Momma, They Took My Kodachrome Away

With apologies to Paul Simon...

From Kodak.com:

KODACHROME Discontinuation:

Eastman Kodak Company announced on June 22, 2009 that it will discontinue sales of KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. Sales of KODACHROME, which became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other films or digital capture. Today, KODACHROME represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films.

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1 Girl, 1 Browser

I honestly don't know if this is an actual Microsoft "viral" video for IE8 or not. But I found it amusing nonetheless.

Am I wrong to wonder out loud that if the wife didn't vomit at the sight of whatever freak show the husband was browsing, maybe he wouldn't have been browsing it in the first place?

I'll answer that: yes, it probably is.

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Snuggies Without All the Laughs

It's been a while since I've seen Westworld, but weren't the guests in Roman World wearing these before the robots went crazy and killed everyone?


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The Twitter Doth Tweat Too Much, Methinks

Just caught OMGLists' "Nine Celebrities Who Quit Twitter." The list includes Seth MacFarlane, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Larry David and J.J. Abrams.

Twitter is latest of hot web 2.0 websites that celebrities have discovered and exploited for self promotion. Lord knows, they need another outlet to rub in our faces how much our lives suck versus theirs, right? While some celebrities still have yet to join the cult, others can't handle the stress of sending short, mundane updates to their fans. These nine celebs seem to have quit Twitter, and left their many fans in the dark.

Actually, I have no snarky anti-Twitter remark to add. Two reasons. First, I regularly post shit to a blog seen by only twenty to thirty people on any given day (often by mistake). Second, I just finished reading a Facebook thread where a dozen users, without the slightest trace of irony, tear into the vacuousness of the Twitter cult with comments like this:

I just can't comprehend the concept (and value) of people actually being interested in my short, mundane thoughts, so I pretty much NEVER update it. Think about it...who really gives a rat's ass that I'm craving four White Castles with cheese and a sack of fries? Am I alone here, people? Can someone explain the real value of this thing on a personal -- not a business -- level?

Classic.
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Air Farce

I'm once again waved off by The New Yorker's "Cartoon Caption" contest (#197).




My entry was closer to the spirit of the weird and limiting illustration:

"I don't know how female pilots land in those things"

I thought it was better than the first two finalists:

• "She thinks her bomb bay makes her look fat.” - okay, I suppose
  
  
• "It's a pretty good aircraft, except that it keeps nagging you to ask for directions.” - does nothing for me
  
  
• "She's a lover, not a fighter." - not bad, not bad at all

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Paybacks ARE a Bitch!

Wait a minute. I thought that middle-class folks weren't going to get hit with more taxes.

I hate to sound like a typical union basher, but what the fuck?

From Bloomberg

Unions’ Health Benefits May Avoid Tax Under Senate Proposal

The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective-bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

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Greatly Exaggerated

Yet another reason to mock Twitter.

From the The Inquisitr:

Harrison Ford not dead either

The rumors of celebrity deaths are flying thick and fast after Michael Jackson’s death today, and the latest alleged death in Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford dead rumors started surfacing on Twitter at the same time Jeff Goldblum dead rumors
surfaced, and there’s more than a coincidence there because both are currently shooting a movie together. A news report circulating on Twitter claims Ford died on board a yacht cruising off the coast of St. Tropez.

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Is It In Queue Yet?

I'm scanning the emails between South Carolina Goveroner Mark Sanford and "Maria." Most of it's the usual sappy stuff lovers say to each other.

However, I was struck by this one comment from Sanford:

Have been having a few email problems as I am getting email through an aircard at the farm, where access to computer world is more than tough. Please let me know if you have gotten my last two eamils (sic) so I know it is working in getting to your part of the world...

I know NOTHING about their situation. But, the amateur shrink in me wonders if Maria didn't always get back to Mark in a timely manner. This seems to force him to engage in the time honored male tradition of "just checking" to see if the technology is working (translation: "are you ignoring me?"). Why else send someone an email asking IF their email is working?

In the interests of personal full disclosure: been there, done that (well, it was with telephones, but same idea).

Speaking of needy, I've got "GOVS GONE WILD" stuff at my tabloidtshirts.com site.

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Same As Hogwarts

The good news is that the DPS has 257 less teachers to layoff.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Audit reveals 257 ghosts on DPS payroll

A payroll audit this month at Detroit Public Schools turned up 257 names that will be subject to an investigation into illegal ghost employees, officials said Tuesday.

All of the district's estimated 13,880 workers had to pick up paychecks or direct-deposit slips in person by June 12 as a first step in determining if anyone who is not on the payroll is collecting pay.

There were 37 unclaimed paychecks and 220 unclaimed direct-deposit slips totaling about $208,000, said Odell Bailey, DPS's auditor general. He added that the recipients are not on approved leave.

