Dingbat Alert

Laura Mallory of Gwinnett County, Georgia, is trying to get the various Harry Potter books removed from the shelves of local school libraries. Her complaint? Well, she's worried that the books teach kids about witchcraft and sorcery and might encourage kids to cast spells on their classmates. No word on whether anyone has tried to explain to her that the books are make-believe, or that things like sorcery and witchcraft don't actually exist.

And is the potential casting of spells by kids against other kids that serious of a problem? In light of all the school shootings in recent years--not to mention all the close calls that were averted--it might actually be good to encourage little Timmy to resort to magic instead of guns and grenades.

I hate to resort to stereotyping, and I certainly don't mean to sound like a bigot, but I'm betting Mrs. Mallory votes Republican.

Why I Drink

Should the Democrats succeed in winning a majority in the House of Representatives next week, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California would be poised to become the nation's first female Speaker of the House.

And George Bush's response to this possibility? "The speaker of the House, the congresswoman, would be someone who thinks capturing Osama bin Laden wouldn't make this country safer."

Excuse me? Is the President sure he wants to broach the subject of capturing Osama? After all, Bush was the man who in the days after September 11, 2001 vowed to hunt down bin Laden and capture him "dead or alive." That was five years ago, and the man who killed almost 3,000 people on that fateful day is not only still loose, he's out there making videos encouraging his followers to kill Americans!!

And why is bin Laden still free? Because it was Bush himself who decided that invading a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks was much more important than capturing bin Laden. And yet he dares question someone else's priorities on the matter!?!?

I need a really large bottle of alcohol.

What? Sex? NOW They've Got My Attention!

The Virginia senate campaign continues to take some bizarre twists and turns. The latest: Democrat challenger Jim Webb has written several novels over the years, and apparently they contain sex scenes between a man and woman. Republican incumbent George Allen has raised the issue as proof that Webb isn't fit to serve in Congress.

I guess Republicans only like sex scenes involving men and little boys.

Blogger Problems

For much of the past week Blogger has been plagued with problems of one sort or another. Their publishing went down several times, and at one point actual individual Blogspot sites were unavailable.

Today was the worst, however. Blogger was unavailable for most of the day, and their staus page is blaming the recurring issues on faulty hardware.

Blogger is owned by Google. Instead of shelling out over a billion bucks for YouTube.com, shouldn't Larry and Sergey have instead used that money to fix their existing businesses? After all, if you keep pissing off the customers you already have, you're less likely to get new ones.

The Times, They Are A-Changing

Today marks the end of Daylight Savings Time and the beginning of Standard Time. It used to be that we changed clocks at the end of October and the beginning of April, but that will no longer be the case as of next year.

Starting in 2007 Standard Time will end on the second Sunday of March and return on the first Sunday of November. In other words, as of next year we will remain on DST for roughly 7 1/2 months of the year, and ST for the remaining 4 1/2 months.... Which makes no damn sense if you think about it.

For something to be standard, shouldn't it be the predominant method? How can something standard if it's only in effect less than 40% of the time? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I realize this screwed up system sounds like something the Bush administration would come up with, but unfortunately they're off the hook for once.

So I propose we take what used to be Daylight Savings Time and instead start calling those 7 1/2 months Standard Time instead. After all, it's what we go by for the vast majority of the year.

And as for the old Standard Time, well, that can be Nighttime Savings Time from now on.

Maybe He Was Visiting Graceland

Would-be rescuers in Memphis, Tennessee have suspended their search for an 800 pound manatee that had swum 700 miles up the Mississippi River. The creatures have been known to occasionally wander into the mouth of the river in Louisiana, but for one to show up this far north is believed to be unprecedented.

The concern was that manatees require a minimum water temperature of 66 degrees (18.8 Celsius), and water temps in Memphis are currently at about 60. It is hoped that the river's current will help guide the large blubbery mammal back down to the Gulf of Mexico.

It's not clear what Rush Limbaugh was doing in the water in the first place.

Pass The Dramanine

The Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq has changed any number of times over the last three years. In fact, if you sit down and try to list them all, you run the risk of giving yourself motion sickness.

Even so, a sizable percentage of Americans have continued to buy into the administration's rhetoric. They are inspired by Bush's resolve to "stay the course." At least that's one thing the President has been consistent about, right?

WRONG!!! White House aids are now denying that "staying the course" has ever been the President's position on the war.

If my head wasn't spinning before, it is now!

