"Hope" even touches spammers

I just received my first spam email offering pictures of a n*de Michelle Obama. Now, despite the existence of any such photos being as likely as there being pictures of John McCain naked draped in sausage links and raw steak (you are welcome) one has to admire the chutzpah of the spamographers. When all else is lost, they keep repeating "yes we can!" and send out teases and requests for off-shore shelters for smuggled diamonds.

Bless their little cotton socks. Keep striving, spammers.

They are preparing McCain's meatkini, just in case I'm wrong.

Overheard Joke...

Q: What is the difference between a pigeon and an investment banker?

A: A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Ferrari

Dog Whistle or Warning Sign?

After 8 years of mangled syntax and mispronounced words, it seems that it has become Republican orthodoxy to pronounce fairly mundane words in slightly exotic ways. I'm not refering to big foreign tongue twisters like "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" (i.e. "Ackyminniejabs, the new Adlorf Hilter") or new Pakistani president "Asif Ali Zardari", but rather to the name of our nation's capital.

He's been there in one form or another since attending the National War College in 197e and although he is older than dirt the name had been changed from Foggy Bottom a far while before he was born, yet for some reason Senator McCain insists on pronouncing Washington DC:

"WAHHRRSHHHINGTORN DC"

Is this a signal to his base that although a member of the establishment by any ordinary reckoning, McCain is so contemptous of "gov'mint" that he refuses to even pronounce the name of the first president properly?

Or rather is he proving himself to be dogged, principled, cunning, and as thick as two short planks?

In any case, if it is now ok to just make up pronunciations for long accepted names, I think I'll start refering to the good senator and his adopted home state of Arizona as "Jerrrrn MickCarrrrrrn of Arrrrrhhhhhrrowzima" from now on. Maybe it'll confuse a few of the Gunrack MacButtcracks out there at the very least....

McCain insists it is "Wahhhrrshingtorn": he looked it up on the original Blackberry that he claims to have invented (pictured)

And their sports guy looks like the late Senator Reed Smoot

From Bangor, Maine via MSNBC:

TV anchor who resembles Palin gets 'hate mail


BANGOR, Maine - A television news anchor in Maine who looks a lot like Sarah Palin says she's been getting "hate mail and nasty phone calls."

Cindy Michaels from WVII-TV has long brown hair that she sometimes wears up in a style similar to Palin's, and she also wears glasses on occasion.

Michaels says some viewers recently began accusing her of trying to copy Palin's style or, worse, somehow trying to subliminally sway votes.

While smarting over accusations of bias, Michaels says she's generally flattered by the comparisons to Palin. Michaels describes her as a "beautiful woman."

Having been subjected to the news on WVII on occasion, I am inclined to suspect that any 'hate mail'* is more due to her working for the most inane and pointless news operation in Eastern Maine than her sharing that c1993 senior flight attendant look with Palin.

I think of greater interest is the extent to which rival station WABI's weather man looks like President William Howard Taft:




(*Hate mail? I wonder who takes the time to compose hate mail- that shows real dedication to one's irrational, puce-faced anger. In this day and age surely one just blogs?)

Wanted: A Tough President who Sees Insults in Everything Anyone Says.

Barak Obama: "I amazed that my opponent thinks that when I said that choosing between Senator McCain and President Bush was six of one and half a dozen of the other that I was suggesting that he enjoyed symetrically balanced bisexual orgies."

John McCain: "My friends, when I pointed out that Senator Obama's suggestion that proper tire inflation as a means to solve the energy crisis was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, I was in no way bringing race into the debate. Those sort of suggestions make me angry, and you won't like me when I'm angry. McCain smash."

Joe Biden: "My saying Sarah Palin's accumulated executive experience in small town Alaska is about as relevant as tits on a nun has been deliberately misconstrued by the Republicans. I view the Governor of Alaska strictly from the neck up, and as I can attest there is nothing wrong with being catholic."

