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Gay doll gets UPS all hot and bothered. Apparently Billy, the first openly gay doll, has his hands full fending off UPS lawyers for trademark infringement, because of the BPS logo and outfit Billy is sporting. I've read elsewhere that Totem says it's a parody and doesn't plan to back down. The thing that made me laugh the hardest was the collection of limited editions at the homo depot. Tell 'em Carlos & Tyson sent ya'.
comment posted at 6:25 PM on Jan-16-02

This is your brain on sheetrock. (From NY Times, requires log-in)
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Jan-18-02

"The Americans are angry because they had one day of war. We have had 23 years of it" human rights group Global Exchange takes WTC victim's families to meet the victims of the "War on Terror"
comment posted at 5:46 AM on Jan-17-02

I'll always love my Beanie Babies. I don't care if I did lose money. The decadent nineties have come to a close. The world is in upheaval. And a simple barterer of velveteen cutsies can't even love his stuffed animals properly.
comment posted at 5:42 AM on Jan-16-02

Catch up on your reading of the classics in just 5 minutes a day. Classic Novels serializes classic literature and sends it to you via e-mail in bite-sized little chunks. Of course many people are probably aware of sites like Project Gutenberg where you can get the full thing, but for those on a time crunch, this seems like a nice way to break it down into easy bite sized chunks.
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Jan-16-02
comment posted at 6:11 PM on Jan-16-02

So now the Al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba want human rights. Ha! Tell that to the victims of WTC etc etc
comment posted at 6:25 AM on Jan-16-02

It's official... Utah loves Jell-O!!
comment posted at 5:10 AM on Jan-16-02

"Today's heroes don't have to do anything; they just need to be noble victims" The people who lost their lives on September 11 -- office workers, firefighters, airline pilots -- have almost unanimously been labeled "hereos." Were they really, or were they "just" victims who tragically died while "doing their jobs"? According to this article, we should be hesitant to loosen the requirements for heroism: "Heroes often end up as role models, a task not well suited for victims. Moreover, by lowering the bar for heroism, we cheapen the word and, in some ways, the exploits of people who have earned the right to be called that in the past. " (via a & l daily).
comment posted at 5:36 AM on Jan-17-02

Great article on Paul O'Neill on yesterday's NYT Magazine (requires registration) O'Neill has been taking a hammering in the media and on Wall Street. There has been O' Neill Death Watches too. But I have always admired what he achieved in Alcoa. And now finally an article that does justice to him .....
comment posted at 5:31 AM on Jan-15-02

I like to watch... A disturbing video combining September 11th scenes, professional sports, and pornography. NOT SAFE FOR WORK. I won't post this otherwise, but maybe they have something to say about voyeurism brought on by mass media exposure...
comment posted at 5:57 AM on Jan-14-02

Niki Lauda, three-time world F1 champion, took the wheel of a new Jaguar Formula 1 car after claiming that today's F1 cars could be driven "by a monkey". Unfortunately for Niki, after shooting off his mouth like that, the results were, well, predictable.
comment posted at 5:34 AM on Jan-14-02

President Bush fainted briefly in the White House residence Sunday after choking on a pretzel while watching the Baltimore-Miami playoff game on tv. Let the one liners begin...
comment posted at 5:23 AM on Jan-14-02

O: What sounds like a minature smoke alarm with a dying battery and has a tongue half as long as itself?
comment posted at 5:09 AM on Jan-14-02

MPs demand the BBC reinstates the British National anthem at the end of normal programming They'll be wanting a return to the three day week and rationing next...
comment posted at 6:55 AM on Jan-13-02

Carkan Moil is a novelist. His latest work is Boils: Tales of Tainted Mother's Milk, currently sporting a 4-star review on Amazon. Quite frankly the scariest looking website I've ever seen.
comment posted at 7:00 AM on Jan-13-02