Robert Bobb, DPS's state-appointed emergency financial manager, also said an audit has begun to determine if employees have unapproved health care dependents that are running up costs.

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Panic in Detroit

Detroit just can't catch a break. There's the embarrassment of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. General Motors and Chrysler go Chapter 11. Three Detroit sports teams break our hearts by getting into the finals but NOT bringing home the trophy (Red Wings, Pistons, Tigers). NOW we don't even crack the top twenty of the FBI's "most dangerous neighborhoods" as published in the Chicago Sun Times.

WTF!

The Nation's 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods:

1. Cincinnati, Central Pwky./Liberty St.
2. Chicago, State St./Garfield Blvd.
3. Miami, 7th Ave./North River Dr.
4. Jacksonville, Beaver St./Broad St.
5. Baltimore, North Ave./Belair Rd.
6. Kansas City, Bales Ave./30th St.
7. Memphis, Warford St./Mt. Olive Rd.
8. Kansas City, Forest Ave./41st St.
9. Dallas, Route 352/Scyene Rd.
10. Richmond, Va., Church Hill
11. Memphis, Bellevue Blvd./Lamar Ave.
12. Dallas, 2nd Ave./Hatcher St.
13. Springfield, Ill., Cook St./11th St.
14. St. Louis, 14th St./Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.
15. Little Rock, Ark., Roosevelt Rd./Bond St.
16. Philadelphia, Broad St./Dauphin St.
17. Tampa, Amelia Ave./Tampa St.
18. New York, St. Nicholas Ave./125th St.
19. Chicago, 66th St./Yale Ave.
20. Baltimore, Orleans St./Front St.
21. Cleveland, Cedar Ave./55th St.
22. Orlando, East-West Expy./Orange Blossom Trail
23. Detroit, Mt. Elliott St./Palmer Ave.
24. Chicago, Wallace St./58th St.
25. Chicago, Winchester Ave./60th St.

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It's a bird, It's a plane, It's...

JibJab's latest political parody takes a "jab" at Obama's superhero status (for some, anyway).


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Still Needy

Even if the judges didn't, I think Abe Maslow himself would have appreciated my entry for The New Yorker's "Cartoon Contest" #195.



My submission was:

"We'll see how self-actualized you feel after a night on the couch."

While I liked mine better, I wouldn't say that the winners were deficient in any way. However, my own self-esteem is starting to take a beating:

• "Don't give me that holier-than-thou attitude!"
  
• "Which part of 'till death do us part' didn't you understand?"
  
• "I guess it really did kill you to call."

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Happy Father's Day Secrets

This week's PostSecrets was dedicated to "Father's Day."

As expected, the "secrets" ranged from simply sad to tragic:

However, this one really caught the spirit of the day for me:

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Citizen DeLorean

A trio of John DeLorean flicks? According to Wired, there are three such films in the works.

To quote John Z from the infamous drug deal tapes (while looking at a pile of cocaine): "It's gold!"

DeLorean’s Life Would Make a Great Movie. Three, Actually

There are few people in the history of the auto industry quite like John Z. DeLorean. He lived large and dreamed big, and his life story reads like the script of a Hollywood movie. Perhaps that’s why there are not one, but three, films about him in the works.
DeLorean was a man of action who launched the muscle car revolution, made a bundle, married a model and beat a cocaine rap after starting his own auto company — which, by the way, built an iconic car. If that isn’t the plot to a good flick, what is?

“It is almost like an updated Citizen Kane story of the great American entrepreneurial hero and how it all went wrong,” Nick Spicer of XYZ Films, one of the studios working on a biopic, told Variety.

So step right up and see the story of the man who led the last assault on Detroit (well, before the Japanese came along) and relive his Promethean fall in a multiplex near you.

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Eat Your Heart Out Ron Popeil

Comfort Wipe or the shower brush? Make up your mind, I've got to adjust the chair.


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The Super iPhonomatic

Will it Blend 's Tom Dickerson does a "bassomatic" on the iPhone.

Listen carefully at the 1 minute mark. I swear it sounds just like the id monster from Forbidden Planet (clip below).




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The Moonie Meme

Ironically, I found this video describing how cults use the meme as their primary method of propagation on Facebook.

From YouTube:

Diane Benscoter talks about how she joined the Moonies -- and stayed for five long years. She shares an insider's perspective on cults and extremist movements, and proposes a new way to think about today's most troubling conflicts.

