Shocking news, y'all. Spanky the Clown has been arrested on child pornography charges. Nambla the Strongman and Buttfuck the Lion Tamer are also under suspicion.

(Hat tip to FlipExpress, formerly Delusional Duck, formerly Phillip Coons, formerly Delusional Duck again. I'm waiting a week before I change my blogroll ;-)

Posted by: Jim at 02:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I've found the story of one torture victim and it truly is horrible. Here are the highlowlights:

... forcing him to strip, eat chalk, and chew cigarette ends.



They are accused of a wide range of offences including causing bodily harm and coercion over beatings inflicted on the victim from September last year.



Prosecutors say the victim's [peers] knew about or were involved in what they call the "systematic torture" that began two weeks after he arrived at the institution.



The alleged acts include forcing the [victim] to expose his genitals, and punching or beating him with objects including sticks and a screwdriver.



The alleged abusers videotaped their actions...some of the pictures were distributed on the internet.



Prosecutors say the [alleged abusers] have all confessed but one of the defence lawyers...said none had been able to explain why they acted as they did.



The four alleged ringleaders have been in custody since early February.

...

The victim, who is undergoing therapy, was not present for Tuesday's hearing but has been asked to give evidence next week.

And if that's what the Europeans are doing at their vocational schools then God only knows what they're doing in their prisons.

The students, aged 16 to 18, allegedly beat and kicked their 17-year-old victim...



They were all students at a vocational school in Hildesheim, near Hanover, on a one-year course to prepare them for jobs.

(Hat tip to Angelfire)

Posted by: Jim at 03:08 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Judges are supposed to have absolutely no place in creating laws. The way its supposed to work is that the Legislature makes laws, the Executive (Pres) enforces laws and the Judiciary makes sure that the laws are legal. That's worked really well for a very long time.

Judicial activism is what happens when rulings from the bench create de facto laws. By blatant abuse of their powers, judges take on the properties of the Executive and the Legislature. This is bad. What you have here is the body that is supposed to be a check against the creation of bad laws acting AS a body creating laws. You also get the beginnings of an oligarchy as the 9 unelected members of the Supreme Court (appointed for life, remember) become the first word on laws as well as the last word.

So judicial activism is a very bad thing and it must be stopped. The Legislature has a plan that nominally addresses the problem on the way to doubling it. The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004 would let them overturn Judicial decisions.

Let's review - the problem is that the Judiciary is using assumed powers to create laws. Congress' answer is to grant themselves veto power over the Judiciary. Put another way, in order to stop the Judiciary from creating as well as judging laws, Congress wants to give themselves the exact same set of powers.

Fucking morons.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 01:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Thanks to new FTC rules, porno spam now has to have "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in the subject line.

Now instead of "Hungry teen wants your hot cock in her cornhole"
you'll get "Hungry teen wants your hot cock in her cornhole (SEXUALLY EXPLICIT)".

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

Posted by: Jim at 01:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A googol is a number followed by one hundred zeros. The word was created by Professor Edward Kasner in the 1930s and used in a book of his in 1940. Kasner's descendants are getting set to battle Google, saying that the US-based company profited at their expense.

Personally I think that Google does incorporate the theory of googol in their site. When you get a search return you get a "Gooooooooooogle" at the bottom of the page where each "o" is a link to a results page. It seems pretty obvious that these are in tribute to the many zeros in a googol. But does this constitute financial gain at the expense of the family? Intellectual property experts don't seem to think so.

"It would be an uphill struggle to try to assert any legitimate claim," said David Gourlay, a senior associate at the Dundas and Wilson Technology Group.



Gillian Cameron, a partner in the intellectual property and technology department at Maclay, Murray & Spens, said: "They would have to show the family had used the word as a trademark and it had somehow been misappropriated, which doesnÂ’t appear to be the case.



"Or they could argue that Google were piggy-backing on the goodwill of the mathematician, and somehow people associated googol with Mr Kasner," he added. "Again, this would be doubtful.

Kasner was an intelligent and middlingly successful mathematician who's single claim to fame is the description of a number that is never used except as an example of a really big number. The only problem being, of course, that he didn't get famous for it. Could anybody have named Kasner as the creator of "googol" before reading this?

I think the Kasner clan needs to sit down and stifle.

Posted by: Jim at 06:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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You know that fence that Israel is building? The one that a certain [*cough* Arab *cough*] segment of the world population keeps crying about? The one that Israel says will save the lives of its civilians from Palestinian explodikazis but its detractors [*cough* United Nations *cough*] say is some sort of land grab? Yeah, that one.

Turns out it's working really well.

Which begs the question - would Israel be willing to help us to engineer a fence for Falluja?

(Hat tip to Meryl Yourish)

Posted by: Jim at 02:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Ah, but YOU have "show comments", which pop up on the same page! You get a dispensation for that.... (Though I STILL hate having to go back again after I've commented....)

