I have mixed feelings about legalizing drugs, despite conservative proponents such as Bill Buckley. However, this War on Drugs™ has long since passed the point where people can think that most anti-crime measures are reasonable. Case in point is this article by Jacob Sullum. Excerpt:

At my local drugstore, shelves of cold and allergy medicine have been replaced by merchandise cards hanging from metal rods. If I want to buy one of these remedies, I have to take the corresponding card to the pharmacist's counter, wait in line, show my ID and add my name to a register.

This procedure, required by an "emergency order" from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, is supposed to prevent me from using the pseudoephedrine in products such as Sudafed and Dayquil to cook up a batch of methamphetamine in my garage.
...
Hard as this collateral damage is to justify, it pales next to that suffered by other innocent victims of the government's war on methamphetamine. Last summer, for instance, state and federal agents arrested 49 convenience store clerks and owners in Georgia on charges they sold pseudoephedrine and other supplies to informants posing as meth cooks.

The supplies, including matches, charcoal, antifreeze, coffee filters, aluminum foil, and cat litter, were all perfectly legal. The charges, carrying penalties of up to 25 years in prison as well as fines and asset forfeiture, are based on the doubtful premise the defendants knew or should have known what the fake customers pretended to be planning.

All but a few of the defendants are Indian immigrants, and many have a weak grasp of ordinary English, let alone the slang of black-market meth manufacturers. Several said they assumed the guy who bought matches and camping fuel, saying he needed to "finish up a cook," was having a barbecue.

This is the logic of the war on drugs. By criminalizing possession of a substance readily manufactured using innocuous everyday products, the government created the illicit labs it is trying to shut down by criminalizing the sale of those innocuous everyday products.

Perhaps recognizing that the lives of most Americans have not been affected by the "meth epidemic," prohibitionists are determined to spread the pain around.

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Due to the ever-increasing cost of postage, and my decreasing ability to write legibly, here is my card to cover every holiday of the rest of our lives. more...

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And it's from Hog On Ice:

HereÂ’s how it works. Dan Rather tries to palm off a memo written in crayon, and one blogger notes that Crayola didn't make that color back when Bush was in the Guard, and another blogger says they did, but it was only available in the mental institution where Bill Burkett used to spend time, talking to the kitties printed on the wallpaper. Sooner or later, we figure out the truth, and then Dan gets a gold watch and a paint-by-numbers kit and some new slippers.

Okay, more like an extended post theft than a quote. But it made me giggle like a schoolgirl.

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Reposted from last year.

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This has been making its way around the Internet since 1500 B.C., even though the first computer still hadn't been manufactured yet. However, if there's one thing that you can count on me for, it's recycling the stalest holiday humor you've ever seen between now and the New Year.
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HOW TO COOK A TURKEY

Step 1: Go buy a turkey

Step 2: Take a drink of whiskey, scotch, or JD

Step 3: Put turkey in the oven

Step 4: Take another 2 drinks of whiskey

Step 5: Set the degree at 375 ovens

Step 6: Take 3 more whiskeys of drink

Step 7: Turn oven the on

Step 8: Take 4 whisks of drinky

Step 9: Turk the bastey

Step 10: Whiskey another bottle of get

Step 11: Stick a turkey in the thermometer

Step 12: Glass yourself a pour of whiskey

Step 13: Bake the whiskey for 4 hours

Step 14: Take the oven out of the turkey

Step 15: Take the oven out of the turkey

Step 16: Floor the turkey up off the pick

Step 17: Turk the carvey

Step 18: Get yourself another scottle of botch

Step 19: Tet the sable and pour yourself a glass of turkey(Ed. note: this didn't used to be possible)
Update: More on this here.

Step 20: Bless the saying, pass and eat out

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Have you ever been so drunk that you needed someone else to help you hold your beer while you drank? Did you ever thank that person properly? I thought not. Well, in rememberance of that special person from your dark, misspent youth, I give you this picture.

More beer and, umm, large tracts of land pictures here and here.

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Here is a new way to prepare your Thanksgiving or Christmas Turkey.

1. Cut out aluminum foil in desired shapes.
2. Arrange the turkey in the roasting pan, position the foil carefully (see attached)
3. Roast according to your own recipes and serve.
4. Watch your guests' faces.

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WHEREAS, It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor;

WHEREAS, Both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

--George Washington - October 3, 1789

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Doubly bad, I suppose, if you attempt to open the door of an airplane in mid-flight so as to have a puff.

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I'm probably the last person on the Internet to have noticed, but Buckhead, he of Rathergate fame, has posted Clues for the Clueless on his webpage, detailing his investigation into the forged documents. Check out this excerpt from Part I of his explanation:

Ever since the controversy over the CBS use of forged memos erupted, those disappointed by the exposure of the forgeries have wondered if the whole thing wasn't some sort of set up perpetrated by the Dark Lord, Karl Rove. Integral to this paranoid theorizing was their slack-jawed amazement that anyone could have observed and commented that the documents were fake based on typography as quickly as I did. How could anyone not on the inside have articulated a technical and convincing explanation that the documents were fake within a few hours of the broadcast? Well, here's your answer. It's probably too late to make any difference, but I am no longer able to stifle myself now that Mary Mapes' has written a several hundred page book parading her venomous disregard for those who exposed her lies and her delusional self-image as the Joan of Arc of investigative journalism.

So, how did I know?

The short answer is that I am 47 years old and I am not a blithering idiot.

Personally, I think that he should stop beating around the bush and get to his point. Strictly my opinion, of course.

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A man is having an affair with his secratary. After hours of heated love, he realizes he should have been home long ago. As he quickly gets dressed, he asks his secratary to take his shoes outside and rub them in the dirt.

When he gets home, his wife immediately tears into him, "It's almost 9:00, where the hell have you been?"

The man looks her straight in the eye and says "Honey, I have something to admit. I've been having an affair with my secratary. I spent the last two hours making love to her."

The wife looks him up and down and says " You lying son of a bitch, I can tell by looking at the dirt on your shoes that you've been out playing golf!"

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A few months ago, the CIA had an opening for an assassin. This highly classified position is hard to fill, requiring enormous testing and background checks involved before an applicant can be considered for the position. After sending some applicants through the background checks, training and testing, the Agency narrowed the possible choices down to 3 men, for the one available position.

The day came for the final test to see which man would get the extremely secretive job. The Agent administering the test took one of the applicants to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances", they explained. "Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her."

The man got a shocked look on his face and said "You can't be serious! I could
never shoot my own wife!". "Well", says the CIA man, "you're definitely not the right man for this job then."

The second applicant was brought to the same door and handed the gun. "We must know that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances", the Agent explained, "Inside you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her." The second man looked a bit shocked, but nevertheless took the gun and went in the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes, then the door opened. The man came out of the room with tears in his eyes. "I tried to shoot her, I just couldn't pull the trigger and shoot my wife. I guess I'm not the right man for the job." "No" the CIA man replied, "You don't have what it takes. Take
your wife and go the hell home."

The Agents brought the third applicant to the same door to the same room and hand him the same gun. "We must be sure that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances, this is your final test. Inside you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her." The third man took the gun and opened the door. Before the door even closed all the way, the CIA man heard the gun start firing. One shot after another for 13 shots. Then all hell broke loose in the room. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. This went on for several minutes, then all went quiet. The door opened slowly, and there stood the third applicant. He wiped the sweat from his brow and said "You guys didn't tell me the gun was loaded with blanks! I had to beat the bitch to death with the chair!"

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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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