perfidy

Newsflash: Tim Hardaway Wants Only Straight Men to See His Penis

In case you've missed it, there is a minor brouhaha due to Tim Hardaway's comments yesterday:

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States.''

This chain of events was triggered by a new book by John Amaechi, a former NBA center, including his disclosure that he is gay. Big whoop. So no, he's not the bad guy here. Dan LeBatard, the Florida ESPN radio host who provided Hardaway with the shovel he used to dig this hole, is also exempt from condemnation, due to the fact he just asked a simple question about current events, one of which was Amaechi's disclosure (audio available via the Deadspin link above). Totally above board, in my opinion.

With the exception of the San Francisco press (just an AP story, really), I've not seen much coverage of the story, and even then, it seems relegated to the sports section. ESPN radio, however, has seemingly been 50% devoted to Hardaway's gaffe ever since last evening.

Much of that ESPN radio commentary I've heard seems to indicate that people think Hardaway's wrong for feeling the way he does. I disagree - while his feelings on the matter are inflammatory and unfortunate, they're his feelings, not those of the radio callers (notorious retards, the lot of them), and he's entitled to them, however odious.

They'd have been far less odious if he'd simply said he was uncomfortable with the prospect of gay teammates. If I gave a shit about Tim Hardaway (I don't), I'd certainly say that he should have learned to exercise the governor on his cake-hole, since not every thought that runs across one's brainpan needs to be aired, on the radio or otherwise.

A bit late for that admonition, I'm afraid.

Discomfort at being put on the spot (tough crap, Tim - you're a big-time former ath-a-lete, and LeBatard was completely fair) might have caused him to amplify his rhetoric, resulting in the inflammation of sports-talk-radio listeners' sensibilities.

Having written an over-the-top headline or two myself, I should really give the Deadspin blog a bit of slack, but their article's title misses the point: Tim Hardaway is entitled to some opinion, if not some control, of who should see his penis. I guess so, anyway, though I've never really given it a lot of thought. And there are a lot of polite ways to make such a statement. Claiming to hate an entire group of people you've never met based on something you find distasteful but which they've not done to you, around you, or to anyone you know, is prima facie evidence of stupidity. Such extreme thinking has never been acceptable, but while it has been accepted the past, it's not now, and even Hardaway should have known this.

Have we, as a society, forgotten how to apologize? Tim Hardaway is way beyond any ability to retract his statement - it was pretty unequivocal. He did have the option to say something like "What a stupid I am!" (channelling Roberto DiVicenzo), and to apologize not for his views, but for his intemperance at expressing them in a public forum where people would then point at him and laugh. What did he say, instead? An attempt at the classic misdirection play:

Hardaway issued a statement Wednesday night to Local 10 saying: "There are more important things to worry about than my comments. We should be more concerned about President (George) Bush and all the people dying in Iraq."

Niiice. Real nice. That should calm things right down, moron. I'd almost prefer that he take the same approach all the other glitterati have after recent similar missteps. He could just check himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, under the delusion that they can cure "stupid" there.

[wik] Perhaps Amaechi's revelation has been improperly analyzed?

Or, perhaps more properly, the regular assertions that the debate, she is over!

From James Taranto's column of Feb 9, 2007, discussing a noxiously ill-thought-out op-ed by Ellen Goodman in that same day's Boston Globe. He has much to say about what's offensive in her rhetorical approach, and for that, I recommend reading the entire piece. More generally, however, he explains his take on global warming, and illuminates what's truly wrong about the attempts to stifle all discussion on the matter (Taranto uses "we" and "our" in the self-referential, "royal" sense):

This columnist is skeptical of global warming. We don't have enough scientific knowledge to have anything like an authoritative opinion--but neither does Ellen Goodman, who bases her entire argument on an appeal to authority, namely the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We lack the time, the inclination and possibly the intellect to delve deeply into the science. No doubt the same is true of Goodman.

Our skepticism rests largely on intuition. The global-warmists speak with a certainty that is more reminiscent of religious zeal than scientific inquiry. Their demands to cast out all doubt seem antithetical to science, which is founded on doubt. The theory of global warming fits too conveniently with their pre-existing political ideologies. (Granted, we too are vulnerable to that last criticism.)

Above all, we can't stand to be bullied. And what is it but an act of bullying to deny that there is any room for honest disagreement, to insist that those of us who are unpersuaded are the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, that we are not merely mistaken but evil?

