The insanity is spreading from the US to Europe (isn't it usually the other way around). Women's groups are protesting the Irish Open because its held at a course that doesn't allow women members. The one good thing I see out of this is at least once some decisions are made - it'll be over and done with. We won't be forced to see the same scenerio played out with the same arguments on each side over and over.

I'm currently on a short vacation at my in-laws in Indianapolis. Between the 11 hour drive yesterday (and home again on Sunday), and the coma I'll go into after eating 3 pounds of Turkey tomorrow - I don't expect to be very active here at the site.

I've finally become disgusted enough with pop-up windows than I'm switching away from Internet Explorer to Mozilla. One feature thats been keeping me with IE for the last few months has been an add-on program that manages passwords for me. I do know that Mozilla has a password manager as part of the browser, but does anybody know how secure that information is? I'm a bit wary of storing info like that in an app that directly access the internet regularly.

Also, because I like surfing with the tabs rather than in new windows - and as such, links from this site will no longer open in new windows [you win Dennis].

Ugh. Organizers of the Miss World competition on Monday denied they were to blame for triggering religious riots in Nigeria in which at least 200 people died and led to some 80 beauty contestants fleeing to Britain to stage the event. Of course they aren't to blame, but despite what they say, neither is the media: Miss World chief Julia Morley blamed the media for the uproar and cited a Nigerian newspaper article that inflamed the nation's Muslim population by suggesting that were he alive, the prophet Mohammed would have wanted to marry one of the beauty queens.

No. The blame in this case falls squarely on a culture that is so unable to be tolerant of anything new or different, that it resorts to violence again and again and again.

More holiday gift ideas. How about some of former Congressman James Traficant's belongings. Jeff Anglin Auction Service will also offer a wooden yoke, a collection of federal duck stamps and several church pews, as well as wall art, lamps and end tables. The items were collected from Traficant's Washington, D.C., office, his Boardman office and his Green Township farmhouse. Too bad they aren't including his hair-hat.

Oh the hypocricy. After a student there won a radio contest, Kashmere high school in Houston got to have Jay-Z as principal for a day [alt link] Jay-Z as principal for a day. The same Jay-Z who was convicted of assault last year after admitting in open court, "I stabbed Lance Rivera".

But hey, no worries - he's got a positive message. Stanton Lawrence, Kashmere's real principal, had his own reservations when approached about the event. He realized that some members of the community could criticize Jay-Z's visit. "If this rapper is going to come and bring positive messages to our students, and encourage them along the right path, we need to be receptive," Lawrence said.

Using that same logic, one is left to conclude that schools must feel that kids who carry bottled water in the hallways can't make a positive contributions to their school. Isn't it also ironic that schools seem more receptive of a man convicted of a stabbing than of a 7th grader who sucked helium from a tank at school.

And for all those kids who've been suspended for having a pierced nose, or blue hair - I wonder how it is that their appearance can be deemed more 'distracting' to the precious 'learning environment' than having a mega-star rapper walk around the school poking his head in classrooms and making loudspeaker announcements.

Its a good thing that school administrators have their priorities straight.

Solo's looking for a phone. He likes the Sanyo SCP6200, but I think he'd be equally happy with the LG LX5350 or the Samsung N400 - they both have color displays and are cheaper.

Amazon actually has hardcover versions of both Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and Survivor in stock for the first time in ... well, years. If you haven't read this stuff - do it now.

There's also an interview with Chuck at the Onion AV Club. Exerpt: People have asked me to write things like "I love Satan" in their Bible, and there's things like that I can't condone, for whatever reason. Nobody's told me anything to date that I've been completely reviled by. The Cacophony Society crucified a pink seven-foot rabbit outside St. Mary's Cathedral in Portland on Easter morning, and I refused to take part in that, because it seemed like it was attacking these people's religion. So I have a threshold, too.

Hey, if you've got a Discover Card, just go to discovercard.com/favors/ and dump in your card number and you'll get $5. Free money rocks!

Rivaled only by Ricky William's self-made website, today I find Leah Remini's official site. Ack! Please tell me that she didn't actually pay somebody to make that site for her. Please tell me that some 11 year old child actor with a crush on her made that website and managed to convince her to put it up.

In Mississippi, a student was suspended 5 days for leaving the cafeteria with bottled water in his hand. And then the obligatory understatement ... parents say principal overreacted.

Hell, in some schools, you'll only get suspended for having a toy gun in your backpack. 5 days for a bottle of water seems perfectly reasonable, eh?

About as reasonable as suspending a student for 2 days for asking another student if he'd ever kissed a boy. After asking the question, a fight broke out - but didn't involve the kid who got in trouble. The school district told the kids father his son was too close to violating the district's sexual harassment policy. So the kid didn't get suspended for violating the sexual harassment policy - he got suspended for almost violating it. What wonderful logic that is.