Hey! That's NOT A Milkbone

A man in Washington state has been charged with animal cruelty after having sex with the family dog. Twenty six year old Michael Patrick McPhail was charged after his wife came home and caught him doing the dirty deed with Sara, a four year old pit bull. The wife had the presence of mind to snap some pictures of Mike giving Sara a bone with her cellphone camera before calling the police.

Unfortunately it now appears that Sara may end up being euthanized. According to animal control officers, she has a history of biting people and is therefore not suitable for adoption.

Oh puh-LEEZE!!!! Can anyone honestly blame the poor pooch for being irritable? It's true that most dogs like bones; just not when the damn thing is attached to a man!! In fact, let's check back with Mr. McPhail after he's spent a couple of weeks in jail. Then we can ask him if he enjoyed the same treatment from his cellmate.

Euthanasia IS clearly called for in this case, and I don't mean Sara.

Hate to admit this, but I recognized the vast majority of the album covers in this video. By the way, try to catch the name of the magazine Michael Jackson is reading at the 1:43 mark.

A New Low, Even For Rush Limbaugh

As you are no doubt aware, actor Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's several years ago. After dropping out of the public eye, he has since re-emerged in a series of campaign commercials on behalf of candidates who favor stem cell research. Missouri is one state that has the ads, and they have also aired in Maryland. To be quite frank about it, Fox does not look good in the ads as the Parkinson's has obviously progressed.

Now just in case anyone has become overly concerned about the Back to the Future star's declining health, conservative commentator and world reknown prescription drug abuser Rush Limbaugh has weighed in with his own medical opinion: Fox is faking his symptoms.

Says Mr. Limbaugh:

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act....This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

If anyone would know about taking medication, it's Limbaugh. He's had plenty of experience. Thank God he was able to expose Michael J. Fox as a faker. In fact, he's probably been faking Parkinson's for the last ten years, just biding his time and patiently waiting for the right moment to produce those fake ads. And even if it turns out he's NOT faking, well, it's always fun to mock the terminally ill.

It's also good to know that if any of us ever need an expert medical opinion, we can call Rush. The man is so good at making diagnoses, he doesn't even need to actually see the patient!! Guess he studied under Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who so famously analyzed a videotape of Terry Schiavo and concluded she wasn't in a vegetative state.

I'm not sure, but I think I may have a hernia. Maybe I should take a picture of my scrotum and send it in.

Flee Control

Good news just keeps pouring out of Iraq, kind of like sewage from a storm drain clogged by debris from a carbombing.

The latest is that over 1.5 million Iraqis have now fled the country. An estimated 500,000 Iraqis are seeking shelter in Jordan, and Syria has an estimated 450,000 refugees.

Some naysayers may point at these figures and say that this is horrible news, but that's only because they're defeatists.

First and most importantly, all these people fleeing Iraq is great news for the moving van and ox cart industries. Plus, coupled with the rising death toll, these figures also mean that pretty soon there won't be any Iraqis left in Iraq. Then we won't have to worry about saving them any more!

This brilliant strategy is brought to you by the same people that saved the people of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.

Family Values

The father of a young football player in Philadelphia pulled a gun on the team's coach because he felt his son wasn't getting enough playing time. In what can only be described as a gross miscarriage of justice, the father--instead of being complimented for taking an interest in his son's activities--was arrested for aggravated assault!!

No word on whether the kid got the extra playing time.

You Can't Fire me. I Quit.

A man on death row in Texas committed suicide just hours before his scheduled execution. Michael DeWayne Johnson jerry-rigged a knife from popsicle sticks and a disposable razor, then used it to cut his jugular.

Well, at least he saved the taxpayers the cost of the lethal injection.

Parade Time

More good news from Iraq: Despite all the talk about widespread unrest, sectarian violence, looming civil war, roadside bombings, and rising death tolls, several towns west of Baghdad were the scenes of parades in the streets. This represents an important step in the return to normalcy in Iraq. After all, if things were really as bad as the media has been saying, would people have the time or inclination to throw parades amid the mayhem? No, of course not!

Of course, the parades--in some cases less than a mile from American bases--were being held by heavily armed insurgents linked to Al Qaeda, but you gotta take your good news where you can get it.

Help Wanted

I have occasionally been criticized for focusing only on the bad news coming out of Iraq. That's true to an extent, but what else can I do when there seems to be nothing but bad news out there? Well, complain no more. There's finally some good news to pass along: Despite the difficulties of rebuilding that poor wartorn nation, there is at least one business that is not only expanding, but actually tripling its capacity.

