Tards, The Bizarre, And Dance Superstars

cheese, please


"Looks like pork, Randy..."


filmed in two hours at the community center

Nine More Actors Who Give The Same Performance Every Time

Another edition of what you see is what you get...every time.

Jerry Stiller
I was thinking of putting Ben Stiller here, but it's really his dad who is a one trick pony. If aliens landed on Earth and Jerry Stiller greeted them, they'd think every old man was a gruff curmudgeon with a kvetching issue. He's not so much quintessential as he is stereotypical, as far as I can tell he's been playing the same character for decades...and at what point is he "playing"?

Highlights: The Heartbreak Kid, Seinfeld, The King Of Queens

Exception: The Ritz


Michael Cera
Yes, we get it. You're the secretly cool, gawky, uncomfortable nerd who makes wry asides and is the modern hipster anti-hero. If Holden Caufield and a thrift store shirt had sex with indie rock, you'd be the offspring. And it's now a little thin. Perhaps your balls will drop, you'll fill out, and become a man instead of the posterboy man-child.

Highlights: Nick And Nora's Infinite Playlist, Superbad, Juno

Exception: Arrested Development


Michelle Rodriguez
Casting a Latina with a chip on her shoulder, snarl in her smile, and may possibly pee standing up? Then you're looking for Michelle Rodriguez. Where Rosie Perez took Latin women into whiny territory, and Jennifer Lopez tried to bleach them into divas, Rodriguez just plays it like a straight-up vato with a grande set of cojones. Yeah, masculine touches can make a girl interesting (Jessica Biel anyone?), but having some feminine qualities as an actress helps too.

Highlights: Girlfight, The Fast And The Furious, S.W.A.T., Resident Evil

Exception: Avatar (maybe)

Jason Statham
The strangest thing here is that, while he's in league with the likes of Van Damme and Seagal (or worse, Jeff Speakman, Oliver Gruner, or Lorenzo Lamas), he can actually pull off roles where acting is necessary. But choreographed fight scenes are much easier to pull off. "What's my motivation...oh yeah, punch that guy in the face"

Highlights: All three Transporter films, anything with Jet Li (The One / War / The Expendibles), the Crank series

Exception: Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels


Shia LeBeouf
Shia The Beef has been hailed as the younger generation's next...well, I don't know, but there's a lot of fuzz around him and without any good reason. The scrappy, kid next door routine doesn't sell me on him, and his excitability and chutzpah seem to go farther apart in each role. Pretty soon he'll just be pensively worked up and completely lacking charm.

Highlights: Disturbia, Transformers, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, Eagle Eye, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Exception: an episode of ER, as a child with muscular dystrophy



Jackie Chan
This is kinda unfair, because Jackie Chan can't act. But he'll do the same thing in every movie. Mug for the camera. Speak horribly broken English that he attempted to learn phonetically. And pair him with another ethnicity in a fish-out-of-water action comedy - oh, that's gold. Long ago he was just a guy who did his own stunts and would break a few bones and get a concussion. Now he's just a goofy

Highlights: Rush Hour 1, 2 and 3, the Shanghai movies with Owen Wilson (Noon, Knights, whenever)

Exception: Drunken Master 2


Jennifer Garner
If looking serious, pouty and upset were in the college curriculum, she'd be teaching the master's course. Sure, she can tone it down and give it a little professional flourish (Juno) or grit (The Kingdom), but it's just tempering the same emotion for each role. She hasn't had the same lemon-sucking sour-puss regiment of Renee Zellweger, but there's a good chance that a few more years of citrus will make her sad lips curl even more.

Highlights: Alias, Electra, Daredevil

Exception: 13 Going On 30


Nic Cage
In an age long ago in Hollywood, Nicky Coppola was considered an actor and not a star. But slowly, he developed a style that was equal parts solemn, manic, laconic, confused, inquisitive, cocky, and anguished - all getting screen time and each one unpredictably possible to be next.

