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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Sunday, October 4, 2009

President seeks ways to provide more help to jobless

The Obama administration is considering steps to ease the burdens of laid-off workers, including possible extensions of unemployment and health benefits, officials said.

President seeks ways to provide more help to jobless

Samoa tsunami damage

The Associated Press rode along on a helicopter with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as they toured damage from Tuesday's tsunami.

Understanding the anxious mind

Understanding the anxious mind

An expert tries to see if worried babies really turn into worried adults.

Countries that billionaires could buy

Countries that billionaires could buy

Why stop at a castle or an island?

In theory, these billionaires could buy a country.

And the winner is ...

Winners of potato chip taste test

Some have classic crunch, others have exotic flavors, but all of them are dangerously addictive.

Health tips for living to 100

Health tips for living to 100

Adopt these six healthy habits to transform your body and your life expectancy.

Lucrative jobs go unfilled in bad times

Lucrative jobs go unfilled in bad times

There's a reason why jobs that pay $55,000 to $60,000, plus benefits, remain unfilled.

At odds over Afghanistan

At odds over Afghanistan

Amid rising U.S. casualties, debate over President Obama's Afghanistan war strategy heats up.

Daily Funny

What do you call rabbits marching backwards?

A receding hare line ...

Stagger Lee

Wilbert Harrison

David Letterman's Blackmailer Deep in Debt; Pleads Not Guilty


This news just gives us the motive behind Robert J. Halderman's alleged blackmail plot against David Letterman.

He was deep in debt.

According to Assistant District Attorney Judy Salwen, Joe Halderman was in financial trouble.

Full Story

DoH! Government selects new ambassadors for new healthy living ...

DoH! Government selects new ambassadors for new healthy living campaign ... yup, the dysfunctional, doughnut-loving Simpsons.

With his penchant for doughnuts and beer, Homer Simpson is hardly a role model for nutritious eaters.

Full Story

Nobel guessing game at fever pitch

The Nobel prize season opens Monday with the announcement of the Medicine Prize and but the field is still wide open for the prestigious Peace Prize.

Nobel guessing game

Elections Board

The State Board of Elections used to be known best as the arbiters of close elections, counting votes that would alter the political fortunes of candidates.

N.C. elections board's power has grown over decade

Documents Out Ahmadinejad as Having Jewish Roots

From the "That's got to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into things, now don't it" Department:

A report by the Telegraph purports to have solid evidence that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has Jewish roots.

Full Story

Graham: Glenn Beck Doesn't Represent the repugican party

Lindsay Graham (reptile-SC) continues to try to put some distance between Faux News talking head Glenn Beck and the repugican party. This morning on Faux News Sunday, he told Faux's Bret Baier that Beck "doesn't represent the repugican party."

Full Story

Oh, but he does. Oh, but he does.

Pilots, Crew Slug It Out at 30,000 Feet

From the "Remind me not to fly Air India" Department:

Sully would be ashamed of the actions of the pilots and crew on this Air India flight. Two members of the cabin crew, one male and one female, got into a fistfight with the pilot and co-pilot.

Full Story

Told to stop cursing, couple at KFC beat man

From the "Total Assholes" Department as well as the "Stupid Dipshits" Department:

Authorities say a couple, upset over the slowness of their Kentucky Fried Chicken order, assaulted a man who asked them to stop yelling profanities for the sake of children in line.

Full Story

Museum Posts Only Known Video of Anne Frank to YouTube

The Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam has posted the only known video of the famous teenage diarist on YouTube.
The video shows neighbors getting married on July 22, 1941, with Anne Frank briefly shown on the balcony.

Full Story

Woman paralyzed by E. coli-tainted hamburger

American megacorp Cargill, which earned $116.6 billion in revenue last year, is in the spotlight this week around the story of Stephanie Smith: the 22 year old children's dance instructor was paralyzed from the waist down after eating E. coli-tainted hamburger traced back to the meat supplier.

She was in a coma for nine weeks (that's her, hospitalized, in the photo below), and can now no longer walk. "Ground beef is not a completely safe product," one food safety expert in the article is quoted. Well, no shit.

From an extensive investigative report in Sunday's New York Times:

meat.hospital.650.jpg The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled "American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties." Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

Using a combination of sources -- a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger -- allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.

Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together.

Green roofs save on carbon overheads

Load your roof with vegetation and cut the planet's carbon burden.

Green roofs save on carbon overheads

Polar Bears

From BBC-Science
Polar bear with cub
A cub is seen hitching a ride on its mother's back in the Arctic Ocean, a rarely sighted behavior that may help it keep warm.

Top Ten

The Top 10 Crazy Bastards

Who Actually Changed the

World (For the Better)

Discoveries astound the Web

Discoveries astound the Web

Football-sized dinosaur eggs and a new ancestor of humanity astound the Internet

Kids find huge bag filled with cash

Kids find huge bag filled with cash

Mayhem ensues in Germany when kids give their classmates money found in a paper bag.

Unusual Holidays and Celebrations

Today is Ten-Four Day.

Daily Almanac

Today is Sunday, Oct. 4, the 277th day of 2009.

There are 88 days left in the year.

Today In History October 4, 2009

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Rome, Lazio, Italy
Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy
Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Vilanova I La Geltru, Catalonia, Spain
Telford, England, United Kingdom
Windor, Ontario, Canada
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand

as well as Scotland, and the United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

The activities throughout the day will create a lot of different possibilities, and it may be hard to decide which opportunity you want to explore.
You have so few things limiting your options, and that is a blessing, but it is also a burden.
For the first time in a long while, you don't need to ask anyone for permission about what to do.
There's no resistance to work against.
You'll end up a winner any way you choose -- as long as you choose with conviction.

Choose, eh.