File this one under "Things that I didn't need a presidential commission to tell me." Turns out that--get this--the intelligence on which the invasion of Iraq was based on was dead wrong. No, really? Well, at least the commission said the damage isn't serious.

"The harm done to American credibility by our all too public intelligence failures in Iraq will take years to undo."

Oops. So what do you have to say, Shrub?

"I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others." Bush said that "the strong have a duty to protect the weak."

Unless you're mentally retarded and on death row in Texas. We know Shrub's view. Or malnourished Iraqi children who have grown in number since the invasion. Isn't freedom's sweet nectar nourishment enough?

Surely, Tom DeLay will be smart enough to stay under his rock and not insert himself in the Schiavo case any further.

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another."

You asshole! So when will the Bugman answer for taking his own father off lifesupport?

Can we now please return to more important news like Jacko's Jesus Juice and the turd burglar?

Going once, going twice.... Amazingly, the Yahoo! auction for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction is still going on. It would seem that Yahoo! is not as vigilant as eBay at hunting down evildoers. But that might be because bidding has stalled at $57 (what a bargain!!!) and hasn't yet hit $27,755. A sale like that on Yahoo! would incur a seller's fee of $144.13. I'd bet that's enough money to get someone in trouble with their significant other. All the more reason for you to get on there and make a bid. And just like the Bush administration, who's to say you have to even pay for it?!? Just tack it on to the national debt and let some other sucker worry about it.

What's that you say? Have I made a bid? No, my pretties, my legal counsel has advised me that it's in my best interest not to get too involved.

Chili not Chilly. A number of people have been getting here in the last few days looking for the Wendy's chili finger story. But rather than searching for "chili," many people are searching for "chilly." So if that's you, as a public service here are a few other things that you probably have been misspelling for years:

You're is a contraction for you are. "You're not going to believe what I found in my chili!"
Your is a possessive pronoun. "Look! I found your severed finger in my chili!"

Know is a verb indicating familiarity with or knowledge of. "I know it's not supposed to be in my chili!"
Now indicates the current moment. "Now what am I supposed to eat if I can't eat my chili?"

Roll is tricky. It can be a verb meaning a type of movement, a noun meaning some type of list, or a piece of bread. "I felt a severed finger roll around in my mouth as I bit into my roll. Roll call! Who's missing a finger?"
Role is a set of expectations attached to a status. "Isn't it your role as manager to keep severed fingers out of the chili? No? Well, nevermind then." So don't write "social roll" on an intro to sociology essay unless you're talking about an outgoing piece of bread.

Obnoxious means abhorrent, abominable, annoying, awful, beastly, big mouth, bitchy, blue, creep, crumb, cussed, detestable, disagreeable, disgusting, dislikable, displeasing, foul, funky, grody, gross, hateable, hateful, heel, horrid, insufferable, invidious, loathsome, mean, nasty, nauseating, objectionable, odious, off-color, ornery, pesky, pestiferous, pill, repellent, reprehensible, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, sickening, stinking, unpleasant. As in, "This post is quite obnoxious."

JimJeff GannonGuckert Timeline. Right here. Still lots of questions to be answered, but this is good.

¡No Mas! There will be no Enormous Omelet Sandwich challenge.

Burger King is about to thumb its nose at the food police - right at the breakfast table.

On Monday, the No. 2 fast-food chain launches its Enormous Omelet Sandwich. How enormous? For those counting: one sausage patty, two eggs, two American cheese slices and three strips of bacon. On a bun.

For those still counting, that's four layers of breakfast with 730 calories oozing 47 grams of fat. For about $2.99, depending on the market. . . .

With the Enormous Omelet Sandwich, "Burger King is going 180 degrees away from politically correct food," he says. Many young males "like that attitude and couldn't care less about nutrition." They just want to fill up - cheap.

Ask Andy Puzder. He's CEO of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., home of the 1,420-calorie Monster Thickburger. One year after the giant burger rolled out, same-store sales at the chain were up more than 7%, he says.

Why would anyone buy such a behemoth burger? That's easy, Puzder says: "Because they're good."

