This Blog Is Full Of Crap

Who cares what I think about Emily the Stowaway cat returning home from France? It's time for a new feature of TBIFOC called Ask The Cats!

What do you think about Emily the Stowaway cat returning home from France?

Nardo: Frisky said that the lizards all went to Lizardland for the winter, so I called UPS for a pickup. Can you lend a hand and seal me up in this thing?	Frisky: You're going to need plenty of tissue paper for padding, Nardo.
Piper: If we send Morgan Ensberg to France, do we have to take him back?	Rafe: First Class? That's what I'm talkin' about.
Beezer: Maybe we should call the airlines to save lost kitties.	Indy: I hope her accommodations were as comfortable as mine were!
What does your cat think?

Thank you, kittycats.

Does your cat have an opinion on the subject? Then send the following to askthecats (at) isfullofcrap.com:

• A photo of the cat or cats in JPEG format (If you've already submitted the photo, it will be in my gallery archive and just let me know the URL of the thumbnail photo to use again)
• Their opinion, whether it pertains to the subject or not
• (optional) Your URL

And you'll see them up here with the rest of the kittycats!

(Via Anne of BlogHouston)

If I were to tell you that a kittycat is stuck in a tree, what comes to mind? I think of a fireman helping rescue the kittycat with a ladder.

Well apparently the Houston Fire Department is too busy to rescue kittycats from trees or sewers these days.

A woman was issued a ticket for making a false call for help when firefighters respond to rescue her baby but end up pulling something else out of a northwest Houston sewer, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

Houston firefighters rushed to rescue a baby from a sewer on Bolivia Boulevard near De Soto Street at about 11 p.m. only to find a cat instead.

Police said a woman called the fire department three times about her cat being stuck in a sewer.

Authorities said on the fourth call, the woman claimed her 2-year-old baby was stuck in the sewer.

Firefighters responded to the scene and rescued the cat, which is named "Baby."

"They said they were desperate, didn't know what else to do. They didn't know who else to call, so they called 911," Houston Fire Department Capt. Keith Ellery said. "It is not a type of rescue we normally do … but on this particular incident, we felt compelled to kind of help them out."

Okay, Captain Ellery, here's a question for you: who normally handles these types of rescues? Or does the City Of Houston department-wide have a policy of letting poor kittycats drown in sewers?

I wonder if photos from the incident will end up in the new Houston Fire Museum, currently featuring the "Fenced-Off Vacant Lot" exhibit.

The next time some group of firefighters is shaking their boots begging for contributions, I'm dropping a bag of kittytreats in the boot. Maybe they'll help when they rescue the next kittycat.

And if anyone sets up a fund to help pay her fine, I'll be glad to contribute to it.

(Via Pajamas Media)

Let's take a look at two men who are often (wrongly) compared to Nelson Mandela, who is himself a poor comparison to the mythical Nelson Mandela many people have in their minds...

Tookie Williams has killed and trained others to kill. However, he has realized the error of his ways and is not proud of his past. In fact, he's ashamed of it, and he is publishing book after book calling for nonviolent conflict resolution.

He is sentenced to die, and it is unlikely that his sentence will be changed. If he were granted clemency, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars, but continuing to work towards conflict resolution and uproot the seeds of violence he once planted.

Marwan Barghouti has killed, is proud to have killed, and trained others to kill. He continues to be a part of the planning of murders and he keeps calling for killing in the form of "legitimate resistance."

He is not sentenced to die, and it is likely that he will be released in some sort of prisoners-for-empty-promises deal with the Palestinians. Once released, he will adopt an Arafat-like smokescreen of public denouncements of terror acts but continue to praise, promote, and sponsor terrorism against Israelis.

In what kind of world does Williams die and Barghouti continue to live?

Just in case the typical Pajamas Media adbar remains the same size we're seeing at InstaPundit, I'd like to prepare a three-column format of this site.

I've got templates for narrow-wide-narrow layouts, but I was wondering if anyone had seen an example of a good wide-narrow-narrow layout out there.

UPDATE
I'm working on a variant right now, so things may be slow for a while as I figure out how to adapt this to the other isfullofcrap.com sites.

So I was finishing out a quick phone conversation and getting ready to board the 102 for home when a spindly black teen-man clambered down the steps and got in my face.

"Wait up, people's comin' off," he commands, not that I need commanding. Wait for the people to get off the bus, then climb on.

Looks like a full bus. So I wait.

"Got any smokes?" he asks.

"Nope," I say. "Sorry."

"You not got any smokes, or do you not want to give me any?" he asks with a loaded "Fuck you, Whitey" tone.