I remain skeptical (or, if I were British, not that I am, "sceptical"). I have seen nothing that convinces me global warming is a man-made problem, that it has a man-made solution, or, frankly, that it's even a net problem at all. And I, like Taranto, despise bullies, particularly those who bring highly debatable arguments to the table, and then demand my acquiescence.

Unlike my earlier post, which was an apparently futile attempt to forestall further posts from The BirdMan, this one's for real.

A bit of background is in order. Katy, Texas is one of the western suburbs of Houston, fast becoming the demographic center of the metropolitan area due to its inexorable growth. Pretty much all by itself, it's caused a massive construction project to widen Interstate 10 to something like 14 lanes from downtown to the west side.

Along with that growth has come a bit of highly-localized strife, the most recent installment of which can be found in this article from yesterday's Katy Times:

Baker Rd. pig races go “Daily”

By Nick Georgandis, Managing Editor

Thursday, February 8, 2007 1:56 PM CST

“The Daily Show” correspondent Rob Riggle, a alumni of “Saturday Night Live” and an improv comedian, holds a sausage-on-a-stick and can of beer while conducting an interview with a patron at the American Pig Race Friday night on Baker Road.

(Times photo/Nick Georgandis)

Those in attendance at Friday night's installment of Craig Baker's “American Pig Race” on Baker Road paid little heed to the camera crew at first - after all, members of the media have been no stranger to this part of town over the last couple of months. But when “The Daily Show with John Stewart” correspondent Rob Riggle decided to conduct an interview with one patron while simultaneously gnawing on an enormous sausage-on-a-stick and taking sips from a can of Busch Beer, there were plenty of double takes, pointed fingers and whispers from the 100-plus member crowd.

Craig Baker, a local businessman, owner of Craig Baker Marble Company, Inc., after whose family the road is named, is in the middle of a tiff with the Katy Islamic Association (K.I.A.).

Baker has stated that in late September, Yousuf Shaikh and Kamel Fotough came to his business to introduce themselves, then advised him that his business would not go well alongside their proposed mosque and Islamic Community Center, and that he would be wise to vacate the area.

Further detail, from an earlier story in November, 2006:

Craig Baker owns pigs. He's the guy behind the second big yellow sign on Baker Road. That's the one announcing Friday night pig races. "What does it matter, I can do whatever I want with my land right," asked landowner Craig Baker.

Sure can. But aren't pigs on the property line racing on a Friday night a little offensive to a Muslim neighbor?

"The meat of a pig is prohibited in the religion of Islam," said Katy Islamic Association member Youssof Allam. "It's looked upon as a dirty creature."

Yeah, there's that and also that Friday night is a Muslim holy day.

"That is definitely a slap in the face," said Allam..

Now before you go thinking Craig Baker is unfair, or full of hate, or somehow racist, hear him out.

Baker has long roots here. His family named the road and when the new neighbors moved in, he tells us, they asked him to move out. "Basically that I should package up my family and my business and find a place elsewhere," said Baker. "That's ridiculous, they just bought the place one week prior and he's telling me I should think about leaving."

This being Texas, and even though Houston lacks all the cowboy hats, boots, and big belt buckles of Dallas and other prototypical Texas towns, KIA isn't getting much sympathy so far. Instead, their alleged attempt to control use of someone else's land has gone over like the proverbial "turd in the punchbowl" ("like a fart in church"?). I wonder what the Koran has to say about either of those?

In any event, Comedy Central will reportedly be airing the episode at 10:00 Central Time, next Tuesday, Feb 13, 2007. I expect hilarity to ensue.

[wik] Other opinions on the matter exist, of course. I didn't say "any" I said "much".

[alsø wik] I'm thinking there's a chance that this isn't really a site affiliated with the K.I.A. Someone get the WIPO on the phone, pronto!

[alsø alsø wik] Let's not bullshit each other, however. This isn't a social or land demarcation issue - Baker gives every impression of disliking Islam, period. Which, he's totally free to do, in AmeriKKKa, no?

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Am I the only one who thinks Mr. Georgandis was snarkily opportunistic in his choice of photo? I wonder what she'd just said to him?

Not the birds!

Some pharmacist should lose a license over this, I guess. Either that or a zoologist, if such even have licenses.

Never give an iguana Viagra

Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:04pm ET

ANTWERP, Belgium (Reuters) - Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days.

Veterinarians at Antwerp's Aquatopia had sought to treat the animal's problem, but decided removal was the only solution because of the risk of infection. The good news for Mozart and his mates is that male iguanas have two penises.

Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed by the news.

"It doesn't bother him. He doesn't know what amputation means," said vet Luc Lambrecht, adding that Mozart's sexual activity should be undimmed by the operation.

"I don't think so. That's all in his head."

I'm happy to report that the Reuters report doesn't contain any pictures of swollen, red, iguana junk, so it's safe for work. I don't know which is sillier - the fact that someone gave the iguana Viagra, or the fact that some (presumedly different) person can assert, apparently straight-faced, that his sexual performance is all in his head.

[wik] This posting might be mis-titled - the iguana doesn't seem to actually have been too embarrassed by this malpractice.

[alsø wik] I wonder what role the physiology of the iguana plays in the psychology of penis envy?

[alsø alsø wik] The Reuters article might just as logically been entitled "Never Give an Iguana a Lit M-80 for Lunch", come to think of it.

Just heard, in a phone conversation with my buddy Ian:

He was speaking with a friend of his, during an event today in Orlando, and they discussed the fertility specialist that the friend and his wife were seeing, due to their difficulty conceiving a child.

His friend went in to visit the specialist, and the nurse handed him a cup and asked him to produce a specimen. After heading down to a fairly generic restroom and grabbing a stall, he did so, bringing the cup back to the nurse.

Who looked at it and said "No, I needed a urine specimen".

Ian asked him "So what did you do then?". Turns out he just left, utterly crushed by embarrassment, though he's since recovered after realizing that what he did, wanted or not, was something he'd been practicing his whole life for.

Ever the clown/instigator, Ian pointed out to him that he'd handled it all wrong, and should instead have replied "What do you think this is?"

But if so, here's your explanation for why Dallas' next game will be in the late summer, 2007:

Technology Smack-Down!

  (WSJ online sub required, other than for "mouse over" preview)

TECHNOLOGY ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal.

Jan. 10, 2007

Cisco sued Apple for trademark infringement over the "iPhone" name Apple chose for its new cellphone, unveiled yesterday. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000, and had been in talks with Apple over rights to the name.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, Cisco's general counsel. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

So much for all those negotiations that were going on yesterday at CES. This could get interesting, even though it really is all just positioning and preening.

[wik] Just like Russia v. Belarus. Honest.

And of course, I can't stop you, nor would I want to. But the world's full of things I just don't get, and among them is the complaint I periodically hear about Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert just not being funny. I can't say I watch his show a lot, but when I do, I find him to be quite good at his schtick, and quite entertaining.

Bill O'Reilly? Not so enjoyable. But it turns out, "Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert to Trade Appearances on Each Other's Shows", so I'm going to have to set the DVR to record both.

Here's the thing, though - Colbert seems never to break character, and O'Reilly seems seldom to work with any spontaneity, so this could be rather like the American Idol tryouts my wife and daughter are so looking forward to - impossible to stomach. Colbert can certainly do a good O'Reilly, but if O'Reilly attempts to go into Colbert's realm, he could come off looking like a goof. OK, like a bigger goof - whatever.

Colbert's take on things? Typical sucker punch, well-delivered:

"I look forward to the evening," Colbert said. "It is an honor to speak face-to-face with a broadcasting legend, and I feel the same way about Mr. O'Reilly."

Hail Florida. The better team tonight seems clearly poised to win, big.

Damn shame, that, but it is what it is, and my prior words on the matter can be considered to have been eaten.

[wik] Velociman's comments cut to the quick:

There are two types of collegiate football played in America, Neck.

1) Southeastern Conference Football, and

2) that weasily dandified transvestite version they play everywhere else. Most notably, apparently, there in your beloved Rust Belt.

The game's now over, and the result is no longer quite as shocking. Ohio State, after a decent start, got pounded like the new guy at the prison. Beat like a rented mule.

While (V-Man's purple prose notwithstanding) it says not a damned thing about the superiority of the SEC compared to anyone, Florida was without a doubt the baddest team on the field tonight.

[alsø wik] Buckethead update: I was going to write a post about this, but Patton's quote from Velociman preempts me. I was talking to my mom after the game, and I told her that as disappointed as I was with the loss the thing that bothered me most was that now the SEC bigots will never shut up. "I know," said she. My personal theory is that someone kidnapped the Buckeyes, and replaced them with the Cleveland Browns.

Bush Finds Error In Fermilab Calculations

BATAVIA, IL-Bush, who describes himself as "something of an armchair physicist," said that anyone could have made that mistake.