Sarah Palin: "Bridge to nowhere... blah blah blah... thanks but no thanks... blah blah blah... Don't tell anyone, but I kept the earmarked money in Alaska even though the bridge wasn't built... blah blah blah... nothing wrong with tits as they were molded out of clay by God's own hand 10,000 years ago... blah blah blah... Has anyone else noticed I sould like Frances McDormand in Fargo?... blah blah blah..."

Driller Killer

Setting aside general questions as to the desirability or feasibility of energy independence (topics I hope to waffle about at a later date) I have been alternating between bouts of frustration and fits of the giggles every time I hear a candidate or interest group advocate for increased oil exploration and drilling in the United States as the way past high energy prices.

Even if we ignore the time it will take to bring any oil to gas stations (about 10 years), the shortage of drilling rigs, and the shortage of refineries, the minuscule savings per gallon the experts project will be eaten up by general inflation, never mind fluctuations in the oil market. The current best guess is a savings of 10c a gallon when the oil comes online a decade from now. That's about 3% of today's price per gallon at the gas station down the street from where I sit ($3.64). Ten years ago in August 1998 the average national price per gallon was $1.06. In the past decade therefore, the price of gas has more than doubled, going up by about 240%. That dime a gallon the oil companies promise you'll save if they are allowed to drill offshore and in ANWAR? If the next decade follows the same sort of price trends the past decade did, all that drilling, all those subsidies, and all that environmental damage would mean that prices would only climb by 237% rather than the 240% of the past decade. What a savings!!!

Lets be fair and assume that the price rise over the decade would be much less steep. Maybe T Boone Pickens strapped a windmill to a Mobil station or something, and gas only went up by 100%. Again, all this drilling would only mean that you'd be a mere 97% worse off at the pump. Unless oil and other prices increase by a factor of less than 3% of today's prices over the course of the next decade, additional drilling in sensitive locations will not lower prices, or even do much to arrest price increases. It will however allow oil companies to pump more product as demand continues to grow world wide and therefore generate greater profits.

And therein lies the truth behind this push for drilling. Don't get me wrong: I'm a firm believer in open markets (I feel they are the key to global prosperity if they are truly open) and capitalism. In fact my belief in the market is one of the reasons I feel this push to extract more oil in the name of "energy independence" is a crock- when was the last time you heard of an oil company that sold its product exclusively to its home country? The hydrocarbon markets are global, so the idea of more domestic oil lessening our demand for "foreign" oil is a non-starter.

From a simplified market standpoint, being a net consumer of fuel puts one in a weak position. It would be far better for the United States to offset (and hopefully reduce) that fuel consumption by being a net exporter of clean energy technology. Why should we base our entire on economy on something we don't have a lot of (oil) rather than something we have a goodly amount of (tech expertise and R&D spending)?

Of course, that's a topic for another post. But I did want to jot down my thoughts about drilling and the silliness that is currently prevailing in the election campaign around energy independence and pocket book issues.

Health & Safety

From the BBC:

Youths warned over holes on beach
Police in Norfolk have traced two youths responsible for digging holes measuring 6ft (1.83m) on a beach and trying to conceal them.

The three pits were all found earlier this week on North Beach, Great Yarmouth.

Police had earlier warned that a person could die if they fell into one and were unable to get out (the rest of the story...)

Work on my tunnel to Australia (first attempted 1980 on the same stretch of coast referenced above* and continued intermittently at a variety of locations since) has been suspended, lest the Norfolk rozzers come-a-knocking.

The latest progress on my tunnel to Australia.
Never give up your boyhood dreams!

(*At Sea Palling)

Right up the canton

In the United States, they make the flag into patriotic underpants. In Britain, it can be found as a beach towel. In Peru however, one sits on the flag at one's peril:

Peru wants jail for nude woman using flag as saddle

One man's night of paid kink in Nevada is another's sentence of treason in Lima.

"Betsy! A skidmark! What have you been doing?"

Who Wrote Beethoven's 5th Symphony?