I'll bet that Andy Puzder hasn't tried eating three of his Thickburgers in an hour. Had he, then he wouldn't be quite so glib. They aren't good, Andy. They're bad--very, very bad.

A Very Polish Easter. airpolonia has the goods.

Tourney Pool Update. No real surprise at how Arizona choked. Right now, Juneau has slipped ahead of my Twoheaded Turtles into first place. Roanoke is still in third, Bartlesnoon is fourth followed by Fenway Slim, Izzywizzy, El Diablo, Airpolonia, Procfreak, and Mr.Tibbs' Ten Pound Balls are bringing up the rear. But really, it's down to me and Juneau in the battle for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure.

Speaking of turtles, Satan's image seen on shell of turtle that survived inferno.

Ladyfingers. Mmm...chili-covered finger....

A woman said she bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit.

That's just gross. Chili at Wendy's? You have to be out of your mind.

During my time at IHOP serving up the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity and my summer of hell at the Ground Round, my fingers were in countless numbers of people's food. Just never severed. How else do you think you check to make sure people's eggs are still warm? You gotta just dig in. And those pickles served with sandwiches? They come in a big five-gallon container, and you can guess how I would get them out and onto your plate. Up to my elbows.

Did I miss anything? Anything ridiculous been going on in the news? With the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq (and the 12th anniversary of our O.M. team getting shafted at regionals), surely the media have been focused on assessing how the current situation in Messopotamia matches up with what we were told by Bushco way back when. No? Don't miss out on bidding for your very own Iraqi WMD.

When last we spoke, I was tied for first in the NCAA tourney pool. Now I'm all alone up top. Roanoke has made a move to be in a tie for second with Juneau. El Diablo is hanging on in the fourth position but with Gonzaga out his chances are slim. Speaking of slim, Fenway Slim is still within range if Kentucky makes the Final Four and UNC wins it all.

And speaking of Fenway, thanks again to Slim and Mrs.Slim for putting me up for a couple of nights, or as my legal counsel puts it, "wasting their weekend on me." If I learned one thing from my time in Boston, it is that you really should try a frozen chocolate Charleston Chew. If I learned two things, the second is that another sociologist and I apparently look too old to be hanging out in a loud and crowded bar (why else would the waitress have repeatedly warned us that it was going to get loud and crowded and ask if we wanted the check?). Where else were we going to watch 6'3" lunkheads bopping around to Limp Rock and Kid Bizkit?

And if I learned one thing while on the Cape that would be that the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History doesn't subscribe to Creation Science Evangelism because the museum would have you believe that the Cape has been around for millions of years. Hogwash, I say.

Tourney Update and Spring Break. Currently, Izzywizzy and I are tied for first place with 18/20 correct picks, one game ahead of Juneau Fistez Moi. But with twelve more games to be played today, almost anyone could be in the lead by the end of the day.

I'm flying up to Boston today for a couple of nights before heading out to the Cape for a few days. Blogging is then likely to be sporadic for the next week. So in the meantime, you can watch the world's most amazing air drummer (via BGW). David, you'd better lock up those videos of you and your pals' airband circa 1986-1988 unless you want to join this guy and the Star Wars Kid in internet celebrity.

Or, as always, you can watch a monkey washing a cat.

Ohmigod. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Washington lawmakers continued the struggle this morning to prevent doctors in Florida from removing a feeding tube this afternoon from a severely brain-damaged woman.

In an extraordinary legislative maneuver that may pit Congress against the decisions by several courts over the last several years, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the Senate majority leader, issued a statement saying that the woman, Terri Schiavo, and her husband, Michael, were being invited to testify in a Congressional inquiry into the matter later this month.

The statement pointed out that Federal law protects witnesses called before Congress "from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness's attendance or testimony."

I'm too young to be yelling at kids. Yesterday afternoon, I was just sitting on the couch, doing a little reading, watching basketball, minding my own business when there is a knock at the door. I open the door, and there is some kid, probably about 9 or 10 years old, and he asks, "Do you like my elf costume?" That's it. That's his question. And he isn't even wearing an elf costume. He just has some green facepaint. So I say, "Sure, that's great," and then close the door before the kid tries to engage me in any further conversation.