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Odd Man Out: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

[A Note From Maul “Secunde:” Most of what follows was written before my “Prime” incarnation had viewed the new Star Trek film. The premise of this piece was to establish why Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock was my favorite of the original crew movies. Having seen the “reimagining,” I’m a little conflicted. While the latest Star Trek movie doesn’t necessarily capture the feel of the 1960’s series any better than the initial six, it's now running neck and neck with TSFS in my mind for the top spot (my review here). Of course, I’ve always been attracted to bright, shiny objects. In order to avoid confusion, consider this piece as though it were written in a timeline where Abrams’ Star Trek didn’t exist.]

It’s conventional wisdom in fan circles that of the six “original cast” Star Trek films the even numbered outings (2, 4, and 6) are the best. I can understand why Treks 1 and 5 are generally held in low esteem. But I am perhaps the ONLY person who actually found 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock to be the most faithful (and therefore the most enjoyable) of the first half dozen excursions.

...Read More at The House Next Door.

[Posted as part of the "Summer of '84" -- a co-production of The House Next Door and the Blog Talk Radio shows Back by Midnight (hosted by the initiator of this project, Aaron Aradillas) and Movie Geeks United! ]
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Bacteria: The New Plastic

This Wired story may actually cause The Graduate's Mr. McGuire to reconsider his advice to Benjamin.

Teen Decomposes Plastic Bag in Three Months

Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.

The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.

...Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.

Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that’s needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat. The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.

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Han Solo P.I.

A neat parody merging Star Wars and Magnum P.I. I wonder if they realize that Tom Selleck was originally slated to play Indiana Jones?


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He's Had His Kicks

For no particular reason, here's the Crispin Glover 1987 appearance on The Late Show when David Letterman was still cutting edge:



Since Letterman, the new "Mr. Wilson" of talk show hosts, wants to be more topical, I have some ideas for future monologues or "Top Ten Lists:"

• The sexual assault charges against Barack Obama's half brother in Britain.
  
  
• Ashley Biden's cocaine use caught on tape.
  
  
• David Letterman knocking up his own girlfriend and then not marrying her for six years.

And yes, I agree that they're not any funnier than Letterman's jokes about Palin's daughter. That's the point.
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Grandma Got Tased over By The Po-po

Combative grandma gets tasered by police officer after a routine traffic stop. It's a close call, but I tend to agree with Matt Lauer on this (Erin Burnett's an idiot).

The cop really didn't have any good options. Either use the taser or wrestle with an old lady right NEXT to the freeway (and possibly break one of her bones). That she later denied being disagreeable at all only makes me side with five-oh even more.


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Living Doll

Too bad Kutcher didn't meant it when he tweated that he'd stop tweating?

From Contactmusic.com:

ASHTON KUTCHER - KUTCHER CREEPED OUT BY MOORE'S DOLLS

ASHTON KUTCHER is struggling with sleepless nights after agreeing to help his wife DEMI MOORE sort through her collection of over 3,000 dolls.The Ghost actress began collecting rare figurines while she was married to Bruce Willis and she has since amassed so many dolls, she has insured the lot for $2.25 million (£1.5 million). But Kutcher admits on his Twitter.com page he isn't as fond of the realistic toys as his wife is. And after checking out a few of the dolls, the actor is urging Moore to display them in her own museum - so he doesn't have to look at the creepy collection. He writes on the social networking site, "Spent the day going through wifey's insane doll collection. 3000 thousand contemporary art dolls all staring at U (sic). I'm gonna have nightmares. "I'm trying to convince wifey to open a doll museum. She also has thousands of Barbies and original GI Joes."

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90/10 Rule

Slate chronicles some mono-micro-bloggers otherwise known as "Orphaned Tweets:"

After examining some 300,000 Twitter accounts, a Harvard Business School professor reported last week that 10 percent of the service's users account for more than 90 percent of tweets. The study dovetails with recent analysis by the media research firm Nielsen asserting that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next. Both findings suggest that, thus far, Twitter has been considerably better at signing up users than keeping them.

Which got us to thinking—there must be a legion of Twitterers out there who sign up, tweet once, and never return. In the spirit of the great blog One Post Wonder, "a collection of blogs that have one post," we set out to find these orphaned tweets. Different people obviously have different tweet metabolisms, but we decided that any account that's been dormant for at least six months is fair game. We found several thousand of them.

...Reading many of these one-offs, you can't help but wonder whether some tragedy has come between the user and his second post.

Phillyrules it hurts to breathe. should I go to the hospital? 10:09 PM Aug 23rd, 2008

muthuboss life is hopeless ...... 10:26 PM Jul 6th, 2008

rvictor Trying to escape this insanity7:24 PM Jan 7th

jeffreyshardy Sitting next to a big, hairy, smelly guy on the bus5:04 PM Feb 11th

DouglasAllen I am writing an email to the makers of Spray N Wash to thank them for making a product that got the blood stains out of my new PJs and robe. 7:40 PM Aug 27th, 2007

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Going Deep

Abner Doubleday's evil scheme is finally exposed. Slate reviews Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities 1862-2007 (Robert M. Gorman/David Weeks) in "You're Out."

