CNN:
Also, from the end of the article, there’s this. Can you find the potential problem?
Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts — encouraging them to frequent public places.
Over the years, city authorities have employed monkey catchers who use langurs — a larger and fiercer kind of monkey — to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.
Yeah, nothing can go wrong with that, right?
When musicians we like cover songs by other musicians we like.
Well, they’re out. As predicted, LSU improves to 3 in all the polls. Pretender USF drops to 10 in the BCS / 11 AP. Bizarrely, BCS picks Arizona State for the 4 spot; AP (somewhat) sensibly keeps them in 7th place and has the Sooners follow LSU. Oregon rounds out the top 5 in both lists.
New on this list this week, and thereby restoring all that is right in the world, is the fact that both Alabama teams are on it: Auburn at 22 (23 AP) and the Tide at 24 (22 AP; yes, the AP has Saban over Auburn). Amusingly, Rutgers brings up the ass end of the AP poll, an honor BCS reserves for Joe Pa. Phil Fulmer and his orange redneck brigade drop from both lists, God bless ’em, as do Texas Tech, Cincy, and KSU.
Interesting stats on the fly: The five remaining lossless squads in the AP (BCS list doesn’t include records, and we’re too lazy to transpose) are top-two OSU and BC (who had a bye this week), Arizona State (7), Kansas (12), and Hawaii (16) (total of 5). Of these, we only see OSU as a “real” contender. We’re mystified by BC’s continued presence, and the polls make clear how weak the schedules of the remainder are.
There are nine one-loss teams: LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, and West Virginia at 3, 4, 5, and 6; VaTech and USC at 8 and 9; USF (11), Missouri (13), and Virginia (21).
There are now ten squads with two losses, but only one (Florida, 9) in the top 10. (UK, South Carolina, Texas, Cal, Mich, UGa, Alabama, Penn St, and Rutgers).
Auburn is the ONLY 3-loss team in the AP list, and at 23 is ranked above both Penn State and Rutgers.
We can’t contain our glee about this one, so we’re leading with it: NickyLou smashed Tennessee with a convincing 41 to 17 victory. 27 first downs. 510 yards of offense. Enjoy the ride home, Fulmer, you goatfucking bastard. Rockytop’s weeping, and that makes us smile at Heathen Central. (Even ESPN is in on the snark; their “It was over when” comment is “when Nick Saban decided to move to Tuscaloosa.”)
The margin here, of course, does lovely things to our Nick Saban Points Per Million stats. From 62 total victory points last week we go to a whopping 86, which brings the PPM to 2.6875, an all-time high.
As if that weren’t enough, though, Spurrier’s 6th-ranked Cocks got stunned by never-ranked Vanderbilt, 17 – 6. This is Vandy’s first win over Spurrier in 15 tries, and the highest ranked opponent they’ve stopped in SEVENTY years (1937, and it was then-No. 6 LSU, 7 to 6). Wow. Just wow.
The Jackson office points out that this is 11 top-ten teams to lose to an unranked opponent this year. It’s nuts, we tell you.
Yesterday also had two other fine SEC contests: Florida schooling Kentucky, and title contender LSU quashing Auburn; in both cases, the right team won. Kentucky’s been lucky, but couldn’t really expect to slip by Urban Meyer’s defending champs no matter what the final score was. The LSU game was another story; the rivalry with Auburn is big, and the game can go either way in any year. This time around was no exception, and the contest wasn’t over until Matt Flynn found Demetrius Boyd in the end zone with a second to go. LSU keeps its title hopes alive, and Auburn drops to 5-3. Look for the Tigers to rise on this, especially after the overrated South Floridians fell to unranked Rutgers earlier in the week.
Finally, of course, we must note that Charlie and his Irish behaved predictably with USC, and extended their season of Fail in a 38 to zip loss. We watched part of this; it was ugly. Good thing he swapped the QB, right?
Pear cable has withdrawn from the James Randi challenge. Score one for science.
TSA fails to find fake bombs 60 percent of the time in tests. Go TSA!
(Bama alums only)
City Cafe now takes plastic. So wrong. So very, very wrong.
Reid, in violation of Senate rules, is saying he won’t honor Dodd’s hold on the telecom immunity bill.
WTF?
