This Blog Is Full Of Crap

So, Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo?

That's nice.

Didn't Yahoo used to be a search engine?

Hold on - I'll look that up in Google.

Oprah is back on the campaign trail.

No, she's not running for anything. She doesn't have an ideas worth building a platform out of, let alone prop up anybody else's campaign.

That's won't stop her from whoring her celebrity out for... (take a wild guess):

On Sunday, Oprah Winfrey is returning to the presidential campaign trail to headline a California event for Senator Barack Obama. The Obama campaign has yet to announce details, but people familiar with the event say the television talk show magnate will join Michelle Obama at a campaign rally in the Los Angeles area.

Isn't it wonderful that there's someone famous standup up there, telling people that the candidate she's with has so many wonderful ideas and solutions and how everybody else doesn't have those ideas and solutions?

Gee, how about shutting up and making the candidate actually present them to the audience?

Stand back. I've become even more cynical.

I'll be hanging with Garf today from 1100 to 1230 (truncated due to some game a guy invented with peach baskets and an exercise ball), but he's got a bunch of great guests that you really don't want to miss out on.

Why is it that when he's got the best guests, it's a short show? He doesn't have to just pack them into the hour and a half, but jam-pack them.

Which just means highly concentrated awesomeness!

Hit the stream at http://kprcradio.com or the video conference at http://hightechtexan.com for the full experience.

Dumb bombs:

Two mentally disabled women strapped with remote-control explosives - and possibly used as unwitting suicide bombers - brought carnage to two pet bazaars, killing at least 99 people in the deadliest day since Washington flooded the capital with extra troops last spring.

The coordinated blasts - coming 20 minutes apart in different parts of the city on Friday - appeared to reinforce US claims al-Qaida in Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men willing or available for such missions.

But they also served as a reminder that Iraqi insurgents are constantly shifting their strategies in attempts to unravel recent security gains around the country. Women have been used in ever greater frequency in suicide attacks.

The Palestinians have used retarded platforms for explosives before, but they prefer to have them run at security fences with toy guns in threatening manner and get shot so that the IDF looks bad for "shooting a retard."

It is spring;

But not for him.

Anybody suspect that the Iranians are behind this pattern of cable cuts?

Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships' anchors.

Of course, a ship that's intentionally dragging for data cables will snag and snap those cables with a bit of effort.

What do y'all think?

The parasites that cloud around celebrities are expressing an element of remorse:

Now, though, even some of the photographers who make their living chronicling every step of her meltdown are beginning to examine their consciences, and their professional ethics. One British photographer based in Los Angeles, Nick Stern, became perhaps the first to make a public stand when he quit his job with the Splash news agency a few days ago because he could not bring himself to cover Britney another day longer.

"The Britney story is no longer about Britney," he said. "It's the media circus surrounding her... It's not journalism. Sooner or later, someone's going to get killed. Possibly Britney herself."

*shrug* I'm hoping it's a "journalist" that gets run over and killed by a celebrity that has a good enough lawyer to claim they never saw them.

But if ordinary citizens feel that their life is at risk from these predatory tactics, well, my suggestion is: defend yourself with a legal amount of aggression as necessary to protect your life.

What does Reporters Without Borders think of these parasites?

NASA is spamming the universe with Meet The Beatles.

If you’re out there in deep space, you’ll want to be tuning in at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Feb. 4 (plus however long it takes electromagnetic radiation to reach you from Earth doing the 186,000-miles-a-second speed limit).

That’s when NASA will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first space mission — the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite — by using the system of huge antennas that usually listen for inbound signals from space to send one outbound instead: the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” which as it happens was mostly recorded exactly 40 years earlier, on Feb. 4, 1968.

Have those cocksuckers at the RIAA sued to stop them?

I know that it's the anniversary for The Beatles, sure, but is there another album or composition that's a better representative of the human experience?

Elisson's show is named Lost in the Cheese Aisle and you can listen to it at 4PM Eastern time over that streaming link.

I didn't realize that the NFL had named its Man Of The Year Award after Walter Payton.

Or, maybe I did, but the fact I care so little about the NFL or the Super Bowl just blots it from my memory every year.

