I think that's an appropriate reaction to this story (I bet you can't provide a better one -- one that combines incredulity and profanity).

Pricing experts says $4 a gallon gas on the horizon - Aug. 31, 2005: "Consumers can expect retail gas prices to rise to $4 a gallon soon but whether they stay there depends on the long-term damage to oil facilities from Hurricane Katrina, oil and gas analysts said Wednesday.

"'There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon,' Ben Brockwell, director of pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said. 'The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?'"

Facts on Farts: "Why are beans so notorious for making people fart?

"Beans contain sugars that we humans cannot digest. The most offensive sugars, known as 'flatulence factors' to scientists who research farts, are raffinose, stachiose, and verbascose. When these sugars reach our intestines, the bacteria go wild, have a big feast, and make lots of gas!

"Other notorious fart-producing foods include corn, bell peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, milk, bread, eggs, beer, and raisins. People unable to digest milk due to lactose intolerance will suffer extreme flatulence if they consume dairy products.

"A friend of mine had a dog who was exceptionally fond of apples and turnips. The dog would eat these things and then get prodigious gas. A dog's digestive system is not equipped to handle such vegetable matter, so the dog's bacteria worked overtime to produce remarkable flatulence."

Much more useful stuff can be found at this valuable resource.

Tyson's Pictures and Movies: "Movies of Tyson skating" - Enjoy. Watch the 6.5mb movie first.

Katrina makes landfall, heads north - Hurricane Katrina - MSNBC.com: "For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl of a city that’s up to 10 feet below sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry from the Mississippi River on one side, Lake Pontchartrain on the other.

"The fear is that flooding could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, as well as waste from ruined septic systems."

This is like one of those cheesy, badly produced asteroid-hits-Atlantic-Ocean or California-destroyed-by-earthquake scenario TV specials.

Frank Booth’s Favourite: "During the second World War all cans of PBR were painted a military green and were exclusively made for the troops."

Pretty cool page with a fairly complete history of PBR. Good if you want to brush up on a vital part of our nation's history.

Tropical Storm Katrina bears down on Florida - Weather News - MSNBC.com: "The path of Katrina, which had top winds of 58 mph, was centered on Palm Beach County..."

...so Katrina is exacting revenge in her sister's name -- on my grandparents (they live in West Palm).

Curses!

...don't park in front of fire hydrants.

"I think that's what Bill Parcells wants to see... he wants to see his offense move the ball down the field and score a touchdown."

The thing with John Madden is, you're nodding your head in agreement the whole time, until you think about what he just said.

Find-A-Human -- IVR Phone S... - Approved

Most companies want you to use automated web or phone systems instead of getting your answers from an actual human, since that costs more (even if they only marginally speak the same language as you do). So, they make it hard to find customer support phone numbers in the first place, and once you do call, you know what you get... endless menus spoken by someone who thinks she's reading to a kindergarten class. This site gets you around that crap. You're welcome.

Amazon.com: Books: Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President: "As an acedemic, fact checking is important, that is why I have to give it the lowest rating.."

From a user review of a book on Dubya. I desperately want to know what kind of "acedemic" could possibly be so retarded.

Police battle looters after beer train crashes - Africa - MSNBC.com: "Hundreds of looters battled police all weekend at the site of a beer train wreck in violence that left one woman dead, South African police said on Monday as they kept a heavy guard on the remaining alcohol."

I hope somebody's videotaping this. However...

"A 19-year-old woman in the crowd was killed when she fell under the wheels of a truck, he said."

Whoa now.

...man does it suck.

That's me making a rasperry at Hurricane Irene:

"...IRENE EXPECTED TO TURN NORTHWARD SOON...POSES NO THREAT TO LAND..."

Nearing the evening of our first full day in Duck, NC. The weather is perfect, and it looks like we don't have to worry about that biznitch Irene any more. My prominent Jewish schnozz is already an embarrassingly bright shade of red. I should probably invest in a burka or something.

The supermarket has twelve-packs of Pabst bottles ($6.50) and 24-ounce Pabst cans ($0.99). Nice.

AccuWeather.com - Weather News: "On Sunday, Irene will be lurking somewhere off the Southeast Coast, and will have become a hurricane. The storm could slide right into the Outer Banks of North Carolina early next week, or it could make a turn out to sea."

If a goddam hurricane hits me on my goddam vacation, I'm just going to pretend it's not there. "Hurricane? What hurricane?" I'll be saying as I reach for another beer from the cooler, which I have chained to the lifeguard chair.

Murdoch plans several more online acquisitions - U.S. Business - MSNBC.com: "Murdoch said News Corp. is in advanced talks to buy a controlling interest in an online search company, though he declined to say which one."

Let's say Murdoch gets his hands on Google. I don't know if that's financially possible, but it's definitely not crazy to ponder it.

Then you've got a guy who's been proven to push an extreme right-wing agenda into everything he owns running the search engine that, for a majority of people on the Internet, controls what they see and read on the web. With someone like Murdoch, who's been proven to have zilch in the way of ethical scruples, in charge, the following scenarios that I'm about to dream up aren't an exaggeration of what that Google could be like.

• You're curious about Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Judge Roberts. You want to know about his past decisions, and generally what his reputation is. So you search for "judge roberts history" -- and what you get is a long list of links to sites that glowingly report on what a great guy he is.

You know what, screw this list. You get my point. That one scenario is scary enough by itself.

CNN.com - Irene strengthens, moves toward East Coast - Aug 10, 2005: "It was moving west at near 10 mph and was expected to continue that motion over the next five days in the general direction of the U.S. coastline from Florida to the Carolinas, the hurricane center said."

I'm leaving for the Outer Banks, off the coast of North Carolina, Friday morning. Come on Irene... die horribly, now.

