Blue Skies: Tar Heels Topple No. 4 Hurricanes, 31-28

We are so not a football school, and, yet,... We beat the 4th-ranked school in the country with a 42-yard field goal by "The Dude." If we were in prison, Miami would be our bitches now.

I'm sorry, but you have no idea how good it feels to win when no one gives you a chance of even competing with one of the big boys and you end up beating your Goliath like a rented mule &mdash unless you're a Red Sox fan.

Put That Video on the Web with a Pay-Pal Option and 2004 Would Be the Best Fundraising Year in Special Olympics History

A couple who bared themselves during a boat parade for charity last month have charged with public lewdness. Troopers used video footage shot by a spectator who attended the Christmas Parade of Boats ...to identify Ricky E. Setzer, 34, and Cindy M. Cramer, 29. Police claim the video shows Cramer topless and wearing a strand of Christmas lights as she spanks Setzer's bare butt. ...After the Sept. 18 parade, which raised $18,000 for the Special Olympics, White received several calls from angered spectators.

Of course, without their participation, the Special Olympics would've only raised $20 in a change, some of it Canadian.

"250 from 377 Leaves... Let's See: 0 from 7 Leaves...No, No, Don't Tell Me or I'll Never Learn"

A U.S. Army officer came forward Friday to say a team from his 3rd Infantry Division took about 250 tons of munitions and other material from the Al-Qaqaa arms-storage facility soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell in April 2003. Explosives were part of the load taken by the team, but Major Austin Pearson was unable to say what percentage they accounted for. The Pentagon believes the disclosure helps explain what happened to 377 tons of high explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency said disappeared after the U.S.-led invasion.

Well, thank you. That does help explain where it went; but, it still leaves &mdash um, let's see (think-think, think-think) &mdash 127 tons of high explosives unaccounted for.

Even though I lack a formal training in demolitions, I feel fairly comfortable saying that's a lot of Ka-Boom, more than enough to send that Terror Alert sticker at the bottom of this page from Bert to Elmo if it were discovered to be in the wrong hands. (Tell me if I'm getting too technical, here, in my writing.)

Now, for all of you out there thinking Major Pearson is being a major fall guy, asking, "If you took the 250, where is it?" I can rest your cynical minds. I'm sure if Major Pearson were here in my bunker with me, he'd tell you he destroyed it along with all the other munitions his battalion confiscated. Happy?

If you'll excuse, then, I'd like to return to the fetal position I assumed under my desk when I heard the news of tons of missing explosives, Monday.

"Cool blue ocean, cool, blue ocean..."

That's What Kerry's Been Saying

"This investigation is important and it's ongoing," [Bush] said, "and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander in chief."

He probably regrets pointing that out.

I Was Wrong. *Theirs* Is the Superior Society

Trapped beneath an avalanche of a stalker's love: I've been there.

I Guess We Should All Be Grateful He Didn't Let His Gun Do His Talking

A motorist who told police he was exercising his "political expression" was jailed Wednesday on an aggravated assault charge alleging he tried to run down U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris and a group of re-election campaign supporters. ...

..."I intimidated them with my car," Seltzer told police. "I was exercising my political expression. I did not run them down. I scared them a little."

It sounds crazy, I know, but if topless dancing is considered protected speech, ....

Seriously, It's an Addiction. It's Got to Be

Their eyes met across the crowded rally, hers sparkled with hope, his dimmed with future regret. She waved. He moved toward her, dragging his reluctant, knowing feet. She turned her back to him to reveal the top of a thong, peeking out from beneath the top of her jeans. His feet never touched ground again, not until her hand touched his cheek. Then, ... Oh, hell, we've all seen this movie before.

What is it with this guy and women in hats?

And I Have a Feeling There's Going to be an Opening in Personnel Soon, Too

Um, if you're having trouble finding candidates, it might be because you misspelled "intelligence." I'm sure there are other reasons, more important reasons (I hear there's a war on or something), but that can't be helping. Look into it.

"Desperate Housewives," My Favorite Guilty Pleasure, if, That Is, I Actually Felt Guilty about Watching It--Which I Don't

Interviewed at his office, Mr. Cherry recalled sitting with his mother at her home in Orange County watching the news coverage of the 2002 trial of Andrea Yates, who was found guilty of drowning her five children in a bathtub.