The morgue in Baghdad is constructing two additional branches and adding refrigerator trucks in an effort to accommodate the city's skyrocketing body count. They are also looking to hire more doctors to handle the surge in execution style killings.

So there you have it: Construction in Baghdad is up, and employment rates are rising. Now that's something President bush can point to with pride.

Maybe bin Laden Is Calling The Plays

The government is investigating possible threats against NFL stadiums this weekend.

Well, it's about damn time. The Redskins have been setting off massive stink bombs every time they've taken the field this season. This past weekend's performance was especially horrible. I mean, how the f*ck do you lose to the Tennessee Titans!?!?

qnRf&4d#Ejh*7

According to a new study by The People Who Study Things That Are Pretty Damn Obvious To Begin With, one in three workers writes down their computer password. While this may be convenient for the employee, it also tends to defeat the purpose of having a password to begin with. The practice is so widespread, says the study, that it actually defeats efforts to make passwords more complicated by adding numbers and symbols.

This is alarming and raises an important question: How the hell do the other two in three workers remember their passwords?

Who's The Real Virginian?

Just a few short months ago, political observers predicted Virginia's Senator George Allen would have an easy time getting re-elected. Many even predicted he would make a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. And what of Allen's Democratic opponent, James Webb? He was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb with no chance of winning. And if anyone had suggested that the two would be in a statistical dead heat three weeks before election day, that person would have been branded a lunatic.

Yet here it is, the middle of October, and a new poll shows precisely that: The race between Allen and Webb is now a toss up.

Allen's slide began in August when the Senator singled out a Webb campaign worker at one of his own rallies in southwest Virginia, called him a macaca, and welcomed him to the "real Virginia."

It is worth noting at this point that while the Webb volunteer, S.R. Sidarth, was dark skinned and of Indian descent, Allen's audience was entirely white.

In his apology, Allen insisted that he had just made the word up, had never heard it before, and had absolutely no idea that it is used as a racial slur in some European countries against Africans. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, maybe, except that Allen's mother is French and was born in Tunisia, a former French colony.

Hmmm.... Suddenly it appears he may not have made up the word after all.

Since then things have only gone downhill for the Senator. For example, at a press conference he was asked if it was true his grandmother was Jewish. Allen angrily denounced the question. Then it turned out that she had only recently revealed to Allen that yes, she was indeed Jewish. Allen's initial reaction, coupled with the subsequent admission, caused many to wonder just what Allen had against Jews in the first place.

Then allegations surfaced that back when he played football at the University of Virginia, Allen repeatedly used the word "nigger" in front of several teammates. No word on whether Allen understands that some people consider that word to be racist.

In addition to hurting Allen's campaign, all these incidents have also served to embarrass the people of Virginia. Many late night comics are having a field day portraying Virginia as some sort of uneducated backwater state.

It should also be noted that another thing that is beginning to seriously hurt Allen is his unwavering support of George Bush and the war in Iraq. Even as more information about the various deceptions used to to justify the conflict continues to come out, Allen maintains his steadfast support for the President and his failed policies.

Oh, and the best part of the macaca episode? Sidarth was born and raised in Fairfax county, Virginia. George Allen was born and raised in California. He only ended up in Virginia after his father took the head coaching job for the Redskins back in the early '70s.

That means that Sidarth is more of a Virginian than George Allen.

Killer Flakes

Whenever a few inches snow hit the DC area, the capital of the free world pretty much comes to a skidding halt. Schools close, special events get canceled, federal workers get a day off, and SUV drivers get cocky and end up upside down in the median strips of major highways. Meanwhile, people in the rest of the country--especially those in the northeast and midwest--smugly declare that snow never bothers them.

Yeah, right.

Buffalo, New York has been hit by an early surprise blizzard that left the city completely paralyzed. Not only were schools closed, but (GASP!) leaf collections had to be canceled. Almost 400,000 people were left without power, pumping stations for local water supplies failed, and municipal workers were unable to get to work to, well, help clear the snow from the roads. At least three weather related deaths were reported.

In response to the dire situation, New York Governor George Pataki has asked President Bush to declare a federal snow emergency. If the request is granted, FEMA will provide assistance to the state.

Considering FEMA's performance in New Orleans, the aid for the snowstorm can be expected to begin arriving sometime next July.

Air America Crash Lands

Air America, the liberal oriented talk radio network, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Conservative commentators are sure to have a field day with the news, no doubt pointing out that the network was never able to garner enough listeners to support itself.

And you know what? They'll be right. And you know why? Because liberals--as well as anyone else concerned about the direction this nation has been headed for the last several years--don't need people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and G. Gordon Liddy telling us what to think.

There are people out there who are able to look at the world around them, analyze the facts for themselves, and reach their own conclusions without having someone on the radio herd them around like ignorant cattle.

That's the difference between Bush supporters and those of us who are scared shitless.

Total Recall

Sharp and Fujitsu are the latest companies to recall Sony laptop batteries. Their decision comes in the wake of similar moves by Dell, Hitachi, Apple, Toshiba, IBM, and Lenova. The first recalls were prompted in August after several incidents involving laptop fires caused by overheating batteries.

Has anyone noticed that Sony itself hasn't announced a recall on its own laptops? Guess they knew better than to use their own batteries.

Presidential Irony

According to a controversial new study, 655,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion of March, 2003. Predictably, President Bush has said he doesn't "consider it a credible report."

Excuse me? Is this the same President who repeatedly lied to justify the war, who continues to say things are improving in Iraq even as sectarian violence hits an "all-time high," who dismisses concerns about global warming, who let a major American city drown because of his administration's incompetence, who said the theory of evolution is open to debate, who in the summer of 2001 ignored warnings about a possible terrorist strike, and whose failed policies on North Korea allowed the emergence of a new nuclear threat? And now he's going to pass judgment on someone else's credibility!?!?!?

The only way I'm going to get through the next 831 days is with the help of a LOT of alcohol.

Life's A Gas

Bad weather has forced the temporary closure of the Alaska pipeline. Most of the problems were caused by high winds knocking out power along its 800 mile route. More difficulties arose because of flooding in Valdez which prevented the loading of tankers.

The Alaska pipeline supplies eight per cent of the United States' total oil output. As Americans learned after last year's hurricanes, any serious supply disruptions can quickly lead to an increase in gasoline prices.

How is this even possible in early October? Shouldn't this have (conveniently) waited until just AFTER next month's elections!?!?

Pesky Cylons

Without a doubt, one of the best shows on TV is Battlestar Galactica. If you've been reluctant to check out the new series based on what you remember of the version from 26 years ago, just forget it. Purge your memory now.

This new Galactica is about as dark and depressing as any weekly TV show you've ever watched. You get a real sense of the desperation of the survivors and what they're going through.

One of the ongoing themes of the first two seasons has been our own post 9-11 world. The show has dealt with topics of prisoner torture, kangaroo courts fueled by paranoia, conflicts between the military and civilian branches of the government, and the confluence of religion and politics.

In one memorable episode, a passenger liner becomes separated from the fleet during a "jump." When it finally reappears, the crew is unable to fully explain what happened or how they caught back up with everyone else. Commander Adama orders the vessel to keep its distance from the other ships. It continues approaching, however, and even breaks off communication. Unable to contact the vessel and unsure of their intentions, Adama is now faced with a decision of whether to blow up a civilian transport.

At the end of last season, most of the 47,000 survivors of the human race settled on a planet they dubbed "New Caprica." After about a year, the Cylons suddenly show up. The Galactica and most other ships, still manned by skeleton crews, are able to get away. But those down on the planet fall victim to a brutal Cylon occupation.

As season 3 opens, we find that the humans on New Caprica have organized an insurgency against their captors. But as they become increasingly desperate they begin resorting to.... Suicide bombings. The first target is the first graduating class of human police officers.

In an effort to restore order, the Cylons begin imprisoning suspected insurgents, often without any evidence. And human police officers eventually do take to the streets, but they are forced to wear masks to conceal their identities from their fellow humans. And the Cylon hierarchy is split as to how best handle the insurgency: Ease off, or to continue with an even more brutal crackdown on the humans.

Hmmm.... Perhaps the White House should start watching the SciFi Channel. They might learn something about Iraq.


P.S.
The two hour season premier repeats on SciFi Friday afternoon at 1 PM or Saturday at 3 AM (Stop whining. That's why God invented DVR's).

Gas Pains

Early this morning the Shell station near me was selling regular for $2.04 a gallon, On the way home I noticed the price had dropped to $1.97. Needless to say, I filled up. When I went inside to pay, I asked the guy if they had received a shipment today. He said no, that they had dropped the price simply because other stations nearby had dropped theirs.

