(Two-legged) Crocodile ancestor found in New York museum storage

I'm not sure what's more interesting about this story: that there was a two-legged crocodile that predated an extremely similar dinosaur by 80 million years, or that the basement of New York's American Museum of Natural History is so full of artifacts that things like this can sit there for 60 years before someone realizes it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A toothless, two-legged crocodile ancestor that walked upright and had a beak instead of teeth was discovered in the basement of New York's American Museum of Natural History, according to a report published on Wednesday.

The 210 million-year-old fossil had sat in storage at the museum for nearly 60 years and was found only by accident, the paleontologists said.

The animal is interesting because it closely resembles a completely unrelated dinosaur called an ostrich dinosaur that lived 80 million years later, they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British science journal.

"A lot of people, from seeing (the film) Jurassic Park know what an ostrich dinosaur looked like," said museum curator Mark Norell. "This is a case of convergence with the ostrich dinosaur. It evolved more than once."

The six-foot-long (2-meter) fossil is an archosaur, an extinct type of animal that includes the ancestors of dinosaurs, crocodilians and birds. It lived in what is now New Mexico, in the U.S. southwest.

It was discovered in blocks of rock from the Ghost Ranch Quarry that were excavated in 1947 and 1948.
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Effigia is closely related to an ancient group of reptiles called crocodilians, which includes today's crocodiles and alligators. It was not a dinosaur.
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Its skull and skeleton were very similar to those of ostrich dinosaurs, with a beak, a long tail, and two-legged stance. Its ankle, however, shows its relationship to crocodilians.
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It could be, they said, that animals like Effigia dominated what are now the Americas, and that dinosaur evolution only took off after Effigia went extinct, leaving a niche.

Searching the storage rooms of museums often turns up treasures such as these, Norell said.

"Something that people often don't realize is that after you collect, it sometimes takes thousands of hours to remove the stuff from the cast for analysis," he said.

"Museums like ours are giant libraries of stuff."

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!

(Why the hell is the little dancing guy a banana?)

Futurama's brain slugs are here!

OK, they're only thought-influencing brain parasites, but still.

The Return of the Puppet Masters

Are brain parasites altering the personalities of three billion people? The question emerged a few years ago, and it shows no signs of going away.

I first encountered this idea while working on my book Parasite Rex. I was investigating the remarkable ability parasites have to manipulate the behavior of their hosts. The lancet fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum, for example, forces its ant host to clamp itself to the tip of grass blades, where a grazing mammal might eat it. It's in the fluke's interest to get eaten, because only by getting into the gut of a sheep or some other grazer can it complete its life cycle. Another fluke, Euhaplorchis californiensis, causes infected fish to shimmy and jump, greatly increasing the chance that wading birds will grab them.

Those parasites were weird enough, but then I got to know Toxoplasma gondii. This single-celled parasite lives in the guts of cats, sheddding eggs that can be picked up by rats and other animals that can just so happen be eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts throughout its intermediate host's body, including the brain. And yet a Toxoplasma-ridden rat is perfectly healthy. That makes good sense for the parasite, since a cat would not be particularly interested in eating a dead rat. But scientists at Oxford discovered that the parasite changes the rats in one subtle but vital way.

The scientists studied the rats in a six-foot by six-foot outdoor enclosure. They used bricks to turn it into a maze of paths and cells. In each corner of the enclosure they put a nest box along with a bowl of food and water. On each the nests they added a few drops of a particular odor. On one they added the scent of fresh straw bedding, on another the bedding from a rat's nests, on another the scent of rabbit urine, on another, the urine of a cat. When they set healthy rats loose in the enclosure, the animals rooted around curiously and investigated the nests. But when they came across the cat odor, they shied away and never returned to that corner. This was no surprise: the odor of a cat triggers a sudden shift in the chemistry of rat brains that brings on intense anxiety. (When researchers test anti-anxiety drugs on rats, they use a whiff of cat urine to make them panic.) The anxiety attack made the healthy rats shy away from the odor and in general makes them leery of investigating new things. Better to lie low and stay alive.

Then the researchers put Toxoplasma-carrying rats in the enclosure. Rats carrying the parasite are for the most part indistinguishable from healthy ones. They can compete for mates just as well and have no trouble feeding themselves. The only difference, the researchers found, is that they are more likely to get themselves killed. The scent of a cat in the enclosure didn't make them anxious, and they went about their business as if nothing was bothering them. They would explore around the odor at least as often as they did anywhere else in the enclosure. In some cases, they even took a special interest in the spot and came back to it over and over again.

The scientists speculated that Toxoplasma was secreted some substance that was altering the patterns of brain activity in the rats. This manipulation likely evolved through natural selection, since parasites that were more likely to end up in cats would leave more offpsring.

