Cheney has been cloned!

This video clip of our good pal Cheney as Secretary of Defense in 1994 has become very popular, its definitely a must see. Thirteen years ago Cheney explained why invading and occupying Iraq would be a bad move for the US and how it would turn the entire middle east into a quagmire:



I'm seriously worried that maybe Cheney was a victim of an alien clone switch like in the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Link to discussion of the video on Hard Ball.

China doesn't want you to read this

I think China is pissed at me again. They are cracking down on “false news reports, unauthorized publications and bogus journalists”, and of course China considers itself the ultimate authority to define what actually is false, unauthorized or bogus.

One "false" report was the cardboard food article I mentioned a few days ago. China is protecting its citizens from such dangerous news by throwing the journalist responsible for the story in jail.

Quote:

"The crackdown, confirmed by the government’s official web site, comes after a television journalist was given a one-year prison sentence and a $130 fine on Sunday for allegedly fabricating a story about Beijing dumpling makers that were said to use cardboard as filler."

Maybe August 15th should be declared Chinese News Repression day.

Nose Jobs Turn Female Mice Into Sex Machines

FOX News (who else) is reporting that a new study proves that female mice become much more sexually active after receiving nose jobs.

Now if only this was true for humans... *sigh*

The science behind it has something to do with increasing the amounts of pheromones the females pick up. Quote:

"The mice began chasing, mounting and thrusting pelvises against other mice, both male and female, as well as giving out ultrasonic mating calls and sniffing derrieres."

Sounds more like rodent spring break to me. Why is anyone studying this anyway? Was cancer research just too boring?

Man steals library books and sells them

Thomas Pilaar is a criminal genius. He schemed up a plot that seems to be a cross between something the Hamburglar and Cobra Commander would consider: Check out hundreds of books under different names from the library then sell them for profit on Criagslist.

But like most super villians he made a crucial mistake in his evil plans. When he left the library cards in the books he sold and one of his customers reported him, his crafty plot was soon shut down.

Full story here.

Cardboard is food in China

If you ever take a trip to Beijing, I suggest not eating the Baozi.

Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat or rice flour and a filling of sliced pork. But to cut costs some vendors in China have made the outer skin with cardboard.

"Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda -- a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap -- then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in."

Yummy! Apparently most people can't taste the difference between the real stuff and cardboard.

Please don't Simpsonize me

I watched the Simpsons movie last night, and I think I was left with the same impression everyone else had: It was ok, but I could have waited to see it when it came out on DVD.

Homer asks the audience at the beginning of the movie "Why are we paying to watch this in a theater when we can watch it on TV for free?" Good question, and after the movie was over I still did not have an answer for that. Watching Simpsons on the big screen didn't really add anything more to the Simpsons experience that I hoped it would.

I did check out the Simpons movie website. They have a section where you can upload your own photo and it will "Simponsize" you. This seemed like fun, but it is very picky about what photos it will accept. That avatar on the right is what I would apparently look like in the movie. I seriously hope I don't really look like that. Those squinty eyes are creepy, even for a cartoon...

Now back to me tearing apart the movie just like Maggie tore into Mr. Bubbles (my favorite scene):


The entire movie had this feel about it that is hard to describe. It almost felt like I was watching the last episode of the Simpsons. In fact, that really makes a lot of sense. The Simpsons have been on TV forever, I literally cannot remember them not being on TV. Maybe they made this movie as a way to step closer to ending the series.

There were a lot of funny moments in the movie that made it worth seeing. The overall plot (Homer has to save Springfield, no big surprise) was actually pretty well executed and could have been a lot worse. Although I wasn't bored, I did noticed several people nodding off and falling asleep during this late night showing.


One part of the plot (don't worry, no spoilers here) that I was surprised with was the focus on Homer and Bart's father-son relationship. Or lack thereof. The TV series already made it clear that Homer is the world's worst father figure, but the Simpsons movie hit you over the head with that over and over. Flanders plays a big part in becoming a pseudo-father for Bart, which I found a little weird.


In the end, its a good Simpsons experience that I'm glad I saw, but I could have waited to rent this movie from Netflix or something instead of paying a whopping $10.50 after tax in the theater.


Simpson Movie trailers

Luxury car, crappy bumper

It must suck to realize you paid $40k + for a car that gets damaged easier than FEMA's reputation.

