Coming in July

"According to the rules the minimum weight of the wife is 49 kilos. If it is less, the wife will be burdened with such a heavy rucksack that the total weight is 49 kilos. Generally the best wife is the wife of one’s own, all the more if she is harmonious, gentle and able to keep her balance while riding on the shoulders of her man."

Less than six months to go to the 13th Annual Wife Carrying World Championships.

But Boy Can She Cook

The Times Herald-Record (think north of New York) reports from Port Jervis: "A Port Jervis woman faces felony bigamy charges for being married to four men at the same time, police say."

We Are Unable to Recall

. . . what life could possibly have been like before cheap personal computers, digital video, and the interwebs to bring it all together.

We Provide the Material

You provide the jokes: Kathleen Sebelius is the governor of Kansas. Last night, she delivered the Demo's response to the State of the Union, so she's not just some random person who failed to step back when somebody called for volunteers to govern the sunflower state. She is apparently set to endorse that guy who's primary qualification for office is that he's not Hillary.

Governor Sebelius has a son, age 23, who lives at home (which, in this instance, means in the governor's mansion). Said Sebelius son is selling a new board game, called "Don't Drop The Soap."

Could we make that up? Well, we probably could, but we haven't.

Pardon Me, But Have We Met?

"Isabel had in the depths of her nature an . . . unquenchable desire to please . . . ; but the depths of this young lady’s nature were a very out-of-the-way place, between which and the surface communication was interrupted by a dozen capricious forces. She saw the young men who came in large numbers to see her sister; but as a general thing they were afraid of her; they had a belief that some special preparation was required for talking to her. Her reputation of reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult questions, and to keep the conversation at a low temperature."

Henry James, "The Portrait of a Lady"

Anti-Islamic Activity

You just can't make this stuff up.

Automated Reply

Please do not reply to this address, as it is unattended. Your east-coast proprietor has embarked on a mission of mercy, and will return next week. Your west-coast proprietor appears to be speechless.

Financial Advice

The stock market is stroking out. Your house is worth less than you owe on your mortgage. You can't decide what kind of new credit card to apply for so you can transfer your balance from your 19% APR VISA. In these troubled financial times, the crack economic staff of G&S would like to help out:



H/T to Miss Julie.

Conjugal Harmony

Sounds like true love:

Imagine having a wife who is always glad to see you, never cheats or stays out all night, and who rocks your ever-loving world twice a month with a pent-up vengeance you haven't felt since college. Now imagine she never takes your credit cards, doesn't spend all day talking to her mother, and never knows if you're out with friends or sleeping around.

There are church socials, college mixers, frat parties, singles bars, on-line dating, and now there's this:

ConjugalHarmony.com is the oldest, most trusted name in conjugal dating. Since our humble beginnings in 1999 in a small, single room office in Englewood, California, to today, with a staff of more than twenty and offices in every state that permits conjugal visits. Our name is not just what we do, but it's who we are.

Whether you're in California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York or Washington State, we can find just the right inmate for just the right marriage for just the amount of time you're willing to dedicate.

We will leave it to our dedicated band of online researchers to ferret out whether this is a joke or not.

With Conjugal Harmony, we take out the guess work. You don't have to hire a private detective to know where your spouse is, who they're hanging out with, or ever wonder if you're being cheated on. By marrying a convict inside the prison system you can rest easy knowing that the state is looking out for you, and that you will be free of the nagging, shopping trips and extra-marital oversight so stifling to your relationship.

And this novel structure may be viewed not as a stumbling block, but as an opportunity:

All states within the country have laws prohibiting polygamy, but there is not a national registry that tracks such things. In theory, one could have an incarcerated spouse in all six of the states that permit conjugal visits, as well as one or more additional spouses who are not in the prison system. Such behavior would be highly unethical, moderately illegal, and recommended only to interstate truckers, airline staff, and those who have the ability to fully reap the benefits of such an arrangement. While we can not endorse such behavior, we would not be aware of it unless you told us it was the case, and we'd have to recommend you only select one of our Lifer packages in order to insure that none of them would be released unexpectedly.

You can even browse their lineup of potential spouses. "ChestyHeavens", for example, had me at "beat up":

I beat up this bitch cop with my bare knuckles and she died so I'm done for life. Lets chat!