The Oxford scientists knew that humans can be hosts to Toxoplasma, too. People can become infected by its eggs by handling soil or kitty litter. For most people, the infection causes no harm. Only if a person's immune system is weak does Toxoplasma grow uncontrollably. That's why pregnant women are advised not to handle kitty litter, and why toxoplasmosis is a serious risk for people with AIDS. Otherwise, the parasite lives quietly in people's bodies (and brains). It's estimated that about half of all people on Earth are infected with Toxoplasma.
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Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.

Protect yourself from the sun, poison youself with seafood

Study finds suntan oil is present on our tables

Suntan oil, which can change the sex of fish, is present in our food and drinking water. The Independent website has reported that experts have discovered male hornyhead turbot and English sole feeding next to sewage on the Californian coast. Both species are undergoing gender transformation into females and a chemical identified in sunscreens is being held responsible.

Researchers at the University of California have discovered that 66% of the male turbot and sole feeding next to a sewage outfall along the California coast were growing ovary tissue in their testes. In another development, studies carried out by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project have identified fish affected all along the California coast. This research is the first to spot gender changes in fish in their natural habitat.

Swiss researchers also claim to have found gender-transforming chemicals from sun creams and oils building up in fish in their rivers
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The researchers are concerned that people could be exposed to these chemicals by eating fish, drinking water and applying cosmetics onto their skin. Cosmetic manufacturers have refuted this, claiming that sun protection lotions save lives and that "sunscreen phobia" could lead to more cases of cancer.

Averting the inevitable energy crisis: mine the moon!

Russia plans mine on the moon by 2020

Russia is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official said Wednesday.

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying at an academic conference.

The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo containers around space, Sevastyanov said.

Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion.

Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting and generates almost no radioactive by-product.

Meditation found to increase brain size

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.
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"The goal is to pay attention to sensory experience, rather than to your thoughts about the sensory experience," Lazar explains. "For example, if you suddenly hear a noise, you just listen to it rather than thinking about it. If your leg falls asleep, you just notice the physical sensations. If nothing is there, you pay attention to your breathing." Successful meditators get used to not thinking or elaborating things in their mind.
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Insight meditation can be practiced anytime, anywhere. "People who do it quickly realize that much of what goes on in their heads involves random thoughts that often have little substance," Lazar comments. "The goal is not so much to 'empty' your head, but to not get caught up in random thoughts that pop into consciousness."

She uses this example: Facing an important deadline, people tend to worry about what will happen if they miss it, or if the end product will be good enough to suit the boss. You can drive yourself crazy with unproductive "what if" worry. "If, instead, you focus on the present moment, on what needs to be done and what is happening right now, then much of the feeling of stress goes away," Lazar says. "Feelings become less obstructive and more motivational."
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Since this type of meditation counteracts the natural thinning of the thinking surface of the brain, could it play a role in slowing - even reversing - aging? That could really be mind-boggling in the most positive sense.

Lazar is cautious in her answer. "Our data suggest that one small bit of brain appears to have a slower rate of cortical thinning, so meditation may help slow some aspects of cognitive aging," she agrees. "But it's important to remember that monks and yogis suffer from the same ailments as the rest of us. They get old and die, too. However, they do claim to enjoy an increased capacity for attention and memory."

More mole people

Thousands Live in Tunnels under Sofia

A whole underground city exists under Sofia streets. Hundreds of kilometers of tunnels spread under the capital. Some of them are so big that buses can pass through them.

Nowadays the catacombs host thousands of clochards. Witnesses say, ten to twenty thousand people live there.

"These figures are unrealistic," said Sofia Mayor Boyko Borissov but he could [not] give the exact number of the homeless living in the tunnels.

Ancient Chinese secret?

Chinese cartography - China beat Columbus to it, perhaps

An ancient map that strongly suggests Chinese seamen were first round the world.

It seems... likely that the world and all its continents were discovered by a Chinese admiral named Zheng He, whose fleets roamed the oceans between 1405 and 1435. His exploits, which are well documented in Chinese historical records, were written about in a book which appeared in China around 1418 called “The Marvellous Visions of the Star Raft”.

Next week, in Beijing and London, fresh and dramatic evidence is to be revealed to bolster Zheng He's case. It is a copy, made in 1763, of a map, dated 1418, which contains notes that substantially match the descriptions in the book. “It will revolutionise our thinking about 15th-century world history,” says Gunnar Thompson, a student of ancient maps and early explorers.
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The detail on the copy of the map is remarkable. The outlines of Africa, Europe and the Americas are instantly recognisable. It shows the Nile with two sources. The north-west passage appears to be free of ice. But the inaccuracies, also, are glaring. California is shown as an island; the British Isles do not appear at all. The distance from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is ten times greater than it ought to be. Australia is in the wrong place (though cartographers no longer doubt that Australia and New Zealand were discovered by Chinese seamen centuries before Captain Cook arrived on the scene).

