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Friday, June 16, 2006

Britney Spears and Namibia

Britney Spears is currently considering giving birth to her second baby in Namibia. Don't feel bad if you don't know that Namibia used to be known as "South-West Africa" - or that its major export is minerals (5th largest supplier of uranium in the world, not to mention the diamond mines) - or that its President is currently Hifikepunye Pohamba. Heck, you might not even know that the capital of Namibia is Windhoek, but don't feel too bad...

Britney Spears probably couldn't locate it on a map...


One can only speculate as to WHY she would want to give birth in a place so far from home. One would naturally guess that if she gives birth in Namibia - what the hell kind of paparazzi is going to want to hang around in Namibia waiting for a possible photo opportunity? (Even though we're all aware that the answer would be "several"...) One could also guess that the female "pop star" would want to make it a mission of goodwill, or some other hokey way of saying it's a form of charity or spreading peace or something saintly. After all, that's the reason most people who have been in the spotlight travel to such places - publicity in the face of "being a good role model" and "spreading cheer/money/peace to the less-fortunate".

Since when did celebrities decide they had to be role models?

Is anyone else as sick and tired as I am with pop stars and movie stars trying to be all "holier than thou" with their donations to things and goodwill missions to places that we don't want to be in? The only reason they try to pretend to be role models is because they have the cash to put up such a front in the first place.

Given the options, I don't really blame them. A rich "pop star" with $50 million who DOESN'T donate or fly to poor countries looks like a spoiled bitch. And a rich "pop star" with $50 million who donates to charities and does benefit concerts for peace in the Middle East looks like a self-righteous bitch.

It doesn't change the fact that we're all jealous of your fucking $50 million.

So since we already see you as a money-grubbing whore who takes in our hard-earned cash because there are people who actually enjoy listening to the things that come out of your sing-hole, why don't you just stick with that?

Don't pretend to be something you're not, and don't try to convince us that you're not what we say you are. Just open up your sing-hole and keep singing. Be glad you found something you're almost good at and can make a living by doing.

Just keep fucking dancing, monkey. Dance, monkey, dance.




http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/16/people.spears.namibia.ap/ Read more!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Pepper Spray Used On Little Girl

Police in Western Australia are being criticised by the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) for actions they took against a little girl earlier this week. The police were called to a school with the report of a girl on the campus in possession of a brick and a pair of scissors. Upon encountering the girl, she was described as "behaving in a violent and threatening manner" with her brick and/or scissors.

So the police used pepper spray on the 10-year-old girl.


Now I am partially in agreement with the ALS criticising the Western Australian police over the use of pepper spray on a 10-year-old girl. (Oh, by the way, this was a very short new article, so the rest is merely speculation and opinion - sorry!) Even so, I am also feeling downright okay with criticising that little girl in the same breath.

"Who the hell brings a brick to school?"

Wasn't it just a decade or two prior that the worst things kids brought to school were porno mags and frogs? You know, slip a frog into Penny's backpack, shuffle of to the science lab, and watch the hilarity unfold - then shuffle back to the boys' locker room and celebrate finding your dad's porno collection with the guys!

And let me just say that the kids today have no idea how difficult we had it back then. Porn wasn't a mouse-click and of-age lie away, dagnabbit! We had to walk two miles in the snow to lie about our age and fake-ID our way to a Playboy bonanza - uphill both ways! And let's be honest - pre-1980 women had apparently never heard of shaving the pubic region. I think that most heart attacks we've had in the past few years are the result of old-timers who lived with the old-timey Playboys take one glance at the new pornography and die of pure shock.

Back to attacking little girls; if you are a ten-year-old girl and have a brick and pair of scissors and are USING THEM to the point that the fucking police are called in to "take you down" - pepper spray should be WELCOMED. In fact, I hope you get taken down with a bean-bag shotgun. Maybe even tasered! Obviously your parents haven't taught you well enough to NOT wield bricks and/or scissors in a "violent and threatening manner" around police officers - and maybe 10,000 volts will be a better teacher of the lesson.