But the fact that Paul Tagliabue himself renamed the award after Payton, well, that does not minimize my disgust for the man after what he did to destroy Walter's dreams of owning a football franchise., as promised by Tagliabue's predecessor.

When I first started this job, I had a very important Linux book taken from the drawer of the cubicle I considered home base.

There were no keys to the locks on the cubicle drawers, and they weren't going to provide any.

Since then, I assumed I was working with thieves, and I never left anything valuable or important at work.

Except for one thing.

Most folks assume mousepads are a dime a dozen, but my Moody Gardens Aquarium mousepad means a lot to me.

Besides the nice, calming color pattern of the fish on it, my wife gave me that mousepad during a weekend in Galveston that was really nice.

I should have been locking that mousepad up in the drawer I've staked out as my lockbox at work (which they still don't want me to use), but I haven't been.

I'm back from the weekend, and the mousepad is missing.

Someone either stole it or threw it out.

Goddamned thieves.

I was down to a dollar on the Q card work provides me with, so I needed to add some money to it.

Work provides me with $25 in credit a month. If you do the math, I think I'm paying a little more per month under the new fare hikes than I was before, but certainly not as much as if I were having to pay for my own Q card totally out of pocket.

Instead of getting it recharged at Kroger or the Glass Palace of Arrogance, I tried to use the on-bus loader on the 3227 bus doing the 9 route this morning.

Huge mistake.

The card reader has minimal instructions on it, with labels like Q CAR and two steps: Insert Bill and Insert Card.

In English. And on labels. No spoken announcements or in Spanish like the robot voice for the stops.

Why did they have to add the robot voices in two languages for the stops if they're not going to do that with these on-bus loaders?

Anyway, I put the 20 dollar bill in, and the display showed that it recognized the 20. A light turned green somewhere and I put the card in the reader.

It told me to INSERT BILL.

I already did.

I put the card in the slot again. INSERT BILL.

I hit the Cancel button. INSERT BILL. Probably isn't even connected.

Great.

You know, I knew this thing would steal my money, but I just had to try it anyway. I just had to know for myself that this thing is a useless piece of crap, and it cost me 20 bucks to confirm it.

No number to call on the box. They assume it will work perfectly every time, stealing your money rapidly and smoothly.

There's a number on the card, but it doesn't say "In case of problems." It says for registrations.

I called it anyway.

It took 2 minutes to get a human, and they asked me for my card ID.

I gave it to them.

They asked what the problem was, and I identified the bus number, the route number, and said the machine took my money. I inserted the bill, and then I put the card in.

"Did you want a few seconds?"

I don't see any step saying "Wait a few seconds" on the box. Or the brochures. Or the web site.

I really hate it when people say "Oh, by the way, did you ...?" in instructions.

Instructions go 1-2-3-4-5-6 and so on. Until you're done.

You don't jump back a few steps. That's unprofessional, stupid, and dangerous if you're dealing with important procedures.

The woman then proceeded to admonish me for not waiting for a few seconds.

"Where does it say 'Wait for a few seconds?' on this thing?"

She then "Sir"ed me over and over to take command of the conversation and admonished me some more.

I told her to stop and tell me how to get my money back.

She went into the "Wait a few seconds" line again, and I repeated myself.

"Well, Treasury isn't open until 8..."

She never said where Treasury is, but I know where it is.

Downtown. Where METRO expect you to go for everything.

So, I'm out of credit on my card, I've got a fiver that I need to break into ones during lunch, and then I need to get to the Glass Palace of Arrogance to have Treasury tell me they'll process my request for a few days, and then I'll have what passes for a human in the customer service area load up some money on my card by hand.

I could load that fiver on to a Q card using one of the on-bus readers, you know...

NOT!

Fucking METRO.

KHOU decided to Spam subscribers to it's breaking news alerts with this garbage about Britney Spears.

I'm pissed.

Britney Spears is not news.

Britney Spears is not local news.

Britney Spears is not local breaking news.

Shut the fuck up, KHOU, and stick to traffic alerts, weather, major local stories, and anything else that will affect my life.

Wanna write a caption?

Go for it!

