New Location:

warliberal.com/mt/blog

Still a little dusty I'm afraid while the cyber-workmen finish up, but posting is ongoing. Thanks for your patronage.

War Liberal

Okay, there's nothing much to see there yet (except the Blogroll from Hell) but I am migrating over to Moveable Type. The new URL will be warliberal.com/mt/blog, though that might change in the future. New posting will be there, and once I figure out how I'll transfer my old posts. Maybe.

Site Note

Sorry, I was away today, nothing to see here. I'm now working on moving over to MT, and will post the slightly different URL when that happens.

movabletype.org

Yeah, I'm trying to make the move. I've got it part of the way there, and have hit the wall. Anyone out there who can give a hand and walk a technical klutz through this? If so, can you drop me a line?

Instapundit.com:

I DISAGREE with the assumption behind the campaign to restore felons' right to vote. I think the real problem is that there are too many felonies. Felonies used to be serious crimes, involving a likelihood of capital punishment. Now pretty much any crime is likely to be a felony...

Jeez, he's right. Why didn't I think of that? I don't have any problem with taking voting rights away from, say, rapists and murderers.

WB Reviving MacGyver?

First Superman, now the WB wants to do Young MacGyver. Oh, dear.

Odd Search Requests from the Disney.com Domain

Google Search: woody harrelson guardian iraq october

Again With the Pteropundit

WPVI.com: Cannon Wheeled in to Shoo Birds

Overkill, much? Well, at least it isn't Cristina Aguilera.

Starlings are nesting under a bridge between Washington and Oregon, and the authorities haven't been able to get rid of them. The cannon is their latest effort; it's propane-powered and doesn't shoot projectiles, but it does make a big noise. I would think that the starlings would be pretty much used to loud noises, what with living under a road, and "Terry Messmer, a Utah State University expert on starling control" (yes, there's an expert on everything) says that the birds will get used to the sound and come back if there's no threat.

Includes mandatory Hitchcock reference.

From the Pteropundit

CDs used to discourage birds from perching

The courthouse steps in Lisbon, Ohio, were getting covered in pigeon poop. (At least it wasn't cormorants.) So the commissioners turned to CDs to get rid of the pigeons.

I read the headline and I figured they played the new Cristina Aguilera album at the birds and scared them away. But no, they took used CDs and hung them by fishing line from the tower they're trying to keep the birds away from. The disks reflect light which scares the pigeons. I wonder, though, about what happens at night.

From the Pteropundit

Birds on the march

If I had any talent for it, that would be a parody song title.

Anyway, "mobs" of emus are running around Victoria, Australia, devouring an already poor wheat crop. There's a drought on and the emus have swam over (emus can swim?) from New South Wales in search of food.

Study: Atlanta is nation's 4th most sprawling metro area

It's hard to believe there are three more sprawling cities (BTW: Riverside-San Bernadino, Greensboro-Winston Salem, Raleigh-Durham) than Atlanta. The suburbs reach almost to Alabama now, and I think it's worse than that on the other sides of town. (Birmingham is 23rd; here's the report.) Atlanta is unlike most of the rest of the top ten in that there's an identifiable major city at the heart, rather than several smaller ones.

Least sprawling: New York. Not particularly surprising considering that most of it's on islands and there's nowhere to park. OK, this is an anti-sprawl group's findings, but would you rather live in New York or Riverside?

From the Pteropundit (Name used on trial basis)

Bird owners put on alert for Newcastle disease - 10/17/02 - NCTimes.net

While East Coast birds get to worry about West Nile, it's Newcastle in the West. It's a bad one, with a near-100 percent death rate in unvaccinated flocks. And there's an invasive-species angle here: it's thought that the disease was brought to Southern California by Amazon parrots, which are asymptomatic carriers of the disease.

ABCNEWS.com : Vatican Rejects U.S. Abuse Policy

They're concerned that the rights of priests would be violated. Not to go all Eastwood on you, but what about the rights of parishoners?

CNN.com - Noelle Bush given 10 days in jail for contempt - Oct. 17, 2002

You know, for bringing crack into her rehab center. Of course, she isn't actually being charged with drug possession, but what the hey.

Salon.com News | U.S. backs down on Iraq demands to U.N.

Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise which would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. If Iraq then failed to disarm, the Bush administration would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action.

Ha! That's what we wanted all along! It's rope-a-dope!

Austell man who refused to doff fez in courtroom released two days after being put in jail

He's a member of the "Moorish Science Temple". A Muslim group, apparently. Which is good, I was afraid we had some sort of combination of Christian Scientists and Shriners on our hands.

washingtonpost.com: N. Korea Admits Having Secret Nuclear Arms

Oh, boy. I'd like to see some proof they actually have working nukes -- though not at close range, mind you. (I'm not clear on if they say they have the bomb, or if they're just admitting to working on it. They really shouldn't have a big problem with it given their "civilian" nuclear capabilities.) But this is terrifying, in many ways more terrifying than if Iran or Iraq got the bomb. This is a failed state, a country on the verge of collapse and whose people are starving. Kim might feel he has nothing to lose by using his bomb to hold up his neighbors.

Bus tour touts constitutional reform

Why is the Alabama Constitution the world's longest constitutional document? Because of things like the proposed amendment that would allow the sheep and goat industries to pool money for a marketing campaign. (Given his unique interpretation of the US Constitution, Roy Moore will probably find it unconstitutional under Deuteronomy 22:9.) Auburn's Wayne Flynt says that the Alabama Constitution is doing exactly what it was designed to do. And what was that?

First, it stripped blacks and poor whites of voting rights, kept taxes low and concentrated power in Montgomery. Federal intervention restored voting rights, but the constitution's limits on taxation have kept Alabama's taxes the lowest per person in the nation. Its limits on local control still force local governments to seek constitutional amendments to make even basic changes. The constitution has been amended more than 700 times.

Some of you may like that "low taxes" thing, but what it comes to in the end is "regressive taxation", including ten percent sales tax in many areas.

Moore says he fulfilled pledge

Roy "Graven Images" Moore says that he was fulfilling a campaign pledge when he put up a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court building. So that makes it all right!

Moore said the commandments form part of the basis for the First Amendment and the role of government.

This must be a different First Amendment than the one with which I'm familiar. You know, the one that starts off with not establishing religion?

I'm Switching To Birds, But Not Sure About The Name Yet

Protected bird damaging trees, plants on the Oregon coast / Northwest -The Olympian

Cormorants in this case. They aren't doing it by eating leaves or bark or anything like that. It's their poop:

Cormorant excrement is pretty potent stuff, according to Lowe. It is harvested as fertilizer in some parts of the world and is super-rich in nitrogen.

"It's so hot it burns the vegetation," Lowe said.

The trees and plants die, he said, because the foliage gets showered by the droppings, and the soil becomes saturated with nitrogen.

Kind of puts pigeons in perspective, doesn't it?

Southwest Alaskans say bird is the size of a small plane

I heard about this on Letterman last night. (They then showed the NYC answer, a giant flying rat.) This needs a name. I suggest Bigwing.

First annual Boy Scouts of America Dove Hunt planned

Hey Kids! Time to get your "Blowing Away Small Inoffensive Creatures" merit badge!

I was a Scout for awhile on a couple of occasions. I don't remember us doing any hunting. Or sponsoring any. We were armed, I guess, if you count the knife.

CNN.com - Tenet defends CIA pre-9/11 - Oct. 17, 2002

Benedick Shelby is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He says Tenet "was in denial" the last time he testified. That would be when he said he was proud of the CIA's counterterrorism record.

Meanwhile, the White House continues to have its own special definition of "bipartisan":

The administration also wants its only member on the commission to be the sole chairman, instead of being co-chair with a Democratic appointee.

"Unfortunately there still are some members (of Congress) who do not share the view that this commission should be truly bipartisan," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We hope these members will reconsider."