I wonder if anyone watching baseball ever died of boredom?

...Given the fetish for statistics in baseball, it was probably inevitable that someone would get around to recording this, too: the number of people baseball has rendered incapable of generating more statistics

...They chronicled 850 baseball deaths in Death at the Ballpark, spanning professional, amateur, Little League, and even backyard pickup games. And though the book purports to be comprehensive, readers have already tipped them off to about 50 incidents they missed.

The authors say their aim was to "raise awareness" about baseball's many dangers, but there aren't any recommendations for making the sport safer here, no real signs of impassioned outrage, and no warnings to suburban parents about aluminum bats. Death at the Ballpark is fundamentally a reference book—a list carefully organized into categories like "Thrown Ball Fatalities, Amateur Fatalities—Position Players" and "Thrown Ball Fatalities, Amateur Fatalities—Baserunners." Often, however, the authors pause for a half-page to narrate a death in noirlike detail. The opening paragraph of one entry ominously begins, "Patrick J. McTavey, 38, worked home plate during a heated semipro championship game on Long Island, NY, on September 26, 1927," and ends: "It was the last call he ever made."

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GO BING!

While most of the rest of the world commemorates the anniversary of D-Day, they celebrate the 25th birthday of Tetris. What a bunch of assholes.





Bing, on the other hand, has an image of the Normandy Beach on their home page. I guess the choice is clear.



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Line Dancing

Surprisingly "Hey babe, wanna make an easy fifty bucks?" didn't make eHarmony's list of "Pickup Lines that Actually Work."

Number two strikes me as creepy.

Pickup Lines that Actually Work

If you’re the type of man who thinks that asking “if I told you that you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” is likely to lead to an actual date, you may need some help. While some pickup lines sound great in a bar with your friends, out in the real world they’re likely to fall flatter than drywall.

...Here are six deceptively simple ideas to get you going.

1. Are you Laurie James? - If you’ve got even the merest hint of shared history with someone, it makes approaching that person so much easier. So if you don’t, here’s an idea – pretend that you do...
   
   
2. Hey, Nice Shoes - The main problems with most pickup lines are that they’re too generic and can clearly be aimed at anyone. So if you’re interested in someone you see while you’re out, pick something special about her and ask her about it. just blasting the room with random pickup lines...
   
   
3. Don’t I Know you from Spinning Class? - Assuming some familiarity with someone is a perfect, nonthreatening way to approach a woman, and if you root your question in your own reality, you’ll be able to follow up, too...
   
   
4. What Kind of Dog is That? - If the woman you have your eyes on is with a ‘prop,’ you’ve already got a clear advantage...
   
   
5. I Just Got out of a Mexican Jail - Someone we know actually used this line and ended up marrying the girl he was directing it at...
   
   
6. Let me Buy you a Drink - It’s not big, it’s not clever, but it’s straight, simple and directly to the point...

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Cleveland Tourism Video

Pretty funny:


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Cafe Au Lait

I apologize in advance for chuckling at this Associated Press story. Not because of the actions of some a-hole arsonist (no one was hurt).  I just found the "Starbucks" meets "Hooters" concept funny.

Maine topless coffee shop gutted by overnight fire

A deliberately set fire destroyed a topless coffee shop early Wednesday, just hours after the owner talked with local officials about making the business more like a strip club, investigators said.

The fire at the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop was reported just before 1 a.m. by an ambulance that happened to be driving past.

The state fire marshal's office concluded it was arson after investigators, aided by a specially trained dog, sifted through the shop's ruins. Officials would not say how or where the fire started, but said evidence was taken to the state police crime lab for analysis.

The coffee shop featured waiters and waitresses without shirts serving coffee and doughnuts. Owner Donald Crabtree had met Tuesday night with planning officials to discuss adding a disc jockey, expanding parking and extending the hours of operation.

Crabtree said he spent $277,000 buying and renovating the former motel in Vassalboro, just north of Augusta. It wasn't insured, he said. He and six others who live in the old motel escaped the fire unharmed.

Crabtree said he's determined to reopen his business.

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"C" Minus

Last weekend, people with Lycos email accounts, such as myself, couldn't log in.

I was barred from my queue by a message instructing me to "upgrade" from a free email account to one that costs $20 a year. Since I had received absolutely NO prior warning, I was understandably upset. My address book and past correspondence was hopelessly trapped inside of a Lycos profile that I wasn't sure was worth a double sawbuck to rescue.

