Finally, There's a Cartoon that, Both, the Kids and Their Parents Can Enjoy. Or Not

SpongeBob SquarePants had just finished soaking up Ernie's ejaculate when Bert walked in on them. "Ernie!" Bert exclaimed in a high-pitched, effeminate voice.

"It's not what you think, Bert," Ernie said, quickly zipping up his denim cutoffs.

Just then, He-Man came in, gripping his tumescent phallus with both hands. "You guys ready for that threeso—" Ernie nodded sideways in Bert's direction. "Whoops."

"What is this, an orgy?" Bert asked, his eyes welling up.

SpongeBob was temporarily distracted; watching He-Man's overt display of power possession was triangulating his own pants around the crotch. "Not yet — the Teletubbies haven't shown up."

Thanks to protesting Christian groups, I knew about SpongeBob, Bert and Ernie, and the Teletubbies, but Fred?! Fred Flintstone?! That was news.

Given his theme song, I guess it shouldn't have been: "When you're with the Flintstones...you'll have a gay old time."

So, what, does that make "Yabba dabba doo" his safe word?

"What Kind of Monkey Reads Playmonkey?"

Would you pay to see a monkey's backside? I hope not. Monkeys will, and I guess that's okay, though it sounds awfully close to the sort of thing that lands guys in jail in the human realm.

A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice rewards in order to ogle pictures of female monkey's bottoms.

It's been a few years since I've visited the zoo and seen the monkey exhibit, but the impression I took from that last experience was that the male monkeys didn't need any encouragement to masturbate. They were spanking their little monkeys just fine on their own.

So, now, we're giving them porn. Great.

What's next, giving them laxatives to coax them into slinging more feces?

At least, now, the next time someone asks "Why do professors need tenure, anyway?" you'll have something to show them.

"Oh, Teddy, the People at Work Were So Mean to Me Today"

15 Ways to Use Your Teddy Bear to Reduce Stress

2. Rub a couple of drops of your favorite natural healing essential oil on your teddy bear. Lavender is a nice one to start with.

Yeah, that would be a nice start. Getting a life works, too.

Good Gravy.

I'm so Excited, I'm Soiling Myself Like a Nonagenarian, and I Don't Care Like a Nonagenarian

As if the A&E Network hadn't proved conclusively in recent seasons just how far it has fallen ... a new biopic on Arnold Schwarzenegger confirms that nobody at the cable channel has much taste or, for that matter, smarts....

Any programmer with the aforementioned combo of taste and smarts would have laughed the idea for "See Arnold Run" right out the door.

But no one did. ... And so the laughs are all yours as "See Arnold Run" unfolds Sunday as two of the most embarrassing, ridiculous hours of filmed television in some time. ... "See Arnold Run" is so asinine it races past farce and approaches spoof before veering off carelessly on that dark and lonely road marked "Earnest True Life Story." ...

Here's a caveat. And you should heed it: "See Arnold Run" is terrible. It's a movie so bad that even Mariel Hemingway's oh-honey-you-shouldn't-have take on Maria Shriver ranks among the very least of its crimes. Yes, if you're in the right frame of mind, the Arnold-Arianna-Barbara performances will make you howl. But that is a desperately sad place to imagine yourself.

That would be my place, 8:00, Sunday, BYOD — Bring Your Own Depends. Actually, bring two: During the commericals, we can check in on Iron Chef. And it's not that sad, not that sad at all.

The Internet? Priceless

For the easily offended, there's this.

For everyone else, there's Mastercard.*

*But it is offensive.

It's Time to Break Out the No. Ten Can of Legal Whoop Ass--or The Illegal Kind --but One Way or the Other, That Bill of Rights Is Coming with Us

It's ours. You stole it. We're taking it back.

I know what you're thinking: we're North Carolinians. We're as sweet as ice tea and pecan pie. And we are.

But don't get us angry. You wouldn't like us when we're angry. And, boy, are we angry about this.

We are also ignorant, armed, and all but eat up with the dumb ass. We can't be trusted to do the right thing. (That's the state motto: It's on our license plates.) If a death by natural causes is your desired end, put the law suit down, and pack slowly away from that copy of the Bill of Rights.

