Red Light District

As anyone who has ever parked in Washington, DC, knows, the District relies on parking tickets for its primary source of income. Lately, they have expanded their business into the traffic violation racket: they have installed 75 cameras atop stop lights, ostensibly to catch people running red lights. We have seen the tell-tale flash of pictures being taken several times, usually on the yellow light.

WaPo reports that the intersections with cameras have seen an INCREASE in the number of accidents at those red-lights since the cameras went up. And in many cases, the increase is greater than the increase in accidents over the same period at nearby, unmonitored red-lights. Well done, DC.

Soy Nuts

We're on a bit of a food run, today. Be that as it may, the "soy nuts" in question are the nutjobs who try to substitute soy for everything. Tofurkey, for example.

But this crosses some sort of line into the absolutely, incredibly, unbelievably ridiculous: Roasted soy beans for brewing soy "coffee." They advertise it as having "a magnificent bouquet with no acidity or caffeine."

We'll just have a cup of luke warm water, thanks, and delude ourselves into thinking it is a hot chai.

The Taste of Stars

Some guy found a way to carbonate fruit. Carbonate, as in "loading a beverage with carbonic acid to create bubbles." Apparently, the technique involves little more than putting dry ice and fresh fruit in a sealed container and keeping it in the fridge until the dry ice turns to CO2; the pressure in the container drives the gas into the fruit. According to taste-testers, the fruit comes out bursting with soda-water--laced juice and tastes like, well, fruit with a sprinkling of soda water.

Judging by the looks of the product website, they plan to market this to kids, who will have their parents (and their school systems) paying exorbitant prices for fruit with gas. Forget that. We want some of this stuff, and now! After paying $5 for a handful of grapes, the novelty will wear off real quick, but this fruit with bubbles is something we've got to try.

What's more, this seems to be the beginning of a new food fad: Wired also reports on dairy with fizz, starting with milk and yogurt.

Making Atomic Fireballs

When we were in third grade, the teacher we had a crush on would hold "atomic fireball contests" for the whole class, which basically consisted of nothing more than everyone trying to keep the fireball in their mouth longer than the rest of the class. (We cannot remember what the prize was.) Okay, so the Georgia public schools need work.

But get this: It takes two weeks to make a batch of atomic fireballs!

Conservatives to Filibuster Miers?

Rumor has it that some conservatives in the Senate, irritated that Bush passed up their lackey, Alberto Gonzales, for the Sandra Day O'Connor SCOTUS seat, are considering a filibuster of Harriet Miers.

Of course that would never happen, but the irony would be so very rich.

"The Mother of All Cuckoldry Stories"

Nerve.com interviews Salman Rushdie on his latest, Shalimar the Clown.

Joaquin Phoenix is Johnny Cash

As we've mentioned before, we are huge Johnny Cash fans. So naturally we are hugely excited about the upcoming Walk the Line. We have to admit that our hearts were pounding when we saw the trailer in the theater the other weekend. And suprising as it is, Joaquin Phoenix can be painted to look like a decent JC look a-like. Vanity Fair has some outtake photos to whet your whistle.

While movies are all fine and good, what we really want is confirmation of various rumors of another American album that Rick Rubin had been planning to release posthumously. We assume the Master's final album is caught up in estate law headaches, but man, we just wish we could download a copy, you know?

Wolfram for Your Cell

Wolfram Research, home of Mathematica and math nerd Stephen Wolfram, is hoping to cash in on the 2-bucks-for-a-ringtone market with WolframTones. However, their ringtones are cool.

The site uses algorithms from some of Wolfram's work to generate, at the click of a mouse, a wholly unique ringtone. You tell it to make something that sounds vaguely like a piano, or something roughly hip-hoppish, or whatever, and it spits out 30 secs of new music with 4 variations. If you like what you hear, pony up 2 bucks. If not, click again. Surprisingly, the results sound better than a lot of electronic musicians we know. We clicked and clicked for an hour this morning and encourage you to do the same.

Things Creationists Hate

The creationist campaign against science is, we think, rooted in a deep hatred of something or someone, perhaps Darwin. Skeptic Report has gone us one better and compiled an extensive list of all things that creationists hate, from pi ("used to be 3, representing the Trinity, back in Solomon's time; now it is 3.14... oh, who the hell can remember the rest nowadays") to St. Paul (who wrote in 1 Timothy [that's in the Bible, for those who haven't read it], "ignore fables and endless genealogies") in addition to Darwin (the instigator of all evolutionary thinking, which destroys faith in God and therefore all morality and honesty, was an Episcopalian preacher!?).