The link above is getting ongoing updates, so use it to stay on top of the story.
This whole thing is important because the bill amounts to a short-circuit of the judicial process. ATT has been sued over this, and is losing badly despite their army of lawyers. Their solution is to use a bought-and-paid-for congressional delegation to buy a retroactive immunity and render the judicial proceedings moot. That dog won’t hunt, or shouldn’t.
Granny calls Comcast. Comcast ignores Granny. Granny visits Comcast. Comcast stonewalls Granny. Granny goes all Walking Tall on their asses. Madcap hilarity ensues.
They’ve put the entire Daily Show archive online. Enjoy. We’re in particular happy to be able to link directly to this bit.
It’s apparently Official Kilt Day!
Turns out, Chris Dodd’s got enough. He plans to a Senate hold on the telecom immunity bill.
(Via Atrios, who rightly says good behavior ought be rewarded.)
Joey Bishop went the way of all flesh on Wednesday night. He was 89.
From the House debate on the SCHIP override:
First of all, I’m just amazed they can’t figure out, the Republicans are worried we can’t pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where ya gonna get that money? You going to tell us lies like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement. This bill would provide healthcare for 10 million children and unlike the President’s own kids, these children can’t see a doctor or receive necessary care.
[…]
But President Bush’s statements about children’s health shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up. In Iraq, in the United States and in Congress.
The GOP are, of course, apoplectic at this statement. Largely because it’s true.
Wired: Robot Cannon Goes Berserk, Kills 9 in South Africa.
We’re pretty sure we’re uncomfortable with the whole idea of a “robot cannon.”
All you people who keep using Evite — with its utterly useless emails completely free of information — please read this:
The main problem with Evite is the uninformative email. “You are invited to Heather’s Divorce Party,” says Evite, with a personal message from the host but no actual information. To make a decision as a guest, I have to click over to Evite; that cramps my style if I’m trying to be at all productive with my inbox. Plus it’s a pain when I’m en route to the party and need to double-check the address. If only I could just check my email on my phone, but no, all the info is trapped in Evite! The “send it to my phone” option is silly, as I probably won’t remember to do that until I’m already away from my computer.
The site is also annoying to use: I can only export the event to iCal, RSVPing takes me to a useless page instead of back to the event, and the site is full of ads and unrelated links. Evite is the MySpace of invitations.
That’s almost all fixed with Socializr and MyPunchbowl. Socializr sends a complete email with party time, location and information…
Seriously. NO more evite. Please.
Bush has appointed an avowed opponent of birth control to head the family planning office inside DHS. Again.
The appointee, Susan Orr, comes from the far-right Family Research Council, which favors abstinence-only education and opposes using any tax dollars for contraception.
In 2001, she was quoted in the Washington Post favoring a Bush administration plan to drop a requirement that health insurance plans for federal employees cover a broad range of birth control.
“We’re quite pleased because fertility is not a disease,” she said at the time. “It’s not a medical necessity that you have it.”
(Washington Wire @ WaPo)
They’ve caved on the bill that issues blanket and retroactive immunity to the telcos who’ve been illegally eavesdropping on us since before 9/11.
At least Chris Dodd is still fighting.
The Heathen Central Compound is well insulated, so we’ve never had to deal with the neighbor who fucks too much. (SFW except for language; all text; hilarious.)
On Sunday, Maureen Dowd let Stephen Colbert have a run at being an Op-Ed columnist, to great comedic effect. A bit:
So why I am writing Miss Dowd’s column today? Simple. Because I believe the 2008 election, unlike all previous elections, is important. And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates.
For instance, Hillary Clinton. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she’s actually easy to beat, or if I’m supposed to be scared of her because she’s legitimately scary.
Or Rudy Giuliani. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to support him because he’s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated, or if I’m supposed to support him because he’s legitimately scary.
And Fred Thompson. In my opinion “Law & Order” never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler.
Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.
[…]
Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.
Local TV station announces they’ll be reporting both Fahrenheit and Celsius temps going forward, and madcap idiocy ensues in the comments. Gist: “we don’t need no booklearnin’!”
