Making the rounds... Jon Stewart smashes the crossfire crew. We're talking a complete smack-down here. They totally lost control of their own show, something I can't say I've ever seen in one of these lizard-fests.

Finally, someone who isn't afraid of the camera and can think on their feet twice as fast just goes after two of these talking bobbleheads, and mounts them on his wall when he's done.

For those on dial-up, a transcript is here.

I'm sure many of the most extreme members of the gallery (no, not you, the other guy) will nod their heads completely off at this slick five minute video.

Ok, this one twanged a nerve. I'll preface this by saying I'm damned grateful to the sane Britons and Poles and all the rest who see the real enemy and are hurting and dying beside us to crush it. This is not directed at you. It's directed at the freak sitting next to you.

I'm sick of this crap. Ok, let's take the gloves off for a second, shall we? The world ain't our fault, and I'm getting damned tired of everyone trying to imply it is, or that we should do something about it (but only when the rest of the world thinks we should.) You see, for the past sixty years we've just been the freaking janitors of the world, cleaning up the mess that Europe made.

We didn't get to this position by cheating, lying, stealing or killing. Europeans (including the British) did that some two hundred years ago, carving up the entire world as quickly as their sharp little knives could hack pieces off. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, my country happened to be one of those pieces too, and a really old one at that. We just happened to be lucky and mean enough to chop your greedy fingers off when they squeezed too hard.

The rest of the world wasn't so lucky. Beijing, Delhi, Saigon, Tehran, Istanbul, all and more became part of your not-very "Great Game." Remember that one? Oh, I'm sorry, that's right. We're not allowed to talk about what your grandparents and great grandparents did to the world, are we? We're not allowed to talk about opium dens in China and mass graves in Algeria, concentration camps in South Africa and tiny bullet-riddled bodies in Amristar. No, we can't talk about those things now, can we? Ancient history. Nothing to see here, move along.

And when it all got too boring and too complicated you went and did it to yourselves. Twenty thousand dead in a day at the Somme. Eight million dead overall. Twenty one million wounded. And you know what? We really didn't think it was any of our goddamned business. We let you keep killing each other, and making your colonial "subjects" kill each other for you, until some of your agents started talking our neighbors into messing with us, and your navies started to sink our ships.

So when our manpower and our guns and our tanks and our goddamned money won your stupid little war for you, we sent our president over there with a decent plan to make sure it all never happened again, and what did we get for our troubles? You just went back and started the mess all over again, expanding the empires that had gotten you into that meat grinder in the first place, humiliating the people that nearly took over your corner of the world, and treating everyone except the Bolsheviks as beneath your contempt.

So round it all came again, the sequel, only louder and longer this time. Fifty million people had to die, and again it took our people and our stuff and our cash to make sure you weren't all speaking German or Russian and wondering where the hell all the Jews had got to. Even then, we were prepared to let you all have at it for as long as you wanted, and were it not for some idiotic Japanese and a lunatic German you can be damned sure we would have.

Almost every single big conflict we've gotten ourselves into since then did not have ol' Uncle Sam at its start. No sir, it's Captain Euro all the way, hiding at the base hoping nobody sees him picking his nose.

What's that? Don't believe me? I'm a victim of neo-cons too? Well then, let's examine...

• Iraq: a duet of Ottoman provinces thrown together by Britain in the hope it would make it easier to ride a train from Suez to Delhi.
• Vietnam: Oh good lord, where to begin. Possibly the last time a European managed to talk an American into doing them a favor.
• Israel: What happens when idealistic British Liberal leaders decide to facilitate a little bit of escatology while their anti-semitic underlings grumble and grouse? I don't know either, but after promising the same chunk of real estate to two different sets of people, Britain and France ensured we'd all find out.
• Saudi Arabia: Understand a people so you can understand a conflict? You gotta be kidding me. These were Arabs, they weren't really human. And there was a war on! Just pay both sides until a winner floats to the top.
• Iran: Hello? We're trying to build a railroad to India, remember? Can't do that without passing through Persia. And those cheeky bastards were actually making treaties with the Bolsheviks! Find a strong man and give him whatever he wants, include the title "Shah."

Are we perfect? Oh hell no, we stink at this. Most of our attempts at fixing it have just made it worse. But that was because, again, we were busy making sure you Europeans didn't start going at each other with nukes. Building up a nation in some godforsaken corner or another of the world is kinda hard when you're trying to make sure nobody blows the whole damned thing up.

Even then, even then, we were willing to just let it all sort itself out

God damn you all. When dipshits do things like this I just want to spit on you all and lobby my president to pull every single soldier out of your stupid little bloodthirsty countries as soon as possible, pausing only to sow salt into the earth as we leave.

Because what you all seem to have forgotten is:

Q: What's the difference between a European buried in Normandy and an American buried there?
A: The European was dying for his country.

And now you're going to accuse us of fascism? Listen up sparky, we're not the ones who invented the goddamned thing. We are the only country in the world left who knows how to defeat it.

I'm sick of you all. I'm sick of trying to make you like us. I'm sick of feeling guilty because you don't. There's not a man or woman in France who cares if the rest of the world hates them or not. The British just expect it. The Germans and Japanese at least have a reason for it. Fuck you. You want a piece of us? Come and get it. Like my mom always said, life isn't fair. Life isn't nice. The world is a nasty, ugly place, filled with people who'll think nothing of shoving you and your baby into a pit, laughing because the little flopping, bleeding rag doll still clutched to your chest is still holding the only toy they'll ever know.

We're trying to stop all of this. While you and your compadres are sipping tea and cooking up clever ways of accusing us of genocide, we're the ones trying to stop it from happening. We're the ones dying to stop it from happening.You think we're too powerful? You think we're trying to dominate the world? Stop us. Stand in our way while we bleed our last into the dust of countries that were stillborn or crippled because of your grandfathers.

But until then, please, for your sake, just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

Yeah, ok, I listen to Howard Stern. He's a good interviewer, and his crew is a hoot. But his politics, his politics are amazing. All it took was the FCC denting narcissist boy's style once to turn Howard from a flag-waving conservative to an unrepentant Democrat.

One of his favorite points is stem cell research. He harps on it so often I have to believe either he or someone very close to him has been diagnosed with some sort of degenerate neurological disorder. There's not a time he mentions Bush that he doesn't mention the stem cell research "ban".

The Democratic ticket isn't half as smart as Howard, which of course means they harp on it twice as much. This lead to a strange concordance as Howard tried to defend John Edwards's latest classic trial-lawyer misdirection by calling it a "misquote".

Well, Charles Krauthammer, who is himself a victim of spinal cord injury, dissects this example of Mr. Edwards's electorate fellatio with expert skill, and Krauthammer uses the whole quote:

This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.
...
Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.
...
Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly ... that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this fairy tale, having no doubt been told by their pollsters that stem cells play well politically for them.
...
There is no apologizing for Edwards's remark. It is too revealing. There is absolutely nothing the man will not say to get elected.

I'm used to politicians lying to me. It's what they do. It's what they all do. I'm just looking for a set that'll at least try to stay out of the way and when they can do what's right. My God, people... you're trying to elect an Eastern technocrat and a freaking trial lawyer.

In 35 AD Rome was done with Tiberius, and he with them. He tried to replace a charismatic and immensely popular leader by doing what he thought was the right thing, sticking to his principles regardless what his chattering classes and elites clucked about. He dined on ashes for his trouble, eventually retiring to Capri to prepare his own successor. "Anyone will be better than Tiberius!" was a cry often written in the histories that survive, "absolutely anyone! Anyone but Tiberius!"

At least they had the excuse that Tiberius himself reared their viper.