More stupid shit from KHOU posing as Breaking News:

NEW YORK -- The New York City medical examiner's office has ruled that Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

The link on the bottom of their notice doesn't give a clearly-marked option to unsubscribe.

That, in my book, is Spam.

It's about fucking time, you asshole.

Any NGOs that bitch about the power reduction to Gaza should get off their asses, hop on some treadmills, and run the generators with their Birkenstocks.

Egypt's threatened to break the legs of anybody that breaches the border between Gaza and Egypt.

But then, Ahmed Aboul Gheit is the same guy who offered up Egypt's army for mercenary services in a war with Israel - Classic Empty Scrotum Arab Bluster.

I'm sure that we'll be seeing more and more videos from Hamas showing kids holding candles in schools, slickly produced on banks of power-guzzling editing machines.

When the Gazans start demanding solar cells, you'll know it's a serious problem and not just propaganda amplified by the bleeding-heart dhimmis on the Left.

Mitt Romney is suspending his Presidential campaign.

Ron Paul has not yet been reached for comment, as it takes several hours for signals traveling at the speed of light to reach his home planet.

What's got me bothered about Mitt calling it quits is that I never got a chance to get sick of his campaign theme music like I did with Clinton in 92.

What was it, anyway? Hava Naglieh?

Whatever.

A customer has a problem.

A tech gives a straightforward, simple response using absolutely no jargon.

Customer responds that we're the worst experience they've ever had.

If they can't understand the basic language and terminology that are used in dealing with servers and webhosting, they need to have someone do this shit for them.

This stuff doesn't work with a Playskool or Fischer Price interface. I wish it did. I wish everything was made out of primary colors and basic shapes that made squeaks and moos and chirps in ways that let you know it works or doesn't... but it's just not that simple.

So, in those situations, if you're waving your hands in front of you and whining like a scared baby, back off.

I mean, if I were to say "Use the turn signal" and you say "Where is that?" then you need to stop the car, leave the keys on the seat, and get out so someone else can drive. But don't jump my ass because you bought that car from my company and didn't magically know how to use it.

If I were to say "Okay, now play a G chord" and you're staring at me dumbfounded over your guitar, put the thing down and either get some lessons or get off the stage. But don't jump my ass because you bought that guitar from my company and didn't magically know how to use it.

Why should this stuff be any different?

Technical Support is no cure for your not knowing your shit.

There's a difference between something being broken and something not doing what you want because you don't know how to do it or have the brains to Google search the problem or hit F1.

There's lots of folks with skill out there. If you don't have the patience to learn from them, then you'd better get out your checkbook and hire them.

The problem is, was it the Jena Six that were standing with scum in the form of Al Sharpton, or was it Al Sharpton standing with scum?

Welcome to Black Revisionist History Month.

I read a headline and see Ted Turner "Almost Done" and my day brightens up.

Good riddance to the UN-loving hick fuck, right?

Then, it's actually he's almost done buying up ranchland.

Damn. Terrorist-loving bastard oughtta buy the farm instead.

Firing things up at the KPRC studios to hang with Garf for an hour and fifteen.

I gotta tell you, walking the tunnels yesterday was a hoot. Going from Bayou Place to 1200 Smith using nothing but underground passages was a challenge, but I did it in good time, good health, and popped out of the tunnels to catch a 53 right then and there.

The call cut off halfway through the tunnels, but I plan on trying that again soon.

Will some explain how the Palestinians can claim that they are suffering from a campaign of genocide and slaughter if their population in Gaza and The West Bank grew by one million over a decade?

Imagine if Hitler had rounded up Jews, Gypsies, the retarded, Russians, and other enemies and grew their populations by the same factor?

We'd probably thank him. Maybe name a street or two after him or have a holiday for him.

Folks, when the Arab World, Muslims, Dhimmi leftards, and Palestinians scream about genocide and slaughter, it's because they want to exercise it against the Jews, and they are being frustrated in their goals of bloody conquest at every turn.

And that's a wrap! Space Casey Episode 10 has hit the net.

(Thanks to Christiana Ellis for letting me louse it up with my goofy, cheesy accent.)

Tigger's journey has come to an end.