You'll not want to miss ConjugalHarmony.com.

A Sobering Thought

The scales have fallen from Stephen Green's eyes:

It just occurred to me that one of these jokers — Clinton, McCain, Obama or Romney — is going to be the next President. It’s almost enough to make one pine for the old days of Bush v Gore.

Interesting

First there was the dust-up surrounding the bizarre Tom Cruise Scientology video, which the church did everything in its power to suppress. Now, a group calling itself "Anonymous" has declared cyber war on David Miscavige and the other heirs to L. Ron's massive joke on the suits.

Story HERE, video right here:

Excuse Me?

What do you suppose an "ex-suspect" is? Someone once "suspected" of something (oh, say, a crime, for example), who is no longer "suspected" of committing that crime. Not being a "suspect" may not be quite the same thing as being innocent, but it's a step in the right direction.

But English -- she is the slippery language, no? Oh, yes!

Back From Fauquier -- But Why?

 

Bill (Apparently) Had A Dream As Well

When You Hear The Tone

. . . please leave a message. Your east-coast proprietor has decamped to the wilds of Fauquier County, far from high-speed access to the interwebs.

Once upon a time, he marveled at the cutting edge technology that permitted him to watch as each individual character appeared on the screen, and a line of text might take a few seconds.

In green, of course.

Nightly packets of information were exchanged between nodes of WWIV, all via copper wire and dial-up modems. We were P2P before it was cool.

No longer. We have advanced to the point that technology incomprehensibly faster, dazzlingly superior, is too clumsy to endure.

Onward and upward.

Monsters Among Us

"Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets."

Certainly you'd not want your daughter to marry one. More from Iowahawk.

Progress

We believe ourselves on safe ground in suggesting that any vector beginning here:




and terminating here:



represents progress. Revolutionary progress.

But for those with a more technical bent, we direct your attention to a more detailed review of the various Terminator models, presented by Popular Mechanics, no less. And, yes, of course we had noticed the blue eyes. Sheesh.

How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?

From the indispensable Charles Krauthammer:

Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done. — Hillary Clinton, Jan. 7

So she said. And then a fight broke out. That remarkable eruption of racial sensitivities and racial charges lacked coherence, however, because the public argument was about history rather than what was truly offensive — the implied analogy to today.

[SNIP]

Forty years ago, that arrangement — white president enacting African-American dreams — was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement — white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty — is a demeaning anachronism. That's what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

The King-Johnson analogy is dead because the times are radically different. Today an African-American can be in a position to wield the emancipation pen — and everything else that goes along with the presidency: from making foreign policy to renting out the Lincoln Bedroom (if one is so inclined). Why should African-American dreams still have to go through white liberals?

We Surf The Web . . . .

. . . . so you don't have to.

Here's today's quiz. Which of the following headlines is real, and which have we made up?

Woman Catches Fire During Hemorrhoid Operation

Sex Bomb Gives Off Bad Vibrations

Army Castrates Heraldic Lion

Yes. You guessed it.

Not Funny

It has been said (at least of the baby boomers) that the true test of being an intellectual was the ability to listen to the "William Tell Overture" without thinking of "The Lone Ranger." Sorry, pal, not this cowboy.

In the same vein, let's see just how much of a grownup you are. Watch this news report without laughing.

Never Saw That One Coming

Blindsided: "We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of The Astrological Magazine will cease with the December 2007 issue."

Fred's New Ad in South Carolina

Mr. Hitchens Little Kittens

"Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security . . . ."

Christopher Hitchens reminds us once again that we are ever so glad that he does not know our name, nor otherwise take the slightest interest in us. Don't miss: "The Case Against Hillary Clinton -- Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?"



[UPDATE - 12:30 p.m.] We are aghast at the cultural ignorance of many of our readers. Who attacks with more ferocity than Mr. Hitchens? This quality put us in mind of the psychotic mink constituting Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. Good God. What are we to do with you people?

True Love

Further to our post respecting the then-impending premier of the television series "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." We have now viewed the initial episode (the second is to be broadcast tonight). For a most excellent recap and commentary, see HERE.

Speaking strictly for ourselves, we are in love.

The Twilight Zone

Apparently even the reality-challenged editors at the New York Times have begun to realize that we're now winning the war in Iraq. How can we tell? Because they're tacking to windward.

