My boyfriend is in trouble again,

He got into a fight and got stoned on something,

I am sick of him and so I told him, get out of here,

And now I want a man like Putin.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:24 PM -

The craze for a cheap beer made out of sea water and raw malt is denting Japan's brewing industry.

The country's biggest brewer Asahi said it was seeing a continuing slide in sales as more and more Japanese turned to the drink called happoshu.

Asahi makes Japan's best-selling beer but in the past three months the company's operating profit has fallen more than 20%.

The popularity of happoshu is hurting the sales of all Japan's big brewers.

According to one columnist at a Japanese website - Captain Japan - the only thing the success of happoshu proves, is that if a drink is cheap enough, it will sell, even if it tastes like medicine.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 3:47 PM -

As the California gubernatorial race thankfully enters its waning days, Gray Davis and Bill Simon are scurrying around the state trying (unsuccessfully) to convince voters that each has the answer to our myriad social and economic woes.

Among the multiple problems that the incumbent and his challenger claim to have the solution to are overcrowded schools, an overburdened health care system, energy and water shortages, excessive taxes, urban sprawl, traffic gridlock and environmental degradation.

Interestingly, neither Davis nor Simon has the slightest appetite to mention the common denominator in that laundry list of concerns: overpopulation.
...
Consider the facts: in 1960, California's population was 15.9 million; today, more than 35 million reside in California. Conservative estimates project 45 million people by 2020.

In 2001, California's population increased by 652,000 or nearly 1,700 people a day. All will need schooling, housing and roads. Some of the unlucky ones will also need public assistance.

As pointed out by Oberlink, these statistics represent an annual growth rate of 1.9% or 50% higher than Bangladesh.
..
In the final analysis, politicians don't talk about population because the word has become a euphemism for immigration. And immigration - as I do not need to tell you - is the most unmentionable word in the American political lexicon.

Davis and Simon have apparently entered into an informal agreement wherein if one doesn't mention immigration, neither will the other.

Their pact is made all the more amazing when you consider U.S. Census Bureau statistics: more than 96% of California's population growth is driven by immigration (legal and illegal immigrants and their children), most Californians are barely replacing themselves by having less than two children per year while immigrant families average more than 3.3 children per household.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 3:07 PM -

Arizona taxpayers may be stuck next year with paying the full tab of jailing thousands of illegal immigrants convicted of crimes.

Members of Congress left town last month to campaign for Tuesday's elections without reaching an agreement with the Bush administration on funding a Justice Department program that provided $546 million last year to states.

All 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, including Guam, have shared in the federal dollars distributed through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program since 1995.

Arizona, California, New York, Texas and New Jersey got the bulk of the federal money.

California received $220 million, about 40 percent of the total. Arizona got more than $24 million.

Congress and the administration are far apart on a compromise. The administration wants to kill the program. Lawmakers want the funding increased to $750 million for fiscal 2003, which began Oct. 1.

Lawmakers, especially those from border states, have long argued that it is the federal government's responsibility to reimburse states because it is charged with securing the nation's borders.

"When the federal government falls short in its efforts to control illegal immigration, it must bear the responsibility for the financial and human consequences of this failure," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

But Bush administration officials argue that the program is not directly related to fighting crime and doesn't "advance the core mission of the Justice Department."

Kyl and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who are leading the Senate fight to increase funding, said states are spending $1.6 billion to keep criminal illegal immigrants behind bars.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 2:46 PM -

A Henrico County resident has been charged with shooting a Powhatan County man on the Powhite Parkway last month as the victim was on his way to a fishing tournament.

Chesterfield County police this week charged Suth Som, 33, of the 8500 block of Mark Lawn Drive, with one count each of malicious wounding, shooting into an occupied vehicle and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Two other suspects are being sought.

Som is accused of shooting a 48-year-old Powhatan man as he was towing his bass boat during the early morning hours of Oct. 20.

Police said the shooting stemmed from an earlier encounter between the victim, a man and two of his friends at a Sheetz gas station on U.S. 60 in Powhatan.

The victim had stopped at the station for gas about 4:30 a.m., and as he did, one of three men in the car next to him got out and began urinating on the gas pumps, said Sgt. Dave Pritchard.

"Our victim advised the person that what he was doing was inappropriate, and he shouldn't be doing it," Pritchard said. The men "basically told him to get lost."

The victim finished pumping his gas and drove away. The men followed him east on U.S. 60 to Old Hundred Road, and then onto the Powhite Parkway. As he drove past state Route 288, the men pulled alongside his car and opened fire with a .45-caliber pistol.

"They shot twice - one apparently hits the bass boat and one hits the guy in the side," Pritchard said.