Quote:
"In one case, a Mercedes-Benz C-class sedan sustained almost $5,500 in damage when hit in its front bumper at a speed of just 6 miles per hour."

Jeez, looking at damage on that Mercedes you would think Britney Spears had taken an umbrella to it.

Back in the 1980's cars' front bumpers had to absorb at least a 15 mph force before it transfered any damage to the rest of the cars. In the 90's the law was watered down to only 5 mph to make the cars lighter, cheaper to produce, and to integrate the bumpers behind the body panels. But the fact that luxury cars like this one can't stand up to 1 mph of force more is pretty bad.

And its not just Benz that has this issue, this CNN article also listed the high damage amounts in low speed collisions from cars like Saab, Audi and Lincoln.

Greatest interview ever

Since I posted yesterday about the most awkward interview in the history of the universe, I need to balance things out today.

Please enjoy the greatest interview of all time, thanks to Break.com:



Most Insightful Interview Ever - Watch more free videos


I don't know whats funnier - they way this kid just spouts out something random while wearing Halloween makeup, or the fact that the news reporter doesn't know how to respond to him. BTW this kid is now famous in his home town in Oregon.

"I like turtles" is now the official slogan of things viral, replacing the much overused "lol, internet!" and "Do Not Want" trends.

China attacks America with poisoned toys

Oh, those tricky communists. First it was deadly cat food from China. Then fish products from China turned out to be dangerous. Now the country known for really big walls and really good take out is sending another deadly export our way.

Mattel, the parent company of Fisher-Price, is now recalling almost one million toys that where made in China that were made with lead paint. I guess those commies are really 50 years behind us if they haven't realized lead paint is a tad bit dangerous for kids.

Worst interview ever

Is four months between posts too long? After getting locked out of my account in April I finally got around to re-claiming this blog today.

How much popularity do you lose when you leave your blog to collect dust for four months? All of it. So at least I did learn something from this.

And thank you to all the spammers leaving me comments, at least I know I haven't been totally forgotten.

So now to bring this worst blog ever back to life, here is the worst TV interview ever recorded:




Really Awkward Interview - Watch more free videos



This blonde must have some superpowers in bed with the director to land this job. The dramatic squirrel would have better intereviewing skills than this.

She's so bad its actually painful to watch it all the way through. Notice how she said "NBC" at the end when she was supposed to say "ABC".... oh but no one will ever catch that and put it on the internet, right?

Flood? What Flood? New Orleans never flooded...

Google is being chided by the government for replacing satillite images of flooded New Orleans with older pre-Katrina pictures.

"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," said subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-North Carolina.

Google says that the swtich to pre-Katrina photos was to "improve detail" of the maps of the city. But it doesn't seem like Google has changed the maps for New Orleans on its Google Earth product yet.

Sad fact that we probably rely on and trust Google too much.

Edith Holleman, staff counsel for the House subcommittee, said it would be useful to understand how Google acquires and manages its imagery because "people see Google and other Internet engines and it's almost like the official word."

Links:

CNN - House panel: Why did Google 'airbrush history?'

New Orleans on Google Maps as if Hurricane Katrina never happened

World's tallest man and dolphin saver gets married

Bao Xishun, the giant 7-foot-9-inch herdsman from Mongolia, is finally getting married.

You might remember the great Bao who saved a dolphin from choking a while back. Bao's arms were the only ones long enough on the planet to reach into Flipper's stomach to pull out a plastic object that was choking it.

Now he's making news by marrying a woman who is half his age and almost half his height. That honeymoon should definitely be paparazzi worthy.

Links:

CNN - World's tallest man ties knot

BBC - World's tallest man saves dolphin

Alabama hates dildos

Last Valentine's day everyone was so busy trying to get some, that we didn't notice that the state of Alabama outlawed the sale of dildos (dildoes? dildo's? Not sure how I can look up the proper grammar of sex toys..)

Alabama (who has one of the highest homicide rates in the nation) decided that is perfectly ok to purchase as many guns as you want, but they are drawing the line at vibrators.

Apparently its fine to own twelve shotguns, but not ok for to make women happy with Mr. Plastic Zucchini.

Fun Links:

Sex in Public Square blog - Q: When is a vibrator more dangerous than a gun?

YouTube - Mark Day's comments

PDF of Alabama's decision

Break through the Chinese Firewall

The Great Firewall of China site claims to be able to test to see if any website can make it through those tough content filters Beijing set up.

