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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Friday, February 5, 2010

Best ways to teach kids about money

Best ways to teach kids about money

You can start by explaining how many bags of groceries an expensive toy is worth.

Teen's odd reaction to making Olympics

Teen's odd reaction to making Olympics

When 16-year-old Ashley Caldwell made the U.S. squad, her reaction was unusually low-key.

Lindsey Vonn's unexpected Olympic foe

Lindsey Vonn's unexpected Olympic foe

If it rains as predicted, her chances for 5 golds could be hurt by a dangerous "injected" ski course.

Pawned Super Bowl ring finally returned

Pawned Super Bowl ring finally returned

Troubled ex-NFL star Dexter Manley gets back something he sold for drug money.

Those bumps on the F and J keys

Those bumps on the F and J keys

Why are there ridges beneath F and J on your keyboard and what are they called?

Top retirement spots for a new generation

Top retirement spots for a new generation

Some retirement hot spots have tax advantages, while others offer treats like dolphin-viewing.

13-year-old 'commits' to college team

13-year-old 'commits' to college team

USC coach Lane Kiffin makes waves by offering a scholarship to a seventh-grade QB.

Mid-Atlantic shuts down, awaits storm

Mid-Atlantic shuts down, awaits storm

Authorities blame the storm for hundreds of accidents and at least two deaths.

Feds Make $2.5 Million Super Bowl Ad Buy

The U.S. is spending $2.5 million to advertise during the Super Bowl to promote the census, which Census officials say will be a good investment if it gets people to mail back their census forms.

Government buys pricey Super Bowl ad

Officials hope a costly ad will save millions, but some think it's a waste of taxpayer money.

Price tag

Also:

Baptists concerned Haiti arrests may hurt image

From the "Who cares" Department:

Officials at the southern baptist convention have appealed to President Barack Obama to help get medical treatment and spiritual counseling for 10 baptists arrested in Haiti.

baptists concerned Haiti arrests may hurt image

They're fucking baptists - treat them as the vermin they are.

Disbarred New Orleans lawyer indicted over alleged threat to court

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted disbarred New Orleans lawyer Ashton O'Dwyer on one count of e-mailing a threat against a federal bankruptcy judge to an employee of the court last week, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten announced.

Disbarred New Orleans lawyer indicted over alleged threat to court

New Orleans student says he was sent home for wearing Colts jersey

A Louisiana high school student says he was sent home for wearing an Indianapolis Colts jersey Friday - the day the principal encouraged students to wear New Orleans Saints black and gold as the teams get ready to face off in the Super Bowl.

New Orleans student says he was sent home for wearing Colts jersey

Woman Fights Purse Snatcher With Loaf Of Bread

For those purse snatchers who think an elderly woman is an easy target, they've never met 74-year-old Grace from Munhall.

Woman Fights Purse Snatcher With Loaf Of Bread

Century Old Booze Discovered Under Antarctic Ice

Crates of whiskey and brandy discovered in Antarctica
Antarctic researchers have unearthed five crates of long-lost alcohol, abandoned over one hundred years ago by polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew.

Century Old Booze Discovered Under Antarctic Ice

Cow tipping

People probably can't tip cows, but a cow tipped a person in Knoxville.
Then it stepped on him.

Cow tips man and steps on him at UT campus

Charges leveled against BofA

New York AG filing civil charges against BofA
FREAndrew Cuomo called the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger "a classic example of how the actions of our nation's largest financial institutions led to the near-collapse of our financial system."

Press release: The BofA settlement
Press release: Civil charges against BofA
Paper Trail: Lawsuit is 'badly misguided'
Experts: Cuomo has big gun in this duel

Led Zeppelin is topic of free lecture

Paving the way for a Led Zeppelin tribute show, a CPCC professor who specializes in rock music will discuss the band in a free program Feb. 17.

John Harding, professor of history of rock at the college, will host the audio-visual presentation at Kashmir Lounge uptown. His program will include a trivia contest whose winner will receive a pair of free tickets to the Get the Led Out show Feb. 21 at the Belk Theater.

The Feb. 17 program is restricted to age 21 and over. Everyone who attends will get a coupon for a discounted ticket to Get the Led Out.

For those who care for such things ...

James Buescher has won the pole for Saturday's ARCA race at Daytona.

Danica Patrick starts 12th.

Seems like a bit of an overkill

12-Year-Old Arrested For Doodling On Desk In New York

Twelve-year-old Alexa Gonzalez scribbled "Lex was here 2/1/10" on her desk Monday at Junior High School 190 in Queens.