We won't be held responsible for what happens if you don't. I mean, we're just an angry mob someone accidentally gave statehood. No one expects anything good to come from us, and we never disappoint.

Oh, He's Guilty -- of Hotness in the First Degree

If you had to sleep with a U.S. Supreme Court justice — you know, had to — you could do worse. I mean, is that one good-looking sumbitch, or what?

And if you've seen the nude pictures of the Supreme Court in Jon Stewart's America, you know he's swinging some gavel, too.

It's just not fair how some have so much.

Virginia Is for Lovers (Bigots and Prudes)

"If you want to show your underwear in your private home, I don't have any objections," said Del. Algie T. Howell Jr., a Norfolk Democrat who has filed legislation that would levy a $50 fine on anyone who "exposes his below-waist undergarments in an offensive manner."

"In an offensive manner"?! Could you vague that up a bit?

Personally, I don't want to see your your boxers, briefs, your boy shorts, panties, or thongs, either. Neither, do I want to see the crack of your ass. That's just me. I don't like it, but, that said, I'm not offended by it.

Even if I were, I'd be against banning that stuff on sheer principle. For one, I believe being offended is part of the public experience. It begins almost as soon as you leave your private area. You see other people. Offense ensues. That's what the public is all about, commingling with equally offensive others.

I get that. Truth be told, I actually enjoy it; watching my fellows citizens making fools of themselves makes me happy.

What I don't enjoy is watching a state legislator trying to tell me and you — mostly you — what we can wear and how we can wear it. That pisses me off.

I'm not even going to get into the proposed laws that target a specific minority.

I'll just request that whoever has been pissing in Grandpa Howell's Metamucil stop it. It's beginning to affect his work.

Call Your Mother. I Bet It's Been a While

Barbara Cole said she believed policed targeted her son ever since she made a complaint to the FBI in an incident in which she claimed police abused him in Bridgeton jail in 1998. Nothing came of her complaint, she said, but from then on, "Every time a car was stolen, they'd picked him up."

Cole pleaded guilty in St. Louis County Circuit Court in 1999 of auto theft, property damage and misdemeanor assault of an officer. He also pleaded guilty in 1993 in St. Clair County of possession of a stolen vehicle. He bounced back and forth to serve time in prisons in both Missouri and Illinois.

"I'm not saying he's an angel," his mother said.

Is there anything so beautiful as a mother's love, I mean, besides a well-placed quote?

I Just Don't Understand Kids Today

[Ahmed Abdullah al-Shaya] told Iraqi investigators this month that he wants revenge against the Iraqi terrorist network that sent him on the deadly mission that he survived....

Shaya moved to Baghdad in December to prepare for his final mission, which he expected to be as the suicide pilot of a bomb-laden car.

But on Dec. 24, he was given a preliminary job of driving a butane-gas delivery truck that was rigged with bombs. It wasn't suppose to be suicide mission.

"They asked me to take the truck near a concrete block barrier before turning to the right and leaving it there. There, somebody will pick up the truck from you," they told him. "But they blew me up in the truck," he says....

Shaya told interrogators that he regretted his mission now....

As for the Zarqawi network that sent him on the mission that left him permanently disfigured and in prison, he says, "I want revenge for what they have done to me."

Revenge? Oh, geez. So you've learned nothing from this whole went-on-the-wrong-suicide-mission, got-spat-from-a-giant-fireball-instead, and would-have-escaped-if-not-for-my-family's-premature-ejulation experience? Tsk, tsk, tsk, that's not sad. That's not sad at all.

Neither is the part where you expect us to sympathize with you because the Zarqawi network blew you up on this mission, instead of letting you drive a car bomb into Baghdad to "kill Americans, policemen, national guards and American collaborators" on your next.

What do you take us for? a Christian nation impregnate with the virtues of love, forgiveness, and redemption? You do? Well, Son, trust me, that's the concussion talking. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Fight through that mental fog and see if you can access the stuff they taught you in Zealot School. Can you do that? Good. Do you remember that stuff about us being The Great Satan? It's true, which means — and there's no good way to tell you this — you're fucked.