I sit back down, and a minute or two later, there's another knock at the door. I open it, and sure enough, it's elf-boy again. This time he asks, "Are you Adam Sandler?" To which I answer in my best stern-adult voice, "You know, you really shouldn't be going around knocking on people's doors who you don't know." As he walked away, still grinning, I say, "Do you have a question about that? Is that clear?" And that was that. What I really wanted to say to the kid was, "You don't know me. You don't know that I'm not going to pull you into my apartment, hack you up into little pieces in the bathtub, and then dump your body in the woods. And nobody would ever know." But I didn't suppose that would be the best reaction.

Two things here.
1. So this is what I've been reduced to? Yelling at the neighborhood kids? I'm not that old yet, dammit.
2. I do not look like Adam fucking Sandler. If he'd asked if I was Guy Pearce, that would make more sense. This isn't the first time that the Adam Sandler comparison has been made. I don't get get it. He has short dark hair; I have short dark hair. That's it. My legal counsel advised me, "Maybe he thought you were Adam Sandler because you don't work and just sit around all day like the characters in his movies." Oh, she's funny. She also pointed out that the facepaint was most likely for St.Patty's Day, and he probably meant to ask what I thought of his leprechaun outfit. Whatever. Either way, his costume was totally lame.

Kudos to me though for keeping my cool and not screaming obscenities at the kid like I did another time when some teenagers came by trying to sell magazines (they started it).

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance! Brackets are locked, and the tournament has begun. Of the ten entries into our group, UNC is the most popular pick to win with four people selecting them (Boston Fenway Slim; Juneau Fistez Moi; Roanoke Kbreene; New York Procfreak); two for Illinois to win (Twoheaded Turtles; Izzwizzy), and one each for Connecticut (Poland Airpolonia), Georgia Tech (Mr.Tibbs' 10 lb. Balls), Duke (Bartlesnoon), and Gonzaga (El Diablo de Sociologia). The most popular pick for the finals is an Illinois-UNC match-up.

Some other observations: Six of us have Illinois in the finals, but only two think they'll win. Everyone but El Diablo has at least one and up to three ACC teams in the Final Four. The lowest-seeded teams anyone put in the Elite Eight are Utah (Procfreak) and Pacific (Izzywizzy). Airpolonia is going to get burned for taking Arizona to the finals. The way to determine how far to take Zona is to ask how far you think they could go, and then have them lose the round before that. Procfreak and Fenway Slim have the anti-underdog brackets with two 8-9 games their only upsets in the first round. The most popular 5-12 upset pick is ODU over Michigan State. And I'll take the "Worst Decision" award for taking Vermont to the Sweet 16. Go Catamounts!

Happy St.Patty's Day. From the Despair.com calendar, "Why not better acquaint yourself with Irish culture and folklore today by renting Leprechaun 4: In Space ?" Or pour yourself a bowl of Lucky Charms. They're magically delicious.

You still have a little over an hour to get in on the action of the ESPN NCAA tournament challenge (see post below). Ten entries as of now competing for the coveted Donatello action figure.

I'm listening to the Congressional hearing on steroids in baseball. I'm relieved that there isn't anything else more important going on in the world for these fools to be concerned about.

He loves me...he loves my caribou. Oillllll!!!!!!! Republicans gave the oil industry a big sloppy kiss today while giving the finger to sensible energy policy in voting to drill for oil in Alaska:

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.

Of course, this will do absofuckinglutely nothing to affect gasoline prices. In fact, drilling won't even begin until 2014 at the earliest. And at its peak, it will produce 1 million barrels a day--meaning that until it hits peak, and after it hits peak, it will produce quite a bit less. But who cares, right? Professional athletes might be taking steroids!

Kudos to whoever can answer where "He loves me...he loves my caribou" comes from. And no googling.