Remember the Genesis probe? The deep space gizmo that splatted so spectacularly in the Nevada desert? Engineers think they've found the reason, and it's not dead batteries:

Sensors to detect deceleration on NASA's Genesis space capsule were installed correctly but had been designed upside down, resulting in the failure to deploy the capsule’s parachutes. The design flaw is the prime suspect for why the capsule, carrying precious solar wind ions, crashed in Utah on 8 September, according to a NASA investigation board.

That's right, folks. They weren't installed upside down, they were designed upside down. This is one of those errors that makes project managers go bananas, because there are usually at least half a dozen full-stop checks that are meant to catch things like this.

And it's not just government work either. My dad bought a new truck years ago and noticed the paint on the hood was cracked and crazed. On a lark he filled out the survey card that came with the truck with a lot of "very dissatisifed" selections. Lo and behold, the manager of the plant the truck was produced came out a few weeks later. Turns out he wanted to take the hood back and hang it in front of the plant door, because in order for it to arrive that way it had to have made it through no fewer than seven quality control inspections.

Like the guy says, the more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

Living in a house with five cats means we definitely have to deal with cat box issues. Well, ok, Ellen has to deal with them. Because, you know, making me do it might be, well, bad:

Court documents filed in Clallam County Superior Court tie an alleged arson in an apartment complex to a smelly cat litter box.

Besides, it smells bad enough when it just sits there. I can't imagine what the stench would be like if you set it on fire.

I've always found discussions of the origin of the books of the Bible fascinating. However, I've also found that even those who are otherwise quite familiar with Biblical tradition do not know much about the scholarly work that's happened around it in the past century. So, if you're interested in how the Bible was written, and are sick of reading about the election, this Wikipedia article on the "Sayings Gospel" is a great place to start. Follow all the links you can and you'll find yourself journeying with people like Albert Schweitzer and Dominic Crossan and, well, me. Let's take a walk...

I know mom has wanted to do this to some of her patients, but I also know she hasn't:

A nurse turned down an audio alarm on an AIDS patient's vital-signs monitor and failed to notice when the man had a heart attack and died, county officials said.

The thing that makes this extra-special dumb is that if a nurse really wants to kill someone, they have a gigantic number of nearly undetectable ways to do so. Stupidity really does sometimes kill.

Slashdot linked up this NY Times article that details an innovative new use for the Segway scooter:

Several hundred people nationwide are using Segways to cope with disabilities like scoliosis and arthritis and even missing limbs, according to a group called Disability Rights Advocates for Technology, or Draft, which is promoting such use.

My mom is only slightly better balanced than my daughter (who recently wobbled over into the grass as she tried to track a helicopter as it went by), so this thing would at first seem just a really expensive way to fall over. But:

For some, the Segway is more comfortable than a wheelchair, and it helps those with balance problems stay upright.

"It's just this incredible feeling for those that cannot balance and when they stand up they feel like they're in the midst of falling all the time," said Jerry Kerr of St. Louis, a Segway rider with a spinal cord injury that left him unable to walk, though he can stand to operate the scooter.

Thankfully, Segway's sudden popularity with the disabled is not because of a tax loophole... since it's not classified as a medical device, insurance and medicaid/medicare won't cover it. For now, anyway.

But hey, if it helps you get around and you're paying for it out of your own pocket, more power to you!

Just when you thought it was safe to round up all the lobbyists for a game of "who can hold their breath underwater for... 2 hours?", another damned interest group starts clamoring to be heard:

Until recently these people felt isolated, never suspecting others felt the same. But now ... they are finding each other and identifying themselves with a common label. They call themselves asexual, and are coming out to parents and loved ones, declaring their asexuality to be as valid an orientation as being straight or gay.

They even seem to have a bit of science behind them:

About one percent of adults have absolutely no interest in sex, according to a new study, and that distinction is becoming one of pride among many asexuals.

I can just hear the parade chant now...

"We're here! We're not queer! Get... um... bent?"

Look, I think sexuality is a continuum, a sliding scale with "is A/likes B" on one end and "is A/likes A" on the other. It makes perfect sense to me that somewhere on that scale there's an "is A/likes NULL" setting. "None of my business who you sleep with" applies the same even if "nobody" is the answer.

But the first one that tries to pry loose some of my tax dollars for any damned fool "asexual studies" thing is going to get a clubbing that'll make a baby seal hunter wince.

Second story link via Daffodil Lane.

Those of you who think shooters should be played using only a keyboard and a mouse as God and Carmack intended might be interested in the SmartJoy FRAG. In theory, it lets you connect the proper controllers to your console so you can blast away with accuracy.

I wasn't bothered that much by the hand controllers once I got used to them. Of course, Jeff would say that's because my marksmanship can't get much worse, but all he ever plays is Civ II (1999) and Panzer General II (1997). Whaddaheknow?

Old and busted: saggy man-boobs. New hotness: fake man-boobs:

Breast implants are becoming more and more popular with a surprising group of Shanghai citizens -- men.

The Shanghai Daily said Wednesday that most of the male patients seeking implants in China's financial hub wanted to impress women, or clients, or in some cases their boss.

I mean, where do you start with this one?

As proof positive that cranks don't all live in California, we have this German's proof that the Earth is, in fact, a hollow sphere and we're all living on the inside surface. Sort of like standing inside gigantic gourd and looking up. Stars, planets, cosmos, the works, are all compacted into an "inner" sphere that floats in the center of the shell. He even has explanations for why we can't wave at people in Mongolia and don't need to worry about old Japanese perverts peering into our houses with telescopes.

I think. Modern cosmology is tough enough, and it's supposed to make sense.

Quit messing around on the computer and go improve yourself by learning some of the new words recently added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

As I recall, the Unabridged edition is something like 20 volumes and costs ~ $1500. There's vocabulary, and then there's vocabulary.

BBCnews is carrying another report about a dinosaur fossil discovery in China (they must be having a conference over there or something). This time the subject is T. rex, or rather an ancestor of T. rex. Paleontologists have discovered the earliest known ancestor to the great predator, a creature that lived some 60 million years earlier. Called Dilong paradoxus, it was about seven feet long. The weirdest thing about the creature is it was covered in hair-like feathers. Yup, T. rex's earliest ancestor was, well, fuzzy.

How embarassing...

But not in Tennessee:

Katherine Williams says the yellow ducky sponge she put on sale at a flea market is merely a child's toy. City officials say the vibrator inside makes it a sex toy.

The lady sells adult toys as a business, so that would make her a little suspect, but come on guys... sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

BBCnews is carrying this brief article and picture of the first dinosaur fossil found in which the subject is in a bird-like sleeping pose. Found in China, the fossil has been named "Mei long", which not coincidentally means "sleeping dragon".

One of the things that lifted Halo from "really good" to "superb" was the soundtrack. As with Homeworld (one of the top three games I've ever played), it makes a huge difference in how you perceive the game. Thanks to Cobb, we can now get a sneak preview of what Halo 2's soundtrack is going to be like. As with the game itself, it's looking to be damned fine indeed.

I can sorta see paying, oh, maybe $10 for a goofy e-bay novelty item, but $500?. Hmmm... we have some nice wood boxes containing Ellens "other" cats...

Space.com is carrying this article summarizing new developments in Martian geological research. By examining recently discovered "hole chains" found on the Martian surface, scientists are beginning to speculate that Mars may still experience "marsquakes" caused by tectonic movements. Unfortunately nobody's landed a seismograph on the planet yet, so right now it's not much more than speculation. However, it does point the way toward news sets of experiements to figure out what makes the red planet tick.

Where does your "love-to-hate-it" worst guitar solo rank?

Anything that puts Poison on a list multiple times is OK by me.