Your friends, obviously, wouldn't tell you that. That's why I stepped in. I didn't want you to get your hopes up.

When "Positive Black Talk" Takes on "Cash Money," Guess Who Wins. Well, Duh-Uh.

As often happens in the hip-hop world, two rappers became embroiled in a dispute over who owned the rights to a song that utilized a popular phrase. And it took the musical ear of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to settle the matter.

Positive Black Talk Inc., et al. v. Cash Money Records, et al. plunged the conservative appellate court into the world of booming bass lines and popular street slang.

Chief Judge Carolyn Dineen King, who wrote the opinion, boiled the case down to a dispute between Louisiana rappers Juvenile and D.J. Jubilee over who owned the rights to a song "that included the poetic four-word phrase 'back that ass up.'"...

Juvenile's song was a hit, sold more than 4 million CDs and grossed more than $40 million in sales. However, D.J. Jubilee's song failed to elevate either his bank account or his profile. D.J. Jubilee continues to work as a special education teacher.

This is wrong on so many levels, someone considering "back that ass up" to be "positive black talk" being just the tip of that sorry iceberg. I'll leave the sorting out to you.

I will say this, though. That the illiterate who revealed his morals when he named his label "Cash Money Records" and told the printers "That's 'ass' with two z's" gets $40 million while the college graduate who — however misguided — named his company "Positive Black Talk," pursued a career teaching special needs children (and yeah, that's wrong, too. Don't' get me started), and spelled "ass" correctly got bupkis has got to be a sign of the Apocalypse.

That my head didn't explode when I read that this case made it to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — don't they have more important legal issues to attend to? — is another.

So many levels.

It's Burns Night. (Excellent!)

The Meal

Dinner is served with some suitable background music. The sumptuous Bill o' Fare includes traditional cock-a-leekie soup before the main course ("Haggis wi' bashit neeps an' champit tatties"), followed by a sweet course of "clootie dumplin" (a pudding prepared in a linen cloth or cloot) or "Typsy Laird"

My mother's family line, the Blackmuns, is Scottish, so I have to do this, just like I have to eat Hog Maws at Christmas and Chitlin's on New Year's Day. You don't. Don't. The taste of any one of them will have you gutting your own innards with the Haggis knife until the last piece of hag and the last of clump of clootie is out of your body. Trust me. As Mike Myers put it in So I Married an Axe Murderer, "I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare."

So read the ode, down a few drams of whiskey, but back slowly — fuck! run — away from the Haggis. If you thank me for nothing else, you'll thank me for this.

Georgia on My Mind

What Do You Think? (From The Onion)

Georgia's Evolution Stickers

Last week, a U.S. district judge ordered a Georgia school district to remove stickers reading, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" from its textbooks. What do you think?"

"I hope they replaced the old stickers with new ones that read 'Do Not Burn.'" —
Brad Dawson, Novelist

"Never Ask an Economist To Do a Scientist's Job"

Has science found compelling evidence of inherent disparieties in the relevant skills, or perhaps in the drive to succeed at all costs, that could help account for the persistent paucity of women in science generally, and at the upper tiers of the profession in particular?...

"We can't get anywhere denying that there are neurological and hormonal differences between males and females, because there clearly are," said Virginia Valian, a psychology professor at Hunter College who wrote the 1998 book "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women." "The trouble we have as scientists is in assessing their significance to real-life performance."

... In an international standardized test administered in 2003 by the international research group Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to 250,000 15-year-olds in 41 countries, boys did moderately better on the math portion in just over half the nations. For nearly all the other countries, there were no significant sex differences.

But average scores varied wildly from place to place and form one subcategory of math to the next. Japanese girls, for example, were on par with Japanese boys on every math section save that of "uncertainty," which measures probablilistic skills, and Japanese girls scored higher over all than did the boys of many other nations, including the United States.

In Iceland, girls broke the mold completely and outshone Icelandic boys by a significant margin on all parts of the test, as they habitually do on their national math exams. "We have no idea why this should be so," said Almar Medvik Halldorsson, project manager for the Educational Testing Institute in Iceland.

