Forget these sandals, if you can. What catches my eye is this statement:

Are shoemakers looking for faces now?

Then again, I don't suppose anyone is going to write "Nicole Richie has become the new foot of Jimmy Choo."

WorldNetDaily is hyping this "exclusive" story about how Muslims are being warned to leave the US because an attack is imminent. I have my doubts. For one thing, it's in WND, which has a way to go before it can claim to be America's finest news source. For another, it's not like your friendly neighborhood Islamic terrorists pay a whole lot of attention to collateral damage: as long as they kill the ones they're supposed to kill, they've done their job, and anyone else in the vicinity — well, Allah will sort it out.

David Weigel smirks:

Or would be, if there were any; there isn't a single Food Lion within fifty miles of Lincoln.

A rule to live by: "If thy neighbor offend thee, give unto his child a drum set."

Here's the next best thing:

(Seen in a Las Cruces, New Mexico coffeehouse by Kathleen Fasanella.)

MEMRI finds this little gem on Iranian television:

And these people want nuclear power? They shouldn't even have Mountain Dew.

Inasmuch as the first bottles of Pepsi-Cola bearing that name were sold in 1898, fifty years before the founding of Israel, I think we can safely say that this claim is, um, a load of previously-digested high-fructose corn syrup.

(Via Scribal Terror; posted while enjoying a Coke.)

A soon-to-be-former Reno resident says goodbye to her old home town:

This letter appeared in the Reno Gazette-Journal last Tuesday; in the print edition, though not in the online copy, it was followed by an "Editor's Note": "Good riddance."

The next day, the inevitable apology appeared.

In days of yore, it wouldn't have been so inevitable. From yours truly, a couple of summers ago:

(Courtesy of Romenesko, by way of Fark.)

I missed the first half of the announcement, but someone was droning on the radio this morning (right after Morning Edition; I don't think it was a national NPR spot) about how "everything we do is either health-creating —"

[pregnant pause]

"— or not."

Yeah, that ought to narrow it down.

Addendum, 13 October, 6 pm: I've identified the program; the description on screen is a little bit less terse.

When Caller ID is showing 999-999-9999, you have to figure that it's nothing you particularly want to hear: obviously someone is masking a number.

But they left a message, to the extent that the little digital annoyance filter permits this sort of thing (you've got 30 seconds, make it snappy), and they identified themselves as the OCPD, with a missing-person report "in your area."

After the description, they reported where he was last seen, and I recognized the address immediately: I'd been there myself for rehab. And not detox or anything like that: we're talking physical therapy here.

I've got to assume, based on my own experience, that he couldn't have gotten too far.

News item: Microsoft's forthcoming digital music player, dubbed Zune, may make some Hebrew speakers gasp. The name for the device — which will take on the Apple iPod when released later this year — sounds like a vulgarity, specifically the "f" word, in Hebrew.

Big deal. Among the acolytes of Apple, the very word "Microsoft" itself is a vulgarity.

If Zune, or whatever they end up calling it, handles DRM the way Windows Media Player 11 does — which, apparently, it does — the only reason I'd have for buying one would be to drop-kick it over the back fence, and frankly, I have enough discarded hardware waiting in the Reboot queue.

(Via miriam's ideas.)

The Dutch Foreign Minister came to Washington yesterday, and it turns out he's really a Bot.

Didn't faze the Secretary of State, apparently.

In ad-ese, that technically means "We're not any worse than those other guys."

Which means it's not the same as "second to none":

Keep that in mind next time you hear a drug commercial that says "No medicine works harder."

Just a reminder that Silly String is banned in the following locations:

• Hollywood, California, midnight tonight through noon Wednesday.
• Southington, Connecticut, presumably until hell freezes over.

No more of these, please:

• Anything of the form "A B, C [something that rhymes with B]"
  
• "But think about the children"
  
• "Speak[ing] truth to power"
  
• crescatsententia.org
  
• "Anna Nicole Smith," unless followed by "was found dead"
  
• Anything of the form "He was A before he was [something opposite to A]"
  
• "Rosario Dawson's dong"
  
• "It's the [noun], stupid"
  
• "Our exclusive poll"
  
• "I'm [name] and I approved this message"
  
• Anything containing the word "Federline"
  

I would be so grateful.