It’s Heathen Mike’s Birfday. He doesn’t look like this anymore, but it’s still a funny picture (Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1988):
Another nutso week in paradise. LSU’s hopes for a lossless year got dashed by Kentucky, of all people, but astute viewers will note that the Tigers beat themselves as much as they lost to UK; 103 yards in penalties, including one that gave the Wildcats a fresh set of downs in OT, will do that to you. Still, we’d have expected the contest to be decided well before any OT, let alone 3. LSU played down, and UK played up; time will tell. By Monday, though, LSU’s top ranking was history, and our old pal Ohio State sat in the top spot. (Cal also dropped a game, which puts them out of the running much moreso than it does LSU.)
That brings up something near and dear to, at least, ThirdPartyContractOil: the Big East, since South Florida (who?) is now ranked at #2. True, they’re lossless, an increasingly rare quality this season now that all the other top seeds have dropped games in upsets. However, just “not losing” isn’t enough, Boston College be damned (who, we note, only quashed the helpless Irish 27-14 this week; how tough can they be?). You’ve also got to play the tough teams, and that’s something that the Big East has typically skipped somehow. USF is the best of the bunch, but we’re not sure about the Auburn win given how those Tigers have played this year. The West Virginia win is real, but the balance of the schedule includes only Cincy in the “ranked team” category, and factors in such powerhouses as UNC, Central Florida, and FAU. It’s not as bad as the Irish or Penn State, but it’s still not playing in the Big 10 or SEC.
Now, the meat of the matter: Saban. NickyLou managed to eek out another W this week against Ole Miss, but the narrow victory only adds 3 points to the PointsPerMillion calculations, for a total of 62. The new value is 1.937, nearly as high as it was in week 3. Still, them’s some pricey wins.
ObNotreDame: Charlie’s considering a QB change against USC this weekend, which we’re SURE will have dramatic consequences. Apparently, after his 1-6 start, he thinks swapping playcallers (into his 3rd for the year) will turn the season around. This’ll be fun to watch, and one of the few times we can actually stomach rooting for the Trojans.
Now, the rankings. BCS has it Buckeyes, USF, BC, LSU, Sooners. The AP swaps Oklahoma and LSU. Do they really think that LSU or Oklahoma wouldn’t beat BC like a rented mule? Do they really think that the fancy USF offense can take on the tough-as-nails LSU defensive line? We call shenanigans, and will probably have to do so every October until we get a Goddamn playoff in college football.
Nobody has balls bigger than Les Miles. 5 of 5 on 4th down conversions. Another fake field goal. The Gators, already down a game thanks to Auburn, drop to the much more populous tier of 2-loss teams — while the LSU Tigers improve to 6-0 (for first time since ’73) with a late rally over Florida and make clear what we’ve been saying all season: they deserve to be number one, and have all season. Especially since USC managed to lose to a team with 4-digit SAT scores despite being 41 point favorites (how weird is that?).
Yessir, this #1 ranked SEC squad has Heathen HQ so happy we don’t even care that somehow the Irish notched to win today (against UCLA, of all people, which just proves the west coast can’t play football — c’mon, there are squads of high school kids in Metro Houston that would whip Weis’ boys).
So, Saban. Yeah, he won. But good GOD it was Houston, for crying out loud, and he only did it 30 to 24 at home, on Homecoming. Get with the program, NickyLou! Every little bit helps, though, and the 6-point margin brings our total winning points to 59, which thereby lifts the Points Per Million to 1.844. (Updated for math error.)
That’s really the only conclusion we can make from this item, forwarded by PDX Heathen Bureau Chief Rob:
Hardee’s on Monday rolled out its new Country Breakfast Burrito — two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat.
and
In 2003 the chain introduced a line of big sandwiches, including the Monster Thickburger. The 1,420-calorie sandwich is made up of two 1/3-pound slabs of beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered bun.
more
“We don’t try to hide what these are,” [Hardee’s spokesperson Haley] said. “When consumers go to other fast-food places they feel like they’ve got to buy two of their breakfast sandwiches or burritos to fill up. This is really designed to fill you up.”
The government’s Center for Nutritional Policy and Promotion recommends a daily caloric intake ranging from 1,600 calories for sedentary women and older adults to 2,800 calories for teenage boys and active adults.
Jebus.
We’d kill for a copy of Corn Flicks on DVD.
Krugman explains Gore Derangement Syndrome.