You wanna wield a weapon like a big girl? Then be prepared to be taken down (to Chinatown) like one.




http://www.optusnet.com.au/news/story/abc/20060614/18/domestic/1663144.inp Read more!

How To Own A Pet (As Told By Idiots I've Encountered)

How To Own A Pet


(As Told By Idiots I've Encountered)



So you have a pet, eh? Good thing very few people will fight to let you own a pet, because you apparently don't need to know ANYTHING about pets, animals in general, or even have common sense in order to obtain one. It's only a little harder to obtain a pet than it is to obtain a baby. (Insert Penis [A] into Vagina [B] and repeat until you have Baby [C]) So for those of you who do not YET own a pet, or as a refresher course for those of you who already DO - let's review some helpful rules of pet ownership.

Rules of Pet Ownership #1:
Give your pet a ridiculous name.



Most people simply choose to name their pet something that falls into one (or more) of the following categories:

Stupid-Sounding - If you cannot shout the name of your pet on a local street without feeling like hiding your face entirely, you've got yourself a pet name.

Long-Winded - Humans are usually limited to a first, middle and last name. Some gain bonus names by hyphenating after a marriage/divorce or legally changing it and adding more on. Your pet won't get to do either, so bulk up on names at the beginning, and consider writing it down if it goes beyond seven. Your pet may also need a larger collar for all the engraving to be done.

Ironic - Everyone loves a death machine named "Fluffy", a tiny bug named "T-Rex", and an idiotic shit-machine with "Professor" in its nomenclature.

Redundant - Make things easy for your child and name a cat "Cat" or "Kitty". It'll be easy to remember. In fact, hopefully you named your baby "Baby" so you won't forget that, either.

Anecdotal - Random words as names for pets create hilarious conversation with strangers as they involve a 10-minute story on how your pet got that name. Most people choose a sappy and droning tale about their first night of pet ownership, including a frantic search for the lost pet who was terrified of its new surroundings until finally it was located in a closet huddled inside your deceased grandfather's vintage luggage containers. Hence, it was named "Samsonite".

Spelled Poorly - Like a teenager suffering from a mid-puberty crisis, pet owners will embellish the simplest names with unthinkable spelling. Not only will you meet a cat named "Kitty" - but you can't leave out "Kittie", "Kitti", "Kittee", "Kittey", "Kittiy", "Kit-E", "Kittty", and "Kitti" (with a heart dotting the 'i'). And those are just the OBVIOUS alternatives! Heck, why not spell it "Kit3ty" and tell people the '3' is silent? People will certainly find that cute and will not at all want to vomit in horror and rage at what you've done.

Sex-Related - Oh, don't gross out on me now, pet-lovers! I'm referring to the fact that many pet-owners will name their pets after humans they know and/or love. Nothing beats naming a female dog after an ex-girlfriend and laughing at endless "bitch" jokes. All you have to do is keep in mind that naming a pet after someone you have either HAD sex with or would LIKE to have sex with - makes for interesting dinner conversation with friends. Nothing beats a dinnertime story about a steamy reminiscent encounter with an ex-lover and having your pet bound in at the sound of its name!


So, now that you've named your pet, you can start to enjoy pet ownership and all of its intricacies.

Don't miss out on our next installment of:

"How To Own A Pet
(As Told By Idiots I've Encountered)"
Read more!

"Emo" Warning Signs

Contrary to popular belief, "emo" is not going away. It's still in full-fucking-force, right here on our doorsteps, and the problem just isn't going away like we'd hoped. I learned this from conversing with a friend of mine, we'll call her "Krystle", a few days ago as she overheard me joking about someone wearing all-black and decided to share with me... For the sake of this conversation, I'll be in the guise of one of my many nicknames: "Maaron".