Addendum, 8 February 2007: I regret to note that Anna Nicole Smith was ... never mind, it's just plain mean. Kevin Federline, you may want to know, is still alive.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch engages in serious contemplation:

Got that? "Urban and rural workers" will be hit hardest.

That leaves — um, who else is there? The guys on the International Space Station?

(Via the presumably-urban Brian J. Noggle.)

Saint Kansas, commenting at The Dawn Patrol, has happened upon a quintessential rule for conducting interviews:

On the face of it, this might seem to be a taboo, and maybe it is. On the other hand, there are ways to handle such things. In the July '85 Playboy Interview, Rob Reiner came out swinging, so to speak, in the very first paragraph: "Under no circumstances will I reveal the size of my penis."

For myself, I've never been asked either, and don't expect to be — and as it happens, the answer I would give is the same for both: "I wouldn't mind a little extra."

Given the fairly-indisputable premise that there is an abundance of asshats in show business, there exists an ongoing debate over whether this is because they're just naturally attracted to showbiz, or because showbiz, owing to its nature, eventually inspires people to degrees of rectal millinery.

Those of you who got better grades than I will recognize this immediately as the old nature vs. nurture controversy, scaled up to marquee size. In the past I have remained resolutely in the center, acknowledging equal contributions of both.

Now I'm not so sure. In the mail this week was a card with a stylized photo of a blue-eyed child and the caption: "You knew early on that you weren't like everybody else."

"So did we," it continues on the inside, and then it gets right down to the real nitty-gritty:

There follows the usual stuff, a card to fill out to indicate my "preferred means of contact," and the summary: "The Infiniti Inner Circle. It's exceptional. Just like you."

And it occurred to me, after I stopped guffawing at this, that a daily dose of sucking up at this level might turn anyone into a veritable fedora of the fundament.

(Disclosure: Gwendolyn has, in fact, 92,497 miles.)

News Item: Liberal man sentenced to more than 20 years for kids' deaths.

You mean they're handing out sentences based on someone's political stances now? Sheesh. You'd think that —

What?

That's not what that means at all?

Oh. Never mind.

LiveJournal's apparently will suggest "Vulgarians" for "Walgreens", demonstrating convincingly that somebody once shopped there.

This shirt prompted this commentary from Eugene Volokh:

Not that compliance, with syntax or with anything that smacks of "rules," is valued highly among T-shirt sloganeers.

Anyway, </i> is deprecated these days: the purveyors of Official Standards prefer </em>. So at some point they really do expect us to "abandon italics forever." And if that shirt doesn't validate, well, neither do I.

Hard to envision this as a dialog box. This was found by a local technician working on the production of recovery disks:

He didn't mention whether the system complains if you don't answer quickly enough.

Which means I don't have to:

"Oh, indubitably," as Daffy Duck used to say.

This is Foxkeh, the Japanese spokescreature for Mozilla Firefox. Unlike the critter-grasping-the-globe logo used elsewhere, this Fox has a different fire entirely:

Jumpin' Jack Flash was not available for comment.

(Via Miss Cellania.)

You probably know this play under a different title.

(Via Fark.com.)

Addendum: Steph Mineart has a better idea.

On Sunny Googe Street:

Alternate title: The First Noel.

Actually, this, in and of itself, doesn't strike me as an unreasonable thing to ask a student:

But why would a student be asked this in a fifth-grade math textbook, of all places? Developing metacognition is wonderful, I suppose, but the first order of business at this level is to get to the point where you can balance a checkbook.

(Via Joanne Jacobs.)

Well, I'm sorry, but that's how "Arkansas's" looks like it ought to be pronounced.

Addendum, 18 March: Matt Barr advises: "When confused about style and grammar, I often consult people who ran for and got elected to state office."

Lorem ipsum is not the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, but a standard piece of boilerplate for evaluating printed-copy design — or even non-printed-copy design, as anyone who's looked over WordPress themes lately can tell you. It goes back to the sixteenth century:

Under no circumstances does it mean "FastAttach Safety System".