Stay my fist, Lord. Stay my fist.

"Look at my mouth," I say. I stick out my gum. "I don't smoke. I chew gum."

I reach in the bag... for some gum. But before I get it...

"No need to get in my face about it, just askin," he says.

Bullshit, kid. You were more in my face than the half-gallon of pus and gore I had in there with my Michael Moore-sized boil. At at least antibiotics cured that little blister of goo.

Fuck it. Fuck him. He'll mouth off to someone who doesn't have self-control one day.

Someone who reaches for something other than gum.

I get on... people are standing, but there's an empty seat near the back. A girl's in the outer seat of a pair of seats.

When I see this kind of shit, it pisses me off. Especially on an SRO bus.

I walk up, she's oblivious. "Excuse me?" I ask as politely as I can.

She semi-pivots for me to slide in. The person in front of her had their seat back reclined way back, so it's a bit of a twist, but I drop into the seat, I then give my silent prayer as I always do.

"Lord, don't make me kill every motherfucking one of these cocksuckers. Tell 'em to behave and play nice, and may we get Downtown in one piece."

She eventually gives her seat up for some guy carrying a baby. Amazing.

Turns out she's from Canada, as I hear her chat with the jarhead next to her.

French Canadian. Blithering how Canada's great and dancing around her opinion that America isn't. Jarhead's polite.

After that, I tune out, write up my 100 word story for the day, and ponder the changes to templates I'd need to do to prepare for my indoctrination into the Pajamaheedin.

Instead of taking the Christ out of Christmas, how about taking the Mad out of Ramadan first?

We recently got an Alligator Chopper thingy for chopping vegetables. It worked great with the onions for Thanksgiving, so I decided to try dicing some green and red peppers for a dinner rice bowl...

The peppers diced up quite nicely. Saved a whole bunch of time slicing and chopping.

UPDATE
What the hell?

Just in case you're curious, here's the bookmark I use with my copy of the Koran:

Mmmmmm... bacon!

I decided to try out the Santa collar on Nardo, since he was so keen on ditching the Hannukah collar...

We don't have any Kwanza collars. I'm sure there's Kwanza collars out there, but we don't have any.

Today's Friday, so the Friday Ark is rounding up the animal madness while Carnival of the Cats will be rounding up just the meowy goodness Sunday.

Well, it looks like Governor Perry and Mayor White wrote a huge check that Houston's ass has no hope in cashing. FEMA is ready to leave the city holding the bag when it's time to pay the rent for all of our recent disaster guests...

Unless federal policy changes soon, Houston will find itself in an embarrassing position three months from today — breaking a key promise made to hurricane evacuees in their most desperate hour.

Despite written statements to the contrary, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cease honoring the 24,000 year-long leases, backed by the city, signed between hurricane evacuees and local apartment landlords.

As a result the city could fail to deliver on a promise made to nearly 100,000 storm-ravaged evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — a safe roof over their heads for a year.

Landlords, who are accepting tenants without a security deposit or credit checks, would be left with scores of families unable to pay their rent.

"Everybody is concerned about what could happen," said Larry Hill, president of the Houston Apartment Association.

"The city, the mayor, the judge, everyone stepped up to the line after these storms hit. We opened our doors. I have no idea what these people would have done if the city of Houston hadn't stepped up."

Probably working towards rebuilding New Orleans instead of bitching and whining and worrying.

If there isn't enough housing in New Orleans to handle the workforce, maybe rolling up your sleeves and building it might make some sense?

But I have another idea. You see, a lot of the tents that were sent to the Kashimir-Pakistan border weren't all-weather tents, so a few thousand jihadi-loving scum will freeze to death this winter.

Instead of sending more useless tents there, those tents will work just fine in, say, Crawford in February and March.

It's time we used the fact that there's finally a Bush in the White House who lives in Texas. A threat of a few thousand bus trips to the home of the head honcho of the government should get Bush cracking the whip on FEMA.

We've proven that with a little planning, we might be able to get a few million people away from the city and the Gulf Coast. Why not scale it down with public transportation to flood Bush's ranch with all the folks who get booted from Houston apartments because FEMA is backing down from their promise to help reimburse the cost of housing them?

We've got enough crazy, angry, and bitter homeless in the city as it is. No sense in adding to their numbers, unless you've got plans to bolster the fire department's staff. These folks will take their frustrations out on the complexes that kick them out, not the government.

Let 'em elect Cindy Sheehan as their mayor, for all I care. Just don't kick them out into Houston's streets without giving them a trip back to New Orleans... or Louisiana... or anywhere.

