Has to be. Under what other conditions would we have magicians calling eachother out - challenging them to a ... a what ... an illusion-off? "David (Blaine), get out of your silly little box. As I've always said -- any time, any place, any challenge. You had to run to London to escape your biggest fear... me. You've talked about a challenge between us in the press, but it was just a bunch of BS, like most of what you do." -Criss Angel

Magicians talking smack. Boy oh boy thats sad.

Also, the guy who tried to mess with David Blaine's water supply got fined about $1200. That seems about right.

In the roughly two months that school has been back in session in Duncanville, Texas - over 700 students have been suspended for dress code violations - some as trivial as having their shirts untucked.

Montgomery's daughter, Raylee, was suspended after an administrator noticed the 13-year-old girl's shirt had become untucked. The girl said she apologized, tucked in her shirt and asked if she could continue to class but was not allowed.

"The consequences are so extreme," Mr. Chavez said. "They've created a big problem here."

More of that reality TV crap is fake than you might realize. In a Bravo special that aired Monday called "The Reality of Reality: How Real Is Real?" a woman in the clip-show business says that she's worked shows where 75% of the footage is faked, "if not, maybe a little more."

Wolf tells how he and a colleague organized a sting when they suspected that a Canadian private investigator was hawking fake blooper videos. They called the PI, explaining they were in desperate need of surveillance video they heard existing of a bartender in Canada who stirred a drink with his penis.

"We came up with a scenario that was so outrageous; we basically storyboarded it for him," Wolf recalls. "A few days go by, and he calls and says, 'Guess what? I found your video.'

This is the poll on Newsweek right now:
Should Donald Rumsfeld resign?
1. No. The situation in Iraq is about to turn around
2. Yes. He should take responsibility for the Iraqi mess
3. I don't know

So either option 1 or 2, the poll respondant is confirming that the Iraq situation is a mess. Exactly how am I supposed to vote if I don't think Rumsfeld should resign because the Iraq situation isn't a mess - and doesn't require a 'turn around'.

al Qaida is advocating the overthrow of Musharraf in Pakistan. Maybe this will be enough of a scare for him to actually go after Bin Laden up in the Northwest corner of his country, since thats where everybody seems to think he is if he's still alive.

I'm a bit busy today, so here's this week's open thread.

Maybe we'll get some definitive direction if the Supreme Court hears the case of some kindergartners who were suspended for 3 days for 'making threats' while playing cops and robbers during recess at school. The reason for the legal action has been to get the suspension record removed from the kids records. Their lawyers claim violation of First, Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights.

The student and three others were suspended in March 2000 when they were playing during recess at the school. The boys reportedly pointed their fingers at one another, pretending to use guns, and the student now involved in the case allegedly said to another, "I have a bazooka and I’m going to shoot you."

"When public school authorities claim first graders playing 'cops and robbers' on the playground are engaged in 'threatening' and 'dangerous' activity, one wonders whether it is the children or the adults who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality," Whitehead said. "The right to freely express oneself is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment - whether one is 8 or 80."

The hecklers are getting more and more clever. Last night a guy got himself on the upper floor of a nearby building and started catapaulting paint-filled balloons at Blaine's box. One of the balloons connected.

He said that this morning's attacker broke into a derelict building at the rear of the car park behind the Blaine site. Leaning out of a window, he fired seven or eight shots at the illusionist before hitting the box.

Mr Prince added: "One of our officers who was patrolling in the area heard the twang of a catapult being fired and went to investigate. We detained the man and the police then arrested him.

"The frustrating thing is that once again this man was smartly dressed and well-spoken. You would think that middle-class, middle-aged people would know better.

I don't know enough about the EU system to have a strong opinion, but Paul Johnson sure makes it seem every bit as doomed as communism: The EU is built on a fantasy--that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living increase. And this miracle is to be brought about by the enlightened bureaucratic regulation of every aspect of life. All this is wonderful, but it is dependent, even in theory, on the European Union's expanding continuously, its economy running at full throttle, its productivity steadily increasing and a profound peace cocooning the world in a nest of luxurious tranquility.