Highlights: The Wicker Man, 8mm, Face Off, National Treasure, Ghost Rider, The Rock

Exception: Raising Arizona, Wild At Heart


Ashton Kutcher
Whenever he speaks, it's almost like he's surprised that words came out of his mouth, and when he realizes he managed to form a sentence, he's elated with goofy glee. It's like his switch is stuck on adolescent. I'd just as well buy Stallone doing Shakespeare or Hellen Mirren in an action comedy before believing any role Kutcher plays. And double damn him for punching Demi Moore kitty, though I think that was just a MILF f-u to her daughters, banging their bedroom wall posterboy.

Highlights: What Happens In Vegas, That 70's Show

Exception: None

Homo-Gate?

Miss California Carrie Prejean, in happier times

It was a shockwave that ripped through the small and unimportant pageant world, unleased on live television.

Obnoxious tubby queer bloglodite Perez Hilton was a judge for the Miss USA pageant over the weekend - yes, I'm as confused as you what credentials he has to judge the contest - and he really put the spurs to Miss California Carrie Prejean when he asked her if all states should legalize same-sex marriage. You can peep the video, but her response was:

“Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what? In my country, and my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised, and that’s how I think that it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you.”

Some say the response cost Prejean the crown, but you've got to admire the fact she didn't just go with the safe answer and tell the judges what they wanted to hear. Like telling the gay judge that gays shouldn’t have the right to be married. It’s about time someone in an evening gown stood up for opposite marriage! Perhaps she just realized Hilton was as useless as the career of drawing dicks on celebrity pictures in MS Paint he's created, but you really can't fault her be being honest. Wrong, but honest.

This morning, Prejean went on the Today show this morning to defend her answer about gay marriage. Again, she defended herself, saying:

"I did not want to offend anybody, but I think with that question specifically, it's not about being politically correct, for me it was being biblically correct."

And again, we salute her refreshing candor, even as the representive from our state, which is really not as liberally lilted as some would think. Other than the thinking bastions of Los Angeles (I know that sounds ironic) and San Francisco (who makes Fire Island look like Nebraska), the state is full of right-wingers and conservatives. Prejean is religious, so the answer should be no surprise to anyone. In fact, it's a bit of a sucker punch, setting her up with a gay judge and that question. You may as well send PETA to interview Michael Vick or let Mel Gibson host the next Chabad telethon.

The response from the “dumb bitch”, as Perez called her, should have been a more inclusive answer, and she deserved to lose because of this. Did I already question why he's a judge? Ins't there an episode of Project: Runway he could be on? And does it matter that Perez voted for Barrack Obama, who said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.” Nah, let's just focus on the latent issues.

Guido Beach

Just when you thought it was safe to go back anywhere near the water...

Helikiller

Stopping the pirates of Somalia hasn't been easy, but when the navies of the world have repelled or killed the hijackers, it's often involved three elements: helicopters, drones, and trained snipers. The U.S. Army is working on a weapon which combines all three. Bang, you're screwed!

It's called Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System, and it mounts a powerful rifle onto highly stabilized turret, fixing the package on board a Vigilante unmanned helicopter. The whole system is described in the current issue of Popular Mechanics. The system is intended for the urban battlefield -- an eye in the sky that can stare down concrete canyons, and blink out targets with extreme precision. Attempting to return fire against the ARSS is liable to be a near-suicidal act; ARSS is described as being able to fire seven to ten aimed shots per minute, and it's unlikely to miss.

Recent events off Somalia may also have suggested other uses for this technology, however. Last week's standoff between pirates and the U.S. Navy ended famously with three sniper shots, as a drone watched overhead. In 2008, French special forces captured six pirates on land after ransom had been paid. "There were four helicopters involved," the Independent reported at the times. "A sniper (in one helicopter) shot out the motor of the pirates' four-wheel drive vehicle. A second helicopter then landed nearby, allowing the six pirates to be arrested" - - without any casualties.