Because only by submitting to Republican dominance can Democrats show that they're bipartisan. This sounds ridiculous, because it is, but it's very much the Bush line.

ajc.com | Living | Barry gambles at sea for laughs, sake of art

Dave Barry talking about Tricky Business, his new novel. I didn't know he had one out. Looks like Hiaasen Lite, again, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Ananova - Six killed and 144 injured in attack on Christian city

The Philippines' Abu Sayyaf was apparently jealous of Jemaah Islamiah getting all the attention. So they attacked the city of Zamboanga -- Christian, but in a predominantly Muslim region. That's fairly typical of the current Islamist terror m.o., which settles for local Christians if they can't find a Westerner.

washingtonpost.com: Report: Terror Funds Flow Through Saudi Arabia

Our allies, ladies and gentlemen! I think this could be a really strong issue in the elections, but the Democrats won't move off the economy.

From the Ichthypundit

Deadly puffer fish banned from Thailand menus - OCT 17, 2002

A little different from the one they serve in Japan, but basically similar. Except they've been marketing it as "chicken fish" and "chicken-breast" fish, which is kind of weird.

Police Can't Produce a Sketch of Sniper

"We don't know what he looks like, but we're sure he's a Muslim".

ABCNEWS.com : Arthur Andersen Is Put on Probation

Whoa, probation. There's a Noelle Bush joke here, I can smell it. Also a half-million dollar fine, and -- this is the capper -- $400 in court costs! That'll teach them! I don't know how much Andersen made off of Enron, but I'll bet it was a lot more than $500,400.

Worst Program Ever

Library hoping to book teens with 'Comics 101'

I didn't become a librarian to be the flipping Comic Book Store Guy. I really hope this sort of thing doesn't catch on. (And I like comic books.)

Extremely Disturbing Search Requests

Google Search: hanging drawing quartering castration

The really disturbing part is that it was a good hit.

The Professor is looking for lefties to defend Jerry Falwell and his ilk? Well, he won't find them here. To me, the only difference between Falwell, Robertson, etc. and your garden-variety Wahhabist imam is that the terrorists our zealots encourage and defend aren't as good (as measured in body count) as the Islamic version. Do the names Eric Rudolph and Paul Hill mean anything to you? How about Timothy McVeigh? That's the face of the American extreme right, and the "respectable" religious right has been slow to condemn them and halfhearted when it does. "Ban" abortion? The far right kills abortion doctors and blows up clinics with police officers inside. When you remember the World Trade Center, don't forget the Murrah Building.

morons.org - Federal Trial For Alabama Monument Begins

Morons.org, hee. A suitable place for discussion of Roy "Thou Shalt Not Commit False Witness" Moore, that's for sure.

Confederate group complains of parade flag ban

The Confederate battle flag is a symbol of racism and offensive to many people; "Southern heritage" in relation to the defense of slavery and then Jim Crow is nothing to be proud of. Moreover, marching on Veterans' Day in a parade meant to honor the men who fought for this country while carrying the banner of treason is loathsome.

ajc.com | Metro | Budget Cuts hurt crime lab

Well, serves them right for not having their own TV show like all the other crime labs nowadays.

ABCNEWS.com : U.S., Germany, Japan Rebuff Ban on Tobacco Ads

Most tobacco advertising is banned here anyway. But it is still a free speech issue and it's another one of those things where a treaty could come in conflict with the Constitution. Of course, the fact that we're the tobacco pusher to the world, so we'd be unlikely to support an ad ban no matter what.

Just Plain Weird Search Requests

Google Search: email addresses of mickey in egypt

More Badly Spelled Search Requests

Google Search: myria carey fan club

AP Wire | 10/08/2002 | Spider webs float through Santa Cruz

Naturally, people there think it's caused by UFOs. Or maybe it's a biological attack by Osama's arachnid allies!

Of course, it's nothing like that. It's normal spider ballooning. Apparently that's not common in California.

Rationalists Doubt Mother Teresa's Miracle

Well, gosh, I do too. (I agree with Hume on miracles.) But asking the government of Bengal to investigate (at the same time the national government is pushing "Vedic Astronomy" and the like) is inappropriate. Maybe it's an American thing, or a liberal thing, but I feel that government and religion are separate spheres and should interact as little as possible.

Badly Spelled Search Requests

Yahoo! Search Results for hoover damn and california condors

Full disclosure: my fantasy baseball team name is the "Hoover Damned". (I was living in Hoover, AL at the time.)

From the Ichthypundit

S. Florida's aquafarmers do thriving business with tropical fish, plants

I suppose raising tropical fish would have to be big business for someone. It just seems so... small.