One thing I wish he would have touched on was the Social Security system here in the US - because it is built on this same assumption of a continuously expanding economy (or population). If the number of people moving into retirement begins to outpace the number of people entering the workforce for any semi-significant period of time (5-10 years), something dramatic will need to be done to save the program - large tax increases, major benefit reductions, etc.

The BBC has a neat article documenting in scientific terms whats going on with David Blaine's body at this point in his stunt.
1. Brain has primacy - all systems geared to its survival
2. Sweet taste due to ketones
3. Heart wall starting to erode
4. Appetite will have gone
5. Very low blood pressure
6. Muscles weakened by inactivity

The London police are also tired of footing the security bill for his stunt, and are asking his promoters to pony up some more money.

Regardless of what happens in the 2004 election, 2008 an election cycle I think will be among the most interesting ever. We'll likely have Hillary running - or at least seriously considering a run - along with Colin Powell, and perhaps Condi Rice or even Al Gore and apparently Rudy Giuliani is thinking about it as well.

Old and odd playing cards. There's multiple pages of them: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

That last link is a thumbnail page for another group of the cards.

I'm beginning to be more than a bit worried that radical Islam has seriously infiltrated the US armed forces. Today there's a story of a Air Force guy getting arrested for espionage at Gitmo - and an unnamed Navy guy as well. This comes right after an Islamic chaplain at Gitmo gets busted for spying and not all that long after the Islamic wack-job in Kuwait threw a grenade into his officer's tent.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories (well, actually I am big on them - they are entertaining as hell - I just don't believe them), but I doubt all of this is unconnected.

UPDATE: Here's more details about the Air Force guy. Looks bad for him.

Domains By Proxy is an interesting privacy service from Go Daddy. It basically hides your personal information when somebody does a WHOIS lookup. Anyone have experience with it?

Fantasy football was a disaster for me yesterday. I won my weekly matchup, but the next month is going to be hell because of injuries. In one afternoon, I managed to lose Dante Culpepper, Marshall Faulk, and Travis Henry. Lovely stuff.

Other sites are doing this, so I thought I'd give it a try. Do you worst.

Took longer than I expected, but here's a picture of the 'Caucasian Club' girl [large photo]. She rather reminds me of Kelly Osborne - though the big OZZY on her left hand may have influenced me.

She also provides a small chunk of what she hopes the club to accomplish: The Caucasian Club, as she envisions it, would be a place where students could talk about racial dynamics and how one's ethnic background -- hers being a mix of Scottish, German, American Indian, Latino and Irish -- affects people today, how her "whiteness," as she and others like her perceive it, affects those who aren't white.

That sounds legit to me. Nate has brought up some good points in the comments section to the original posting, but this answers his concerns for me. This club isn't about promoting a specific culture or advancing a people as the black/asian/hispanic groups on campuses typically do - its simply about exploring racial issues. Even the NAACP doens't have a problem with her groups goals - only its name

The East County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has already weighed in, saying it is "vehemently opposed" to the name of the club. "It's not culturally sensitive to the community we're addressing, especially in light of what had happened there before," said Darnell Turner, the chapter's vice president. "The club, in name, seems like a backdoor approach to separation. From a historical perspective, this will bring up fears."

I have a solution - she ought to change the name to the 'Non-Colored People Club' as a play off the NAACP's name. Surely they wouldn't have a problem with that. :)

High school junior, member of the student council, suspended - and expulsion proceedings have begun - because security found a toy cap gun in his car.

A week ago Wednesday, Jake and his friends were hanging out at another boy's house. A friend saw a cap gun and started playing with it. The friend took the cap gun with her when they went to another house. Then Jake drove home. The friend who was playing with the gun said she forgot she'd left it in Jake's car.