The commentary on the map, which seems to have been drawn from the original, is written in clear Chinese characters which can still be easily read. Of the west coast of America, the map says: “The skin of the race in this area is black-red, and feathers are wrapped around their heads and waists.” Of the Australians, it reports: “The skin of the aborigine is also black. All of them are naked and wearing bone articles around their waists.”
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Five academic experts on ancient charts note that the 1418 map puts together information that was available piecemeal in China from earlier nautical maps, going back to the 13th century and Kublai Khan, who was no mean explorer himself. They believe it is authentic.

advice for hobbyist photographers

PhotoNotes.org has a ton of information for amateur photographers trying to increase their skills.

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Real world "superheroes" in Indianapolis

Someone by the name of Doktor DiscorD has a blog on MySpace that tracks the exploits of he and his friends who have taken it upon themselves to fight crime in Indianapolis... as superheroes. Well, technically they're "costumed crime-fighters" since they don't actually have any paranormal abilities, but close enough.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

so tonight is the first night in a new era here in indianapolis. the dawn of the age of superheroes.

after realizing the total lack of justice in the world,my friends and i have decided to become superheroes in order to balance this fracturing planet of ours.

tonight,with my partner in crime fighting 'Mr. Silent',we went around the city helping people and stopping fights,drunk drivers,and a group of young dumb kids hitting an old woman's car.
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the sad thing is this,while trying to stop a fight between two drunken latinos,the police pulled up..they watched them fighting,and us trying to break it up,and after about 2 minutes they just left....no help or anything. we were in front of the greyhound station at the time and people said things like "the police here don't do anything,do they?"..to which we replied "of course not!which is why this city is in such dire need of us!"..there the cops were,getting paid to fight crime,and they just drove by,but us poor superheroes get nothing,yet we're the ones making a difference..you know,i really dont care though,i dont need money to do this...fighting crime is the cherry on top of my sundae of justice,and i'll eat those cherries until i get sick.and then i'll eat some more

....that's just the type of crime fighter i am.

Friday, October 07, 2005

slowly but surely we as superheroes will help bring this fallen nation of corruption to it's full glorious potential!

you know what im saying is true!..stand up,fight for justice,put on a mask and cape,and get mad at bad!we have nothing to lose but our identities.we have a world to win!

while doing our rounds,various security guards all over town gave us thumbs up and many citizens waved and wished us well in our non stop fight against tyranny...well,maybe not "nonstop",because i need to recoup for tomorrow night's patrol.
so it's time for bed.

everything i've told you is true.this is not satire.

god speed.

and remember
if you're not sure if you're super yet,
and you see a crime.......please report it.

leave crime fighting to the professionals.

Friday, December 16, 2005

well,another night of patrolling the city.

word is starting to spread about the justice society of justice's exploits..someone even came up tonight and said "hey,aren't you those superheroes?"..ahh,the curiousness of it all.

we only ran with a 3 man patrol group this evening,which is kind of dangerous,but we did it anyway ...Captain Whiskey decided to sleep instead of fighting alongside of us...(crime doesn't sleep!)..the Apostolic Avenger,and his wife the Green Discharge had to stay home and study for college exams.Redundo was busy at his job wrangling tards,and Powerful Man had to get up early to do a 12 hour security shift..*sigh*
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the popularity of this thing is going thru the roof..everyone who hears about it instantly wants to suit up and come along with their own moronic character ideas and ridiculous costumes..a good friend of mine who is overly busty has come up with a great cliche patriotic female superhero identity...The TWIN TOWERS.she's planning on having images of tower one and two over her crime fighting busoms of hope.
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i'm hoping that when supervillains start coming out of the woodwork,we'll be prepared...i'm hoping for more joker style villains than say,lex luthor style...the lex type villain would have lots of money and gadgets at his disposal to further his sinister ends,while the joker type would just be a clown.

and i'll kick a fuckin clown's ass anyday.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

man..one thing i've noticed is,black girls LOVE Mr. Silent.
he got 3 different phone numbers tonight and some girl said "i bet you tha bomb in bed"..
i about shat.
yeah bebe.

Doktor DiscorD describes his quest on his MySpace profile page:

hi. i'm a real-life CRIME FIGHTING SUPERHERO.

Some say i'm just your average schizoid antihero personality type on the verge of a mental breakdown. Some say i'm already crazy...AND YES!!!(thanks for suggesting) "You're mad.."
of course im fucking mad,man!!
IM MAD AT BAD!
Aren't you???

