Great Deceiver?

US Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin has made the extremely helpful claim that the Christian God put Bush in charge. However, former Secretary of State and Friend to Truth Madeleine Albright has countered that Bush's foreign policy "is not good for America, not good for the world." How can both be factual?

There's really only one way.

My problem with construing President Bush's ascendency as indicative of the End of the World is not the 1,000 years part of the Revelation verse above ...maybe a process that began in 1003 A.D. just ended. My problem is that I don't see the nations of the world being deceived.

The world doesn't seem deceived at all. The power of Bush's deception seems to peter rapidly once you pass America's borders. Even here, only half the population is deceived, though Fox News is working on the other half.

Fashion Designer Wants a Job with Lucasfilm

That's really the only reasonable conclusion I can reach in reaction to John Galliano's Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection.

First & Last Name

Misbehaving sports fans are generally granted anonymity by the press, nameless hooligans who emerge from gameday scrapes to regular life without their exploits trailing them close behind.

Not so for the hapless Cubs fan who contributed to their Game 6 NLCS meltdown. I'm surprised that the articles demanding that peeved Chicagoans leave him alone insist on repeating his name as if it were a vindictive mantra.

A guy who wears headphones to a sporting event so that he can listen to a radio account of the game is a real fan. Please return him to the anonymity that he now craves so dearly.

It's a Simple Transaction

More than ever before, US workers are finding themselves marginalized in our new and education-intensive economy. With manufacturing jobs quickly moving overseas, this condition is a sad (but perhaps temporary) outcome of America's shift to Information Economy in a globalized environment. Unless these unfortunate workers land in blue collar employment, many will find themselves in the service sector ...independent of whether their personalities work well in a service setting.

The Smoking Gun highlights the humor created some of these service personnel, NY toll attendants, go bad.

TV Gut Bomb

I wouldn't normally link to a food review, but UGO's review of
Swanson's Hungry Man All Day Breakfast is hysterical.

Cartoons of Ribaldry

Life with the Feathering-Walthamstones.
Note: Movies with sound. Subtitles enable silent enjoyment.
In fact, please watch these without sound, for the terrible British accents are more than a little distracting.

What's the Problem with State Secession?

Though the majority of voting Californians chose Arnold as their pick for the next governor, the Bay Area (and LA) voted against the recall. A glance at the recall map and a perusal of Bay Area recall comments and you'll see how different the Northern California coast is from the rest of California. Though Federal secession has already been tested, what are the prospects of large areas seceding from states?

That's Why He Bounced on the Turf

If you watched Saturday's 4th inning fracas between the Red Sox and the Yankees, you probably saw a young, angry Pedro Martinez throw 72-year old Don Zimmer to the ground. Pedro looked atrocious, executing an Aikido move to direct Zimmer turfward. However, he never would have had the chance to upset Zimmer had the Yankee coach not charged him, flailing a pathetic left cross to Pedro's chin.

Mayor Bloomberg has said that Pedro should have been arrested, but I find the situation much more uncertain. After yesterday, the only thing I'm really certain about is that Don Zimmer looks like the offspring of Don Rickles and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Update: Don Zimmer is having a tough ol' time. It's too bad, for his public persona is that of a likeable fellow. Plus, you've got to have sympathy for any 72-year old with a job.

Rush Becomes a Double Entendre

Rush Limbaugh should be forgiven for previously denying his addiction to painkillers.
Lying about addiction is what addicts do.

He should not be forgiven for wearing this tie.

Just a Big Scary Face

Whether you agree or disagree with him, you've gotta admit that this administration only rolls out Dick Cheney when they really want to scare us.

Boo!

What Would Jesus Detonate?

It's hard to misconstrue Jesus/Joshua's ideas about the poor.
The poor must be treated well.

It's hard to get him wrong regarding how to treat your neighbor.
Love your neighbor.

Would Jesus blow up the State Department?
Pat Robertson thinks it's a definite maybe.

Since 9/11, America's been terrified by religious extremists from only one religion. All religious extremists pose a threat to us in one way or another, for all religious extremists consider themselves sacred and view the rest of us as hopelessly profane.

A Quest for Better Bladder Control

It appears we're approaching the day where randy partners no long beg for sex, instead highlighting the way sex improves your sense of smell.

Vatican: Condoms Don't Stop AIDS

Though all reasonable people stopped getting their science news from the Catholic Church around 1624, the Vatican still feels it proper to deceive AIDS-stricken Africans, telling them that condoms don't stop AIDS.

Are Pictures of Grad Students Inherently Funny?

Don't ask me how, but I stumbled across these PhD's at Loyola Chicago. Scroll the page. These faces make the perfect cast for an American Pie knock-off film. You've got heroes, villians, friends, crushes, assorted students from abroad. It's got all the elements. All they need is a producer and they've got a hit.

Gallup Poll Spin Machine: Liberal Media Poll

In my youth, I associated The Gallup Organization with an unbaised read on what Mom and Pop America were thinking. Since the 2000 Election, in which Gallup presented an election day poll in which >60% of respondents said they would vote for Bush, I've come to see Gallup as frequently presenting numbers skewed in a conservative direction (On that day, Gore won the popular vote by ~500,000 votes). Today's poll results are even more depressing. This poll, titled Are the News Media Too Liberal?: Forty-five percent of Americans say yes, could just as easily have been titled A Majority of Americans Believe Media is Either Even-Handed or Too Conservative.