I pointed out how dishonest that was, that it's not right to lower the price of gasoline that stations already have in the ground. I demanded justice and made the guy pull out a calculator. Since I had bought 12.7 gallons of gas, and the price had dropped 7 cents, I made the guy accept an additional 89 cents.

Sometimes you just have to show these monopolistic bastards who's boss.

That Genie's REALLY Out Of The Bottle Now

Good news from North Korea this fine morning: The communist nation says it has successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, and seismographic readings from around the world seem to confirm it. Well, either that, or they perfectly timed their announcement to coincide with a 3.58 magnitude earthquake.

Much of the civilized world has condemned North Korea's actions, and the United States is warning of dire consequences for its actions.

It's not immediately what those "dire consequences" will be, since North Korea has long been the target of international trade sanctions, its people are already starving to death, and the U.S. military remains seriously bogged down because Bush invaded a country that did NOT even have a nuclear program.

Oh, wait, sorry. My bad. We invaded Iraq because Saddam DESIRED to have nuclear weapons. Or at least that was reason #324 given after the first 323 kinda turned out not to be true.

Thank God we have our priorities straight.

OUCH!!

Most corporations will gladly pay to have their product featured on a TV show. After all, it's like a commercial, except that people can't scan through it since the product is presumably playing some sort of role in the plot itself. And such product placements, if handled properly, can actually enhance the storyline. For example, seeing a character drink an actual Pepsi (as opposed to some can merely labeled "cola") makes things seem more realistic.

One company, however, has taken exception to the practice. Indeed, they didn't even have to pay to have their product placed on the show. It was free publicity! And what do they do to show their appreciation to NBC? They're suing the network!

Emerson Inc., which makes various household products, was upset over a scene in the first episode of NBC's Heroes. One of the characters, a teenage girl, accidentally sticks her hand down a running garbage disposal. She then pulls the mangled, bloody stump from the drain and watches as her hand heals itself over the course of a few seconds. Emerson's contention is that the scene unfairly portrays their product as being dangerous.

Well, duh!!!! I think most people realize that it's not a good idea to stick parts of our bodies into running garbage disposals. If anything, Emerson should view what happened to that girl's hands as a compliment to the quality of their workmanship!

On the other hand, by filing this lawsuit, Emerson seems to be saying that their garbage disposals will NOT shred your fingers if you stick your hand down them. Hmmm.... Maybe I should try that myself to see if it's true. But Emerson should realize that if I do get hurt by doing that, I'm going to sue them since their own lawsuit implied their disposals were safe.

Fair & Balanced? In What Universe?

In an earlier comment, someone asked how Fox News was handling the Mark Foley sex scandal.

Well, quite ingeniously, as it turns out. They simply turned the Republican Congressman into a Democrat!!

Yes, it's true: The news network, in an on-air graphic, labeled Foley as being a Democrat. And not once, but as many as three times! The slip occurred during a broadcast of the "O'Reilly Factor."

Fox News says the mistake was "corrected" in a later broadcast of the show, but that claim is open to interpretation. What they did is simply remove the party label entirely, NOT use a new graphic saying he was Republican.

Lest you think that was an isolated incident by the normally "fair and balanced" O'Reilly, he also invented some statistics during a recent interview with Canadian Journalist Heather Mallick. O'Reilly threatened her with an economic boycott against Canada. And to back up his threat, O'Reilly cited something called "The Paris Business Review" as saying that an American boycott of France has cost that country billions of dollars in trade.

The problem is that French-American trade has grown by billions of dollars in recent years, and there doesn't appear to be any such thing as "The Paris Business Review."

I recently had liposuction on one butt cheek, and my ass is still more balanced than Fox News.



(Thanks to "Arby" for the tip.)

Who's The Hypocrite?

Leave it to conservative commentator Ann Coulter to defend Congressman Mark Foley and the Republican leadership of the House. She accuses Democrats and other liberal critics of hypocrisy because of the way they handled a similar scandal of their own in 1983.

There is a key difference between then and now, however: The Democratic party of 1983 was not the political arm of the Christian Coalition and other holier-than-thou evangelical groups seeking to impose their interpretation of the Bible on the rest of American society.

Here's a great musical salute to patriotism and the war in Iraq:

(Thanks to Tuan for the link).