The next morning, on Sept. 11, Jake was on his way to a 6 a.m. Bible study group at school and cleaned some trash from his back seat. It was dark and the dome light on his 1987 Toyota doesn't work. He said he never saw the gun. He drove to school and went to class.

I want to hear more about this before I pass final judgment, the the idea of a high school freshman girl starting a 'caucasian club' at school has me intrigued. If its for the reasons I assume, this could end up being a hoot of a situation - and she has already drawn the attention of all the right people.

A local NAACP leader says Lisa McClelland's proposed club smacks of racial division, a charge the 15-year-old denies. McClelland says she and some of her friends simply feel a bit slighted since other school clubs cater to specific cultures and races, such as the Black Student Union and the Asian Club.

"It's not racist because we're not excluding anyone, and we're just trying to solve the issues of racial disparity," McClelland said. Her ethnic background is American Indian, Latino, Dutch, German, Italian and Irish.

Some of McClelland's classmates, however, support her effort. "It'd be tight because they can learn more about their history," said 14-year-old Tyleisha Crooks, a fellow freshman at Freedom who is black.

What a total media circus. Blaine is apparently pals with Paul McCartney - who arranged for a late night visit (1am) yesterday. Unfortunately for Paul, his publicist tipped off some media folks and the whole thing turned into an assault-fest as McCartney's security folks wrestled with the photographers - who had been invited.

Turns out Paul's publicist didn't check with him before inviting photogs, and not suprisingly - got himself fired over the whole deal.

"When it transpired what I had done, Paul was then saying to the photographers 'It's not your fault, it's our publicity guy's fault'. Paul was rightfully angry with me and I haven’t spoken to him since. It's now up to him as to whether I am still working for him – that's his call. Last thing he shouted at me was that I was fired. There was a lot of swearing going on."

UPDATE: I should have kept reading before posting because now McCartney says the firing was a joke. Would have been funnier if he'd have said it was an 'illusion'.

As long as folks opposed to George W Bush continue compare him to Adolph Hitler - as Andrew Greeley does in the Chicago Sun Times, the majority of Americans will continue to tune them out. Greeley isn't quite as obvious as many of the wacko-lefty's have been - he's more subtle. But when your opening paragraph (below) in an editorial about the failures of the Bush administration is filled with references to Goebbels, its pretty clear that you have gone off the deep end and there is likely to be nothing trustworty in what you have to say:

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief (director of communications, in the current parlance), once said that if you are going to lie, you should tell a big lie. That may be good advice, but the question remains: What happens when people begin to doubt the big lie? Herr Goebbels never lived to find out. Some members of the Bush administration may be in the process of discovering that, given time, the big lie turns on itself.

California's new policy of allowing illegal aliens to get drivers licenses may hamper their ability to get assistance from the Federal 'State Criminal Alien Assistance Program'. In 2003, California received $95 million dollars from this program.

At least kids are getting a consistent message with this whole zero tolerance crap, right?

Elma School Officials Ban Short Cheerleader Skirts: The skirts are fine for cheerleading, but violate the school's dress code, so the girls can't wear them to class on game-day.

Cheerleader Suspended For Protesting Skimpy Uniform: Two slits in the blue-and-white skirt expose the thigh up to a brief-like undergarment. After complaining to cheerleader advisers - and getting nowhere, she taped the district's skirt policy to her uniform. The policy states: "No undergarments or posteriors shall show." She was suspended for violating a policy against modifying the uniform.

Via Taranto's Best of the Web, we get an absolute gem: Remember back in April 2001, when we noted that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, led by the noisome Mary Frances Berry, had issued a statement calling on all schools to abolish Indian-themed nicknames for their sports teams? At the time, we were unable to find a copy of the statement on the commission's Web site, but here it is.

The reason we're bringing this up all these months later, though, is that it's come to our attention, thanks to Netcraft.com, that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Web site is running an Apache server.