I hope this helps you identify those suffering from "emo" in your circles, and how to deal with them:


Maaron - I'm pretty sure that all-black clothes don't make you "goth", doofus. There's usually some extra part about worshipping the devil or something?
Krystle - Heh, that was pretty funny about the all-black thing. I know my friend who wears black all the time isn't a "goth". That's what she tells me.
Maaron - So wait, your friend just dresses in black all the time?
Krystle - Yea, I think it's just a phase for her or something, but it's been like a year.
Maaron - Oh geez. Tell me, does she write a lot of poetry nowadays?
Krystle - No, she's not a poet or anything.
Maaron - I didn't say "Is she good at writing poems", I asked you if she writes a lot of poems. And odds are they're quite lousy, yes?
Krystle - Yea, she does write a lot of bad poetry... It sucks...
Maaron - Oh crap, it looks like we may have a case of "emo" on our hands... Okay tell me, do more than half of her poems contain the words "sadness", "darkness", "lonely/loneliness" or "sorrow"? Are there a lot of "-less" words like "endless", "hopeless" or "helpless"?
Krystle - Oh my god! How did you know that?
Maaron - Because contrary to popular belief, some stereotypes hold true, especially in cases like "emo" where the victim tries everything to conform to the stereotype while mumbling about trying to "be unique".
Krystle - She does always whine about trying to be unique!
Maaron - Shit, then this problem may be worse that I thought. Does she play music - and of course by that I mean does she poorly play some musical instrument or sing and thinks that she's talented when she's not?
Krystle - Yea, I think she tries playing guitar and wants to make a band. Are you sure you haven't met her and this is some joke?
Maaron - I wish this were a joke, Krystle. Oh, how I wish it weren't true. But the sad fact is that we've got us a full-blown case of "emo" with Stage-3 musical tendencies. If she's not stopped soon, she might even get past the depressive and procrastination barriers and actually form that Class-4 band. And there's nothing more deadly than an actual emo-band - with their crappy songs that nobody enjoys except for that band. And if they hit the "indie" scene, that Class-5 disaster will bring this whole neighborhood down faster than the testosterone and sanity levels at a reading of "The Vagina Monologues".
Krystle - Okay, that part's not funny.
Maaron - No, there's nothing funny about the female genetalia - that's the point. The OTHER point is that your friend must be stopped before the situation gets any worse. And to my knowledge, the best cure known to man is electroshock therapy - though if you don't have a car battery lying around, a standard-issue baseball bat is just as acceptable. Repeated blows may be necessary, especially to the head and torso areas. If possible, take out the preferred hand before all else - so as to avoid poetry and/or songs to be written should you fail. Hopefully within minutes, your friend will completely stop being "emo" - or breathing. Either way, she will have been cured, and the world will be a safer place.
Krystle - Yea, she deserves it. Stupid-ass poems...


I hope this conversation has been helpful to you.

For those who didn't pay attention, "Emo" seems to have distinct levels of severity, each having increasingly-disastrous consequences:

Stage 1: Black Clothing.
While harming nothing but the eyes of the fashion-wary and possibly the parents' credit cards, this stage is the most peaceful and easy to handle. Just slap the victim if s/he utters anything remotely morbid WITHOUT being funny. Funny morbid jokes are acceptable and help the victim re-join society.

Stage 2: Bad Poetry.
The negative side-effects of poetry are a paradoxical rise and fall in self-esteem. The victim thinks more poorly of him/herself in order to be constantly in the mood to write more bad poetry, but can also think more highly of him/herself should other Stage-1 emo victims become interested and donate praise and pity for the poetry. Avoid local coffeeshops or anywhere containing the phrase "Open Mic Night", and burn any copy of his/her poetry to fight off a Stage-2 attack.