While Mohammed El-Baradei spends the next few months shining his Nobel Peace Prize and the EU runs in circles chasing their own poodle tails, Iran is hard at work building the second Islamic nuclear weapon.

Israel is preparing...

Israel test-fired its anti-ballistic Arrow 2 missile Friday, successfully hitting an incoming target rocket, the defense ministry said.

The Arrow missile was launched from an air force base in the center of the country and struck a Black Sparrow target missile launched from a plane flying over the Mediterranean. The target missile is similar in capabilities to the Iranian Shihab 3, which Iran hopes to arm with a nuclear warhead.

The launch was the fourteenth such test of the Arrow missile system. In the last test, conducted in the summer of 2004, the arrow missed its target.

Israel Radio pointed out that the Arrow project's price tag so far has surpassed $2.4 billion, two-thirds paid for by the American government.

Should Iran launch a nuclear weapon at Israel and the Arrow stops it, Mohammed El Baradei and Kofi Annan should be tried for crimes against humanity and then jailed in a cell along with the radiactive debris collected up over Jordan and Syria.

Let them waste and rot in terminal sickness with the vile byproduct of their incompetence.

Fighting Jay Lee (None more surly than he!) is heading to Vegas, and will see The Blue Man Group during his trip.

Blue Man. Rocks. Big time.

You know, I wish they made Blue Man Group Pez Dispensers. I guess the next (crossing fingers) Pajamas Media check will be earmarked for that project. I'll look up that custom Pez Dispenser site and get a few made.

That, and an Arafat dispenser. Pez candy for jihadis!

Before you give a panhandler any money, watch this video and think twice about the veracity of that "Will Work For Food" sign.

Every now and then, I'll give a buck to The Guardian Of The Tunnel Of Mud, a jovial and confused fellow who wanders Richmond and I-610 before jumping on the 25 with his tent to camp by the Wheeler Station.

If I didn't give it to him, it would probably get shredded in the wash.

Tonight is the party for a friend and former coworker who got tired of the foolapalooza and walked away from the never-ending madness.

I was going to bake him a loaf of Shiner Bock bread. It's his favorite. Makes an excellent breakfast bread, he says.

I marked my calendar. I wrote reminders. Even wrote up a shopping list. I even remembered to get more Tabasco to spice it up.

With all this in mind, I forgot to buy shredded cheddar at the store. The recipe needs the sharp cheddar, and other cheeses just won't do.

Crap.

So, instead, I baked a loaf of garlic parmesan because I keep roasted garlic handy. I roast up a few heads a week so I've got some for baking or spreading on toast or whatever.

Now, starting a garlic parmesan late in the evening is a bad thing, because the later the loaf, the more likely I will be asleep when it's time for brushing the top and sprinking on reggiano and red peppers for decoration. I always feel bad when I don't decorate each of my parmesan garlic loaves to a consistent level of prettiness.

Still, it's a darned good loaf, decoration or not. And it's not like he's dying - I can always bake more.

BY THE WAY
I keep the rye, wheat, and bread flour in large Mason jars in the kitchen.

My Mason jar holding the bread flour has a large series of cracks near the bottom.

Thank goodness it was almost completely empty and I always keep a spare bag of flour for such emergencies.

I guess I need to do the same for cheese if I'm going to make a habit of doing Shiner Bock Cheddar, but I do garlic parmesan a lot more often.

(Via Deskmerc)

The proper response to this should be the development of a knockoff "chill pill" identical in color and shape that either knocks the person out or outright kills them.

"IFOC News" is going on hiatus for a while. What was initially a fun challenge to come up with a rival to Scrappleface became nothing but a series of quick one-liner BREAKING NEWS headlines that I'd rather use for the Dead Pool.

It may not come back.

We'll see.

Who cares what I think about The Forbes Fictional Fifteen? It's time for a new feature of TBIFOC called Ask The Cats!

What do you think about The Forbes Fictional Fifteen?

Frisky: Does Cruella de Ville make coats out of kittycats too? If she does, Nardo would make a lovely coat or set of earmuffs.	Piper: I notice that Michael Jackson's not on the list. Are you trying to tell me that he's real? Man, that's a scary thought.
Nardo: So ,you're the richest man in the world, huh? Well, give me a pile of kitty treats and lizards or I'll bite your fat ass off!	Anne Boelyn: Wealth isn't the only thing, but it's the second-best way to get a luxurious fur coat and a pearly-white teeth!
Vauntessa Deville: How does Santa beat God, I mean Jeez.	What does your cat think?