AP Wire | 10/16/2002 | Police: Arcadia fish hatchery owner killed 4,000 endangered birds

Jeez, she should just apply for a position with the Bush EPA already... Vicky Davidson decided to help her employees exercise their Second Amendment rights by purchasing 25,000 shotgun shells and telling them (the employees, not the shells) to shoot at anything that posed a threat to her fish. As it turns out, that was "Wood storks, black-neck stilts, cattle egrets, eastern meadowlarks, herons and at least one alligator".

Invasive Species Overrun U.S. Wildlife Refuges

People are a big enough problem. But one of the biggest problems people cause isn't anything they do themselves, it's the plants and animals they bring with them. Wildlife refuges can't be the "untouched wilderness" some people seem to think they are, because that wilderness would quickly be overrun by non-native species.

Reuters AlertNet - Finnish chemistry student talked of bomb for year

From everything I read, the Helsinki bombing probably wasn't terrorism in the sense of "violence for a political motive". The bomber appears to have more in common with the occasional idiot teenager (he was 19) we get here who decides to kill people because he thinks it might be cool, or because he's a "shy and quiet boy" who gets picked on. This is more Columbine than Oklahoma City. We may have been misled somewhat by the (apparently accidental) death of the bomber in the explosion into thinking this was meant as a "suicide bombing" of the Middle-Eastern type.

Jewish critic of Israel will speak to Muslim groups tonight at UAB

Translation: "Self-hating Jew paid by anti-Semites to speak in Birmingham".

Governor's race ads top $10 million

So that's about $2.25 each for every man, woman, and child in the state of Alabama in TV ads alone. Nearly every one of which is maliciously negative and hence largely true. About $3 million has been spent in Birmingham alone... By the way, the negativity is spreading to other campaigns, though it's not nearly as well-crafted. One commercial for some post, I'm honestly not sure what, basically came down to "my opponent is a dirty liberal and he likes Teddy Kennedy". You know, real eighties stuff.

Three more weeks of this?

ABC News - 17/10/02 : Indonesia formally detains two over Bali blasts

It's not clear that they were the actual bombers. They may have been members of the plot, or they might just be terrorism suspects that seemed flight risks. (I imagine that in Indonesia the possibility of suspects going into hiding has to be taken seriously -- remember, lots of islands, many of which are uninhabited.) But let's hope these are the guys.

CNN.com - Malaysia arrests four Islamic militants - Oct. 16, 2002

Ah, "militants". These particular "militants" are said to be members of Jemaah Islamiah, the same group that Indonesia seems to think is no problem and can work openly. Malaysia hasn't had Indonesia's problem with admitting terrorists exist in their country.

U.S. Says It Told Indonesia of Plot by Terror Group

Translated: "U.S. cried wolf so many times about al-Qaeda that nobody believes them anymore." Furthermore, all they said was that a major attack was planned, with nothing about where -- not even the island where it would take place. Heck, do they even know that this attack was the one in question?

(UPDATE: I notice that the Australians do say we told them Bali was a possible target.)

Typographically Problematic Search Requests

Dogpile Results for: wants war o iraq

Fun With Those Morons In Cobb County

The Onion | America's Finest News Source™

Georgia School Board Bans 'Theory Of Math'
COGDELL, GA—The Cogdell School Board banned the teaching of the controversial "Theory Of Math" in its schools Monday. "We are simply not confident of this mysterious process by which numbers turn, as if by magic, into other numbers," board member Gus Reese said. "Those mathematicians are free to believe 3 times 4 equals 12, but that dun [sic] give them the right to force it on our children." Under the new ruling, all math textbooks will carry a disclaimer noting that math is only one of many valid theories of number-manipulation.

Great Moments In Headline Writing

Britain wants to ban group whose goal is Islamic nation

That may be, but the story doesn't say it. Or anything like it. It's more of a Jemaah Islamiah backgrounder. Maybe the headline goes with another story. Or maybe they're just dumb.

Supreme Court hears challenge to state's fornication law

Out-of-wedlock sex is illegal in Georgia. The state SC is being asked to overturn the law. They already overturned the law against sodomy, remember that one? This one is probably less silly than Alabama's overturned anti-dildo law, but harder to enforce.