Quash fan-driven sing-along theater showings of a popular episode of a cancelled tv show.
Al Gore won a Nobel.
Mike made us start our day with this rendition of Iron Maiden’s “Trooper” done entirely in handfarts.
If you click through to the YouTube page, you’ll see the “artist” has apparently been working for years to develop his technique, tags himself on YouTube as a “musician,” and has several more videos for your perusal (e.g., “The Final Countdown,” or, as God is our witness, “”Bohemian Rhapsody“”). Sweet lord.
Many are now aware of the long-running Net-joke “Chuck Norris Facts.” We’re not sure where they came from, and a bunch of them are Brasky retreads, but sometimes they’re funny.
The offshoot Bruce Schneier Facts are funnier: “If we built a Dyson sphere around Bruce Schneier and captured all of his energy for 2 months, without any loss, we could power an ideal computer running at 3.2 degrees K to count up to 2^256. This strongly implies that not only can Bruce Schneier brute-force attack 256-bit keys, but that he is built of something other than matter and occupies something other than space.”
There was a light rail accident in downtown Houston yesterday. Like virtually every other such accident, it’s because the driver thought he’d race the train:
A Metro light rail train collided with a sport utility vehicle in downtown Houston, sending several people to the hospital, authorities said.
The train struck the Chrysler Aspen about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday on westbound Pease at Main, officials said.
Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert said the driver briefly stopped at the red light, then drove into the path of the oncoming train.
The train struck the right side of the Chrysler, pinning the male passenger inside the vehicle.
“The passenger had to be removed from the vehicle by the Houston Fire Department,” Lambert said.
The SCOTUS has refused to hear the case of German citizen Khaled el-Masri, who was kidnapped by the US and imprisoned secretly in Afghanistan for four months in a case of mistaken identity. In refusing to hear the case, the Supremes have accepted the Administration’s exercise of the state secrets privilege, which essentially means they can do whatever they want and quash the resulting courtroom challenges on the grounds that “hey, we gotta keep secrets.”
At the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union, U.S. presidents used the state secrets privilege six times from 1953 to 1976, according to OpenTheGovernment.org. Since 2001, it has been used 39 times, enabling the government to unilaterally withhold documents from the court system, the group said.
Thirteen CIA agents have arrest warrants in Germany as a result of the case.
Back in ’99 or ’00, we finally went in for contact lenses. Once we did, we couldn’t believe we’d waited so long. Our vision was better in every way, and we had virtually no trouble adapting to wearing them. Plus, for the first time EVER, we could buy any sunglasses we wanted, from dime store/ZZ Top specials to fancy Ray-Bans and the like. Frankly, after 20 years of prescription sunglasses, pretty much ALL sunglasses are cheap.
Predictably, we went a bit nuts, and bought a few pairs in the first few months of no-glasses. We stopped, though, when we found Maui Jims, specifically their featherlight, titantium-framed, hinge-less model. There simply is no better pair of sunglasses, we’re convinced, for any amount of money. Sadly, these are pricey — $250 to $300 a pair — but, like good pens, we figured on keeping them for a long while, so we sucked it up and bought ’em in 2001.
Then, in 2003, something awful happened: a crack developed in the titanium wire frame. We packed them up and sent them back to MJ, who have a very generous repair policy. Despite being out of warranty, though, MJ decided they’d just send us another pair, gratis. Score.
We wore those nearly daily until last week, when a similar (but more complete) break happened. All of a sudden, we were holding two halves instead of one whole. Just now, we’ve gotten off the phone with MJ — who, despite being in Illinois, insist on using “aloha” and “Mahalo” in every conversation — and have been informed that the maximum repair cost is $49.95. We’re to send ’em to the MJ mother ship, and should expect a reconstituted set within a week or so.
Mahalo indeed.
It could easily happen. Five or so years ago, Danger released a very nice multifunction smart-ish phone exclusively tied to T-Mobile. It came with always-on Internet connectivity, and even a mobile AIM client. At first, the technorati were excited, but that feeling quickly cooled when folks realized that you never really own the Hiptop; T-Mobile and Danger had it so locked down that they alone could decide what kind of software you could run; they even retained the ability to remotely delete programs from “your” device. Consequently, the Danger went from being a potential huge hit with the geek crowd to being relegated to the Paris Hiltons of the world. We’re sure money was made on the Danger, but at the end of the day a huge amount of goodwill and potential was squandered because of carrier/manufacturer lockdown.