I've always thought music was too expensive at $12.99, and utterly outrageous at $18.99 (where most of the weird stuff I buy is). Which is why I have a killer stereo system but haven't bought new music for it in, what, something like 15 years now. $10.00 is more my speed, $8.00 would be even better. Well, guess what, I have a powerful friend on my side now:

Along with other giant retailers such as Best Buy and Target, Wal-Mart willingly loses money selling CDs for less than $10 (they buy most hit CDs from distributors for around $12) ... Wal-Mart is tired of losing money on cheap CDs. It wants to keep selling them for less than $10 -- $9.72, to be exact -- but it wants the record industry to lower the prices at which it purchases them ... According to music-industry sources, Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games [if the labels did not comply].

The article's full of a lot of whining and crying about how terrible it is to do business with Wal Mart, that they're mean and don't care about profit margins and will squeeze you for every half cent you have. Which is all completely true, but there's a reason:

"The labels price things based on what they believe they can get -- a pricing philosophy a lot of industries have," [Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president and general merchandise manager in charge of the chain's entertainment section] says. "But we like to price things as cheaply as we possibly can, rather than charge as much as we can get. It's a big difference in philosophy, and we try to help other people see that."

Essentially, Wal Mart has figured out there's a price point out there when it comes to music. Large numbers of people (like me) will not pay even $13 for a CD, but will have no problem paying $9.72. Wal Mart wants to sell music to these people, and make money doing it. Record execs could care less. They’re already making all the money they want. Well, as long as nobody challenges the RIAA lawsuits and the DMCA is never repealed, that is.

Unfortunately, what Wal Mart wants, Wal Mart gets, and so I expect to be visiting our local one soon. What keeps the label execs up nights is that once one retailer gets what they want, the others will demand it too. It's a slippery slope, and they're grabbing grass right now.

Oh there will definitely be a down side to it. Once Wal Mart and the rest force the industry into a $10 per disc model, all those tiny little bands so cherished on the edges of the market will disappear with a "pop". The music industry's business model is coming apart at the seams, and instead of innovating and finding a new one, the people at the top are using lawsuits to try and hold the line. It's not working, and when the shakeout comes, and as long as the markets are free it will come, it will be very, very ugly.

But only for a short while. People make music by and large because they love to make music. People listen to it because they love listening to it. The market's not going away, it's just changing. In spite of apocalyptic predictions, the demise of the current music market will not represent the destruction of western civilization as we know it. Yes, a lot of people will lose (are losing) their jobs, good people who just picked the wrong industry at the wrong time. But, contrary to industry propaganda, it won't result in "McMusic" (bland, boring, and bad for you).

Technology is making it possible for anyone to build a fantastic recording studio in their basement. With a little technical skill and a credit card or two, it's now possible for any artist to be their own record label. The Internet destroys distribution and advertising costs, and the rise of iMusic and its competitors drives down the cost (and therefore risk) to any new act that just wants to be heard. If someone ever figures out how to burn CDs on demand for $1 a disc, Wal Mart won't be carrying 5,000 titles, they'll be carrying 5 million.

To these people, these artists, these innovators, the labels are all roaring dinosaurs, dangerous, heavy, stupid, and vicious, serving only to impede and stymie them. Wal Mart's insistence on a profit-making $9.77 CD may in fact be the asteroid that finally smashes their dominance, heralding apocalypse and ruin. But when the smoke finally clears, we will not be left with sterile wilderness, we will instead be confronted by an explosion of creativity, a jungle of variety, with a diversity literally unthinkable to us today. It will be painful, but in the end it will be very, very good.

And we'll be paying less than $9.72 a disc for it.

So the deep Freudian fear in men is the previously mentioned vagi-with-a-bite. The deep Freudian certainty in women is men really do think with their wangs.

Well, ladies, thanks to Liz Ditz (who receives a brainy no-prize that will do something embarassing if she rubs too hard when she dusts it), we have the ultimate truth, from that paragon of journalistic integrity, Weekly World News:

LADIES, you may believe that every man thinks with his penis, but Lionel Tampling is in a class by himself. Astounded doctors have found a rudimentary brain in the Australian's trouser trout!

Making stuff up? WWN? Well, hey, it's no worse than CBS!

Pastease® brand pasties are self-adhesive,skin safe and waterproof. Pick your favorite pairs to match an outfit and your cutest bikini bottoms.

With your favorite bikini bottoms? I am assuming this at a private pool or some semi-nudie beach and not a public place with kids? Are these for only perky boobs? I mean, what if you bought the 'hand' ones and it looked like they were trying to hold your boobs up instead of covering them?

See and buy some boobie tape here.

Problem: Need to transport semi-liquid cargo from one location in a city to another, and no tanker truck is available.

Solution: Line a regular bin-style trailer with plastic and throw a tarp over it. What could possibly go wrong?

A load of pig entrails sloshed out of a truck hauling the guts to a dog food plant on Monday, leaving the slop across a busy Little Rock intersection.

The Monday accident occurred when an 18-wheeler driven by Billy Day, 55, of Russellville, made a quick stop. About 1,000 pounds of the innards gushed past a tarp that covered the trailer.

I hope he had his windows rolled up. Well, hang on a minute. Someone this stupid... nah, I hope he had both windows down and was smoking a cigarette.

Via Res.

Remeber last week when I wondered just how this thing's jet engine actually worked? I think I found the answer:

The Gluhareff Pressure Jet engine is a remarkably simple device made of thin-wall stainless steel tubing and sheet metal. Inside, it contains only a length of coiled steel tubing (the fuel line), which gasifies and super-heats the incoming liquid propane before it is injected at supersonic speed at the top of the intake stack. The engine has no moving parts, yet it is fully throttleable.

Upgrade this one to "definitely gotta get me one of these." Can Damion's rocket powered Honda be far behind?

Cobb linked up this perceptive and surprisingly even-handed look at one of the fundamental differences between Kerry's vision of foreign policy and Bush's:

This election is not just a conflict of two men, but is a comprehensive conflict of visions ... How do we conceive of an international order in the post-9/11 world? Bush, the conservative, conceives of a flexible, organic, spontaneous order. Kerry, the liberal, conceives of a more rationalist, planned and managed order.

I'm voting for Bush because "planned and managed" has already been tried and has failed miserably. No surprise the people most wedded to Kerry's vision seem to be (for the most part) born after 1970.

Spaceflightnow is carrying this article detailing the discovery of a previously unknown sort of stellar object. Found by examining the binary system EF Eridanus using the Gemini North and Keck II telescopes, this object appears to have once been a less massive binary partner of what is now a white dwarf. The current theory postulates that at some point these were both regular stars, with one "sucking" mass off the other one, I guess like a kid with a lollypop. What's left of the less massive member is too small to be a star but far to big to be even a brown dwarf.

Ron gets an avacado green no-prize for bringing us Eurobad '74, a collection of catalog samples representing the in look for interiors in 1974. The site seems to have collected its examples from European magazines, but I can remember most of this stuff being given away on gameshows in the US from the same period. I especially like all the "surprised" naked chicks randomly distributed in the pictures.

Site is safe for work, if not for eyes.

New Scientist is running this article detailing a new research finding regarding cancer in mice. By controlling the expression of a certain kind of hormone, called "MYC" (pronounced "mick"), scientists were able to cause cancerous liver cells to revert to normal liver cells. Humans do not have the sort of hormone switch the scientists used in mice, so the therapy has no direct application. It does, however, indicate that research into MYC supression in humans could yield positive results.

Well, make that "seen", as I just now finished Fellowship 9/11, the scathing and almost true documentary revealing the real story behind the unjust and unjustified war between the denizens of Middle Earth and the peace-loving, law-abiding citizens of oil-rich Mordor. Yes, it's a little long, and yes, it's a little silly, and yes, it's mostly made up anyway, but hey, how does that make it any different from any other Michael Moore movie? Hmm? Hmmm?

Now where'd that Palantir get to...

She already knows how to shake it.