Posted by: Susie at May 18, 2004 03:05 PM (SmnTx)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

UPDATED: 18 May 2004
UPDATED: 17 May 2004
UPDATED: 16 May 2004

Comments have been closed.

My point has been made and I have no desire to keep dwelling on this particular horror. All of the crap being bandied about can be explained in reasonable terms without any conspiracy theory foolishness necessary.

If you have something that you believe proves something weird or odd or whatever other euphemism you choose to use then apply Occam's Razor to your supposition. If you cannot come up with a simple reason for whatever it is then contact the New York Times or a therapist. One or the other will be able to help you.

Sorry if this offends but I'm finding the continued curiosity to be somewhat macabre and disturbing and I want no part of it. more...

Posted by: Jim at 10:35 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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So, is £115.00 a lot to pay for an empty X-Box box? The winner of that auction seems to think so:

never buy anything from this f**king w**ker £120 for a box

The seller has little sympathy for the careless bidder and, strangely enough, neither do I. May the buyer beware!

Posted by: Jim at 08:46 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Even our racist assholes have some redeeming qualities.

Six Men Sentenced in Cross Burning

ROME, Ga. (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced six men to prison terms ranging from six months to 46 months Friday for burning a cross in the yard of a woman whose daughter was romantically involved with a black man.

Jerrell Timothy Garner, Stacy Paul Jones, Steven Garland Jones, Jeremy Ray Sims, Eric Shane Sullivan and Billy Richards Wells -- all of Trenton -- pleaded guilty Feb. 23 to conspiracy to deprive civil rights.

They still burn crosses? What's up with that? I never understood how a supposedly militant christian could rationalize torching the symbol of their church. Anyway, the redeeming part is here:

Sims and the Jones brothers made the cross and placed it at the foot of Eva Hurst's driveway in Sand Mountain on Nov. 5. They lit the cross and left, then worried that the flames might spread to a nearby tinder-dry forest, so Sullivan called 911.

I'm not sure if the redeemable part is that they were concerned enough about the possibility of a fire to turn themselves in to prevent it or that they were so stupid that they turned themselves in when they had gotten away scott free. Given that they lit up the cross next to the tinder dry forest in the first place I'm going to go with the "stupid" option for now.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

Posted by: Jim at 03:28 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Five Muslims behead a civilian on video.

Two Muslims agree that terrorism is wrong.

5 > 2. I have a problem with this math.

Posted by: Jim at 04:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Speedy Gonzales knows everybody's seester.

Check out this drop dead headline from Finance Asia.

And just in case somebody who knows English as a primary language tells them about it and they change it, I made a screenshot.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

(Hey...where's all the guest posters?)

Posted by: Jim at 02:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Rush isn't the only one, just the most prominent. Some people are comparing what was done in the Abu Ghraib prison to fraternity hazing. Here's Rush Limbaugh's comment:

This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time.

Granted, some of the pictures sure do look like what you'd see during pledge week. Guys stripped naked with a hood on, made to whack off or form a human pyramid while the Greeks ridicule them. In fact, if that ubiquitous female soldier that appears in so many of the pictures pointing at various cocks was a guy wearing a shirt with Greek letters on it you would have no problem believing the pics were shot at an ivy league school in the USA.

But it wasn't hazing. It was torture. It does not matter if the exact same things were done to those prisoners as the local chapter of Lamda Delta Phi does to their pledges. The two things are completely different. They are different in the same way that loaning your buddy $50 is different from being robbed at gunpoint. One is voluntary, the other is forced under threat of death.

If you can't see the difference between "If you want to get invited to the best keggers for the next four years you better put this hood on and jerk off on your buddy" and "Climb on your naked buddy's back or I will shove this probe up your ass and shock your genitals until they burn" then you need a serious reality check. Or a nationally broadcast radio show.

Posted by: Jim at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I know that California is ...er...different. Still, this is just too much:

On volunteers, state is up a creek without a clue

A law originally meant to protect union wages has been redefined to prohibit volunteer labor on public projects. Out of the window goes Adopt a Highway, student volunteers, and neighborhood or work groups pitching in to help with projects like neighborhood beautification, stream bed clean-up, etc.

It actually began with a group of students who received school credit for cleaning up a stream bed. A union rep bitched about it and the state fined the nonprofit group that organized the cleanup.

Redding is also struggling with the labor bureaucracy in its effort to build a new city park, in part with volunteer help. A member of a Sonoma County library advisory board tells me that his group fears local Rotary Club members won't be allowed to landscape the library's grounds. And it's possible that groups such as Habitat for Humanity, which use volunteer labor to build homes for the poor, could be swept up by the same regulation.

The problem started in the 1930's when the state enacted legislation that effectively granted all public works projects to union labor. Non-union contractors were forced to pay union wages to their employees if they wished to bid on public projects. In 2001 the state changed the law to define a public project as just about anything that got a dollar of taxpayer money.

So why can't this get fixed? It's pretty easy - get rid of the fucked up anti-market laws that unfairly penalize people who do not wish to surrender their autonomy to a socialist union construct. Since it's California we are talking about this will never happen. Another solution might be to specify that volunteer labor can be free. Only when people are paid money should the mandatory pay scales be used. That won't happen either though as the unions want anything that requires skill to be under the forcible pay restrictions. (Apparently at least one union boss thinks that cleaning up a stream bed is skilled labor.)

I'm just glad I'm in Georgia where I can get a bunch of my friends together and clean up a vacant lot if we want to. Not that we would, being lazy southern boys, but we could!

(Hat tip to Joanne Jacobs)

Posted by: Jim at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm getting worried about you guys. I only had 31 spam messages this morning. If you take out the 7 virus mails that's only 24 valid spams! Are you not feeling well?

I sure hope you're not getting sick. Maybe you got freaked by those four Michigan spammers who are getting prosecuted under spam and mail fraud statutes. I wouldn't worry about that too much. I mean those guys were selling a blatantly fraudulent product. Your cia|i$ might not really work as advertised but you're always careful to cover yourselves with the "diet supplement" blanket. The most they could get you for would be the five years for breaking the anti-spam laws.

So anyway, if you are getting sick I'd be thrilled to help you out. I've got this vitamin patch that is absolutely guaranteed to reduce your flu and cold symptoms by up to 50% as well as cut the duration of your illness in half. Just keep an eye on your inbox, you'll see it.

Posted by: Jim at 09:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It seems like there is a battle in Japan to place the blame. Is it the Japanese government's fault for not preventing them from going to Iraq? Is it the citizens' fault for going despite warnings from the government that it wasn't safe?

Let me just drop this into the toilet bowl and see if it floats: It was the fault of the fundamentalist terrorists who kidnapped them.

It seems that the blame game isn't just an American hobby.

Posted by: Jim at 08:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Lovely Wife and I need help finding an accurate description for the two men in this article. The only thing that we can get out is "Sick fucks. Unbelievably sick fucks." Please see if you can expand on this.

Two men who traveled to Atlanta for alleged sexual encounters with children under the age of six are in FBI custody.

...

Ledbetter drove from Newport last Friday, believing he'd arranged a sexual encounter with a 6-year-old girl in Atlanta,

...

Scott traveled to Atlanta last Saturday, intending to have a sexual encounter with a 4-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy and the children's parents

Sick, sick, fucking fucks. Fuck!

Posted by: Jim at 07:53 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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So it seems that noted curmudgeon Andy Rooney, better known for America's most inane TV minute, has outed himself. I don't mean that he's come out of the closet (I'd respect him for that), I mean he's openly stated his opinion that America's troops are not brave fighters, the world's most powerful and skilled volunteer military. No, according to Andy they are a bunch of fearful cowards who have been forced into the military because of America's dastardly economy.

Andy proposes that we ask our soldiers in Iraq five loaded questions, as if these would prove his points. I've got five questions I'd like to ask Andy. How do you breathe with your head so far up your ass? Should the words of a marginal talent separated from reality by several decades be given any weight? Is it a standard in journalism to make up numbers and figures from whole cloth or is this just a trick you picked up on your own? Would you rather have a job where you have to work or the one you have now? Are you encouraged by the freaks and losers that think the venom dripping from your pen is gold?

He says that supporting our troops is just a trick we civilians use to keep them at their job so we can enjoy our comfortable lives back home. A trick. He has marginalized all of the support, pride and respect that we feel for our troops into a Machiavellian trick. Well, Mr.Rooney, that might be why you support the troops but it certainly isn't why I support them. But wait, since Andy is against what they're doing and the only reason to support them is to keep them at their job then by his own reasoning he is saying he doesn't support them, right? more...

Posted by: Jim at 09:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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That can't be right, can it? Braves: 18, Mets: 10. Damn. 28 points? In baseball?

Hell, if they keep doing that I might have to watch a game.

Posted by: Jim at 10:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But my job just doesn't compare with this.

What could possibly be cooler than going to work and driving barges into bridge supports? Well, maybe crash testing helicopters, but that's about it.

(Tip credit to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 09:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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hoppin' through the forest,

scoopin' up the field mice

and boppin' em on the head.

And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:



Little Bunny FooFoo

I don't want to see you

scoopin' up the field mice

and boppin' em on the head.



And now I'll give you one chance, and if you keep it up, I'll take care of you for sure.



Little Bunny Foo Foo

kept hoppin' through the forest,

kept scoopin' up the field mice

and boppin' em on the head.

And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:



You disobeyed me!

So she smacked him and his brother over the head with a shovel until they were dead

But it's okay, y'all. She's been cleared by the district who ruled that smackin' bunnies on the head is accepted veterinary practice. Some of her students thought it was a bit wierd and she's still facing two civil penalties for animal cruelty. She's vowed to fight them, though.

Back off the Blue Fairy, y'all. It's just part of farming. Besides, Bunny FooFoo was asking for it.

Posted by: Jim at 03:11 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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