Postcard received:

This is like losing Daniel Patrick Moynihan and gaining [fill in any current Senator from New York State].

Dear Mr. Cleaver:

Lorem Ipsum was not available for comment.

(Via Jason Toon.)

Oklahoma doesn't have a front license plate, and some cars sold here are never equipped with a bracket for mounting a front plate — though plenty of people have those brackets installed anyway and fill the space with various pleasantries of dubious artistic merit. (Gwendolyn, originally registered in Missouri, has a bracket, upon which I have mounted a picture of a goldfinch. Imagine that.)

One plate I see on a regular basis around here is easily explained but never really defended. It's always on a Volvo, it's sized like a European plate, and it says simply: SWEDISH. Well, duh. I've more than once grumbled "No shvit, Sven" upon seeing the silly thing. And it is silly: is there anyone who doesn't know where Volvos come from? And why do you never see it on a Saab? (Okay, it makes no sense on a 9-7X, but still.)

Should I ever find myself with the keys to a Hyundai, I think I will have a KOREAN plate made up to these specs, just to gauge the reactions from passersby.

A bill before the California Assembly would rewrite all those old statutes that contain the words "idiot," "imbecile" or "lunatic".

May I suggest: Decelerated-American.

Remember prunes? Of course you do. Except that they'd rather you called them "dried plums."

The remarkable success of this top-down attempt to force the language into another direction, whether it wants to go there or not, has inspired many. Why, it's even made it to television:

The minor detail that none of those vaunted New Technologies actually would require DRM, of course, can be found nowhere in the wild, wonderful world of ZitterSpeak.

Still, if they can sell Simpson's Individual Water Absorb-A-Tex Stringettes — and let's face it, we could use some flood preventers here in Soonerland this week — surely they can sell Zitter's "enablement," assuming the language mavens don't hurl at the very sound of the word.

(Via The Consumerist.)

The best automotive writers combine adrenaline and grace; they can transport you to the Brickyard or the Nürburgring or wherever, and make you feel you're behind the wheel, or at least right next to behind the wheel.

There are few newspaper slots for the best automotive writers, though, which means that there's room for syndicators. The Oklahoman buys a package from Wheelbase Communications, mostly written by Malcolm Gunn. Generally, Gunn's historical stories come off better than his new-car reviews, generally because there's no sense of immediacy — the star on a Gullwing Mercedes is in no danger of tarnish — and therefore no compulsion to come up with ghastly sentences like this:

Now "ground-breaking content" suggests there's a backhoe blog out there somewhere. Weirder is the description of Cadillac's revival: did the CTS pull this off "singlehandedly," or did it merely help? You can't have it both ways.

Verbiage such as this doesn't transport me to the Brickyard or the Nürburgring; it doesn't even transport me to the Cadillac dealership (which, conveniently, is next door to the Infiniti store).

From Hospital Chart Bloopers, through many twisty passages and ultimately through Scribal Terror:

We have vendors like that.

The National Weather Service's local forecast page normally features nine graphics this size to illustrate five days' (almost) worth of forecast, and most of them seem to illustrate the conditions well enough. (The one for freezing rain, sleet and stuff is a nasty-looking icicle, seemingly almost big enough to use as a murder weapon.) But this one? I mean, really, does that look like sprinkles to you? This is more like Noah than NOAA.

So Brad walks down to the beach early one morning, and comes back to witness this spectacle:

I am disinclined by nature (and by fondness for various internal organs) to mock bikers. But then there's this:

I detect a hint of Marxism, of the Groucho variety: "I refuse to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently has a fallback position: in the National Basketball Association.

In the absence of a better explanation:

OregonLive Blazers blogger Casey Holdahl speculates: "My guess is that Alberto can really stroke the three."

(Via TrueHoop.)

But so much for that idea:

"It's clobberin' time," said Benjamin J. Grimm; Susan Storm opted not to be seen at this time.

Although les chats might say it differently in France.

(From Boing Boing via Steph Mineart.)

