A Win for Private Property Owners

The Hennepin County Board voted Tuesday to partially roll back the county's smoking ban, according to media reports.

Commissioners voted 4-3 to exempt traditional bars from the ban, which went into effect nine months ago. The ordinance prohibited smoking in all indoor areas of food establishments, including bars and restaurants.

But bar owners complained that the ban was cutting into their profits. Under the scaled-back ban, traditional bars will be eligible for exemptions, which run through July 31, 2007.

Score one for small businesses.

Phillistines!

The Register is reporting that Apple may be removing FireWire from it's upcoming intel-based iBooks. They speculate that it might be a fiscally sound move when one takes into account the number of people who use FireWire.

Phillistines! Peasants! Curse you damned plebians and your inferior USB 2.0! Do you know how hard it is to find a decent-priced external hard drive with FireWire? FireWire is superior!

Aeon Flux was Boring

There's nothing wrong with the plot, writing or acting in this movie but it failed to capture my interest. I nearly fell asleep watching this one. Charlize Theron is pretty to look at but she lacks the attitude necessary to pull this one off. A younger Sigourney Weaver would have been much better suited to this role.

Small Scissors: Back on Board?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Small scissors and screwdrivers - banned after September 11 - will be allowed back on airplanes as U.S. security policy changes focus to target bomb threats, government officials said on Thursday.

...Small scissors with blades less than four inches and tools like screwdrivers that are less than seven inches will be removed from the long list of banned items. Box cutters and other tools with cutting edges, crowbars and hammers remain off limits.

Read it all here.

When a hammer is all you have, every solution looks like a nail but not if you're flying because hammers aren't allowed. Nails larger than 10d are also not allowed.

I wish I had a scanner.

It's days like today that make me wish I had a scanner. The front page of the World section in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune has a close up of one of three remain Saddam Hussein statues in Iraq that looks a lot like the giant foam Olmec puppet from the old Nickelodeon gameshow 'Legends of the Hidden Temple'.

Quote of the Moment

China claims they're going to somewhat tackle computers with a clean slate, but we all know they're just going to steal technology and slap duct tape and a dragon on it.

Found in a discussion regarding the viability of scrapping the x86 platform and starting from scratch.

I, for one, am shocked.

I've read a few stories on a few blogs regarding a reported Defense Department plan to invade Venezuela. I'd like to state, for the record, that I believe the Defense Department has plans drawn up for the invasion and/or complete obliteration of every country on Earth.

Standing armies are of little use if they are not kept in fighting trim. The more a military force practices, the better off they will be when they are called to war. Likewise, those people called to plan the logistics and strategy of war would be of little use if they did not practice their craft regularly. To do so, they create scenarios and plans to deal with those scenarios. I believe that there are plans for things like conquering Canada, invading Maine and even occupying the Vatican.

The Defense Department plans for war. That's all there is to it. I, for one, am shocked that this surprises so many people.

Gravity Lenses are Super

A US and Netherlands-led team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified 19 new examples of gravitationally lensed galaxies.

Among the new examples are eight so-called Einstein Rings, a rare phenomenon where an image of a hidden galaxy is stretched in a complete circle around the lensing object. Only three examples of visible-light Einstein rings were previously known.
Click Here

Gravitational lensing takes place when a sufficiently massive object lies between the Earth and a light source, like a distant galaxy. The gravity of the intermediate object is strong enough that it will bend light from the object it obscures around itself, so that it is visible from Earth.

This takes the form of an arc, or of multiple images of the otherwise hidden object aro

Check out some pictures here.

Pakastani KFC Attacked

KARACHI, Pakistan Nov 15, 2005 — A powerful car bomb exploded outside a KFC restaurant in southern Pakistan on Tuesday, setting off a massive fireball that overturned cars and shattered steel and glass. Three people were killed and 22 injured.

An ethnic Baluch nationalist group from southwestern Pakistan claimed responsibility. A spokesman denied the group targeted civilians, saying it tried to hit the offices of a state-owned oil and gas company above the KFC.

Full story here.

Yeah yeah yeah, you don't need to make excuses about trying to hit a state-run oil company. Everybody knows that the Colonel is a legitimate military target.

CIA Operational Security

There'a an interesting editorial over at the Opinion Journal written by a former CIA Case Officer concerning the truth behind CIA agents and diplomatic cover. Check it out.

This line is particularly good:

You have to give credit to Langley: Overseas it may be incompetent; but in Washington, it can still con many into giving it the respect and consideration it doesn't deserve.

Kansas to teach Evolution Alternative

Read it here!

The Kansas School Board voter 6-4 to require students to learn alternatives to the theory of evolution. I imagine that if the vote went the other way that those pushing the alternative theories would have argued whether 6 was actually a larger number than 4 or possibly argued against the validity of counting.