In this Fox News/James Carville world, I feel that the financial rewards of reaching a partisan audience are forcing journalists & pollsters to choose a side. Impartiality is an impossible ideal, but the quest for impartiality now seems a worthy cause all but abandoned and forgotten.

Scroll Lock and Other Keyboard Mysteries

Though 90% of the keys on my keyboard are subject to everyday use, some keys are never touched (and, quite frankly, they scare me a little). The Straight Dope unlocks the mystery of Scroll Lock and other strange, leftover keys that reside on our grubby expanded keyboards.

[I'm glad to discover that these sacred keys are not harmful. In my heart of hearts, I'd always suspected that the Sys Rq key was the reason that my keyboard bore the ominous "Warning: Some experts believe that the use of any keyboard may cause serious injury."]

Too Stupid for Democracy?

On this day of California's Recall, I'd like us to reflect and ponder that we may just be too stupid for democracy.

Touching More Than the Glowing Red Finger

Arnold's starting to look like a sexual predator. He even groped E.T.'s stunt double.

Happy Dog

My best friend's name is Maggie. Yesterday was her 3rd (or 21st) birthday.

Chinese Space Amibitions

Don't you think the current Chinese space exploration plans are a little ambitious? The emergence of China as an international player is inevitable, but their pursuit of a vigorous space program smacks of a Cold War-esque nationalism. Doesn't China have bigger fish to fry?

Update: While getting a space program off the ground is a priority for the Chinese government, serving as a playground for Japanese Sex Tourists is not.

Another Update: I really hope they don't accidentally kill these guys. Take a glance at a prospective astronaut. I don't know whether it's the sacrificial lamb look on his face, or the 1950's look to the entire picture, or that the caption refers to him and his compatriots as "spacemen," but it just looks really risky.

Final Update (10/17/03): He lived. Whew. However, he did mess up his only job.

Trillian Still Broken

In the race to rational business models during the past 4 years, companies have devoted considerable time and energy toward transitioning consumers from free services to fee-based services. Though Yettie staffers abound, it appears that Cerulean Studios doesn’t have any employees who learned how to conduct this process in an organized fashion.

On September 26th, Trillian’s products were rendered partially operable by a change in Yahoo’s messenger protocol. Within hours, the Cerulean staff had a patch available for their paid product. Moreover, their familiarity with the new protocol allowed them to help GAIM (an open source interoperable chat app) return to full functionality. Despite these successes, a patch is still unavailable for the free version of Trillian (.74E), and the userbase is starting to grumble.

By alienating their unpaid userbase, Cerulean risks failing to convert millions of unpaid users into thousands of paid ones. Each passing day without support for their free product is a day in which Cerulean’s PR machine – their free users – is offline.

I hope Cerulean Studios will soon learn the error of this strategic play and return to supporting the users who are most likely to become their future customers.

Update (10/9/03): A patch is available and my geeky grumbling ceases.

It's a Slippery World

Sometimes, things at GVC go horribly wrong. WARNING: The preceding link includes video of moderately gut-turning schadenfreude humor.

Where'd You Learn to Do This?!?

Doc Gooden's son has been charged with crack possession. I learned it from watching you, dad!

Election Years are the Cruelest Years...

It's nice to see the President not take himself too seriously for once.

The More Fox News You Watch, the Less You Know

Metafilter's got some heartbreaking news regarding "Media Misinformation" and Americans' views about the Iraq War.

At Least Call it "Lawrence"

My apologies to all the Larrys out there, but somehow Tropical Storm Larry lacks a certain formality that I've come to expect from my named weather patterns.

What's this Film on My Keyboard?

Conflict is in the air, and it's tempting to describe most every dialectic as a "war." Sure, there's the War on Terror and the Culture War (Domestic US -- Conservative Christians vs. everybody else). But what about my favorite, the War between Mold and Our Stuff?

Tell Me After the Fact

A somewhat impressive asteroid just missed us. (Just in case the other news of the world didn't have you on edge.)

North American Neighborhood Gets Stranger with Each Passing Day

Since 9/11, the US has been sprinting toward panic-fueled madness. Meanwhile, Canada has been overtaken by reefer madness. How'se a-boot some more of that kind bud, eh?

Fasten Your Seatbelt Low and Tight Across Your Lap

Just in case you felt comfortable flying again, the military regularly rehearses shooting down hijacked airliners.

God Hates Lateness

"We have to be on time for the sake of God, of the country, our people and our consciences," said the Ecuadorean President. Absolutely. You know, the Almighty's not peeved about genocide, profound disrespect for our fellow men (and women), or the wholesale destruction of the environment.

Heavens, no. Lateness, people, lateness. That's what gets stuck in his (or her) craw.

Beautifying Arnold

How many times has the Governator gone under the plastic surgeon's knife? Let's see... Compare before with after. What do you think?

Copy Catsuit

Madonna, Madonna. Tsk, tsk, tsk. As the future 55th President of the United States, I expected so much more from you.

Yahoo Contacts ...Speak to Me!

5 days without a patch for the .74 version of Trillian and I feel like I'm holding my breath underwater. I want my interoperable IM client back!

Whew. I feel better.