It turned out to be some sort of bug with the Lycos servers. On Monday, I got an email from Lycos CEO Jungwook Lim apologizing for the problem. However, I'm a little leery about the, and I quote, "exiting new features to be announced very soon." Well, you get what you pay for.

Dear Lycos Mail user,

Lycos Mail experienced an outage the evening of May 31 and the morning of June 1 which caused your Lycos Mail free account to appear to require an upgrade in order to log in. This message was in error and access to your Lycos Mail free account has been restored as of June 1.

We sincerely apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this incorrect message may have caused. We hope that you will continue to use Lycos Mail and we have some exiting new features to be announced very soon.

Thank you for being a loyal customer of Lycos.

Best Regards,
Jungwook Lim
CEO - Lycos, Inc.

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Eminicarus

Borat, going commando except for some feathers, lands on Eminem's face at this year's MTV Movie Awards. Someone probably should have let the rapper in on the joke beforehand.

Oh the humanity! Or to paraphrase Les Nessman: as God is my witness, I thought angels could fly.


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Red Alert

Okay, it's way too early to celebrate. But I can't help myself.


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A Pox on Both Your Houses

This Cracked piece by David Wong, "10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On", is a couple years old but still a worthwhile read.

1. You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One

We're putting aside the question of which belief system has killed more people by percentage of population, or whether a hypothetical world without religion would have seen fewer or more genocides than ours. We're not going to open a spreadsheet and try to count which belief system manufactures more murderous sociopaths per capita.

All I need from you is agreement that it's entirely possible for either an atheist or theist world to devolve into a screaming murder festival. The religious leader sends his people into battle because he thinks God commanded it, the Stalins and Maos of the world do the same because they see their people as nothing more than meaty fuel to be ground up to feed the machinery of The State. In both cases, the people are equally dead.

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From the "Who Cares?" Department

I don't really have a dog in this race. But, Betty is too high maintenance.

From MSNBC:

Poor Betty! Archie will propose to Veronica

After 68 years, comics teen makes his choice — but many think it’s wrong

After 68 years of waffling, Archie Andrews has made his choice. It’s the raven-haired heiress over the girl next door, Veronica Lodge over Betty Cooper.

Just eight days after Archie Comics announced that Archie would finally choose between his two high-school hotties, the word is out: Archie gets down on bended knee to present Veronica with his proposal and a ring while poor Betty looks on and wipes away a tear. Veronica replies to the proposal with a resounding “Yes!”

The red-haired all-American boy’s choice is likely to upset many Archie fans. Ever since news that Archie would get married broke, they have been filling the message boards at ArchieComics.com with their opinions on which girl should get the ring.

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Taking a Bite Out of Crime

It's almost like Major Colvin's arrest-free zone initiative from Season 3 of The Wire -- except for the part where it actually works.

(with apologies to Pete Seeger)

Where have all the inmates gone?

Long time passing

Where have all the inmates gone?

Long time ago

Where have all the inmates gone?

Detroit has freed them every one

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

From The Detroit Free Press:

Why are the jail cells empty?

Empty jail cells are normally something to celebrate, but Wayne County's top law enforcement officials say the hundreds of vacant jail beds are not because of a drop in crime or more reasonable sentencing. Floors of the downtown Detroit jail are empty because police are arresting fewer people accused of those crimes.

Altogether, three county jails that held about 2,500 prisoners a year ago now house 400 fewer inmates.

Sheriff Warren Evans said police are so slow to respond to some calls that the crimes never get reported. Prosecutor Kym Worthy was more blunt:

"We don't tell the truth about crime," she said.

Detroit has lost hundreds of sworn officers in recent years. The Police Department didn't respond to repeated requests for interviews with its top leaders, but it released preliminary statistics showing an overall decline in criminal activity this year, despite a 24% increase in homicides.

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Bitter Little Pill

It could be called "Alanis Morissette Syndrome" (AMS).

From The Los Angeles Times:

Bitterness as mental illness?

Bitter behavior is so common and deeply destructive that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder.

You know them. I know them. And, increasingly, psychiatrists know them. People who feel they have been wronged by someone and are so bitter they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances.

This behavior is so common -- and so deeply destructive -- that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder. The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience last week at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco.

The disorder is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder because it too is a response to a trauma that endures. People with PTSD are left fearful and anxious. Embittered people are left seething for revenge.

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Juiced

Orange Juice: It's not just for acoustical instruments anymore.

do bem™ - Suco de Laranja 100% fruta (MPC de torradas) from do bem on Vimeo.

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Urban Renewal

In her defense, even $68 sounds a bit high for property taxes on a vacant lot in Detroit.

From The Detroit Free Press:

Councilwoman Watson defends low tax payments

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson defended her low property taxes in recent years, repeating in a Sunday news conference that she paid everything the city told her she owed.