It's a shame I'm 10 years out of high school. I'd take creationism and advanced alchemy for my electives.

This Just In!

King Abdullah of Jordan condemns the recent bombings that killed 53 people in three Jordanian hotels.

I'm betting that somewhere in his statement was the phrase 'not in my backyard'.

China Plans 2017 Moon-Walk

China is planning to send a manned mission to the moon as early as 2017, according to reports, to investigate the amount of helium-3 in the lunar soil. China first put humans in space in 2003, and has recently completed a second, longer, manned stint in orbit.

Following the success of the latest mission aboard the Shenzhou 6 craft, Chinese space agency planners say that they are now developing another four space craft with a view to building a permanent Chinese space station, and eventually going to the moon.
Click Here

China says its first lunar orbiter could be ready for lift-off as early as 2007, Reuters reports. It also plans to launch its next manned mission in 2007, which could feature China's first ever space walk.

Everybody knows that the Moon belongs to America.

Full story here.

Ali has months to live

Muhammad Ali may have just months to live, it has emerged yesterday. The 63-year-old boxing great, who has battled Parkinson's disease for 20 years, can no longer talk and is shutting himself away from those closest to him.

"Last week I punched out Muhammud Ali!"

Gay Greenpeace Vessel Destroys Coral Reef

ENVIRONMENTAL group Greenpeace says it will pay nearly $9500 in damages after its ship Rainbow Warrior II hit a coral reef at a world heritage site in the Philippines.

The accident was very regrettable, Greenpeace said, but it laid some of the blame on maritime charts showing its ship was 2.5 km from the reef.

Marine park officials assessed the area of damaged reef at 96sq m.

"This accident could have been avoided if the chart was accurate," Red Constantino of Greenpeace Southeast Asia said. "We feel responsible, however, and this amount will be transferred."

hahahaha nice boat name... Rainbow Warrior II.. hahaha (cough..gay..cough)..

Leave Brian Herbert's Water to the Desert

Brian Herbert continues to befoul the Dune legacy by releasing prequel after prequel but this time he has gone too far. He has released a book which contains chapters and scenes cut from his dead father's (Frank Herbert) classic Dune and Dune Messiah.

Dune and Dune Messiah are among my favorite books. I've read Dune once a year for the past fifteen years and I've probably read Dune Messiah nearly as often. Frank Herbert, even on his worst days, could write circles around both his son and most scifi authors of his day. If Frank Herbert felt that chapters and scenes didn't fit into those two books, then by god they should never see the light of day.

This is another example of a disturbing trend. Dead scifi authors, giants in their field, are clawing at their coffin lids in righteous fury because two bit hacks are releasing new material set in the universes that they created. The Dune prequels were written by Brian Herbert and a goddamn Star Wars novelist. There are new books written by nobodies set in Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation world. Roger Zelazny's Amber series, a fantasy masterpiece, is also being picked apart my halfassed literary vultures.

I won't give you the title or a link to the new Dune book. It would be disrespectful to the dead.

Google Does Not Recognize Taiwan

Taiwan has become the latest, er, country to go whining to Google Earth - not because the entertaining online service reveals high-res pics of air bases packed with black helicopters, but because those tiresome Americans insist on calling it "a province of China".

Oh dear, oh dear. A suitably indignant Taiwanese government has therefore asked Google to correct the outrage to read the Republic of Taiwan - despite the fact that, as Reuters notes, the island of 23 million souls is "recognised by only 26 states in the world and has no seat at the United Nations".

Also, their stock price is way too high.

Read the whole thing here.

A Matter of Civil Rights

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who became internationally known for his campaign a year ago to legalize gay marriage, said on Monday he considered wireless Internet access a fundamental right of all citizens.

Newsom told a news conference that he was bracing for a battle with telephone and cable interests, along with state and U.S. regulators, whom he said were looking to derail a campaign by cities to offer free or low-cost municipal Wi-Fi services.

...Wireless access can be seen a basic right that should be available not just to business professionals but also lower-income citizens. "This is a civil rights issue as much as anything else," Newsom said.

The mayor said he had no exact figures on how much it would cost to build a wireless umbrella to cover the entire city, but cited general estimates that have ranged from $8 million to $16 million for antennas and other gear.

"My intent is to have the taxpayers pay little or nothing," Newsom said of the municipal wireless project.

Read the whole insane thing here.

Movie Suggestions

You must buy, not rent and sprint, not trot to your local video-sales-establishment to procure both Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. Make sure that you buy the 'Shaolin Soccer' that includes the original Chinese with English Subtitles because there's a shorter English-dubbed version out there as well.