I don't, either, but naming your boys Almar can't be helping.

But I digress.

The point is, that, despite the differences between the sexes, there doesn't seem to be any biological reason for the underrepresentation of women in math and science. Our brains process information differently and perform tasks using different pathways, but those things don't seem to be hurdles to learning or excelling in mathematics or science.

Me? When I was pup, I excelled in math and science, so much so that when the time came, I was sent here to study Number Theory, Matrix Theory, probablility, and Group Theory, among other things. Upon my return to public school, I enrolled in College Board Advanced Placement courses in physics, biology, and calculus. I couldn't get enough of the stuff.

Then, I took the SAT, and the wheels fell off the career-in-math wagon. I produced Almar-esque results -- higher verbal than math scores -- and, once the word got out, lost my standing among the nerdoscenti. My calculus teacher no longer looked me in the eye. My elf was no longer welcome in the Math Club dungeons. There were whispers in the halls. By the time I entered college, I'd lost my ability to F(x)=0 (Sorry.) So I tossed my ideas on a unified theory of mathematics and picked up a copy of Being and Time.

And here I am. In graduate school. (And, yes, of the three major sections of the GRE, my math score was the lowest.) It's amazing what the community's reaction to a low math score can do to a man.

The Breasts! United! Can Never Be Defeated!

As a Ventura County public defender, Liana Johnsson has handled many life-changing cases, but her biggest public crusade these days has been going topless.

For months, Johnsson has been fighting to allow topless women at California beaches and parks, and now the issue has made its way to the Capitol.

A group of lawyers, at Johnsson's request, has asked the Legislature to make topless sun-bathing legal, saying the ban is the last criminal sanction that treats women differently than men....

"At some point, men's breast became liberated and women's didn't," Johnsson said Friday.

This is only thing left that men are legally allowed to do and, for women, they have to register as a sex offender. The real issue is there should be equal protection under the law.

No, actually, the real issue is whether or not a sunbather should be entered into the class of criminals known as sex offenders. Casting this as case of gender inequity is just legal grandstanding.

While I agree that some bodies shouldn't see the light of day and should be bathed only in the dark of an enclosed shower, I disagree with anyone that says any exposed body is indecent and that anyone who exposes his or her body is a sex offender. If you want to tilt at that windmill, fight that nonsense, I'm in, Pancho to your Don Quixote. But if you want fight it as a case of discrimination, I can't help you, which is saying something.

My life is a cautionary tale, a collection of short stories of me hitching my wagon to one lemming going over the cliff after another. But making this a case of gender equity, that, my friend, is taking it a lemming too far.

Don't misinterpret that. That's not sexism drawing the line.

It is simply my belief that it's a bad idea to build a body of law (case law or statutory law) on a lie, and it's a lie that the nippled and areolae-d protuberances of men and women are the same. They're not, not biologically, not culturally*. Nothing good can come from obscuring those facts, certainly, no good jurisprudence.

So let's can the rhetoric, and focus on the real issues instead. Let's track sex offenders, but leave the innocent boobs &mdash man boobs included &mdash alone.

(*In the West, we've spent a great deal of time and art sexualizing the female breast and almost ignoring the potential of the males's. If you want to de-sexualize the female breast or fetishize the male's, call me. That's the kind of lemming I can get behind.)

"It's the Apocalypse All Right! I Always Knew I'd Have a Hand in It." -- Prof. Farnsworth, Taken from "Cartoon Quotes"

My favorites from this Cartoon Quotes page,

Brain: I shall pollute the water supply with this DNA defibuliser, turning everyone into mindless slaves.

Pinky: What about the people who drink bottled water?

Brain: Pinky, people who pay 5 dollars for a bottle of water are already mindless slaves.

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now,
bump
bump
bump,
on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but, sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it,

[Welcome to my world, bear &mdash BL]

and, my favorite, a pickup line from the Beavis and Butthead show,

"I can make you feel like I've never had sex before."

I'm writing "So true" in the margin of my screen by that one.