Instead of filling their front page with bad news, while hiding the good back with the truss ads, they are now publishing a series (no less) on troops returning home. Not troops who return from combat to open a daycare center; not veterans who run for office; not soldiers returning to their loved ones: but troops who return and commit murder:

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

The Times, you see, has uncovered a previously unknown fact -- veterans (unlike the rest of us) sometimes commit crimes, or engage in other dangerous behavior. Perhaps after this series, we will be favored with further revelatory tales documenting tax evasion, salad bar grazing, double parking and elevator flatulence.

There is, of course, no story at all if veterans, as a group, commit no greater number of crimes than a similar number of Americans of the same age. Thus, the lede should be something like, "Veterans Murder at Twice National Rate." But it's not, of course, and you'll strain your eyes in vain searching in the Times for any such statistical analysis. This fellow has taken a stab at it, but I'm not entirely sure that he's closed the deal.

Times story HERE.

[UPDATE] More comment HERE, HERE and HERE.

NetBot Trash News

Somewhere out there is a clever 14-year-old, looking for something to do in his spare time. Here's our suggestion: Create a web-bot that trolls gossip news sites, tallies the top 10 words used, and then feeds those lists to another program that strings together the words, generating apparently real stories.

For example: Britney Spears, marry, paparazzi, court, and Scientology might be used to concoct a random (but nonetheless interesting and credible) story like:

Britney Spears has told family and friends she intends to marry her paparazzo lover Adnan Ghalib in a Scientology marriage ceremony.

The troubled singer, 26, phoned an aide with the news from a beach in Mexico, where she fled by private jet with Ghalib, 35, last week.

She is due to appear before a Los Angeles court tomorrow for the continuing battle over custody of her children.

Oh, WAIT.

Football

The way God intended it:

And the Winner Is

From yesterday's Washington Post:

NORFOLK, Jan. 11 -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson is considering making an offer for the Virginian-Pilot, a daily newspaper he has criticized for its coverage of him.

Because you're reading about this here, we know you're wondering if we intend to treat this seriously, and launch into an examination of the implications of a religious owner on the content of a newspaper, or the censorship angle, inasmuch as the paper has apparently published uncomplimentary articles about Brother Pat.

Of course not.

Instead, we wonder if Reverend Robertson proposes to retain the name of the newspaper, or will he modify it to reflect its new ownership. May we suggest:

The Virginian-God-is-My-Co-Pilot;
The Virgin-Mary-Pilot;
NRO weighs in with: Pontius Pilot

Free the Costumed Bandit

In our opinion, criminals whose activities are adequately clever, inventive and amusing should be rewarded for their contributions to making the world a more interesting place. Further to this notion, today's Washington Post reports:

Two Washington area banks turned over more than $850,000 in less than 24 hours this week to someone who impersonated a cash courier and claimed to be filling in for the regular guys.

On Wednesday, a man dressed as an armored truck employee with the company AT Systems walked into a BB&T bank in Wheaton about 11 a.m., was handed more than $500,000 in cash and walked out, a source familiar with the case said.

It wasn't until the actual AT Systems employees arrived at the bank, at 11501 Georgia Ave., the next day that bank officials realized they'd been had. "When the real security guards showed up is when it became known," said Richard Wolf, a spokesman with the FBI's Baltimore division.

Montgomery County police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said: "The bank employees knew this was not an individual they had dealt with before. The explanation that was provided was that he was a substitute for the regular courier, who was on leave."

And on Thursday, about 9:30 a.m., a man dressed as an employee of the security company Brink's walked into a Wachovia branch in downtown Washington and walked out with more than $350,000.

The man had a badge and a gun holster on his belt, said Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office. He told officials at the bank, at 801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, that he was filling in for the regular courier.

About 4 p.m., when the real guard showed up, a bank official told him that someone had picked up the cash, D.C. police said. The guard returned to his office and told a supervisor that he did not make the pickup at the bank. The supervisor called a Wachovia manager, who in turn notified authorities. Police were called nearly 11 hours after the heist.

"It's just an incredibly brazen act," Weierman said.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said last night that investigators were reviewing surveillance video from the banks in an effort to identify the robber and determine whether the same man committed both heists.

