A journalist had done a story on gender roles in Iraq several years before the second Gulf War, and she noted then that women customarily walked about 10 feet behind their husbands.

She returned to Iraq recently and observed that the men now walked several yards behind their wives.

She approached one of the women for an explanation.

"This is marvelous," said the journalist. "What enabled women here to achieve this reversal of roles?"

Replied the Iraqi woman: "Terrorist land mines."

I can see Helen Thomas right now, scratching her head while saying, "Huh?"

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Do you like beer? Does the Blue Screen of Death™ from Microsoft make you want to throw your PC out of the window? Have I got an operating system for you: BEERnix. While it's still BETA, you can still download it, burn it to CD and then boot directly off of the CD. A small little distro, about 400Mb, it will still give you a frothy taste of Linux, to help you make the move away from Microsoft.

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Graumagus created a new one. Excerpt:

Some time later this week I'm scheduled to be struck by a frozen meteor of blue feces released midflight from a faulty airline toilet resevoir. I won't be lucky enough to die from the hit, instead it will permanentally stain my head and face blue and give me brain damage so I wander the earth like a slack-jawed, drooling, Pictish village idiot complete with stank ass lumpy woad paint. It will forever limit my career options to begging for sandwich crusts and ketchup packets, being a Wal-mart greeter, or becoming economic advisor for Governor Blagojevich.

My advice? Start drinking heavily.

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From Bill Quick. Excerpt:

Clearly, the anti-patriotic, hate-GWB's-America-First leftwing and Democratic party project is the product of the sort of insanity Megan McArdle made reference to when she declared that the party in power becomes smug and complacent, and the party out of power goes insane. This whole effort reeks of irrationality, and the response to Bush's new pushback raises those stakes to the level of psychosis. Why the hysteria, the panting, stuttering outrage from the unpatriotic left at a mere challenge from Bush?

Because they know it is true. Because they know the charges of unpatriotism are accurate. Because they are horrified, terrified, and mortified that the American people reject them in favor of Chimpy McBusHitlerHelliburton and his evil fascist crew - not once, but twice. They were raised to worship at the internationalist altar, praying for an end to nationalism and, indeed, an end to the nation-state, in favor of the triumph of world socialism. And theirs is a god that failed.

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Is Firefox your browser of choice? If so, did you know that you could hack the browser to improve navigation and tab browsing? Then this article is for you.

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A list of seven well-known workplace troublemakers, with tips on how to deal with them. Excerpt:

1. The Misery Lady

Identifying Marks

Sweatshirts decorated with symbols of the nearest holiday.

Often Heard Saying

"Good morning! Oh, where's your hat? Do you like mine? Ha ha ha! It's Floppy Hat day! You didn't hear? Ha ha! Well, it was in my e-mail. Oh, no, that's okay! It's all for fun! You don't have to wear a floppy hat! Jean, do we have an extra floppy hat for him?"

What She Is

She knows your birthday. She always wears a smile. She can make your life a living hell. Like Annie Wilkes of Misery fame, she tells you she's your "Number One Fan" and she means it... as long as you do exactly what she wants.

She says it would be fun if everyone in the office dressed like Cupid for Valentine's Day. She suggests we all get together and put on a skit about the things that make us happy. The boss goes along with her in the name of boosting morale.

The reality, as anyone who has cringed their way through Misery Lady's events can tell you, is that she's "boosting morale" in the same way that dressing up her cat boosts the cat's morale

What You Should Do

Let her see things from your perspective.

At one company where I worked as a consultant, I had the men in the office organize Gladiator Days. On Gladiator Day, everyone was required to go shirtless and speak only in profanity. Everyone was forced to carry a club and all requests were ignored unless followed up with a threat (i.e., "Make these fucking copies for me or else I'll see that your daughter starts being an orphan and stops being a virgin on the very same night.")

By lunch, the message was sent loud and clear: what is fun for one and what is fun for another are two very different things.

Sadly, I recognized all seven. What's worse is that some of them are above me in the chain of command. Oh well. It's not like I actually work during the day.

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Well, it's almost time for the annual Great American Smokeout, where smokers who really want to quit prove to themselves that they can stop smoking for one day. This year's date is November 17. For more information, go here.

This post will stay at the top of this blog until November 17 has passed us by.

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1 I've tried quiting smoking more times then I can count. What inevitably happens is that I'm around someone who is smoking and I've been drinking. My will power goes out the window and I start smoking again. so I quit quitting.