Stage 3: Bad Music.
Like a disease, most cases of "emo" will progress from the delusion of being able to write poetry to the delusion that the victim can sing and/or play an instrument. More exaggerated effects similar to those of Stage 2 may be present. Have the victim avoid anything music-related, with the exception of children's songs - the promoting of sharing, caring and good hygiene may ease the degenerative effects of "emo". Remove or destroy the instrument used (or smash larynx in case of singing) and again burn all copies of lyrics to avoid a relapse. Also (AND THIS IS IMPORTANT) have the victim avoid other Stage-3 victims at all costs! The result could be a progression to Stage 4.

Stage 4: Band.
At this point, the disease is terminal. In the sense that each victim must be terminated. Rare cases have shown a recovery from Stage-4 "emo", mostly contributing their success to "God" or some other mythical creature like "Hermes" or "the mailman". In most other cases, the surest success for curing the disease was death. A slowdown or prevention to Stage 5 chaos would be to locate the houses of each member of the known band and burn down the garage. The filling of basements with cement may also be necessary if the region is known for having (sound-proof or not) basements. By eliminating a place for the disease to breed and fester by allowing extra "band time", you may be lucky and have the band break up. If you can manage to pull off any of these cures, you may not have to live through Stage 5.

Stage 5: "Indie" Notariety.
If your victim's "emo" band hits the independant media, you are doomed. With a horde of mindless emo followers, all hope is lost. Your best chance for survival is to flee the location and move. Failing that, just duck under a desk in emergency position and pray for a natural disaster or nuclear holocaust. Nothing short of a mass murder and/or killing spree can stop the pain and torture of more innocent lives. You have failed.


So please, if you have a friend experiencing "emo" at any of these stages - contact the local authorities of one of our "emo" helplines. Together we can fight this disease - one broken skull at a time.

Stages 1-3: 1-900-STOP-EMO
Stages 4-5: 1-900-FUCK-EMO

Together we can make a difference.

Paid for by the Administration to Stop Suffering and Help Obliterate Living Emo (A.S.S.H.O.L.E.) Read more!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

A Ringtone YOU Can't Hear!

It started as the technology of a Welsh security company - an annoying tone that teenagers and dogs could hear, but adults could not. Stores would play the tone, with a product called "Mosquito", and keep loitering teens (and dogs) away from stores leaving adults to shop in peace and quiet. It's geared on the fact that after the age of 20 or so, a human starts developing hearing loss. So there are tones that teens can hear and adults simply cannot, for the most part. And those spunky teenagers took that technology and turned it into a weapon against the very people it was designed to protect:

They turned it into a ringtone for cellphones.


Why, you may ask, would teenagers WILLINGLY listen to such an annoying tone that used to drive them away from Welsh-secured storefronts? Because these teenagers are American. And devious. They've taken a ringtone that only other teenagers can hear, preventing adults from being able to pick up on phone conversations and text-messages being passed around the room. That's right...

...they're using this ringtone in class.

While most teenagers would simply leave a phone on vibrate to silently and deviously accept phonecalls and text-message alerts, this new technology is making them rambunctiously flaunting their gift. Why bother with silence, when their ringtone is just as inaudible to a teacher's ears? Teachers who are aware of this technological breakthrough are trying desperately to plot against the students in various ways.

One teacher said, "About every five minutes I’m going to say…’Hey, I heard that. Turn that phone off,' even if it’s playing or not." Which will be effective maybe once, if he's lucky. Fact is, it just gives students even more opportunity to laugh at their teacher - even more so than by simply answering a phone call behind the teacher's back in the first place.

My idea is to plant a student mole in the classroom. You know, someone who's already designated as a "teacher's pet" - and have that student somehow alert the professor of the ringtone's presence. Maybe with a cough or page-turn of a textbook...? Teachers accusing the ringtone of being present would be a lot more intimidating if they actually had an idea of when it really was present.

What else can you do to combat the scourge, if you're a teacher? Well for starters, see for yourself if you can even hear the tone. The website at the bottom of this article linking to the news-site has a downloadable sound clip of the tone, so you can test it for yourself. Other than that, I'm fresh out of ideas. And for good reason.