Crawdad boil this afternoon.

Every year, I have at least one day where I gorge on the little suckers.

Yeah, I know. Not good for my diet.

Ever so often, ya gotta bust loose, right?

So let me get this straight: birth defect rates are skyrocketing among Muslims from rural Pakistan because of first-cousin marriages, a British minister mentions this, and he's getting condemned for stating this simple fact about this barbaric practice burdening the health care system provided to them by the civilized folks hosting them?

A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society.

Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the “elephant in the room”. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.”

The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: “The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children].”

Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins.

Medical research suggests that while British Pakistanis are responsible for 3% of all births, they account for one in three British children born with genetic illnesses.

Sounds like good math and common sense to me.

Hey, wanna fuck your cousin without protection and have freakbabies?

Do it back home or emigrate to Alabama.

We got home well past Nardo's dinnertime, but I think it was worth the wait for him.

Yeah, I peeled a bunch of crawdads and brought them home to Nardo.

It took him a while, but he enjoyed them.

Well, not all of them.

Littlebit the cat got one of them. Little's a slow-motion, extremely cool and sweet white-and-orange cat who puts up with two dogs.

When we left, Little was curled up, tummy to the air on the sofa where I'd left her.

Always leave a cat happy.

I agree with folks that say that Guantanamo should be closed, but not it what should be done with those currently incarcerated there.

Where the leftards and the pro-jihadis scream for these animals to be released, I believe that need to roll out of the camp feet-first.

Apparently, the Pentagon is finally getting around to snuffing a few of these bloodthirsty creatures:

Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.

The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as today and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former al-Qaida operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

A Defense Department official said prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because "if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale." The officials spoke anonymously because no one in the government was authorized to speak about the case.

I'm sure there will be protests, burning flags and waving oversized puppets.

Amazing what people do off their meds, eh?

Apparently, Trusty Rusty Hardin's been threatening people with Roger Clemens:

In the article, Hardin also said: "I can tell you this: If he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch."

Is it because Rusty's charging so much for keeping Roger's needle-sore ass out of jail, Debbie can't afford to buy groceries anymore?

What I want to know is what hoops this woman had to jump through.

Did she have to go Downtown? Did she have to wait in line for Treasury?

Who sets the fare rates on the boxes? Was this a glitch in the system or the fault of the driver booting it up at the wrong rate?

Will Holocaust Deniers Mahmoud Abbas, David Irving and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deny that Holocaust Survivor Tom Lantos has died?

Olmert's attempt to divide Jerusalem while qassams fall on Sderot women and children looks to be cause for threats by Shas:

Shas chairman Eli Yishai indicated on Monday that his party's days in the government were numbered, due to The Jerusalem Post's story that the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams were conducting secret talks on the future of Jerusalem.

Yishai told reporters who attended his faction's weekly meeting that he would speak about the story in Sunday's paper with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

He had not spoken to either one by press time and the Olmert associates he did reach downplayed the report.

"I will check the story and if it's true, Shas will leave the government," Yishai told the Post.

Shas is all about making empty threats to get more government funding for religious schools and its agenda, just as empty as Laborite threats to bolt over Winograd.

The only way to get Olmert out of power at this point is to name a square after him, eh.

What the hell do you say when this happens?

Kim Sjostrom wanted a real-life version of the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which played in the background as friends fixed her hair and makeup before her own marriage ceremony.

But less than an hour after she and Teddy Efkarpides were wed, Sjostrom crumpled in her husband's arms during a Greek song that means "Love Me."

At 36, Sjostrom was dead from heart disease.

Besides shouting I POISONED THE CAKE! and running like hell.

As I was going to sleep last night, I noticed that one of Nardo's back paws was bloody.

He shattered a claw on one of his toes, or maybe he chewed on it too much and split it.

Either way, he wasn't limping or hurt, and he was keeping it clean, so no real need to fuss.

And this morning, I checked on him, let him know everything was alright, but if anything happens with that paw, I'll take tomorrow off.

The littlest things get The Worry Factory going at full steam.

Andy Pettitte has been removed from the witness list in the Roger Clemens hearings.

I guess you can't be compelled to testify against your spouse after all.