Thank you, kittycats.

Does your cat have an opinion on the subject? Then send the following to askthecats (at) isfullofcrap.com:

• A photo of the cat or cats in JPEG format (If you've already submitted the photo, it will be in my gallery archive and just let me know the URL of the thumbnail photo to use again)
• Their opinion, whether it pertains to the subject or not
• (optional) Your URL

And you'll see them up here with the rest of the kittycats!

Hey, it's time for more cloud hunting!

Fun for the whole family! Bring the kids! Security and transparency for all!

Short shameful confession: Dave the Zionaussie (who is also a fellow Pajamasblogger) approached me about doing something with him about Michael Jackson a week or so ago. I tried to put something together, but I wasn't very happy with the result.

However, Dave managed to spin straw into gold this week with the idea.

My hat's off to him, although I'm putting the hat back on to keep the tinfoil in place.

Oh, and don't forget that tomorrow is the start of the change in schedule for my own podcast. (100 Words Or Les Nessman will be taking weekends off, it seems) Saturdays will feature The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln while Sundays are when you'll catch the neurotic mumblings of Mustard Man.

Not only does this keep the one-a-day challenge going, but it also keeps the Wacky Adventures and the Mustard Man Mumblings moving forward. I wasn't trying really hard to keep them going before.

(Embiggened via Cromulent Pete)

So, Aoen Flux might be so bad the studio doesn't want to preview it for the critics. Hrm. There goes my weekend.

You see, whenever my wife goes out of town to visit her mom and sister in Florida, I often take the opportunity to head to the theaters to catch up on the latest releases.

Despite the negatives of being out at the movies, I'm still an "In The Theater" kind of guy. My wife's become a "Wait For The DVD" person.

Anyway, I'll wait for reviews of Aeon Flux to trickle in. Until then... let's see...

King Kong? Hell no. Jack Black annoys the shit out of me.

Narnia? Hrm... maybe.

Chicken Little? Oh, hell yes. Although I hate it when I go alone to a G movie and people think I'm some kid of Michael Jackson freak.

Harry Potter? Nah.

Rent? FUCK BROADWAY!

One movie that I will likely see is The Protocols Of Zion Downtown at the Angelika. I can either hit the movie on the way home from work or head downtown on the 9 since I hate parking Downtown, then Dangertrain to the Museum District to see if anything's worth checking out at the museums.

Yeah, I'll have my wife's truck for the week, but I prefer to walk to the theater. God knows, I need the exercise, and I want to get to 200 by the end of the year.

Just in case you think that the rocking chair is exclusively Piper's chair, Nardo's currently curled up and looking as cute as a big dumb button:

It kinda makes you wonder where Piper is.

Am I going to have to buy a hundred more cameras, install a T-3 line, and set up load-balancing servers to host the catcam page?

Nah. I can stop any time.

Honest.

It annoys me when I have to clean up the mistakes of another tech. Especially when it's a simple, namby-pamby easy-peasy mistake.

It really annoys me when I look back at a customer's log and see multiple technicians circle-jerk around the issue and nobody knows what the fuck they are doing.

Worst part of the cleanup is not fixing the problem, but telling the customer "You just got fucked by a group of fucktard technicians that aren't fit to screw in light bulbs, let alone work on your site, but I've solved the problem once and for all until you shriek like a stuck pig and ask the fucktards to screw it up all over again." in a way that's pleasant and helpful is the worst part of it.

I usually pass these along to a supervisor to check up on, but they don't give a shit.

I don't blame them.

It looks like Russ Springer will be back in the bullpen, providing guidance to Qualls, Wheeler, Gallo, and Lidge.

If the Astros keep Astacio in the bullpen, maybe he can straighten the Freaky Zeke out. Otherwise, it's time to send Freaky Zeke to the dustbin.

But I think everybody's waiting on Roger at this point. He really need to announce soon, or he may end up doing to the Astros what Beltran did to them for the first forty games of the season and leave them too dtsracted to assemble a viable team.

Damn you, Jim Goode!

Damn you for being so freaking tasty!

Of course, the runt behind the counter didn't hear me ask for a TRIPLE meat combo with pork ribs, instead just hearing the ham and the brisket. But in my defense, the man had a wicked huge knife. Was I going to argue with a man with a wicked sharp knife?

I just got back from dropping my wife off at the airport. She's heading to Florida for a week with her sister and her mom, so it's just me and the three little monsters.

I stopped by Kroger's on the way home and picked up some healthy fresh fruits and vegetables along with some fish I'll grill up.

