Chemwar in Middle East? *!*

A spokesman for gunmen in the Gaza Strip said they had fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel early on Thursday.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Asketh the Bangles, "Is this burning an eternal flame?"

"Eternal" is not so eternal when there's footwear involved.

[H/T (or maybe, since I rely on them so much lately, a more precise term would be "Cyberslurp") 2 Buzzpage.]

I don't blame him.

From TimesDispatch.com:

Bear Flees for 2nd Time Before Neutering.

"It's unbelievable," Dalzell said. "We thought there was no way, it was absolutely impossible, but he found a way. It was basically like breaking out of Fort Knox."

He said the bear bashed a nearly 400-pound steel door off its four bolts, destroyed an electrical box while tearing through two electric fences and scrambled over a 12-foot fence anchored with 2 feet of steel below ground.

"I think he just kept charging it (the door) and charging it until it broke off its bolts," Dalzell said. "Everything was completely trashed. We are dealing with a pretty smart and determined bear."

Smarter than your average bear, unquestionably.

Some days these things just write themselves.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

Notable Passing.

You'll remember that I wrote fondly of my old push-reel mower.

This week, the handle finally gave up the ghost and snapped, and none of the implement handles at my local feed store will fit it.

It will be missed.

I'll take "Headlines That Make Jerry Falwell's Butthole Clench Up" for a hundred Alex.

Gay soldiers to wed.

Moto Helmet Provides No Protection From Even An Egg.

Doctors don't know if Derik Hampton will regain full use of an eye after he
was egged while riding his motorcycle Sunday night at West 119th Street and
Aberdeen Road in Leawood.

[snip]

He was wearing a helmet, but the visor was only halfway down when a car carrying four men threw an egg at his head.

Size matters.

Disparate views of the same upcoming potentially literally earth-shattering event:

Small, Earth-crossing asteroid to make July 3 flyby.

and

HUGE ASTEROID TO FLY PAST EARTH.

Science, Engineering and Technology News characterizes the object as "massive." Playfuls describes it as "Apollo-class," which is apparently a reference not to it's size, but to it passing through or as they describe it "hitting" Earth's orbit. Australia's The Age calls it a "potential Earth-mover." Like a child that can't wait until Christmas morning to open his presents, OhMyNews jumps the gun by calling it a "Killer Asteroid." ShortNews, oddly, is the voice of reason on the matter, declining to characterize it subjectively and instead gives us the actual size.

Unless I've missed it, however, nobody is giving odds on it actually striking the Earth. The closest I can find comes from the Minor Planet Center, via the JPL:

Due to the proximity of its orbit to Earth and its diameter, 2004 XP14
has been classified as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid"...

But there's no need to worry, honest! The government will protect you.

The International Astronomical Union, in case you're wondering, has been keeping itself busy naming things after multi-headed snakes and lice medicine. Glad to know they're staying productive.

For my part, the proximity of the asteroid's arrival to Independence Day does not go unnoticed.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Reuters via Myway News brings us the story of one helluva wake-up call:

Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend
with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

[snip]

He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.

Yeah, Fateh. Sure you didn't know.

THIS is front-page news?

Tomorrow's SMN will have a front-page story on the guy who lives up the street from me who carved a tree stump in his yard into a dinosaur skull.

I concede that the story may be of interest to some.

But it is by no stretch of the imagination news.

[Update: The article is now on their online edition.]

Okay, now you're just messing with my head.

"Carl Edwards Shirtless" Guy, I'd like to introduce you to "Nude Mr. Whiskers."

I bet Wesley Snipes was involved.

The transvestites first appeared in March when they raided Magazine Street
like a marauding army of kleptomaniacal showgirls, ...

Now THAT's a simile!

[H/T 2 R Bryan Tyra & Area 417]

Schizophrenic Much? Have a Smoke.

What the Surgeon General doesn't want you to know about smoking:

New research is focusing on a drug to treat cognitive symptoms [of
schizophrenia] by mimicking nicotine's biochemical effects in the brain. More
than 80 percent of schizophrenics are heavy smokers, and scientists believe
smoking may be a form of self-medication for this disease.

Escalation.

Israeli warplanes buzz home of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Well, that takes care of the Rosie/Star problem on The View.