Criticism Over WTC Statue Race Issues -- I'm sure many of you are familiar with a recent photo featuring three firefighters raising an American flag over the WTC rubble. Now a company has been commissioned to make a statue of the photo at FDNY Brooklyn Headquarters. In the statue though, the three white men who were originally depicted in the photo have been transformed into one white man, one black man, and one Hispanic man. There has been criticism over whether it is going to far to make these changes in order to be politically correct. Others are saying the statue should be more of a symbolic representation of all ethnicities that sacrificed themselves during this tragedy. What do you think?
comment posted at 7:03 AM on Jan-13-02

Poor Prince Harry Drug rehab clinic it is. Also chips thumb playing football and puts foot through a glass door at party. Wonder if its all connected. PS Rehab for weed and alcohol only? Fishy.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Jan-12-02
comment posted at 5:41 AM on Jan-13-02
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Jan-13-02

A 9-year-old girl has been arrested on sex charges, perhaps the youngest suspect ever to face such charges in Manchester, local police say. [...] The alleged incident occurred in the fall, when the girl and three other children a 3-year-old boy and two girls, 4 and 5 were playing in a bedroom, [Police Sgt. John] Maston said. The girl is charged with initiating sex between the younger children and then with her, Maston said. (From Boston.com, via Billy Wildhack.) I admit I don't have all the facts, but it seems like this little girl's life about to be ruined because a game of Doctor went out of hand.
comment posted at 1:43 PM on Jan-12-02

Kandahar, the "gay capital of South Asia" is coming back out of the closet with the forced departure of the Taliban. "Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy — locals tell you that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior..."
comment posted at 2:06 PM on Jan-12-02

Maya Angelou rises to the challenge of writing for Hallmark. Angelou finds it "challenging and daring" to craft two-sentence sentiments. And when the Maya Angelou Life Mosaic Collection hits stores this month, you'll be able to read the hard-won sentiments of America's favorite inaugural poet on pillows, wall hangings and banquet bowls.
comment posted at 5:05 AM on Jan-12-02
comment posted at 2:14 PM on Jan-12-02

Convicted Hockey Dad Killer to get only 3- 5 years? i know he only threw a few punches, but he was 275 lbs and his victim was 165 lbs. I'm sorry, but killing a guy nearly half your size in front of children - in front of both of their children even - is reason enough for throwing the book at this thug. 20 years = 10 years if he stays cool in the pokie - a pittance if you're the victims kids. Hopefully the Mass judge will make an example out of this totally unneccessary tragedy.
comment posted at 7:12 AM on Jan-12-02
comment posted at 2:58 PM on Jan-12-02

A new definition of 'Gun Nut' Alaska state appeals court says a judge "erred" when she removed a gun permit from a man who "claimed someone had implanted a computer chip in his head and injected him with deadly chemicals". Apparently "general concerns about mental illness" are not allowed to be considered in such cases.
comment posted at 6:26 AM on Jan-12-02

Documents Show Nazis Planned to Eliminate Christianity interesting for those who care.
comment posted at 5:23 AM on Jan-11-02
comment posted at 6:24 PM on Jan-11-02

American Depop? From America to Europe to Russia, birthrates are declining -- and eventually, so will population. What are the implications? Guess who has some answers.
comment posted at 5:34 AM on Jan-11-02

And you thought it was #006699.
comment posted at 5:44 AM on Jan-11-02

"There's a lot of killing going on in Miami," he says. "You want to fight, want to learn how to live, you got to learn the secret stories." Homeless children build hope and community through a shared mythology which includes demons, spirits, a beautiful guardian, and a harbinger of death named Bloody Mary. Via Snarkout
comment posted at 6:05 AM on Jan-11-02

Slow news day? This is the kind of reporting that really ticks me off. On the surface a serious piece about BSE in British Sheep. Reading the words however......

"The scientists' warning is based on a theoretical prediction of the potential health risk if BSE has passed to sheep and is spreading through the national flock."