The Free Press reported Sunday that Watson paid only $68 in property taxes on her home this year because city records indicate the property is a vacant lot. Owners of comparable nearby homes paid $2,000 to $6,500 in property taxes.

Watson told the Free Press she thought damage from a tornado caused her property value to drop several years ago and said she had nothing to do with the reduced taxes. She also said she never questioned the change in assessment, nor did she wonder why it did not increase after she repaired the home.

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We Interrupt This Tea Party...

A Memorial Day cartoon by Yogi Love out on The American Spectator. BOTH Rush Limbaugh AND Janeane Garofalo should take a deep breath and check it out.

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Lest We Forget

“It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” - Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
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The 10 Percent Solution

I thought that tank felt lighter! Now this poor lady is the face of America's gas scandal.

From Yahoo News:

Propane suppliers quietly reduce size of refills

Backyard grillers may get a little steamed this holiday weekend when buying refilled propane tanks: They will be getting less fuel for their money than last Memorial Day.

When oil prices soared in 2008, propane suppliers quietly reduced by two pounds the amount of gas pumped into each 20-pound tank, saying they wanted to avoid raising prices. Since then, propane prices have been cut in half as the price of oil has dropped. But smaller refills are still being sold nationwide by many dealers, and most buyers are unaware because the tank is the same size.

"It's a price increase," retired lawyer Stuart Barr said Friday as he swapped a tank at a Home Depot store in Denver. "I'm a great believer in full disclosure. Give me the information." The problem, consumers say, is that no one tells them they're getting less propane. Companies have adopted similar practices in the packaging of coffee, sugar and laundry detergent.

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U.S. T-Bills: The New Junk Bonds

To borrow the Presidents Swine Flu analogy, this sounds a little like closing the barn door after the horse have already left.

From Bloomberg.com:

Geithner Vows to Cut U.S. Deficit on Rating Concern

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner committed to cutting the budget deficit as concern about deteriorating U.S. creditworthiness deepened, and ascribed a sell-off in Treasuries to prospects for an economic recovery.

“It’s very important that this Congress and this president put in place policies that will bring those deficits down to a sustainable level over the medium term,” Geithner
said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday.

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Plant a Tree?

I guess we don't want to screw up the Chinese economy too. Who else is going to buy our T-Bills?

From Nolan Finley at The Detroit News:

China benefits from Obama's fuel mandate

The Chinese must think we're chumps.

On the same day President Barack Obama marched the Big Three auto executives smiling to the guillotine, China announced it will not set mandatory emissions standards and instead will attack greenhouse gases with a strategy that doesn't threaten its ferocious economic growth.

America has chosen a sharply different tack, as was apparent this week at the White House, where Obama announced he would make the harsh California emissions mandates the national standard.

The automakers, now wards of the federal government, had no choice but to cheer the mandates, even though a senior Ford executive told the L.A. Times the mandates would likely put the automaker out of business.

China isn't so willing to throttle its growth for the good of Mother Earth.

China says it will combat global warming by planting carbon-absorbing forests and developing clean coal technology, but not with anything resembling Obama's mileage mandates or the carbon cap-and-trade plan moving through Congress.

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Couch Trip

As usual, the winners of the 192nd New Yorker "Cartoon Contest" did nothing for me.

My entry was sad and pathetic:

When my agent told me that I was booked on a "local talkshow," I didn't know he meant in Detroit.

Sigh (so sad).

BUT, the finalists weren't that great either:

• Both the movie and I will be released this summer. - in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
  
  
• This is fancy role-playing for a conjugal visit. - sucks!
  
  
• It's my first time on 'Celebrity Parole Hearing.' - you've got to be kidding

And to be fair, I have to apologize for my reaction to the last cartoon contest. In that case, I was the one who clearly missed the point of the drawing (it's supposed to be Wall Street!).

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Dowd, Master of Cut and Paste

Politics aside, I've always thought that Maureen Dowd is overrated. I don't find her writing (or televison appearences) the least bit insightful, humorous or interesting.

So, I'm chuckling over the Huffingtonpost.com piece on the slightly more than teapot worthy tempest over what Dowd categorizes as "inadvertently" borrowing a paragraph from Josh Marshall's blog in her New York Times column "Cheney, Master of Pain"  

Logan posted this in on TPM.com:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

A paragraph in Dowd's column was virtually identical:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. 

After being confronted on it, Dowd issued this unconvincing reply:

josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. 

i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.

but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

Today, The New York Times revised the offending paragraph in her column and added a "Correction" notice at the bottom:

Josh Marshall said in his blog: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”

...Correction: May 18, 2009
Maureen Dowd’s column on Sunday, about torture, failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo. 