Seems the creationist even loathes humility:

I have determined, after extensive surveying, tabulation, and data analysis, that the average creationist in the US earns $21,387.29 in family income; owns 1.2 cars, 1.8 TVs, and 2.3 kids; and has, at some point in his life, answered to the name "Bubba." He has less than one year of college. Yet he knows more about paleontology than Bakker or Horner or Currie (or he thinks that what they know is wrong--same thing). He knows more about the definition of evolution than Gould or Dawkins. He knows more about biology than Dobzhansky or Mayr. He knows more about cosmology than Hawking, Smoot, or Witten, and more about human fossils than Johanson or the Leakeys. He knows more "true" geology than geologists, more physics than physicists, more astronomy than astronomers--and more about everything than atheists like Asimov or Sagan.

Indeed.

And yes, we are aware that the current crop of creationists prefer the term "intelligent design." We prefer to call fossils fossils. And besides, if they truly believe things do not change over time due to pressures in the environment, why did they change their name and their story?

OMG!

This AWESOME postcard showed up at Post Secret. Wonkette beat us to it, but it is so damn beautiful we had to post it ourselves.


The first thought that came to our minds is from that 1996 masterpiece, Citizen Ruth. You know the scene we're thinking of: Ruth's Mom is at the Pro-Life rally publicly begging Ruth not to get an abortion: "Ruth, baby, don't do it. What would have happened if I'd aborted you?"

Ruth, shouting over the crowd of Midwestern Right-wingers: "At least I wouldn't have had to suck your boyfriend's cock when I was 8."

Her Mom, taken aback: "Don't you bring that up again! That is ancient history! I am SAVED now, Ruth."

Back in the Saddle Again

After a month's hiatus to strut our stuff in Boston, we're back in the Hell that is DC. Not that you care, but just sayin'.

World's Most Worthless Leech

This weekend, we took the train back from a much-needed vacation in NY. Normally, this is a pleasant experience. Not this weekend.

After Philly, where our seat-partner got off the train, a shortish woman who reeked of body odor and tobacco smoke asked if the seat next to us was open. Naively telling the truth, we said yes. She then asked for help to hoist her bag into the overhead. Since we had to stand up to let her into the seat, we hoisted said bag. As soon as she was seated, the woman behind her passed a baby to her; the worthless leech thanked the other woman for her help.

The baby, who couldn't have been much older than 1, began crying, and the Leech bounced the kid on her lap to comfort him. As soon as he stopped bawling, Leech asked us if you can buy drinks on the train. We almost said, Yeah, ring the call light and the stewardess will bring you a fkn martini, but instead informed her that there was a snack bar two cars forward. She immediately asked, "Could you go get me a diet Coke and also a Coke for my son?"

Hell no! Well, actually we smiled meekly and said, "No, sorry," but we were screaming inside. After a few minutes Leech got up and took the kid to the snack bar. She came back with kid in tow and some poor sap balancing his snack tray alongside hers; she settled back into her seat and he passed the snack tray and then a fistful of napkins to her before wishing her a happy vacation and walking on down the aisle.

As the kid contented himself by making a mess with his potato chips, she asked if there was a public phone to use on the train. What, don't you see the bright red phone booth at the end of the train car? "You'd have to ask the conductor," we told her. But then our phone rang. Shit. Cover blown. Thankfully, the conductor came asking for the Leech's ticket just then. She said it was in her luggage, which she had "her friend" stow at the front end of the car; couldn't he just go get it out of the front pocket of the big brown suitcase. He told her she'd have to get it for him by the time he came back to her seat or get off the train. Oh, that we'd be so lucky to see her thrown off the train. So she stood up to get the ticket.

When she came back, the first thing out of her leech-mouth was, "Can I borrow your phone? Do you have some minutes, because I need to call my friend to pick me up at the station?" Well, having so far been as aloof as possible, we folded and handed her the phone. She proceeded to call about 10 different people over the next half hour. Well, a couple of those calls were because she got cut off when the train went through the tunnel, so maybe more like 8 different people.