I'm Against Police Brutality, BUT if We're Going to Have It Anyway, Why Not Have it for Lloyd Wayne Perkins of 3224 Courtland Drive, Silver Lake, IN

Charges of criminal recklessness with a motor vehicle are being filed against a Silver Lake man after he forced a Warsaw school bus to stop on Ind. 15 with children on board the bus.

According to a Warsaw Police Department report, Lloyd Wayne Perkins, of 3224 Courtland Drive, Silver Lake, allegedly forced the school bus to stop the roadway on Ind. 15, south of the Claypool overpass. WPD Patrolman Greg Oberlin said the man honked his car horn as he drove his vehicle around the bus then pulled in front of the bus. The man slammed on his brakes, forcing the bus to do the same.

"The bus driver forgot (the man's) child," said Oberlin as to Perkins' motive. "He was angry he had to get up in the cold."

As it turns out, the kid "had not been at the designated pickup spot when the bus went by the first time."

They say "the first time" because in this school district, if your child misses the bus, you can call the school transportation department and they will send the bus around again. Is that sweet or what?

Back in ye olde days, when I was a tot (read: ye olde totte), if we missed the Conestoga school wagon, because we were draggin' ass and weren't at the wagon post when it passed, our parents got angry, too -- at us.

There would be yelling. Adjectives indicating our abject worthlessness would be thrown. Allegations regarding the infidelity of the parent not driving us to school would be hurled -- repeatedly. No eye contact would be made. Heads would be thunked. The ride to school would be so fraught with wrathful recriminations and hellish vituperation that even if two members of the Holy Trinity had missed the bus and were riding along, we would have been unable to feel God's love and would have been moved to doubt His existence. And the bus driver wouldn't be mentioned, not once, not for a second; he wouldn't share any of the blame, bear the brunt of any of these blows, or provide in any way a break in the shit storm of abuse that a ride to school after missing the bus would be.

These kids today, they don't know how good they've got it.

Well, It Is Suppose To Be a Jury of Your Peers

Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the "jury pool from hell."...

Right after jury selection began last week, one man got up and left, announcing, "I'm on morphine and I'm higher than a kite."

When the prosecutor asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime, a prospective juror said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed....

Another prospect volunteered he probably should not be on the jury: "In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin (as your lawyer), you're probably guilty."...

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin's client was found not guilty.

I got dismissed from the jury pool for saying I liked to read, which was a relief. I thought I was going to have to say I thought the judge had a "purty mouth."

There' s a Pool Going on How This Guy Rose to the Post of President of Harvard. I've Got Twenty on Nepotism.

The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers....

The remarks prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins &mdash a Harvard graduate &mdash to walk out on Summers' talk, The Boston Globe reported....

Five other participants in the National Bureau of Economic Research conference, including Denice D. Denton, chancellor designate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, also said they were offended by the comments....

"It's possible I made some reference to innate differences," he said. He said people "would prefer to believe" that the differences in performance between the sexes are due to social factors, "but these are things that need to be studied."

Summers declined to provided a tape or transcript of his remarks, but he did describe comments to the Globe similar to what participants recalled....

He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," as if they were dolls.

It was during such comments that Hopkins got up and left.

Summers went on to say that a few days later, the "daddy truck" was nowhere to be found, and when he saw his daughter playing with her "baby truck," he interrupted her to ask where it had gone. He had expected her to say Daddy truck was away earning money so Baby truck could have fuel in her tank, and pretty wheels on her axles. Instead, she told him that Baby truck had heard a few hurtful and offensive comments Daddy truck had made about mommy trucks; so, to teach him a lesson, Baby truck had set Daddy truck on fire while he was sleeping.

"Oh, yeah," Summers said his daughter told him, "Baby's a riot grrl."

Happy Martin Luther King Day, Everyone!

A weekend television weatherman was fired after he made an on-air racial slur about Martin Luther King Jr., station officials said.

Rob Blair of KTNV-TV was delivering the extended forecast Saturday morning when he said: "For tomorrow, 60 degrees, Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Day, gonna see some temperatures in the mid-60s." ...

Blair apologized during the station's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Saturday newscasts.