Not surprisingly, sites like gaychina.com, chinasucks.com and whitehouse.com don't make it through the big red firewall. But they did let this blog through for some reason.

My new goal in life: to get my site banned in China. Leave some anti-communist comments to help me get started.

Arizona Governor admits UFOs are real

Former Arizona Governor admits that he did see a football sized UFO in 1997, even though he denied it and ridiculed people who reported seeing it ten years ago.

His reason for the flip-flopper was that he wanted to cover up the sighting to "prevent a panic" amongst the population of Phoenix.

The Phoenix sighting on March 13, 1997 was the largest and most videotaped UFO siting with more than a thousand witnesses for over a period of several hours.

Links:

CNN Video - "Phoenix lights" (direct link with advertisement)

YouTube - Phoenix sighting

More Phoenix UFO videos

Blonds 'no good' in Mideast talks

"Japanese are trusted. If you have blue eyes and blond hair, it's probably no good."

Ah, Foreign Minister Taro Aso, how wise you are. The Japanese diplomat is famous for straight talking that sometimes ends up with his staff squirming to explain his comments.

What he meant was that Westerners are seen by many Middle Eastern as having exploited their lands for oil and can't be trusted. He asserts that since the Japanese don't have this political stigma attached to them, they are better suited to be Middle East peace the negotiators.

"Luckily, we Japanese have yellow faces," he said. His words not mine!!!!

Link:

CNN - Japan diplomat: Blonds 'no good' in Mideast talks

How to stalk people on Digg

Digg is a useful site for keeping up to date on the web, but it can be overwhelming to have so much stuff to be constantly keeping up to date on. Enter Digg Labs to help us visualize the popular articles easier.

It also is fun to "spy" on what other users are currently reading in real time with the Digg Swarm tool. Shown above, the yellow dots are Digg users logged in with a line connecting them to the story they are currently viewing. Mouse over the dots to see the user's alias with the interactive Flash graph.

This tool can also be used to keep Digg itself honest. Today for instance the article about insurgents in Iraq blowing up two children was dug 241 times (a very high number) but was not listed on Digg's main page for popular content. The Swarm and Stack tools clearly showed how popular the article was, and some users cried fowl that Digg was censoring sensitive articles like these.

In fact, someone created a blog with a single post just to assert the idea that Digg is practicing censorship on itself.

Interesting how Digg's own tool might have uncovered something potentially scandalous about their own site...


Tools that watch Digg:

Why is Digg Being Censored?

Digg Swarm

Digg Stack

Digg Bigspy

Digg Spy

Trump for President... kill me now...

I was watching CNN the other day when Wolf Blitzer came on began interviewing Donald Trump. Thinking that Trumpy might say something asinine again I paid attention to the show.

But instead of Wolf asking the obvious quesitons ("How does it feel to be a completely self absorbed asshat?"), he interviewed Trump about what he thought of the 2008 Presidential candidates. WTF?

When did Trump become an authority on politics? Since when did Trump become the authority of anything besides how to act like a second grader?

Even stranger is the fact that there are rumors that Trump will run for President himself in 2008. I'm sure that will work out just great. We all remember how successful his 2000 campaign went.

Trump-rific Links:

Youtube - Trump vs Rosy

Trump for President 2008

Trump for President 2000

Ford and GM are still screwing us

I feel like blowing the conspiracy whistle again. But this time it involves cars instead of politics so its not boring.

The X Prize Foundation is challenging private citizens to build the world's fist 100mpg car, with a possible prize of $25 million. The part that pisses me off is the fact that people have to offer millions of dollars worth of prizes to do something the American automotive industry should have - and very well could have - done a decade ago.

The electric car is not anything new - Thomas Edison designed the one in 1890. And GM had a fleet of 500 fully-working production-grade all electric EV1's in 1996.

But GM screwed us over and shot itself in the foot by destroying every electric car it made under suspicious circumstances.

Another interesting fact: The Ford Model T in 1908 actually got better gas mileage than today's Fords. After reading a comparison of the Model T and Ford Explorer's fuel efficiencies, tell me something doesn't smell right in Detroit.

Legos + too much free time = Lego movies

Everyone likes movies. And who doesn't like legos? Combining the two is obvious. But making a lego stop motion movie requires too much patience for me, I'll prefer to let other people do the work.