Propane and propane accessories. Everyone's favorite war profiteer, Halliburton, is back in the news. Seems that they charged you and me $27.5 million for transporting $82K worth of propane from Kuwait.

In college, we had a propane space heater for a two-story, poorly insulated house that we shared with the squirrels that lived in the attic before moving into living area. There weren't any ducts to carry the heat throughout the house, so the system worked on the principle of heat rising. The tank for the heater cost $125 to fill, and if we would have left it on just during waking hours, it would have lasted a week at most. Consequently, we made the shift to electric space heaters which jacked up the electric bill, but with four of us, it wasn't too unreasonable. The house was still fairly chilly though, resulting in scenes like this one with me sitting on the floor in front of a space heater while eating a tub of vanilla cake icing.

I swear, Coco looks preggers. But it's just because she has a small head and short legs. She loves lying in this box. You can see that Tibbs has torn apart the sides for no other reason than to be a dick.

Because I have nothing else to offer right now, here's a picture of Tibbs in a grapefruit box.

"Frah-jee-lay...it must be Italian" Here's what you're playing for if you join up for the NCAA Tournament Challenge (see post below). Why, it's a major award!



It's Don, the Undercover Turtle sans accessories. This could be all yours. So go ahead and fill out a bracket, dammit!

March Madness. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is on its way, and in an effort to coordinate and maximize the amount of time that we waste together here, I've set up a group on ESPN's Tournament Challenge. First, you need to go here and register for a free ESPN account if you don't have one already. Next, you'll need to join our little group--search for the group name "Your Logo Here." The password to join the group is "blog". Tell your friends. Tell your enemies.

Brackets will be available to fill out online on Sunday the 13th, and all selections must be made before 12:00 Thursday the 17th.

Now, as my legal counsel would surely advise me, unregulated gambling is illegal in these parts, and so it would be unwise to organize anything involving money on this blog. And I'm not exactly sure how I would go about the collection and distribution of winnings based on a $5 participation donation for a winner-takes-all system--but, that's illegal, so why bother trying to figure out how PayPal could be integral in such a plan.

But I could offer up some other sort of prize to the winner...why, it could be a major award!

Making the grade. Alan makes mention of what a pain in the ass grading can be and the tendency students have to turn in first drafts of papers. I would be happy if some students would just take the time to hit "F7" and do the most cursory spellchecking. But even then, the kids are leaving themselves open to mistakes where they misspell their intended words but inadvertently spell something else correctly. The most frequent case of this is where a student intends to say "definitely" but instead types "defiantly." For example, a student may write, "I defiantly agree with the author's argument that blah blah blah." I like to imagine the student standing up straight, fist in the air, jaw clenched, then loudly proclaiming agreement with the author before throwing a brick through a storefront window.

My favorite example of spellcheck letting down a student was a student paper on religious rituals. Instead of typing "religious hymns," the student typed "religious hymens." That, I believe, is something entirely different.

Jurassic Farce. Following on David's post regarding fundies, did you know that the earth is only 6000 years old? Betcha didn't know that the universe was literally created in six days--just 144 hours. And the reason that God made Adam before Eve was because God "didn't want any advice on how to do it"? If you attended the Creation Science Evangelism lecture in Salem, Va., then you would know all these things and more! These are the people who helped reelect Shrub. These are the people who believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted:

Dinosaurs were made the sixth day with the rest of the animals. Noah took them on the ark (probably young ones). They have always lived with man. After the flood many died from the climate changes and from man's hunting. They were called dragons for many centuries. (The word dinosaur was just invented in 1841.) A few small dinosaurs may still be alive today in remote parts of the world.

And at the lecture, Kent Hovind, ringleader of this attempt to overturn centuries of scientific enlightenment, had this advice for the kids--when their teacher says that something happened millions of years ago, Hovind says, "Kids, ask your teacher, 'Were you there?'"

I get frustrated by students who refuse to acknowledge that we have structural inequalities in our society that consistently advantage some groups over others. I wouldn't even know where to begin with a kid arguing that "The Flintstones" is an accurate description of prehistoric times.

Eat the poor. If that isn't the plan, then what else could explain this crap?