Pervert Update

With just about a month left to go before the midterm elections, it seems that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is imploding. More evidence has surfaced that top cogressional leaders--including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert--knew about Mark Foley's "inappropriate emails" as early as three years ago. This new information, which suggests that the Speaker has long ignored the problem, has increased pressure on Hastert to step down.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that Foley's questionable conduct has been going on ever since he was first took office in 1995. In other words, he has hit on dozens of congressional pages over the years, not just one 16 year old.

If there's one thing worse than a child molesting pervert, it's a child molesting pervert with a cheatin' heart.

Martha: ?-October 3, 2006

One of the largest road construction projects on the east coast (aside from efforts to keep the Big Dig from killing anyone else) is the Wilson Bridge replacement just outside DC. The Wilson Bridge, for anyone not familiar with it, is part of the Capital Beltway and carries interstate 95 traffic across the Potomac River.

The project has been going on for some five or six years now. And it's been quite noisy, with assorted heavy equipment rumbling day and night, pile drivers pounding steel beams into the bedrock, and explosions as the old bridge is demolished.

Through it all, a pair of bald eagles have nested nearby. The eagles were dubbed George and Martha (George Washington's Mount Vernon is located just a few miles downriver) early in the project by the burly workers building the new span. Over the years, the workers have kept an eye on the pair as they hunted, performed aerobatics, and raised young eaglets, all within site of the construction. In fact, all Washingtonians have come to know of the birds through periodic news reports in the local news.

Things took an ugly turn last April when a second female eagle showed up in the area. A vicious midair battle broke out between Martha and the interloper, and Martha was left seriously injured by the confrontation. She was rescued by construction workers and shipped off to a veterinary clinic in Delaware for rehabilitation.

With his mate gone, George was left to tend to their nest alone. Alas, the eggs did not survive.

Martha was later re-released to the wild in Delaware. Amazingly she made her way back to the Wilson Bridge area and reunited with George. And for a brief few months all was well in their world.

Then last week workers noticed an injured eagle flopping around on the ground. It turned out to be Martha, and they again attempted to save her life. She was again shipped off to Delaware, where veterinarians determined that her injuries were much more severe this time. She had suffered a broken bone in her wing, apparently caused by crashing into a tree or powerlines during a recent storm.

This time there would be no recovery, and no reunion with George.

Martha was euthanized yesterday.

Sometimes It's Okay To Cut & Run

A United States senator traveling in Afghanistan has sparked outrage with his comments that the Taliban can never be defeated militarily and should instead be allowed to participate in the government. The problem, according to the senator, is that the Taliban are too numerous and too popular to ever be eliminated.

You know, I am getting sick and tired of the defeatist attitude among those damn Democrats. All they ever want to do is cut and run. Those unpatriotic bastards should be--

What? The United States senator who said that is Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, a Republican!?!?!?!?

I Scream, You Scream, Hedgehogs Scream, For Ice Cream

Over the years it has become increasingly apparent that McDonald's food kills, and it turns out the health concerns are not limited to the United States.... Or humans.

McDonald's restaurants in Britain have redesigned their McFlurry desert lids to make them less deadly to hedgehogs. The little critters had a habit of getting their heads stuck in the cup lids. Unable to free themselves, they would eventually suffocate or slowly starve to death.

Meanwhile, here in the States, Bush administration officials have made note of the situation and ordered old style McFlurry cups to aid in the interrogations of terror suspects.

Sometimes It's Good To Be Hard

When the scandal involving Congressman Mark Foley's emails to a 16 year old boy first broke, top Republican leaders in the House made it seem like the whole thing was a surprise to them. But in true Washington tradition, there is plenty of finger pointing yet to be done.

For example, the leadership initially said that while they were aware of some emails having been sent by Foley, it was their understanding that there was nothing questionable about them. Now it turns out that both Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader John A. Boehner were aware of the true nature of the messages as early as last spring.

If so, that raises the question of why they didn't act sooner. After all, Doesn't Congress have an obligation to protect the teens that work as pages and interns on Capitol Hill? And if it appears that an elected official is using his position of power to take advantage of kids that are barely old enough for high school, shouldn't that same leadership move quickly to remove that threat?

Indeed, aren't these the same Republicans that--among all the other charges--accused Bill Clinton of using his high office to take advantage of a girl barely out of college? Or are the Republicans saying that it's okay to sexually prey on those younger than you only if they are BELOW the age of consent?

Finally, why is the Republican leadership so opposed to gay marriage between adults, yet so accepting of having male members of Congress ask 16 year old boys if their dicks are hard?