Follow-up: The basis of the case that caused the 9th Circuit Appeals Court to declare the phrase "under God" in the Pledge Of Allegiance unconstitutional is on increasingly shaky grounds. Michael Newdow, the dick atheist who brought the case, initially claimed that his daughter was being made fun of in school for not saying the Pledge. First of all, as Newdow has already admitted, the daughter suffered no alienation or ostracism at school. Secondly, he does not have custody of the daughter, and she is not even being raised as an atheist.

Her mother, who has full custody, has stepped forward and made this clear in recent interviews: "I see my role as just correcting the record and making sure that the American people know that my daughter is being raised in a Christian home. ...She attends Sunday school and I teach Sunday school. And I believe the court record indicates or implies that my daughter is an atheist." I think that the most telling quote is from the daughter herself: "That's OK, Mom, because even if they do change the Pledge of Allegiance, I'll still say 'under God,' and no one will know that I'm breaking the law."

IANAL, but it seems to me that if the basis for starting the case in the first place is flawed, then it follows that the verdict shouldn't stand. Let's hope that the court thinks so too...

Can you imagine watching a movie or show on TV and suddenly a 10-second ad pops up, interrupting the program? Well, TV executives are contemplating just that concept and ran experimental pop-up ads this summer on TNT to test the waters. TNT general manager claims that the ads "didn't spark a wave of angry phone calls or e-mails from viewers," so he considered them a success. I can't imagine that people wouldn't have been pissed off at this; I know I would have been and would definitely have complained! The main reason for this travesty is the conception that people are either ignoring conventional ads or skipping over them with their new PVRs like Tivo or ReplayTV. Well, if commercials were more entertaining and less intrusive, I think people would be more likely to tolerate them. I've had quite enough prescription drug commercials, though, thank you very much.

LMDC has unveiled six concepts for the World Trade Center memorial. 3D renderings, site plans, elevations, and more are available for viewing on the site, resulting in a thorough look at each concept. This Saturday a public meeting will be held to discuss the concepts, where judging from early criticism of the plans I imagine there will quite a lively debate on the different ideas.

W unveiled a new homeland security strategy today. The report "lists various domestic terrorist threats and ways to prevent, pre-empt or respond to them." So basically we are not only giving potential terrorists lots of ideas they may not have even thought of, but we are also describing our responses to these threats or actions, allowing them to develop ways to circumvent them. This is almost as idiotic as the "secret" invasion plans of Iraq being released to the New York Times recently. Do the words "national security" mean nothing to this adminstration?

The 2002 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Results have been announced. The contest "challenge[s writers] to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels" and is named after Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, best known for his opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night." Many of the entries are quite funny...

A Canadian production company has come up with Cobra: The Musical. Yes, that's Cobra from the G.I. Joe cartoon/toy series. At least it's meant as a "comedy / play / musical" and not something too serious, because the costumes are pretty bad...

This is getting bad. As I mentioned recently, Maryland biologists had to deal with the find of a northern snakehead in an area pond. The carnivorous Chinese fish has a voracious appetite and can crawl from pond to pond on its fins in search of new prey. Now biologists are worried about the "Vietnamese nuclear worm" and what effect it could have on the Chesapeake Bay's ecology. Apparently fishermen are using the worm for bait and dumping whatever they don't use. Officials are worried that the worm could carry and spread bacteria into Maryland waters: you know it's bad when a biologist says, "I've handled a lot of things, and I don't get creeped out. But these are nasty. I use surgical gloves every time I touch them, and I scrub up afterward." Great. For a state known for its crabs, rockfish, and marine industry, I had no idea that "Maryland has few restrictions on bait importation and relies on fish stocking regulations to control the release of non-native species."

Cat-Scan.Com really is just as described, people actually scanning their cats. And I thought I'd seen everything...

The Knockoff Project documents "album cover spoofs, goofs and send-ups." I was surprised with how many bands outright stole album designs from other groups. Or perhaps they were homages? :-p

Along the same lines, The Covers Project has "[built] a database of cover songs (songs performed by an artist other than the original performer) with the intention of creating cover 'chains.'" At the time of this post, they've listed almost 24,000 songs (!).

Tom Vanderbilt of OpinionJournal wrote an editorial on commercials using songs that on closer inspection are bit incongruous with what they're selling.
On a related note, several weeks ago I wrote about John Densmore's disgust at bands selling out their music for commercials. I still find it appalling that some of my favorite songs forever lose their original meaning (and appeal) by becoming associated with some crappy consumer product (and being overplayed).

This thought-provoking article on the "war on drugs" has many good points. The author realizes that unfortunately, no matter how much common sense his arguments might make, the established mindset of the government more than likely will not be changed.

The Game Of The Day is El Emigrante. Pretty fun, although it gets tiresome...