The U.S. Coast Guard's Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) uses helicopter-borne snipers to take out drug-running boats. They are accurate enough to knock out engines without harming the crew or damaging fuel tanks. "The driver just threw his hands up" concludes the description of one such action in after all three engines are disabled with three shots. And because the Vigilante is smaller, lighter and cheaper than a manned combat helicopter, it can be supplied in greater numbers, and without the need for those elite, highly-trained snipers.

Sniping from a chopper currently takes tons of skill and training. But ARSS is literally point and shoot for the operator on the ground, using a videogame-type controller. The software makes all the necessary corrections, and the system should ensure first-round kills at several hundred meters. The secret is in the control system and stabilized turret, which is currently fitted with a powerful RND Manufacturing Edge 2000 rifle specifically designed for sniping work using the heavyweight .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge. The stabilized turret could be fitted to a variety of other vehicles -- including a a small blimp, or a fixed-wing unmanned plane, like the Predator. Compared to the Predator's array of Hellfire missiles, the ARSS' lone gun would be much less likely to hit civilians. It would also give a far deeper magazine: dozens of shots instead of a handful of missiles, and at a cost of around $4 per trigger pull rather than about $100,000 for a Hellfire. But the turret doesn't need such a big craft to carry it, as the complete turret assembly weighs less than a single Hellfire.

Like I said, bang, you're screwed.

Renewed

Did there really need to be four Twilight books? Or how about seven Harry Potter tales? What of Dick Francis and his endless (42 and counting) stories of horse racing crime fiction? Clearly, some writers have to go back to the well. But not these guys!

Dapper Dan, aka Scartoe and I are re-teaming for His Words - Not Mine, SEASON 2!

Six weeks from today, we will continue the tradition of aggrandized storytelling, one chapter at a time, trading hands every week until complete half a year later. The newest story starts June 1, and to shake it up (by winning the choice by coin toss), Scartoe has elected to write the first chapter in our new serial, as well as gain naming rights. I will close the book, and have provided a general theme / concept behind the missive.

While I think we're both more comfortable with the process and have learned to play off each other's chapters, I think this year's entry will be much more difficult for us. As is in our rules, we can not and do not discuss any ideas about what we are planning to write, explain character histories or motivations, or share plot threads. It's chapter after chapter being volleyed back and forth until the book is finished.

In the meantime, you can take a look at Halcyon, our first indictment of the English language.

Timescapes Timelapse

Weekend Twating (Or Lack Thereof)

"Save this, I do not plan to twat any of you, for any reason, ever." - IOvUF

And there you have it - that would have been my first, last, and only foray into the bleeding edge favorite Twitter. Because what the fuck do I have to tell all of you that I can't put in an email, phone call, text message, or blogpost?

Now don't misunderstand - I have a hard-on for all the new technology that keeps developing and makes this planet smaller. But like anything powerful, in the wrong hands more damage is done than good. Let's establish some ground rules for this discussion, shall we? Let us accept that, because of new media (interweb, reality tv, and blogs), many folks who have no business having more than a dozen people know them are suddenly, inexplicably...important. As well, add the over saturation of self-importance that's become the de rigueur pop-psychology cum culture. And top it all off with an unhealthy dose of voyeurism. Now, let us begin.

Much like the top Google searches, a list of contemptuous suspects appears...Tila Tequila, Perez Hilton, Octo-mom. All the frontline of people who wield far too much interest and influence on the public imagination. In another era, all they'd be is a diseased, talentless whore, a catty queer, and the village lunatic who who neighbors rarely ever saw. Sadly, that's who and what you're predominantly stuck with for your Twittering, and there's three of them for every guy who figured out how to rig his chair to twat every time he lets one rip. The newest / fastest /biggest direct-contact technology is being overrun with the least important people who feel the need to use it.

Look at Assy Pig Tank, who had the following interesting worthless information to pass along - presented by WWTDD within the appropriate context:

Holy Crap! Is Mexico a mile from the fucking sun because Kim Kardashian fell asleep on the beach there and this was the result. She said on Twitter:

PLEASE HELP ME! I am so sunburned! I fell asleep with huge glasses on yesterday! This tan line is not ok!!!

I know this sucks for her but quite frankly she was asleep on a beach in Mexico on a Thursday in mid-April, taking a vacation from god knows what, so really she should kiss my ass. If she wants sympathy she’s gonna need to try harder than, “I got a sunburn because I was too relaxed at my tropical paradise.” Next time I hope the chupacabra finds her, rolls her over and humps her.

Fuck yeah! But really, I'll tell you who ought to be worry about this: publicists.

Celebrities - real, pseudo and otherwise, who want to "connect" with their fans are flocking to it in droves. And by "connect", that's really "share unimportant babble with the largest group of people possible". The egomaniacal celebrity archetype gets all kinds of excited having subscribers - or the truly more accurate term used, followers - to their twatbursts, because they can absolutely qualify their importance in quantifiable numbers that way. Forget bragging rights for number building Myspace friends...having a Twitter figure is the penis size for the literal cult of personality. More importantly, it allows every already dumb celeb to show exactly how goddamn stupid they are 140 characters at a time. With any luck, all the work publicists would have had making statements and contacting the public on behalf of their clients may still be retained in damage control and spin covering ever ill-advised and un-thought out comment. Maybe they'll twat the retractions and apologies...how meta!

Just this very morning, Ashton Kutcher became the king of Twitter, which is pretty much the next accomplishment you try after you've bagged Demi Moore. Couldn't have just opted for acting lessons? Or is that too much of a challenge?

Impressively, and conversely frightening, is the fact that Kutcher triumphed over CNN in their much ballyhooed race to be the first to reach a million followers. Yes, Ashton Kutcher, the guy who played(?) a retard in "That 70's Show" managed to sign up more folks than a nationally viewed Time Warner Inc.-owned network. Which means that teenage girls are more responsive and mobilized than the rest of the cable news-watching demographic and/or the who and what that people find is more important to follow is a guy who gained prominence by filming pranks rather than the service that gained prestige embedding reporters in the middle of the Gulf War.

Via webcast in the early morning, "Kutcher took the tone of a revolutionary." (wow, easy does it Yahoo! News) "We have shown the world that the new wave is here," he said shortly after passing the million mark, about a half hour before the network. "It is present and it is ready to explode. You guys are all of it because I can't follow me." No shit, genius...but I bet you tried. Kutcher had long trailed CNN, but staged a rally in recent days. Making the asscertion that Twitter is democratizing media and removing filters between celebrities and fans or big media companies and their customers is cute, almost...lofty. "We can and will create our media," Kutcher said, celebrating his victory with champagne and by twatting: "Victory is ours!" And if there's something we could all really use now is a media shaped by Ashton Kutcher and 1 million of his sycophants.

If anything materialistically good came from the competition is that Kutcher and CNN pledged to mark the occasion by purchasing mosquito bed nets to combat malaria, as $100,000 was donated to the Malaria No More Fund, the charity said Friday. But as expected, the bad outweighs the good with this, and a new challenger has come to table - uberdouche and reason number one why abortion must remain legal, "The Hills" Spencer Pratt.

"Ashton had a huge head start, but I believe in my Twitter family," said the media-whore and generally unimportant "person" (because "actor", "celebrity", "personality", and "public figure" are just too strong), who currently has 194,048 followers. "From the moment Ashton accepts my challenge, assuming he's man enough to do so, whoever adds the most new followers in 30 days wins." Wow, you really capped on his machismo! And your timing couldn't have been better. Next up, challenging the winner of the next Boston Marathon to a 400-meter sprint immediately after the race. And the stakes for their May 17 deadline? "If I win, Ashton and Demi have to wash my car," he says. If he loses to Kutcher, Pratt adds that he and his beloved typical blonde bimbo Heidi Montag will clean their house. I think they ought to offer to clean some of these here 9mm bullets. Here, open your mouth and give it a spitshine, you fucktard.