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who I helped vote into office, is introducing a bill to curtail the RIAA's suponea powers under the DCMA. The legislation would require owners of digital media to file a John Doe lawsuit to obtain the identifying information of an Internet user, rather than simply requesting a subpoena. Currently, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits copyright holders to subpoena an Internet service provider for the name and address of a person they believe is violating a copyright. The one-page subpoena request can be issued by a court clerk and doesn't require a judge's signature.

"There are no checks, no balances, and the alleged pirate has no opportunity to defend themselves," Brownback said when introducing the bill. "My colleagues, this issue is about privacy, not piracy. "This will provide immediate privacy protections to Internet subscribers by forcing their accusers to appear publicly in a court of law, where those with illicit intentions will not tread, and provides the accused with due process required to properly defend themselves." (emphasis mine)

Thats a nice little dig against the RIAA there. It would appear that Sam suspects a shakedown.

Oh joy. I thought I this was last Friday and I had missed it. Friday the 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day! I'm going to get all the little 1st grader neighborhood kids that my daughter is friends with to do this in school. The teacher will be so thrilled.

There's even an English to Pirate translator on the site.

UPDATE: Oh, and don't forget the pirate pick-up lines - it is a Friday night after all.

In a column about Howard Dean's web strategy, I found a very insightful comment about internet users in general.

This populist fantasy assumes, of course, that Internet behavior mirrors real-life behavior—that the Internet is some great mall of ordinary, uninformed, and uninterested zhlubs who have just been more efficiently organized and, by the wonders of the medium, happily politicized. In fact, the Internet, for political if not commercial causes, turns out to be a way to efficiently reach people whose very engagement (even overengagement) separates them most from ordinary zhlubby citizens.

Indeed, anyone who is regularly in touch with people who respond instantly and passionately over the Internet knows they are not like you and me.

Having just spent the weekend with two other couples that I went to college with - and who do not regularly use the internet for anything beyond email - I find that statement dead on correct.

This stunt is going so very well, don't you think? This bloody man in the picture is a protester that tried to throw a lemon at Blaine's box. A security guard stopped him from throwing it, put him in a headlock and smashed him up against a wire fence. There's a larger image of the incident here.

Only 30+ days left. Whats the worst that could happen.

The Al Jazeera reporter that was arrested in Spain has been formally charged in connection to the September 11th, 2001 attack.

There's a reason that entertainment folks (actors, musicians) have press agents to do their public talking for them - its because celebs tend to say stupid things. R Kelly apparently hasn't learned that lesson. In case you didn't know, R Kelly is in trouble on child porn charges - there is apparently a tape of him having sex with a/some underage girl(s). Here's what he has to say:

People can say whatever they want about you without knowing the facts," Mr Kelly tells Blender magazine.

"They can criticise you without even knowing you, and hate you when they don't even know you. All of a sudden, you're, like, the Bin Laden of America.

"Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through," he added.

Things still aren't going well for Blaine. Last night, some nut managed to climb a water tower close to him in an attempt to cut his water supply cable. The magic star - now in the second week of his bid to spend 44 days without food in a box by London's Tower Bridge - came under attack just before 5am after the man scaled a scaffold support tower connected to his cage.

He tried to cut through the cable that has been supplying water to the 30-year-old during the stunt.

It is also believed the man tugged at other vital mooring cables, rocking Blaine's makeshift home and yelled "Go home David, go back to America. We don't want you here, I'm going to rock you."

Oh my. I so very need a kick ass color laser printer for these alternate DVD covers. This LOTR cover and this Phantom Menace cover are very nice.

Get them while they last: 6 Matrix Revolutions tv spots. Overall, they are repetitive, but there's a bit more information in each video.

Well, the California Recall has been halted by the 9th Circuit, for now anyway. There will be a Supreme Court challenge on this one and I have no guess as to how it'll turn out. There is a good collection of links about the decision right here, and he exerpts one section of the decision that I have a question about:

9th Circuit Decision: Plaintiffs argue that the use of defective voting systems creates a substantial risk that votes will not be counted. In addition, they claim that the use of defective voting systems in some counties and the employment of far more accurate voting systems in other counties denies equal protection of the laws by impermissibly diluting voting strength of the voters in counties using defective voting systems. In short, the weight given to votes in non-punchcard counties is greater than the weight given to votes in punchcard counties because a higher proportion of the votes from punchcard counties are thrown out. Thus, the effect of using punchcard voting systems in some, but not all, counties, is to discriminate on the basis of geographic residence.

This is a classic voting rights equal protection claim. As the Supreme Court explained in Bush, "'the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.'" 531 U.S. at 105 (quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 555). Further, the "'idea that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile to the one man, one vote basis of our representative government.’” Id. at 107 (quoting Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814, 819 (1969)). As the Court stated much earlier in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 8 (1964), "To say that a vote is worth more in one district than in another would . . . run counter to our fundamental ideas of democratic government . . . ."

The Court's logic here seems fine, but I'm not understanding how this decision can actually be applied in practice. The underlying problem appears to be that some types of voting machines have higher error rates (punchcards) than do others (touchscreens), and therefore folks using punchcard machines are more likely to not have their vote counted than those using touchscreens.

If thats a correct summation of the problem here (and correct me if I'm wrong), then the only way to fix it would be to use the same voting system everywhere within the State. Counties couldn't move away from punchcards and replace them with the 'fill in the circles' type ballots because undoubtedly, the error rate still wouldn't match that of the touchscreens - thus, somebody would still be disenfranchised (theoretically). And even if all the Counties switched to touchscreen machines, wouldn't they all need to be the exact same make/model/size. Using similar technology from different vendors in different parts of the state would likely yield at least some differences in the error rates (I imagine the size of the screen would have a big impact on error rates).

It sure seems the 9th Circuit has opened a huge can of worms with this logic. Absent completely uniform voting equipment, how can the State ever comply with whats being required of it?

UPDATE: Via Mickey Kaus: Just how many more votes are lost in punch card systems versus other technologies? 1.34 percent of the votes cast, according to the ACLU's expert. And that's before any special voter education efforts that might be made.

Even the aliens are anti-semetic? German police baffled by swastika crop circle.

Real life imitates Meet The Parents: Russian man to milk rabbits. Each doe rabbit produced about a glass of milk a day and he estimates 25 could produce as much as a dairy cow.

For those of you who haven't seen Meet The Parents - Ben Stiller's character tells his future father-in-law that he used to milk cats as a child.

Wired Magazine has some pictures of extreme case mods - they go waay beyond what you normally would think of as a mod. The CPU/Coffee Maker on the bottom is my favorite. Function over form baby.

On March 29, 2003, Oliver Willis wrote the following in an Op-Ed for The Command Post: Fox News basically serves the same function in the United States that Al Jazeera does - whipping up a receptive audience into a frenzy without presenting a full slate of facts for each side of an argument.

He must feel a bit of embarrassment today when Spain has formally charged an Al Jazeera reporter with alleged financing, logistical support and recruitment for Al Qaeda.

Investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon ordered Taysir Alouni, a Syrian-born Spaniard, held without bond. Alouni won fame as a correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan, for obtaining the first interview and first videotaped message from Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The court document filed Thursday alleges that Alouni helped Mohamed Baiah, a suspected Al Qaeda courier, by letting him stay with him at his home in Granada and use his address to fraudulently renew his immigration status in 1998. During subsequent trips to Afghanistan, Alouni allegedly acted as a courier for the cell. The judicial order alleges that he brought cash in amounts as large as $4,000 to Baiah, a fugitive from Turkish police.

Alouni says he transported money and opened his home to people under investigation because of Arab hospitality and solidarity, a source close to his defense said.

Yep, Al Jazeera serves the same function as Fox.

I don't think I'm going to post anything today. About the only thing I want to write about is 9/11, and I'd rather not add to the shrill discource that is emerging. I will say one thing though in regards to that linked article. For a guy thats claiming Bush 'cheapened 9/11' by using it for partisan politics - he sure is obtuse to his own rhetoric (today's column included).

Very nice. Dennis Udink got his personalized license plate request (for UDINK) denied by the State of Utah because its a 'sex reference'. His story even made the Salk Lake Tribune.

While Bush is currently sucking eggs in the polls, the current crop of Dems are still in no position to beat him in the election - statements like these have alot to do with it:

Howard Dean is lying: "I'm the only white politician that ever talks about race in front of white audiences." Unfortunately for Dean, that isn't true.

John Kerry doesn't understand how our government works: "We deserve a president of the United States who will write laws for all Americans, not for campaign contributors. Um, that would be Congress who writes the laws. Between his 'presidential laws' and Gephardts executive orders, we won't have need for either the Legislative or Judicial branch of government.

Al Sharpton is focused on the wrong opponent: I'm a man of action. And unlike Schwarzenegger, I never had a stunt man do my hard work."

An explanation of how David Blaine levitates. There is also a break down of many of his other tricks. I can't believe its not real. ;(

Jeez, could Robert Weintraub at Slate be more bitter about ESPN hiring Rush Limbaugh to cover football? The hope is millions of "dittoheads" will blindly follow Rush to ESPN, although it's likely his core audience already watches football, when not strip-mining or smacking Hillary Clinton pinatas.

Unfortunately for Limbaugh, the rest of the studio cast on Countdown is 50 percent black, including former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin, who pursued a decidedly non-conservative lifestyle as a player.

And Countdown already features an arch-conservative on the set - former QB and devout Mormon Steve Young, a red-state favorite who regularly adds insight to the telecast. Unlike Limbaugh, whose relentless liberal-bashing always seems to carry a scintilla of a wink to convey that it's all just entertainment, Young actually lives and breathes the pious ethic Rush claims the country so sorely lacks.

Just FYI, I didn't watch the ESPN pre-game stuff and so have no idea whether Rush was useful on the show. I read this article thinking that Weintraub would enlighten me as to Rush's performance. However, the article is so lacking on actual Limbaugh football information, and so heavy on the 'Rush is a rich, white, racist, conservative' as to be useless in evaluating Rush's performance.

Interesting idea - high school shortened to 3 years in Florida as long as you can get the credits in time.
Under the option, students can graduate with six fewer credits, as long as they double up on English classes to earn four credits and study a foreign language for two years. They are allowed to skip several elective credits, including physical education, art and life management courses.

The 'Gay High School' in NYC opened up today, with 50 students (That works out to $60,000 per student assuming they spend their whole budget). No big suprise, there were protesters and people protesting the protesters. Heck, even one of Fred Phelps wacko followers showed up all the way from Topeka, Kansas.

Got this email today. I wonder how many folks are really scared by it:
GOT YOU"
If you were dumb enough to open this email then you will find a WORM has executed itself through your mailbox and by the time you read this into your hard-drive. This is PAYBACK for the Virus you disguised in the email you sent to us recently which destroyed our hard-drive and back-up system. This costs us thousands of dollars and we lost a lot of irreplaceable files on our system.

Now it's your turn to have your computer infected. This WORM it is undetectable by AntiVirus software and it will drive your computer crazy because it's always hiding and causing havoc in your system. Using your computer recovery disks will not remove the problem cause it still stays on your computers Motherboard. This will proabably cost you a new computer and I sincerely hope this teaches you a lesson not to send people nasty viruses again.

David Blaine's 44 days in a glass box in London is underway. The only 'news' so far is that Londoners have been pelting his box with eggs, golf balls and fish. They've also banged on drums as he tries to sleep, and some chicks have flashed their breasts at him. If its this ugly for him already, by day 20 this could get really interesting.

UPDATE: The Mirror thinks Blaine is obsessed with death, and Blaine himself thinks "The first three weeks of this I am pretty sure I can handle. It is the last three that are going to be insane." That makes my 20 day guess as to when it'll get interesting look pretty good.

This is probably the scariest thing I've seen in a while. Click the image for the whole survey, there's a whole host of little graphics that detail attitudes on a range of topics from various nations. Near the bottom is a graphic dealing on attitudes towards minorities - I had no idea Italy was so damn racist.

I'm going to be out of town from about noon on Thursday until Friday evening, so there likely won't be any updates here until the weekend.

Google bows to pressure from Kazaa to pull links to Kazaa Lite software. The MeFi discussion is here.

OK, these tiny little Shuttle computers have gotten my attention. I'm going to have to read-up on them a bit more before deciding whether they are purchase worthy. But, with my daughter needing a new computer (probably for Christmas), this little thing sure has the 'cute' factor going for it that'd make her a whole hell of alot happier than any equally priced system I could build. Plus, they have it in pink - or any design you want.

Somebody please reassure me that the US government isn't writing welfare checks to US citizens not actually residing in the USA - because its apparently happening in Germany: But a recent report in a German paper that Rolf J was living it up in Florida at the cost of Germany's overburdened welfare system was too much for some Germans to digest. The mass-selling Bild newspaper said that a Lower Saxony court had ruled German welfare officials had to continue paying the full cost of Rolf J’s beach apartment for another six months.

Media reports revealed that when welfare officials tried to reduce his housing allowance to €600 ($655.7) monthly, down from the current €875, Rolf J hired a lawyer -- paid for by welfare authorities -- who convinced the court their client could not find suitable accommodation for €600 and could suffer depression if forced to move away from his neighborhood. A psychiatrist also testified that Rolf J -- dubbed "Florida Rolf" by the colorful Bild daily --might commit suicide if forced to return to Germany.

The court then ordered welfare authorities to continue paying his current full rent for another six months, in addition to the €730 per month in living costs and €146 for a cleaner on account of Rolf J being classified as handicapped. Rolf J’s total welfare benefits, it emerged, amounted to almost €1,900 per month.

Michael Moore has made some *ahem* changes to Bowling For Columbine in the DVD release. Moore also had this bit of intelligence to share with us: "Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true. And anybody who says otherwise is committing an act of libel."

What a convenient dodge. A fact, by nature, is of course true. What Moore's critics (and even his supporters who are being honest with themselves) contend is that Moore presents as truth a whole host of non-facts. Like the Bush admin giving millions of dollars to the Taliban, like the bank handing over a gun to a new customer account, etc etc.

UPDATE: I see that we have another Michael Moore book - Dude, Where's My Country? to deal with soon.

Shocking news of the century - Nefertiti was a man! Well, at least the mummy they thought was Nefertiti may turn out to be a man. The mummy a British Egyptologist says could be the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti is much more likely to be a man, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass has said.

Touchy touchy. Chuck Palahniuk is more than a bit touchy about bad reviews of his latest book - Diary. "I have never responded to a review, perhaps because I've never gotten such a cruel and mean-spirited one. Please send me a copy of your latest book. I'd love to read it. Until you can create something that captivates people, I'd invite you to just shut up. It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one. I'd also invite you to read the reviews Fitzgerald got for 'Gatsby' from dull, sad, bitter people - like yourself."

Here's the review in question.

Something is wrong with David Blaine. He's easily the coolest magician this side of Houdini, yet he does some very weird stuff. Cutting off part of his ear is probably the topper so far. The daredevil U.S. magician apparently drew blood after he was asked whether he could show the assembled reporters any new tricks. He borrowed a pocket knife and screamed as he applied it to his left ear.

He left the room holding a bloodied handkerchief to his ear before reappearing and walking past journalists with his ear and the top of his shirt covered with what appeared to be blood.