"I was horrified by this," Mr. Cherry said [creator and writer of the show]. "I turned to her and said, 'Gosh, can you imagine a woman so desperate that she would hurt her own children?' My mother took her cigarette out of her mouth and said, 'I've been there.'..."

So had my mother. She had four sons under five to raise while her husband was away in Vietnam. Back then, she was desperate enough to hurt us almost every day.

Actually, she was only desperate for the first couple of months. After that, after she'd developed a taste for the hurting, she did it for sport.

To Quote George Constanza, "It's Like a Dry Heave Set to Music"

There are some dance steps that are so controversial, so provocative, that we've received strongly worded messages from state and local governments to not go into too much detail about them here. These dances include the impossibly taboo "Lambada," ...

Ah, the Lambada, the forbidden dance, much like the Loman Cabbage Patch, although that one's forbidden for aesthetic reasons.

"Oh, the President Said It. Well, in That Case,.. No Wait."

From Ed Gillespie, chairman, Republican National Committee,

Dear President Greene:

It has been brought to the attention of the Republican National Committee &mdash and was confirmed in the Los Angeles Times yesterday &mdash that your organization is sponsoring and promoting a false and misleading Internet campaign designed to scare America's youth into believing that they may be drafted to serve in the military.

In light of the above..., the only conclusion to be drawn is that your Rock the Vote "Draft Your Friends" campaign is being conducting (sic) with malicious intent and a reckless disregard for the truth. As a "non-partisan" organization that enjoys the benefits of being formed under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, you have an obligation to immediately cease and desist from promoting or conducting your "Draft" campaign.

...

It is unfortunate that you feel the need to engage in a misinformation campaign regarding an alleged draft to energize your voters. This is the sort of malicious political deception that is likely to increase voter cynicism and in fact decrease the youth vote, as well as raising serious legal issues regarding the political motivations of your efforts.

*End Quotes from Gillespie's Letter*

Excerpt from an interview with Jehmu Greene on the Rock the Vote Web site:

Amy Goodman: "Are you afraid of being legally threatened?"

Jehmu Greene: "We are..."

Excuse me, President Greene. I'll handle this one. Amy.... Can I call you "Amy"? Amy, a man who goes through high school with a name like Jehmu doesn't scare easily. Once you've had the Wet Willies, Rear Admirals, red rubber balls to the cheeks and jowls, and wedgies (atomic and otherwise) that that name attracts, mildly intimidating letters from the GOP don't even flash a blip on the Threat Radar. Now, had Ed threatened Jehmu with a Swirlie, ....

Jehmu? Jehmu, come back! It was only an example!

"Oh, To Be Young and Pretentious Again... Do You Remember Those Days? We Were So Cute, Then

Tired of being marginalized by universalized white upper class male 'realities?' I know I sure am. The enlightenment was a farce, liberal humanism just another way of oppressing people. It's time to rethink, reconsider, and revolt.

Actually, it's time to drop the pose, and back slowly away from the pomo philosophy and poststructuralist lit crit. That's a good fellow. Nice and easy. No one else needs to get hurt here. Now, when you're clear of the Gitaine smoke, run, run quickly, back to the dead white males of the Western Canon and the capitalist bosom that have nurtured you thus far.

I wish someone had said that to me back when it could have made a differance, I mean, difference.

It's Always in the Last Place You Look

"When you can't seem to find
The plane lost in the pines,
That's on eBay..."

"How Painful Was It When the Doctor Removed Your Sense of Shame"

Truimph the Insult Dog takes on the spin doctors circling the third Bush-Kerry debate. My favorite line is "Bush and black voters, they go together like Yasser Arafat and circumcision."

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a small and petty man.

If You Can't Subdue a 75-Year-Old without Calling In for a 50,000 Volt Backup, Maybe, You Should Consider Applying to Toll Booth School

Authorities will review whether a Rock Hill police officer acted properly when she used a taser to stun a 75-year-old woman who refused to leave a nursing home.