When my friend Listmaker began his recent campaign to raise awareness about the inanity of the American radio interviewer Terry Gross I have to admit I was resistant to joining his charge. Ms. Gross may not always ask the most probing of questions on her show Fresh Air she does have good guests and her conversations with mendacious conservative blowhard Bill O'Reilly and mediocre bassist Gene Simmons are classics of the art.

Last night however Ms. Goss uttered a statement about her guest Rhett Miller (from the Old 97s) that brought me over to Listmaker's dark side. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you what might be Terry Gross's most idiotic comment to date. I wish I could find it verbatim, but this is as close as I can remember it:

We'll talk more with Rhett Miller about his serious- but thank god unsuccessful- suicide attempt...

I'm glad she pointed out that he was unsuccessful, otherwise she would have blown my mind, conducting a probing interview via a ouija board.

It Failed The Sniff Test

The film Perfume: Story of a Murderer is possibly the best worst movie I have seen since The Transporter almost made me piss myself with laughter at the local fleapit.


After the first five minutes I remarked to Country Mouse that I was glad that Terry Gilliam hadn't directed it. After the film bizzarely and briefly turned into its own trailer half way through and then became a glitzier version of Manos: Hands of Fate I began to wish he had.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer: yet another strike against Germans who decide to be the writer, director, and score composer on their own getting another project greenlighted ever again.

Malkin Hates Scarves; Stays Mum on Gerry Adams-Style Beards

Right wing screeching lunatic whose ability to have perspective was surgically removed commentator Michelle Malkin has become convinced that celebrity cook Rachel Ray is shilling not just for Dunkin Donuts but also for terrorists.

Setting aside the conflation of secular Arab nationalist/partner with Rabin/winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Yasir 'Arafat with Islamist jihadists who have only flourished in the occupied territories as a consequence of the US and Israel's refusal to support and compromise with moderate Palestinian leaders (and for good measure, confusing them with Al Qadea acolytes in Iraq), the sole reasoning behind the idea that Ms. Ray is somehow Osama bin Laden's personal chef is that a stylist draped her with a scarf resembling a keffiyeh (or shemagh)- traditional Arab head gear.

To be crystal clear then; Ms. Malikn and her pals believe that wearing a keffiyeh allies one with terrorists.

Someone had better tell that to the US Navy Seals and Britain's elite Special Air Service, both units being currently engaged in anti-terrorism operations around the globe:



God knows what Malkin and her pals would have made of the command patch for Eisenhower and the allied troops that stormed Normandy on D-Day. Flaming phallic sword? Rainbow? "Promoting the homosexual agenda" or something equally moronic, one supposes.

American Idol

Congratulations to David, the pastry-faced result of gene splicing between Michael Bolton and Bob Seeger. May your ultimate plunge to obscurity at least earn you a dollar or two.

Commiserations to David, the uber-Osmond Michael Jackson bait and future David Guest look-alike with the nice voice and a spot already booked on season 45 of The Surreal Life.

Perhaps now is the time for me to pitch my new reality concept, American Imp Pimp, wherein contestants compete to ponce off midgets in naughty elf costumes.

The countryside is beautiful, the cities can be elegant and exciting, the culture is a joy and the food is my anchor, but oy! the people!

As someone who on his last visit home endured the joys of travelling cheek-by-jowl with his fellow Britons aboard an overcrowded train while they acted like pigs and sharp-elbowed gollems; who sat wreathed in the smoke from a thousand cigarettes in an unventilated basement restaurant; and who revelled in the intensity of the surly bad service given by shop assistants and waitstaff across several counties I have to say that the Rough Guide folks are being pretty fair:

New guide to 'irritating' England

Quaint bobbies prepare to greet colourful drinkers at chucking out time, any British town, any Thursday through Saturday night

Searching

Every now and then, its refreshing to remind oneself how people stumble onto this site. Here's some of my favorite recent searches by poor deluded fools:

story of rick manning's affair with denise eckersley
hodmatod
se5a propeller
how does a weasel defend itself
(The ever popular) where to buy urinegone
the ironic tickler

And my personal favorite:

aerial pictures of thetford in 1737
And how, one wonders, was someone to create an aerial picture of Thetford 50 years before the first manned flight in a hot air balloon? I suspect this search was fruitless.