The House and Senate Budget committees will unveil fiscal blueprints today that pave the way for additional tax relief while seeking billions in spending cuts that target Medicaid, farm assistance, major weapons systems and just about every other domestic program.

Offsetting tax breaks mostly for the affluent with spending cuts that could hurt the poor could be politically risky, particularly in the Senate, where moderate Republicans have already warned that the juxtaposition may be untenable.

So, so many things wrong in those two short paragraphs. First off, it's not tax "relief" when it's mainly going to the uber-rich. Things like cuts on taxes for "capital gains" and "dividends" aren't helping out you or me. And it's a little ironic in an Alanis Morissette kind of way that those cuts in farm subsidies are targeted disproportionately at red states (i.e. because in the end, everyone gets fucked under the Bush plan, so this was to be expected, thus not ironic). Cutting major weapons systems? Isn't that the kind of sissy thing that made John Kerry unsuitable to be the prez? And thank god the GOP has the courage to take on special interest groups such as students, the elderly, children, and the poor by cutting other domestic programs.

Also, the spending cuts do not offest the tax giveaways. It's the tax cuts fueling the deficit. And it's not "politically risky." It's just wrong.

Then we have the bankruptcy bill which will help nobody except the credit card industry, and that's a very bad, bad thing. When it comes time to build the debtors prisons, Halliburton will receive the no-bid contracts, Rummy will be named Warden, Alberto Gonzales will be in charge of the hacks, and Condi will strike the Lynndie England pose in front of the naked pyramid of senior citizens who couldn't pay off their medical bills. And for a few cartons of cigarettes, adulterer Neil Bush will sneak in the prostitutes that he slept with in Thailand.

Told you so. According to these poll results, a majority of Murkans say that Shrub's spending priorities are out of line with their own:

The American people would like to significantly change next year's federal budget, reversing key proposals by the administration of President George W. Bush, according to a new poll....

Republican and Democratic poll participants alike would take the budget axe to spending on defense and on Iraq and Afghanistan, plowing more funds into education, job training, veterans, and reducing U.S. reliance on oil, the poll found....

Some 63 percent of respondents said they favored rolling back tax cuts for people with incomes in excess of $200,000.

If only our system of government had some mechanism that would allow the public to change leaders to someone whose priorities are more in line with their own. Some sort of a regularly occurring contest in which people could choose one person over another.

Nothing to see here. So in the meantime, check out the new blog on the block, Axis of Evel Knievel.

Don't expect much more today. I have some work to do.

Did you know that former FCC Chairman Michael Powell is on American Idol this year? It's true.

Son of a bitch! This is so uncalled for. Return of the Backstreet Boys:

Backstreet's back, all right! The Backstreet Boys whose hits such as "Everybody" and "As Long As You Love Me" catapulted them into popster superstardom in the '90s, are ready to stage a comeback.

The megaselling quintet announced plans to play a string of U.S. club dates starting Mar. 21 in New York in preparation for the release of their as-yet untitled upcoming studio album in July--their first album since 2000's Black and Blue.

Just the other day, I thought to myself, "Wow, it sure is nice that both 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys have both gone far away." What more could they possibly have to offer the world? I remember when I was across the pond back in 1997 courtesy of the Monroe Scholar summer research grant, a.k.a. Let's Go Europe!, and I saw in the stores of London loads of merchandise for the Backstreet Boys. This was before they hit it big back home, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before their skeevy faces would be all over American television. And so I rejoiced when they eventually went away and took their syrupy music and assorted facial hair with them. But I guess that boy bands are just the herpes of the music world.

Also today, it was announced that Alanis Morissette will release an acoustic version of "Jagged Little Pill" to mark it's ten year anniversary, thus insuring the continued misapplication of the term "ironic." Oh, and this aspect of the story is just rich:

[The album] will initially be sold only at Starbucks' 4,500 North American outlets for a six-week exclusive period, after which it will hit traditional retail outlets on July 26.

Nothing says grrrl power like Starbucks.

What's next? A Creed reunion down at the local Chipotle? Shudder the thought.