Addendum: Over at Lynn's place, Fillyjonk suggests: "I think it would be funnier to have a sign outside of a dietician's office that says 'NO YOU CAN NOT HAS CHEEZBURGER'."

They has a bucket.

And by "they" I mean this guy and also this guy.

And another one, and another one, now that I'm thinking about it.

Not her, though.

Not three of them in a row, anyway:

Unlike the dreaded bonitis, Wiiitis is apparently non-lethal:

There hasn't been a game-system-related disease since a number of seizures were reported by avid players of Grand Mal Auto a few years back.

The more I think about this, the sillier it sounds:

When I was in the Army, most of us were more interested in sex than fighting, and we weren't even gay. (Maybe a few exceptions: we didn't ask, and they didn't tell, and that was that.)

How would this, um, stuff work?

Geez. A Pentagon body spray. And, being from the Pentagon, it would probably be $900 an ounce.

Terry asks the right question: "Would it be detected by gaydar?"

... for you to pee on.

Perhaps surprisingly, Triumph is not involved.

(Via Tinkerty Tonk.)

A new perspective from the Empire State [last paragraph]:

Remarkably, it was also true fifty years ago, when the median family income was only $4,966 (about $30,000 today).

(Via Fark, where the Obvious tag is shining brightly.)

There's this:

You mean, like on Star Trek?

(Via Adland.)

Home sales are off again, and the doomsayers are growing ever more florid in their descriptions:

Not to worry. The US covers 3.54 million square miles, which means that in every ten-square-mile tract there are, on average, only thirteen houses floating around, meaning that you probably don't have to worry about running into one during your morning swim commute.

Still, I'm disappointed that they didn't have any video of people swimming in that sea of "raw inventory."

Or something like that. I looked up a small freezer on Amazon.com, and they recommended as an additional purchase — well, see for yourself:

Click to embiggen. Just what are they trying to say?

Courtesy of Kim du Toit, a sign posted at British petrol stations which threatens dire consequences to anyone driving off without paying for his tankful. And I do mean dire: the next step beyond this is, oh, a sternly-worded letter from Council explaining that you know, this is a criminal act, almost on par with owning a gun-like object, and we can't have that sort of thing, can we? Obviously Her Majesty's Government has learned a great deal from the United Nations, for whom sternly-worded letters are only one step away from that which international lawbreakers fear the most: an actual General Assembly meeting.

Meanwhile, back in the States, we're looking at a system that keeps you from removing the hose until you've paid up.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers (D-Omaha) is suing God over, um, acts of God:

It's not like God has deep pockets or anything. Rather, Chambers (last seen here) is trying to establish precedent:

Well, if it's possible to sue Satan, I suppose it's possible to sue God, though I suspect the Senator may have difficulty serving process.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

Doc Searls notes that AT&T's Legal Policy runs over 10,000 words, and singles out this paragraph for special mention:

(Emphasis added.)

Inasmuch as this very policy "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T," I believe that in the interest of consistency — which is, after all, very important when it comes to establishing legal precedent — AT&T should take immediate steps to terminate or suspend its Service.

Lily Tomlin was not available for comment.

I've had heated seats for just over a year, and the novelty has yet to wear off. But mere heat isn't a big deal these days: today's high-luxe seats are heated and cooled, a definite boon if you live in some place like Texas.

On the other hand, if you do live in some place like Texas, you presumably know better than to pull a stunt like this:

Don't get me wrong: I pride myself on my cultural insensitivity. (I keep my car spic and span, so to speak.) But if you're in business, it's seldom, if ever, a good idea to piss off a substantial portion of your customers — especially if your joke isn't all that funny. And this one wasn't.

(Via The Truth About Cars.)

Reader's Digest comes up with an odd statistic:

Emphasis added. First thought: "As though it weren't high enough already." Brian J. Noggle notes:

Oh, that coward who dies a thousand deaths? Awash in supplements, I bet.

Apparently it's some sort of Chinese one-person transpo-module. If they have any notions of selling these Stateside, they probably ought to come up with a different name, lest the little econobox be nominated for The Truth About Cars' Ten Worst Automobiles Today.