Just when you think schools can't get any more stupid, they go and prove me wrong. A student has been suspended for walking thru the school w/ a plastic gun (it was a play prop). Where this gets really stupid is that the gun in question is being used by the student in a school play thats being rehearsed in the school auditorium.

The "prop" Mark Ott admits to taking out of Lincolnway's Auditorium is a plastic gun. He had a small part playing the role of a "police officer" in the school play. Ott says he forgot he had the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants when he left rehearsal to take a bathroom break. "He left the washroom to go back into the auditorium and had the gun in his hand, visible hanging down at his side in his hand," said Wyllie. At least one adult saw -- what appeared to be a real gun -- called school administrators who in turn called police. After a two-hour search of the school, the fake gun was found right where it belonged on the prop table in the auditorium.

And he ends up getting suspended for 5 days, and banned from being in or attending the play ... and in his school file, the reason for his suspension is cited as "possession of a look-a-like firearm." I wonder if it also says that the look-a-like firearm was actually school property that had been lent to the student. Doubtful.

Dictionary.com is trying to make some money by convincing people to pay $2/month for the site. They try and make it worth your while by giving you some word games and crossword puzzle dictionaries, but largely I think this has no chance in hell of working. If I'm looking to play games, Dictionary.com isn't exactly the first site (or even the 500th site) to pop into my head. The crossword puzzle stuff may have a draw to it for folks that like them, but I suspect that most people still do crossword puzzles on real paper with a real crossword dictionary next to them and not while sitting at the computer.

Well, as expected, Stacy went and bought Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance this morning. (Best Buy hadn't even had time to get the games on the shelves before she showed up) I played it a bit over lunch today and its very very smooth. Lots of blood, lots of different moves, and after years of the same basic character set - lots of new characters. Definitely worth the money.

Solo just redesigned. I hope you all like purple.

Considering that Jay-Z has a new album out and that FoxNews is saying that it'll be a smash hit, I'd like to see a follow-up story to what was written in October of last year:

Rapper Jay-Z's Guilty Plea May Lead to MTV Sentence: Jay-Z made big news yesterday. He admitted in open court here in New York: "I stabbed Lance Rivera." Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has the no. 1 album in the country this month with The Blueprint. But this is a different atmosphere than ever before. And though Jay-Z has paid off his victim, his admission of guilt may get him a worse sentence than three year's probation.

He may wind up getting banned from MTV. Judy McGrath, the head of MTV, told me last night that if Jay-Z indeed pled guilty to stabbing the record producer in a nightclub: "We would back off of him."

In other words, Jay-Z's videos will probably not be welcome at MTV during this time when McGrath is preaching tolerance on her influential network. Indeed, she was honored last night by the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York for her substantial efforts to promote peace — and not just since the Sept. 11 tragedies. Last year McGrath set aside 17 straight hours of programming for hate crime education.

Are they still going to 'back off' his videos? Or are they going to think that everyone has forgotten and just play them over and over on TRL again? My guess is that they'll just play the hell out of his videos and assume all is forgotten.

Solo says: wait a sec ...your wife knows about the latest mortal kombat? how did you get a chick like that? Just blind luck I guess. Its not all roses though, we do own You've Got Mail because she likes that too. And I'm pretty sure that she's been feigning a back injury and resting so than when its released, she has the energy to play for about 48 hours straight.

Perhaps at the end of their 'Switch' ads, the Mac people should be required to put up some sort of warning that You may develop a sexual attraction to your new Mac. For about a year, Mark Allen, a gay man living in New York, conducted an online relationship with a man living in Austin, Texas. But as the relationship matured, Allen realized it wasn't his cyberboyfriend he was falling in love with, it was his PowerMac G3.

Congress finally got off their asses and approved a kids-safe domain system. Originally, the goal was to get a .KIDS top level domain that would only contain kid friendly content, but what they ended up agreeing on is to use .KIDS.US instead. The bill now says that Web site with a kids.us address cannot post hyperlinks to locations outside of the kids.us domain. It also prohibits chat and instant messaging features, except in cases where a site operator can guarantee the features adhere to kid-friendly standards developed for the domain.

All your questions shall be answered. 74-year-old C.A. Honey - a TV repairman, aircraft design engineer, former Navy & Air Force, hypnotist, and now author has solved the mystery of the universe: According to Honey, mankind did not originate on Earth through normal evolution but is the result of a special creation performed by the Nefilim who came to this solar system about 450,000 years ago as documented in ancient Sumerian writings. He said the government has participated in a disinformation campaign, including the use of hypnosis, to confuse the truth and is concealing it from all those who could not accept it at this time.