Just for Buckethead. Well, that, plus it's kind of funny, in a "blast from the past" sort of way.

In today's Washington Post, this story: "FBI Reports Duct-Taping, 'Baptizing' at Guantanamo"

Duct-taping a guy's head? That's kind of harsh.

In another incident that month, interrogators wrapped a bearded prisoner's head in duct tape "because he would not stop quoting the Koran," according to an FBI agent, the documents show. The agent, whose account was corroborated by a colleague, said that a civilian contractor laughed about the treatment and was eager to show it off.

The "civilian contractor" sounds like an asshole, and a mildly sadistic one, to boot. I'd bet it hurt like a bitch when the tape was taken off. At least they didn't cut his head off with a dull hacksaw. But if he wouldn't stop quoting the Koran (which I'm sure got quite old & tiresome for the interrogators to hear), why didn't they just spray alum in his mouth? That's seemed to work in the Looney Toons episodes I've seen where it's been used.

The parts of the story that make me scratch my head, however, are those where the circumstances are more comical.

FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam's holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive, according to bureau documents released yesterday.

In October 2002, a Marine captain allegedly squatted over a copy of the Koran during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent. A second agent described similar events, but it is unclear from the documents whether it was a separate case.

Sounds to me like the Marine captain can claim his mission accomplished, and good for him. At least he didn't cut his subject's head off with a dull hacksaw.

The "baptism" sounds like comedy gold to me.

In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to "Satanic black metal music for hours," then dressed as a Catholic priest before "baptizing" him.

The "Satanic black metal music", like the duct tape, seems a bit much, and bragging about it is bush-league, but putting your collar on backwards and spraying a guy with water that, by that guy's belief system, is just water, while telling him he's been put through a ritual he clearly believes has no meaning, and having this amount to some sort of an outrage is cartoonish. At least they didn't baptize him with pig's blood. Or cut his head off with a dull hacksaw.

This story is a continuation of an older theme, of course:

The reports amount to new and separate allegations of religiously oriented tactics used against Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. After an erroneous report of Koran abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the U.S. military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling the book at the detention facility. They acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Koran, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy.

Poor bunnies! These incidents, along with those in earlier reports of "sexually suggestive" interrogation techniques, help me to better understand some of the concern about more physically coercive methods of questioning that have been used.

If all it takes to get these detainees to go off the rails is to fake dropping a deuce on their "holy book", or to violate the "three foot rule" one might find in a low-grade Atlanta gentlemen's club, then of course one could question physical coercion - who needs such extreme tactics in the face of detainees with severe critical thinking deficits and unresolved "mommie issues"?

The fact that such things, particularly the absurd veneration of copies of the Koran, (copies, mind you - I'd cut them some slack for their outrage if someone took a leak on the original) can so easily trigger "deadly protests" is by itself an indication of a belief system that's seriously askew. For clarification, I'd point the interested reader to a scholarly essay from September 2001, "God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule".

I question, pretty aggressively, the perceived need to apologize for, or to even explain, any of the reported incidents. And, on the bright side, I remind myself again that in each case, at least nobody got his head cut off with a dull hacksaw.

When I first saw the headline, my initial thought was "Farts - is there anything they can't do?", but it turns out that the story's far more involved than that.

I'm apparently the last to hear about this miscarriage of justice, on Dec 6th, but I pass it along, nonetheless:

"Flatulence Forces Plane to Land"

This story merits an entry partially to preserve the hysterical record, but primarily so that I can prove to my wife that the story she heard in the Cincinnati airport on Christmas day was in fact true. Many planes, particularly those that are full, smell to some degree or another like ass, and it's no real mystery why. Bless this poor woman for trying at least to get the plane to smell like sulphuric ass.

As for additional, enlightening commentary, I've got nothin', so I'll include this, from Kent Ward of the Bangor Daily News:

Reader and columnist reaction to a third story in this newspaper within the past couple of weeks likely varied widely. Datelined Nashville, the article was headlined "Woman lights match on plane to cover gas.''

"An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence,'' the story reported, an attention-grabbing paragraph if ever I've read one. The FBI was called in, the plane was searched, passengers interviewed, baggage screened. The whole nine yards. Raise your hand if it occurred to you, as it did to me, to speculate that the entire sorry episode may have been put in motion when the woman said to the guy seated next to her, "Pull my finger.''

(text copied here, just in case of link rot)

Flatulence Forces Plane to Land

Plane Forced to Land After Passenger Passes Gas, Lights Match to Cover Scent
The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said Lynne Lowrance, spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a "body odor," Lowrance said. She had an unspecified medical condition, authorities said.