CNN.com - Woman gives birth to her own granddaughters - Oct. 15, 2002

Surrogate, of course. But still, eeewwwww.

Mean Joke of the Day

AOL's 8.0 launch targets its users

Because they're the only ones dumb enough to be excited by it?

No Need for Gun 'Fingerprinting,' says Bush

Well, actually says Ari Fleischer, but presumably GWB feels pretty much the same way.

Hey, I'm not a gun guy. I don't get the fascination. But I find it hard to believe that anyone's rights are significantly infringed by having to register their thunder-sticks.

Salon.com Politics | Gov. Bush says daughter must confront addiction

Well, lucky for her that she's rich and white and her Daddy is the governor and her uncle is the President. She'll get to confront her addiction in a treatment center. Or maybe she'll just smuggle in some more crack. If she were poor and black and her Daddy worked at a gas station, she'd have to confront her addiction in prison, though at least she'd still have a good chance of smuggling in some crack.

From the Ichthypundit (Yeah, I Know, Mammals)

Reuters AlertNet - Iceland says to resume whaling in few years

Okay, here's the order of events:

1) The International Whaling Commission puts a moratorium on whaling.

2) Iceland walks out of the commission because it won't support the ban, but doesn't violate it, unlike Norway and Japan.

3) Several years later, Iceland petitions to rejoin the commission.

4) It votes 19-18 to let them back in.

5) Iceland immediately announces that it's planning to violate the moratorium in a few years.

6) Cue outrage from Greenpeace, US, and UK.

I'm sure there's some way that this makes sense, but I'm not sure what it is. At any rate, Iceland seems less interested in delicious whale meat like the Japanese and more in killing whales so that fish will have more to eat. Which is arguably worse. They swear they won't hunt endangered species.

Sniper's latest victim was FBI agent

Oh, boy. Presumably she was targeted at random, like all the others. But still...

As for "Is this terrorism?" I of course have no better idea than anyone else. It may be that this is a thrill killer (not a serial killer) in which case he has no motive any sane person would recognize. If not, then his motive is presumably political, which makes this terrorism. But that doesn't mean Islamic terror, even if some people have forgotten that not all terrorism is. I would guess a homegrown wacko of a right-wing/white supremicist persuasion would be more likely.

11 Found Dead in a Rail Car in Rural Iowa

I really hate people sometimes. 11 people, probably Mexican immigrants, died in a railway grain car. The car was locked from the outside, so they couldn't get out, and presumably died of thirst or starvation. The car spent the last four months in a railway station in Oklahoma after entering the country in June.

CNN.com - Militant Laskar Jihad group disbands - Oct. 15, 2002

Or so they say. I suppose we should just take their word for it? What they did was close their HQ and shut down their website. (Of course they had a website.) More likely they're just lowering their profile in a period when Islamic extremism has suddenly fell out of favor in Indonesia.

Invasive Species of the Day

Is the Brown Tree Snake!

Experts try ways to capture snakes

Native to Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, it was accidentally introduced to Guam soon after WWII. Mildly poisonous, it hunts the native bird population and (with Guam's birds now rare) lizards. And how are they fighting the snake? They stuff dead mice with acetaminophen and drop them from helicopters. Really. I didn't know Wile E. Coyote was running Guam's Department of Enviromental Management, but it turns out that Tylenol is poisonous to brown tree snakes.

ABCNEWS.com : Fried Twinkie Fad Hits Arkansas

Actually, fried Twinkies seem like the sort of thing that would be invented in Arkansas. They weren't, but apparently they're a hit at the Arkansas State Fair.

Vote analysis: GOP not key in McKinney loss to Majette

According to the Atlanta Journal-Consitution, no more than 3,118 of the voters in the Democratic primary vote between Denise Majette and Cynthia McKinney were Republicans. Majette won by something like six times that... McKinney's supporters, meanwhile, claim that 37,500 Republicans voted in the election. Which makes no sense, as you might expect. That's more than half the votes; what they're saying is essentially that everyone who voted for Majette is a Republican. If there were that many Republican voters in the district, then winning the Democratic nomination wouldn't be tantamount to election, would it?