Ok, just reading the title of the patent should be enough:

Penis locking and lacerating vaginal insert

Via Mahmood, who "helpfully" includes illustrations of said device. Yeeeikes!

Scrappleface hits another one over the fence with news of Kerry's latest anti-terrorism initiative:

Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today announced the details of his plan to completely eliminate the nuisance of terrorism.

"I have a plan," said Mr. Kerry, "to create a do-not-terrorize list that Americans could sign up for on the internet. And if any terrorist would flout the law and attack someone whose name is on the list, he and his terror cell would be slammed with a $1,000 fine for each person killed and $500 for each injured survivor."

The saddest thing about the gallery's reaction is that some of them (no, not you, the other one) will try to patiently explain how this is a complete mis-statement of Kerry's position.

Yeah, ok, pull the other one, it has bells on.

Halo 2 has officially gone gold:

They said it couldn't be done! Actually, they didn't say that, but if they had, we'd have proved them all (the fake people who didn't say anything) wrong! Halo 2 has gone gold. We finished every line of code, every pixel of art, every frame of animation, every phoneme of dialog and every note of music. We finished it when we said we would (when it was done) and shipped that baby right on time to make its November launch date. And we're kinda proud of it. We think it's "fun."

Now that I have my very own console-game-disruptor (she's cute, but to her wires are things to pull out and then chew on, which does not a successful frag-fest make... and I'm not even going to tell you what Olivia does to the thing), I'm gonna have to figure out how to rig a TV downstairs so I can practice up on this thing. Damion, the "king of the video game geeks" in my peer group, has already admitted he won't be able to play the thing for at least two days after it shows up in stores. Which is two days I'll get, if I can get said rig set up down stairs.

What is this thing you call, "a life", and why do I want to get one?

Keep in mind kiddies, if you want to get your jollies off in public:

• DO: go at it like bunnies. This is no time to play porn star.
• DON'T: Use the Holiest of Holies in all Texas-dom* as your trysting spot:

A man and woman landed in jail after witnesses told police they were seen having sex inside the [Alamo] Sunday.

They tossed Ozzie completely out of San Antonio, and he just peed on the thing.

--------
* Having lived near Texas for twenty-five of my past thirty-[mumble] years, I do have to say that the Alamo does actually rank higher than Texas Stadium. But only during the off season.

Tatterdemalian gets an infinitely regressed no-prize for bringing us Zoom, a bit of artistic whimsy made possible by technology. When I held the key down I actually got a little dizzy.

No, really:

These e-cards appear funny, sexy and hip, but if you're lucky, you won't be seeing one in your inbox anytime soon.

They're the newest way for gay men diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease to tell their sex partners about their condition.
...
[Internet Sexuality Information Services, A local San Francisco health advocacy group] devised six pithy slogans, including: "It's not what you brought to the party, it's what you left with," "You're too hot to be out of action" and "I got screwed while screwing; you might have, too."

And you thought a "Dear John" letter was bad.

Fark linked up this summary of Bob Ballard's recent Black Sea expidition. They were returning to what seemed to be the site of an ancient homestead, now under some 300 feet of water. The hope was that this site would provide evidence (or evidence to the contrary) of a recently formed theory that the Black Sea flooded very quickly and much more recently than previously thought, creating the legend of Noah's flood. Unfortunately, the site is contaminated with later material, although nobody's completely sure how. Still, it seems to have been a very productive mission.

"Could you go get some cat food for the cats and some chicken nuggets for Olivia?"

From such innocent beginnings is the first link in a chain of Unintended Consequences formed. Sometimes you leave quickly and arrive only to find lint in your pockets. Sometimes you find old receipts. Sometimes, well, sometimes you find a whole lot more.

Ok, so this weekend was in-law weekend. Our "Queen Mother" (a.k.a. Ellen's mom) visited us, what, maybe once a year for the first seven years we were together, but add a grandchild (no, no, you see, you have it wrong, she's not our child, she's my grandchild) and you can almost set the calendar by the monthly visits. 16 months, 16 visits. And counting.

Now, I'll say up front that I get along pretty well with my in-laws. They certainly go the extra mile, as demonstrated by their helping my wife rip out the "think-of-it-as-really-weird-cat-litter" carpet (excuse me... "carpet") in our bottom-floor room. I put "carpet" in quotes because after two years of neurotic incontinent cats what was on the first floor was not a covering but was instead experimental proof that cat urine can in fact dissolve artificial fiber if "treated" often enough.

But, however grateful we are to our in-laws, it does not mean they create a stress-free environment. Which is why, even though we were happy to have a first floor room that was no longer actively attempting to peel the paint off the walls of the entire house, we were still just as happy to be doing the "Beverly Hillbillies" impersonation on our driveway. "Y'all come back now, ya hear?" Only, you know, whispered, in case they turn around.

So, it was time to relax. Being a guy, and therefore a rather simple creature, I decided the very best way to relax was to, well, have a little, rrm... "fun". Now, after nearly ten years of living with this particular member of the opposite species sex, I knew the best way to have "fun" was not to just hop down the stairs naked with a tragically placed towel... "look honey! I can lift weights!" is not a real impressive entrance when the reaction is a near epileptic siezure of laughter. No, instead one must be surprising, well-timed (after Olivia is down for a nap), and well-equipped.

Which was where the pockets came in. Guy shorts are great... since we don't really care what the hell we look like in them (we like lumpy), they can be far more utilitarian than their female "must curve here, must flatten here, must shape there" variety. In other words, without much effort I was able to stash an entire kit's worth of... "aides"... in my pockets. Including the one that didn't need a pocket, ya know.

Of course, as with all carefully-contrived male plans for intimacy, this one foundered on the rocks of female reality. "I'm so glad they helped us, but I'm so glad they're gone. My head feels like it's going to unscrew from my neck." Ok, note to the guys: allergy season + a visit from the 'rents = zero action. Zero. So there I sat on the couch, pockets stuffed full of carefully garnered "assistants", and no reason to use them. Must be what it feels like to get stood up at the prom.

In truth, though, it wasn't that much of a loss. The Giants had just scored against the Cowboys, and I was secretly jonesing for a way to get back at Ron, whose dedication to "America's Team" makes bin Laden's dedication to Islam look like a mere flirtation. Sure, it would be en-absentia, but he laughed at Our Redskins after their fourth turnover, in front of Us, and that Just Will not Do. Ok, only football fans will understand the whole "mojo-by-proxy" thing, but the point is being turned down at this juncture was both understandable and acceptable. Forgettable, even. Which is where it all sort of went, well, wrong.

"Could you go get some cat food for the cats and some chicken nuggets for Olivia?"

Two hours later. Not even being all husbandly by putting up the flag mount on the side of the garage was enough to make a difference in my chances (to unmarried people: having a spouse do something for their significant other without prompting is actually considered a valid form a foreplay. Trust me, this frightens us as much as it does you.) But hey, dealing with a hundred-odd square feet of petrified-cat-piss-cum-carpeting has gotta be worth something. "No problem." I said, and meant it. Check keys, check pockets, hop in the car and off we go.

It was only as I stood in the checkout lane that I realized something... one of the "assistants" I had carefully sequestered in my pockets was a very close analog, in both weight and shape, to my wallet. Which was sitting on the kitchen counter at home. With all my money and credit cards. I'd come all that way and spent all that time only to find my pockets stuffed full of misdemeanor sexual harassment objects. Something told me pulling out a bunch of, ahem... "toys", while rooting for a wallet that probably wasn't there would not impress the checkout lady. Who, let me say, was definitely not worth getting handcuffed for.

So back went the nuggets, back went the cat food, and back went I to the homestead. Ellen, as per norm, was on the phone when I got home, so all I could do was give a sour look, flourish the wallet, and head back out. It was only on my second return that I got the classic "what the hell was that all about?" greeting.