By the time we got our phone back from her, greasy and tobacco scented, the train was pulling away from the last stop before DC and a few seats had opened up, so we brushed off the rugrat's potato chip crumbs and seized the opportunity to get the fk away. As the train pulled into Union Station, though, we overheard the Leech asking some unsuspecting bystander if he could help her with her bag. "Actually," she added after he offered to help, "there are two bags, a car seat, and a stroller, all in the next car. Let me show you." You can hear the sound of her sucking his very blood from here.

Wal-Mart Kills Man For Shoplifting

A man in a Texas Wal-Mart was said to be shoplifting some diapers. So the security guards--who are civilians, by the way--chased him into the parking lot, where they wrestled him to the ground. As one security technician held his knee on the back of the accused neck and another stood on his back, the accused began to scream in pain as the asphalt burned his body.

At this point, we imagine the security people bitching about how criminals always try and hide behind their "rights" and muttering, "Criminals are like dogs--ain't got no rights but we give 'em."

Some passersby started yelling at the security goons to let the guy up off the ground. They did not. Some started shouting, "Call an ambulance! He isn't breathing!" The security experts said no one was calling an ambulance. The accused was no longer moving or breathing and someone noticed his fingers were turning an ugly blue-gray, so they called 911. When EMS arrived, they assured Wal-Mart that this master carpenter and father of a 2-month old son will never shoplift again.

To the security goons: If Wal-Mart doesn't promote you, the Bush administration will gladly give you any number of jobs.

Check out details and discussion at Daily Kos.

Cindy Sheehan Wants Answers

Casey Sheehan was killed last year in Iraq. And now his mother Cindy wants President Bush to answer some basic questions about why he had to die. Seems fair. So she is holding vigil along the road to Bush's Crawford Ranch, where he is vacationing this month, in hopes that he will have to decency to talk to her, face to face.

Cindy, we are with you in spirit. But the realist in us thinks Bush will explain himself to the citizens of this nation when hell freezes over. Hell, he swaggered, ahem, walked into office even though most of us voted for the other guy, so he basically thinks that the political opinions of at least 50 million of us are worthless, so we can assure you that your claim to an explanation from him doesn't even register in his mind.

Old-School Southern Bigotry

Last month, Georgia Equality put up a bunch of billboards all over the Atlanta suburbs featuring neighborly looking teachers, firefighters, and others with obvious slogans: "I teach your children." "I fire your fires." "We are your neighbors." In phase two of the ad campaign, they revealed another line on the billboards: "...And we are gay."

That got the Atlanta suburbanites all riled up. Both the Forsyth County residents, a county north of Atlanta infamous for its rabid KKK members--word on the street is, if you's black, you have no business in Forsyth County after dark, so you best be movin' on before sumthin' happens to ya--and also the purportedly more modern, soccer mom-infested Gwinnett County. To wit, a Gwinnett resident who refused to give his own name--perhaps it was Mr. Akai--had this to say about the billboards:

“It’s just another trick by fucking faggots to recruit,” he said. “I would rather my house burn down than have a fag save it.”

A New South indeed.

At the door to American democracy, God is the bouncer.

The New Republic celebrates Frist's support of stem-cell research. The editors are fully aware that Frist came out in support of stem-cell research to compensate for coming out in support of quackery back when Terry Schiavo was in the headlines. But they point out that pandering to reason is better than pandering to quackery any day, and we agree.

They also have some great insight into the Christian Wrong. The money quote:

Politically speaking, the Christian right is a kind of sacralized protection racket: nice little presidential campaign you have, pity if something should happen to it.

There's Someting in the Water

Dahlia Lithwick has some theories about what makes conservative Supreme Court Justices mellow into moderate- to liberal-minded jurists with age. (Your Honors O'Connor and Kennedy, we are looking at you.) Since some hardasses do not mellow or open their minds or outgrow their bigotry or become even a little tolerant (ahem, Your Honors Thomas and Scalia), we doubt that there is really a phenomenon of mellowing going on over at the Supreme Court, but this sounds about as good as any theory you're likely to come up with:

Scalia's "acerbic comments on his colleagues' work," and his general tendency to run with constitutional scissors, ultimately drove both O'Connor and Kennedy to form alliances with the court's liberals.

As we've said before, Scalia is our favorite judge, but we can see how his brute force could drive justices of lesser mettle into the awkward, dorky, but benign embraces of Souter and Breyer.

Al Gore Invents TV

Current TV goes live today. Has anyone seen it?