I don't have to care, since I'm certainly not in/teaching high school.

And I can still hear the tone.

Good luck to the rest of you.




http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_163203429.html Read more!

Preventing Cancer With Beer??

So apparently in Oregon, a study has shown that there is a chemical in the hops used to make beer that helps prevent prostate cancer in men. The chemical, xanthohumol, affects cells on the surface of the prostate gland and prevents a protein on those cells from turning on and producing cancer. So you think you can drink your way to health? Well, there's a bit of bad news:

It would take 17 beers a day to have potential benefit.


Now, I know what you're thinking (at least if you're like a few of the fraternity guys I used to live with): "17 beers a day? No problem, dude! I'm drinkin' my way to healthiness!" Well, I'd be a fool to not remind you that 17 beers a day would cause severe alcoholism and/or cirrhosis of the liver. But I would also admit that it might be fun trying... So as long as we're on the subject of tiny amounts of chemicals that help prevent prostate cancer, it's worth mentioning that lycopene, a chemical found in tomatoes, it also noted for helping prevent prostate cancer.

So how many pizzas a day would equal the tomatoes needed for the preventative powers of lycopene to take effect?

Four large pizzas a day.

So sadly the whole four-pizzas-a-day plan for preventing prostate cancer would probably give you an obesity problem before you could NOT get prostate cancer, not to mention the other probable health problems (like several heart attacks) it might cause along the prostate-cancer-free path. Also, that amount of cheese would probably do some major havoc on the digestive system... What good is preventing prostate cancer if you can't have a bowel movement for a few months?

So in the end, I guess there's no quick fix for men to prevent prostate cancer - at least NOT YET. With this newfound information, hopefully these chemicals can one day be turned into pills and whatnot to more effectively utilize their preventative natures. Even if there's no fun of getting drunk or pepperoni involved.

But at least there's one more reason to get the guys together, get some pizza and beers, and maybe watch a sporting event.

And if your significant other wants to pester you about the pizza and beer?

"Honey, let me enjoy my treatment! You don't want me to get prostate cancer, do you??"




http://wtopnews.com/?nid=456&sid=818452 Read more!

Goodbye, "Biggie".

Another one bites the dust: a bite that's made to look smaller and nore health-friendly. But a mouthful of dirt is still a mouthful of dirt, no matter how you label it. And Wendy's (the #3 fast-food chain in the US) will no longer be using "Biggie" to label any of their foods.

Because it's the "Biggie" notation making people fat - not the fries and shakes.


The term "Biggie" was a Wendy's trademark since the early 1990's, and now it's gone forever. This is just another step forward on the PC-Police Gestapo's agenda, after having taken down "Supersize" from McDonald's with its independent movie propaganda a while back. I shudder to think what's next on the agenda and what their scare tactics will take down next.

I'm well aware that the PC-Police technically had nothing to do with Wendy's decision. The corporation is trying to move into a more "health-conscious" modus operandi to welcome back patrons who HAVE been scared off by the PC-Police. "They" keep saying that fast food makes you fat, so fast food chains keep trying to make themselves look healthier and better for humanity.

At the cost of value and taste.

I grew up on McDonald's. At least three times a week, because my parents were busy people and fast food was just that - fast and convenient and FOOD. I lived in a generation where "combo meals" became "Extra Value Meals", because you could do the math and see that you were getting more food for less money. And back then, it tasted great, too! Nobody shouting about unhealthy cooking oils and "too much food" or chastising the usage of the term "super-size". Back then it meant that the size of your food was super-value and super-tasty.

Anyone else remember a time when saying something was "super" meant that it was "great"? Should we ridicule Superman for being "too much man"?