The man managed to pull over at a nearby toll plaza and alert police. He suffered a grazing wound to the left side of his chest and a puncture wound to his left arm. The latter wound was caused by a metal shard knocked from the passenger's side door as the bullet ripped through.

As police were responding to the shooting, they discovered a car that had run off the road and into a nearby embankment. It was a 1993 Nissan, the same car the three men were in.

"They totaled the car," Pritchard said. The men fled on foot.

Investigators eventually tracked down Som, who they believe was the driver.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:13 AM -

Two dozen San Diego State University Muslim and Asian students seized several thousand copies of the student-run newspaper The Daily Aztec in a protest over political cartoons, it was reported Friday.

The protesters piled the newspapers in front of the student center Thursday in an area known as the Free Speech Steps and taped some to the ground to spell out the word "racist," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The students were upset over two political cartoons published in The Daily Aztec, the newspaper reported.

One cartoon, published Sept. 25, depicted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as camels with President George W. Bush in the middle, thinking, "Definitely time for a regime change."

The second cartoon ran Oct. 22 and showed an overweight man labeled China speaking in broken English in reaction to the North Korea Nuclear Program, the newspaper reported.

The two cartoons generated several letters and demands for apologies, the newspaper reported.

"It makes my blood boil to hear someone label Middle Easterners camels," Omar Behnawa, president of the Muslim Students Association and one of the protest organizers, told the Union-Tribune.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:00 AM -

ST. PAUL, Minn. ? All the Senate candidates met here last night for a prime-time TV debate ? except former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, who said he couldn't make it.

Three days after Mr. Mondale agreed to replace Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone on the ballot, Mr. Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee, still had not agreed to a time and place to debate his Republican opponent, former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman.

Mr. Mondale's absence ? from a debate that Mr. Wellstone agreed to many weeks ago ? angered Republican state officials, who charged that he was trying to avoid a debate and "play out the clock" with only three more days remaining in a race that both sides said was too close to call.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:20 AM -

The Pentagon press corps has received a call-up for a military boot camp to prepare its members to cover a war in Iraq.

The call comes after United States troops in Afghanistan complained of having to wait for flabby, unfit journalists to keep up with them.

The training sessions, the first of their kind, will begin at a string of bases in the eastern US in the middle of this month.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:48 AM -

If Annie Sprinkle provides one sort of counter-cultural entertainment, The New York Times’s op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd provides another, less sexual but not necessarily less obscene. Dispassionate readers, encountering Dowd’s hysterical outbursts, might be forgiven for wondering if she were quite sane. (They might also, we suppose, wonder about the sanity of her employers.) Dowd was already out of control in the Clinton years, when she first came to prominence. But since George W. Bush took office, she has left mere stridency for a form of editorial hectoring that is partly irresponsible, partly surreal. We would not presume to say which of Maureen Dowd’s recent effusions is the absolute worst—the competition for that award would be too gruesome to adjudicate. But “The Soufflé Doctrine,” published on Sunday, October 20, does represent a new level of rhetorical incontinence.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 2:50 PM -

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:20 AM -

Tonya Hot Sauce features an unflattering caricature of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding outside a dumpy trailer, cigarette in mouth, ice skates in one hand and a hubcap in the other.

"Not for the weak-kneed," reads the label. "Guaranteed to assault your taste buds. It's a lead-pipe cinch you'll love it."

John Farmer and his PDX Hot Lix company brought out the product a couple of years ago and says it's all in fun.

"I just read the papers and think up ideas for a product," the airline employee said. "Tonya just keeps on giving."

Harding doesn't think it's very funny and neither does her lawyer. Made in Oregon stores pulled the product from the shelves after getting a legal letter advising them not sell the sauce.

"I've sold maybe 2,000-2,500 bottles," Farmer said. "When she does something really stupid, I sell extra cases of it."

He said he hasn't talked to Harding, but that Markham said in his letter that Harding would go along with it all if she got "a reasonable share of the revenues."

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:06 AM -

More people are registered to vote than there are residents of legal voting age in two states and 241 counties in the United States.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Fels Institute of Government discovered the voting over-registration problem while conducting the Carnegie Corporation funded Fels Voting Index project, an annual ranking of states according to the accuracy, accountability and accessibility of their voting systems.
...
When researchers compared the EDS figures with data for eligible voting-age residents drawn from the 2000 U.S. Census, they determined that in the 2000 presidential election there were more registered voters than voting-age residents in Alaska and Montana and that 32 states have at least one county with more registered voters than eligible voters. This determination led them to the conclusion that registration rolls in these, and many other counties and states, are grossly inaccurate.