(Make your own "Which one of them catches?" jokes... I'm getting more tea.)

Israellycool's Aussie Dave demonstrates why Rachel Corrie's parents are full of crap when it comes to the fantasy they've invented for her final moments.

Even the Egyptians know better:

"It is hard to uncover tunnels that are located inside houses in Egyptian Rafah and lead to Palestinian Rafah because they are hidden inside closets, kitchens and even bathrooms," they said.

Every single gift and trapping of basic human civilization is perverted by the Palestinians in their never-ending quest to exterminate the Jews.

Not to establish an independent state. Just to kill the Jews and destroy Israel.

When they accomplish that, they're climb back into their blood-soaked highchair and scream Baby Finster style for even more foreign aid.

Baby Finster needs a spanking, folks.

A hard spanking.

And so do the jackasses who keep spoon-feeding him and cuddling and cooing to him, calling him a sweet baby.

At some level, I feel sorry for the Corries.

To have the facts constantly rubbed in your face must drive them deeper into this fantasy-land that she was some kind of hero instead of a tool for evil, curling more and more into a ball.

Famous parasites like Alan Rickman, looking for a quick headline, can't possibly help.

Yeah, I feel sorry for them.

But, in time, I'll get over it.

Hezbollah cockroach Imad Mughniyeh was exterminated last night in a car-bombing.

My condolences go out to the car.

Do the Lebanese do car-swarms like the Palestinians do, waving charred bits of vehicle and bloody scraps for the cameras?

Or are they less openly-uncivilized than their Palestinian brethren?

It used to be that when the early 9 bus was painfully late, I'd miss the 102 and have to wait another 30 minutes for the next one.

This was particularly annoying when it was a chilly morning, like this morning was.

Now, I just hop off the 9 at Rusk and walk to work.

SUCK ON IT, YOU SLOWPOKE!

Deranged from grief and greedy liberal documentarians wishing to extend her suffering for easy video footage in their quest to smear President Bush with the feces of any animal species within reach, Cindy Sheehan is on the loose, shrieking her support for Muslim Brotherhood terrorists in Egyptian jails.

On behalf of the American People, I apologize to Egypt for our country's failing to provide adequate mental health services for this woman. Maybe she'll head up to Rafah and scream "tear down this wall again" and get blown up with a tunnel explosion or run over by a bulldozer.

I guess this is the price y'all pay for taking two billion American dollars a year to arm Hamas through tunnels under Rafah and then letting Pharaoh Hosni the First rule on his throne of skulls until his son is ready for the crown.

Oh, and before you claim that these are "Political Wing Muslim Brotherhood" and not "Armed Terrorist Muslim Brotherhood" - remember that the Politicals are just a front for the core terrorist organization. They are morally do different than the guys with the guns they raise money for and praise openly to the media.

If you still need convincing, shoot a political winger and an armed terrorist from the MB or Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad or Fateh or any number of organizations claiming such a division.

You'll find them awfully similar on the inside.

Feel free to shoot or carbomb or strike 'em with missiles until you get enough samples points to come to this conclusion.

I'm patient.

Camille Paglia asks:

Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse in the White House? This isn't a smart game plan for the war on terror.

Someone should have told Bill Clinton that back in the 90's when he hosted Yasser Arafat at the White House more often than any other actual world leader.

Oh well. It wasn't like Chelsea was at risk - Arafat preferred young boys.

An amusing rant about a clock on the wall:

Keep in mind that I'm recording this on a phone through Verizon's network, over to Utterz.com, and streamed to you.

Raggedy Andy Pettitte and Roid Rage Roger watch their Hall Of Fame prospects vanish while Hakeem and Slappy Pat Ewing are set for the NBA enshrinement?

Sounds about right to me.

There's also talk of a presidential pardon for Roger should things get uglier.

Bush should pardon him now with an agreement by Roger to give a full confession to any misdeeds he's performed (hiring Rusty Hardin is an admission of guilt in Houston-speak, folks). And then Bush should lay down a string of F-bombs for Congress, telling them to quit dicking around over a game, throwing bluster at the media while dallying in this garbage, and face him down directly over the economy and Iraq.