"Go look downstairs and look at the bookshelf by the door. That's what was in my pockets when I left. That's why I forgot my wallet."

*Tromp* *Tromp* *Tromp* [pause] "BUWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!"

But I had the last laugh...

"Where'd you find those?" she asked through the tears, "I've been looking for them for weeks!"

"Why???" I asked in a well-learned drawn out sing-song, as one who had not been invited on that particular Easter-egg hunt.

You see, sometimes you score by running the ball into the end-zone. Sometimes you score by surprising her with wine and candles. When you're married though, sometimes you score on your own private points system...

In a very small voice, with averted eyes and a covered mouth, "umm... no reason..."

New York 26, Dallas 10

I guess God wasn't watching the game today.

See the game stats here

Too bad the pool is closed. It's nice enough out to go swimming.

Dear God NOOOOOO!!! He's teaching her early!!!

Pretty soon she will be asking for a Giulietta of her own.

NSFW! This can also be classified as Weird and F'd up.

Learn the "art" (according to the site it's an art- I would classify it as extreme body modification) of labial stretching.

Ron, via IFOC, brings us news our next vacation might be in Malayasia:

Today Kuching or Cat City — is the home of the world‘s first and most extensive Cat Museum — a unique treasure-trove of kitty artifacts and feline memorabilia.

He gets a feline no-prize for finding the museum's home page. Hard to surprise Amber about a honeymoon location when she tells you where you're going, eh? Nah, just kidding...

CaptainHowdy gets the statistical no-prize for bringing us the ultimate in mortality tables. From car crashes to acid spills, if kills people it's there, with statistics on just how likely it is to kill you. I can't think of a more appropriate story for this icon.

What's worse than hitting a squirrel in traffic (well, thats sad in iteself but those little fu*&ers commit squirrly suicide)? How bout an arm.

The latest trend in bar games, goldfish racing, is under scrutiny in Utah after some say the race is a form of animal abuse, according to a Local 6 News report.

See entire article here. Don't forget to download the video!

Offshoring. The very name strikes fear into the tech community. We have to protect those jobs! Keep them from going overseas! Taxes! Tariffs! Quotas! Whatever it takes, do something to stop it!

The emotional response, yes, but unfortunately the wrong one. because if you do that, then this becomes impossible:

Kathy Brittain White has a dream. She figures if U.S. CIOs will ship programming jobs to India to save money, maybe they'll ship them to rural Arkansas instead. So White's company, Rural Sourcing, is setting up outsourcing centers in places in the U.S. where the cost of living is low -- not as low as in Bangalore, but low enough to compete with the total cost of offshoring.

Because that's the other side of the offshoring equation, the one big media ignores and big labor tries to hide. While third world labor is cheaper than US labor, often by orders of magnitude, it's nowhere near as efficient as US labor. The United States has one of (I'm pretty sure it's the) most efficient labor forces in the world. We're expensive, but we get the job done right, the first time, and almost faster than you can complete the specification. It doesn't much matter if you only pay Haji $3 a day to make your widgets when it takes him two days to make one that's any good. Far better to pay Jane $18 an hour and have her turn out fifty perfect ones in a day.

Companies are often wooed by the siren song of cheap labor only to find their ship foundering on the rocks of terrible quality control, uneven and unreliable infrastructure, rapacious government officials, unstable regimes, horrible customer service, and endless export and treaty problems. These are the hidden costs of outsourcing, and they can be huge, even ruinous. We don't hear about them much because "new widget factory opens in Pacoima" is nowhere near as sexy a headline as "little brown people steal jobs from the US." Even worse, the fact that the new widget factory probably won't be a union shop means a tightly organized force will be actively working against anyone ever hearing about the possibility.

In this particular case, not only do I think it will work, I think it will work well. Tech sector jobs in places like Virginia, California, and Washington state are located in places with spectacular costs of living. I can buy a house twice as big as mine for half the price in Arkansas, and that's only the beginning. From cars to crackers and asparagus to zucchini, nearly everything is cheaper in the South.

It won't just be people moving there either. A strong work ethic and a deep suspicion of organized labor equal a work force that will be and stay at the top of the heap in productivity and efficiency. And these aren't McJobs either... they're good, well-paying, solid work for anyone with the brains and the will to learn them.

I always wondered what, if anything, would become of the sad little shuttered factories that dot my old home town of Dumas, Arkansas (pop. 5800) like dried tree stumps in an empty field. I couldn't be more thrilled if, fifteen years from now, they were replaced by clean, efficient tech centers.

None of this would be possible without free markets and free trade. The rich upper-middle-class "haves" would ensure no government program would ever threaten their cushy jobs, no matter how many "have-not" lower-class single mothers would be helped out of trailer parks half way across the country. Companies having no incentive to take the risk or pay the expense of training a new work force would never even dream of moving anywhere else. Without the ability to charge a price she considered fair Ms. White would have no reason to even think of a program like this, and no government official in Washington DC could ever hope to determine that price for her.

No, markets are not pretty. They're not always fair. But they work. People will lose, but people will also win. Rigging the game with technocratic barriers, doing things like "putting the environment and labor first", or raising taxes on people who know how to make money to give it to people who don't, just keep folks from even trying.

I want to try. I'm just glad that, for now at least, I live in a country that wants to let me.

To me at least, there's very little more annoying than someone nearby yammering on a cellphone. Gets under my skin and just screams "I'm an inconsiderate, rude shmuck." But I wasn't completely sure why I felt that way, until now:

You might imagine that it's simply a question of being riled by loud voices spouting inane drivel about people we've never heard of. But that's not the whole story, say Andrew Monk and his colleagues at the University of York, UK.

We also feel an innate need to listen when we can only hear one side of a conversation, the researchers say. Even if it's no louder than a regular two-way exchange, the fact that we can only hear half means that we instinctively tune in, almost as if we're expecting to join in to complete the conversation.

Unfortunately they don't include the really useful information, like how to cook up a cell jammer or an EMP gun that'll just fry the thing outright. No, can't do that, illegal and all that stuff. Stupid terrorists, ruining everyone else's fun.

I guess it's all for the best, really. I mean, if people were able to fry cell phones at will, Amber might lose hers without even knowing about it. Which could lead to, you know, unfortunate consequences if she were to lock herself inside her car or something.

Quite a few places today are carrying news that scientists have discovered a new wrinkle in stem cell therapy:

Instead of replacing the defective cells [in research rodents], embryonic stem (ES) cells released chemical signals that caused the defective heart tissue to grow properly.

There's lots of potential for new treatments, not only in birth defects but also in things like cancer and degenerative diseases. However, the technique is far from any sort of human clinical trials.

But honey, I'm doing this for your health:

Massaging a woman's breasts helps her avoid cancer, a study shows.

A gentle rub boosts the flow of vital toxins, compensating for the restricting effect of bras.

Somehow I don't think this'll be enough to let me help other women.

Space.com is carrying this notice of an upcoming solar eclipse. The event will be visible primarily in eastern Asia, but some towns in western Alaska will also be in range. Even better, some in Alaska will watch the sun set while it is still in full eclipse. Weirdly, since this is happening across the international dateline, this eclipse will end "before it starts".

Fark called it "best picture of the month", and I can't say I disagree. Our sight-lines aren't good enough to do this sort of thing anymore, but when we lived in a high-rise you could see storms coming from miles away.

Ron gets a no-prize with his named spelled wrong on it for bringing us this story of an art project gone wrong:

Livermore, a California city that prides itself as a center of advanced science, is spending thousands of dollars to correct many misspelled names on a city library mosaic, including that of Albert Einstein, a city official said Thursday.

Even better is the artist's reaction:

Maria Alquilar, the Miami artist who made the mosaic, said the errors would have been discovered sooner had city officials inspected the mosaic closely before its installation as she had requested.