Posted by: Contagion at October 13, 2005 12:30 PM (Q5WxB)

2 I love events like these. Think I'll light up one of my Monte Cristo cigars to celebrate.

Posted by: Lycan at October 14, 2005 09:10 AM (dHD6C)

3 While we're not on the subject, did you know that you - out of all the munuvians - are the target of a unceasing flood of referrer spam from Italian porn sites? Well, now you know. I've tweaked your .htaccess file to keep them out.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 16, 2005 04:38 AM (RbYVY)

4 Personal Loan - Bad Credit Personal Loans http://www.personalloanmarket.com

Posted by: Personal Loan at November 17, 2005 08:34 PM (dlhYC)

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A new phase in post-victory celebrations is at hand. I dunno about you, but I'm waxing nostalgic for the day when people simply set fire to random cars. I guess that makes me an old fogey.

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We speak for the dead.

Details at Ace's place.

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Sure, it happened in the Netherlands, but I'll bet that some eager activist groups in the US are salivating over the prospect of filing similar charges here. Excerpt:

The Dutch animal protection agency demanded prosecution Tuesday for the shooting of a sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes during an attempt to set a world record.
The ill-fated bird flew into an exposition center Monday in the northern city of Leeuwarden, where employees of TV company Endemol NV had worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes.

The common house sparrow — of a species on the national endangered list — was chased into a corner and shot by an exterminator with an air rifle.

"Under Dutch law, you need a permit to kill this kind of bird, and a permit can only be granted when there's a danger to public health or a crop," said agency spokesman Niels Dorland. "That was not the case."

"I might add: Is it really necessary to kill a bird that knocked over a few dominoes for a game?" he asked.

Dorland said the agency plans to submit the case to national prosecutors.

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I was feeling pretty good this week. The President, along with many other prominent GOP'ers, finally started rebutting the BUSH LIED! meme. Add the Alito nomination to the mix and the GOP appeared to be on the rise. Then the Senate Republicans decided to give a vote of no-confidence on the war in Iraq.

Guys, here's a suggestion: go fuck yourselves. And start packing your bags. I now believe that 2006 will top 1994 as a political perfect storm.

Update: Only 13 Republican nays? The Party of the Stupid just became the Party of the Irrelevant. If those feckless sphincter muscles from the GOP aisle of the Senate think that this storm will pass, they're right. What they don't seem to grasp is that it might possibly move Republicans to permanent minority status. Us conservative/libertarian types have put up with a lot of crap from the GOP if only because Team Elephant appeared to be the only party serious about the War on Terror. If, like yesterday, Republicans act in the same manner as Democrat, voters will stay home in droves.

Via Hugh Hewitt comes this telling quote: Bill Frist is dead to me.

Look at the roll call of the vote. "Nay" votes from McCain, Kennedy, Kerry and Leahy, but not from George Allen or Rick Santorum, or Bill Frist? If you'll excuse me, I'm headed to the window to see if a certain group of Horsemen are riding by.

Update: McQ has more.

Final update: The Puppy Blender states, "It's almost as if the Republicans want to go back to being the minority party."

You mean that they aren't?

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It's time for the 2005 Weblog Awards. Nominations are now open.

Personal request: someone-I have no idea who, because it sure wasn't me- nominated me last year for, I believe, best humor blog. Notice the 2004 Weblog Award Finalist image in the sidebar. It sure would be nice to be nominated again this year....

Okay, I can be tacky and nominate myself. Feel free to move about the cabin now.

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Harvey has a doozy of an assignment this week: Is the Mainstream Media patriotic? Why or why not?

Good: Investigative journalists dig up some documents that prove Bush failed to meet his National Guard requirements.
Bad: The documents are such ridiculous forgeries faxed from a Kinkos that the journalists's own experts didn't support them.
Good: Kinkos profits for 2004 go through the roof.
Worse: "Journalists" still claiming the forgeries are authentic one year later.
Good: Dan Rather and Mary Mapes continue to provide material for late night talk show hosts.

Good: ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN provide round the clock coverage of our troops in Iraq.
Bad: That coverage consists of photos of flag-draped coffins or maimed soldiers.

Good: Major networks cover the President's morale building visit to our troops at Thanksgiving.
Bad: The visit is called a crass, politically opportunistic photo op.
Worse: The MSM incorrectly state that Bush used a plastic turkey during the photo op, and harp on "fake" turkey for months.
Good: Manufacturers of plastic turkeys get free publicity.