..gunpowder, treason and plot..

The 'V for Vendetta' trailer is now available.

Fine Dining on the Isle of Formosa

TAIPEI (Reuters) - It may take a strong stomach to eat curry or chocolate ice cream out of a toilet bowl, but a commode-themed restaurant in Taiwan does booming business serving up just that.

The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in the southern port city of Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior.

Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style "squat pots."

Here's the entire article.

"To make soap...

first we render fat."

I was hoping for 'Apocalypso Now' starring Harry Belafonte

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I was hoping for Oppenheimer...

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Talking Out of Turn

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

Yes, it was a controlled demolition and all the Jews in both towers were absent from work that day but ironically it wasn't because of an impending attack. It's a little known fact that September 11th is the Jewish High Holy Day of Tail Grooming and Christian Bloodletting.

I miss the good ole days when this kind of tinfoil-hat nonsense was confined to the backwaters of the bulletin board scene and the Art Bell show.

Qapla'!

Sean Penn hates America.

Teens Pulled Over For Good Driving

OLDSMAR, Fla. - Beginning this fall Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputies will be pulling over teen drivers who haven't broken any traffic laws.

As part of a new program, deputies will be pulling over teens for safe driving and rewarding them with free movie theater and movie rental certificates.

Uniformed deputies driving unmarked cars will follow the drivers and give out the certificates.

"Deputies will follow them for a short distance, down a thoroughfare and we will watch their driving," said Sgt. Glenn Luben, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. "Once we identify a good safe driver, we attempt to follow them to their house or open shopping area."

Google Stock Watch

Google ended today at $286.31 a share and is now worth just under $80 Billion. I wouldn't presume to call myself anything more than an amateur (if even that) when it comes to the stock market but I'd be surprised if the stock goes much higher than this before dropping some of it's value. If I owned Google stock, I'd have abandoned ship long ago.

Submitted For Your Approval...

A Buddhist Monk walks up to a hotdog stand and the vendor asks him "What can I do for you?"

The Buddhist Monk replies, "Make me one with everything."

(director's cut including additional punchline can be found in the commentary)

The Garfield Randomizer!

BAM!

When Knives are outlawed...

CNN says that certain Doctors in Britain are calling for the banning of kitchen knives. Long, pointed kitchen knives present too great a danger for impulsive stab-fests, say the Doctors. They could easily be replaced with much shorter pointy knives. Critics of Knife-Banning point out that they're pretty sure there are laws on the books intended to mcriminalize off-the-cuff as well as premeditated stabbing.

Do we really want 12 or 16 years of Clintons?

This poll says yes.

This humble and uninformed observer says no. This humble brauwghher (prononouced in wookie fashion as BRAAWRRGRR!) would find more solace in a third Bush term or even a revoking of Posse Comitatus. Do we really want the Presidency passed back and forth between dynasties like a relay baton?

If Hillary! wins, rest assured we'll see a Jeb Bush presidency shortly thereafter followed by the President/Vice President & Wife/Husband Chelsea & Obama. The south will rise again by declaring independence from the hated north and I will make a fortune smuggling Coca-Cola up the Mississippi River.

'Screamin' Mad' Howard Dean

Opinion Journal's James Taranto quotes an MSNBC interview of Howard Dean concerning his mockery of Rush Limbaugh's pain medication addicion.

"The problem is it is galling to Democrats, 48 percent of us who did not support the president, it is galling to be lectured to about moral values by folks who have their own problems. Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings. I don't think we ought to give a whole lot of lectures to people--I think the Bible says something to the effect that be careful when you talk about the shortcomings of somebody else when you haven't removed the mote from your own eye. And I don't think we ought to be lectured to by Republicans who have got all these problems themselves. . . . We ought not to lecture each other about our ethical shortcomings."

I have no issue with calling Rush out on his doctor-shopping, pill-popping, former nicotine stained fingers used to sit on bran muffins ways. What I do take issue with is the idea that people like Rush Limbaugh should be held up as the Gold Standard of Republican thought. Rush is like those fish that attach themselves to passing sharks. He's a hanger-on, he's an entertainer. There's very little difference between talkshow hosts like Limbaugh and the latest bimbo to host A Current Affair in terms of journalistic integrity. Dean's comments are below what I expect from the Chairman of a major political party. That kind of insult should be farmed out to the left's various talking heads. The politicians themselves should be held to a higher standard of discourse.

That being said, Howard Dean is a crazy fuck who, for pure entertainment value, should run for President in 2008.

Possibly with George 'The Animal' Steele as his VP.

Paging Dr. Doom, You're needed in the GS Ward.