Maybe throw one at Hillary for "the murder of Vince Foster" just to piss her off. Just mumble something about "Even if you didn't do it, I'm tired of this conspiracy bullshit people bring up with me, so it must be a royal bitch for you. There. Clean slate. Now go lose in November." And then pardon Bill for perjury, that dick from Michigan who made his staff babysit his kids from fucking other babysitters, and a few other scumbags from across the aisle.

Heck, why not pardon Teddy Kennedy for vehicular homicide, too? And a few hundred counts of DUI. Get it on the books.

Think it's wrong? Fine. Toss one to Cheney for "Shootin his buddy in the face."

Happy now?

After a few off weeks and truncated broadcasts, The High Tech Texan on KPRC 9-5-0 (stream) in Houston is going back to its usual three hour format today.

That means when Michael Garfield starts to run out of steam or needs to prop up his amazing hair with aluminum braces and scaffolding due to a depletion of his vast energy reserves, you may head a few classic "blither solos" when he asks me my opinion on something I have absolutely no idea or cue how to respond.

I may even do them in some odd voices and in there character of Professor Wilton Smudgley, a name I just came up with while stumbling through the hallway to the bathroom.

Blu-Ray wins! (This was over when Microsoft considered going with Blu-Ray on its devices.)

More Roger Clemens bashing, Rusty Hardin jabs.

Call Silencer in the studio blocks land-line callspam. Not yet ready for cell phones, but we'll see.

How exactly did that Islamic Jihad scumbag-in-chief in Gaza bite the dust?

Witnesses reported seeing fragments of what looked like locally-produced rockets at the scene, suggesting the house may have been used to store arms.

They were probably fresh from Egypt, just waiting for distribution.

One of the rare positive things about the border being open for that period of time, I guess, munitions flowing in so quickly, they get careless with stowing them and have "work accidents" in the basements of their leaders' homes.

Of course:

Islamic Jihad claimed Israeli warplanes hit the house in an air strike, and added that the group would carry out reprisal attacks against Israel.

Whoever quotes them as a reliable source on that, their press credentials ain't worth the death warrant they're written on the back of.

Chuck Rosenthal resigns, citing prescription dugs he got through the husband of the person he wants to replace him.

I'm taking off the gloves...

I have 2 Q cards: the tester card I had last year to learn firsthand how fucked the system is and a work card that was given to me to load up with credit to reward my continued use of public transportation and to save parking spaces for folks with their own vroom-vrooms.

Credit is supposed to be loaded on the work card every 15th of the month by the Metro Goddess at work.

She sent out an email late yesterday: no loady of the green to the flashy-card because of an error at METRO.

This was the same day of a "Love Frankie" censored chat by METRO, folks asking the questions METRO wants them to ask so they can vomit up their usual lies, opaque decision-making process, and rigged statistics.

So glad METRO has their priorities straight.

I'll stop by Kroger to stick another 20 in the little bastard in case METRO doesn't get their shit together in time.

Not that there's any way to find out if they got it to work or not at the reader. You swipe a card at zero, you see zero instead of any credit in the contract behind it.

What a shitty system, and as of March 1st, there ain't no way around it. (Unless you have one of those "magic passes" that METRO employees and their VIPs appear to be packing)

Apparently, our police chief's current place of residence is about to do what he's unwilling to do with his day job: check resident status of people who are arrested:

The police in this city at the center of the immigration debate will soon ask all people arrested whether they are in the United States legally and will in certain cases report the information to the federal authorities, Mayor Phil Gordon announced on Friday.

People stopped for civil traffic violations like speeding will not be questioned, nor will crime victims or witnesses.

All those arrested on criminal charges like drunken driving and murder will be asked by officers whether they are in the United States legally.

The police may decide to recommend checking by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Maybe he's confused about the issue and he's worried he'd have to arrest himself for being a non-resident?

America, dude. Not Texas.

Sheesh.

The usual whiners are whining:

Civil rights advocates suggested that people who appeared to be Latino or spoke with accents would be more likely to be checked than others.

*shrug* If they set up a system and check everyone who fits within the scope of the search without exception, yeah, you'll get 80 year-old grandmothers being scanned, but they'll scan clear and quickly if the system's set up correctly.