Five years ago, this was an issue:

Now the Hawkeyes have opted for the "make-lemonade" option:

I like it. The only problem I can see is that airport-security types are famously devoid of anything resembling a sense of humor, and as you arrive in [fill in name of overworked airline hub] for your connecting flight, wearing your Sioux City shirt, you might well be hassled for mocking their cherished profession.

(Via Fark.)

Sunday's child is full of grace:

Standard Time, no doubt.

T-Mobile and its parent Deutsche Telekom have trademarked magenta.

Riff Raff was unavailable for comment.

(Via Fark.)

Helen Mirren's younger than that now, according to this item from InStyle's back pages (12/07):

No quarrel with any of these, though I feel compelled to point out that Dame Helen was born in 1945.

Adobe has been running an animated ad for Acrobat 8 lately; I spotted it at kausfiles and captured a frame. Anyone know what a "docomunent" is? (Geez, and just when I thought I'd figured out PDFs, too.)

Update, 30 November: You think maybe this is the new term for the new PDFs with Yahoo! ad content?

An English government body evidently didn't do its homework before naming a new road, and this is the result:

I demur. What better place for seed than a meadow or field?

A petitioner thinks she knows what they really meant:

But her belief finds no purchase at Council:

Typical government jerk-off.

(Via Fark.)

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has temporarily abandoned a scheme to charge sales tax on online retail transactions by New York customers, which the New York Sun dubbed the "Amazon Tax"; one Republican senator, questioning the timing, called it the "Grinch Tax."

The speedy turnabout suggests that the headline-hungry Spitzer, at bottom, might still be in possession of a clue or two. I can't say the same for his budget director, though. Paul Francis, trying to explain why the move was so not a tax increase, came up with this:

Emphasis added. And that stuff that makes the clouds move around? It's not actually air until you breathe it.

For the curious: Oklahoma has a "use tax" which applies to online purchases; however, the storefronts don't have to collect it on behalf of the state. (You're supposed to pay it yourself on Form 511.) This is marginally less heinous, because, unlike the Spitzer plan, it imposes no additional burden on retailers.

(Via Kirsten Mortensen.)

Reports of the death of Robert Cade, inventor of Gatorade, have been all over blogdom already, but this is too good to pass up. First, an observation by Kathy Shaidle:

David Janes sent this rejoinder:

Oh, come now.

Carver County, Minnesota, is facing a budget crisis, and they're blaming it on a typo:

Not a problem in and of itself, except that:

And you just know they were gleeful at the prospect of spending that money. Now they're going to have to rely on that expatriate Nigerian minister-without-portfolio whose financial adviser has promised them a cut of his Swiss bank account.

(Via buzz.mn.)

Anybody who's read Fark for any length of time more than a handful of nanoseconds has seen the occasional link marked NSFW, which of course means "Not Safe for Work." In fact, rather a lot of sites use some variation of this tag, which makes me wonder why it is that Head Farker Drew Curtis is attempting to trademark those four words in that sequence.

I assume by default that this is a gag, and Curtis will neither confirm nor deny:

On a whim, I checked the government's trademark database, and apparently no one has yet registered "Duke sucks."

This is Nicole Nason, thirty-seven, the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the past year and a half. A photo of her — not this one — appears in the Car and Driver 10Best issue (January) with the questionable caption RILF ALERT. The R is for "regulator," I presume. And despite releases like this, which argues that fragile old people are more likely to be injured in accidents than the young and hearty, somehow she's a lot less controversial than, oh, let's say, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.

I realize that this is something less than Breaking News, but the alternative item in the can was a bit about those ghastly Manolo Blahniks for Men, and I wasn't about to look at them every day for the next week while they slowly move down the front page. Contrary to popular belief, even I have standards.

The Nordic Battlegroup's coat of arms shows a lion wielding a sword and an olive branch. Originally, it was obviously a male lion, but that would never do:

This action, says the emblem's designer, demonstrates a lack of historical perspective:

I blame this cat. [Warning: Possibly-disturbing graphic.]

(Via Stanley Kurtz.)