Some people ask "Are you some kind of faggot roleplayer?"
NO. I really go out and fight crime on the streets of Indianapolis alongside my compatriots in the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF JUSTICE.
I got tired of the CRIME.
I got tired of the CORRUPTION and FEAR.
These things won't go away on their own.

Some say "are you joking?" to which i can only say,
CRIME IS NO LAUGHING MATTER.

what do we consider "CRIME" you might ask...we dont care about victimless crime like drug use or people buying prostitutes. the kind of CRIME we're talking about is the kind that makes little old ladies afraid to leave their houses.
the kind of CRIME that makes single mothers afraid to walk to their cars at night.

We urge you all to don the mask and make a stand against CRIMINALITY.
Start patrols in your neighborhood with some friends,but be sure to wear a mask...you probably don't want LOW LIFE CRIMINALS to recognize your face and follow you home to endanger your family/friends.

Join the JSJ along side our numerous other heroes.
Mr. Silent
our hasidic rapper friend Dr. Dreidel and his sidekick The Kosher Kid
Liquid Courage
The Human Robot
The Apostolic Avenger
Cap'n Whiskey
The Hamburger Helper
Absurdo
The Plunisher
and the gynecological justice of The Green Discharge

all characters and their likeness are copyrighted by JSJ inc. (o6)
The JUSTICE SOCIETY OF JUSTICE...offering twice the JUSTICE as the leading competitors!

Mr. Silent keeps his own blog as well:

Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 3:35PM

Gaining Super Powers

For those of you wondering what has happened to me. What sort of tramatic event has occured in my life to cause me to punish the evil doer. Well, I can't really think of one.
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So, why am I doing this you may ask. Well, I could tell you that my family was killed by a biker gang or that I was attacked and refused to be afraid any longer, but I can't. The real answer is much less fantastic. My friend (Dr. Discord) and I were getting drunk one night and decided it was a good idea. So, we went into our closets and discovered we already possessed the appropriate attire.

The first night was pretty cool. Just about everyone we came into contact with asked us why we were dressed like we were. When we told them we were superheros they either looked at us in disbelief or were on the whole cool with it. I think that the idea of people donning costumes and fighting crime has been so ingrained in the American subconscious that if someone really does it, it isn't really that far of a stretch. A few people actually thanked us for keeping the streets clear of crime (and yes they were serious).

I guess our goal is to bring superheros into the main stream of society. We want the government to recognize our right to fight crime and our right to alter the basic structure of this reality. If we can accomplish that, then the world just might become more like a comic book and less like the bible. Just maybe....

Monday, January 02, 2006 - 1:07AM

Undercover Pimp

I don't know what it is, but I think my suit is endowed with some type of power. The honies can't seem to get enough of it.

This seems to be one of the many powers of Mr. Silent. I didn't intend for that to happen. I mean it doesn't really help me fight crime (though it does make it more fun). So, if I ever aquire a super villian who has a loyal army of prostitutes or something, I will be set. Man, I sure hope that doesn't happen. That certainly would suck.

Monday, January 02, 2006 - 12:38PM

Generation JUSTICE!!!!!!!!

In a world that is constantly changing, where boundaries are becoming less defined, they came. Mr. Silent and Doktor Discord, being of almost sound mind, have taken a momentous step forward. Towards the future.

Evolution is upon us, no holds barred. When the history judges our actions, it will see us as we see ourselves, as pioneers.

Don't for a second think this thing will blow over, that it is a fad, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is always a first, then a second and then an explosion. You say, "I don't know if I want superheros in my world. I don't know if I'm ready for that." Well, know this, we are here because we are meant to be here. Everything happens for a reason. Call it divine intervention, call it fate, but whatever ever you do don't call it wrong. How can something be wrong that feels sooo right.

Mr. Silent, Doktor DiscorD, Doom Bunny

Hyperdrive engine theory

Take a leap into hyperspace

EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?
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In the early 1950s, Heim began to rewrite the equations of general relativity in a quantum framework. He drew on Einstein's idea that the gravitational force emerges from the dimensions of space and time, but suggested that all fundamental forces, including electromagnetism, might emerge from a new, different set of dimensions. Originally he had four extra dimensions, but he discarded two of them believing that they did not produce any forces, and settled for adding a new two-dimensional "sub-space" onto Einstein's four-dimensional space-time.

In Heim's six-dimensional world, the forces of gravity and electromagnetism are coupled together. Even in our familiar four-dimensional world, we can see a link between the two forces through the behaviour of fundamental particles such as the electron. An electron has both mass and charge. When an electron falls under the pull of gravity its moving electric charge creates a magnetic field. And if you use an electromagnetic field to accelerate an electron you move the gravitational field associated with its mass. But in the four dimensions we know, you cannot change the strength of gravity simply by cranking up the electromagnetic field.