"It's humorous in a way but you feel sorry for the individual, as well," she said. "It's unusual that someone would go to those measures to cover it up."

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. The woman, who was not identified, was not charged in the incident.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

As shadowed (whined about, really) in a comment to an earlier post by Minister Buckethead, I don't see much intelligent political discourse these days. Which is a shame, really - I've always enjoyed reading it and have, at times enjoyed writing it or attempting to.

But these days, political discussions tend to appear most often from mouth-breathers with no critical thinking skills or rank partisans pushing buttons on a presumed-ignorant voting populace. The ratio must be somewhere around 90% today, unlike back in the "old days", where it was only, oh, 75%-80%.

As an example of the former, I'd give Debbie Schlussel's recent rant on Barack Obama ("Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim") and some of the comments (not the post by the estimable Allahpundit, but some of the comments) in the story at Hot Air, "Schlussel: Is Obama a Muslim manchurian candidate?". Anyone who feels compelled to use Sen. Obama's middle name, other than perhaps his mother, is an unserious rabble-rouser and should be vigorously ignored. Anyone who thinks he's DQ'd from further political office solely due to his Muslim heritage is no different, and has the added disadvantage of being incapable of forming a coherent thought in support of an argument they're incapable of considering. Rubes, the lot of them.

Examples of the latter abound; far too many to list, but they include the hubbub about Harold Ford Jr. and his taste for white women and the creepy predilections of Mark Foley. In the comments to a story (linked to the story) that Buckethead provided below (referenced above), about a congressional aide named Shriber who solicited help from hackers in adjusting his undergraduate GPA, most of the noise wasn't focused on the fact that Shriber had attempted to violate a federal law, nor that he'd been played so majestically by the supposed hackers he thought he'd found to help with his nefarious plot.

No, the comments went straight to the heart of the matter - that he was an aide to a Republican. The first of these stories flatly didn't matter, not a bit, the second was interesting primarily due to Foley's immediate resignation but not at all due to his party affiliation, and the third indicated that the commenters were humorless drones, politically tin-eared morons without meaningful lives, beating on a drum that people with IQs over 100 wouldn't even hear.

Those pushing stories like these either don't know or wilfully ignore how low-budget and minimally meaningful their rants are, to thinking adults. Yet they continue; they happened throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, throughout the most recent mid-term elections, and are sure to play a part in the 2008 federal elections as well. Truly a shame, and a waste of opportunity to have an intelligent discussion about what we really want our legislative overlords and masters to do on our behalf.

But enough of my setup - as you all know, Scott Adams' Dilbert speaks for the common man, and hasn't let us down in our hour of need. Witness:

Dec 22, 2006:

(click for original @ Dilbert.com)

Dec 23, 2006:

(click for original @ Dilbert.com)

They pretty much summarize my view of the landscape as it sits today. We, as an electorate have to get smarter, and while we're working on that, we have to reject the button pushers and the slobbering retards. Yeah, that's a plan.

And they've been shot down.

Wine maker's mass nude run promotion scrapped

BEIJING, Dec 21 (Reuters Life!) - Police in central China have scotched a wine maker's plans for a mass Christmas Eve "nude run" which the company said was a public interest event to discourage the use of "excessive packaging" in the industry.

Jixiang Ruyi Tobacco and Alcohol Company offered 284 people 10,000 yuan ($1,280) in cash and prizes to participate in a naked dash through Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, the People's Daily reported on its Web site on Thursday.

The company's advertisement called for "auspicious" men and women under the age of 30 with "healthy bodies" and "regular features" to apply.

"The goal of this streaking event is to raise consumer awareness and declare war on the excessive packaging of 'baijiu' through the language of the body," the report quoted a manager surnamed Ma as saying.

The police "scotched" the PR trick for pretty understandable reasons:

Zhengzhou police rejected the company's application for a permit to hold the run.

"Public commercial events ... must meet moral standards," CCTV quoted a police official as saying. "Such mass streakings do not."

But oddly enough (no surprise, in an article from Reuters' "Oddly Enough" series), the Jixiang Ruyi Tobacco and Alcohol Company was apparently going to have several sorts of trouble filling the field, anyway:

Over 1,700 people had applied in four days, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on its Web site, the overwhelming majority of them men.

