Ethanol Schmethanol

Remember when corn was considered a food? Reason TV exposes the scam that is ethanol:

Is this really better than just sleeping in?

OK, now I really have no words for this story that aired on CBS Evening News this evening. Some things are just so funny, sad, and absurd at the same time that they provide all their own satire:

Praising The Lord ... In A Ford
Florida Drive-In Church Mixes Salvation With Convenience

Rabbinical Walkout

I'm struggling with how to add to this Des Moines Register article:

Postville, Ia. — About 50 rabbis in charge of supervising the kosher slaughter and processing of meat at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville walked off the job today to protest recent pay cuts.

The rabbis reportedly took the action because of a decrease in pay since a May 12 immigration raid, the largest in U.S. history at a single site. The plant has since drastically reduced production.

Agriprocessors spokesman Menachem Lubinsky downplayed the incident, saying the walk-off lasted only 30 minutes after management resolved the issue. But Lubinsky says the issue of decreased pay, as well as increased time between work performed and payment, has been an issue for the rabbis since the raid.

“The rabbis were complaining that they didn’t have as much time for overtime and additional shifts,” Lubinsky said.

As mentioned above, this same plant was the target of a major illegal immigration raid back in May. I had no idea it took 50 rabbis to supervise a kosher meat plant! Perhaps they feel their jobs are being threatened by the flood of low-wage Mexican rabbis coming across the border.

Bigfoot Still at Large

Well, it was only a matter of time before this came out:

Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice -- handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it -- was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit. The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature were found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.

So, the search continues.

(Funny how no one seems to be taking any interest in my theory. Oh, well.)

Global Warming = More Ice?

How's this for an inconvenient truth? Seems there's enough ice for all those cute, cuddly polar bears after all.

Bigfoot Found?

That's what sasquatch hunters Matthew Whitton (AKA Gary Parker) and Rick Dyer of Georgia are saying. And they claim to have the body to prove it!

From their press release:

• The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
  
• It weighs over five hundred pounds.
  
• The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
  
• It is male.
  
• It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
  
• It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.
  
• The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
  
• Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
  
• From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
  
• The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
  
• The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
  
• DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press

Whitton and Dyer will be holding a live press conference tomorrow in Palo Alto, California, at 12 noon PDT. For a picture of the purported creature, check out their site, SearchingForBigfoot.com.

Have It Your Way ®

When the folks at Burger King came up with that slogan, I don't think they had this in mind:

XENIA, Ohio (WDTN) - Some workers at a Greene County restaurant are in hot water with the health department, after an employee took a bubble bath in a store sink.

It happened at the Burger King on Orange Street in Xenia.

A four-minute video posted on MySpace captured the employee, self-described as Mr. Unstable, bathing nude in a large stainless steel sink as several other employees and a store manager looked on.

The video began making its rounds on the Internet Monday morning. One of the recipients was Greene County Health Commissioner, Mark McDonnell.

"My first thought was oh my god," said McDonnell.

McDonnell immediately sent staff to restaurant to investigate the numerous health code violations.

He said the restaurant was aware of the incident and had already taken steps to clean up, including disposing of all the utensils and sanitizing the sink twice.

All of the employees involved were fired.

What do I think? If you're willing to cram a Double Whopper value meal down your gullet, I think employees bathing in the sink should be the least of your worries.

Ouch!

One Man's Art...

Clifford the Big Red Dog was nowhere near the vicinity, but that didn't stop a giant dog poo from wreaking (reeking?) havoc in Switzerland. Actually, the object in question was the work of demented American "artist" Paul McCarthy. He's best known for...uh...Let's just say that this was one of his more tame creations.

Breitbart reports that the huge inflatable dookie "blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again." At least it didn't hit the fan.

Okay, okay. Let's all try to resist our juvenile tendencies. As easy as it is to crack jokes, I realize that some people take these things very seriously. Art wasn't one of the things I studied in college, after all. I mean, what makes me qualified to be a critic? I wouldn't know a real dog dropping from a piece o fart.