So here's my opinion. If you can trust a fat person's opinion on fast food. It is NOT the culprit. The way you look and the amount you weigh is more dependant on your genetic code than the food you eat. Yes, I ate fast food at least three nights a week all throughout my childhood. But my parents are both overweight, and obesity runs in my family - we're all the same body-shape and that's just how things work out.

You want a healthier America? Keep healthy food out of our fast-food places and quit trying to HIDE the fact that we're a civilization willing to eat it. More people gain weight due to stress and guilt and depression than simply eating bad food in the first place. If you're at McDonald's and you have a choice between an overpriced crappy salad and a Big Mac - and you're guilted into the salad because it's "healthier"... odds are you'll be back for the good food, and then you'll have eaten both. And that's not going to make you any thinner. So you go home and eat some ice cream... And the cycle continues.

Instead of making us feel BAD that we're fat, why not embrace it and accept us as NORMAL people? Heck, we're almost a majority of the population anyway!

That means:
- Giving us seats we can sit in and not feel uncomfortable.
- Making clothing stores actually produce clothing in our size (Abercromie, glaring harshly at you).
- Stop bombarding us with low-fat alternatives that are higher-costing and poorer-tasting (if we want the ice cream, we'll eat the fucking regular ice cream and not some half-assed "lowfat" version).

Don't make the Whopper into a Whimper.
Don't make a Big Mac just a Mac. In fact, bring back the Monster Mac (four patties)!
Don't make the Grande into a Pequeño.

Bring back our "Biggie", our "Supersize", and the freedom to choose what goes into our bodies without scaring or guilting us in a different direction.


That's what's great about us fat people: MOMENTUM!




http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060609/bs_nm/leisure_wendys_dc_1 Read more!

Suffrage for the Dead

Suffrage has seen a lot of action over the past century or so, based on a very vague Constitution regarding voting policy. It used to refer to white, Christian, male land-owners - and slowly but surely it has spread to all walks of life, all races, and all genders. But there's one place still unspecified that is being debated on and may cause suffrage to rear its head again.

The Constitution doesn't say a voter has to be alive. And in West Virginia, they're taking away the dead's right to vote.


The Secretary of State in West Virginia, Republican Betty Ireland, has been purging more than 6,000 names from the voting polls since she started her first term. And those 6,000 names are all people who are dead. And odds are that the rumors are true, and they're mostly dead Democrats.

So why is this happening? Since when are we stopping the right of the dead to vote in elections? Haven't they more or less BEEN doing so in elections past - and we didn't seem to have too huge of a problem with it back then. Heck, back in 2002, some politician in South Dakota added like 2,000 names of deceased Native Americans to the voting poll - almost a form of honoring the dead, right?

Frankly, in a society like the one we have today with its political correctness gestapo and levels of idiocy enough to permit people like John Edwards to continue "communicating with the dead", why shouldn't dead people have the right to vote? If we're going to foolishly believe as a society that so many idiots (oh, I mean "psychics") can actually communicate with the dead, shouldn't those political views communicated by the dead be honored and respected as a vote cast in their name? As the PC-police would say, we should be tolerant of the views of all people, even the dead. And if great-grandpappy wants you to cast his vote for "the man what ain't a Jew" - who are we to deny him his right to have that opinion and have it count in the polls?

And if we stop there, with eliminating the right for the dead to vote, what will we do about the UNdead? Should the living-dead zombies and vampires be left out of elections just because of their status as living-impaired? And if they can't vote, even though they're dead but MOBILE, what happens to the living, yet immobile? Should coma patients not be allowed to vote?

Does a lack of brain activity mean that you shouldn't be allowed to vote?

Insert your own joke about George W. Bush here. I don't feel like making it, but you have every right to do so if you wish.

The point is, voting is never an easy subject. Frankly, I agree with the author of this article I picked the story up from: "I also want the [state's voting polls] purged of felons, illegal aliens and people who have moved to some other state."

Because frankly, if we can't even manage to do that, what's the harm in leaving some dead people on the polls on top of that?




http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2006/06/dead-lose-their-right-to-vote-in-west.html Read more!