After complaints, state to offer all unemployment calls toll-free

Let me get this straight: the state of Alabama wanted people who had just lost their jobs to make toll calls? And then it put them on hold?

Israel Briefly Detain Jerusalem's Chief Muslim Cleric

Well, this is weird. The Mufti of Jerusalem came out in defense of suicide bombings four months ago, and the police pick him up now? I have to assume they actually picked him up for some other reason and the interview was just an excuse.

ABCNEWS.com : False Bomb Alarm at U.S. Embassy in Paris - Police

I don't know why I bring this up, actually. It was a false alarm.

Disturbing Alabama-related Search Requests

Google Search: jeff sessions lynching

Amazon.com--Earth's Biggest Selection

Yeah, yeah, I put up some Amazon associates links. I'm a huge whore, I know.

Drug suspect says evidence was for religious study

And he's very studious. He imported three crates' worth of ayahuasca vines. Ingesting the tea made from the leaves of the plant causes hallucinations, but also heavy vomiting and diarrhea, so you know he's not doing it for fun.

Disturbing Search Requests That Will Generate Traffic

Google Search: Sarah Michelle Gellar hoax dog sex

Jeez, star in one movie with a computer-generated dog and all sorts of rumors get started.

Forbes.com: US consumer groups blame Bush for large meat recalls

I don't know if the Administration has told the USDA to back off and give meatpackers the benefit of the doubt. But it wouldn't surprise me given their attitude in other areas where the interests of ordinary citizens and those of large corporations clash. But that's what you get for voting for a Republican, not that most people did.

To be fair to Bush & Co., (oh, it hurts!) there were several meat recalls in the nineties as well, some of them pretty substantial. There were also a number of E. coli-related deaths. But I think the scale of tainted meat -- topped by Sunday's record poultry recall -- is greater than in previous years.

The Ichthypundit's Invasive Species of the Day

Chemical treatment planned to kill lake's gizzard shad

Rotenone is being applied to an Indiana lake to kill off the gizzard shad. Unlike some invasive species, this is less a problem predator and more of an aquatic rabbit. (Insert Jimmy Carter joke here.) It reproduces rapidly and eats everything in the water, leaving little for other fish.

From the Ichthypundit

500 sturgeon 'fingerlings' stock up Otsego Lake

Sure, they put little sturgeon in the lake. But little sturgeons grow up to be big sturgeons. And then, one day, they'll start leaping into boats and knocking people out.

Australia uncovers al Qaeda links to Bali blasts

Again, what do we mean by links? From everything I read, al-Qaeda has ties to terrorist groups all over the world, including Western, nominally Christian groups like the IRA and ETA. Jemaah Islamiah, the Indonesian group many suspect of the attack, is said to be linked to al-Q. But that doesn't mean that Osama's boys planned the Bali attack or even necessarily knew about it.

allAfrica.com -- East Africa: Ethiopian, Sudanese Leaders in Yemen for Talks

Because who better to bring peace to a region than the Yemenis?

TheDenverChannel.com - Seeking New Diet Foods? Try Bugs

Every so often, some sort of egghead tries to get people to eat insects. It never really takes off, but someday some group of trendy young people will take them up on it. Mark my words, we'll see widespread bugeating in our lifetimes -- for about six months. Then Time will do a cover story on it and it will go away.

Okla. Couple Wins Wife-Carry Contest

Yes, there's a national wife-carrying contest. I should point out that you don't have to be married, apparently, to participate, in that an unmarried pair of Canadians participated. I think you'd have a problem with ringers; wouldn't having a really light "wife" be an advantage?

Sources: Apple is buyer of new IBM 64-bit processor

Apple clearly needed something to make up for the clock speed problem. I don't know that a 64-bit processor is necessarily it.

ABCNEWS.com : Falwell Apologizes to Muslims

You see, when he called Muhammad a terrorist, it was all the reporter's fault. He didn't want to, but he was asked a "controversial and loaded question", so he had to respond with "I think Muhammad was a terrorist". It could happen to anyone.