>:(

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a new level of stupidity in this country. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

[T]here appear to be a growing number of serious injuries that occur when people use their cell phones to send text messages while also doing something else, such as walking.

The American College of Emergency Physicians went so far as to issue a warning recently about texting while walking, driving, in-line skating or engaging in some other activity.

Bill Haselow, emergency physician at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital Ozaukee, said the risks are real. He treated two serious texting-while-walking injuries at the Mequon hospital in the past few months. Both teens suffered a broken nose after falling face first on a sidewalk.

"I think they just get so focused on (texting) they don't see a little bump or a trip or a stumble, and down they go," Haselow said. "And they're not in a position to brace themselves."

If you're over 25 or so, it might be hard to appreciate the popularity of exchanging word messages that you compose and read on the screen of your cell phone. But there's no doubt they have an appeal.

Yeah, I'm over 25, and, yeah, I really do find it hard to appreciate the popularity of typing messages to other people on cell phones!

And I Ran...I Ran So Favre Away...

It's official. Brett Favre is once again donning a green #4 jersey, only this time it will be for the New York Jets. Not that I care one way or another, but I know a lot of Packer fans who aren't too pleased with the news.

And don't look for Favre to ever play for Green Bay again. It just ain't gonna happen. Because...

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

LSU vs. OSU Championship Game Online

Thanks to Hulu.com, Tiger fans can relive the excitement of the BCS National Championship game over and over again.



I LOVE the Internet!

Things I Read While Camping

Besides the books I took camping with me last week, I found some interesting reading on the bottom of the air mattresses my daughter and I used in our tent. This is a good example of what the litigiousness of our world has brought us to.

I like that, besides the multiple other languages the manufacturer finds it necessary to print warnings in, they have three separate English-language warnings: one for Australia, one for US, and one for Great Britain. Apparently our three countries must have differing propensities for stupidity in how not to use an air mattress. Australia's is the simplest: WARNING: USE ONLY UNDER COMPETENT SUPERVISION. But Australians must have poorer vision, since their warning has to be in larger print. Great Britain starts with the same warning, but adds "KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE". Uh, OK, wouldn't that apply to almost anything that you don't intend to burn? For the US warning, they take out the competent supervision part, probably because our country hasn't yet been responsible enough to enact an air mattress management certification program. They make up for our lack of a domestic air mattress supervisory corps by giving us more warnings: "NOT A LIFE SAVING DEVICE", "DO NOT LEAVE CHILD UNATTENDED WHILE DEVICE IS IN USE", "NEVER ALLOW DIVING INTO THIS PRODUCT" (I'd like to know who tried that), "DO NOT LEAVE IN OR NEAR THE WATER WHEN NOT IN USE" (what does that have to do with safety?), and, finally, the moral: "FOLLOW THESE RULES TO AVOID DROWNING, PARALYSIS, OR OTHER SERIOUS INJURY". I'm so glad I live in America, where we get more helpfully explicit warnings like this. I wonder if the British and Australians only read their sentences, or if they also read the US warning section so that they can benefit from our further wisdom? I hope they do.

My daughter's air mattress was a little newer, just purchased last week, and I found they'd changed the language slightly. They removed the part about keeping away from fire. But the British have apparently had some more air mattress lawsuits in the last couple years, because now they've added "THERE ARE RISKS USING THIS PRODUCT AS A WATERCRAFT. PAY ATTENTION TO WINDS AND CURRENTS." (I found no marine charts, anemometer, or sextant in the package) "NO PROTECTION AGAINST DROWNING! SWIMMERS ONLY!"

Geez, I'm glad I only use these for sleeping on in the tent. I don't think I can handle such complex rules for water (but not fire) usage. I must be getting dumber these days, as I was also unable to understand the alerts on this gas pump where I filled up before returning home today: