Hey, you crazy Muslim fundamentalists, the US didn’t draw those cartoons so why are you burning President Bush effigies and vandalizing western businesses? You want to know why we think Muslim fundamentalists are backwards thinking crazy people? This is why. You turn every thing into a reason to burn your own provincial assembly building. This would be like us burning down the state capitol in “protest” of 9/11. Does that make any sense?

I liken Muslim fundamentalists, not regular sane Muslims mind you, to rednecks. They’re all about keeping their women bare feet and making babies while they walk around looking tough with their guns and reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The good news for us is that the rednecks appear to be content with their huge 4×4’s, trailers and booze so they don’t often go around looting and shooting up in the air.

Seriously, people, get a clue.

Apparently somebody has finally done the research and proven that while belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. This includes higher murder rates, adult mortality and STD rates.

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.

So not only is Bush spending money like a drunken sailor he’s promoting a system that leads to us being “spectacularly” “dysfunctional”.

Love him or hate him, Lance Armstrong has bigger balls than just about anyone else on the planet – and he’s only got one. He has vehemently denied allegations by a French paper that he used a banned substance, called EPO, during his first Tour win. Lance, for good reason I think, has problems with tests being ran on seven year old urine samples. Who was in charge of keeping them? Who administered the tests? Personally, I think the French are just really bad losers, which is surprising since they’re so good at losing (WWI and WWII come to mind). The strongest evidence that Lance doesn’t and hasn’t been doping comes from his actions.

… Armstrong had proposed before the Tour that all of his urine samples be kept for tests over the next 10 years.

Why would he suggest that? He can’t possibly be so arrogant that he thinks he can dope and keep the urine samples for 10 years of testing. The best part is that Lance is now considering another spin at the Tour because he thinks it’s the best way to anger the French.

You see what I’m saying? His answer to doping allegations is to get tested and to keep samples for ten years while he’s kicking the French’s collective asses for an eighth win in a row. Huge balls, Lance. How you ride a bike with them is a feat in its own right.

The situation is quickly deteriorating down in New Orleans from the sound of it. FEMA has had to suspend some rescue operations because of looters and being shot at, while one of the hospitals has stopped taking evacuating patients because of sniper fire. Are the people of New Orleans a bunch of fucking retards?! I read today that the first thing people started looting were guns. I can’t say for sure if I blame them either. I’d want to be armed to the teeth with the animals that appear to be running around down there.

As a geek I wonder about how much data was lost. I know I don’t have a contingency plan for the chance my data center would be drowned in 20 feet of water. I’d imagine we’re talking about petabytes of data. Casinos have lost all sorts of information on customers. Courts, police and other public services have lost hundreds of thousands of documents. It’s staggering when you think about it.

Of course, if you have any money to spare, you should donate to the relief effort.

Venezuela has offered fuel, food and water to the hurricane-hit US. What I find most interesting about this article isn’t the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered such services to, but the nuggets buried farther down.

Last week, Chavez offered discount gasoline to poor Americans suffering from high oil prices and on Sunday offered free eye surgery for Americans without access to health care.

Why the heck would we want to assassinate a guy who offers poor Americans discounted gas and free eye surgery? Meanwhile, we give truckloads of money to the Iraqis just so they can turn around and buy rocket launchers to blow us up with. Yeah, that makes sense.

If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.

[…]

We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Not sure how we could have possibly misinterpreted those statements. The first line, to me anyways, certainly sounds like Robertson was implying we assassinate him, which is against US law.

From the “I can’t believe they are this power hungry” department comes a story of a pest control company who was recruited by the police department to “help fight crime”.

Technicians from Truly Nolen Pest Control of America are being trained by local law enforcement to spot anything unusual as they visit customer’s homes.

This is wrong on so many levels I don’t know where to start. In fact, I’m trying to think of something to say, but I’m pretty much in shock right now. As we all know the police have pesky rules (which are quickly fading away thanks to the likes of the PATRIOT Act) that disallow them from entering a suspect’s home or anyone’s home for that matter without “probable cause.” However, if you invite someone into your house, say a pest control company, and they spot something and report it that’s “probable cause.”

Sneaky little fuckers aren’t they? I should call pest control …

The foundation is being laid for invading Iran as we speak. Various news outlets are reporting that various explosives found in Iraq after the second Gulf War were ‘clearly from Iran’.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that weapons recently confiscated in Iraq were “clearly, unambiguously from Iran” and admonished Tehran for allowing the explosives to cross the border.

Combine this with Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technologies and you’re looking at what the neocons will be using as the foundation for invading Iran. It’s pretty clear that we cannot fight wars on three fronts (Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan), which can mean only one thing: bringing back the draft. I’ll be watching this with great interest until March 15^th, 2006, which is when I turn 26 and will no longer be eligible for the draft.

Looks like Rock Star is looking to rock the proverbial video game industry boat again. It’s not the next GTA, but rather a game titled “Bully” where the object is to be the biggest badass in your boarding school. As can be expected, some people are a upset about this.

Liz Carnell of campaign group Bullying Online says: “This game should be banned. I’m extremely worried that kids will play it and then act out what they’ve seen in the classroom.

Jesus! Would somebody please stand up and ask, “Where are the parents?” Who are the idiots that let their young kids purchase these types of games? Call me old fashioned, but I think parents should be involved in setting and enforcing boundaries for their kids, not the government.

Here’s a crazy idea: How about you actually pay attention to what your kids are doing? How about you play the games your kids do and make sure they are appropriate?

From the, “Phew!” Department, comes this story about a study that says having a drink or two a day makes you a better thinker.

An Australian National University study of 7000 people has found those who drink in moderation have better verbal skills, memory and speed of thinking than those at the extremes of the drinking spectrum.

The researchers say it’s a mystery as to why the correlation exists. I guess that’s why college makes kids a lot smarter. It isn’t the hours you spend studying and in class, it’s the time you spend out at the bars with your friends. Of course, this would imply that the guys in my fraternity should be smart as a whip, however the study states that heavy drinking leads to the opposite.