With Real Pirates Abound, They're Downgraded To Their Original Title - "Thieves"

The entertainment industry won round one Friday in a legal battle against file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, with guilty verdicts and one-year prison sentences handed down to four men accused of running and financing the popular site. That sucks.

The defendants vowed to appeal, setting the stage for a lengthy copyright dispute between music and movie corporations and an online swap shop they say has deprived them of billions of dollars in lost revenue. In its landmark ruling, the Stockholm district court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom of helping millions of users illegally download music, movies and computer games. All four received one-year terms and were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million if you can't make the kronor conversion) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.

"We can't pay and we won't pay," Sunde said in a defiant video clip posted on the web. Mockingly, he held up a hand-scribbled "I owe U" note to the camera. "This is as close as you will get to having money from us," Sunde said. With an estimated 22 million users, The Pirate Bay has become the entertainment industry's enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Grokster and Kazaa. Lundstrom helped finance the site while the three other defendants administered it.

Defense lawyers had argued the quartet should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay doesn't host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. For you n00bs, the technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.

The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations by providing a Web site with "sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site." The case focused on dozens of works that the prosecutor said were downloaded illegally. They included songs by the Beatles, Robbie Williams and Coldplay, movies such as "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and computer games including "World of Warcraft — Invasion." Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the site was "commercially driven," which the defendants have denied.

John Kennedy (nice name), the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, called the verdict good news for anyone "who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law." The Pirate Bay had assured users the trial wouldn't affect the site, and it remained operational after the verdict. Authorities temporarily shut it down in May 2006 after seizing servers and computer equipment during raids in several locations in Sweden. But it soon reappeared, running on servers elsewhere.

Andre Rickardsson, a computer expert and former investigator for the Swedish security police, said the ruling could encourage the entertainment industry to threaten Internet operators with lawsuits unless they block access to the site. File-sharing wouldn't go away, he added, but users would likely turn to more advanced technological tools to hide their activities. "It's not as if people will turn around and say 'oops, I'll have to stop file-sharing now.' Instead the reaction will be 'oops, what can I do to protect myself from getting caught'."

Sunde's lawyer Peter Althin said he was confident that higher courts would dismiss the case against The Pirate Bay, which he described as a battle between the corporate world and "a generation of young people who want to take part of new technology." The verdict comes as Europe debates stricter rules to crack down on those who share content illegally on the web. Last week French legislators rejected a plan to cut off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films, but the government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month. Opponents said the legislation would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties, while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable "fundamental freedom."

Earlier this month, Sweden introduced a new law that makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners. The country of 9 million has one of Europe's highest rates of Internet penetration, but has also gained a reputation as a hub for file-sharers. Statistics from the Netnod Internet Exchange, an organization measuring Internet traffic in Sweden, suggested that daily online activity dropped more than 40 percent after the law took effect on April 1.

MJK

Happy 45th to the great Maynard James Keenan - singer, vintner, wearer of many different wigs and head coverings, and the only guy I know who can choke out a fan who gets on stage and still sing through a song.

(longer version)

46 & 2, Or Evolution: It Works, Bitches

In February, American Association for the Advancement of Science held a conference in Chicago, featuring a four-hour long symposium by Brown University biology professor Kenneth Miller, and rather than explain it in real time, here's the gist:

As you know, we have 46 chromosomes. Our nearest great ape relatives have 48. On the surface, it looks like we must have lost two. But that's actually a huge problem. Made up of organized packs of DNA and proteins, chromosomes don't just up and vanish. In fact, it's doubtful any primate could survive a mutation that simply deleted a pair of chromosomes. That's because chromosomes are to the human body what instruction sheets are to inexpensive, Swedish flat-pack furniture. If you're missing one screw, you can still put that bookcase together pretty easily. But if the how-to guide suddenly jumps from page 1 (take plywood panels out of box--uff da) to page 5 (enjoy bookcäse!), you're likely to end up missing something pretty vital. All this left scientists with a thorny dilemma: How could we have a common ancestor with great apes, but fewer chromosomes?