No you dumb twit, the errors wouldn't have happened at all if you'd proofread your notes. Personal responsibility must be something that happens to other people in your world.

Hey, I can sympathise with this couple. I have it on good authority I narrowly avoided being named "Brian Scott", it being changed only when it was realized I would go through life being called "bullshit". Still no real clear explanation for why I go by my middle name though.

Pray for our own erstewhile next child though... if it's a boy I have been told that his name will be "Fangio Schumacher Johnson". Ellen's not even that much of an F-1 fan!

Oh sit down mom. I get naming rights to the next one. The middle name will be Fangio.

And no, we're not getting another one any time soon. Thank you very much.

Q: "What do you get when you cross Botticelli with Barbie?"

A: Umm... well... this?

Warning If looking at Andy Warhol-like scupltures of strangely proportioned but otherwise naked statues would get you in trouble, wait until you get home for this one.

Via Infinite Pink. No, really!

Trolling LiveJournals today I discovered that archeologists think they may be closing in on Ghengis Kahn's tomb:

Archaeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's palace and believe the long-sought grave of the 13th century Mongolian warrior is somewhere nearby, the head of the excavation team says.

It would appear the Mongolians don't particularly want anyone to find the tomb, as several earlier efforts have been called off due to both official and unofficial hostility.

Space.com is carrying this "story-and-a-picture" article detailing how scientists are taking a new look at an old (astronomical) friend. By using the latest imaging technologies available, astronomers have been able to get the most detailed view ever of "Kepler's Nova", the last supernova observed in our galaxy. Recorded in 1604, it is now roughly 14 light-years across and is expanding at some 1200 miles per second.

It's hoped that these new images will answer (unfortunately unspecified) questions about the object itself, as well as supernovae in general.

Sometimes you're famous, sometimes you just know famous people. John Weidner's brother-in-law developed a whole fistfull of stuff on SpaceShipOne, so John got a front-seat view of the whole thing, and took a bunch of pictures, including a nifty "never-before-seen" (well, by me anyway) look at SSO's cockpit layout.

Via Site-essential.

Oh, and Cobb made me laugh out loud with this quote:

Finally Microsoft has something that doesn't crash.

Update: Second linkee now workee. Dur. Thanks Kathy!

Remember those goofy recipies on the sides and backs of cereal boxes? Well, Fark linked up an article by someone who followed one of them, and who seems quite pleased with the result. Expect pictures of Olivia covered in Apple Jack-Chocolate-Banana goo soon.

Jeff gets a very large caliber no-prize mounted in a boat for discovering punt cannons, the boats in which they were used (scroll down until you see "ducks in a barrel"), and the practice of "Market Hunting", for which they were developed.

Meant to take out entire flocks of ducks at a time, these gargantuan shotguns have been illegal to use in their primary purpose since the 1920s. Jeff says he's seen a video of one of these monsters being fired, and that the recoil destroyed a wall of sandbags meant to brace the thing. Considering it's effectively a four gauge shotgun (essentially a 40 mm cannon firing shot rounds), I don't doubt it.

Remember folks, sometimes it's good to check out the beach before you try to assault it. I wonder if Jeff (ex-Army) ever saw something like this go down?

Via Countercolumn.

Instapundit does a very nice job highlighting points from "that other" Iraqi WMD report:

SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.
...
Focusing his attention in particular on France and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saddam awarded oil exploration contracts and financial inducements to individuals.
...
Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible."

Which is a conclusion that sounds awfully goddamned familar, if I do say so myself.

Which (yet again) leads me to ask would someone please tell me why getting UN and international approval for anything we do is so freaking important? I know it's rude, but I am rather curious.

Best. Headline. Ever.

Well, ok, maybe not the best, but I can just hear the "Beavis-and-Butthead" giggling that must've come out of the office of the guy who got this story.

The nurses in the audience should be interested in this nifty new tech:

It looks like a ghoulish Halloween trick. Yet the device, which projects a creepy green video image of a patient’s veins onto their skin, is about to go on trial in a US hospital. The idea is that it will help staff to pinpoint a suitable vein for an injection or a drip.

Hey, anything that keeps me from getting stuck more than once. Although, if mom's experiences are any indication, I'm sure her "baby docs" would still manage to kill someone with this.

When having sex in a public restroom in Italy, make sure the door is closed:

Making love in a bar lavatory does not breach public decency laws so long as the door is shut, an Italian court ruled on Tuesday.

Yet another potential highlight of a European trip! Somehow I don't see it making the highlight reel though.

Got nothing else to do with your X-box? You could always install Mac OSX on it. No, really!

In the "way beyond spooky" category we have this story of a family who recently made a grisly discovery while remodeling their house:

The family of a Georgia fifth-grader found bones of a child under the floor of their home and the child believes the bones belong to her imaginary friend.

Stephanie Ogden said a friendly black girl in a white dress began visiting her room about five years ago.

"She told me that somebody put her in the floor," Ogden said. "She said he had a mask on, and that he chopped her up. She didn't know who the person was, because he had a mask on."

Yeah, I know. Probably lots of after-the-fact "memory" and stuff like that. Doesn't mean it's not creepy to think about. *shudder*

Spaceflightnow is carrying this new update on recent developments with the Mars rover Spirit. It seems there's a problem with two of the drive wheels, which did not respond properly in a recently commanded maneuver. The current suspect is the steering actuator motor on each wheel, which is used to (duh) steer the wheel independently of the motor that drives it. If it turns out to be unfixable, engineers say they can command the rover to blow the fuses on the relays for the motors. While it will definitely release the brakes, it will also make the rover harder to steer.

Otherwise the two rovers seem to be surviving the Martian winter reasonably well, something they were not explicitly designed to do.

The old movie Swept Away (which received a recent screening at our "surreal movie night" at casa AMCG, and now seems to be available on DVD) proved Italians will argue about politics even during their most personal moments. This BBC news article seems to indicate they'll argue about politics at any moment:

Reload [a social activist Italian computer hacker group] calls it Reality Hacking ... teamed up with another hacker group named Molleindustria ... they created an online May Day march. Virtual activists could march by choosing their own character complete with different hair colours and outfits.
...
Molleindustria also supplies simple computer games for Reload's activist projects.
...
In Tamatipico, you try to keep your assembly line worker happy by making sure he gets enough rest, enough food, and enough time in front of the television. If your workers not satisfied, he will go on strike.

Can a Doom3 mod in which the Imps march in picket lines protesting Hell's conditions be far behind?

Fark linked up what may be the world's fastest shopping cart:

Wacky Andy Tyler sits in a 50mph shopping cart after fitting a JET ENGINE

With several pictures!

The thing is, I don't see a pump or turbine in it anywhere. Looks like he's burning propane, so fuel pressure won't be a problem. Still, can't quite see how it pushes forward.

Guess that means I'll have to build one.

Your testicles are an invaluable source of pleasure to you, your loved ones, and your whole family! But what do you know about your firm, pendulous bringers of life?

Get the facts before it's too late!

Also from Countercolumn, this "everything old is new again" set of pictures from a recent People's Republic of Berkeley protest. What were they protesting? Hell, I don't know, pretty much everything a soft-headed college kid or washed-up hippie can think of, from the pictures. In other words, exactly what their parents and grandparents were doing, on the same spot, with most of the same signs, in 1965.

Warning: Contains not-safe-for-work (and, to be honest, not-safe-for-eyes) pictures of nekkid hippies wandering around with misspelled protest signs. If only they'd used them for cover. Remember folks, marching is not good for the dangly bits!

Update: Ok, I was blinded by naked hippies and didn't actually read any of the text. They really weren't protesting, they were marching in a sort of self-parody parade. I think. Damned hippies.