In about an hour I'm heading to Salina, KS for a short meeting. And on Tuesday, I go to El Dorado, KS for another short meeting. If I could ever be in one place for more than a few minutes at a time, I'd actually have the chance to write something semi-intelligent here.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who'se been buying items from Amazon thru the links on this site. I didn't think it was possible for even more people to be buying stuff than last quarter, but the activity has increased dramatically again.

And, as previously promised, I want to give something back to you all (well, at least 1 of you anyway) as a thanks, so I need to have some sort of a contest. The problem is what type of contest to have? So please, use this weekend to post contest ideas in the comments section of this post (or email me). If most of you think a plain-old drawing is best then thats what I'll do; or if somebody has a nifty idea for a creative type contest maybe we'll do that. Help me out here.

Its a bit more than interesting to find statements like this about Iraq in a liberal publication. Anti-war liberals have derided the prospect of a liberated Iraq serving as a model for Arab democracy -- and starting a domino effect that could liberate the Muslim world from the grips of petty despots and theocratic lunatics -- as fanciful. But for all their talk about the "root causes" of terrorism, my fellow liberals have spoken very little about how they plan to remedy the situation. Deterrence is not going to address the "root causes" of terror. It will likely make them worse. At best it will leave a madman in check and leave much of the Muslim world in an ongoing mood of simmering disdain for America. At worst it will empower a madman to bide his time in manipulating the Muslim world's ongoing disdain for America. It is not a policy of hope; it is a policy of little imagination and puny moral spirit.

Oh, and Helen Thomas is offically insane: "Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam," she said to enthusiastic applause. Sure Helen, because just like Japan - Bush wants to make the whole world his empire.

I'm off to Tulsa tomorrow. I'll have time tomorrow evening to devote to this site - look for updates then.

Michael Jackson is scary, very scary.

I saw this article about how close Nancy Pelosi (likely the next leader of House Democrats) is to Jack Valenti and the entertainment industry and had the exact same thoughts as Jay Caruso. The GOP should take note of this. They could easily make a case for the 'little guy' in the fight for fair use. Let them make Democrats on national television defend practices that have sent others to jail. Ask them if they want consumers to have to purchase two copies of the same CD so they can listen to it on a stereo and a computer. Ask them if they want a CD crashing their PC.

Pelosi has other problems as well - she argued that welfare reform would be nothing but harmful, when it has turned out quite well. And, she supported none other than Gary "My wife has no thumbs" Condit for re-election in the primaries this spring. If Dems are smart, they'll elect Harold Ford as their new speaker.

Well, Stacy will be thrilled to hear that JK Rowling has all but finished the next Harry Potter book - 'The Order of the Phoenix'. FYI, we've already got our tickets for this weekends opening of the 2nd Potter film - 'Chamber of Secrets'.

Also, there's finally a shot of what Nightcrawler looks like in the next X-Men film. I'm assuming they'll leave the Batmanesque 'Poof' when he teleports.

Looks like we might find out real quick how serious the UN is about enforcing its resolutions, because the Iraqi parliment (read = Saddam's minions) are recommending he reject the resolution. This, despite the fact that a few months back Saddam promised 'unconditional' acceptance of new UN inspectors. What a total shock, eh?

Its also possible, that the whole parlimentary review of the UN resolution is just a propaganda front for Saddam. By having them review it, and recommend rejection, he can swoop in and accept it showing the world that he's not such an evil guy after all.

Although I don't want there to be a war, I do hope that Saddam rejects the resolution so that the issue of the resolve of the UN Security Council can be laid to rest once and for all. Do any of you really think that France, Russia, or Syria would vote for a war resolution if Saddam rejected the inspections? I think they'd argue that we just need to sit down and revisit the language in the inspection resolution until we can get something that Saddam will agree to.

Oh my. Barbra Streisand - "Like Michael Moore, but with Smaller Tits". Now I need to go get a wet paper towel to clean the Pepsi off my laptop screen that I just spewed out when I read that tag line.

And just another reason to be skeptical of the idea of international courts. How convenient: International courts develop and apply new principles of international law; and then people can be criminally punished for expressing disagreement with the courts by saying that the decision was wrong, because the underlying conduct was in fact justified. That's what European free speech law is coming to -- international institutions not only acquire new power, but also acquire immunity from criticism, enforceable by criminal punishment. I, for one, am comforted that we currently have an administration that puts little value on international courts.

I spent some time at the D-Day Museum while I was down in New Orleans this last week. I bought my daughter a Rosie the Riveter t-shirt and got myself and Stacy WW2 'Buy War Bonds' propaganda poster t-shirts that they don't have listed on their website. The shirts are of the poster that was used on this website prior to this version with the soldier holding the bottom of an American flag at about a 45 degree angle.

