Open Threads

This is what passes for humor in the Observer/Guardian. A ‘humorous’ timeline since 9/11. Some tidbits:

September 19th: The pop singer Michael Jackson is refused permission to lie down and sing songs from his new album into the World Trade Centre rubble. Jackson is reported to have been a ‘nuisance presence’ at Ground Zero – foisting cheaply embroidered MJ handkerchiefs on to grieving relatives and incessantly moondancing into the paths of rescue workers.

October 7th: Bush announces the start of Operation Bomb Islamics. He tells the US that coalition members agree this title is not offensive to ‘good Muslims’. This is confirmed in a hastily written episode of The West Wing in which a good Muslim is played by Jeff Goldblum.

October 9th: US bombs hit a Red Cross emergency centre on the outskirts of Kabul, but the Pentagon refuses to apologise, blaming the Red Cross logo for ‘looking like the crosshairs on a viewfinder’. Spokesman Paul Wolfowitz says: ‘I’d ask this clearly self-loathing organisation to change its suicidal insignia before they kill us all.’ The Red Cross complies immediately and changes its logo to a blue baseball hat.

February 9th: WTC legal fall-out. A New York banker whose car was hit by a man jumping out of the burning north tower is suing the dead man’s estate because he failed to curl up into a neat ball to minimise the damage. The city of New York is to sue firms occupying the upper 38 storeys of both towers because as they crashed earthwards, they added hugely to the numbers of people on the lower floors, thus ‘momentarily breaking fire regulations’.

Funny stuff, people jumping from burning buildings, mass murder, accidental war casualties. Is Ted Rall British?

This is what passes forPost + Comments

Steve den Beste comes out blasting like Yosemite Sam on Africa, Asia, and well, the rest of the world.

Yes. That was a Cypress Hill reference.

Steve den Beste comes outPost + Comments

Bill O’Reilly has officially gone off the deep end. There are now only two reasons to watch him: the possibility that he might attack Jesse Jackson and for comic relief.

Mr. O’Reilly just tried to make the case that Russell Yates is just as culpable as his wife, Andrea, and that he is to blame for the murders because he did not get a vasectomy. Note to any male out there- If you go to work and leave your children with their mother, you are now only providing finanacial support, and not emotional support, according to Mr. O’Reilly.

In his second spot, he is indicting the Van Dam’s for not protecting their daughter becuase Mr. Van Dam might have been stoned while he stayed at home with the kids. No mention of the cretin who broke into the house, kidnapped his daughter, raped her, and murdered her.

Apparently getting stoned or *gasp* going to a bar is the moral equivalent of permitting someone to rape and murder your daughter.

Thank God Mark Klaas was there to defend the Van Dam’s. As you might recall, Klaas lost his daughter to a murdering bastard, unlike O’Reilly, who seems to have just lost his mind.

Bill O’Reilly has officially gonePost + Comments

Lady Thatcher speaks:

The former Prime Minister says in her new book, serialised in The Times, that most of the problems the world has faced, including Nazism and Marxism, have come from mainland Europe. Enoch Powell had been right when he gave warning in the 1970s that entry to the Common Market involved an unacceptable loss of sovereignty.

Lady Thatcher calls for renegotiation of Britains terms of EU membership to enable it to leave the common agricultural and fisheries policies, the common foreign and security policy, and to reassert domestic control over trade policy. She also suggests joining the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, a decision that would be seen as incompatible with EU membership.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the French come from mainland Europe. I am with Maggie on this one.

Lady Thatcher speaks: The formerPost + Comments

This fellow over at Sand in the Gears is pretty damned amusing. Via Spleenville.

This fellow over at SandPost + Comments

According to this BBC report, listening to fast music can be dangerous to your health. Well, it’s actually according to Israeli researchers, as reported by the BBC. At any rate, they found that:

Listening to fast music in the car may make people drive too quickly as well – increasing their risk of having an accident.
Israeli researchers found drivers who listen to uptempo tunes had more than twice as many accidents as those listening to slower music.

At any rate, this will come as no surprise to anyone who has been screaming about the recent handheld cell while driving prohibitions- doing anything that creates COGNITIVE INTERFERENCE when behind the wheel of a car makes the vehicle more dangerous to you and everyone else on the road. I don’t care if it is eating a burger, picking your nose intently, talking on a cell phone, listening to Metallica at ear bleeding volume, or figuring out every prime number between 1 and 5 bazillion. It is the DISTRACTION, not the activity.

Sheesh.

According to this BBC report,Post + Comments

Interesting email from what I presume is a reader:

The red balloon of Kyoto has suddenly begun
to deflate, with many governments starting
to abandon it. Why just now? Well, perhaps
because its main pump — Enron — has blown
its gaskets?

(Post hoc/propter hoc isn’t
a proof, to be sure, but it does generate
some hypotheses worth checking!)

Interesting email from what IPost + Comments