Who would've thought John Kerry would be a classic TV fan:

CHUCKWAGON: Marshall Hayes needs your help, and pronto! That durned jackass got hisself into a gunfight with that desperado gang from up there in Sandy Flats!

JOHNNY NUANCE: That fool! I told him that taking on the Sandy Flats would be nothing but trouble! I told him they had nothing to do with that dynamite attack on the Mercantile Bank! I told him not to go, right after I told him to go!

CHUCKWAGON: I tells ya it’s a quagmire, Johnny. A real quagmire!

JOHNNY: You don’t have to tell me, Chuckwagon! I fought in Antietam. Where’s the Marshall?
...
COMMERCIAL SPOT TWO

VOICE OVER: Saddle up, buckaroos! Now you too can be an old west diplomat with the Johnny Nuance Deluxe Junior Negotiator Kit. It comes complete with authentic letters of reprimand, humanitarian aid resolutions, an official Johnny Nuance golden fountain pen and attache case!

BOY #1: Sign the cease-fire, Deadeye Dan… I’ve got you economically sanctioned!

BOY #2: Says who?

BOY #1: Says my broad multilateral coalition, that’s who!

CROWD OF BOYS: We pledge our support!

BOY #2: Grrr! I’m peacefully boxed in!

VOICE OVER: The Johnny Nuance Deluxe Junior Negotiator Kit from Plastico – now at Woolworths and wherever fine toys are sold.

Dang. 50 years too late. I coulda used a pen like that too!

Linux users will be happy to hear Doom3 for Linux is finally out. Well, unless your system has an ATI card, in which case you're stuck waiting on drivers. Maybe this'll kick ATI in the butt and get them finished.

Haven't booted the old home box into linux for awhile, maybe I will now.

Countercolumn linked up this, like, totally great diary from, like, a former human shield in the Iraq war:

Last night, some of the volunteers started playing poker on the bus. The very first hand, I won with three-of-a-kind. As I reached for the pot, Sean said how typical it was that Americans thought having the best cards entitled them to steal everyone else's natural resources. Oh my God, I felt so bad and Republican right then.
...
How come the happy stars who actually like people never want to save mankind? For instance, I bet Bono would have signed my journal. He's all political, but at least he remembers who buys the albums that allow him to jet-set around the world denouncing free-market capitalism. I mean, at least he's consistent.

As with all good satire, I fully expect the peanut gallery to sit back and scratch their heads, not understanding what's so goddamned funny. Which just makes me laugh more.

Fark (of course) linked up this Courier Post article detailing what could be the discovery of a lifetime:

Bill Ott thought he found a little black snake.

He had no idea the creature wriggling in his hands might be an undiscovered species.

Turns out it's a weird terrestrial leech, not quite a foot long. They're not sure if it's a new species or not. We were surprised by an 8-inch long preying mantis in Ellen's garden last weekend, so I'm just happy this thing is in New Jersey.

File this movie link under why I'm glad I have a daughter and not a son. I don't think Jeff and I ever were this dumb, but we definitely had friends who were. Then again, there was that time when Jeff tried to jump his bike off a ramp made out of small stacked pieces of wood just because someone dared him...

Instapundit linked up this analysis of John Kerry's proposed trade policies, which I think highlights a real and crucial difference between the candidates:

Trade advisors to the Kerry camp have announced that labor and environment issues will be "front and centre" in Kerry Administration trade policy. This distinguishes it from Republican trade policy. A reasonable person would ask why a trade policy would not have trade "front and centre". Labor and environment would not be front and centre of homeland security policy. Why is trade policy different?

This is one of the main reasons I'm voting Republican, even though GW is still a technocrat, albeit one of a different stripe. Many will disagree with the points made in the article, passionately at that, but these are the same people who will decry the ballooning federal deficit while simultaneously calling for increased social spending. You can't have it both ways, and the fact that Democrats advocate positions that try means they will always lose my vote.

Yes, free trade can mean cruel trade-offs. It can sometimes cost friends and loved ones jobs, force families to relocate, and cause stress and emotional trauma. Unfortunately every other alternative is worse, especially in the long run. Japan's been in a recession for more than a decade because the government refuses to let businesses fail. The French are happy their unemployment rate has fallen to 9.1 percent. Argentines are still recovering from a government-engineered collapse that turned them from fat cats to paupers in less than a week.

No, it's not perfect. It never will be. But until the other side comes up with some new ideas instead of simply peddling old ones wrapped in new ribbons, I'll call their policies what they really are... utopianism.

I guess the ultimate irony is that Moore's book is satire.

Washington Post today carried this article (free reg, blah blah lazy bastards blah blah) detailing an innovative technique that's making a big splash in human origins research. By doing genetic studies on parasites exclusive to humans, scientists are finding they are able to pick out what seem to be startling conclusions about our evolution, ones that are not, and sometimes cannot be, found in the fossil record.

In particular, the article discusses how one team did a study on the genetics of the human head louse. While the conclusions are by no means final, their study discovered indications that modern humans were in actual contact with H. erectus, a far older, more archaic form of human, as they (the moderns) migrated into Asia. Until now, erectus was thought to have died out before early moderns ever got near them. If this study holds up, it would seem that conclusion is mistaken.

They finally got a Great White Shark doing well in a tank.

Found especially for Ron.

Double your pleasure, double your fun.

Ellen will probably be interested in Mahmood's recently recommended music choice, and I suppose so will most everyone else into "international" music. The snippet he linked sounds a lot like the other stuff she has, at any rate. More belly dance music!

NYTimes last week carried this detailed look (free reg you lazy barstards) at new developoments regarding two artifacts which purport to carry the oldest biblical references ever found. Discovered in a tomb in 1979, these two silver objects dated to the late seventh or early sixth centuries BCE had what appeared to be faint and very fragmented Hebrew inscriptions taken from what is now known as the Book of Numbers.

The inscriptions were so faint there was actually a lot of argument as to just how old they really were. However, by using advanced imaging systems, some of which were provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists were able to make much clearer pictures of the artifacts. The texts became far easier to read, and much more could be read, so the dating of the artifacts appears to be settled.

Assuming it actually is settled, these two pieces of silver would represent a biblical quotation written down just before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Or can you?

A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said on Monday.

The report seems to play up the "stupid accident" angle, but I can't help but think he was a) doing something really really weird to get his jollies and sorta lost control or b) has alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. And of course we all know how reliable Easter European news agencies are, right?

Still, should make for some amusing 3rd shift conversation at mom's VA.

It's the wrong boobies, Grommet!

Actually, in retrospect I'm rather surprised nobody's used Real Dolls in stop-motion animation before now. Then again, at, what, $3500 a pop (as it were), they're rather pricier than your conventional lump of clay.

Note: No sex acts, but does contain extra-creepy naked "pretty corpse" movies. If a naked but 100% fake person would get you in trouble at work, wait until you're home to take a look at this.

Who says Supreme Court Justices are boring?

Challenged about his views on sexual morality, Justice Scalia surprised his audience at Harvard University, telling them: "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged."

Makes you really wonder what might be going on behind those closed doors. On second thought, considering the average age of the various justices, I think I don't want to know after all.

Winnah, at least for now. As of 10:53 my time the SS1 flight has gone very well, no rolls reported at all. Keep hitting that link for updates.

Update:

Congratulations to the Scaled Composites team for being the first winner of the Ansari X-Prize!

I think a few "Yeeeeee-HAAAAAAA!!!!!"'s are in order.

Catches all. For example, just by searching for the default names of digital camera files, you can find a gigantic number of "first shots" thousands of strangers have taken with their digital cameras. Sort of like looking through someone else's photo album. Freaky.

BBCnews is carrying this article detailing new research into the very low frequency background "hum" that's emitted by the Earth. According to these scientists, it's all the fault of the oceans.