In Heim's view of space and time, this limitation disappears. He claimed it is possible to convert electromagnetic energy into gravitational and back again, and speculated that a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off.
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Dröscher looked again at Heim's ideas and produced an "extended" version, resurrecting the dimensions that Heim originally discarded. The result is "Heim-Dröscher space", a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe.

From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel.

This force is a result of the interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced. It produces pairs of "gravitophotons", particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy.
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Claims of the possibility of "gravity reduction" or "anti-gravity" induced by magnetic fields have been investigated by NASA before (New Scientist, 12 January 2002, p 24). But this one, Dröscher insists, is different. "Our theory is not about anti-gravity. It's about completely new fields with new properties," he says.
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This will require a huge rotating ring placed above a superconducting coil to create an intense magnetic field. With a large enough current in the coil, and a large enough magnetic field, Dröscher claims the electromagnetic force can reduce the gravitational pull on the ring to the point where it floats free... With a faster-spinning ring and an even stronger magnetic field, gravitophotons would interact with conventional gravity to produce a repulsive anti-gravity force, they suggest.

Dröscher is hazy about the details, but he suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace. Here the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience. If this happens, it would be possible to reach Mars in less than 3 hours and a star 11 light years away in only 80 days, Dröscher and Häuser say.

So is this all fanciful nonsense, or a revolution in the making? The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of Dröscher and Häuser's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment.
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The general consensus seems to be that Dröscher and Häuser's theory is incomplete at best, and certainly extremely difficult to follow. And it has not passed any normal form of peer review, a fact that surprised the AIAA prize reviewers when they made their decision. "It seemed to be quite developed and ready for such publication," Mikellides told New Scientist.

At the moment, the main reason for taking the proposal seriously must be Heim theory's uncannily successful prediction of particle masses. Maybe, just maybe, Heim theory really does have something to contribute to modern physics. "As far as I understand it, Heim theory is ingenious," says Hans Theodor Auerbach, a theoretical physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who worked with Heim. "I think that physics will take this direction in the future."

www.FucktheNewYorkTimes.com

The author of www.FucktheSouth.com and www.FuckChristmas.org now gives us www.FucktheNewYorkTimes.com.

Goddamn it. Fuck the New York Times. Those assholes have known for over a year that Bush has been taping our phone calls and we’re just finding out about it now? Good thing we weren’t making any important decisions fourteen months ago. The next person who starts bitching about how hard the so-called “liberal media” is on the President is gonna get a jackboot upside the head. And don’t get all excited that the Times finally did get around to telling us about this little caper. They only printed it because they found out they were about to get scooped by their own reporter. All the news that’s fit to print. . . on my ass.

And even after the Times got around to telling us that Bush has been pissing on the Constitution for years now, that asshole just mutters the magic word—Nineleven—and all those pesky laws disappear. Luckily, we live in a Republic, so our elected representatives sprang into action and talked about maybe, possibly, holding hearings on this emperor act. If they can fit it into their busy schedules. Perhaps when the forecast is a little less patriotic.

You’ll forgive my lack of enthusiasm about the Democrats’ semi-realistic impression of vertebrates over the holiday break. These fuckers are so bad off that they’re calling a five-week extension of the PATRIOT Act a victory ? Please. Do you really think some little law is going to stop the tipsy Texan from reading your mail? Well grab hold of the reality train, assholes – it’s time to start paying attention to the man behind your curtains.

The insane thing about all this spy shit is that Bush could easily have eavesdropped on us without actually breaking the law – that smirking sonofabitch is actually going out of his way to thumb his nose at the courts. That’s right, Bush is totally within his rights to be tapping into our calls. All he needs is a rubber stamp from a double super secret court that turned him down exactly zero percent of the time in 2004, when he bothered to ask. And get this – he doesn’t even need to wait for a warrant before he starts listening in. He can legally tape you talking to Aunt Louise about her recipe for exploding meatloaf and get permission later. It’s like they told him he could hold an election and then figure out the rules for counting votes after the polls closed.

That sounds so familiar.

Anyway, there is one way to make sure the spooks don’t listen in when you’re having phone sex with Fatima: speak fucking Farsi. The FBI's got a backlog of untranslated audio that would choke a hippo. And no wonder – for a while there they were telling their translators to stop, um, translating so fast. What’s next? Demotions for dogs that find too much cocaine? Maybe I’m missing something here, but I kind of figured since we have only four people who can speak Muslim-ese on the government payroll, we’d want them reading through the transcripts as quickly as possible. Turns out, not so much.

But luckily for those of us who speak American, they’d never use anything they hear unless it’s about terrorism, right?

