Bin Laden's Equal Housing Act

Osama Bin Laden has finally revealed what this Jihad thing is all about, Fair Housing for Palestinians. At least that's how it sounds in a new tape released today. In the recording, he claims Al Qaeda responsibility for an attempt to blow up a plane en route to Michigan on Christmas Day, as well as a previous December attempt. The O man explains it this way - "The United States will not dream of enjoying safety until we live it in reality in Palestine. It is not fair to enjoy that kind of life while our brothers in Gaza live in the worst of miseries." Not fair, huh? Maybe they should try it for a while in selected cities in the US. The one bomber was on his way to Detroit. They have some real nice neighborhoods there...

News Link: New Bin Laden Tape

Money in DC

A story in the New York Times today was titled "Does Corporate Money Lead to Political Corruption?" Bet you think you know the answer to that one, don't you? Well you'd be wrong, because according to The Supreme Court, and other scholars and social scientists who are smarter than us, corporate money flowing into political campaigns has no bearing on how your representatives vote on given issues. None what so ever... Think we're kidding? Read the News Link below for yourself.

News Link: Corporate Money and Corruption

NBC shuffling Leno... again

Moving Jay Leno into a prime time TV slot was supposed to be a ground-breaking idea. The ground broke, and Leno fell through. Another 29% of viewers have opted out this season. That's down from last years lackluster numbers. Moving Conan O'Brien into the Tonight Show slot was supposed to bring a new generation of viewers. They didn't come, and 2 million of the older ones left. Now there is talk of moving Leno back into the late night position, where he previously out-rated Letterman for years. The moral of the story is an old time cliche', If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

News Link: NBC shuffling Leno

The Whatsaname Bowl

The New Year's weekend has come and gone. A traditional staple of this particular weekend is College Football Bowl Games, and this weekend was no exception. Except... Did you notice it was a little more difficult to find games you may have wanted to watch? It's not that the games weren't broadcast, it was just hard to find some of your old favorites. Why? Because the names of the games have changed. Case in point... Penn State played LSU in a bowl game. These are two teams who historically land a bowl bid somewhere, but if you glanced through the TV listings, would this game have caught your eye? Probably not, because they played in the Capitol One Bowl. The what? It used to be the Citrus Bowl. When you saw that name you thought "Oh yeh, in Orlando". Looking for the Sugar Bowl? Look under "A" for the Allstate Bowl. Planned to watch the Cotton Bowl? Look also under "A" for AT&T. The Orange Bowl game now belongs to FedEx. The Fiesta Bowl is now wrapped in a bag of Tostitos. It just goes on and on. Now it's understandable that these companies pay big bucks to sponsor these events, but do they really have to be so crass as to change the name of the game? Wouldn't something like The Orange Bowl presented by FedEx have sufficed? Coupled with a FedEx commercial every time a referee blew a whistle? Some other classics you may have missed... The Meineke Car Care Bowl The Little Caesars Bowl The EagleBank Bowl The Pacific Life Bowl The Chick-Fil-A Bowl Really? A Chick-Fil-A Bowl? Gimme a break...

Drugs in Sports... again

You have to take drug tests for lots of things these days. For employment, for parole, for sports. Now from England come reports of a new group on drugs. People in pie eating contests. Seems the most ardent of the pie eaters look for ways to cheat, and apparently lubricating the throat is the preferred method. The drug of choice, so it goes, is cough syrup these days. The claim is it makes things slide down real easy, and can take two seconds off a competitor's time.

News Link: Pie Eaters and Drugs

You better watch out...

Ahhh... Christmas... Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, and an evil ghoul chasing you around the house. Doesn't quite seem to fit, does it... The biggest threat to my childhood Christmas days was getting coal in your stocking if you weren't good, but prior to the 19th century, things were much worse than that. German folklore has it that Santa had a henchman. He didn't operate alone. If you had been a good little boy or girl, Santa would bring you a present. On the other hand, if you wound up on the wrong side of Naughty or Nice, Santa would turn Krampus loose on you, and Krampus was a pretty scary dude. Legend has it that Krampus wielded sticks and chains, and naughty ones were in for a beating. He also, supposedly, had a thing for the girls, the ones that weren't very little. You'll have to read the linked article to find out about that, it makes a nice lump of coal something to wish for.

News Link: The Christmas Ghoul

Tiger Woods - Fore!

And five, and six, and seven... The list keeps growing of the number of women Tiger Woods has allegedly had an affair with. Rumors are now popping of at least three more, which would make ten. Any bets on an even dozen?

News Link: Tiger's wayward ways

Plastic Trees to Save the Planet

That's the latest idea to combat carbon emissions here on Planet Earth. The proposed 'trees' would actually be large towers 50 feet tall. The leaves, called carbon scrubbers, would be a special plastic that absorbs CO2. About 60 million or so plopped all over the globe would do the job, according to Dr Wallace Broecker. Broecker, by the way, invented the term Global Warming. Kind of figures, doesn't it...

News Link: Plastic Trees to Save the Planet

I Wear Your Shirt.Com

In case you didn't see it on the news... There's this guy named Jason, who needed a way to make a few bucks. He noticed a lot of companies put their names on t-shirts, and got an idea. He proposed that he would wear a company's shirt online, and on You-Tube, for a price, and that price was $1 a day. Then the fee schedule would change. For the second company, on the second day, the price would be $2. On each succeeding day the price jumped a buck. Jason has sold out the year 2009, with day 365 going for $365, and he has sold into August of 2010 with the same dollar a day increase. Income this year? About $84,000. Next year? Could be double. Only in America. What a country...

Link: I Wear Your Shirt.Com

When climate strikes home

Some climate issues are felt more than others here at home, and no we're not talking about Global Warming again. We're talking about rain here, too much rain, like they had in the heartland of Ohio this past season. Seems all that rain kept the farmers from harvesting their pumpkins on time, which in turn has caused a shortage of pumpkin pie filling. Now I don't know about you, but a Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie would be like a tree hugger without a tree. A very sad picture, indeed.

News Link: Canned pumpkin in short supply