You really couldn't get many more provisos into that sentence if you tried. This kind of story can only serve to scare-monger and put the French off. Again.
comment posted at 6:10 AM on Jan-11-02

Hackers: Computer Outlaws A TLC show(that I'm 3/4 through) that seems to actually use reliable sources to discuss not just cracker behavior, but also the creative side of hackers, pointing out the developments attributed to some hackers. Now Markoff and Mitnick. Not a bad little show....
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Jan-10-02

It's About Freaking Time! Finally, Someone is actually looking into whether or not Enron might maybe have violated the law. Until now, Ashcroft's little Department was just about the only organization in Washington DC not investigating these jokers. For those who haven't been paying attention, allegations include accounting irregularities, improper partnerships, price fixing, single handedly causing the California Energy Crisis, and failing to let thier employees get thier 401k money out of company stock before it dropped precipitously.
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Jan-10-02

IRS missing over 2,300 agency computers, Identification badges, surveillance gear etc.: A few months back there was another hoopla over missing computers in FBI. Do the internal security policies in federal agencies need a major overhaul or are these simply isolated instances that are more of an exception than the rule?
comment posted at 5:43 AM on Jan-10-02

Patron Saints Index I used to live in Bolivia, where they have an annual Day of the Dog celebration in honor of Saint Roch. It was while searching the Internet for the date of this event (August 16), I stumbled across this comprehensive site on the history and patronage of the Saints.
comment posted at 5:47 AM on Jan-10-02

Historian Stephen Ambrose, author of over 25 books, is accused of plagiarizing for a second time. Just last weekend, Ambrose apologized for not properly citing copied phrases in a book about WWII bomber crews over Germany. Sounds like a sloppy mistake from a respected historian, and it proves you have to be pretty careful to avoid plagiarism.
comment posted at 5:57 AM on Jan-10-02
comment posted at 7:27 AM on Jan-10-02

Richard Reeve calls campaign finance reform "Joke of a Nation". Sadly enough, he backs it up with some good points. Is a city, state, or national office going to become the new status symbol of conspicuous consumers?
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Jan-10-02

I Want My GayTV.
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Jan-8-02
comment posted at 5:02 AM on Jan-9-02

Air Force pilot in Saudi Arabia forced to wear local garb when going off-base. Lt. Col. Martha McSally sued the Secretary of Defense last month over the requirement that female personnel wear the abaya and matching head scarf while outside Prince Sultan Air Force Base. "If it were in our national security to deploy to South Africa under apartheid, would we have found it acceptable or customary to segregate African American soldiers from other American soldiers, and say, 'It's just a cultural thing?' "
comment posted at 5:13 AM on Jan-9-02

Cessna pilot sympathised with Bin Laden...
Does Americas enemy lie within?
comment posted at 5:41 AM on Jan-7-02
comment posted at 4:59 PM on Jan-7-02
comment posted at 5:25 AM on Jan-9-02

There are a number of culture-specific disorders, such as genital retraction or the old hag's sleep paralysis.

These disorders are, maybe, too mixed up in "exotifying The Other" (as they say in the ivory tower), but maybe most interesting is the inclusion of anorexia. Some evidence seems support this idea -- after 3 yrs of TV in Fiji, a rise in eating disorders was reported. Are these disorders caused by culture? And/or are the people afflicted expressing an underlying problem in a culturally specific way?
comment posted at 5:20 AM on Jan-7-02

The Texas sleeping lawyer case is being submitted to the supreme court by the TX Attorney General in hopes of overturning the 5th Circuit Court's ruling that maybe the lawyer in question did doze a little too often during the trial. It seems the issue is " how often an attorney can sleep during a trial without violating his client's constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel."
comment posted at 10:55 AM on Jan-6-02

A duct tape wedding Sorta like the Rose Bowl, only with duct tape instead of flowers, people instead of floats and marriage instead of a parade connected to a foodball game.
comment posted at 5:27 AM on Jan-6-02

AMERICA THE WEIRD VISITING THE U.S. IS LIKE LANDING ON ANOTHER PLANET. But we still like ya...
comment posted at 5:44 AM on Jan-6-02