"On a weather report earlier this morning, I made an accident slip of the tongue when talking about the Martin Luther King holiday, and what I said was interpreted by many viewers as highly offensive.

"Interpreted"?! Oh, I see: You were using Coon as an honorific, and we twisted it all around?

Well, that can happen. We PC thugs do overreact now and again. If that's the case, here, hey, our bad.

"How Do I Love Thee, ..."

You guys know how easily I fall in love. Well, ...:

I finally told him to fuck off. That he'll never be the man I need, never be good enough for me. That the only thing I wanted to hear from him ever again is "Here's the money I owe you." Hell, I don't even care if he adds "bitch" to the end of that."

...I'm in love again.

I can't help it. There are simply too many good women out there for me to fall for just one.

"My Eyes! They Burn!" or "There's a Rat Out There with a Better Social Life than Mine"

Gently massaging the rat can help move the fecal matter through the intestines and colon. This should be soothing to your rat.

It doesn't say to do this -- it shouldn't have to -- but do. It is the decent thing. Buy him a meal first.

I Am Going to Kill My Guidance Counselor

Julian McMahon has experienced the downside of starring in cosmetic surgery drama NIP/TUCK -- strangers keep asking him if they need to go under the knife. ...

The 36-year-old says, "I was in a restaurant recently, and there was a table of girls who'd obviously had a little work done. They were like, "What do you think?', and 'Do you think I need a bit of this?' I'm sure when you play a cop, people ask you about police work &mdash for me, it's all about breast, butts and sex.

Breasts, butts, and sex &mdash poor baby. It must be hell to...

Sex?! Huh?! Is that really part of being a plastic surgeon?! Really? If I'd known that I'd have never become a waiter.

Why don't people tell me these things? Mrs. Thompson, you've got some 'splainin' to do.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! Whoops! I Think I Wet Myself

The Food Network's challenge is to translate the cult success of "Iron Chef," a Japanese import that it began showing in 1999, into American terms without losing the campy, samurai ethos of the original.

I can hardly wait. Eight o'clock, Sunday, I'm there.

Just so you know, Sunday, I'm not answering the phone. I'm not blogging. All I'll be doing is enjoying the cheese. (Why couldn't they retain Shatner?!)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to change my shorts.

The Saddest Sentence I've Read Today -- "Doctors Were Unable To Re-Attach the Organ" -- Preceded by the Funniest

A jilted woman today admitted ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands after he refused to have sex with her.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage after her ex-boyfriend, 37-year-old Geoffrey Jones, rejected her advances at the end of a drunken house party.

She yanked off his left testicle, which was later handed to him by a friend with the words: "That's yours."

Let that be a lesson to you kids out there: Always sleep with your drunken ex-.

Oh, and stay in school.

There's a Sarcophagus in France with a Better Social Life Than Mine

..."Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris has fenced off a famous tomb to prevent lewd acts being performed on a statue....

Officials concerned about damage to the icon's groin area have erected a fence around the grave, and a sign prohibiting indecent rubbing.

Lewd acts and indecent rubbing: Good times, good times -- if memory serves me.

Sadly, for Men, the Bigger the Boobs, The Less Money There Is To Be Made: Proof again, We Live in a Sexist Society

School officials in Palo Alto are reconsidering their use of a popular speaker for an annual career day after he advised middle school students that they could earn a good living as strip dancers.

William Fried told eighth-graders at Jan Lanthrop Stanford Middle School that stripping and exotic dancing could be a lucrative career move for girls, offering as much as $250,000 or more per year, depending on their bust size.

"It's sick, but it's true," Fried, president of Foster City's Precision Selling, a management consulting firm, told the Associated Press.

See what happens when you speak truth to power?

I Like To Do That, Too. For Instance, I Call Him, "Old Shit for Brains"

The president likes to give people nicknames. He has called Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, "Pootie-Poot,"....

It's a wonder we have a friend left in the world.

I Like It. I Like It A Lot

Also, look for yourself in my photo galleries where I label pictures of my friends with actual subject lines from junk email I get spammed with daily!

...which means, in addition to all her other assets, she has the most understanding friends in the world.