Turns out, the chromosomes aren't missing at all. Genetic investigators caught the first whiff of the prodigal chromosomes' scent in 1982. That year, a paper published in the journal Science described a very funny phenomenon. Researchers knew all chromosomes had distinctive signatures; patterns of DNA sequences that can be reliably found in specific spots, including in the center and on the ends. These end-cap sequences are called telomeres. Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn says telomeres are like the little plastic tips that keep your shoelaces from unravelling. They protect the ends of chromosomes and hold things together. Given that important function, you wouldn't expect to find telomeres hanging out on other parts of the chromosome. But that's exactly what the 1982 study reported. Looking at human chromosome 2, the scientists found telomeres snuggled up against the centromere--the central sequence. What's more, these out-of-place human telomeres were strikingly similar to telomeres that can be found, in their proper location, on two great ape chromosomes.

This evidence laid the groundwork for a brilliant discovery. Rather than falling apart, the two missing chromosomes had fused together. Their format changed, but they didn't lose any information, so the mutation wasn't deadly. Instead, scientists now think, the fusion made it difficult for our ancestors to mate with the ancestors of chimpanzees, leading our two species to strike out alone. In the two decades since the original study, more evidence has surfaced backing this up, which leads us to 2005, when the chimpanzee genome was sequenced around the same time that the National Human Genome Research Institute published a detailed survey of human chromosome 2. According to Kenneth Miller, we can now see extra centromeres in chromosome 2 and trace how its genes neatly line up with those on chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13. It's a great example of evidence supporting the common descent of man and ape.

Treating The Problem, Not The Product

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank. America, time to rethink that drug policy!

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week. Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law. Each three-person commission includes at least one lawyer or judge and one health care or social services worker. The panel has the option of recommending treatment, a small fine, or no sanction.

Peter Reuter, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, says he's skeptical decriminalization was the sole reason drug use slid in Portugal, noting that another factor, especially among teens, was a global decline in marijuana use (wow, really?). By the same token, he notes that critics were wrong in their warnings that decriminalizing drugs would make Lisbon a drug mecca. "Drug decriminalization did reach its primary goal in Portugal," of reducing the health consequences of drug use, he says, "and did not lead to Lisbon becoming a drug tourist destination." Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says decriminalization in Portugal "appears to be working." He adds that his office is putting more emphasis on improving health outcomes, such as reducing needle-borne infections, but that it does not explicitly support decriminalization, "because it smacks of legalization."

Drug legalization removes all criminal penalties for producing, selling and using drugs; no country has tried it. In contrast, decriminalization, as practiced in Portugal, eliminates jail time for drug users but maintains criminal penalties for dealers. Spain and Italy have also decriminalized personal use of drugs and Mexico's president has proposed doing the same. Not surprisingly, a spokesperson for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment, citing the pending Senate confirmation of the office's new director, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also declined to comment on the report.

In Exactly One Month From Now

No, not atomic warfare, but it's a great edit with the footage from a documentary. And yes, they are that intense.

Death And...

News For A Wednesday

It may be the middle of the week, but the headlines are fresh!

NYC's Next Archbishop Will Challenge Gay Marriage - Reality TV is starting to run out of ideas. America's Next Top Model shouldn't have spawned spinoffs.

Clothing Company Responds To Woody Allen Suit - Do you get it? Clothing company? Suit? No wonder they say news media is dead.

Iran Willing To Build New Relationship With US - All they're asking for is to exterminate all Jews, homosexuals, and infidels. Otherwise, they're good to go!