12-Year-Old Arrested For Doodling On Desk In New York

Science Headlines

  • 7 Gadgets That Changed the World Gadgets that changed the world by revolutionizing how we live.
  • Science Nation Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
  • Sea Turtles Sea turtles, salmon, and sharks sometimes travel the width of the ocean to return to their "breeding ground" to reproduce. Biologist Ken Lohmann studies the role magnetic fields play in these long distances ...
  • iPads Could Encourage Bad Posture, Experts Say Apple's new iPad device is not so great for your body, experts say.
  • Tiny Galaxies Reveal How First Stars Formed An astronomer at Lowell Observatory studies how stars form in tiny, "dwarf" galaxies, which may provide insight into the birth of the first starts after the Big Bang.

What falling unemployment means for you

What falling unemployment means for you

The U.S. jobless rate posts a surprise decline, but the signs aren't all positive.

Discover your dark-chocolate threshold

Discover your dark-chocolate threshold

Use this chocolate-bar guide to find out which cacao percentage suits you best.

Fears of global debt crisis growing

Fears of global debt crisis growing

Big nations around the world are doing their best to avoid being labeled "the next Dubai."

Ways to protect yourself from the deficit

Ways to protect yourself from the deficit

The enormous federal deficit poses a growing risk to your personal wealth.

Things your florist won’t tell you

13 things your florist won’t tell you

Make your flowers last longer and find out how to get more of them for your money.

Kidnapping leader's past troubles emerge

Kidnapping leader's past troubles emerge

For Laura Silsby, abduction charges in Haiti are just the latest in a series of legal woes.

The last place you'd expect to find a desert

The last place you'd expect to find a desert

For those who assume that Antarctica is completely covered by ice, think again.

As a town dies

Few remain as 1962 coal fire still burns

After decades of fighting to stay in Centralia, the last residents are being forced out.

Warship thwarts hijacking in rare maneuver

Warship thwarts hijacking in rare maneuver

Danish special forces intervene to save a cargo ship in the middle of a pirate attack.

Why Sanford didn't stand by her man

From the "Like, we care" department:

Why Sanford didn't stand by her man

The wife of Mark Sanford opens up to Barbara Walters about her husband's infidelity.

Boy's forgotten WWII story comes to light

Boy's forgotten WWII story comes to light

A 14-year-old who lied about his age to get into the service gets a long-overdue acknowledgment.

'Must-have' features in new homes

10 'must-have' features in new homes

Don't expect buyers to swoon over whirlpool baths or home theaters.

Palin has tricky new foe in battle over 'slur'

Palin has tricky new foe in battle over 'slur'

Sarah Palin's fight against a derogatory term hits a snag when Lush Dimbulb uses it on his show.

Awkward fallout
Also:

Military Humor

A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly.

The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say, "That's not it," and put it down again.

This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested.

The psychologist concluded that the soldier was mentally disturbed, and wrote out his discharge from the army.

The soldier picked it up, smiled and said, "That's it."?

New Urban Dictionary

... defines liquidity as "the act of looking at your retirement funds and wetting your pants."

Latvia to auction town

From HuffPo, news that the Baltic nation of Latvia will auction off a Soviet ghost town abandoned after the Russian military departed.
The town, Skrunda-1 (map), centered around a now-abandoned radar base that was part of the Soviet early warning system.
Auction starts today, starting bid $300,000.
If one is not mistaken, this is a Flickr set of images from this place.

Smart dust could give early warning of space storms

Tiny spacecraft could improve our ability to detect sun storms, adding valuable minutes to the time we have to act.

Smart dust could give early warning of space storms

Earth's billion-year struggle for oxygen

What happened in the eons between the first whiff of the gas from bacteria and air we could breathe?
A frozen globe and stinking oceans, for starters.

First Breath

Cop News

Liars and Fools

Liars and Fools today are:

Tom Tancredo lies saying we have a" committed socialist ideologue in the White House — Barack Hussein Obama".
Again a wingnut shows everyone just how stupid they are - here's a hint: learn what the term socialist means before swallowing your own feet up to the knees.

Faux's Glen Brick breaks down the president's un-American, African name.
Imagine our joy when we read the first five words in the sentence above - imagine our sorrow when we read the remainder of the sentence. What a fucking idiot!

China Taps "Mom Jury" to Surf for Online Porn

China unveiled its new secret weapon in the country's all-out war against Internet pornography - mom.

The Chinese government tapped sixty mothers to form a "Mom jury" tasked with surfing the Web for porn sites that are deemed indecent for young Internet users, the China Daily reported.

Their task will be to ferret out the sites that are potentially offensive and accessible for children - and alert government watchdog agencies to take further action. A pool of 200 more mothers is said to be waiting in the wings to join the indecency hunt.

The move is part of the Chinese government's campaign to "purify the social environment," which has led to the shut down and blocking of 15,000 Web sites, the country's official state news agency, Xinhua, reported.