(From FrostfireZoo via Rachel Lucas.)

It's hard to stifle a giggle at this bit of froth from Her Majesty's Chief Scientific Adviser:

Absolutely. Women should get their own Ferraris. Why should their automotive desires be subjugated to men's?

(Via AutoblogGreen.)

We're looking for one good nose:

Keep those hands where we can see them, mister.

Because nothing is more important to high-school students than their parents' icons: a "Stairway to Heaven" prom theme.

Sheesh. Call me when they get around to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." At this rate, it should be about 2028.

(Via Pop Culture Junk Mail.)

ISO scru thredz: I haz them.

I'm sure you'd never do this to your own pet, but how about that miserable howling [insert species] two doors down?

(Via Cream of the Crock.)

Who'da thunk it? Prohibition is bad for the environment:

The other angle, of course, is that those Cave City folks might end up buying their libations in Missouri, meaning that Arkansas would be missing out on some tax revenue. Certainly Sharp County isn't getting any of it.

Here's a copy of the petition in PDF format. I kinda hope this actually passes, if only for the delightful precedents it will set.

(Via Res Ipsa Loquitur.)

Ravenwood found this at CNN; since then, they've changed the photo and added a couple of words to the text, but the thrust of the article remains the same. The idea that any of these women might have other ideas apparently never occurred to anyone.

Continuing from the article:

Almost makes you wonder whatever happened to Carol Moseley Braun.

Or, for that matter, Condoleezza Rice. Of course, she's not a Democrat.

Addendum: This made it to Fark with a DUMBASS tag.

I suppose one could adjust to getting email from one's automobile, but I draw the line at getting email from one's body parts:

Rocky Rococo was not available for comment.

(Via Dawn Eden.)

After all, it's a foregone conclusion, at least according to the Boston Globe.

(In case it mysteriously disappears, here's a screenshot.)

Addendum: I have no idea who actually wrote this, but I'll bet it's not John Scalvi.

Update, Sunday: Nyah.

Update, Monday: "Okay, so I ordered a copy," says the Instant Man, and "I notice they seem to have updated the cover art since last night, though!"

"Hero Firefighter Loses Lifelong Battle With Fire" was the headline on this particular faux news item, and pictured therein was Lt. Frank Castillo, 46, of the Des Moines Fire Department, who had "finally succumbed to the combustion he had so bravely battled through most of his adult life."

The Onion ran this piece in September 2006. Playing the role of Lt. Frank Castillo was Captain Rudy Lindia, a real-life firefighter from Ottawa, who, once he discovered the picture, didn't think it was all that funny:

The stock-photo service used by The Onion said they had proper releases for use of the picture; Capt. Lindia says that he assumed the photo was intended only for use by the city of Ottawa.

(Via Fark.)

Originally seen observed here.

The forty-second Super Bowl is being held at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and I thought back to the 1960s, when Super Bowls were no big deal, and the University of Phoenix Commuters were winning all sorts of Western Athletic Conference titles. The new stadium, built in 2003 and generally acclaimed as one of the premier sports venues worldwide, testifies to the greatness of those Phoenix teams, and ...

What? The University doesn't have any sports teams? Their name is on the building because they wrote a large check for the rights?

Oh.

Never mind.

One of the better features in the present-day bereft-of-local-listings TV Guide is Rochell D. Thomas' column "Is It Just Me?" You'll find it around the middle of the book, and it contains a sidebar, too small a photo, and several WTF?-type questions, one of which I'm throwing open here because I'm not quite sure how to answer it myself. From the February 11-17 issue:

I don't think John and Sarah winked out of existence for those six years. Further, I don't see a reason why John at 15 can't live in the same town as John at 23, provided the two Johns don't interact. But then again, I have even less of a clue about how this is supposed to work than Ms Thomas does. Suggestions are welcomed.