On the heels of its list of the best TV shows of all time, TV Guide has released its list of the 50 worst TV shows ever. Topping the list: "The Jerry Springer Show." I think that's a pretty good choice given the rest of the list, although I must protest the inclusion of "Hogan's Heroes." That show is nowhere near as bad as most of the list below it, and I don't think it belonged on the list at all for that matter.

Somebody's in trouble...

The test of the Japanese NAL successor to the Concorde that I mentioned last week was less than successful, as the model crashed into the Australian desert seconds after takeoff. Obviously, this is quite a setback for the program; no word yet on a cause or what this does to development plans.

This guy might even displace Bud Selig from his place as Dick Of The Week! CNN reports that an 'Antiques Roadshow' dealer has been sent to prison for making fake appraisals, sometimes selling items at a much higher price than he appraised them for, as well as outright staging segments for the show. He made "between $800,000 and $1.5 million on the fraudulent transactions." I can't believe that he got away with this for so long; it's not as if he was the only person who knew what these things were worth...

Remember the Superfriends? They were one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons! Coming across this Super Friends page was quite a treat, especially because the site is so damn funny.

Dennis Miller's HBO show is ending after nine years on August 30th. That's a real shame. Although I often forget to watch it live, I always enjoy it when I manage to see it. Some people have claimed that his references are too obscure and highbrow, and maybe that's the case for a good segment of the populace watching Monday Night Football. Personally I applaud the fact that he can be simultaneously erudite, hilarious, and plain fun. Of course, lately I seem to be ranting about anything that contributes to the dumbing-down of our nation, which not surprisingly often involves W. :-p

Here's a picture of W giving a speech on corporate abuse. His newly-created task force is (not, unfortunately) poised to arrest him on the grounds that he committed several acts act of fraud and abuse while on the board of directors for Harken Energy. Ironically, he condemned such acts in his own speech. Isn't it nice to have a President that sets such a great example for our children? He's intelligent, worldly, ethical, and when it comes down to it, he's just a regular guy. Yeah, right.

Reuters' photographer Desmond Boylan got an excellent shot of a charging bull in Pamplona. He was smart enough stay out of the way, unlike some of the drunks daredevils who ended up getting gored...

Milton  (from Office Space) would be proud: Swingline is once again offering its classic stapler in red.

<curmudgeon>
Further proof that today's youth is losing their grasp on proper English is given by the "lingo" used in SMS mobile phone systems. Granted, this is not a phenomenon exclusive to our youngsters, as the use of SMS-capable mobile phones is quickly gaining ubiquity in the population at-large. And I realize that part of the reason for the lingo is to keep messages short so that they cost less. Still, I see this as just another dumbing-down of the language to a generation already inundated by TV and radio programs where personalities use horrible grammar and pronunciation, to say nothing of the proliferation of "dialects" like Ebonics (sorry, I had to mention it). Anyway, the story mentions a website called transL8it! to help translate between "English and Lingo" and vice versa in case anyone's interested. Sigh, I guess I can either bitch about it or go out and get my own so I can be "with it."
</curmudgeon>

Did you know that Anthony Kiedis and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be 40 this year?! I sure didn't. CNN has a review of their new album, By The Way, as well as a short history of the band. I like the first single they've released, "By The Way," which the album is obviously named after.

Following Bud Selig's universally lambasted halting of the All-Star Game in an 11th inning tie and on the heels of a player's strike *and* controversy over the use of steroids, Bud Selig announced that two major league teams are in extreme economic straits. He elaborated that one team might not be able to pay its players on Monday (its payroll date) and the other might not finish the season because of its debts.

Well, this might not actually be Bud's fault (this time) but is rather a byproduct of the enormously inflated salaries (and egos) of the players and the owners that are willing (or forced to) pay up. I can see the whole season exploding any day now, and unless some major reforms are put into place I think that baseball will never regain the fans' support.

7-Eleven is giving away free slurpies today. Why? Because it's 7/11. Duh...

Play Atari Adventure online!

Follow-up: In a reaction to Bud Selig's halting of the All-Star Game in a tie on Tuesday, the St. Paul Saints, a minor league team, are poking fun with a 'Tie' night featuring a caricature of Selig.

pearls before swine is an evil game, especially this early in the morning; I don't think you can win, actually...

The Time Waster Game Of The Day is No Dunks Basketball, kind of a Basketball For Geeks.

This interesting piece on Islam tries to compare its influence with other religions and governments. According to the article, this is a futile exercise because of the inherent dogmatic basis of Islam. This is definitely a must-read to begin to understand relations between "The West" and Islamic nations, convoluted as they might be.