In the long run, I'd guess that publicity over the flap will help more than hurt Marshall.  So, I hope Dowd plagiarizes, er, I mean spontaneously expresses any of my cogent points (yes, there are some!). 
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When Nerds Attack

While surfing around YouTube, I came across this great clip of the final lightsabre battle fight in Star Wars 1 between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul (great name, BTW).

Almost as entertaining as the clip itself where the comments:

...Nobody is stronger than Darth Vader.

...Vader was NOT the most powerful force user.

There is at least 10 others more powerful than he was. C'Baoth moved a fucking planet with the force for fucks sake.

Nihilus destroyed planets by draining every person on the planet of their life force to feed his "hunger" he killed over 100 planets. The only reason he was defeated was because his force bond partner was struck so he was wounded and distracted.

...aside from portman, in skimpy tight costumes, this is the only scene to come out of the "trilogy", that was'nt cunty

...You are a fucking retard. Please go die in a fire.

...Please remember to remove your sandy tampon out of your vagina before getting all butthurt on internet, faggot.

...Before making yourself look like a fucking idiot. Please go look at the canon fucknut.

Any my personal favorite:

...Why do you guys keep talking about Vader and everyone else besides the people in this snipit. This isn't a discussion board, comment on the clip.

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Livin' La Vita Loca

I found this in the police blotter of a community paper. The bike was unavailable for comment.

Man denies dancing

Officers responded to a report of a man dancing in the rain in the area of Lake Shore and Fontana at 3:32 a.m. April 28.

The man, a 31-year-old Harper Woods resident, denied that he was dancing. He told police he had just been riding his bike. Officers sent the man on his way.

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Star Trek Wars

Even though Spock "Prime" is a better analog for Obi Wan Kenobi, this CollegeHumor video comparing the plots from Star Wars to the new Star Trek is pretty funny:


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Smile for the Taser

When they outlaw disposable stun-gun cameras, only tourists will have them.

From WXYZ.com (Detroit):

Shocking! Students Use Homemade Stun-Gun

A homemade stun-gun could land two Macomb County teens in big trouble.

Investigators say a 13-year-old 7th grader made the device using a disposable camera. When it comes in contact with metal it delivers quite a jolt.

The device ended up in the hands of an 18-year-old student at Dakota High School in Macomb Township. Investigators say the student zapped some of his friends, but none of the kids were hurt.

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Dollars and Sense

YouTuber "10000Pennies" has a messy room, BUT posted a couple of neat demonstrations on the federal budget.




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Republican or Dead

Here's a fun list of "card carrying" Conservatives. As expected, there's lots of country music and NASCAR stars. It needs some updating as a few in the roster have since died.

From WCBSTV.com:

Celebs Who Lean To The Right
Hollywood stars and celebrities are generally considered to be a liberal and Democratic-leaning community, but these celebrities are all declared Republicans according to the FEC, or known conservatives.

For the record, I'm still alive. Sign me up for ANY any list that Angie Harmon is on!

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Al Jaffee Is STILL Overrated!

Basically, this study concluded that satire is lost on closed-minded idiots. At first I thought it was one of those Onion thingees.

From 1979's An abstract of ED178981 - Dogmatism, Intelligence, and the Understanding/Appreciation of Editorial Satire by Charles R. Gruner:

In a study of satire as persuasion, two experiments were conducted--one to determine whether dogmatism affected the understanding and appreciation of editorial satire, the second to determine the same about intelligence as measured by the Scholastic Aptitude Test. In the first experiment, 116 college students read three satirical editorials. After reading each satire, each subject checked one statement from a list of five that he or she thought was the author's thesis. Each also rated the satire on a seven-step semantic-differential scale ranging from "extremely funny" to "extremely unfunny." Finally, each subject responded to a ten-item dogmatism scale. The same procedures were used in the second experiment, which involved 59 students. In this experiment, the subjects also read three editorial satires. Their verbal and quantitative scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test obtained from school records. Data from the two experiments suggest that both dogmatism and intelligence affect understanding and appreciation of satire, but in ways more complicated than are currently known.

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One Beep for Yes: Star Trek

I’ll cut to the chase and say that as a fan of Star Trek for thirty-five years, I enjoyed the new J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. Sure, my first edition Star Fleet Technical Manual is now useless. But, if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.

...for the full review, go to The House Next Door.

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She's All Wet

Unfortunately for her, the part of their charter that the CIA actually does well is writing things down.

From the Washington Post:

CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of 'Enhanced Interrogations'

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

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Mr. Potato Head's Birthday

Don Rickles is 83 today. You go Don!


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Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign

It could be worse. At least the billboard didn't have the words "Mission Accomplished" sprawled across it.