In response to the Honorable Dr. Doom on his question about writing vs reading brauwhhgss, I actually read fewer brauwhhgs then I have in the past as they mostly do what we're doing here.

They're straight, I swear!

The Monkey and The Starless have both taken the 'Which Lady's PJs are you?' test.

wow. that's so..umm.. that's totally not gay at all. not a bit.

Woo!

The betel-enhanced master of disaster, Formosan Monkey, is stylin' and profilin'! WOO!

Man vs Machine

UK Chess Grandmaster Michael Adams will take on Hydra in a six game Chess showdown this June. Hydra is faster at planning ahead than IBM's Deep Blue which trounced Gary Kasparov into retirement.

Adams will probably lose the match but humanity still has the upperhand when it comes to Go.

Google worth $71 Billion?

Google's stock gained $13.84 a share today bringing their stock price to $255.45 and their Market Cap to $71 Billion. Their Price to Earnings ratio is an astoundingly high 102.67.

Come on guys, this is getting a little out of hand. Sure, Google has a lot of clout right now and they're bound to expand into other internet-related markets but this is just baffling. Why anybody would buy Google stock after watching countless internet firms in the late 90s careen down the stock ticker like lemmings off a cliff is beyond me.

RoTS and Hidden Messages

Punditguy makes the case that Episode 3 contains awarning to the catholic church.

I think the real hidden message of Episode 3 is that Lucas can't write his way out of a wet paper sack and that he's clearly more interested in digital effects and backdrops than he is in directing actors.

20 Questions With Darth Vader

Play 20 questions with Darth Vader.

Episode 3: Spoilers Ahead

"Good. Twice the pride, double the fall. I have looked forward to this, Skywalker."

That's it. That's the only line I can remember from Episode 3. Count Dooku, played by Christopher Lee, says this to Anakin early on in the film with such malovelence and foreboding that shortly thereafter, he gets his head cut off.

It's as if George Lucas realized, to his horror, that one of his actors was (gasp) acting; something specifically forbidden in any of the 3 prequels. He must have lept out of his director's chair shouting 'KILL HIM! KILL HIM BEFORE HE INFECTS THE OTHERS!' Lee's delivery of that line is one of two moments in this film that remind you how epic Star Wars can be. The other moment is the enormous space battle which occurs just before Lee's head is removed for daring to upstage the post-production.

It's all downhill after that. There's a subplot about saving the Wookie homeworld which makes absolutely no sense and reinforces my belief that Episode 1, 2 and 3 should be collectively retitled 'Star Wars: Non-Sequitur Theatre. The Jedi Council, while discussing how well the war is going, decides to send a battalion of clone troppers to save the Wookie homeworld. The scene went something like this.

Giant Headed Jedi: The war is going well.

Mace Windu: Yes.

Yoda: Indeed.

Random Tentacled Jedi: The Wookies are in danger.

Giant Headed Jedi: I like Wookies. They make funny noises. Graawwrorr!

Yoda: Graawroour!

Obi-Wan: Wookies rule! Grarrroowr!

Mace Windu: It's agreed. We'll send a battalion of clone troops to save the Wookies because who doesn't love Wookies? Graaoowr!

Anakin's switch to the darkside is incredibly abrupt. He's concerned that his wife, Padme, will die in child birth. He is lured to the darkside by a desire to prevent her death. His transition from Jedi to Sith goes something like this.

Anakin: Oh what have I done! I slaughtered countless sand people, I decapitated Count Dooku and I just had a hand in throwing Mace Windu to his certain doom! I'm a horrible monster and I beg for death! All I wanted to do was prevent Padme from dying in childbirth! Oh I'm so conflicted and angsty!

Palpatine: So, you wanna cut down all the jedi children, help me overthrow the Jedi Council and save your wife from death during childbirth?

Anakin: Palpatine, you had me at hello. Also, I'm worried that Padme will die during childbirth.

Padme is, of course, the Senator from Naboo who was appointed Senator by a democratically elected queen. Padme's daughter, Leia Organa, will become Princess of Alderaan despite being adopted by Senator Jimmy Smits and despite clearly not being the daughter of a current King or Queen.

I could go on and on so I will conclude with this thought. Christopher Lee gives the best performance of the film and is cut down within 30 seconds of doing so. Natalie Portman, who we all know can act, gives a wooden performance, is force choked but is allowed to live until her children are born and while Hayden Christensen gets his legs cut off and is burned nearly to death by lava for his poor rendition as Anakin Skywalker, he still gets to become the Galaxy's number one badass: Darth Vader.

There is no justice in this world.

Shoutz to my homies

I'm convinced that the blogging world is comprised almost entirely of links to other blogs and shouts out to homies. Here's to my peeps at Discipline and Formosan Monkey.