Cellphone Guns

Let's face it - airport security has gotten out of hand. And you don't need to be a hilarious stand-up comedian to realize it. The horrific lines to go through a metal detector, the fact that most now require you to remove your shoes to do so, and the random searches of luggage and person to ensure utmost safety when going into and airport and/or onto a plane. So why go through all this trouble, and keep up this charade, and what's the next level of insanity we'll see?

Cellphones that are actually guns.


I caught wind up it in the most unseemly of places - an article about spy equipment. I got a laugh and giggle at very tiny cameras, and pens that scan documents, and a nifty telephone with a motion sensor that will call you and let you listen in when someone trips it. And then I saw the #1 item in their Top Ten of gadgetry: The cellphone gun.

The cellphone gun, or Cell Gunphone, has a mechanism that you can twist and the top half slides over so you can load up to 4 .22-calibur bullets into it. You slide the half back over, and it resumes looking exactly like a regular cellphone. Well, I shouldn't say "regular", as most cellphones I encounter are full of their own gadgetry and sleek designs not capable of holding 4 regular-sized bullets - but the fact remains that it looks like an "outdated" cellphone by size and structure.

While it doesn't actually make calls, pushing one of four buttons will obviously fire one of its four bullets. Which truly bumps up the deadly capabilities of what seems like a harmless phone to onlookers. But it's not the innocent bystanders who need to be aware of the phone's capabilities - it's the law enforcement and security personnel. While it's normally been policy at many airports to demand that cellphones be turned on at security to verify the fact that it is a phone and not for SMUGGLING - now additional measures may need to be taken to ensure it also won't shoot the personnel.

While an argument can be made that these devices were first discovered in Amsterdam and no cases have yet been reported of them in the US - authorities say it's "only a matter of time". If you build it, Americans will abuse it. (Especially if it starts in Amsterdam.) One can really only hope that newer models aren't made to look like more high-tech phones. The last thing you want is a cameraphone lens that's more of a targeting device than a memory-maker. So US authorities are already on the lookout, and just as overly freaked as ever.

So what's the bottom line?

Expect an increase in police shootings. America is already well-known for its police officers that can mistake reaching for a cellphone the same thing as reaching for a gun. Now combine that with the fact that HOLDING A CELLPHONE could be confused with the possibility of HOLDING A GUN. Instant recipe for disaster.

My advice: When near the police, just let the fucking voicemail get it!




http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/top-10-strangest-spy-gadgets
http://cellular.co.za/phones/gunphone/gun-phone.htm Read more!

It's Illegal to Be Humane

An elderly man was having a problem with grey squirrels nesting on his property and attacking the birds. So instead of just killing them, he bought a humane cage trap and caught squirrels one-by-one. He covered the cages with a sheet to calm the squirrels as he drove them out to a woodland area away from his home, and released them safely. He rescued/saved/transplanted more than twenty squirrels until he was finally caught.

What he did was illegal. He should have simply shot them.


Now for those of you that read my anti-PETA posts, this has nothing to do with them or my opinion right now. The fact of the matter is that this man lives in England, where the British version of the ASPCA - the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) - says that "it is against the Wildlife and Country Act 1981 to release non-native species into the wild because there are problems they may cause to British wildlife such as red squirrels. Even the RSPCA could not re-release a grey squirrel." In fact, the RSPCA has absolutely no problem with killing the squirrels, and it's perfectly legal (as long as it's done "humanely").

This elderly man was forced to sign a statement acknowledging the law, and was warned that if he did it again, he could be prosecuted. It's not against the law to capture them, but it's against the law to release them once captured. One member of the RSPCA even suggested to him that he could buy and air rifle and shoot them, rather than break the law and release them. What makes matters worse is that the cage was already in the greenhouse and had caught yet another squirrel.