Over-registration creates opportunities for voting fraud and should be eliminated.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:32 PM -

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:16 AM -

Amid the worldwide outbreak of Schadenfreude that accompanied America's chaotic presidential showdown in 2000, senior members of the Russian Communist party sarcastically offered to send election monitors to Palm Beach to help the nascent democracy find its feet. Albanian politicians echoed the joke, as did President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

But the line between jokes and reality in Florida has always been a blurred one: now, America has accepted the offer.

Yesterday, the first international delegation of poll monitors assigned to observe an American election arrived in the US, operating under the aegis of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And representatives from Russia and Albania were among them.

... the 10-man delegation will not be manning polling stations. ...

Rather, the team will look at the broader picture of Florida's electoral laws, how they are applied, and the ways in which US practices fall short of the stringent requirements imposed on emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:42 AM -

What do Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianchi, James Kinney and John Allen Muhammad have in common?

If you said they were all serial killers, only give yourself a half-point. The answer to the above is that they all were regulars of the Waterfront Tavern in Bellingham, Washington...

Where serial killers go for a quiet tipple

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:17 AM -

Though it was billed as a memorial service, many irate viewers and Republican leaders said the gathering for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and five others degenerated at times into a blatant political rally.

"What a complete, total, absolute sham," said Vin Weber, a former U.S. representative from Minnesota. "The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone's memory totally, completely and shamelessly for political gain. To them, Wellstone's death, apparently, was just another campaign event."

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:48 AM -

A fire alarm caught Chelsea Clinton in a compromising position. The former First Daughter was spending quality time with boyfriend Ian Klaus in his Jesus College dorm at Oxford when a late-night alarm forced the place to be evacuated. Chelsea could be seen looking "very agitated" as she stood in the cold night in just a set of men's pajamas. The frustrated Clinton - who dorms in nearby University College - wants to get an off-campus lovenest with her boy, but Bill Clinton and his security advisers have put the kibosh on the idea, reports the London Mirror.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:35 AM -

Though she and her husband had raised more money than any other Democratic political team this year, Clinton said, Bush's machine has raised far more "to try to ruin the reputations of our candidates or, if they can't, to depress the turnout" by making campaigns unpalatably nasty. "But, you know, you have got to hand it to them," Clinton said with what sounded like a rueful appreciation. "These people are ruthless and they are relentless."

"Less genteel souls sometimes referred to them as goon squads," writes Patrick Halley in his new book "On the Road with Hillary." "But I objected to that term. I was proud of the fact that not one of them had ever been arrested," he boasts.

Halley said he prefers the term "etiquette squad" to describe the Clinton goon squads, but he admitted that "they could certainly be intimidating if the occasion called for it."

...

"Sadly, but inevitably, things sometimes got a little frisky, but my recruits knew how to handle themselves."

The Clinton operative recalled that one etiquette squad "had come from the longshoreman's union, and I had heard rumors that they had been very adamant about defending themselves when set upon by protesters."

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:08 AM -

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:24 AM -

...a Tacoma man who became friends with Muhammad through a mutual interest in firearms contacted police after the two men were arrested last week.

The man, whom he would not identify, said he was concerned because Muhammad had once borrowed his guns. Muhammad and Malvo had stayed at the man's residence between February and April, and lived there full time between May and July, Brame said.

The man, who is not a suspect in any crimes, gave police three handguns and two rifles for testing, Brame said.

The Washington State Crime Lab says one of those guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used to kill 21-year-old Keenya Nicole Cook on Feb. 16 when she answered the door of her aunt's Tacoma home. Court records place Muhammad in Tacoma last Feb. 12, when he was ticketed for shoplifting.

On Feb. 16, Isa Nichols returned home after running an errand to find her niece's body just inside her open front door. Cook had been shot in the face. Her 6-month-old daughter was found, unharmed, on a diaper changing table.

Cook's mother, Pamala Nichols, 45, said that as soon as she heard that John Muhammad was linked to shooting so many people on the East Coast, she thought he had something to do with her daughter's murder. Police have said they suspected her killer was someone familiar to her.

...

Isa Nichols, Cook's aunt, was friends with Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred. Isa Nichols had helped Mildred regain custody of her children last year, after John Muhammad took them in a bitter divorce.

...

The second gun, a .44-caliber Magnum, was used to fire two rounds through a window at the Temple Beth El synagogue at 5875 S. 12th St. between May 1 and 4.