Mmm, Egg-Celent.

"Smithers, change the alert system color to red, and find me a way to profit from it.

"And have the Rolling Stones killed. I SAID, 'DO IT!"

"What Have We Here? A Diabetic Who Doesn't Check His Blood Sugar Regularly? Well, Insulin Boy, We Don't Take Kindly to That Around Here"

The downside of diabetes the medical community won't tell you about.

We're Missing a "W"

A former Hampshire Regional High School substitute teacher yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing a student's prosthetic arm. ... [Assistant District Attorney Michael A.] Cahillane said police visited Bridges at the Hampshire County House of Correction and asked him about the arm and he responded "Yeah, I know what you are talking about."

How is that the end of this story?! Sure, Nancy Gonter covered the who? what? when? and where? but where's the why?! "Yeah, I know what you are talking about" doesn't begin to cover the why?

So, now, I'm going to be up all night trying to figure that one out. Join me, won't you? (And feel free to submit a guess in the Comments section.)

I Smell Bacon, Freshly Bitch-Slapped Bacon, unless I Miss My Guess

A judge threw out a murder suspect's confessions Monday, saying that police broke the law when they used deception to coax him into saying he killed a missing woman.

"I cannot say I am surprised by the ruling. I looked at the case law, and I knew there was a 50-50 chance he was going to rule against the state in this case," Fox said. "You cannot make end runs around [a suspect's rights]. The court won't tolerate it."

Or read another way, if you make an end run around a suspect's rights, the court will tolerate it 50% of the time, which, as scary as that is to think about, isn't even the frightening part of this story. The frightening part of it all is the police's response to the ruling.

They maintain that they did nothing wrong:

Lt. John Lau, who was the architect of the interrogation of Dalzell, said he did not think police violated any laws in getting Dalzell to confess.

Guess what, John? You're wrong. That's what the court is trying to tell you.

You enforce the law, not interpret it. You're within the confines of the law, not outside of them. It frightens the citizens to think you believe you're not. It frightens us to think you believe you
re a judge as well as an arresting officer. You're a police officer: you enforce the interpretation of law of the courts; you operate within the constitutional confines given to you by them.

Perhaps, this ruling wasn't bitch-slap enough for you. Maybe, you need a some actual punishment, perhaps even a civil suit brought against you for violating Mr. Dalzell's rights, because, obviously, we're not getting through to you.

"I'm Just a Country Lawyer. I Don't Know Much about Prisoner Abuse, but If It's Anything Like Cheerleading, and I Hear It Is, How Bad Could It Be?

A lawyer defending Specialist Charles Graner, who is accused of being a ringleader in the Abu Ghraid prisoner abuse scandal, agued that piling naked prisoners in pyramids was a valid form of prisoner control. "Don't cheerleaders all over American form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" said Guy Womack, Sergeant Graner's lawyer, in opening arguments to the ten-member military jury at the reservist's court martial. ...

The prosecution showed some of those pictures in their opening argument, including one of naked Iraqi men piled on each other and another of Ms. England holding a crawling naked Iraqi man on a leash. Mr. Womack said that using a tether was a valid method of controlling detainees. "You're keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections," he said.

Okay, to all of you caught abusing prisoners, either, here or abroad, a helpful word: If during your trial, your lawyer starts spinning folksy explanations for the atrocities you did, like some Meth-ed up Matlock, take some time and find out what the Astroglide-to-cigarette exchange rate is in the prison near you; learn to enjoy the touch of a man; get to know what makes a stronger, more violent con than you happy. You're going to need to know that stuff, because if the best your attorney can come up with is a cheerleader defense, you are going down like a porn star.

You might as well develop a taste for it.

And Now One for the What the Fuck?! File or, Alternatively, If You're a Bush Operative with Deep Pockets, This Space for Rent

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." ...

The contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "And it's propaganda." ...

Williams, 45, a former aide to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is one of the top black conservative voices in the nation.

In other words, he learned at the feet of the master.