Plus, I don't think grandma's gonna be holding up Seven-Elevens or dealing smack on the main drag.

Seven killed at a drag race.

Here's the kicker:

"There were just bodies everywhere; it was horrible," said Crystal Gaines, 27, whose father was among the dead.

Gaines said she grabbed her child but could not help her father, William Gaines Sr., 61.

"He wasn't breathing, he wasn't moving," she said. "His body was in pieces."

Yeah, that's the perfect thing to bring a family together: a street drag race.

Kosovo declared its independence today.

I'd have rather that Kurdistan been in this position by now. I'd also have wanted Slobodan Milosevic to have had to eat this headline, but by killing himself he's saved Western democracies millions in court and storage fees.

Where the UN had a mission of stagnating Kosovo's development and drive for independence at the insistence of the Russians, the Kosovars had another plan in mind and will soon be receiving European Union protection.

Hopefully those EU paper-pushers and baton-swingers will be more useful that the tea-sipping fucks that watched tons of explosives, weapons, and rocket parts flow right under their noses into Gaza. And if they work as speedbumps towards legitimate free market democratic reforms, that the Kosovars have the gumption to ship them home quickly, even if it's wooden boxes with their respective flags draped over them.

Also, this is another case of the Muslim World failing to aid its own when true Western-style democracy can be achieved, since the Arab Muslims of the world blanch at the concept of a government based on individual rights instead of a theocratic dictatorship.

As for the Asian Muslims, if you don't have a kleptocracy to sock away natural gas rights or a bordering nation to population-bomb and colonize, what good are you?

So, good luck, Kosovo. May you prove once and for all that unbridled multiculturalism for its own sake is ultimately doomed to failure because it only serves to stir up rivalries within borders instead of outside of them.

Electric Politics covered this topic this week... worth a listen.

UPDATE:
Time Magazine's Asshole-Of-The-Year reminds the world why he was selected as Asshole-Of-The-Year:

Russia's Foreign Ministry swiftly denounced Kosovo's independence declaration and calls for an emergency session of the UN Security Council.

Just as the Arab/Muslim chair on the Security Council works hard to defend terrorist acts against Israel, the Russians continue to work hard towards crushing any attempt by a distinct national and cultural identity to claim its right to free representative democracy with a constitution that enshrines basic human rights and individual freedoms.

(Unless they're Palestinians, but then that's just the Arab World's representatives in attempting to crush the Jews claim on their right to representative democracy with a constitution that enshrines basic human rights and individual freedoms. (The Basic Law is more of a constitution than the Judenrein piece of Islamist garbage that the terrorists use to bind their wounds with in Ramallah.)

Does Bush's calling McCain a "true conservative" fit within my rampage against celebrity endorsements from people who have no idea what they hell they're talking about?

Does Bush know what a true conservative is?
Does McCain fit within the mold of a true conservative?

Sine I am typing with my left hand until the Advil kicks in, here's an audio record of how the Q Card nearly killed me today:

Here's a summary of the past few day's events:

• FRIDAY: METRO's website for loading credit on to Q Cards fails. Instead, their geeks are too busy helping Frank Wilson lie to the public in a webchat. My workplace can't recharge my card.

• WEEKEND: Didn't hit Kroger to load card. (UPDATE: Well, I was at Kroger on Sunday to pick up veggies, hummus, and some other things. But the Courtesy Desk was closed... very discourteous. No way to load credit on the card.)

• MONDAY AM: Q Card loader on 9 bus is wonky. Didn't like my fiver.

• MONDAY NOON: Work says they loaded credit on the Q Card. But the system is designed to sync up only when the buses dock for the night.

• MONDAY PM: Q Card is empty. 53 bus (3313) loader is flashing red and broken. Driver is nice enough to take me down to St. Joseph's to walk to DTC.

• MONDAY PM: Motorcycle comes out of parking garage, rider looks left, not right. I'm on the right. WHAM!

• MONDAY PM: I limp to DTC, wait in line 20 minutes.