Margaret Kimbrell said she never threatened police officer Hattie Macon, who shocked the woman to the ground on Friday.

...Police Chief John Gregory said the officer seems to have handled the incident properly.

Your neighbors to the north thank you for the laugh.

Y'all Come See Us, Ya' Hear

This article has a couple of examples of the character of the people of my home state.

For one,

Ray turned to Gell's mother, Jeanette Johnson: "Ma'am, for 10 years I've hated you, for all that you did for your son. I've wanted you in hell. And I'm sorry."

when we're wrong, we apologize. We apologize good and hard.

Two,

One bar councilor asked Johnson why he had not contacted Gell during his investigation.

"Mr. Gell is not the complainant in this matter," Johnson said.

The crowd's laughter cut Johnson off. Minutes later, Humphrey, the bar president, tried to back up Johnson.

"The victim is the system," Humphrey said, to more laughter.

we're not an educated people by any government measure. We don't know the law or much else that would qualify as book-learnin', but we do know bullshit when we hear it, which makes us lots of fun to be around.

So if you're in the neighborhood, ...

"Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles..."

Theirs is the superior society.

Besides, Everyone Knows Pilots Have the Best Liquor

A highly intoxicated man on board a charter flight from Tronheim to the Canary Islands forced an emergency landing in France late Sunday. He tried to break into the cockpit after flight attendants refused to give him any more drinks.

If you're on a cross-country flight, trapped between a colicky baby screaming in one ear and a chatty salesman yammering in the other, you'll pay $14,000 for a G & T. You'll pay that and much, much more. Trust me.

Believe It or Not, This Looks a Lot Like a Videotape of Me at My Nephew's Birthday Party

I was going to use this to wax nostalgic about the good olde days and Saturday mornings singing "I'm Just a Bill" and "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here," but that plan to bore you with a maudlin coot sentimentalism was thwarted by the purity of Barney's flow.

Mad skills, is what we're talking about.

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE AND VIOLENT CONTENT

Army Asks Reservists to Deliver Gas, Using 18-Wheeler, Black Trans Am, and CB Radios. Reservists, Though Flattered, Say They're Busy That Day

My dad was a Green Beret. My oldest brother is a Marine. The Twins were in the Air Force and the Army. This story is probably causing them fits.

Me? The closest I ever came to serving was playing with my GI Joe, and even then, my role playing had Joe serving to earn money for college and, in times of war, flirting with his commander to get a discharge. So, admittedly, my perspective is a little different than theirs.

But only a little. Like them, I believe that in the armed services, when a command is given, everyone &mdash everyone, from the grunts involved to the grunts depending on them &mdash have to know that that command is going to be carried out. Where we disagree is on how absolute the obligation to follow is.

For instance, I believe that if you're going to issue an order to someone to carry out a mission, if you want them to follow it, you've got to give them the equipment to do so.

So I'm with these guys. If you want them to drive through hostile territory, you've got to arm them and you've got to armor them, two things, apparently, that were not done, here.

Yep, That's Me, the Thumping Loon

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

The resemblance is uncanny. Who'd thunk someone else had a commode in the middle of his bedroom? And the wig thing! It's like I'm channeling the man.

A Guide to Picking a College Major

Philosophy is the biggest scam in academia. I ought to know; it was my undergrad major. In philosophy, you don't have to be right; you just have to sound like you're not wrong.

That's true. In the discipline's defense, though, teaching students to do that is a lot harder to do than it looks.

I taught political philosophy for five semesters at a highly selective, well respected university, and in my experience, it was the rare undergraduate who could achieve "not wrong-ness." The rest clung to the wrongs of life with a death grip of tempered determination no text or lecture could loose. I tried. God, how I tried! The experience, to quote Thomas Wolfe, was like "trying to strike sparks in minds that held no flint."

Honestly, there were a couple of papers that made me suicidal. The prospects of a future with their authors' hands on the reins of power were just that bleak.

That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It

The American Civil Liberties Union is defending six men who were arrested during one of President Bush's visits to Pennsylvania because they stripped down to thong underwear and formed a human pyramid to protest the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.

The six were hauled away by police and charged with disorderly conduct on July 9, shortly after piling atop each other at the side of a road carrying Bush's motorcade in Lancaster County.