She gone!

What's the old saying?

Fool Jeff Gordon once, shame on you. Fool Jeff Gordon twice, shame on Jeff Gordon.

How do I go about changing my name to "Gates Charity?"

NYT: Buffett to Give Bulk of His Fortune to Gates Charity.

Not sure I buy this one.

From Drkoop.com, here's one for our Nature vs. Nurture Department:

[N]ew research again confirms that the more older brothers a male has, the more likely he is to be gay.

I'm thinking Space Cataracts.

Aged Hubble going blind.

Meanwhile, on the Red Planet, Spirit and Opportunity soldier on.

And on. And on.

From our "What? They're still around?" department:

CNN.com brings us this:

The Backstreet Boys are saying goodbye to the oldest member of their band, according to a statement posted on the group's Web site Saturday.

Maybe they should get together with the non-Justiny members of 'NSYNC and a few stragglers from NKOTB and merge into a new band, AMALGAM.

And while we're talking mergers, why don't the remaining members of the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones merge into The Rolling Dead?

Why I don't use my Gmail account anymore.

And that's INCLUDING an automatic spam dump on messages 30 days old.

Addiction Swapping, Hirsute Knuckledragging Edition.

Chimp + Beer = Recovery from nicotine addiction.

It is unknown whether heroin will be used to help the chimp recover from alcoholism.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

I remember a time when such an idea would be not only wrong but obviously offensive.

Brit Brother must have a raging hard-on over this one:

Government surveillance of all children, including information on whether they eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, will be condemned tomorrow as a Big Brother system.

[snip]

The country is moving from 'parents are free to bring children up as they think best as long as they are not abusive or neglectful' to a more coercive 'parents must bring children up to conform to the state's views of what is best'."

Don't fool yourself; it won't be long until the idea crosses the pond.

[H/T 2 memeorandum.]

Remember when words had meanings?

Kip brings us an interesting article on a man who has to register as a sex offender even though his crime didn't involve sex.

I blame Bill Clinton and his hand-wringing over the meanings of the words "is," "alone," and "sexual relations."

Note to Saddam: Skipping Lunch Does Not A Hunger Strike Make.

Take note, NASCAR and the NFL.

Soccer's opened up a whole new world of marketing.

It seems the German sex shop chain, Beate Uhse came out with Ollie K and Michael B vibrators and a David B dildo. To anyone who knows soccer, it appeared as if stars Oliver Khan, Michael Ballack and David Beckham had lent their names to a line of sex toys.

I wonder if they're taken from molds of the athletes?

It's a brilliant marketing ploy; I mean who DOESN'T want a Dallas Cowboys vibrator or a Kobe Bryant dildo?

And "Carl Edwards shirtless" Guy could finally get his own Carl Edwards blow-up doll.

Put me down for two Roger Clemenses, a Terry Labonte, and an Esera Tuaolo. Maybe a Michael Strahan, too.

I'm betting the John Rockers and the Ozzie Guillens get put in the 99-cent bin.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

Of similes and metaphors.

Amanda Lee Myers, or her headline writers at the AP, needs to learn the difference.

Here's the headline:

Crews Say Ariz. Fire a 'Caged-Up Coyote'

Which lead me to the smartass retort to myself, "No, it's a fire."

But then here's what was actually said (emphasis mine):

"This fire is like a caged-up coyote," said Mike Dondero, deputy incident commander for the fire. "It's trying to get out 24 hours a day."

Saying Thing A is like Thing B is not the same as saying Thing A is Thing B.

I amuse myself (and almost certainly only myself) with my grammatical smackdowns.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Then keep your wireless signal to yourself.

Man arrested for using coffee shop's wireless signal.

A 20-year-old man in Vancouver, Wash., was charged with theft of services
for allegedly sitting in a coffee shop parking lot and using its wireless
Internet service for months, according to a report.

If you don't want people outside to use it, find a way to keep the signal from getting outside.

I liken this story to someone opening their windows and turning up their stereo, then arresting the neighbors for listening to the music.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

Torn between two headlines.

WSBTV is running an ugly dog contest. I wanted to email them with a suggestion for the name of the trophy: The Chupacabra Cup. That would have been the headline for this post.