One bullet lodged in the ark, which holds the Torah, the sacred writings of Judaism. No one was in or near the synagogue when the shots were fired.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:03 AM -

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:51 AM -

His sergeant, however, says he was "trouble from day one. You'd give him an order and you'd get a certain glare," retired Sgt. Kip Berentson told NEWSWEEK. "He loved being in charge and he had a warped sense of humor." Williams's unit was sent to Operation Desert Storm to clear mines and bulldoze holes in enemy lines. A few nights before the invasion of Iraq, Sergeant Berentson awoke in the early hours to find his tent, with 16 sleeping men inside, on fire. Someone had tossed in a thermite grenade. Berentson, who was fed up with Williams's insubordination, immediately suspected Williams and told the Army's Criminal Investigative Division. Berentson says he last saw Williams being led away in handcuffs. Williams's military records make no mention of the incident; indeed, they suggest Williams had a distinguished gulf-war stint. But Berentson always kept Williams's name and dog-tag number in his wallet. He says he was not surprised to see Williams's face on television. "He was," he added, "a damn good shooter."

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:44 AM -

Kathleen Weinstein is a paraplegic in a wheelchair who worked as a poll worker in Tamarac -- until Miriam Oliphant was elected.

Elections Supervisor Oliphant moved Weinstein out of Precinct 15J, where she had spent 15 years helping voters. It broke Weinstein's heart. Confined to a wheelchair since she was stricken with polio at age 5, she loved working at the polls.

"They told me that Mrs. Oliphant's mother had requested to work in that precinct, so I couldn't any longer," says Weinstein, 62.

Sure enough, Oliphant's mother, Hattie McKinzie, was assigned to the Mainlands 1 & 2 Clubhouse, earning $135 for the day. Weinstein, who lives on Social Security and could have used the money, was out of a job.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:27 AM -

Not again, I thought. In the middle of a cogent argument against giving in to terrorist demands in a vain attempt to win their hearts and minds, New York Post columnist Jonathan Foreman tries to construct an analogy to the Oklahoma City bombing:

"It was committed by young white Christians who felt great rage again the United States government. ... What would winning the hearts and minds of these people have involved? Mandatory Christian prayer in schools, perhaps?"

Timothy McVeigh, Christian terrorist? I certainly did not remember him that way. Where had any responsible journalist gotten the idea that McVeigh murdered 168 Americans in order to get prayer in schools? I spent the afternoon looking over years of press clippings probing the mind of McVeigh. In contemporaneous accounts, McVeigh was never described as killing out of religious motives. Nor was there any evidence that, at the time of the bombing, he even considered himself a Christian.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:56 AM -

LOS ANGELES (Variety) - If you vomit and defecate in public places, they will come.

That could be the new mantra in Hollywood as the anarchic reality film "jackass: the movie" opened at No. 1 and put a new spin on the term "box office gross."

According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, "jackass" earned $22.7 million in the three days beginning Oct. 25. If estimates hold when final data are released on Monday, it will rank as the third-highest October opening ever.

"jackass: the movie," based on the controversial MTV stunt series, follows a gang of inebriated urban warriors who eat a snow cone soaked in urine, defecate in a toilet displayed in a home-supply store, and pole-vault into a wall.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:47 AM -

GERMAN towns and cities are being invaded by a marauding army of raccoons who are setting up home in people's houses and attacking their pets.

...

The mass invasion became evident after concentrations of raccoons in Germany's countryside reached saturation level and they began to head for urban areas. Residents of Hamburg, Berlin and Frankfurt are demanding professional assistance to rid themselves of the non-indigenous pest.

Unafraid of humans and possessing the guile to turn door handles and enter cat flaps, the black-masked interlopers scavenge for pet food in kitchens, strip cupboards bare, rummage through dustbins and mark furniture with their faeces.

Although native to the new world, raccoons have been quietly proliferating in Germany since the second world war, when 100 mating pairs escaped after a stray bomb hit a pelt farm on the outskirts of Berlin.

Researchers claim they have already spread as far as Spain in the west, Belarus in the east and Switzerland in the south. "So far they haven't managed to cross the Alps into Italy, but that is probably just a matter of time," said Hohmann.

The only way to keep them at bay, according to one pest control expert, is to "put a stereo in the attic and play heavy metal music at full blast night and day".

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:50 AM -

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:28 AM -

Imagine an employer who subsidizes up to 40% of your rent - as much as $13,000 in annual housing costs.

Then imagine the boss gives you more than $17,000 a year to pay for your child's private education - for 20 years.

Among other fringes, you receive a "children's allowance" - $1,936 per child annually - for up to six offspring.

But, alas, it's still expensive to live in New York City. So the company awards you a 41% cost-of-living adjustment on top of your six-figure base salary.

For most of us, that is only a pipe dream. But foreign nationals working for the UN in the United States can score all these goodies - and more.

Highly compensated and pampered with perks and privileges, thousands of international civil servants are savoring the good life at UN headquarters in Turtle Bay.

And when they retire and go home after wrestling with global woes, the UN turns hundreds of them into pension millionaires...

UN brass say their benefits package must be competitive to assure high standards for staff.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:12 AM -