The lesson here is about control. Apple would do well to listen. Open the iPhone API and let a thousand developers bloom. That, plus cut-and-paste and real 3G connectivity, might convince Heathen Central to give it another look.
NIN have (has?) joined Radiohead in becoming completely independent and free of record labels.
730 days ago today, Mrs Heathen To Be became Mrs Heathen. Though we’ve been together since 2001, married really is different and better, and we can’t say enough how lucky we feel to be married to her. Our life is better in every conceivable way with her. Happy anniversary, baby.
So, we just watched this cute seal video, and it occurred to us that the reason we perceive 99% of wild mammals as “cute” is that we’re bigger than they are, so they don’t see us food.
Radley Balko is on the case again, this time exploring the strange career of Dr. Steven Hayne, the medical examiner used in 1,500 to 1,800 autopsies a year in our home state (the National Association of Medical Examiners says an ME should do no more than 250). Predictably, Dr. Hayne tends to find in favor of the prosecutors, science be damned:
Former Columbus, Miss., Police Chief J.D. Sanders has been trying for years to draw attention to Dr. Hayne. “There’s no question in my mind that there are innocent people doing time at Parchman Penitentiary due to the testimony of Dr. Hayne,” he says. “There may even be some on death row.”
[…]
Another medical examiner reviewed Dr. Hayne’s autopsy in a 1998 homicide and characterized his work as “near complete malpractice.” In that case, Dr. Hayne had determined that a woman had died of “natural causes.” The diagnosis was later changed to homicide by blunt force to the head. According to the medical examiner who performed the second autopsy, Dr. Hayne hadn’t even emptied the woman’s pockets, a standard autopsy procedure. No one has been prosecuted in the case. Dr. Hayne declined repeated requests from me to comment.
Dr. Hayne isn’t a board-certified forensic pathologist, at least as the term is understood by his peers. The American Board of Pathology is considered the only reputable certifying organization for forensic pathology. Dr. Hayne failed the board’s exam in the 1980s. He still testifies in court that he’s “board certified.” But that’s a reference to his membership in the American Academy of Forensic Examiners, which he has said publicly certified him without requiring him to take an exam.
It gets worse:
Mississippi law calls for a certified state medical examiner to oversee the process of shopping autopsies out, to ensure that they are conducted by reputable physicians. But Mississippi hasn’t had a state medical examiner since 1994. The last two people to hold the office actually tried to rein in Dr. Hayne, but met with considerable resistance. The most recent, Dr. Emily Ward, left after the state’s county coroners petitioned for her resignation. The state legislature has refused to fund the examiner’s office ever since.
“Dr. Ward came in here and tried to clean up the system,” says Andre de Gruy, who directs Mississippi’s Office of Capital Defense Counsel, the public defender office for death-penalty cases. “Hayne and the coroners got together and chased her out.”
It’s a clear example of what happens when nobody cares about conflicts of interest, and it’s railroading innocent people into jail.
The Sunday Times: The day the music industry died was the day Radiohead released their new album online, without a label, and for whatever anyone wanted to pay. We think they’re right.
We didn’t realize until reading this piece, btw, that Radiohead are currently unsigned; their prior contract expired, and they haven’t bothered signing up with anyone new. Can you say “disintermediation?”
Wanna take pinhole pix from inside your own mouth? Now you can.
Richard “Lord British” Garriott owns a Sputnik. It’s not been to space, obviously, but it is apparently one of the early “spare” cases. As such, it also lacks innards. But still: Sputnik.
Fred Clark lays it out pretty clearly:
Here’s the deal: Whatever the technical details of the case, whatever the particulars of the applicable immigration and customs laws, if you confiscate the entire life savings of a minimum-wage dishwasher, you’re doing something wrong.
And you’re an asshole.
I can’t help you. No one can help you. There is no escape clause, no excuse, no qualification, no mitigation. You have chosen this and it is done. You’re just an asshole.
Solid.
It’s wonderful what bad publicity can do.
Joe Peacock has an amusing internal monologue posted in re: some bonehead client requests. Recommended.