Student Killed In Love Triangle Involving Teacher - Yes, as hoped for, it turns out it was a math teacher in this story. Irony, she is not without humor.

Homemade Deodorant? - Hey you cheap bastard, if the economy has got you so tangled that you have to make your own deodorant, you're probably homeless, which makes me glad you're tring to smell better.

Ron Paul's Plan To Fend Off Pirates - Surprise! It's another YouTube campaign. Let's hope they don't try and commandeer some views or embedded links!

Justin Timberlake To Climb Mount Kilimanjaro For Global Awareness - Because nobody in the world knew it was a big ol' mountain.

Scientist: First Cloned Camel Born In Dubai - Hours later, first beastiality with a cloned camel.

Treating Kids With Malaria At Home Doesn't Work - Neither does treating kids with malaria at school, on the playground, or at the mall. Face it, kids don't want malaria, so stop treating them with it.

Glavine: Sore Shoulder Could End Career - Tender little baseball babies. You don't hear AML players complaining. Yes, that's the American Masterbatory League.

2 Women Accused Of Staging Fake Funerals - No word on the corpse accomplices...or were they fake too?

Chatsworth Train Crash Survivor Has A Long Road Back - Sorry, buddy. Train's out of service now. Hope you don't have too far to go. What's that? Chatsworth?

NASA Names Treadmill After Colbert - Sure, name the space station after the eighth most popular response, not the top vote-getter. See, this is the kind of thinking that causes sshuttles to explode.

Study: Energy Drinks Boost The Brain, Not Brawn - Yes, and that is why they are called energy drinks, not weight gainer or mass builders. I hope that wasn;t an expensive study.

Stone-Throwing Afghan Crowd Swarms Women's Protest - I have a hard time believing they weren't passing out stones when they spread the word. "Hey, chuck this at some of those 'free-thinking' women at the town square today at 3!"

A Sense Of Humor Is Important In A Gal

Red Mercury

Saudi police are investigating the origins of a hoax that had hundreds of people believing that old sewing machines may bring fortune because they contained an elusive, and probably mythical, substance known as red mercury. Yes, this from the part of the world where marital rape is permissable.

Saudi newspapers published pictures of Saudis proudly posing next to old sewing machines awaiting prospective buyers at traditional markets. The English-language Saudi Gazette said some buyers were willing to pay up to 200,000 riyals ($50,000) for an old Singer sewing machine proven to contain red mercury. Proven how? With mobile phones, supposedly employed as instruments to prove the existence of the phony substance. That's a hoax-within-a-hoax! Popular (read: idiotic) belief in the Middle East has it that it can help uncover hidden gold treasures, though there are other theories which say it can be used to create a nuclear bomb.

"If the line cuts off when the telephone is placed close to the needle ... that proves the existence of the substance," Saudi Gazette said. Why am I not surprised that they won't test in parking garages or elevators? Another newsparer, Al-Eqtisadiah, said "poverty provided a fertile ground for the red mercury rumor to spread in Saudi society, especially the middle class."

"We have to find out who started this hoax. We cannot be 100% sure of getting in the short-term to the person or persons who started this," an interior ministry spokesman told the media, and then waved his cell phone over a pair of machines, hoping to strike it rich. "People hope to make profit. This is no different to cases of citizens who put their money in untrustworthy schemes," he added. Already, thousands of Saudi citizens have lost their life savings to financial scams consisting mainly of operations to raise money for real estate projects, but this genius way to take advantage of people with the ubiquious cell phone takes scams to a new level!

Other Mercury objects, ranked according to value:

Mercury

Mercury

Freddie Mercury

Mercury Insurance

Mercury Grand Marquis

Mercury

Mercury Rising

The Faded Stars Of Yesteryear

The future ain't what it used to be, and two of the more prominent figure of days past are now historical footnotes.