Where I Live

Ahh, rural Maine:

Police Arrest Unity Woman Found Hiding in Suitcase
....Cindy Petterson, 32, of Unity, was not the individual police were originally searching for when they arrived at her residence at 620 Town Farm Road, according to Chief Deputy Bob Keating.

Keating said the Waterville Police Department contacted the sheriff’s department around 9:15 p.m. Saturday asking for help in executing a search warrant at 620 Town Farm Road. They were looking for 18-year-old Matthew R. McDougal, who was a suspect in the theft of a woman’s purse at a Waterville shopping center.

Deputies Dale Brown and Dan Thompson met the Waterville officers at Petterson’s rented mobile home, a place Keating said McDougal was known to have sometimes stayed.....Detective Matt Curtis came to the scene and drafted a search warrant. People at the residence were asked again about Petterson’s whereabouts, and were told again she was not there and had gone to her mother’s.

After the second search warrant was obtained, Thompson began searching in the bedroom. He noticed a number of boxes in the closet, and also saw three suitcases in there. When Thompson pulled the biggest one out and opened it he found Petterson inside, said Keating.

It was clear to Thompson that Petterson could not have gotten into the suitcase without assistance, and it appeared she had been in there for two-and-a-half to three hours said Keating. She reportedly refused to get out of the suitcase, however, and told officers, “Don’t touch me.”

Keating said the officers “had to use some force” to subdue Petterson and place her in handcuffs. She had half a 500 milligram Hydrocodone pill in her pocket, according to Keating.

...Petterson was arrested, charged with possession of scheduled drugs, possession of stolen property and violation of her bail conditions. She also had an outstanding arrest warrant for unpaid fines and fees (totaling $440) on previous charges of operating while her license was suspended or revoked and operating after her registration was suspended....

I have to give a work presentation to their Rotary Club in a couple of weeks. I wonder if I should spring from a suitcase to the left of the lectern for dramatic effect?

By Xenu!

I don't intend to be a water carrier for Scientology, Tom Cruise, or Katie Holmes but I must admit to rolling my eyes recently at one of the "Shock! Horror! Tom and Katie's baby is a freak!" stories the supermarket tabloids love to emblazon on their covers.

Apparently Cruise and Holmes are so kooky and intent on indoctrinating their toddler into the ways of Scientology that little Suri is not allowed to "watch TV or eat Happy Meals".

If that is the standard for way-outside-the-norm- cult-brainwashing-parenting- philosophies, then the majority of parents of my generation I know must be fully paid up Operating Thetans.

In reality the closest anyone I know has come to Scientology is the occasional eating of hubbard squash. Unless their reluctance to force nutritionally empty McDonalds food and Days of Our Lives onto their children reflects a secret adherence to dianetics of course.

This is the most pressing issue where I live at this moment

Thanks to chum Canada Dry Mike for the following tip, from Village Soup, one of our local newspapers (I would link but annoyingly VS is one of those deluded media companies that believes that people are willing to pay to read archived stories)

Middle school issues 'ban' on intentional flatulence
CAMDEN, ME (Feb 4, 08): The Merriam Webster Dictionary definition for flatulence is brief: "flatus expelled through the anus." And while it's a natural bodily function, it seems some Camden-Rockport Middle School eighth-grade boys are taking it to new heights and allegedly making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus.

According to this week's "Fire Cracker" newsletter though, an informal eighth-grade publication, the joke's on the boys as the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.

"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"

CRMS Principal Maria Libby said Tuesday that part of what the students wrote isn't true, and though she acknowledged that there is a punishment for "disruptive behavior," she said there is no new official policy regarding intentionally expelling flatus.