Well, that would clearly have been a problem - who the hell wants to watch a bunch of hotdogs flopping through the streets of Zhengzhou? And then there was this:

"We have already invited experts from the beauty industry to conduct physical checks on the applicants. Their mental condition must also be sound. According to the tests, there are only 30 or so that qualify," CCTV quoted a company official surnamed Cao, as saying.

Whoops. But it is refreshing to see a case where efforts to uphold moral standards, whether that works or doesn't, indirectly uphold some basic standard of good taste.

[wik] Hmmm. I wonder which hurdle most rejects failed to cross, mental or physical?

Admittedly, it's not as good as Daffy Duck's classic "Pronoun trouble", and I don't want to seem to be picking on the witness in the video below, but some folks aren't as good with a camera in their face as others:

(Incompletely attributed video, by the way, but apparently from a TV broadcast somewhere in Eastern FL, via Kenny) [wik] WTF? Aphasia? [alsø wik] Friggin' Firefox. Suddenly, it doesn't seem to want to work, though I tested it in both originally. I don't care enough to fuss with it further, but perhaps clicking here will work for those of you mistreated by my sloth on the matter?

Hardly.

"Not much can stop football in this town, where the pride runs deep."

At the link above, should you care to, you can read a story that might make you think high-school football's sometimes taken just a bit more seriously than perhaps it oughta be.

For thinking this was quite witty:

This just hit my inbox:

__________________________________
NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 13, 2006
Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a possible stroke Wednesday and was taken to a hospital, his office said. If he should be unable to continue to serve, it could impede the scheduled Democratic takeover of the Senate. Democrats won a 51-49 majority in November, but South Dakota's governor, who would appoint any temporary replacement, is a Republican.

For more information, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116604516212049325.html?mod=djemalert

__________________________________

And it occurred to me that, in the unfortunate event Senator Johnson is unable to continue to serve, I'd consider it rather shitty for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds to appoint a Republican to the slot.

Hey, I'm all for what I consider the potentially less-damaging of the two parties controlling the Senate, but I'm more in favor of respecting the voters' wishes. And the voters elected a Democrat in 2002, so they should have a Democrat in that Senate seat until 2008.

Or am I looking at this too simplistically?

[wik] "Mr. Johnson won his 2002 bid for reelection in the predominantly Republican state by just 524 votes out of more than 334,000 votes cast." So there's that. But a win's a win, and a miss is as good as a mile.

Via an email from a friend in Florida this afternoon, I found that there's been a brouhaha about road signs in Austria. Witness the map below, specifically the city a couple clicks northeast of the center of the map:

Allegedly, folks keep stealing the signs at the entry points to the city. Knowing Ken as I do, I decided it might be a good idea to attempt validation of the story, and found an initial reference to it, from back in August, 2005, at marijuana.com.

It doesn't particularly surprise me to find a site called "marijuana.com" so much as that I've never had occasion to notice it or that it was basically a pretty lame place. I guess that the site's proprietors are restricted in their ability to really do much with such a unique domain name, given the illegality of marijuana pretty much everywhere in the US. But, that aside, further research showed this, at answers.com {ellipses mine}:

Fucking (IPA: /ˈfʊkɪŋ/—the "u" is pronounced like the "u" in English "put") is a small settlement (population c. 150), part of the municipality of Tarsdorf [2], in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria, located at 48°02′59″N, 12°50′59″E, bordering Bavaria. [3] It is near the city of Salzburg. The village is known to have existed as “Fucking” since at least 1070 and is named after a man from the 6th century called Focko. “Ing” is an old Germanic suffix meaning “people”; thus Fucking, in this case, means “place of Focko’s people”. [4] {...}

The settlement’s most famous feature is a traffic sign with its name on it beside which English-speaking tourists often stop to have their photograph taken. The sign is the most commonly stolen street sign in Austria.[5] Significant amounts of public funds are spent on replacing the stolen signs. In August 2005 the road signs were replaced with theft-proof signs welded to steel and secured in concrete to make the signs harder to take. [6]

Stories like those below are pure click-bait:

• Brits steal carloads of Fucking Austrian roadsigns
• The Village of Fucking
• What’s the Fucking joke?
• Welcome to Fucking Austria

There's a huge difference, I'm reminded, between "Welcome to Fucking Austria" and "Welcome to Fucking,Austria". In the extended entry, for the morbidly curious (such as me) who enjoy seeing newspaper stories full of f-bombs, a picture of an article describing one of the periodic outbreaks of this menace to municipal stability, along with a picture of the most frequently stolen road sign in Austria, if not all of Europe.