SpaceShipOne is "go" to try for the second flight required by the Asari X Prize. The mothership is scheduled for takeoff at 10 AM EDT, with release scheduled for roughly one hour later. Keep your fingers crossed!

Right under the noses of every foil hatter, greenie, and dot-head an international consortium of banks and governments got together and added a little something "extra" to your scanner and photoshop software:

The technology [included in new software and hardware products] detects and blocks attempts to view, scan or print copies of the redesigned $20 and $50 bills and, in a pop-up window, urges consumers to visit a Web site, www.rulesforuse.org, to learn about international counterfeit laws.

A strong, secure currency is vital to a stable economy, so pardon me if I'm not up in arms about this "destruction" of our "rights". The AP's been worrying at this story since January, but they haven't got all that far. Slashdot seems to have covered it several times, but for whatever reason I missed each one. Apparently all it does is stop you from copying a $50. It won't tattle that you tried.

NSFW!!!!!!!! Severely F'd Up!

My eyes!!! My eyes!!!

pat...pat...pat...

VANCOUVER, Washington (CNN) -- A small volcanic tremor shook Mount St. Helens early Sunday, less than a day after the volcano spewed a cloud of steam and scientists warned that a dangerous eruption was imminent.

The tremor Sunday was milder than the previous day's gas eruption, which prompted geologists to raise the volcano alert to Level 3, indicating an eruption could occur within 24 hours.

pat...pat...pat...

Read entire volcanic gassiness problem here.

About 200,000 of the deer penises, complete with testicles, are sent to China from New Zealand each year.

"For a long time men believed that the larger the pizzle, the stronger their own would be," says Murray Hamer, Oriental trade manager for the Alpine Deer Group, based in Wanaka.

But the market, mainly in the north of China, is gradually reducing. "The belief in the sexual vigour of pizzles is slowly dying out. Modern Chinese men believe they don't work. They have turned to the Chinese version of Viagra and are getting results."

Meet the Grim Rapper, yet another signpost on the road to hip-hop's ultimate demise. Which begs the question, what's next? Bah. Who cares. I can't keep up with you damned kids as it is.

"AMCGLTD," we hear you ask, "I'm sick and tired of my neighbor's kids screaming and yelling. And if I smell smoke from their cigarettes one more time, I'm gonna puke. It's time to right this situation with some good ol' gunboat lovin'. But I'm not sure if my invasion is justified. What am I to do?"

Fear not, neo-Frenchman! AMCGLTD is here to help! Take this "Officially Authorized, Internationally Recognized Global Test" to ensure your act of national self-protection will be recognized by the rest of the "mine. mine. mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. MINE. MINE. MINE." world. That's right, you too can give up national sovereignty to your spineless, cynical global competitors in the name of "co-operation" and "they-must-like-us-or-we'll-cry" sentiment. Don't delay! The next car bombing we blame on greedy westerners could be underneath your embassy!

Via On the Third Hand.

Why yes, I'd actually forgotten about Algeria. You UN-loving f-tards probably couldn't even find it on a map. But that's different. That's the French. We all know how important it is to have their approval. Why, any president who won't curry the favor of the butchers of October 17 should be voted out of office! Right? Right?!?

This is the men's version to boobs in a box!

The fruit of designers' imagination called The Bulge is easy to put on, to take off and can be worn both inside boxers and briefs. The discreet insert can be washed in a washing machine, which is definitely an advantage for lazy men. The insert keeps its form even if it is worn 24 hours a day.

See pix and article here.

Buy the product here.

This product is machine washable for all you lazy bastards out there.

VANCOUVER, Washington (CNN) -- An observatory three miles from the base of Mount St. Helens was evacuated Saturday as scientists warned that the volcano could erupt again, and with more force than previously expected.

"There is a 50 percent chance or greater that there is going to be an eruption and a good chance that it will involve magma," said Tom Pierson with the U.S. Geological Survey. "We're watching it very closely."

Read entire article here.

Make sure you watch this on TV too! Journalists as Volcano bait to follow!

Brought to you by The Ocean.

Sea Pearl sponges are sustainably harvested by a family owned and operated business in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

# Sea Pearls do not contain any Dioxin or synthetic fibers.

# Sea Pearl comes in packages of two.

# Enviromentally safe

Sea Pearl Sponges come in a package of two with an illustrated brochure and Muslin carry bag

Sea Pearls™ Deluxe( I wonder if the Deluxe package comes with Sea Monkeys?)

The Deluxe package contains 2 sea sponge tampons, fully illustrated brochure, lunar calendar, tea tree oil for disinfecting sponges, and a muslin carry bag.

Now I have seen everything. Just when you thought Fisher-Price had gone too far with its Nativity set and Hanukkah home celebration, we find you this!

Guess what you are getting for Xmas Joshua!

The peanut gallery's viceral hatred of GW has now been beat. From beyond the grave, no less:

While, traditionally, yard signs are ways to support a candidate, in Jane Buffet's obit, her final statement reads, "To honor her memory, please do everything you can to elect John Kerry."

Hey, if rumors prove true, she'll be able to vote anyway! Why, if she lived in Chicago it'd be a dead certainty.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the veal!

Slashdot linked up news that Scaled Composites has a video up of their recent X-prize flight. Yeah, Slashdot did it, so the "real" link won't work until millions of frantic dot-heads point their great eye elsewhere. Those of you with bit-torrent installed should be able to pull it down here.

The roll was slower than first reports, but seemed faster than 1 roll per 2 seconds. Would've wet myself had I seen it do that in person.

Frank over at IMAO not only analyzes the debates line-by-line, he also managed to sneak out a copy of both Kerry's notes and Bush's notes. Both show deep insights into their thought processes. Or something. Probably involves a monkey or a laser if you check closely enough.

See? See? Us bloggers are everywhere. Nothing is safe!

The Iowa Electronic Market is showing a slight dip for Bush, a slight gain for Kerry, which tracks with what I saw last night. I thought it was a win for Kerry, but only after extra innings and only by one run. Interestingly, Ellen thought the opposite (to her, Bush did better). Bottom line to me: the peanut gallery's boy just put himself back in the game, but there's a long way (and two more debates) to go.

Fark linked up this story about a not-so-welcome find revealed after hurricane Jeanne blew through:

Hurricane Jeanne's vicious winds and water did more than destroy a few homes in the Ocean Ridge subdivision. They also unveiled a 10-foot-long World War II bomb buried underneath a beachfront driveway.

Turns out it was the warhead from one of those giant "Tiny Tim" rockets used late in the war. I think I've seen some pictures of them hanging from the wings of Corsairs... they were a lot bigger than the "regular" 5" rockets normally used. There'll be a construction crew somewhere having a retroactive heart attack once they realize what they were driving a bulldozer back and forth over.

New Scientist is carrying this article summarizing the recent "Ig Nobel" prizes. Created to honor science that first makes you laugh, then makes you think, this year's winners include "The Invisible Ape", "The 'food on the floor' Test", and "Country Music Suicides".

Bicycle built for one? What a waste. Bicycle built for two? Wimps. How about a quad-cycle built for seven?

I'd have no problem with it, as long as Ellen didn't drive. Oh she won't run into stuff or anything like that. It's just she's got this, well, [whisper]road rage problem[/whisper]. It got so bad on the toll road I decided it was safer for everyone involved if I drove both ways and gave her a nice book to read. I'd fear for the other cyclists and especially the rollerbladers. At least the people on our morning commute have sheetmetal to protect them from her wrath.

Regular readers will have already noted I "cite" Aviation Week & Space Technology a lot. Great magazine if you're into aerospace stuff. Well, through some sorta deal with Spaceflight now, you can read their write-up on those inflatable space modules we linked up a few months ago. I only just pulled this one out of the mailbox yesterday, so I haven't gotten to the article. But the picture sure looks weird as anything. Enjoy!