From the Timesonline.com:

Gordon Brown's YouTube fightback (shame about that swastika though)

Gordon Brown was ready once more to try to focus his Government and the country on key issues such as the economy and swine flu rather than his party’s internal problems. Gordon Brown was ready once more to try to focus his Government and the country on key issues such as the economy and swine flu rather than his party’s internal problems.

...Mr Brown somehow was allowed to be photographed in front of a wall with children’s images of the Second World War, including several swastikas, at Prendergast-Hilly Fields College in Lewisham, southeast London. The images were part of a school project entitled Life in Nazi Germany and there were other displays in the room, such as Life in Rome, but Downing Street defended its handling of the visit, arguing that it would have been a bigger story if it had asked the pupils to take their work down.

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Dammit!

If they outlaw dams, only beavers will have them.

From The Daily Express:

BOY'S DAMS IN STREAM BANNED... BECAUSE OF 'FLOOD RISK'

A BOY of six has been ordered by a council to stop building pebble dams in a stream – in case they trigger a flash flood.

It has warned ­Daniel Johnson’s ­father Rob that the little piles of pebbles could block the brook and cause a “major ­disaster”.

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Speed Reading

According to LiquidGeneration:

"I bet you didn't think it was possible to fit the 100 greatest movie lines into 200 hundred seconds. We've got the video to prove you wrong."

A decent effort. But, right off the bat I would have dropped "May the Schwartz be with you" from Space Balls and the Weird Science quote (which I could hardly hear) and replaced them with "It's the Chicago way" from The Untouchables and "Prove it" from Shane.


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Obama-USA?

Why do you think they call it dope? (BTW, I'm ridiculing the drug dealers not the Prez).

From KRGV.com:

Drug Dealers Mocking President Obama

A police chase in Peñitas ends in a load of drugs, but what police say they've never seen is what the smugglers wrote on the bundles of marijuana.

Peñitas Police Chief Oscar Ontiveros says written on top of some of the packages were the words "Obama-USA" and "Obama-USA, Calderon-Mexico."

Investigators say the message may have something to do with President Obama's recent trip to Mexico.

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Don't Taz Me Blue

From Sportsillustrated.com's "Hot Mustard" section:

"the full version of the courtroom video in which the guy in the wheelchair freaks out. It's notable for two things. One, one of the cops uses a Taser on another cop by accident. Two, the way the guy in the wheelchair was muzzled after his outburst."

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Busted

Yet again the New Yorker "Cartoon Caption" contest #190 was an edifice of futility.

I'll grant that my entry was just okay:

So that's what "overseas contingency operation" means.

But, I don't think that ANY of the "winners" really address what's shown in the cartoon. That being a osterich with it's head in the sand REPLACING a charging bull.

• "If we just ignore it, maybe it'll go away." - too obvious
  
  
  
• "The statue of the lemmings was just too depressing." - ZZZZZ
  
  
  
• "I think the head's in the wrong place." -  to be fair, I got got a chuckle out of that one

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Pike's Peak

Timed for Friday's release of the new Star Trek movie/reboot, CBS has released the remastered version of the original Trek television pilot "The Cage" which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. I've often wondered how a Pike helmed Star Trek would have played out.

From Trekmovie.com:

Star Trek wouldn’t exist without “The Cage.” In fact, that applies right down to JJ Abrams’ new Star Trek, which takes one of its key characters not from the familiar Enterprise crew headed by Kirk and Spock, but by their predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike.

Pike was the captain of the Enterprise in the original Star Trek pilot—in effect, he was the lead character in a show that did not sell to the network and never got made. It was Gene Roddenberry’s second attempt at a Trek pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” written by Samuel Peeples, that sold the series.

Teaser:


FX Reel:

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The Smoking Pig

I think "The Smoking Pig" would be a great name for a blog, bar or rock band.

From Wired.com:

Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms

Scientists have traced the genetic lineage of the new H1N1 swine flu to a strain that emerged in 1998 in U.S. factory farms, where it spread and mutated at an alarming rate. Experts warned then that a pocket of the virus would someday evolve to infect humans, perhaps setting off a global pandemic.

...We haven’t found evidence of infected pigs,” said Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist and member of the World Health Organization’s surveillance network. “But even if we never find that smoking pig, we can surmise that this is probably where it came from.”

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Take My Governor, Please!

Sure, Comerica, Pfizer, Brunswick, Manufacturer's National Bank, National Bank of Detroit, Upjohn, Gerber, Kmart have all left.  But dammit, she's staying.  Well, why quit when you're behind?

From Freep.com:

Granholm responds to Supreme Court speculation

Jennifer Granholm says she plans to finish her term as Michigan’s governor, brushing aside speculation that she could be a potential nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

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