Given that Clarence only pocketed a little over $40,000 in gifts, though, while Armstrong cha-chinged $240K with his sweetheart deal, I'd say the circle is complete -- the pupil has become the teacher -- and that until this story broke, their social interactions began with Armstrong taunting Clarence with chants of "Who's yo' graft daddy, C.T.?! Who's yo' graft daddy?!"

Now, not so much.

Obviously, it's going to take us black folk a little more time to get a handle on the nuances and finer shadings of political and corporate graft before we can manipulate the system without going to jail or, more important, giving back our ill-gotten booty. Please be patient.

That plea goes out to those of you looking at these recents allegations and thinking "They really aren't flourishing in our political, economic, and civil systems. Perhaps, we should just enslave them again for their own good." (I'm looking at you, Mississippi.) To you I say, "Calm down. We're really not doing that badly, all things considered. So drop the shackles and fetters. We're fine. Okay? We're just going to need another decade or so before we're as deftly corrupt as you. After all, Sodom wasn't built in a day. Oh, and when you get a chance, a little help?" Thanks.

Damn. I Wish I'd Said That

While the likes of Ian Poulter and Freddie Jacobson have been tireless in their efforts to promote golf as a safe haven for those who want to wear fancy-dress trousers or white belts and sweat bands, "fairway fluff" calendars have been conspicuous by their absence.

Sandolo's "sexy" efforts fills that void, and relieves John Daly of his claim to owning the most famous breasts in golf.

Wry BBC bastards.

Maybe, He Should Have Let Odie Draw a Few Strips While He Was Away, on Vacation

Gene Weingarten, a humor columnist for The Washington Post and Washington Post Writers Group, praised the Times decision during his weekly washingtonpost.com chat yesterday. He said the paper displayed "the kind of cojones missing in too many places" and described "Garfield" as "a strip produced by a committee, devoid of originality, devoid of guts, a strip cynically DESIGNED to be inoffensive and bad, on the theory that public tastes are insipid.

When the public stops reading The Family Circus, I'll join in the outrage, but until someone silences Bil Keane's pen, I'm going to have to side with the Public-tastes-are-insipid crowd, and go about my day, shaking my head in disgust as I go.

Never Kick a Man When He's Down unless You're Sure He's Down. Then, Don't Stop Kicking

A new-look team at the US State Department emerged on Thursday, with the choice of Robert Zoellick as deputy to Condoleezza Rice and the expected departure of John Bolton, a controversial hawk on arms control....

It is rare for a serving cabinet member to take a lesser ranking job as a deputy. But people close to the discussions said on Thursday that President George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney were keen to restore the State Department as an effective voice in the administration.

Well, it's about time! That Colin Powell and his voice of reason have been getting us nowhere.

It Says It Right Here on the Package: Make with the Naked. Inflate Condom. Let the Sweet, Sweet Love Flow

A melon-colored model distributed by Planned Parenthood performed the worst, bursting during a test in which the latex condoms were filled with air.

In Planned Parenthood's defense, let me point out that if you're in a situation calling for condom use and you begin filling yours with air, you won't have to worry about the effectiveness of the device. Your chances of coitus will be over. Trust me, the voice of experience (sadly, little of it sexual).

You Are the Eggman. They Are the Eggmen. I Am the Bunny. Goo Goo G'Joob

It's not a feeling. It's true. They have.

On the bright side, I now have some great Flashdance-type moves to express my enforced celibacy with. So I got that going for me &mdash which is nice-sh.

"A Frightful Hobgoblin Stalks through Europe" and It Ain't Our President

100 things we didn't know this time last year

Each week the Magazine picks out snippets from the week's news -- interesting newsbites that we learned along the way, and find their way into 10 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Week every Saturday. So at the end of the year, here is an almanac of those things we learned....

11. The opening lines of the Communist Manifesto -- "A spectre is haunting Europe--the spectre of Communism" -- were initially translated as "A frightful hobgoblin stalks through Europe". ...

38. Yoda was based on Albert Einstein. ...

51. The day after the atomic bomb exploded on Hiroshima, the banks re-opened. They had one customer, John Reader's book Cities recorded.

If he were there to make the final mortgage payment on his home -- then, just a scorched shadow on the pavement -- he was probably a relative of mine.