The campaign, launched on Dec. 8, is expected to be wrapped up by May.

"The flooding lewd information online has seriously harmed the growth of minors, undermined social morality and resulted in crimes," the Chinese Supreme People's Court said in a statement released Thursday.

China recently has become more aggressive with its Internet policing policies, and is being accused of backing last month's hacker attacks on Google's Chinese-language search engine, which the company says targeted the email accounts of human rights activists. Google is threatening to pull its offices from the country over the cyber-attacks and Web censorship issues.

"Google sets a strong example in standing up to the Chinese government's continued failure to respect the fundamental human rights of free expression and privacy," Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin said Wednesday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi tried to calm international criticism over China's Internet policies during a visit to Paris.

"The Internet in China is completely open and China is one of the most dynamic markets in the field of Internet," Jiechi told reporters on Wednesday.

Meatball marijuana? Ex-cop claims wife secretly fed him pot

From the "Yeah, right" Department:
Ex-cop claims wife secretly fed him pot

A former New York City counterterrorism detective who says he was unfairly fired as a result of a failed drug test he blamed on his wife's marijuana-spiked meatballs has lost a court bid to get his job back.

Full Story
And if you believe that I have some property just three miles east of Miami I'd be willing to sell you cheap, too.

Shanghai's Crackdown on ... Pajamas

pajamasshanghai.JPG As Beijing restricts online dissent and Urumqi clamps down on separatists, Shanghai is cracking down on... (wait for it)... pajama-wearing in public.

The wearing of colorful, boldly-printed pajamas in public has been popular in the city for years, and well-documented on Flickr as well as National Geographic.

But with the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai just three months away, city officials have launched a public etiquette clampdown targeting the unseemly practice.

The South China Morning Post reports that the city's Qiba neigborhood "has mobilized neighborhood committee officials and volunteers since July to talk people out of the habit of wearing pajamas in public."

The article also consults Chinese sociologist Zhang Jiehai, who says pajama-wearing in public began "as a matter of practicality because people lived in cramped conditions with no clear line between public space and private place."

*****

Although not the biggest fans of pajamas in the first place, this smacks of being a little instability mentally on the part of the would be no-pajama wearers for seeking to ban others from doing so.

Repugican "holds" America hostage ...

... until his demands for earmarks are granted. Curious, I was under the impression repugicans hated earmarks ... it was my understanding that repugicans wanted up or down votes on nominations ...
Richard Shelby (reptile-Al) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

... according to the reports, Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. - TPM
They aren't the usual "run of the mill" nominees either, the positions that are not being filled, due to a Shelby's pork addiction, deal with "homeland" security.
Democrats are accusing repugicans of threatening national security by blocking votes on nominees to be the top intelligence officers at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security as well as the number three civilian at the Pentagon. - The Note
“We’ve got a huge backlog of folks who are unanimously viewed as well qualified — nobody has a specific objection to them — but end up having a hold on them because of some completely unrelated piece of business,” said President Obama on Wednesday. “that’s an example … of the kind of stuff that Americans just don’t understand.” - Think Progress
The question that we should be asking Richard Shelby (retard-Al) is why he is a flip-flopper and why does he hate America ... OK, so we know the answer to that last part - he's a repugican.

Cancer Cure

Cancer 'cure' in Qld rainforest
READY REMEDY: Fruit of the native blushwood. Picture: Brian Cassey

Cancer patients are offering themselves as human guinea pigs as researchers investigate a possible cure for cancer found in north Queensland rainforests.

Scientists have identified a compound in the fruit of the native blushwood shrub that appears to "liquefy and destroy cancer with no side-effects", according to latest research.

Found deep in the remnants of a 130 million-year-old rainforest, the fruit extract may yet hold the secret antidote ...

Full Story

If this holds true it will be the best thing since sliced bread!

Today is ...

Today is Friday, February 5, the 36th day of 2010.

There are 329 days left in the year.

Today In History February 5

Today's unusual holidays and celebrations are:

Wear Red Day

World Nutella Day

and

Bubble Gum Day

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Venlo, Limburg, Netherlands
Buenos Aires, Distrito Federal, Argentina
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Calcutta, West Bengal, India
London, England, United Kingdom
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Delhi, Delhi, India
Ancona, Marche, Italy
Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland
Madrid, Madrid, Spain

as well as Scotland, and the United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

You may not realize it yet, but someone's secret jealousy is taking on a life of its own -- and you may well be at the heart of it.
Don't feel guilty about it.
You're only in control of your own actions and can't be expected to worry about someone else's.
So, when and if something unexpected or unseemly emerges, sit tight.
No one says you have to offer any comment before you're ready.

Can do.