Someone I know recently accused me of holding some pretty extreme left-wing views. I'd argue that my views are actually shared by most people, but they become portrayed as extreme liberalism by the media, which teeters further to the right every day. Of course, Alterman's got the numbers to support this premise.

Silly Liberals - Altercation - MSNBC.com: "After all, the country already agrees with us on almost all the issues. According to a May 2005 survey published by the Pew Research Center for People and Policy poll, 65 percent of Americans questioned favor providing health insurance to all Americans, even if it means increasing taxes, and a full 86 percent say that they favor raising the minimum wage. 77 percent of those polled believe the country 'should do whatever it takes to protect the environment,' while 63 percent subscribe to that view 'strongly.' With regard to foreign policy, a May 2005 Rasmussen poll found that 49 percent of Americans say that President Bush is more responsible for starting the War with Iraq than Saddam Hussein, compared to only 44 percent who believe that it was Saddam Hussein’s fault. During 2005, strong majorities of Americans polled have consistently expressed disapproval of the war and told pollsters they believe the Bush Administration had deliberately misled the nation into it. From USA Today, today, “An unprecedented 57% majority say the war has made the USA more vulnerable to terrorism. A new low, 34%, say it has made the country safer.

"And yet while Americans hold all these undeniably liberal positions; only twenty percent of Americans regularly describe themselves as liberal."

The scary thing is that the administration currently in power is on the other side of all of these issues -- they don't believe in universal health insurance or raising the minimum wage (tax cuts for the wealthy take precedence); they kow-tow to big companies by sacrificing the environment in the name of increased corporate profits; they came into office determined to get Saddam come hell or high water, and misled or disregarded Congress, the American public, and our allies in order to do so; and despite all the evidence to the contrary, they claim that the utter hell we turned a Muslim nation into is keeping us safer from... Muslim terrorists.

Sorry, but it's been a while since my last rant.

CNN.com - Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer - Aug 8, 2005

CNN files the story on Peter Jennings' death under "Entertainment". Here's a screen shot in case they take it down.

It rocks. Watched Matrix Revolutions last night, initially intending to just skip to the action sequences (since the rest of it is retarded), but I wound up being so entralled with having this huge frickin' screen in my living room that I watched the whole thing. I spent some time farting around with all the different settings and getting frustrated with the so-so results, then realized that it has built-in settings for idiots like me -- I put it in "Movie" mode and everything looked super. It also has settings for "Sports" and "Normal TV". Nothing for "Softcore Porn", but I'm going to make that a user-defined preset for my own amusement, along with "Shock-u-mentary" and "Ron Popeil Infomercial".

‘Dukes of Hazzard’ is gleefully stupid - AT THE MOVIES - MSNBC.com: "The movie is the PG-13 creation of director Jay Chandrasekhar and his comedy troupe Broken Lizard, whose previous features include the much raunchier, R-rated “Super Troopers” (2002) and “Club Dread” (2004). It is what is: pretty much what was intended, and that’s a pity."

I never would have guessed that the Super Troopers crew would be behind something that sounds as stupid as this movie. But, now I have to see it.

Marbury reportedly thrilled about Brown - NBA - MSNBC.com: "New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury is excited about playing for Larry Brown because Brown may want to switch him to shooting guard, the New York Times reported.

As a point guard, Marbury has always been fond of shooting anyway. But when approached with the idea of a switch to shooting guard, his 'eyes lit up' according to the Times."

It was only about a month ago that I included Marbury in my list of overly-paid SHOOTING guards for the Knicks, despite the fact that he was technically their point guard. But here's the really scary quote.

"'It's going to be kind of scary because now I can shoot whenever I want to shoot,' Marbury told the newspaper."

I predict a 2-80 season. Even with Larry Brown. Actually, partially because of him now.

News from the Home Front - Altercation - MSNBC.com: "In the week or so after 9/11 an American destroyer was coming out of the big NATO base at Rota, Spain. As it was proceeding up the channel, it was signaled by the German Navy destroyer behind it which asked for permission to pass the American ship. This is a rather unusual request, so after the American destroyer granted it, much of the crew came to the side of the ship the German destroyer was going to pass on to see what was what. As the German destroyer passed the American, the entire crew of the German ship was lining the rail in their dress uniforms and saluted the U.S. destroyer as they passed it. Per one of the officers on the American ship, there wasn't a dry eye on board ship. This is what Bush has squandered."

These are effing disgusting. What the hell was I thinking? Now I have a $3.29 pack of salted sawdust portions taking up space in my office mini-fridge. Remember, kids, cheese tastes good because it has fat in it. Less fat = shittier cheese. I want my $3.29 back, but I don't deserve it because I'm stupid for buying this cheese.

Polly-NO!!!!

Why didn't anyone tell me Martha Stewart was the victim of severe napalm burns to her face, neck and hands? She's taking it very well, judging by this photo. I guess when you spend some hard time in a minimum-security resort prison, you can handle anything with grace.



I swear I did nothing to this photo. It's from this article.

Storm front: U.S. forecasts more hurricanes - Weather News - MSNBC.com: "“The most action will be from Aug. 15 to Oct. 15 along the Eastern Seaboard. I’m targeting the Carolinas for the worst,” Bastardi said. “Also, there will be (landfalls) in New England and the Florida coast.”"

...I've never experienced a hurricane before. Since I'll be in the Outer Banks August 12-19, it sounds like I'll have a good shot at changing that. But who listens to anyone named Bastardi anyway?

Pataki takes stand against morning after pill - Politics - MSNBC.com: "Gov. George Pataki plans to veto legislation that would allow women to buy the “morning-after” pill without a prescription, a decision described by abortion rights advocates as “sheer political expediency” to build conservative support for a 2008 presidential run."

If Pataki wins in '08, I quit.