Nintendo was founded in 1889, which may or may not have something to do with this British magazine of theirs, which apparently is stuck somewhere in 1959. "Learn to cook on your DS"? Well, okay, I suppose you could — you can learn just about anything not involving personal relationships with a DS — but I suspect recipe-shuffling is a low priority for any female willing to call herself a Girl Gamer. And while you can certainly order a DS Lite (smaller than the average DS) in Coral Pink, I find it hard to believe that anyone actually would. (Despite my serious lack of belief, Trini informs me that someone she knows actually has such a thing.) Bonus minus (!) points for the "Wii Will Rock You" shtick. Says the guy at VG Cats: "That's what you girls do, right? I heard they're voting now ... scandalous." Indeed.

Yesterday Fillyjonk dropped a term I wasn't familiar with, and of course I kicked into search mode, simply because I hate finding even the slightest crimp in my comprehension, and besides there was nothing about it in Technorati and I like to keep them busy.

Herewith, therefore, a brief bit about paludification:

(From a Michigan State University article on poor conifer swamps. There are also, it seems, rich conifer swamps. Life is for learning.)

Mark Peters identifies "BeelzeHillary" as "along with Beelzebama and McSatan, one of the lucky devils left in the race to be the next hellspawn-in-chief." (Citation here.)

Now if you're persuaded that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the two Democrats, it perhaps won't bother you that both of them got the same linguistic treatment here. (Truth be told, McSatan doesn't seem to venture more than a quarter away these days.) But "Beelzebama" has the advantage of sounding almost apt, hence funny, which "BeelzeHillary" does not. I'm soliciting ideas for a suitable alternative term for the Senator from New York.

Whoever's in charge of headlines probably should have read this a second time.

(Clipped from statesman.com. Via Jason Toon.)

"And Aubrey was her name,
A not so very ordinary girl or name.
But who's to blame?"

Um, what? Not a girl, you say?

Oh. Never mind.

When last we heard from Rep. Sally Kern (R-OKC), she had come up with the dubious notion of creating a State Library Material Content Advisory Board, which would be tasked with making sure our precious little snowflakes didn't have any encounters with Teh Ghey.

After that little outburst, I figured she'd fade into the shadows once more. I figured wrong. And after a couple hundred search-engine queries with her name in them, I decided to go see what she'd gotten herself into this time, and happened upon this:

Really? The biggest threat? This seems a trifle, um, overstated. In this corner, we have your GLBT (add letters as needed) types. In the other corner, we have your standard Islamic terrorists. Let us contrast and compare:

Item the First: You've offended members of the group. How does the group respond?

• GLBT: Denounces you and, if you're an elected official, supports your opponent.
  
• Islamists: Cuts off your head.
  

Item the Second: The group wishes to get the attention of the American public. What action taken by them is the most visible?

• GLBT: Holds the occasional Pride Parade.
  
• Islamists: Flies airplanes into buildings.
  

Item the Third: Summarize the changes in American law desired by the group.

• GLBT: Extension of the rights and privileges of marriage to include them.
  
• Islamists: Extension of the rules delineated in the Qu'ran to include everyone.
  

Bonus question: Where would you rather be on a Saturday night?

1. 39th and Penn, Oklahoma City
   
2. Riyadh
   

Thank you for playing.

(Via J. M. Branum.)

Update, 9 March, 2:40 pm: Fritz identifies the real threat.

TracFone, a provider of prepaid cell-phone service, sends out regular promotional offers to their customers, and yesterday's card offered the usual one-year / 400-minute package, but with "Lucky Bonus Minutes!" Just scratch off the lucky cloverleaf — if this was supposed to be timed to arrive for St Patrick's Day, someone dropped the ball somewhere — and see how much your bonus is.

Or don't scratch it off at all, and just read the fine print:

In case you missed that promotional code, it's also on the other side of the card, in much larger print: "Please use promotional code 52057 when adding your 1 Year card to receive your Bonus Minutes."

It's not a bad deal for a low-volume user — I've had twelve-month periods when I didn't use up 600 minutes, and postpaid service costs rather more than $100 a year — but I'm still flabbergasted by the fact that I actually scraped off all that silvery lint, just to be sure.

Here's a washing machine that mounts over your toilet.

No, really:

You have to figure that anyone who goes for this is probably not going to ask plaintively "But where do I put the dryer?"