Strange experience of the day: Did you ever think you would have a lego minifig explain what depression was to you?

Transgender War Veterans support Valerie Plame

As if the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby/Iraq War/CIA orgy of a scandal could not get any weirder, CNN throws transsexual protesters into the frenzy.

This is the story of Midge Potts, who is a prominent member of the feminist anti-war group "Code Pink." She used to be a he, and a Navy veteran of the first Iraq war. Now she is a transgender woman who has run for congress in Missouri and has been making frequent and very pink appearances at Plame's hearings to Congress.

The story is CNN-worthy because reporter Jeanne Moos said that watching Potts' talented maneuvers to stay in the camera's view kept her from nodding off while reporting on the hearings. The video is interesting to watch, with very pink and blonde Potts sometimes mimicking the natural blonde (and natural woman) Plame's gestures.

Now if only I could think of a good blonde joke involving Midge Potts/Valerie Plame/Britney Spears right about now...

Links:

CNN Video - Protester Antics at Plame's hearing (opens in new window)

Direct link to CNN Video (opens in browser, advertisement plays first)

CIA looking to hire more blondes

Valerie Plame testified to a Congressional panel how much it sucks to be outed as a CIA spook by the White House. Typical woman thing to do. Complain, complain complain...

I mean, why can't she just suck it up like a man would and stop whining. It can't be that bad to have your life turned inside out for the world to see, have all your friends and business contacts cut you off, and to never be able to travel over seas again without fear of being captured and interrogated by other countries' spies. Wuss.

My opinion is that this whole controversy didn't go far enough. I think the White House should out all the blonde spies we have. And I should be the first one to debrief them. Because my debriefings involve candles, moonlight walks, Barry White music, and a feeling of mild regret the next morning.

Links:

CNN - Ex-CIA operative: Leak severely hurt U.S. intelligence

Gambia President dreams up HIV cure

President of Gambia Yahya Jammeh has announced that he has discovered a cure for HIV, based on a dream he had. And its made out of herbs, spices, and pancake syrup.

Now making up cure for serious diseases is good and all, but its not such a good idea to tell people to stop taking actual HIV medication in favor of this dream cure.

Its hard to say if the concoction has any merit, since Jammeh has refused interviews and won't let anyone analyze what is actually in his "medicine." It's hard to measure if people who are "cured" by it are not just encountering a placebo effect, because Jammeh has kicked doctors out of his country for asking too many questions.

On a similar note, I had a dream and discovered a magical potion that makes females take off their tops and find me more attractive. I'm calling the stuff "Captain Morgan." Maybe it will become popular and I can become president of a small third world country too.

Links:

CNN - In Gambia, AIDS cure or false hope?

Where the hell is Gambia anyway?

Lesbians take over Tiananmen Square

Unfortunately I just made up that headline up, there is nothing funny about being gay in China. Their flag is red and only red for a reason. You don't see too many communist rainbows around

I didn't feel like talking about any real news today. Plus fake news is always much more bloggable. (My spell checker is complaining that "bloggable" is not a word, but I am not giving in to its tyranny.)

Something blogworthy did get make the news today: Disney is creating their first black princess movie: "The Frog Princess". Although politically correct, she is neither from China or a lesbian, therefore I'll have a hard time tying her into this post.

Wait, the movie is called "The Frog Princess"? And the princess is named "Maddy"? Have the suits at Disney completely given up after realizing they are so rich they could dunk their balls in gold just like Craigslist guy?

Links:

Test the Great Chinese Firewall for yourself

Tiananmen Square? What Tiananmen Square? That never happened...

John Stewart interviews Craigslist founder Craig Newmark

Iran is pissed about 300

It turns out Iranian President Ahmadinejad is still pissed off about a 2,500 year old battle.

The Iranian propaganda machine, oops I mean the Iranian press is outraged at the movie "300". They are taking this film based on a comic book a little too seriously, stating that it is "psychological warfare" created by the US Government.

Could the movie be just a giant conspiracy carried out by the Jewish controlled Hollywood to punish Iran for its nuclear ambitions?

After giving the issue a little thought, I can start to understand why there is some controversy here. I mean the seven foot tall and sexually ambiguous King Xerxes did remind me alot of Ahmadinejad.

Links:

Yahoo News - Iran outraged by Hollywood war epic

Raw Story - Tehran condemns "anti-Iranian" movie 300

Photo Gallery of 300