take that, weimar republic inflation!

100,000 percent?!?! donde los yikes...via bbc news:

Zimbabwe's chief statistician has said it is impossible to work out the country's latest inflation rate because of the lack of goods in shops.

"There are too many data gaps," the Central Statistical Office's Moffat Nyoni told state media.

Many staple goods are often absent from shop shelves after the government ordered prices to be halved or frozen in a bid to stem galloping inflation.

September's inflation rate was put at almost 8,000%, the world's highest.

Other reports suggest the rate could be at near 15,000% and the International Monetary Fund had warned it could reach 100,000% by the end of the year.

sideboob!

best week ever introduces us to a wonderful new term: sideboob! and it has to do with the umbrella, ella, ella, ella, eh, eh lady....the clip in question is after the talk of uncle jesse on the airplane...

yeah, just draw your own conclusions...

These are the most viewed pages on Conservapedia, which Phyllis’ Schlafly’s son created in response to Wikipedia’s “liberal bias” (source: Wikipedia’s “Conservapedia” entry). So I guess these are the most popular pages from a conservative bias:


as if all of this wasn't strange enough, according to the site's FAQ, Conservapedia originated as a project for homeschooled children...

the thanksgiving pardoning of turkeys (but not pigs)

i'm sorry, but i can't get behind ham for thanksgiving...
via wonkette.com:
A group of Virginians are claiming that Virginian settlers held the first Thanksgiving in 1619, a full year before the better-know Puritans broke their bread of thanks. Also, there was no turkey served, but there was probably ham. So, a children’s author in Virginia Beach, Lisa Suhay, is trying to get President Bush to pardon a pig in addition to the regular Thanksgiving turkey. The White House is saying no dice (because bacon tastes good and pork chops taste good), but Bush did head down to the less No. part of Va. yesterday to acknowledge that they are saying that their Thanksgiving was first and then came back here for his obligatory photo op with two turkeys. No, he’s not posing with any of the Presidential candidates.

So, this week the President once again pardoned a turkey (no, not scooter libby), which always makes me think of how this barbaric and silly photo op was so wonderfully enacted on The West Wing (as so many things are)...

CJ : I need you to pardon a turkey.

Bartlet : I already pardoned a turkey... aren't I gonna get a reputation for being soft on turkeys?

CJ : They sent me two turkeys. The most photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.

Bartlet : If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.

At least the President did better this year...we all remember how last year, the pardoned turkey proved to, um, choose an interestingly humorous pose during his photo op with the President. *(insert your own gobble gobble joke here)

i didn't think sweethart meant that!

Via BBC World:
The latest novel by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been banned in Iran - but only after censors noticed its title had been sanitised.

The book, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, was published in Farsi as Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts.

The first edition of 5,000 had sold out before the authorities realised.

The novel tells the story of a man who wants to mark his 90th birthday by sleeping with a 14-year-old virgin in a brothel and ends up falling in love.

Iran's culture ministry said a "bureaucratic error" had led to permission being granted for the book's publication, the Fars news agency reported. The official responsible had been sacked, Fars said.

The book sold out within three weeks of arriving in Iranian bookshops.

so, if you need an idea of an x-mas gift for me...

sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

the sad state of our republic, part 428

1 in 5 NYU students would swap their right to vote for an iPod Touch

via wonkette:

There's one thing dorky-sexier than Barack Obama: An iPod Touch, the $300 toy that 20 percent of New York University students would trade for their vote in the next presidential election.

your guide to automobile open container laws and related oddities

courtesy of jalopink.com

11 states where there are significant variations in the law:

Alaska
Generally speaking, the laws in Alaska are not at great variation with the federally mandated requirements. The one major exception is that you can have an open container on a "Motor-Driven Cycle," which basically means a motor scooter with less than 50 cc of engine displacement.

Arkansas
Technically, there is no federally complaint law regulating open containers specifically in vehicles according to the National Institute of Health's Alcohol Policy Information System. That being said, it's illegal in Arkansas to drink in a public place, which includes highways or any vehicles commonly used for transportation. [U of A]

Connecticut
Illegal for someone to drink while operation of a car on a public road, in a parking area for 10 cars or more, on a private road with an established speed limit or on any school property. Your passengers can get as blitzed as they like, assuming they are of legal age. Of course, the law doesn't make driving with drunks any less distracting or annoying.[CT.gov]

Delaware
Limited. No state-wide Open Containers law.