Right, except the government defines “terrorist” as anyone to the left of Ann Coulter. Want more bike lanes? Well, hello, Mr. Bin Laden. Been caught kissing at a protest? You are, I shit you not, a “credible threat” to the country. Hell, they even sent spooks in to infiltrate the Catholic Workers Group because they have, and I'm quoting a government agent here, a “semi-communistic ideology.” Since when are the semi-communists dangerous enough to warrant their very own undercover operative?

This isn’t a slippery slope, it’s a greased cliff with a vicious downdraft and parachute made out of fucking elephants.

Hang on a minute, are we still fighting fucking Communism ? I thought we won that war. Remember? Reagan said some shit about a wall, and then poof! Eastern Europeans got all hopped up on freedom fries and kicked out the Soviets and their damned secret prisons. Thank goodness for that, too – otherwise where would we have found room for our secret prisons?

And don’t even think about going all vegan on us, you little America-hater. The feds have agents all over those fennel-fanatics at PETA. The soy soldiers keep saying they’re trying to save the llamas, but we all know that’s just code for stabbing flag-waving patriots in their sleep. Like you didn’t know Pamela Anderson had her boobs done for Al Qaeda.

And can you guess who else the feds are training their eagle eyes on? Quakers. Seriously. There’s no joke here – I just want to point out that if they’re watching the Quakers, they sure as fuck are watching you.

And when they do catch your little Benedict Arnold ass, don’t think for a second you’ll be getting the Martha Stewart treatment. It’s coach-class to Kazakhstania for you, you traitorous little fuck. And you’d better get those seat backs in the upright position tout suite if you don’t want to find out if that seat cushion really can be used as a flotation device.

And how does Bush respond when someone points out that he’s broken federal laws a couple thousand times in the last few years? Well according to him, the Times was “helping the enemy” by tipping off those wily terrorists about our wiretapping ways. Uh huh. Up until a few weeks ago Bin Laden was making calls on his Verizon FamilyShare plan, but since he found out that Bush has that cell tapped, he’s gonna start using his decoder ring? Whatever. That fuckhead’s CIA-trained, asshole. He’s probably personal friends with the guy listening in on the other end of the line. Can you hear me now, you little infidel bitch?

But it’s not like there’s no oversight at all over at Spy Central. The Peeping Toms have to get the go-ahead from their shift supervisor. Fan-fucking-tastic. So the NSA interns aren’t allowed to read our email all on their own – they have to ask Inspector Clouseau to sign off. And for an added level of safety, all these programs have to be approved by the Attorney General. Yeah, that’s right: Alberto Gonzalez, the one who helped cover up the Iran-Contra Affair and thinks the Geneva Conventions are “quaint.” And remember, this has been going on since 2002, so for most of that time, the go-to guy for domestic spying was deathly afraid of calico cats and naked nipples.

Is anyone else tired of living in a parody of a real country?

And now Cheney claims that if they’d been sticking their noses in our phone calls back in 2001 they could have stopped 9/11 from happening in the first place. Hello? Does this asshole think we’ve already forgotten that they knew about the whole flying planes into buildings deal in advance? Please, somebody unplug that fucker before he starts stretching bunny rabbits in the name of national security.

Speaking of Cheney, maybe before we get too pumped up about impeaching our sorry excuse for a President, we might want to consider that order of succession thing, hmmm? Don’t think for a second that the hack from Halliburton hasn’t done that fucking math. Every one of Dick’s wet dreams starts with George getting dragged before the Senate. And we do not want that fucker mainlining presidential power. If you think it’s bad now, imagine if we didn’t have that time lag between Cheney’s lips and W’s “brain.”

(Sorry. That was just mean and unnecessary. I promise never, ever to make you read the words “Cheney’s lips” again.)

Let’s say, just to play out Bush’s little fantasy, that these phone taps do lead to capturing some terrorists. Like, I don’t know... al Zarqawi, that asshole who keeps blowing up Hummers-full of our boys in tan. What makes him think we’d actually keep hold of that fucker for more than a couple hours? Yeah, I know, likely scenario. Except unlike Cheney’s pipe dream, this one actually already happened. Turns out the Iraqi police training handbook somehow got mixed up with Catch and Release: Trout Fishing For People Who Think Fish Don’t Feel Pain.

And, oh man, it gets so much worse. Now we’ve stopped turning captives over to the Iraqi government because. . . try not to cry. . . they’re not living up to our standards of care for prisoners. Sorry? No kneepads for their naked human pyramids? Jesus Christ, what the hell are the Iraqi security forces doing in their prisons that the people who are getting ready to microwave Baghdadians en masse are calling them inhumane?

Yes, you read that correctly. Smart bombs get all the good press, but any day now the Marines are going to start doing crowd control with the kind of modern technology you and I use to pop our Orville Redenbacher. You think those Abu Ghraib photos pissed the Iraqis off? Wait until we start treating them like Double Cheesy Hot Pockets.