• MONDAY PM: Ridestore dolts admonish me over being able to use online site, Kroger, etc. They blame *me* for their system's weaknesses, not the system. I laugh, but think "if this building collapsed on you, I'd rather they sent rabid wolves in to finish you off instead of search and rescue dogs."

• MONDAY PM: Limp out from door. 9 blows past. Never fails.

• MONDAY PM: Catch next 9. Ed's on there. Haven't seen him in weeks. We chat, I tell hi mthe story, we laugh.

• MONDAY PM: Home. Left knee is stiff, right elbow and bicep hurt, right hip and groin pull. Slight bump udner left eye. Otherwise, fine.

But I suggest you listen to the utterz for the full commentary on how METRO's Q Card nearly killed me. Because there, you get my laughing and how I deal with the fun parts of life.

How to make iced tea at work:

1. Remove lid.
2. Remove tea cage
3. Dump old tea bag
4. Put in new tea bag
5. Replace tea cage
6. Hit the On button
7. Wait 9 minutes
8. Replace lid

Somebody forgot step #4

Machine's full of water.

Dear Il Papa,

Amor,
Fidel

Some thoughts on the past few days:

• Even though my job kinda sucks, it beats staying at home all day.

• You can get a lot accomplished with one good leg and one good arm.

• Except for situps and pushups. There goes my Welcome Home exercise routine.

• With something in the hand of your bad arm, you can Bobdole people into thinking nothing is wrong with it.

• Folks always wanna sue someone. And yet, we hate lawyers.

• I always wonder about Christians who goad others into lashing out instead of reaching out a hand of friendship or forgiveness.

• Sometimes, having a bedcat is a bad thing, especially when he decides to lay on your bad arm.

• I like to laugh.

• Getting old sucks.

I know it's going to rain today and tomorrow, but I've got jalapenos and veggie skewers that won't keep until Saturday. So, I'll watch the radar and see if there's a break in the storm.

The one catch is that I need to scrub the grate on the grill. I haven't had the arm strength since Monday afternoon to do it, but I may just be able to do it today when I get home.

I could always head down to Home Depot and just pick up a new 22" grate. But that's wasteful.

Scott Boras is still a greedy, double-dealing douchebag.

I let the grill sit idle for 2 months. Usually I pride myself on keeping that thing going week-to-week, but life (and its alternative) kinda got in the way.

I was going to grill up some stuffed jalapenos, seasoned skewers of chicken, the usual veggie skewers, salmon, and pineapple rings on Monday, but I think we all know what happened to those plans.

So, I waited until my right arm was strong enough to scrub the grill, and the rains let up just in time on Thursday evening:

Here's to a healthy and hearty 2008 grilling season!

It's gotta be the guy who sent a ticket to Technical Support asking if he could pay his bill.

Never mind that it went to Technical Support instead of Billing, which is an option in the ticket form.

It doesn't matter if he's sending the ticket to Janitorial Services - the answer is very likely going to be yes.

I mean, what kind of business says "Nah, we don't want you to pay your bill. In fact, here's a stack of money... go have yourself a good time!"

Garf has a bunch of guests today, so I'll hide in the background most of the day. But you can still catch me squeaking now and then on the stream at kprcradio.com or 950AM in Houston until 2:00PM.

I was late getting to the studio because I stopped by Kenny & Ziggy to treat myself to some nova, schmear, and potato pancakes.

Weekly Challenge #97 is up: Mufaletta and Navel Lint.

Sounds delicious, doesn't it?

I was going to have a mufaletta at Murphy's in the tunnels this week, but ended up with their falafel sandwich.

Should have had the mufaletta, I suppose.

Brandon Backe has injured himself in record time!

Astros pitcher Brandon Backe suffered a bone bruise on his right foot when he was hit by a hard grounder during batting practice Saturday.

X-rays were negative. Manager Cecil Cooper said the injury wasn’t serious, but he was still going to hold Backe out of Sunday’s workout.

“We’re going to get him some extra rest to make sure he’s OK,” Cooper said. “At this point, nothing to be alarmed about. I’d just rather be cautious than take a chance.”

Here's hoping that Brandon Backe recovers quickly so he can focus on his all-important season-ending injuries!