There's nothing to do on Saturday nights in Fiji

So Mel Gibson is importing himself a bowling alley.

Lawsuits we love

Only in California.

Don't send her back!

We have enough loonies here already.

Waiting for the Pinch award

Gawker publicizes a great new contest.

Know someone who works for The New York York Times Company who’s done a particularly stellar job this year? Has this employee has exemplified “a commitment to [the] Company’s Core Purpose, Core Values and Rules of the Road”? Did he or she did so while “contend[ing] with numerous journalistic challenges....

Yes?

Well, then clearly your friend should be nominated for a 2006 Punch Award, named in honor of Times Company chairman emeritus Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who, according to the announcement, lives by all those above-mentioned principles....

On the other hand, if your Times Company friend instead spent 2005 making awkward jokes at inopportune moments, obstinately clinging to lost causes without really considering whether the cause deserved so much support, and contributing strongly to a stagnant stock price, the just sit tight. We’re sure the Pinch Awards will be coming along soon enough.

I swear, the first time I read this, I thought it said "Gore values." I guess that will wait for the Pinch Award.

Marine bumper stickers

My favorite:

U.S. Marines: Travel agents to Allah.

Black history

Why we have Black History Month.

Hard times at the dollar store

Everyone who knows me knows that I love to shop at dollar stores. I can cheerfully throw away $20 on twenty items I don't need that probably don't work anyway, as long as each item only costs a dollar. Think of the money I save!

I have a favorite dollar store. At this store, the owner is pleasant, the store is clean, there's lots of stock, and all the salespeople smile and seem happy at life. No week passes that I don't stop there and buy a few things.

On my last visit, I saw a sign on the door, telling us customers that owing to the cost of things generally and energy specifically some prices would be raised to $1.25 and others to $2.

It shouldn't matter--what's an extra quarter, or even two bucks? But somehow, the name dollar and a quarter store doesn't have the same ring to it.

Let's offend them, by all means

A refreshing thought, amidst all this cant and hypocrisy, from Russell Wardlow:

Muslims need to be offended, and for that reason the cartoons should continue to be published both in Europe and in the United States, and everywhere else possible.

The mistake that Karol makes is in treating Muslims the same as any other religious group. But that's quite impossible at this point as a result of Muslims' own behavior. Precisely because they can be counted on, for whatever reason, to riot psychotically with every minute percieved slight, we need to offend them. Not doing so would be a capitulation to the dangerous double standard that liberal-minded folks in the West see as magnanimous sensitivity and tolerance, but which is percieved (perfectly rationally, I might add) by Muslims as simply weakness and a complete lack of any faith in our own society.

Once Muslims show themselves capable of not killing people and burning down buildings because of an editorial cartoon, then you'll find me on the side of those who want to be conscientious and polite and not offend. And I will then happily be just as mindful of Muslim sensibilities as I am to those of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, et al.

But until then, I say it's open season.

A tip of the chapeau to bad example.

Funeral ettiquette

Basil's blog discusses proper funeral behavior:

The folks that speak do their speaking about the dearly departed. Those that sing songs sing songs that they think the dearly departed loved, whether or not they had ever even heard the song. And everyone maintains a somber tone. After all, it's a funeral.

But, every now and then, some folks decide to act like they ain't had no proper raising and turn the funeral into something else.

Not at any funeral I've ever been to. But on the soap operas. And when some Democrats speak.

Recently, you might have heard about the funeral of Coretta Scott King. Four presidents showed up for that one....

Then they let Rev. Joseph Lowery and Jimmy Carter speak.

Both George Bushes and Bill Clinton were up there acting like it was a funeral. Joseph Lowery and Jimmy Carter acted like asses.

Now, I don't know much about what funerals Joseph Lowery has been going to, but Jimmy Carter is a Baptist and is from southwest Georgia. I'm a Baptist from southeast Georgia. There can't be that much difference between how one's supposed to act at a funeral.

I guess to some Democrats, the body of the deceased is just a stage prop, like the flowers.

Some advances in scientific research

from 15 Minute Lunch: Too much of a good and bad thing.

Namby-pamby Bush

The President has been saying tactful things about not offending the Religion of Peace- niks, currently rioting at a theatre near you.

We have to be tactful. We don't want to hurt their feelings.

I want to hurt their feelings. And any other part of their anatomy.

Here's what I want the President to say to them:

Your feelings are hurt? It's a tough world. Suck it up. If you don't like it, you can go f*** yourselves. There's a principle involved here. Free speech is more important than your feelings, which are a crock anyway.

I hate it when he starts talking in that sanctimonious manner, like a psalm-singing Presbyterian Wall street lawyer (as someone said of John Foster Dulles).

I guess that's why I'm not president.

I hope my relatives don't say such mean things about me

Bush adopts Clinton; the feeling is not mutual.

Unless Bush has some awfully nasty relatives.

Happy Presidents' Day!

 
 

Enforced vacation from blogging

First I installed Mozilla Firefox 1.5, which totally destroyed my computer's ability to access the Internet. If you're considering using this, DON'T! When I accessed their web site, I discovered that it would cost me $39.95 to get tech support. So much for free software.

Then I tried to restore my computer to an earlier date. This didn't work.

Now the DSL doesn't work. And the phones don't work either.

I have had Verizon (cursed be their name) out here three (3) times. I am awaiting a fourth visit without much hope.

Thank God I have a cell phone, or I would be unable to even order a pizza.

God wants to retire

God is getting tired.

'I keep getting all these calls from folk begging me to intercede on their behalf, smite their enemies, improve their sex life, make them rich, all sorts of things. Frankly, I just don't want to get involved. It's none of my business how people want to lead their lives.'

Beautiful old buildings

 
 

This church was built for the ages. Unfortunately, the ages have passed it by. Like the grand central libraries that were once a source of civic pride, it is little used. I don't know what can be done--I'm not even Catholic--but it makes me sad.

Another English eccentric dies

This time it is a monk.

Best part:

Following a breakdown.... he underwent long-term psychoanalysis. The combination of anguish, insights received through analysis, and an acute theological mind produced a deeply personal interpretation of the Christian message which many found illuminating and helpful, though others regarded him as a menace.

His views often caused controversy. "Religious establishments invariably give me the creeps," he once confided to his readers, before informing them that: "Religion is to a large extent what people do with their lunacy, their phobias, their will to power and their sexual frustrations."

On another occasion he declared that he had received the Word of God from a Judy Garland film,

Rear view

 
 

Baby and spoon

 
 

Solving the Palestinian problem

I've just figured out how to solve the Palestinian problem. This will work whether Hamas, Fatah, or for tht matter Al Queda is in charge.

Cut off their allowance!

If we, the EU, Israel (yes, Israel gives them money)and the NGOs would just stop supporting them, they wouldn't be able to buy paper clips, let alone form a government.

Look at it from this standpoint: the Palestinian "state" is the international equivalent of a welfare mother. Handouts is Them. No money=no government, no guns, no terror, no garbage pickup, no schools.

In the unlikely event this does not work, we could send them to their room without supper.

The line for nominating me for the Nobel Peace prize starts at the right.