"A ban on intentional farting is not true and I'm not sure if it started as a game or not," said Libby. "It is also not true that this is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions, as was stated in the newsletter, and a detention is only warranted if the behavior is deemed a disruption."

Libby added, "It's not a new policy, but farting can be considered a disruption."

According to a group of seventh-grade students milling around downtown following Friday's storm-related early release, the eighth-graders' escapades are well known in the school.

"They would do it in science class and other places," said Jordan Tyler. "It's a natural occurrence, and we all do it 16 times a day."

When questioned where he learned that information, Tyler and the other students all said it was true, though they couldn't remember where they heard it.

One of the other students, Kyle Ruger, said the act by the boys was funny, but he had mixed feelings about whether it was appropriate.

Jordan Knowlton minced no words when she expressed how she felt, saying, "It's gross."

Remy LeVine said he was in the class when CRMS science teacher Brad LaRoche talked to all the eighth-grade boys about the issue, as well as the consequences.

School Superintendent Patricia Hopkins said she had not heard anything about the issue or the alleged suspected result until contacted by the media, though she did get a good chuckle out of the news.

R Kelly's Dream Weekend?

Also trapped in a toilet
This might be the worst episode of that Bear Grylls show ever:

Man's four days trapped in toilet
A man spent four days trapped in a toilet after the door handle broke (the rest...)

Poor git should have heeded the ancient Scottish saw, "Afore ye squat above yon pan, be quite assure'd ye can work yon han.....dle. Shit. It doesnae scan."

I endured a vaguely similar survival situation, having to eat my underpants in 1996 in an attempt to feign madness and thus escape the world's most tedious dinner party (to that point in recorded history). Those were the longest two hours of my life and I truly feared for my survival.

I also rafted the Amazon using just a ballcock and a toilet duck.

Leg Update

>
The story continues... This man is either a true Homo Americanus Rutilus Gutter or one of the most brilliant performance artists to emerge out of the Carolinas for a good long stretch.

What Could I Possibly Ad?

"Its mah leg! Gorn, git! Quit leanin' on me, stumpy!"
This story (reproduced here in its fantastic entirety) was made possible by the North American Goober Stereotype Perpetuation Society of North Carolina:

North Carolina pair feud over leg
A US man who stored his amputated leg in a barbecue smoker that was later auctioned off is locked in a custody dispute with the man who bought it. He wants his leg back but Mr Whisnant says he has a receipt for the smoker's contents and wants to share ownership.

Mr Wood's leg was amputated above the knee after a plane crash in 2004. He asked to keep the leg so he could be buried as a whole man when he died, and stored it at the facility in Maiden after losing his home. But when Mr Wood failed to pay the necessary rental fees, the storage company auctioned the smoker and all its contents.

After buying the smoker last Tuesday, Mr Whisnant looked inside and found a man's leg wrapped in a wire screen. He initially gave the leg to the police, who concluded it had not been removed as a result of a crime and sent it to a funeral home until Mr Wood could pick it up.

But after making money by charging adults $3 (£1.47) and children $1 (49p) to look inside the empty smoker (emphasis mine, WW), Mr Whisnant asked for it back. His request was refused by the funeral home, so he decided to try to persuade Mr Wood to share custody and profits.

"I told him I'd share custody of it..." Mr Whisnant said. "It's a strange incident and Halloween's just around the corner. The price will go up if I get the leg."

Mr Wood, who now lives in Greenville, South Carolina, has insisted he is not interested in using the leg to make money and plans to travel to Maiden as soon as possible to reclaim it.

"I just think it's despicable," he said. "I don't mind having the 15 minutes of fame, but I'm not looking to really profit off this thing. He's making a freak show out of it."

Having had his offer rejected, Mr Whisnant has threatened to begin legal action if the leg is not returned to him by next week. He says he has a receipt showing he bought both the smoker and its contents at the auction.

"Everybody knows it's mine, period," he said. "And if anyone tries to take it, I want everything they got."