Public Toilet August 31, 2007
Posted by Michael in News.comments closed
Apparently the recent embarrassment of Sen. Craig is not a new phenomenon, and such incidents are easily explained as mere happenstance.
Thanks to Millie (a Muslim visitor to our site, BTW).
Observations on Coal Miners and Coal August 31, 2007
Posted by skinbad in Economics.comments closed
First, I have no personal experience with coal mining. I’m neighbors with and friends with quite a few miners. I don’t think I know anyone who worked at the mine that caved in, but there are several mines in the general area.
University of Georgia Mascot Missing August 31, 2007
Posted by composmentis in Sports, Terrorist Hemorrhoids.comments closed
UGA, the University of Georgia mascot, is missing.
The photo shown below is the last known picture of UGA in public. If you have any information, please contact the authorities immediately.
Everything’s Bigger in Texas August 30, 2007
Posted by skinbad in Food, Science, Travel.comments closed
But let’s leave egos and Tex-Mex induced diarrhea aside for the moment. What about spider webs? Yep. They’re big too. 200 yards worth of mosquito graveyard.
“There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.”
Texas also leads the nation in the number of dessicated joggers’ bodies found in public parks.
It’s true. Google it!
Edwards: Give Up SUVs August 29, 2007
Posted by Michael in Politics.comments closed
Edwards has decided to fight global warming be asking me to sacrifice my Explorer.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group Tuesday that he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles.
“I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice,” Edwards said during a forum held by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “One of the things they should be asked to do is drive more fuel efficient vehicles.”
The former North Carolina senator was asked specifically if he would tell them to give up their SUVS, he said, “Yes.”
The Breck Girl sure has me figured wrong. I’m not willing to sacrifice anything because of global warming, and if Edwards asks me to give up my SUV I will invite him to kiss my ass.
I bet you’re wondering how this hypocrite can make such preposterous statements when he lives in an enormous mansion that consumes massive amounts of energy. How big was that mansion anyway?
Edwards was asked during his appearance how he explained the contradiction of asking Americans to sacrifice while he’s living in a 28,000-square-foot mansion.
Dang, that is a huge frickin’ house. Let’s see if Edwards gives us a straight answer to that question.
He said he came from nothing, worked hard all his life, has always supported workers and fought big corporations as a lawyer.
“I have no apologies whatsoever for what I’ve done with my life,” he said to loud cheers. “My entire life has been about the same cause, which is making sure wherever you come from, whatever your family is, whatever the color of your skin, you get a real chance to do something great in this country.”
Huh. If you work hard and fight big corporations, you can warm the planet as much as you want with a huge house. But if you work hard for a big corporation, I guess you don’t deserve a big car.
Edwards is just too deep for me to understand.
Edwards: Let’s give up SUVs – John Edwards News – MSNBC.com
UDPDATE courtesy of Wickedpinto — an aerial picture of the Edwards home, apparently shortly after completion judging from the lack of landscaping. SUVs are circled in red.
The Beginning of the End? August 29, 2007
Posted by Sobek in News.comments closed
From CNN.com:
“Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a suspension of his Mehdi Army militia for up to six months for restructuring, a senior aide said Wednesday.
“The move follows battles in Karbala and Baghdad between the Mehdi Army and Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq — hostilities that left more than 50 people dead and scores injured.”
Where I come from, “suspending” your army of crazed fanatics is synonymous with realizing that you’ve just lost. Am I over-reading this?
“‘For the sake of public interest, we have decided to issue the following: Suspend the Mehdi Army, with no exception, for a maximum of six months starting from the date of this release, to restructure it in a way that would preserve its ideological principles,’ al-Araji said.”
Restructure? Is Muqtada al-Sadr really the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert? Getting scores of your insurgents wiped out by the Iraqi Army isn’t restructuring, so much as it is “down-sizing.” Or “right-sizing,” if you want to get optimistic. The bit about this quote that really catches my attention, however, is the bit about ideological principles. Mookie’s ideology has two basic foundations: (1) he wants to be the boss, and (2) Islam will inevitably triumph over the West. I think the mounting evidence that the surge is working fundamentally strikes at both of these principles, because (a) Mookie doesn’t get to be the boss if the Americans go into Sadr City weapons free, and (b) radical Islam is obviously not triumphing when the Americans are simultaneously destroying the insurgents and quieting Iraq (most noticeably in Anbar and the more unruly parts of Baghdad).
I’m trying to be pessimistic, here, as is my default position when reading about the Middle East, but there’s just too much about this story which suggests cause for hope:
“In response, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said, ‘We have always said we welcome those who want to participate positively in the future of Iraq.'”
At a minimum, it looks like Garver interprets al-Sadr’s statement the same way I do — a concession of defeat. In addition, allowing al-Sadr to “participate positively” in the future of Iraq is a brilliant move — if nothing else, then even the appearance that he is cooperating with the Americans on a temporary basis co-opts him and makes him look like a Western stooge. Any savvy would-be successor can easily leverage that into a coup, which means in-fighting among the insurgents, which means red on red violence.
I Hate Doctors August 29, 2007
Posted by Michael in Man Laws, Music.comments closed
I’m not sayin’ this hatred is rational; it’s just true.
I avoid doctors like the plague. Sure, I realize that there is probably stuff wrong with me, given my Jack Daniels & Marlboro Lights Lifestyle™, but I just don’t want to know about it. I don’t care if there are polyps in my colon. They’re not bothering me, so why should I bother them?
I’m not a fanatic about this. My genetic heritage includes the fact that I’m prone to skin cancers, so occasionally I will go to a dermatologist and zap suspicious-looking spots on my skin. I actually like my dermatologist.
Still, in general, I hate doctors.
Take Beethoven, for example. He should have been more like me.
He might have lived longer, if he had feared doctors like I do.
VIENNA, Austria – Did someone kill Beethoven? A Viennese pathologist claims the composer’s physician did — inadvertently overdosing him with lead in a case of a cure that went wrong.
Other researchers are not convinced, but there is no controversy about one fact: The master had been a very sick man years before his death in 1827.
Previous research determined that Beethoven had suffered from lead poisoning, first detecting toxic levels of the metal in his hair and then, two years ago, in bone fragments. Those findings strengthened the belief that lead poisoning may have contributed — and ultimately led — to his death at age 57.
But Viennese forensic expert Christian Reiter claims to know more after months of painstaking work applying CSI-like methods to strands of Beethoven’s hair.
He says his analysis, published last week in the Beethoven Journal, shows that in the final months of the composer’s life, lead concentrations in his body spiked every time he was treated by his doctor, Andreas Wawruch, for fluid inside the abdomen. Those lethal doses permeated Beethoven’s ailing liver, ultimately killing him, Reiter told The Associated Press.
I’m just saying, I hate doctors. They should be avoided whenever possible.
How To Bond With Your Children August 28, 2007
Posted by Michael in Women Ranting.comments closed
Walk into the woods with guns, kill a squirrel, make a gourmet squirrel sandwich, and eat it.
That’s how.
U.S. Leads The World With 90 Guns Per 100 People August 28, 2007
Posted by Michael in Man Laws.Tags: Canada
comments closed
This means that Americans have adequate firepower to conquer Canada right now, even without help from the military. We just need to get organized so that we all charge north at the same time. The ten percent who don’t have a gun can make sammiches to feed us as soon as the war is over. I figure the war will take about one hour and forty-five minutes, so we should get started by 10 a.m. in order to not miss lunch.
GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.
U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.
“There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people,” it said.
Also interesting — only 12% of privately owned firearms worldwide are believed to be registered with authorities.
U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people | U.S. | Reuters
Gay Marriage Has Ancient Precedents August 27, 2007
Posted by Michael in Ducks, History.comments closed
Um, yes. So what?
Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past.
“Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize,” Tulchin writes in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History. “And Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures.”
For example, he found legal contracts from late medieval France that referred to the term “affrèrement,” roughly translated as brotherment. Similar contracts existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, Tulchin said.
Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe
Actually, gay relationships were socially acceptable at much earlier stages of history. I read about this in my Bible — the part about Sodom and Gomorrah.
There’s no doubt in my mind that gay unions have been sanctioned at various places and times throughout human history.
So what? All kinds of human behavior has been sanctioned in the course of our history, from the transcendent to the utterly aberrant. If this research is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate about gay marriage, I’m thinking it doesn’t add much.
Hit Squads In Laredo August 27, 2007
Posted by Michael in Crime.comments closed
Are you still ambivalent about the need to control our southern border?
Consider this — Mexican drug cartels, locked in a bitter power struggle, are prepositioning hit squads in Texas.
Mexican drug lords locked in a bloody fight for control of a pipeline that runs from Mexico to Dallas and up through middle America have brazenly stationed hit squads and reconnaissance teams in Laredo.
In the past two years, rival cartels have killed at least seven people in Laredo, including a victim stalked and killed near his job site and a man gunned down in the parking lot of a popular restaurant, U.S. authorities say. Nearly all the victims were mixed up in the drug trade themselves.
“That river does not stop these people,” said Webb County Sheriff’s Maj. Doyle Holdridge, who for the past 30 years has been working drug cases along the Rio Grande, which separates Laredo from its Mexican sister city, Nuevo Laredo. The cities have a combined population of half a million.
Proper Party Planning August 27, 2007
Posted by Retired Geezer in Man Laws.comments closed
Click the cartoon to enlarge it or Make One of Your Own.
Innocent Bystanders 