First, legendary rock music producer and total lunatic Phil Spector was convicted yesterday of second-degree murder in the shooting death of "film actress" Lana Clarkson at his mansion six years ago. The verdict will send him to prison for at least 18 years barring a successful appeal. A jury returned the verdict after about 30 hours of deliberations. The jury had the option of choosing the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, but did not do so. The panel also found Spector guilty of using a firearm in committing a crime.

The 40-year-old Lana Clarkson, "star" of the 1985 cult film "Barbarian Queen," died of a gunshot fired in her mouth as she sat in the foyer of Spector's mansion in 2003. Spector (69), who had long lived in seclusion at his suburban Alhambra "castle," was out on the town in Hollywood when he met Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, at the House of Blues. Clarkson, who was unable to find acting work, had taken a job as a hostess, and when the club closed in the wee hours, she accepted a chauffeured ride to Spector's home for a drink. Three hours later, she was dead as hell. Prosecutors argued (though argue may be the wrong word to describe what is basically a fact) Spector had a history of threatening women with guns when they tried to leave his presence. The defense claimed she killed herself.

Prosecutors, haunted by the acquittals of stars such as O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson, at first seemed invested in making Spector the first star to be convicted in a major criminal case. But after the first trial ended in a deadlock, public interest faded. The second six-month trial was played out in a sparsely populated courtroom with few members of the media present. As in the first trial, they presented testimony from five women who told of being threatened by a drunken Spector, even held hostage in his home, with a gun pointed at them and threats of death if they tried to leave.

Back in the 1960's Spector reigned as the hit maker supreme with such songs as the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and the Ronettes' classic, "Be My Baby." He was the inventor of the "Wall of Sound" recording technique and producer of teen anthems including, "To Know Him is to Love Him," The Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "He's a Rebel" and Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep-Mountain High." He also worked on the Beatles' album "Let it Be."

Also stepping out of the limelight - and for different reasons, is Marilyn "Behind The Green Door" Chambers, the former Ivory Snow girl who helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream consciousness.

Chambers' 17-year-old daughter found the actress' body Sunday night at her home, and Chambers (56) was pronounced dead at the scene. Along with Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin, the three shot to fame at a time in the early 1970s when both American social mores and the quality of hardcore sex films were changing.

For the first time, films like "Behind the Green Door" and "Deep Throat" (also released in 1972 and starring Lovelace) had decent acting and legitimate if fairly thin plots. As the audiences for them grew to include couples, they also began to take on higher production values and to be seen in places other than sleazy theaters. While the film was still in theaters, the public learned that its star was the same young blonde smiling and holding a freshly diapered baby on boxes of Ivory Snow laundry soap (which the company touted as "99 and 44/100 percent pure"). Naturally, the manufacturer quickly replaced her.

Although Chambers was quick to point out in 2000 that she had done more R-rated films that X-rated ones, she made no apologies for the latter. "There will always be a stigma on people who do adult films," she said. "It's unfortunate that that's the way society has made it. I have to say that the adult films have been a total pleasure. They were like getting paid to live out my greatest fantasies. The rest of the stuff...sometimes got to be a real grind."

Of Wolf...And Pig

Untamed Vagina

Josh and Anna Duggar are following in the family tradition - fucking with reckless abandon and eschewing birth control!

Josh Duggar, the eldest of Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar's 18 children, has announced that he and his bride, Anna, are about to start their own litter brood. The couple, who were married last September, say Anna is due Oct. 18. Hooray! More zealots and more babies for Jesus!

The Duggars live in northwest Arkansas (naturally). They're featured on TLC's horror-reality program "18 Kids and Counting." Michelle Duggar most recently gave birth in December, to daughter Jordyn-Grace. The couple have 10 sons and eight daughters - all with names starting with the letter "J". No word on if they'll change the letter once they break 20.

Josh (21) and Anna (20) live in Springdale, where he works at a car dealership. Anna is not listed as employed, but you can bet her job is "breeder".