(Via Hippyshopper.)

George Carlin doesn't think much of package directions:

Carlin probably never got a Hot Apple Pie from Mickey D's, about which Brian J. Noggle thinks plenty:

Last time I picked up one of these, by the time I got it home the proximity of one sort-of-greasy somewhat-warm thing to another sort-of-greasy somewhat-warm thing had made the entire question of "structural integrity" more or less moot.

Back in the pre-industrial days when I studied the concept of "word salad," it was considered to be a possible byproduct of schizophrenia, depending on who was doing the analysis at that particular instant. Its application to spam came much, much later.

Since just about anything that can be done in spam can also be done in blog, it was inevitable that I would happen across something like this spectacular example of complete and utter nonsense which inadvertently contains some tiny shards of reality amidst its links to similarly-bogus bloggage. One paragraph is quite enough:

[One link — under "dirty hippo ringtone" — removed from original.]

Maybe someday Google Almighty will figure out a way to shred this stuff before it gets shoveled at you from under the sneeze bar.

Citibank might want to apologize for this last apology:

Inasmuch as I hadn't read it anyway, I didn't take umbrage. I did, however, fish the offending email out of the spam trap, and guess what? No mention of "Donna Robinson" anywhere in the text.

At the far end of the stove is a back-burner story outline about an invisible woman; she has a name already, but I'm tempted to run the old search-and-replace and turn her into Donna Robinson, just for the sheer heck of it.

On the other hand, if Citibank wants to send Donna twenty-five bucks, I'll see to it that it's disposed of in a non-wasteful manner.

Addendum: Apparently I'm not alone in my Donnaness.

Now here's a title to reckon with: AP Poll: More Avoid Buying Homes.

For a moment, neither of them spoke; the words were there, somehow, but the breath to convey them wasn't in place yet.

Finally: "That was a close one."

"No kidding. We really dodged a bullet that time."

They looked at each other, looked at the FOR SALE sign, and looked at each other once more.

"What will we tell the children?" she asked.

He thought for a moment. "We'll tell them," he said, "that we were damn lucky to escape with our lives, and that we don't want to talk about it now."

"Works for me," she said, taking his hand, and the two of them walked back to the car.

Matt Stone, in the June '08 Motor Trend:

It's Italian. Duh.

A fellow riding shotgun in a BMW X5 in Northumberland apparently mooned the speed camera, causing wailing and gnashing of teeth for at least one minion of Her Majesty's Nanny State:

Get a grip, Jer. The camera could have gotten shot at.

(Via Nice Deb.)

The only Volvo on my Will Consider Next Time list is the smallish C30, and I may have to rethink that in the light of this bit of news:

I assume Mr Herzog's pedal dimensions are expressed in British terms, since the Eurostandard for ginormous clodhoppers calls for numbers in the upper 40s and beyond. That said, a British size 12 is about the same as an American size 12½, which is far from huge. (Says the guy who wears a 14.)

One question remains unanswered: didn't he test drive his Swedish steed?

(Via Autoblog.)

Legalese and English are often at odds, or so it seems to me, and sometimes we have to sacrifice the language to plug the loopholes.

This is not one of those times. Last month former Sonics owner Howard Schultz filed suit against the current Sonics owners, hoping to get the sale voided.

With this in mind, Wiley L. Williams, assistant municipal counselor in Oklahoma City, shot off a nine-page letter to Schultz's legal team [link goes to PDF file] informing them that whoever owns the team is legally bound by the new Oklahoma City leases. Key (so to speak) phrase (page four):

This grates on the ears in several places, although "whomever they may be" is, I contend, the worst, and the least excusable.

Trini reports that no, she did not donate to the food drive this past weekend, because apparently all the notifications sent to her neighborhood were in Spanish, which may have simplified matters for the letter carriers but didn't do a thing for actual speakers of English in the neighborhood.

Not that they're going to send them out in German for her or anything, but still, she was a bit vexed at being left out of the process, and at the assumption that because she lives at such-and-such an address (she's on the south side, between 44th and 59th) she must be Hispanic. Jaime Crow is supposed to be dead, guys.