Officials at each bank and with law enforcement declined to describe the security protocols that cash couriers follow. Authorities are investigating whether any rules were violated.

It seems to us that any description of "the security protocols that cash couriers" followed in this instance would not consume a very great amount of time.

Bravo, gentlemen! Bravo!

Our Respect for Brooks Brothers

. . . is considerable. While the width of the lapels on men's jackets expanded and contracted wildly between the 1930s and the 1970s, those on Brooks Brothers' suits were modified by no more than 1/4 inch. Similarly, as neckties expanded to the size of dinner napkins, and shrank to resemble dental floss, BB's neck fashions changed hardly at all. Particularly in the late 1970s, when men wore bell-bottomed pants dragging on the ground, the correct break (very slight) of Brooks Brothers trousers could be spotted across a courtroom. (Trust me.)

That being said, what the heck is THIS? That jacket is way too tight, no?

Law Enforcement Tales

Some number of FBI wiretaps -- including at least one undertaken pursuant to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation -- were recently halted. Because you're reading about it here, you know which multiple you should choice:

A. A new interpretation of applicable Supreme Court decisions;

B. The targets of the investigations were apprehended;

C. It was determined that too much collateral information was being collected, thus violating citizens' privacy rights;

D. The Department of Justice forgot to pay the fracking telephone bill.

Yes, you guessed it.

Speaking of Tough Girls

We confess to having a certain level of affection for Summer Glau as River Tam in Serenity and Firefly.



We simply cannot resist a young woman capable of high-kicking bad guys in the chin.

Do we have sufficient cause, therefore, to believe that "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," starring the selfsame Ms. Glau, playing more or less the same character (which show premieres Sunday, with a followup episode Monday), will turn out well? Perhaps.

It could hardly get worse . . .

. . . . than to be spotted at a brothel by your wife. Could it? It could.

Indeed

And, Speaking of Fracking . . . .

It's only gratuitous if I say so.

Drop a Frackin' HOUSE on Her!

It appears that Obama and Hilly will finish neck and neck. Mr. Green opines:

And Hillary is ahead of Obama? By four points? I’m telling you, you’ve got to run a steak through the heart, separate the head from the body, burn the remains and scatter the ashes in heavy winds if you want to put a Clinton down for good.

And, just for the record, I think he means a "steak."

We Need Guns. LOTS of Guns.

Even I couldn't make THIS up.

And, for the culturally deprived (such as those unfamiliar with The O.C. Canon), please refer HERE.

In a Nutshell

Here's all you need to know about the results from the Iowa caucuses:

Fred Thompson came in third for the Republicans, ahead of McCain and way ahead of Giuliani. New Hampshire and South Carolina are more conservative than Iowa. Fred is more conservative than Mitt, and no major party is going to nominate a Baptist minister for president.

On the Democrat side, in a state with no black people Barack Obama slugs Hilly. Team Clinton had best have a plan. I'll bet they do. I'll bet it works. I'll bet it won't be pretty.

You Mean You Don't Have One?

A battery-powered grease gun. A must-have item, particularly at these favorable, post-holiday, price discounts. Personally, I've never heard of such a thing, and fondly recall the days of my youth spent with lever-operated grease-gun in hand, crawling around various tractors and associated species of farm implements greasing away. I consider that the hours I spent with a grease gun in my hand were golden. Help you cultivate horse sense. And a cool head and a keen eye.

Cindy Sheehan Can Go To . . . .

. . . Caracas. Violent civilian deaths in Venezuela -- presided over by friend of the people Hugo Chavez -- running at roughly twice the rate of civilian casualties in Iraq. More HERE.

D. B. Cooper

This is one of those things that haunts my imagination, the way some people fantasize about winning the lottery. Imagine hijacking an airliner, demanding and receiving $200,000 in ransom, and then parachuting out of the plane and vanishing into the woods in Washington State. More than 35 years later, it remains the FBI's only open hijacking case. But the Washington Post reports that there's new activity. And HERE's the FBI's release.

The Five Minute University

Father Guido Sarducci sets out what you will remember from college five years after graduation:

New Years Day - 2008

Of some things, we may be certain. John Tierney greets the new year:

I’d like to wish you a happy New Year, but I’m afraid I have a different sort of prediction.

You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.

Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.

But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”