But then I ran across slide number seven.

You see where this is going, don't you? Don't you?

The old headline is no longer sufficient. The new headline is:

Lyle Lovett!

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

It tolls for thee, Cheesemaster.

The master of the cheesy American television series, Aaron Spelling, has died.

TJ Hooker fans everywhere, take a moment of silence.

Wipesucks refuse to punish Guillen.

Guillen's punishment comes from MLB, not the team, in the form of "an undisclosed [translation: miniscule] amount of money" and compulsory sensitivity training that he doesn't intend to undergo.

From ESPN.com:

"I don't think I'll be going, I don't think that'll happen," Guillen told ESPNdeportes.com in an interview at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday. The interview was conducted in Spanish.

Outsports.com reports that this isn't his first, or even most egregious, anti-gay incident. August 8, 2005, he equated homosexuals with child molesters and, in a seperate incident the same day, called outfielder Tadahito Iguchi 'queer.'

But he has no problem with gay people, honest!

What a stand-up guy. We're talking real role-model material here.

On Bizarro World.

[H/T 2 publiustx.]

A sermon from the wadded panties of Reverend JR "Lou" Dobbs,

on how workers who refuse to improve their productivity enough to merit a pay raise got shafted.

Here's a scenario for you, Reverend Dobbs:

You employ two workers and can only budget $20 an hour combined for the two of them.

One is a diligent worker and is easily worth the $13 an hour you give him.

The other struggles to be worth even half of the $7 an hour you pay him.

Suddenly, the government steps in and declares a minimum wage of $9 an hour. You, as the employer must either close the business or, in order to give the unproductive worker a $2.00 an hour raise, cut the productive worker's pay $2.00 an hour to stay afloat.

Who's getting stiffed in that scenario?

The word of the day is . . .

panto!

Apparently, it is something one either does or stars in.

A win for property rights.

Boynton Fla. abandons eminent domain in Heart area.

"We are pulling out," Mayor Jerry Taylor said. "We just figured it's going to be costly in the long run. Too many people would be willing to fight it."

John Little, attorney for several of the property owners, said he was surprised at the city's decision.

"This is a great day," Little said. "This now puts everyone in the position to negotiate freely in the open market. My clients can voluntarily decide if they want to sell."

And yet the Drug Warriors keep it illegal.

This is a direct quote from the headline [emphasis mine]:

"Cannabinoids Among Most Promising Approaches to Treating Neuropathic Pain".

"Just don' fling me into that briar patch, Brer Fox!"

"Silly wife; I'm not Brer Fox and you shore ain't Brer Rabbit!"

She told [police] her husband had chased her down the lane. When he caught up with her, he threw her into a briar patch along the lane.

Just a pinch between the cheek and gum...

Spit-free smokeless tobacco being test-marketed.

How are the Secondhand-Smoke Nazis going to mount an objection to this one?

Maybe by teaming up with the Spittoon Manufacturers' Guild.

Did it trap him inside?

Man, wearing seatbelt, burns to death inside vehicle.

Deputies say the driver lost control, ran off the road and hit a tree. The vehicle then burst into flames.

A deputy used a fire extinguisher, but it was too late. Authorities say the victim was burn beyond recognition.

He was wearing a seatbelt.

Rhymes with 'bag.'

Another reason to hate the Wipe Sux.

Angry with a recent column by Mariotti critical of Guillen's handling of
recently demoted relief pitcher Sean Tracey and upset with Mariotti over past
columns, Guillen said to reporters when referring to Mariotti before Tuesday's
game, "What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag."

Guillen goes on to explain that in his country, 'fag' doesn't mean 'fag.'

Guillen defended his use of the term "fag" by saying this about homosexuals and the use of the word in question: "I don't have anything against those people. In my country, you call someone something like that and it is not the same as it is in this country.''

Guillen said that in his native Venezuela, that word is not a reference to a person's sexuality, but to his courage. He said he was saying that Mariotti is "not man enough to meet me and talk about [things before writing].''

Well, no, Ozzie. Since you became an American citizen, the United States is your country. And here in America, words mean things.

Read Mariotti's take here.

It would be proof that God has a sense of humor . . .