The last time my wife went out of town, Frisky had a really bad time of it because Edloe had just died. With his mommy going out of town, it was a pretty neutoric time for Frisky, with everyone vanishing one by one.

Well, except for Nardo, which made things even worse for the poor little fluffyboy.

When Nardo's being a real meanie, Frisky's been hiding under the couch:

I'll make sure he's got plenty of treats and plenty of afterdinner playtime for the next week. I figure if he starts jumping up on the couch to sit with me, he's letting me know that he's doing okay.

Zionaussie Dave just g'day and shalomed a tidbit of info to me just now. Skype is releasing a beta of 2.0 that includes some video features.

Time to download and give it a look-see.

Gee, I wonder where I'll get a camera for the video part.

Just as the United Nations skedaddled from Iraq because of violence, FEMA is bugging out of out the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

You know, FEMA's got an office somewhere in Houston for Nagin's Refugees. Apparently, the mayor commandeered the building from the reluctant owners or something. Gotta check the archives on that... BlogHouston probably had it covered from all angles.

Oh, and by the way, FEMA still hasn't paid up the entire tab from Allison four years ago.

Let me know when FEMA finally pulls out of Houston. I'll crack open a bottle of wine and dance a jig.

GHAZI HAMAD: Hello, my name is Ghazi Hamad...

GHAZI HAMAD: As your friend in Hamas, I'd like to have the opportunity to represent you in the Palestinian Authority Legislative Council. And even if you don't vote for me, well, my boys will take care of that little oversight...

MUSTAFA FALAFEL: Burn the appeasers! Burn the traitor ballots!

THE BOYS: This ballot is so confusing. So just let us fill it out, okay?

GHAZI HAMAD: Thank you, friends. Seventy-three virgins for each of you.

MUSTAFA FALAFEL: No problem, boss!

FATIMAH: My son and his seventy-two virgins in Paradise all 100% behind you, Ghazi!

GHAZI HAMAD: So remember, come election day, vote for me. Or don't vote for me. It doesn't matter. I'm going to win. And... um...

GHAZI HAMAD: Do you hear choppers?

ABDUL: Zionist choppers! Run! Run! Run!

GHAZI HAMAD: Hello? Shimon? I thought I told you to keep those choppers away from my campaign rallies... yes, I know you want to come speak at them... yes, I got your contribution to my campaign... thank you very much...

Checking the email:

"What do you think about the November book?

Not much, really. McDaniel hasn't posted a roundup yet. Whenever KHOU wins, he usually waits for the Belo folks to stop celebrating, and then he just tosses up a sterile brief bit of chaff lacking the usual entertaining spin from the locals.

Hold on... let me check something. Yup. A week is still seven days long.

Not sure what it has to do with anything, but it's always good to check. Don't wanna run into one of those six-day long weeks and lose a weekend day or have to suffer through an eight-day week where you Thank God It's Friday when you really should be Thanking God It's The Day Between Friday And Saturday Day.

But back to this "book" thing you speak of. I really don't have a dog in this fight or a horse in this race. And unlike beach volleyball, there's really no cheesecake appeal to it for those who give a damn about the sport. You see, I get all my local news by capturing pigeons, ripping out their entrails, and auguring the resulting bloody mess.

I have yet to see any advertisements during my occult scrying sessions. However, leave it to Google to try, the bastards.

Now if you'll excuse me, ESPN-5 is running a beach volleyball marathon.

Some podcasts for you weekend enjoyment:

• Pure Idiom finishes up the Harriet Meirs plotline. I'm still coughing up hairballs from recording my lines.

• Shire Network News takes a whack at Pajamas Media as well as rounding up the headlines and a few far-flung opinionated bastards.

(I actually mock Andrew Ian Dodge twice in my Full Of Crap report.)

It's sad that Mind Of Mog's Catjams are more relevant than the Blogjams so far at Pajamas Media.

Carnival of the Cats will be at When Cats Attack tonight. Tigger will go from getting ham treats to acting like a ham.

Piper can attack. She's attacking this catnip bag...

Her swats are swift and deadly.

Ray Nagin is continuing his barmstorming tour to convince the New Orleans Diaspora to return to the drowned city.

Isn't he still living in Dallas? People should ask him why he hasn't moved back yet.

Oh joy. Michael Moore might have been just a sign of a deadly mersa outbreak?

Just what I need. Something new to feed my paranoia.

(Via BlogHouston)

The Houston Polcie Department knew that a huge number of officers would be retiring over the past few years, but they did nothing about it and now the city has areas where the response times could be considered laughable if you think that kind of thing's funny.

I don't. Heck, I'm of a mind that radio talk show host Chris Baker wound up bald because he kept tearing his hair out over this.

However, the HPD finally has a plan to solve the manpower and response time crisis!

Police Chief Harold Hurtt will bring officers out of retirement and hire recruits before they've completed training as part of a series of initiatives announced Friday to address a manpower shortage that has plagued the Houston Police Department for more than a year.

Hurtt also said he will adjust schedules and quadruple the department's overtime budget to get more officers onto the streets immediately.

Hurtt said he also is considering contracting with a private entity to staff the jails.

Other changes include assigning officers in administrative positions to field duty once a month in areas with the most need, starting in January.

So the plan is to put cops who haven't completed their training yet out in the field alongsideh grouchy veterans and desk jockeys?

Folks, you just got hired to star in a new reality show. It's called "Police Academy" and it's coming to a neighborhood near you.

(Via Confabulation)

I am not addicted to the Internet. I can stop any time I want to.

I think I'll hit the bookstore and pick up a few books. It's still a nice day out and I can sip tea on the patio while reading.

Although... I could always just buy them on Amazon and...

Ah, yes. Finally a reason to break out the 2006 calendar so I can put this event on it.

A related highlight is a visit by Chris Rapley, perhaps Britain's greatest climate change expert, who will give a public lecture on Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. I've spoken with Rapley by telephone, and he knows his stuff. His area of expertise is Antarctic ice.

I figure that this would be a good Monday to hit Cabo's slug down a few, and then ride the Danger Train to Museumland to catch the lecture.

All I have to do is put it on my calendar and... um... I know we bought a calendar for 2006. It's buried around here somewhere.

Or did we buy one? I distinctly remember buying a calendar with kittycats.

Or maybe that was last year.

Just my luck, I was at the bookstore earlier. Could have bought another one there. Can't have too many kittycat calendars, you know.

A late drive by Baltimore combined with a last-minute field goal send the Texans to a 1-11 record today.

But what does that matter? David Carr was sacked five times today to bring him to a total of 50 + 5) 55 turfings for the season. He also couldn't manage a single touchdown, relying instead on five field goal kicks by Kris Brown for all the points.

Well, okay. Carr did throw a touchdown pass. Of course, it was an interception that led to a Baltimore touchdown. That makes negative six points for Carr today.

There are four games left in the season, unless they plan on playing some high school teams to boost their confidence.

I was watching something on the History Channel when Peter Weller the actor showed up slugged as being a part of Syracuse University.

That's pretty cool.

Who cares what I think about the police using dog-mounted cameras? It's time for a new feature of TBIFOC called Ask The Cats!

What do you think about the police using dog-mounted cameras?

Frisky: They strap these things to dogs? Wow. Thank goodness I'm not a dog.	Piper: I'm sure PETA will be thrilled to hear this.
Nardo: Dogs, schmogs. We cats make excellent package inspectors. Hello? Any lizards in here?	Cali: Camers on dogs?! They can't even guard their own food!
Gwynnie: Let one of those dogs come near me. I'm not the cat to be trifled with, robo-dog.	Bazel: Noone straps anything on me. Now get away from my tuna you'll get shredded.
General Patton: You don't see cats doing police work, do yuh?	Haley: Forget the police! I put cameras on these two and use them in the casinos
What does your cat think?

Thank you, kittycats.

Does your cat have an opinion on the subject? Then send the following to askthecats (at) isfullofcrap.com:

• A photo of the cat or cats in JPEG format (If you've already submitted the photo, it will be in my gallery archive and just let me know the URL of the thumbnail photo to use again)
• Their opinion, whether it pertains to the subject or not
• (optional) Your URL

And you'll see them up here with the rest of the kittycats!

The 89th Carnival of the Cats is up and running at When Cats Attack, hosted by the world-famoud Meowers Of Death!

As for the Catmodel of the week...

It's the monitor-perched Yankee from Josh's Weblog!

Thanks to everyone for participating this week, and don't forget to post your catblogging site in the Frappr Map and the Catblogroll.

How about a joke?

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: Because only a fucking moron climbs the barrier to cross the HOV Lane.

I tried really hard to be the most annoying right-of-center blogger this year.

I guess I have to try harder for 2006.

BY THE WAY:
I got 4 votes for funniest blog, IMAO got 10. Since I'm the source of most of the funny at IMAO (along with the furry), I'll just take credit for those ten points. That gives me a total of 14.

Still second place. DAMN YOU, SCRAPPLEFACE!

This past week, the United Nations General Assembly found that it was incapable of coming up with a simple definition for terrorism because Arab and Muslim countries wanted a loophole for Palestinian terrorism under the label of "legitimate resistance to foreign occupation."

I wonder if any of those delegates would have the courage to tell the security guards to pinned a suicide bomber against the wall in Netanya, only to have him blow up in their faces.

Well, the ones who survived the blast, that is.

If someone were to drive a truck full of explosives into the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan and level the entire complex, obliterating every miserable son of a bitch in that complex, I wouldn't call it terrorism at this point.

I'd call it resistance against foreign occupation. After all, wouldn't they?

(I figured I needed to write this here and not just in my food journal.)

Got into work, felt like M&Ms. I know I shouldn't eat them, but I needed them.

I put the coins in the machine, and the M&M packet stuck. Just hung there.

I went to get a dollar bill to free the frozen M&Ms, ignoring the fact that this might just be A Sign or An Omen.

I got the first packet freed by buying the second. Then I gave away one of the packets.

I figure I'll eat a healthy lunch today to make up for it. Or I'll do a quick jog when I get home.

Both Nardo and Piper have been solid bedcats the past few days. I don't know whether it's my wife being out of town or the fact that it's gotten cold the past few nights.

It's always the same. Nardo comes up the foot of the bed, Piper launches up to the headboard and peers over.

Piper's been the one to crawl under the blankets to burble and purr for a bit before crawling back out.

When I wake up, Nardo and Piper are at the foot of the bed, tucked up and groggy.

Each is in their own corner. Never curled up together. They're not snugglekitties.

I was late getting out the door this morning because I spent five minutes on the floor, petting Frisky. He was purring loud enough for me to hear, which means he's really happy for the attention.

I've been trying to make a lapcat out of him the past few days while I read or type, just to make up for the fact that my wife's out of town so he doesn't have her lap or feet to cover.

WookiePedia? That's just wrong.

Of course, they could build worse than that:

Wiggiepedia: The Rip Taylor Wiki
Woogiepedia: "There's Something About Mary" Wiki
Tookiepedia: Death Row Wiki
TwikiPedia: Buck Rogers Wiki

Oh, shut up. You had me at "Users lie."

Mira of The Oubliette is looking to get a fluffy neighborhood kittycat named Callie a new home.

Help Mira help Callie.

I thought that Charlie Gibson would get screwed by ABC, but apparently it's Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas being used to screw Gibson instead of outsider Aaron Brown.

Or is he getting screwed?

It should be interesting to see how Gibson reacts. Will he be disappointed that he didn't get the top spot, or will be be relieved that he won't have to do a split-shift with mornings and evenings.

Before anyone asks, no, this is not Nardo getting pegged by a snowball. Not only would that shot require a digital camera of a quality and complexity beyond my simple Sony P-52, but think the scene through:

Let's pretend that I'm shooting the picture... who's throwing the snowball? Not my wife. She'd never throw a snowball at Nardo. (She might throw other things, like a pillow if he's attacking Frisky, but never a snowball.)

Now let's pretend that I'm throwing the snowball... who's shooting the picture? Not my wife. She'd throw the camera at me for throwing snowballs at Nardo. (I'm only allowed to gently toss toys to him when he's in a toy-chewing mood.)

So this photo cannot possibly be Nardo getting pegged by a snowball.

When it snowed last year, there wasn't enough snow to make a large enough snowball to peg a cat, let alone enough snow to produce that winter wonderland in which the cat is getting pegged by the snowball.

"What the hell is this stuff?"

Now down here in Houston, we have plenty of meat. So pegging a cat with a large meatball isn't totally out of the question.

UPDATE
Hrm. I don't feel like hunting down the image at Fapfap. I'd rather eat lunch.

Checking the Dead Pool mailbag:

If you drop the blogging requirement, I'll play.

I guess you're not playing then. Or, if you submit a roster and don't blog, you're going to have a very boring roster on April 1st.

By all measures, the blogging requirement is extremely light. You could make fifteen queries in Google News to watch each pick, turn them into RSS feeds, plug them into your reader, and then use the Toolbar Bookmarklet thingy in M.T. to blog a story on each pick every few days. Once the post has been made, go back to the feed reader and change the label of the feed to mark that you've posted in that quarter (1-2-3-4).

In fact, I did an experiment the other day, and found that it took less than five minutes if you want to be quick and dirty about it quoting the story and putting in a sentence or two about your own thoughts, or pointing back to commentary on your own site.

Five minutes a week, ten if you're knocking out the requirement for two picks that week (the average comes out to around one post per six days). My mind boggles over the people who have reacted that it's too much, it's too hard, it's hard to keep track of, whine whine whine.

My mind boggles a lot. I'm sure there's a pill for that.

Thanks to the sixteen people who have signed up so far, and if you're sitting on the fence about it, you've got the rest of December to decide.

Speaking of December, I'll be posting a Bonus Prize a day to the Dead Pool. Now that I've gotten a few rosters in, I can actually aim a few bonus prizes at the picks I've received so that there will be a bit of sport involved in the things.

I'm also picking bonus prizes that are either awardable via online gift certificate or things I can directly ship to people via e-store. I'll admit that the prizes I actually bought and then intended to ship to people have been... late? Delayed?

I figure that choosing bonus prizes that can be quickly ordered online and sent directly to the player instead of mucking with packing enveloped and addresses and getting to the ship-it place will speed things up.

UPDATE:
1. Sign up for Bloglines
2. Install the Bloglines toolbar one-click subscribe feature: http://www.bloglines.com/help/easysub?tip=6
3. Go to http://news.google.com/
4. Do a search for you pick with the name in quotes: "Robin Williams"
5. Click on Sort By Date
6. Click on the Bloglines toolbar button
7. Add the feed to your Bloglines list
8. Repeat 4 through 7 for the other 14 picks.

I went through the fifteen picks for my dummy roster using this method. Ten minutes total. You only have to do this part once.

Of course, you'll have to check your Bloglines list (or whatever feed reader you're using), or install the Bloglines new post thingy indicator in Firefox or whatever browser you use. But that shouldn't be too hard if you're a raging blogatholic.

All of the kittycats are getting treats when I get home because of this insane tale of horror:

A cat in Oklahoma City survived being closed in a refrigerator for four weeks without food or water, according to a Local 6 News report.

Tyce Honer, 4, said he forgot he had put Louis the 10-pound cat in a refrigerator in the family's barn to keep it safe.

Frisky likes to dilly-dally in front of the refrigerator when it's open, demanding butter and Parmesan cheese treats. If we give him the treats, he moves. If we just slide him out of the way, he gets mad and goes into Killer Frisky Mode.

I wonder if he'll stop if I print out and tape this story to the fridge.

In the middle of a huggy-kissy piece by the Houston Chronicle showing their undying affection for illegal aliens (how many of them sell newspapers at intersections and fill the vending machines?), we get many interesting tidbits about an underground service and support system:

They heard of a sprawling apartment complex on the southeast side where a substantial share of the population is undocumented. The neat, pleasant complex is virtually tailor-made for undocumented workers. There is an active community center that dispenses advice on how to navigate life as an undocumented immigrant and teaches them English. There is an office from which residents can wire money home, a school across the street and a nearby clinic.

I wonder if that active community center could use a few copies of my comic book.

For the streets of Houston are paved with cheeseburgers and gold, you know.

A Brazoria County Sheriff's deputy was setting out road flares in front of one of BP's plant as part of traffic control when a truck ran him over and killed him.

I'm sure I'm going to catch hell for this, but I guess this proves that there's no such thing as "routine" traffic control.

Shaul Mofaz cries havoc and tells the IDF to kick Islamic Jihad ass.

Need a place to start? Well, here's an Islamic Jihad press conference:

Israel needs to declare that these events are now legitimate targets, clearly state that under the Geneva Conventions the Islamic Jihad is responsible for all those present, and then implement the policy without mercy.

After two or three napalmings of these affairs, I figure the press conferences will either end of be sparsely attended by the press.

Which, of course, will reduce the number of so-called journalists killed as collateral damage during future military actions against Islamic Jihad members rallying and posturing at these rallies.

It brings up the old question: "If Dan Rather were interviewing Hitler in his bunker and the US Army blew up the bunker, killing Hitler and Rather, who would be responsible for Rather's death?"

100 Words Or Les Nessman, after recently going dark for the weekends, is now going dark for December in light of the busy schedules of the Iron Writers.

I, on the other hand, have plenty of time, seeing as how one man's December is another man's Kislev.

This means no daily themes at the mothersite, and this does present a problem. How can I keep the podcast going without stories to read into it?

This is where you come in. Send me themes, any old themes, photos or words or news stories or ideas or even mish-mashes that defy containment in words and the visual.

With these themes, perhaps we will survive until the Spring Thaw.

Without, I'm afraid all will be lost.

Unlike Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds is man enough to admit when he's not blogging because he's off somewhere taking it up the ass.

Happy now?