Louisiana
Though Louisiana does have a ban on open containers, there is an exception for frozen alcoholic beverages with lids on them. While you can't drink it, or put a straw in it, you can order a 60-ounce Hurricane or Strawberry Daiquiri from adrive-through.

Mississippi
Limited. No state-wide Open Containers law.

Missouri
Limited. No state-wide Open Containers law

Tennessee
While the law prohibits the possession of a beverage or consumption by the driver of a motor-vehicle, the law states that a passenger can have possession of a beverage.

Virginia
While there is no state-wide Open Containers law, the law does prohibit the consumption of a beverage by a person driving a car and says that it is presumed that the driver has consumed a beverage if there is an open container and some other indicator that the driver may be drunk (slurred speech, appearance, odor, et cetera).

West Virginia
Limited. No state-wide Open Containers law

Wyoming
As you probably have guessed, oenophilia runs rampant in Wyoming. While the law does state that you can't have an open container while driving (your passenger may), you can have resealed wine with you and that does not count as wine.

congress overrides bush veto....no, really!!!

file this under "about damn time."

Senate Enacts Water Resources Bill, Overriding Bush Veto

President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unecessary projects. The vote was 79-14 to pass the bill. Enactment was a foregone conclusion, but it still marked a milestone for a president who spent his first six years with a much friendlier Congress controlled by his Republican Party. Now he confronts a more hostile, Democratic-controlled legislature, and Thursday's vote showed that even many Republicans will defy him on spending matters dear to their political careers.

The bill funds hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, such as dams, sewage plants and beach restoration, that are important to local communities and their representatives. It also includes money for the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast and for Florida Everglades restoration efforts.

The House voted 361-54 to override the veto Tuesday. Both votes easily exceeded the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber to negate a presidential veto.

The last such veto override happened when Congress dealt President Clinton the second of his two overrides in November 1998.

up next: schip and the war...we hope...

president bush sets more records...for unpopularity

via rawstory:
For the first time, George W. Bush has surpassed Richard M. Nixon in unpopularity in the Gallup Poll, receiving the highest "strongly disapprove" rating for a president in Gallup's history.

The little noticed statistic -- publicly noted on Gallup's poll writeup -- made a single headline in Google News. The story, at Editor and Publisher, was titled "GALLUP: Bush Finally Tops Nixon -- In Unpopularity -- As Call for Iraq Pullout Hits New Peak."

Gallup details Bush's falling numbers in a series of graphs that appear below. They note that Bush's "strongly disapprove" rating is the highest Gallup has ever measured for a US president, though the category is not polled in every survey.

"Gallup has followed its classic job approval measure with this “strongly” probe on only an intermittent basis over the years, so it is important to note that the historical context is fairly limited," the pollsters note. "Additionally, other variations in polling over the years make comparisons of this measure inexact. Still, it is worth noting that the current 50% “strongly disapprove” figure for Bush is as high as Gallup has ever measured. (A February 1974 poll showed Richard Nixon’s strongly disapprove number at 48%, statistically equivalent to Bush’s current reading on this measure.)"

On Feb. 6, 1974, the House voted to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate grounds for impeaching President Nixon; in March of that year, seven of Nixon's former staff were indicted for Watergate-related crimes.

Nixon resigned the presidency August 9, 1974.

Gallup's survey was conducted last Friday through Sunday and involved 1,024 Americans.

talk about going off the deep end...

Rachel Mardsen, conservative commentator, on waterboarding, aka torture, on cnn's the situation room:

"Well I think we do have to define torture. One man’s torture is another man’s CIA’s sponsored swim lesson."


wow, what an idiot...they will let any old nimrod on tv...that, or maybe only someone this mentally impaired would defend the bush administration's stance on waterboarding.

keith's special comment on waterboarding and torture

brilliant, as always:

It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.

All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity; all the invocations of World War III, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists...

All of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the refocusing of our entire nation, toward keeping this mock president and this unstable vice president and this departed wildly self-overrating attorney general, and the others, from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country...

view the rest (and it gets better) here:

Special Comment: On waterboarding and torture

the next olympic sport?

well, we already have several equestrian events, i suppose this "horse dancing" (for lack of a better term) can't be too far off.  i particularly enjoyed the bit towards the end of the video where the horse dances to "lady marmalade"  [insert christina aguilera joke here].