The cage used to humanely capture squirrels so they could be released and NOT have to die - is being manipulated by humans and being turned into the deathtrap it simply was not designed to be.

And if that's what we humans can do, maybe humane traps really are just glorified death-traps.

When you think about the crap we humans pull, it really makes you want to stop throwing the word "humane" around like it's a good thing.




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=389976&in_page_id=1770 Read more!

The Price Of Death - Too Much?

There's a new trend in town. Amid the facts that funerals are getting more and more costly, even cremation is a large expense, and the money to put a loved one to rest just keeps getting higher and higher as funeral parlors feed more and more on the grieving - there's sadly one thing to can do to avoid it all. For most, the easy answer is to simply stop death itself, though our fun-gineers are still tinkering with that process. The harder answer comes with an even harder price, non-monetary as it may be:

Many people are abandoning their deceased loved ones.


The easiest way to not pay for a funeral is to simply not have one. The bodies are left at the coronor's if nobody comes to claim them and handle funeral arrangements. Funerals alone can cost upwards of $6,000 and cremation is still rather expensive, though less so than the alternative. Well, the alternative that doesn't involve leaving a loved one in the morgue and letting the city handle it.

Yes, the city foots the bill for unclaimed bodies. Most are cremated (to make things simple) and they usually wind up in a local cemetary in a small city-owned plot. It's not ritzy, but the city tries to handle the situations with the grace and dignity that loved ones wouldn't offer.

In fact, sometimes it's not the "can't afford it" speech. Many families choose to use insurance money and inheritances for things other than the funeral and forego it entirely. One woman reported that she planned on using the life insurance money to remodel her kitchen, rather than give a burial to her mother-in-law.

Odds are she got to use the "It's what she would have wanted" line, too.




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Monday, June 12, 2006

T.P. Chic?

If you want luxury and indulgence, America is certainly the place to find it. "First-class", "superior quality", and "ultra-comfort" are labels you'd find on products you never thought possible. And now, we've gone one step further. If you saw the labels "elegant", "sophisticated" and "avant-garde" being used to describe the color black - you might think the product was a dress or food item or maybe stretching it as far as underwear. And you'd be wrong. Because Renova doesn't make dresses, food, or underwear.

Renova Black is a toilet paper.


In fact, here's how the website for the toilet paper chooses to describe it: Renova Black is an elegant 3-ply, fragrance bath tissue paper that has been tested under dermatological and gynecological control. It is a biodegradable, non-toxic, soothing tissue and does not bleed any color when wet.

Is this really what America has been needing? A luxury so decadent, you wipe your butt with it and flush it down the toilet? Now I'll admit that I'm no slouch when it comes to my personal buttocks. When at the store, I would never go for a toilet paper that is one-ply or feels "like sandpaper", opting for a cost-effective 2-ply roll that delivers value and quantity. No need for fragrances, cutesy patterns and designs, or a different COLOR. We have an understanding: I remember that it's a butt and what comes out of it, and it remembers that it's not the Queen of France. I get it the 2-ply cost-effective stuff, and it doesn't complain at the amount of computer chair it has to look at during an average day.

So who out there thinks that their butt deserves this caviar of the toilet-paper world? This Rolls-Royce of the bathroom industry? Are you afraid your guests will be so unimpressed at your marble sculptures and 6-man hot-tub and Oriental ruggery that a full convincing might require black luxury toilet paper?

"Well, I thought the Monet in the sitting room was quite bourgeois, and their taste in caviar was deplorable - but this toilet paper convinces me that my hosts/hostesses truly are GODS!"

Seriously, enough is enough. The fact that the fashionistas have brought elegance and chic design all the way to the level of toilet paper is at best an ironic twist of fate. For years, there have been a group of Americans who would agree that "modern design" and "fashion standards" have been so useless they would prefer wipe their butts with them than celebrate/wear them. And now, those people finally can.

Elegance so high and mighty, you can't help but wipe your butt with it and flush it away...




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