But we’ve stopped all that torture shit, right? Especially now that John McCain is on the case. I mean, he endured years of torture himself, there’s no way he’d cave on that issue. Well, not according to all the journalists who can’t stop blowing sunshine up his ass. Yes – Bush agreed to say that torture is bad. And in return? McCain agreed that if they do string you up by your thumbs, there isn’t a goddamn thing you can do about it. In fact, the bill he voted for calls for us to provide lawyers for the torturers. Nice. Maybe this isn’t the John McCain we’ve been hearing about all these years. Is he that same sweet aw-shucks grandfathery pile of integrity who once joked:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Ha! Yep, that’s him. What a fuckhead.

And while we’re dealing with Republicans that Democrats can’t stop getting wet for, fuck Colin Powell. He’s been off the team for a year – isn’t it about time we stopped making excuses for him making excuses for George? When are liberals going to stop looking at this asshole through rose-colored contacts and start seeing red when he sides with this piss-ant potentate? He could have just kept his mouth shut, but no, he had to come out swinging last week to back up Bush on this wiretapping bullshit. I know, I know – he was the “voice of reason” in the W West Wing all those years, but that crew would make Genghis Khan look like Dennis fucking Kucinich.

In a couple years when the McCain/Powell 2008 committee opens its first field office in Iowa, just remember this: if they walk like ducks, and they talk like ducks, they’re fucking right-wing Republican assholes in duck costumes.

Sorry - where was I? Oh yeah, our shiny new police state. There is this one teeny tiny problem with doing all this wiretapping on the sly: the few actual terrorists we may have caught so far might get off scot-free because of it. That’s the thing about judges, man, they’re pretty serious about people breaking the laws. And when it’s the government that’s doing it, well, they get pretty fucking mad. Like let-the-accused-off-because-the-evidence-against-them-was-gathered-illegally mad. That’s right – while Bush plays Mister Monarch, his little war on terror is actually going backwards. I feel so much safer now.

So happy fucking New Year, America. While we’re definitely way up shit creek without a goddamn canoe, there is one ray of hope: November 2006 is duck hunting season in Congressional districts across this great land. Lock and load, motherfuckers.

Mouse Thrown Into Fire Sets Home Ablaze

First there was the cow who took extraordinary risks to avoid being slaughtered, now it's a mouse who's final act was one of revenge:

FORT SUMNER, N.M. - A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.

Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.

Just a cow and his will to survive

Cow Escapes Meat Plant, Dodges SUV, Train

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) -- A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse dodged vehicles, ran in front of a train, braved the icy Missouri River and took three tranquilizer darts before being recaptured six hours later. News of the heifer's adventures prompted a number of people to offer to buy the animal.

The black, 1,200 pound heifer jumped a gate at the packing plant at around 5 a.m. Thursday and apparently wandered through residential areas. Police received reports at about 9:30 a.m. that it was in the middle of a busy intersection.

Police tried to catch the cow, and had her wedged between a stock trailer and a fence, but the heifer barreled through the fence toward the river, nearly being hit by a Chevrolet Suburban.

It was the first of many near-death experiences.

With the police in pursuit, the cow ran toward the railroad tracks and darted in front of an oncoming locomotive, briefly giving the police the slip again.

Crossing another road, the cow was nearly struck by a semi tractor-trailer.

"By then it was a madhouse," said police officer Corey Reeves. "People were coming out of the woodwork to see."

When police, animal control officers and slaughterhouse workers surrounded the cow in a park near the Missouri River, the cow jumped into the icy water.

As she swam to the west bank of the river, Reeves said she sank lower in the water and was being swept downstream. But the cow found a sandbar near the river's west bank and walked to shore.

"I was totally amazed she was able to swim the river," said Del Morris, the slaughterhouse manager.

As police scrambled to head off the cow on the other side of the river, a veterinarian with a tranquilizer gun was called.

Pursuers again believed they had the cow cornered at a chain link fence, but the heifer ran through a perimeter set up by officials.

The chase began to slow as the cow ran up against several strong fences. Dr. Jennifer Evans of Big Sky Medical Center shot the cow with a tranquilizer dart.

It had little effect.

Two darts later, the heifer showed no signs of going down. Slaughterhouse workers created a makeshift pen with metal panels that led to a stock trailer.

The heifer walked into the trailer at 11:45 a.m.

The cow was taken back to the slaughterhouse, where it was put in a pen - with a stronger fence - and given food and water.

EMI's ridiculous DRM disclaimer

This site includes images of an astoundingly restrictive Digital Rights Management leaflet found in a Coldplay "X&Y" CD.