Reuters AlertNet - Bin Laden hails "heroic" anti-Western attacks-TV

Not that I necessarily believe that these originate with Osama -- the man's a narcissist, why wouldn't he say it on videotape? -- but it's interesting that the Bali bombing was not mentioned. I really don't know that al-Qaeda was directly involved in that... It was a typed statement with Osama's "signature". I don't know about Arabic, but in Latin cursive, signatures can be forged pretty easily.

He says bank robbery was his retirement plan

Thomas Reinman will therefore spend his declining years in a Federal prison. He figured it was probably nicer than most nursing homes, plus it's free. He's probably right. Let's hope this doesn't catch on.

Cheap Search Requests

Google Search: indian pakistanis naked free porn

Really, with all the actual porn in the Internet, why do you wind up here?

U.S. judge to decide commandments issue

The actual issue at hand is if the ridiculous Ten Commandments monument put up in the Alabama Supreme Court building by Chief Justice Roy "Thou Shalt Not Commit False Witness" Moore is meant to promote religion. Moore says it isn't and that the Ten Commandments were a basis for the Constitution. Sigh. I've done this before, but one more time:

I am the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Moore's own actions -- tirelessly self-promoting by putting up the Commandments in his state courtroom as a local judge, immediately putting them up at the Supreme Court when he got the chance -- put the lie to his claim that he has no religious basis for his actions. Moore also takes exception to being labeled a "religious nut" by Morris Dees, but he clearly is one.

Abortion waiting period now law

Women are now required to wait until the next day to have abortions in Alabama. Originally, proponents of this bill wanted to require a nine-month waiting period, but they'll settle for this. For now.

washingtonpost.com: Serbian Election Nullified After Low Turnout

Apparently, Serbian law mandates at least 50 percent of eligible voters participate to have a valid election. Well, I guess they don't have the hang of American-style democracy after all.

Palestinian Militants Vow Revenge for Killing of Militant

Hey, that's what "militants" do. Mohammed Abayat must have been a very bad person before the pay phone blew up in his hand (Mossad is getting creative!) because the media mostly calls him a "militant". If he were only a garden variety terrorist, he'd be called an "activist", but only one site I've seen used that in relation to Abayat.

Reuters AlertNet - Bethlehem mourners attack journalists at funeral

Hey, at least they're doing something productive. Their first move was to attack the head of a human rights group, but he got away.

Our Fine Educational System At Work

Yahoo! Search Results for Iraq nucular scientist

The search was made by someone at the University of California Santa Cruz.

CNN.com - 1972 Andes crash survivors reunite - Oct. 13, 2002

Overheard:

"I know Hollywood is going to take some liberties, but Ethan Hawke?"

"Mmm, this is a good pork chop. Hey, where's Pedro?"

Today's Mean Joke

CNN.com - Historian Stephen Ambrose dies - Oct. 13, 2002

Yeah, there he goes again, copying what other people have done before.

Expert: Children need online monitoring

This comes as a great surprise to Congress, which thinks passing laws mandating nanny software will stop children from seeing bad things.

ABCNEWS.com : Bali Explosions Spur al-Qaida Fears

Well, what do we mean by "al-Qaeda"? (However you spell it.) It seems quite likely that the terrorists responsible for this massacre are linked to al-Qaeda. But that doesn't mean that Osama, or his successor, had anything to do with it. Al-Qaeda is a diffuse organization.

CNN.com - Bali death toll soars - Oct. 13, 2002

The news gets worse and worse. The death toll stands at 182, and is likely to rise. A journalist at the scene says that an entire city block was destroyed in the double explosion at the club. Bali is a popular destination for Australians; Tim Blair has several entries on the bombing. There is speculation that al-Qaeda is directly involved in this latest outrage.

Falcons notify NFL they might redesign uniforms

Yes, the Atlanta Falcons, who except for one bizarre year when they made the Super Bowl (and which I'm still not convinced I didn't imagine) have been pathetic for most of their existence, have figured out the problem -- it's the uniforms. If they ditch their black jerseys and go with red ones, they'll turn it around. Of course, they sucked in the red ones as well...

ABCNEWS.com : Zimbabwe to Tighten Media Rules

And Zimbabwe moves more and more towards absolute dictatorship. And nobody but the British seems at all interested in doing anything about it.

Gross Italian Search Requests

Cerca con Google: castration afghanistan