Swiss meatballs. Does anyone know what the recidivism rate is for Switzerland? I looked on the internets and am not having much luck.

Why do I want to know the Swiss recidivism rate? Cuz in discussion section this morning, I said that the U.S. rate is round-abouts 70%. And then somebody said, "Yeah, but what's the recidivism rate for Switzerland?" So I promised to find out.

And so here we are.

Police state. From Salon's War Room on Shrub's plans for schools:

President Bush's main solution to school violence has been to install more guards at dangerous school entrances. A report produced in February by the Democratic members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce takes Bush's proposed FY 2006 budget to task for eliminating all funding for the Safe and Drug Free Schools program, which was designed to combat violence and underage drug use. The budget also freezes funding for the main federal afterschool program, effectively preventing 1.7 million children from taking part.

The thing is, school violence has been on a downward trend since 1992. Fewer students have been victims of violent crimes, and more students report feeling safe at school. Simply adding more guards while cutting funding for after school programs is not the best way to further reduce the level of violence. Especially since kids are far more likely to be victimized away from school than at school.

Words of wisdom. Ashlee Simpson's words of wisdom for today:

It's just like so annoying when you're just trying to live your life, and you have cameras following you around.

Yes, that was Ashlee Simpson narrating during her show, "The Ashlee Simpson Show," in which cameras follow her around while she lives her life. She's punk, you know.

Naughty. Ass cowboy. Ass man. Bad ass. Ball sack. Barf face. Bazongas. Cockknob. Dickweed. Floggin the dolphin. Jesus Christ. Honkey. Lovebone. Pimp. Satan. Sexy Bitch.

What do all these words have in common? They're among the 1121 words on the NFL Shop list of "naughty" words. But it appears that if you want, you can get a personalized jersey that says Fuck Bush.

The Arizona state legislature is full of crazy ideas. A while back, The Daily Show did a segment on a person in the Arizona state Congress who was pushing for a bill that would allow people to bring concealed firearms into bars. Turns out, some are still pushing for that piece of legislation and more:

PHOENIX -- The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to let people carry weapons -- including guns, grenades, rockets, mines and sawed-off shotguns -- into schools, polling places and nuclear plants if they claim they're only trying to protect themselves.
The vote on the legislation came even after Rep. Ben Miranda, D-Phoenix, pointed out it even would bar prosecution of those who want to bring a weapon into the House or Senate. Despite that, lawmakers gave it preliminary approval on a 30-16 margin.

Brilliant!

All drunks are welcome. Procfreak reports that's the new motto for Shrub's faith-based funding itiative. Speaking to the leaders of his "armies of compassion," Shrub sez:

If you're the Methodist church and you sponsor an alcohol treatment center, they can't say only Methodists, only Methodists who drink too much can come to our program. "All drunks are welcome", is what the sign ought to say.

Smooth operator. Such a strong grasp of the relevant issues. Also today, several other government agencies unveiled their new slogans.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives: Your momma warned you about us.
Justice Department: Suck it.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Check yo'self before you wreck yo'self.
Department of Homeland Security: Boo!
Department of Education: Skool is kool.
Disability Employment Policy Office: Cripples are people, too.

Shrub's talk about "armies of compassion" always creeps me out. From there, it's a short distance to jihad and crusade. But it's not like the mixing of religious and militaristic themes has ever proved problematic throughout the course of history.

Amazing. Anne reminds us that The Amazing Race premieres tonight. Huzzah. Perusing the team profiles, there seem to be a lot of people from Los Angeles and...Ohio? Nobody is labelled as being a model this season, and there is only one actor. And of the 11 teams, there are a whole lotta white people. The two African-Americans in the race have an intersting background--he worked for Enron, she worked for WorldCom. And the sooner that Rob and Amber from "Survivor" exit, the better.

(all caveats apply regarding the inherently evil tendencies of reality television)

March? Seems like just yesterday it was February.

My dad got us a 2005 calendar from Despair, Inc. the makers of demotivational products. The theme for March is Procrastination.


From January:


And for February: