The Morning Blog

Not that he needs it, but here's a defense of my favorite President. I wasn't aware that there was so much snarling out there about Teddy Roosevelt. They'd best be careful. He's more than capable of bringing himself back to life to punch someone in the mouth.

In positive news, protests are breaking out in Tripoli against Qaddafi. This comes in the wake of a failed peace overture by South Africa's Jacob Zuma and hundreds of officers and soldiers announcing their defections. Hopefully, this means that things are winding down for Qaddafi but I'm worried. Considering the steps he went to crush insurgents in Benghazi and Misurata, I can only imagine what he's capable of in his own capitol.

Since we're discussing South Africa if only in passing, we might as well take a look at the strange case of the talking monkey witch.

Boots on the ground?

In other delightful news from the Middle East, the United States has been compelled to pull it's human rights officer from Bahrain after he and his family received death threats on a pro-government web-site. What's fascinating to me (other than I don't know what the government of Bahrain could possibly be thinking sanctioning this sort of thing), is the incoherency of the conspiracy theory the diplomat was alleged to take part in. It includes sadly typical anti-semitic nonsense about him being Jewish but goes on to claim that he was coordinating things with Hezbollah of all groups. Really? They're drawing a connection between a Jew and not-particularly-friendly-to-Jews-at-all Hezbollah? On what planet?

Noted ladies man Silvio Berlusconi gets blowed. Oh no! Sorry...Meant to say "Berlusconi Takes Blows". My fault. English sure is a slippery language, huh?

More fun with English: "Colon Continues to Surprise" is a headline that has nothing to do with proctology.

Sarah Bait: Hey, I thought Ned's dad might like this. Don't know that he'd care for this though.

Sad story though I can relate: Trying to quit smoking makes me murderous as well. Seriously though, some of the alleged effects linked to the smoking cessation drug Chantix are pretty chilling. The cases in the lawsuit range from a woman flying into a sudden, psychotic rage to someone killing themselves in front of their children because of an argument over a peanut butter sandwich.

It stresses me out just thinking about it. Makes me want a cigarette.

Now I definitely want a cigarette. The Supreme Court has ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft has immunity in the al-Kidd case. Basically, they're saying that a prosecutor cannot be sued for ordering that an American be...well, kidnapped basically. Background on the case is available here.

I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later. This is our government at work: The House and the Senate are gridlocked on scheduling recess. Amazing. They can't even work together on not working together.

I suppose that this was bound to happen sooner or later as well: The Westboro Baptist Church is now being protested by the KKK. How does one even pick a dog in that fight? It's a hate-in.

Invasion, stinging edition.

Invasion, shark edition.

Invasion, wooly edition.

Invasion, Hawaiian edition.

Good stuff, this little ice age. If it hadn't come along, we'd all be eating herring and wearing funny helmets.

Way to go SCIENCE! An Indian scientist has developed an alternative to vasectomies. I think that it's important for men to look into this sort of thing. I think it's a touch monstrous that long term birth control in relationships (such as the pill), almost always falls upon women. The procedure is still in the testing stages but appears to be remarkably successful. So while I won't exactly echo this gentleman's endorsement:

“Our options suck,” fumes one frustrated correspondent, a Florida real estate manager who emailed Guha a few years ago. “I’d gladly put my balls on the chopping block for the benefit of mankind.”

I'm still glad to see that this sort of work is being undertaken.

In other science news, it's nice to see that schools are doing their part to bring about the coming robot apocalypse.

A final thought: Well, the Girlfriend and I have been talking about moving lately... Is it in a good school district though? We need to take that into consideration.