Good: The press crap themselves to show as many photos as possible of Saddam Hussein's capture.
Bad: Katie Couric and others actually ask whether or not Iraq is safer without Hussein.
Ugly: Many in the press claim that Bush is worse than Saddam.
Good: Katie wore black the day after Saddam's capture, and it really had a slimming effect on her.

Good: After Uday and Qusay get killed during a battle, the MSM show many pictures of the two crapweasels so that they people of Iraq can be certain that Saddam's hellspawn are actually dead.
Bad: MSM spends the next month describing how insensitve the US to Muslims for displaying photos of the deceased.
Good: The little fuckers were still dead.

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Are you reading the Dilbert Blog? If not, you're missing out. Check out this post and its followup.

Sure, Scott Adams makes with the funny every day, but you might not have noticed that the guy can actually write pretty well.

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A sad, sad story, but it had to be told.

Click on the extended entry to see what happened.
more...

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Tim F. over at Balloon Juice posted his weekly Friday beer blogging post. Reading someone else who suffers from the same obsession as me is always a hoot, but I especially like his description of the boiling wort smell from a batch of pumpkin beer. Excerpt:

A short story; bear with me. Picture a freshman dorm in Colorado. Two friends have to run out to the homebrew supplier so itÂ’s up to me to watch ten gallons of boiling, stinking pumpkin beer mash. For those of you who arenÂ’t brewers, thatÂ’s roughly what it would smell like if Halloween died in a hot, sealed room and stayed there for a week. Rachel, a feared RA who loved nothing more than to bust students doing outlawed things like brewing beer, wanders in holding her nose.

“Whad are you doing?”
“Uh, ”
“Cooking dinner.”
“Seembs like a lod…”
“Guests.”
“Whad is dat?”
“...Gazpacho. Ukranian pumpkin stew. It’s a family specialty. Want to try some?”
“Gick.”
“Your loss. Sorry about the smell.”

I like to think that some day in the future she grabbed a waiter at a fine restaurant and declared, “I’ve seen gazpacho, and THAT’S NOT GAZPACHO.” Or something to that effect. The beer was worth the wait.

Tum actually reminds me that I still haven't written the Bottling Your Beer post in my Brewing Your First Beer series. I really want to finish that series and move on to intermediate brewing.

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Cosmic Conservative has a script excerpt from a movie that, while I'm certain I haven't seen it, seems strangely familiar...

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This week, Carnival of the Recipes is hosted by Eric of Myopic Zeal. Lots of tasty recipes there. Sadly, I forgot to submit one. Again. ::sniff::

Anyway, go there and drool.

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Michael Newdow and Cindy Sheehan see a television camera. Who gets to it first? Chuck Shumer, of course.

Looks like Newdow is making a bid to supplant Shumer as the biggest camera whore in the US. He's now filing to have the phrase "In God We Trust" removed from the US currency.

A couple of years ago, I told a friend of mine that it was only a matter of time before someone filed this lawsuit. He told that I was full of shit, that no one would be that big of an asshole. And while my friend may be accurate in his assessment of the quantity of feces my body can hold, he seriously underestimates the enormous size to which walking, talking anuses can grow.

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Tape a chocolate bar to the outside of your microwave. If the chocolate melts you will know that the microwaves are escaping and it is time to have the oven serviced.

A mouse trap, placed on top on of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep.

Old telephone books make ideal personal address books. Simply cross out the names and addresses of people you don't know.

Before attempting to remove stubborn stains from a garment always circle the stain in permanent ink pen so that when you remove the garment from the washing machine you can easily locate the area of the stain and check that it has gone.

Lose weight quickly by eating raw pork and rancid tuna. I found that the subsequent food poisoning enabled me to lose 12 pounds in only 2 days.

Avoid parking tickets by leaving your windshield wipers turned to fast wipe whenever you leave your car parked illegally.

High blood pressure sufferers: Simply cut yourself and bleed for a while, thus reducing the pressure in your veins.

Olympic athletes. Conceal the fact that you have taken performance enhancing drugs by simply running a little slower and letting someone else win.

Heavy smokers: Don't throw away those filters from the end of your cigarettes. Save them up and within a few years you'll have enough to insulate your ceiling.

Create instant designer stubble by sucking a magnet and dipping your chin in a bowl of iron fillings.

X File fans: Create the effect of being abducted by aliens by drinking two bottles of vodka. You'll invariably wake up in a strange place the following morning, having had your memory mysteriously 'erased'.

A sheet of sandpaper makes a cheap and effective substitute for costly maps when visiting the Sahara desert.

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