Nothing starts a week off right like a 6-year-old boy getting expelled because he threatened to shoot two classmates with 'his gun'. Shockingly, the school board chairman actually seems to have an understanding of the problem with the rules he has to follow: "The hardest thing is the school followed procedures and the child, I'm afraid, does not know what the punishment is for," he said.

Well lets see. Perhaps if you didn't treat a 6-year-old like a high school senior the whole thing might make more sense. Hell, alot of 6-year-olds don't really understand what would happen if they actually shot somebody with a gun. Is it really a threat of serious violence if the kid thinks shooting a classmate is the equivalent of punching them in the stomach?

Maybe the solution is just to arm all teachers with a weapon of some sort so that they can threaten students when they get out of line. Teacher in Japan suspended for threatening student with an axe during class. The unnamed 45-year-old teacher was in his class at a Nagano high school when a student of another class burst into the room and started making a racket in June this year. He ordered the final-year student to leave the room but the boy ignored him. Furious at the boy's antics, the teacher picked up an axe, which he was using to cut firewood as part of his lesson, and threatened him. And then the understatement of the year from the school board - the teacher was having difficulties communicating with his students.

A group of British film experts has picked Apocalypse Now as the best film of the last 25 years - it only comes in 29th place in IMDB's rankings. While I'd place the film easily within the top 10 of the past quarter century, I'm not so sure about it being the best.

I'm debating whether or not to buy Kurt Cobain's journals. I've read all sorts of books (and watched endless documentaries) about him and Nirvana - all of which have been interesting to me - but reading his actual journals may be a little more info than I want.

I'm reading Punktown at the moment and it isn't quite what I expected. Rather than just one short book, its actually a series of short stories that appear to only be connected by the fact that they all occur within the same city - the characters from each story don't overlap at all. This is a bit disappointing because I'm not really a fan of short stories.

For me, they tend to fall into one of two categories. Stories that are short because there isn't enough material to make it into a whole novel - these are usually uninteresting also. And stories that are short because the author didn't take the time (or have the interest) to turn a good idea into a full-fledged book. So far, Punktown is the latter. I'm only 3 stories into it, but each of the first 2 could easily be made into a full novel - a very good full novel. So although the stories are good - they are frustrating me with their lack of development.

UPDATE: I managed to finish reading Punktown while I was down in New Orleans. Overall, the stories are excellent - and my only previous criticism (that they weren't developed into full-fledged novels) still stands. Luckily, it appears that Jeffrey Thomas' publishers feel the same way, and hence a full length novel set in Punktown is forthcoming in late February 2003 called Monstrocity.

Well, I'm back from New Orleans. I wasn't intending on going completely silent while I was gone, but between leaving behind the power cord for my laptop and forgetting to install the dial-up software on my new hard drive prior to leaving ... well, I didn't have much of a choice. And now its gonna take me a day or so to catch up w/ all my email.

How 'bout them elections!

Teacher unions do such a wonderful job ... for teachers. Teacher reinstated after telling her 4th grade music class that she had a gun and would shoot them if they didn't play their recorders correctly during a music class early last week. She also pointed out an alleged blood spot on the floor and told the kids that the bodies of the students she had previously killed were in a classroom closet. Any guess on what the punishment would have been if a student had said the same stuff during class?

Don't expect too much from me today - or the rest of this week for that matter. Today is my 7th wedding anniversary, and on Wednesday I head back to New Orleans for a few days. We did all the anniversary celebration stuff this weekend, so I'll just be trying to get rested up before my trip.

One thought though - does everybody else have the same sense of dread about the elections that I do? Not dread that my preferred candidates might lose - but that the process as a whole is just going to go very badly. Florida, New Jersay, Minnesota, Missouri, Lousisiana - take your pick. At least one, and likely more, of these places will have some very serious legal challenges to the outcomes of their elections. I hope this is just a bump in the road and not an indication that elections will continue to be uglier as time goes by.

My terrorist connection hunch on the sniper shootings is starting to look less likely. It appears that the laptop found in their car may have simply been stolen from a previous victim along with about $3k in cash.

Cool beans. The DVD boxed set of Mystery Science Theater 3000 gets released on November 12th. Its got episodes for Bloodlust, Catalina Caper, The Creeping Terror, and Skydivers. I miss that show.

Student given 2 days in-school suspension and not allowed to participate in homecoming football game because he kissed his girlfriend on the forehead at school. Bowler said he has enforced the rule consistently and plans to continue doing so. At least a dozen students have served in-school suspensions this semester for the same violation. And I suppose consistency is supposed to make it all better? Punishment that doesn't fit the 'crime', regardless if everybody is subjected to it or not, still isn't just.

And another high school student's Halloween costume gets him arrested at school.