Here is the complete text:

THIS CD IS A COPY PROTECTED CD
Thank you very much for purchasing this CD and helping the cause of "Anti-Piracy". The recordings in this CD have an anti-copying function. They cannot be copied into a PC. In order for you to enjoy high quality music, we have added this special technology.

Before using, please read the following:

USAGE GUIDELINES:

This CD cannot be burnt onto a CD-R or hard disk, nor can it be converted into MP3 for file sharing.

This CD has been manufactured for usage in regular CD players but might not play in the following players:

• Some CD players that have the capability of burning into an MP3 (such as portable players or car stereos)
  
• Some CD players that possess CD-R/RW functions (such as portable players or car stereos)
  
• Some car steros with satellite "Guidance" systems
  
• Some CD players or car stereos with hard disk recording capability
  
• Some CD-R/RW Recorders used for music
  
• Some portable CD players
  
• Some DVD players
  
• Some CD/LD Convertible Players
  
• Some Game Players
  Although you can use your PC's Windows program to listen to certain tracks, this does not mean that the CD can be played in all PC's.
  
• The first time that this program is used (in Windows automatic starter software) it gets registered in Windows File. Thus, programs already registered do not affect Windows operation.
  
• Windows OS also uses the latest files.
  This CD does not support MacIntosh PC software.
  
• Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept exchange, return or refund.

The music industry is going to destroy itself with all of these restrictions.

Basically, I have 2 options: purchase music legally (either on CD or through a service like iTunes), or download it illegally.

If I download it illegally, I will have music that I can play on my computer, burn to a CD that will play on any player, copy to an iPod, etc., etc. And, it's free.

If I purchase it legally (by buying a CD with DRM such as this one, or any of the crippled Sony CD's), often times I can't burn copies, I can't copy it to my iPod, and I can't even play the CD in many players! Plus, it cost me anywhere from 12 to 20 bucks.

Why would anyone want to pay for a product that is clearly inferior to something they can get for free???

All the monkey news that's fit to print

LA Weekly's compendium of monkey news from 2005:

Fruit and Sex
Capuchin monkeys learned to use money this year. Using a silver disk as currency that could be exchanged for food, the critters quickly developed budgeting and began following the basic rules of utility maximization and price theory. A capuchin even discovered the fungibility of money — that it could be used to buy not only food, but anything. The first new monetary monkey market: sex. Researchers were stunned when a male offered a female a token for a quick roll in the hay and she accepted. Afterward, the female traded her new token for a tasty grape.
...
Giganto
Gigantopithecus blacki (a.k.a. Giganto) was a prehistoric ape that stood 12 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. Giganto’s fossil remains were first discovered in 1935 in a Hong Kong pharmacy, and paleontologists long thought the species died out a million years ago. But this year researchers learned that the creature lived as recently as 100,000 years ago — side by side with modern Homo sapiens, i.e., us. Could he still be roaming the forests of the Pacific Northwest?
...
They Also Love Celebrities
An experiment at Duke University Medical Center offered thirsty monkeys a choice: their favorite drink, in this case, Juicy Juice brand cherry drink, or the opportunity to look at computer images of the dominant, “celebrity” monkey of their pack. Despite their thirst, they chose to look at the pictures. Monkeys with status have food, power and sexual magnetism — everything the others crave. The impulse to look at these “celebrity” monkeys was so strong, it superseded thirst.

Surprise! They Dig Porn, Too
In the same experiment, researchers discovered that their monkeys would give up significant juice rewards if it meant viewing female behinds.

It was either him or O'Reilly

Jon Stewart to Host Oscars

"As an avid watcher of the Oscars," he said today in a statement, "I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice."

Hero Cat!

Cat Calls 911

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Police aren't sure how else to explain it. But when an officer walked into an apartment Thursday night to answer a 911 call, an orange-and-tan striped cat was lying by a telephone on the living room floor. The cat's owner, Gary Rosheisen, was on the ground near his bed having fallen out of his wheelchair.

Rosheisen said his cat, Tommy, must have hit the right buttons to call 911.
...
Rosheisen said he couldn't get up because of pain from osteoporosis and ministrokes that disrupt his balance. He also wasn't wearing his medical-alert necklace and couldn't reach a cord above his pillow that alerts paramedics that he needs help.

...police received a 911 call from Rosheisen's apartment, but there was no one on the phone. Police called back to make sure everything was OK, and when no one answered, they decided to check things out.

That's when [police] found Tommy next to the phone.

Rosheisen got the cat three years ago to help lower his blood pressure. He tried to train him to call 911, unsure if the training ever stuck.

The phone in the living room is always on the floor, and there are 12 small buttons — including a speed dial for 911 right above the button for the speaker phone.

'He's my hero,' Rosheisen said.