..."The First Amendment protects many types of speech," she said. "What the defendants did in this case was clearly protected by the First Amendment, even though some people found it offensive."

You'd think a pyramid would be the perfect medium for getting your message across to a former cheerleader, wouldn't you?

Anyway, I'm wearing my thong today in protest of this travesty of justice. Tomorrow, I'll be burning my thong in protest (a principled refusal to wear one of those things twice).

"Stay strong, my valiant, albeit uncomfortable brothers! I'm behind you."

One More and Then I'm Through

The Guardian asked a few writers, philosophers, and noted intellectuals to summarize Derrida's work. The results were funnier than you'd think.

My favorite? Thank you for asking:

Denis MacShane, minister for Europe
The core of Derrida's thinking is that every text contains multiple meanings. To read is neither to know nor to understand, but to begin a process of exploration that is essential to comprehend oneself and society. This is, however, the sort of pretentious bullshit language a minister for Europe can only use when speaking French.

The Smoking Gun: O'Reilly Hit With Sexual Harassment Suit

Actually, this makes me feel a little better about Bill. Till now, I assumed he spent his off-camera time sucking the souls from puppies and kittens and masturbating to a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf. So this, really, is a step up for him.

Of course, there's nothing that says he can't sexually harass his staff and that other stuff, too. I'm just saying.

Day 27, Pretty Much, Sums It Up

It's like watching grass grow or paint dry or some other simile or another, only more so.

"You Know, It Would Be Easier for Me To Blow Smoke Up There If You'd Hold Your Cheeks Apart"

The poll say voters want optimism, not analysis. Well, I really want to be your vice president, so I'm more than willing to avoid all that intellectual mumbo-jumbo. My fellow Americans, you want to see some fucking optimism? Let's go! By the time I'm through here, you'll be shitting candy canes!

If the real John Edwards were anything like The Onion John Edwards, I'd be shaking hands, kissing babies, and phoning Undecideds (and not just to call them lip-diddling idiots, this time) to get him elected VP. As it is, I'm limiting my political participation to grinding my molars into stumps as I read depressing news in the morning papers.

If the polls are to be believed, it's having an effect.

"If You Want to Board This Flight, Sir, You're Going to Have to Turn Your Head and Cough"

[Ava] Kingsford Objected when a female screener with the Transportation Security Administration told her, "I'm going to feel your breast now."

I got the full TSA treatment when I flew last month, too, the pat down, the wand, the unreasonable requests to touch me in areas I had to point to on a doll in my therapist's office afterwards. It was humiliating, but, on the bright side, now, I know I don't have testicular cancer.

"God Is Dead"

And I'm not feeling too hot, myself.

The New York Times Puts Its Beret over Its Heart for Jacques

[F]or Derrida, things can never be what they say. Any attmept to explain or reason or demonstrate or communicate already contains the seeds of its undoing; any statement must conjure up its opposite. Pay close attention and it becomes clear how much energy is being expended on pretending to make clear what really cannot be. Look even more closely and there is always a small point in text--paradox, an unexplained word, a knotty phrase &mdash that when properly probed can undermine the pretense, pull aside the curtain of ideology and show what indeterminacy and uncertainty lie beneath the surface.

That's why I loved him. Damn it! I promised myself I wouldn't cry.

Philosopher Jacques Derrida Dies at 74

Jacques Derrida
Father of Deconstructionism
1930-2004
Hated by Professors, Tenured and Not
Loved by Graduate Students in His Field and Beyond
Mourned by Theorists in the Arts and Humanites Everywhere
He Made Pursuing an Advanced Degree Fun

I'll be wearing black for a while as a sign that I'm in mourning. Um, make that more black than usual as a sign...

Susan Orlean Likes the Bad Boys

I know what she means. I swoon at the sight of Ann Coulter, the Eva Braun of the NASCAR Dad set. My heart beats faster. My lungs pant to a speed metal beat. The arteries in my brain balloon to dangerous proportions. I lose sight in my left eye, become confused. If that ain't love, baby, ....

"It's Good To Be the King"

[S]ometimes King Oyo's lack of enthusiasm for the role is rather hard not to see. Some observers said his face seemed glum last month at the anniversary of his coronation, which along with his birthday is celebrated with much pomp among the Toro.

Weeks before the big day there is a cleaning of everything in the palace. When the anniversary arrives, his subjects gather and King Oyo is presented with the royal ax, the royal bow and arrows and the royal sword. The royal troupe plays drums and royal flutes.

There is a milking of the royal cows, which is performed, as one might expect, by royal milkmen. At one point, King Oyo must stride around the grounds, although palace functionaries scurry ahead of him to ensure that his feet touch straw mats and not the earth.

That sounds a lot like my childhood if you substitute suburban items for the goats and troupe and so on and put in "his parents'" everywhere you see "royal" in Oyo's tale, i.e. "King Biff lived in his parents' house, ate his parents' food, drove his parents' Pinto station wagon, spent his parents' money, and complained openly about life under his parents' thumb." If memory serves me, I was glum most of the time, too, and my lack of enthusiasm for my role was hard not to see, as well.

Of course, I didn't have a royal publicist. A royal publicist could have made it all tolerable.

Functionaries would've been nice, too.

"This Episode of Sesame Street Was Brought To You by the Letters F, B, and I and the Numbers 10 to 20"

This news brief leaves out the best part of any criminal news report &mdash the statement from the suspect's defense attorney or public relations flack. Without fail, those statements make the rest of the article worth reading, and, usually, the more heinous the crime, the more entertaining the statement.

That's what makes this so disappointing to me. The reporters didn't try to contact the accused.

Because they didn't, we missed out on something horribly entertaining like,

"My client did nothing wrong. He knew all along that the person he was dealing with was an adult impersonating a 13-year-old girl, and that's whom he was trying to seduce. Well, actually, he was after the adolescent girl inside the agent, but there's nothing illegal about that, is it? Disgusting, sure; illegal, no way.

"Is it hot in here or is it just me? I'm sweating like a fat man at a chili-eating contest. Whew."

I'm sure a trained professional would've come up with something much better.

I could've used something like that today, to get me in the right frame of mind for tonight's Vice Presidential debates.

It's society's loss, really.

It Helps To Know that I Think Citizen Kane Is the Most Overrated Film Ever Hyped

There are many moments of blow-soda-through-your-nose comedic brilliance. North Korea's megalomaniac dictator sings a reflective, autobiographical ballad. Housecats posing as rabid panthers maul celebrity peaceniks. Matt Damon's puppet doppelganger cameos as a "Timmy"-esque halfwit whose vocabulary consists entirely of his own name. A computer intelligence network touted as the world's most sophisticated...speaks in a stoned surfer drawl.... And an explicit marionette sex scene manages to cram in such dizzying array of positions--from reverse cowgirl to rimming--you'll need a copy of the Puppet Sutra just to keep up.

...In short: it may be the single best crappy movie you'll see all year.

Let's me get this straight: it's got political satire, celebrity bashing, and puppet sex, all cooked up in one deliberately crappy stew. I am all over this, like a Star Wars nerd on The Revenge of the Sith &mdash in the "sitting in a lawn chair outside the theatre to get a good seat" sense, not in the "I'm moving back in with my parents and giving up sex with actual women, because none of them could ever give me the pleasure that my picture of Princess Leia in her slave girl get-up does" sense. (I'm pathetic, yes; I'm just not that pathetic.)

Well, It Looks Like Kerry Can Forget about Poland in the Next Debate

A Recent Telephone Conversation Overhead on the Campaign Trail**

"Multinational force and no Poland?! You can't have a multinational force and no Poland! Poland, you got a Coalition of the Willing; no Poland, you got dick! I ask Condoleeza Rice, she got more sense!

[Muffled Reply]

"Rummy, alls I know is I'm away from the office to have me some debates and everything goes straight to heck! I ain't gonna stand for it!

[Muffled Again]

"Yeah, and if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass a-hoppin'! I'm sick of your excuses, Don! It is now 4: 23 in the p.m. I'm gonna be down to Washington in exactly 12 hours to kick me some butt!

"Or my name ain't George W. Bush!"

**All apologies to Ethan and Joel Cohen