The Japanese NAL will test a 38 foot long scale model of the X1, an aircraft it envisions as a jet with three times the payload capacity, twice the speed, and half the noise of a Concorde. The initial test will take place in an Australian testing range, where the model will be carried aboard a booster rocket and released at twice the speed of sound, gliding back to earth.

In yet another sign that Hollywood has run out of ideas, Drew Barrymore is pitching a Laverne and Shirley movie starring Courtney Love and herself. Hopefully this is just a rumor, but nothing surprises me these days...

I hate the fact that P. Diddy or Puffy or whatever he calls himself makes a career out of copying (and ruining) other peoples' work, but I think Dolly Parton covering 'Stairway to Heaven' is at least as bad.

Here's a tip if you're caught speeding: the Speed movie defense rarely works.

W made a speech on Wall Street yesterday on corporate accountability and ethics in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. However, it has been suggested that the "new" standards that are supposed to be enforced by an FBI "corporate SWAT team" would have landed both W and Vice President Cheney in jail for accounting practices of the companies they headed, Harken Energy and Halliburton, respectively. I wonder how long it will take the American press to get a whiff of the blatant duplicity of W's new "hard" stance on corporate accountability, which is by no means coincidental to the upcoming elections.

Update: Apparently, W's ploy of appearing as a regular guy fighting corporate fraud has not gone unnoticed: the New York Times has a piece that has some more details of W's financial dealings with Harken and the kinds of "creative accounting" they used, not unlike WorldCom and Enron, come to think of it.

Logophilia is a site "devoted to recently coined words, existing words that have enjoyed a recent renaissance, and older words that are being used in new ways." It's definitely a cool way to expand your vocabulary, even if a lot of the words and phrases are a bit faddish.

Eminem doesn't like Internet file sharers, to put it (extremely) mildly. Hello, Fan Backlash? Yes, you can visit Eminem now.

America West Worst strikes again. A passenger was taken off a recent flight for jokingly asking whether the crew had been checked for sobriety (a reference to a pilot and co-pilot recently being arrested for being under the influence of alcohol while piloting an aircraft). The airline claims that he was removed because he posed a threat to the safety of the flight. How is that a threat to the safety of the flight? I guess whoever runs the airline is taking tips from Bud Selig on customer relations...

In the Dick Move Of The Day, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig halted the All-Star Game in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings because "both teams ran out of pitchers." WTF?! There was no other way to resolve this? Besides this travesty, no MVP was chosen for the game despite the award being named for Ted Williams after his recent death. Bewildered fans who paid $175 for tickets were left out in the cold with an announcement that didn't even bother explaining the reason for the abrupt end. Note to Bud: this is not the way to endear yourself to fans when you're about to face another players' strike.

Follow-up on Ted Williams' cryonic freezing: Wired.com has a story on the technology involved in the freezing of bodies. Apparently, there is little guarantee that the thawing process will work, as cells are usually irreparably damaged by the freezing. That hasn't deterred people from shelling out as much as $120,000 to be frozen upon their death, though. I think the funniest comment is from Kenneth B. Storey, a biochemistry professor: "Two hundred years from now, will 10 billion people on Earth really want to thaw out a bunch of rich Americans?"

Wolfgang Petersen, director of The Perfect Storm and Das Boot, among other things, is set to direct Batman vs. Superman, which is slated to be released in 2004. The story concept sounds promising, and his previous movies were generally pretty good, so maybe this won't suck. Although I am curious to see how Superman won't end up smashing Batman like a little bug.

David Hasselhoff has checked himself into rehab due to his problems with alcohol abuse. Let's hope he can get out soon and resume his role on Knight Rider Baywatch the German rock circuit Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde - hmmm... no wonder he's been drinking.

W after one too many drinks from the beer cart.

Janet Reno is planning a dance party. No, really, she is.

Most of the East Coast knows about the wildfires in Canada, as smoke drifted south and blanketed many cities in haze over the weekend. SatireWire reports turmoil in the Canadian military after the botched timing of its invasion of the U.S., or Detroit at least.

The Washington Post has a nice article on fireflies now that summer is upon us. Did you know that you're not supposed to poke holes in the jar you catch them in? Apparently there is enough air in the jar to keep them alive, and poking holes could actually harm them, since it dries them out sooner. Who knew?

According to The Sporting News, Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner has gone from being the "fat guy who refused to leave the buffet line" to "[the guy that] hauled off the remaining food so no one else could eat." With all of his recent trades and acquisitions, he seems more than willing to buy another winning team, highlighting the disparity between the payrolls of other teams and the Yankees. From the same article, "A strike looks inevitable, maybe even necessary, to trigger reform." I agree, and this time the fans might not come back. Attendence numbers never even recovered from the 1994 strike, despite the heroic example of Cal Ripken that caused a minor resurgence in attendence.