. . . if Dan Rather somehow ended up at Fox.

I would HOPE the network suits would insist on some intense ethical training before he'd be allowed on the air.

Well, well, well.

Turns out there WERE WMD's in Iraq after all.

And, surprisingly, not all of them managed to get sneaked into Syria and Lebanon before the war.

Don't hold your breath about the story getting on the MSM Evening News, though.

I especially like this little caveat:

A Pentagon official who confirmed the findings said that all the weapons were
pre-1991 vintage munitions "in such a degraded state they couldn't be used for
what they are designed for."

Even if true, it's irrelevant. We didn't claim the weapons were currently viable, and Saddam denied the existence of ANY WMD's, current or not.

Now, about that "We'll be greeted as liberators" idea...

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Because it is the summer solstice . . .

. . . my brain goo is especially runny today, so I beg your indulgence if today's posts contain typos or seem rather disorganized. Seasonal-Affective-Mania (the opposite of Seasonal-Affective-Depression, which happens in winter) will do that.

Happy Solstice, everyone!

Oh, look! Something SHINY!

I bet it never gets prostate cancer.

Scientists find self-fertilizing orchid.

It sounds less ominous . . .

. . . if you say the earth is surrounded with "giant fizzy bubbles" than if you call them what they are:

... bubbles of superhot gas constantly grow and pop around Earth,
scientists announced Tuesday.

Bodies of kidnapped soldiers found.

Question: Why doesn't the Defense Department develop a GPS tag small enough to sew into a soldier's uniform unnoticed, for situations just such as this?

Or at least a radio tracking tag that attaches to the back of the dogtags?

Reality is schizophrenic.

One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is that the brain draws connections that shouldn't be drawn, as in "Two green cars just passed my house, so the world is ending."

But what does it mean when reality itself draws such connections?

I had what must be an unprecedented experience at Dairy Queen yesterday; a spontaneous convergence of three unrelated things about which I have blogged in the past.

I had to rescue the ice-cream-eating, Weight-Watchers-discussing bluehairs from the man who talks to a person who is not there who wouldn't let them eat in peace because he kept ranting at them about the guy from Mammoth Spring who scaled the White House fence in search of Chelsea Clinton and later used his spooky mind powers to get out of it with only a small fine.

I remembered from a couple of past experiences that one of the things the man talks to his imaginary friend about is some chick named Erica, so I looked out the window, pointed up the road and loudly asked my mom, "Hey, isn't that Erica?"

It didn't take the guy long to gather up his stuff and head out the door.

The episode leads me to one inescapable conclusion: Either I am, or reality is, schizophrenic. I refuse to accept the former.

Why Ted Kennedy will never get prostate cancer.

It's old news that masturbation can help prevent prostate cancer.

But we have an update: For double protection, drink 17 beers while you're doing it!

“Beer is the major dietary source of xanthohumol, but the average content
of xanthohumol in beer may not be high enough to produce a significant
inhibitory effect on benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) in humans,” wrote lead
author Emily Colgate.

Indeed, lead researcher Emily Ho said that a person would have to drink
more than 17 beers to consume the same amount found effective in the
study.

Fun!

Buddy moves to the 'burbs.

Remember Buddy, the gas-saving goat that was banned from his owner's yard by the idiot nannystatists running Manhattan, Montana?

He has a new home in the suburbs.

The owner of a Manhattan plumbing business now says he will give Buddy a
home, on property outside of town. The goat will be on land owned by Chris
Peter, who was present when the Town Council decided Buddy had to go.

Suggestion: The idiots said Buddy can't LIVE in his owner's yard, but they didn't say ANYTHING about commuting every day back and forth to his "job," which is keeping the yard trimmed.

Bottoms Up!

No, you pervs. In this case, that headline has no connection to the gay lifestyle.

Rather, it has to do with the introduction of nicotine water.

The countdown to the introduction of "No Quenching" areas begins.

Is that the sound of Hell freezing over?

Stop the presses! Someone in Hollywood (West Hollywood, actually) briefly glimmers with rational common sense!

The resolution reportedly instructs the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department not to "target adult marijuana users who consume this drug in private and pose no danger to the community."

And now a word from our "If it sounds too good to be true . . ." department. The Houston Comical reports the resolution is nonbinding.

Another installment in our "Wimmen Are Bad" Dept.

Wife delivers death penalty to nonchivalrous hubby.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman has been charged with accidentally
killing her husband with a sword after he refused to make her dinner, the
Shanghai Daily said on Tuesday.

Police said Tang Xiaowan, 25, who has been practicing swordsmanship since
she was young, had often forced her husband of three years at swordpoint to
carry out her demands.

It happened again.

Seen in Wal-Mart yesterday:

Personal Box Fan.

Of course, a good advertising slogan leapt into my mind:

In case your personal box needs to cool off.

Luckily, there were no easily-frightened normals around this time. I could laugh all I wanted, with only God and the security cameras to judge me.

Bad harvest.

Harvested the Yukon Gold over the weekend. As I feared when I saw that the plants became these gigantic, ten-foot-tall monstrosities, the harvest wasn't that good.

Maybe two pounds of product from the two plants.

They probably should have been left alone for awhile longer, but the drought was killing the plants, even though I watered them daily.

This may be the closest this blog ever gets to the Big Time.

Here, The Arkanssouri Blog gets a shout-out, or maybe a shout-down, I can't tell which, from the Club For Growth for the term "nannystatist," and it's usefulness in describing Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Unwittingly, I yesterday uttered The Gayest Thing That Has Ever Been Said.

Ironically, I said it to assert my butchness.

I said it in Wal-Mart yesterday, when my mom suggested a certain color shirt that would exactly match the color of a pair of pants I had at home.

"If they're TOO matchy, they cease to be an outfit and become either a pantsuit or an ensemble. Lesbians wear pantsuits, and real men don't wear ensembles."

Yeah, dude. Outfits are REAL macho. As is a word like "matchy."

At least I was shopping at Wal-Mart and not Abercrombie & Fitch.

The oddest things are funny to me.

So I'm at the store perusing the Chicken Buillon granules. A cup of hot chicken buillon clears the phlegm out of a coughy throat better than cough drops.

There, next to the familiar little jars was a stack of similar jars.

On each jar, it said "Turkey Rub."

Instantly an image flashed into my mind, an image of someone giving a turkey a massage. I laughed out loud. People nearby looked at me, slightly frightened at the crazy man laughing at the buillon. So I pushed the image out of my mind.

And another popped in.

This one was of a person giving another person a massage. Instead of using massage oils, however, he used a turkey. A dead one. Cleaned and ready to cook.

I laughed harder. The frightened people scurried away.

Have I mentioned that with these interminably long days, this time of year my mind is like a hummingbird on crack?

Mike Huckabee, Nannystatist.

Full disclosure here; I have personal reasons which prevent me from ever supporting Mike Huckabee for anything.

That being said, if any of my readers on the right are considering supporting his possible '08 Presidential bid, keep in mind that what this man stands for goes WAY beyond social conservatism.

He's a nannystatist through and through.

Yer kiddin' me, right, Drudge?

There he goes again:

If there's a goat next door, the terrorists win.

Montana town bans man from alleviating the energy crisis.

The town council has ordered Bob Perkins to find a new home for the goat that eats the weeds and grass on his front lawn. "I can have two obnoxious dogs, but not a cute goat," Perkins said.

Mayor Tony Haag said the town of about 1,400 people is growing and cannot afford to allow one of its residents to have a goat. If it did, he said, what would stop other town residents from keeping goats, too?

[Sarcasm Alert!] Well, we can't have THAT, can we? That would be just awful. So awful that we must trample upon individual rights and liberties.

I thought the Western states were full of rugged, individualist Libertarian types.

Where in the Bill of Rights is there a Right Not To Have Goats Next Door?

Meanwhile, each year Americans burn 800 million gallons of gas and cause 5% of the nation's air pollution with their lawnmowers.

A google search for "goat air pollution" yields no results.

[H/T 2 brainhop.]

[Update: If you'd like to lend your voice to the cause and encourage the city officials of Manhattan MT to SAVE BUDDY, here is the contact information:]

Contact information

120 W.Main St.

Manhattan Montana

Phone #: (406) 284-3235

Hours of operationMonday-Friday 8:30-5:00

Email: townofmanhattan@mail.com

Do they know something we don't?

Here is the caption for the WPDQ's political cartoon "Crowque" today, emphasis mine:

With Osama bin Laden apparently out of the picture, Saddam and al-Zarqawi dead, I guess it’s time to put a “help wanted” ad in the newspapers in Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. But it should be clear by now that the pay is lousy and the fringe benefits deadly.

Is Dan Rather the 'toonist at the Quill now? Because unless the Quill has scooped both Drudge and Google News, Saddam, unfortunately, is not dead yet.

Not a hate crime, yeah right.

Gay/Lesbian Section of Chicago-area library torched.

Chicago Police say there is no evidence the incident was a hate crime and are conducting an arson investigation.

One toke over the line, sweet blood-pressure reader.

Israeli researcher lowers blood pressure with cannabis component.

Cup of coffee in the morning; Just food for the . . .

. . . LIVER!

Spidey outs himself.

No, he's not switching to a smart chartreuse-and-mauve costume.

He reveals his secret identity.

Beware of these limited series, though. Sometimes they don't fit into the main Marvel continuity.

One thing confuses me, though.

Marvel's roster of invincible crime fighters is split into two bitterly opposed factions, with one camp -- championed by the likes of Spiderman -- in favour of the new law and the other, including Captain America and his ilk, refusing to relinquish anonymity.

When Steve Rogers was briefly replaced as Captain America by the Super-Patriot, his (Rogers') identity was known, at least by the government. Has that changed?

I've been out of the comic lifestyle for awhile now, and comic book companies are prone to rewriting the totality of the history of their creations, so maybe I missed something.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

sheep

sheep
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

My all-male adventure at Wal-Mart.

So I'm looking at Wal-Mart yesterday for some garden-hose menders. I find lots of them, but they're all the male end. I need both the male and female end (I guess that would make me bigardenhosual).

I grab a cheap plastic male end and put it in my cart and look far and wide for the female menders. Finally, way off far away from the males (kind of like the Dragon Ranch in Ava) I find a box of female menders. They are brass and cost three times as much as the plastic male mender I had in my cart.

Damn fymynysts.

Man drowns as seat-belt traps him upside-down under water.

State police say 44-year-old Benjamin Melville of Keene Valley was driving in the northern Essex County community of Bloomingdale Saturday morning when he lost control of his car and crashed into the Saranac River.

Melville was reportedly trapped underwater by his seat belt and the car's airbag. Troopers say the car landed on its roof and became submerged in seven feet of water.

[snip]

A local coroner said an autopsy conducted yesterday found that Mellville died from drowning.

Full story here.

Buckle up for death.

Question.

Other than MAYBE the broken nose, what injuries would Ben Roethlisberger NOT have suffered had he been wearing the helmet that the media seem so obsessed about?

The broken jaw? I doubt it.

The knees?

The purpose of a helmet is to help prevent BRAIN injuries, people, and as far as I can tell, his brain wasn't damaged.

The Fat Police want to kill us.

Myway News and Reuters bring us an article about how a man owes his life to his own obesity.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 440 pound German man discovered that being overweight can be good for your health -- if you get run over by a car.

German police said the extra body mass prevented the 30-year-old man from suffering potentially fatal injuries when a Volkswagen Polo drove over him after he braked suddenly on his bicycle at a crossroads and fell off in front of the car.

If the Health Nazis had their way, the man would be dead now.

Sometimes I think he does it on purpose.

Seen on Drudge today:

It's so small I can't even see it in Jacko's outstretched hands.

It's not often I get to fact-check the great Stephen Hawking.

From myway news, relevant text emphasis mine:

HONG KONG (AP) - The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.

Well, not exactly. Since the formation of our solar system, it has always been a near certainty that at some point in the future, our sun will either go nova or simply burn out. Either scenario does not bode well for the survival of any life on earth.

So there's not an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth. How soon a disaster will destroy the Earth is another question entirely...

The mischaracterization may be myway's or the AP's, not Hawking's, so don't go showing up at his house with pitchforks and torches, folks. :)

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Gore's Trickle-down Amway-style Pyramid Ecolonomics.

Reuters: Gore to train 1,000 to spread word about climate .

And if each of those thousand spreads the word to another thousand, and those people . . .

Suck on THAT, Arianna Huffington!

NY Times: Leak Counsel Won't Charge Rove, Lawyer Announces.

I AM GOD HERE.

After a long hiatus, GUMMINT CHEESE returns.

Click pic or here to embiggenate it.

Sesame Street's resident nihilist.

I've long suspected Cookie Monster was either an anarchist or a nihilist.

His penchant for eating the eyes of other characters, and this video have me leaning more toward the "nihilist" camp.

And I call for an 'asshole tax' on arrogant, meddling doctors.

Doctors call for 'fat tax' on Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Doctors will this week declare war on America's soft drinks industry by
calling for a 'fat tax' to combat the nation's obesity epidemic.

A fat tax on Pepsi will yield zero dollars; Pepsi contains 0g of fat.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

The latest in our "Men Invent Cool Stuff" department . . .

For your amusement, the jet-powered go-cart.

[H/T 2 brainhop's sidebar.]

Help a brother out.

Dude's wifey has promised him a threesome if he gets 500K hits on his website. As of this writing, he's at 488,684.

Click here to do your good deed for the day.

Rejoice, Hillary: The emasculation of America may be complete.

Ladies and gentlemen others, I present Serenity Manpons.

Right then, I just died a little inside.

Actually, I'm more of a Sheila.

BBC America is giving out free t-shirts.

The catch is; you have to choose between being a Tanya, a Hazel, or an Amber.

Sorry, Winona Ryder, R, and Kevin; no Heathers.

That Lessig fellow strikes me as definitely an Amber, though. Somebody let him know.

While they are often the WRONG ideals . . .

. . . Republicans DO usually try to argue ideals.

And Democrats?

Democrats send envelopes full of dog crap.

Now THERE's an intellectual position for you. Rational debate if I've ever seen it.

To quote the great sage Pee-Wee Herman . . .

. . . the following is so funny I forgot to laugh.

Here is the headline from the Houston Comical's review of the Pixar movie Cars:

Character-driven film is a major coupe for Pixar.

"Major coupe," get it? "Coupe" as in car, not "coup" as in government overthrowal, see? "Ha. Ha."

It is a pun both clever and funny.

In Bizarro world, where "clever and funny" means "neither clever nor funny."

Big Brother As Interior Decorator.

New Euclid OH ordinance dictates acceptable window dressing. Using the subjective standard of "unsightly," no less.

More here.

My response to such an outrage would be to remove all my curtains entirely, except in bathrooms and bedrooms, where my curtains would have "Vote Libertarian" or "Big Brother is watching you decorate" or drawings of giant penises spray-painted on the outside.

A contact form for the city of Euclid is located here. I plan on asking them if they intend to appoint a Minister of Unsightliness. I may or may not ask them if ugly children will be allowed to stand in front of the window.

This will amuse about 10% of my readers.

Seen on ABC News this morning:




I'll dim the lights and get the flavored massage oils.

That's why they make Cialis.

Today's Misinterpretable Headline:

Isn't it supposed to be harder than this?

Why Old Media is obsolete.

You'd think SOMEWHERE in this CBS piece on the senate's rejection of the "Marriage Protection Amendment" that they could have listed who voted for it and who voted against it.

The bigots STILL couldn't get half.

Question: wouldn't the Federal Marriage Amendment as currently written ban hermaphrodites from marrying ANYONE?

What does it mean . . .

. . . when there's a blog out there that consists entirely of one link to my blog?

Ladies and gentlemen, TakeYourMamma.

What the hell kind of headline is that?

Leave it to the New York Scaly Douche to come up with:

Weld done campaign

Like Lisa Simpson said when she saw a sign that read "Yahoo Serious Festival," "I know those are words, but together they don't make any sense."

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a [poor attempt at a] pun, but c'mon, Douchies, it looks like second-grade ebonics.

The Return of Superman.

I HOPE it's the cheap minor-league uniform that's making him look a little too tubby.

The feathered horror.

Two peacocks attack 3-year-old boy.

Durham Bulls pitcher retaliates against one of their relatives.

You just KNOW that clip's gonna be on today's PTI.

No word on whether the pitcher will be fined for retaliation, or if the bird got to take his base because of being hit by the pitch.

Is nothing sacred?

NASCAR infiltrated by fruity space cult. Story here.

No word on whether the tailgating parties will now involve the eating of placenta.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

When Donnie Darko did it, people bitched.

Deer causes flood.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

Wrong on SO many levels.

From the land of the Bridge to Nowhere comes this story of a bridge from fish to babies (emphasis on the things that are so wrong mine, not theirs):

Fueled by $443,000 in federal funding from the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, a project is underway at the University of Alaska Fisheries Industrial Technology Center at Kodiak to create baby food made from salmon.

Let me repeat that. Baby Food. Made from salmon.

1. Ewwww. See also, Ick! An Ickness that ranks right up there with Celery Soda.
2. Where in the Constitution does it say that making fish paste for babies is a federal responsibility?

File this one under "Why I Am A Libertarian."

[H/T 2 brainhop.]

Tomorrow is 6-6-06.

Along that vein, this man should have remembered that.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with the understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.
- Revelations 13:16-18.

Look at the unit on that guy!

The paper my friend Kevin calls the Houston Comical brings us another misinterpretable headline:

International Paper Sells Unit for $1.4B

$1.4 Billion? What, was it John Holmes' or John Dillinger's? And how did International Paper get ahold of it?

Um, sir? What are you doing to that child?

Today's Misinterpretable Graphic comes from this site.

I don't generally post stories from the Hindustan Times . . .

. . . but this one's worth it, for the headline alone.

Latest fetish: Sucking babies' dummies!

Though sale of these dummies might be illegal, but a Manchester-based eBay trader is selling them in pulsating purple, pink, yellow and blue for 1.50 pounds.

In Manchester, trading standards officers seized more than 1,000 from street traders, saying they break safety rules, as the babies could confuse them with real dummies and swallow them, or be accidentally strangled by their multicoloured cords.

I am hoping this one falls under the Misinterpretable Headline of the Day category and not the Straight People Are Perverts category.

Joseph Nocera gets George Reisman's panties in a wad.

On one of my tangents, "No cera" in Spanish means "Not wax."

Semi-open thread.

You have been given the power to resurrect five people who died in the last five hundred years. They will be resurrected in their intellectual prime. And for the next 25 years, the five will serve as a Governing Council over all of the earth.

Who are your five? No picking close friends or relatives.

I hope she doesn't get Batmites in her bat-vagina.

Batwoman returns. As a batmuncher.

Straight People Follies.

Man Severs His Penis To Prove His Faithfulness To Wifey.

Heterosexuals are so twisted.

[H/T 2 Buzzpage.]

The New York Post Is A Hate Group.

This is the true face of liberalism in America. All the flyover people are expendable. Anyone who doesn't live in New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood doesn't matter. We're all just hicks undeserving of protection from terrorist attacks.

Interesting that they chose not to include the "hicks in sticks" smear in their online story. Too chickenshit to deal with people googling the term, I guess.

Need I remind the Post that we hicks out here in the sticks got out our checkbooks, volunteered, and rolled up our sleeves to donate blood after 9/11? Or that Oklahoma City has also suffered a terrorist attack? Or that out here in the sticks, we also have potential targets such as monuments, dams, and nuclear powerplants? Or that once a robber has heisted one branch of a bank, he's likely to find another target next time?

Or that the state of New York spent Homeland Security dollars to buy Edward Koorse a new Ford pickup to drive to work in? Or that the Albany River Rats are not a likely terrorist target? Or that with Homeland Security money, Washington DC "funded a politically popular jobs program, outfitted police with leather jackets and assessed environmental problems on property prime for redevelopment"?

If New York City is hit again, I'm sure the elites over at the Post wouldn't want any help from us hicks, so don't be surprised if we, and our money, stay right here in the sticks.

Geoff Earle (and here we hicks have been spelling it "Jeff" all this time), the writer of the piece, can be emailed at: geoff.earle@nypost.com

[Update: This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.Delivery to the following recipients failed.Geoff.Earle@nypost.com

Why am I not surprised? Will try postmaster@nytimes.com]