Wake up and Smell the Snails

[rain_gryphon]

So, for the first time since Napoleon, the French are advancing victoriously to Berlin.

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It's interesting that Ken Lay just fell over dead like that. The number one contributor to the Bush campaign, politically well-connected, a man with more than enough money to be able to disappear and start a new life elsewhere, and more than enough reason to want to. A man with no known history of heart trouble. I wonder if there are plans for DNA testing of the body that they've got?

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A man whose skull apparently fell apart. With pictures. It's fascinating, but also horrifying and disgusting, so don't look if you're squeamish. You've been warned.

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Obesity Raises Risk Of Psychiatric Disorders. I keep thinking of "Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid".

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Schizophrenics have a reduced rate of cancer.

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One wonders exactly what the North Koreans think they're accomplishing. Their experimental ICBM crashed, so now they seem to be busy wasting their proven Scud Cs by shooting them into the ocean one after the other. I suppose we could take the charitable view, and say that they're celebrating the Fourth of July, but I doubt that. If I were the Beloved Leader, each of the Scuds would have one or two people responsible for the failure of the Taepodong tied to it. That would account for the sudden flurry of launches. I would have way too much fun being an insane communist dictator.

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Berea police said the residents on North Rocky River Drive tried to bundle 50 to 200 sparklers together. The sparklers were then put in a brass cylinder and lit. [...] There were bricks placed around the sparklers and officials said one brick was found 225 feet away. The question that's always on my mind is exactly what did these people think would happen? That's the question reporters never seem to ask.

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They're building home-made trains in Cambodia.

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You can finally have fireworks legally again in Indiana. It's a small victory for freedom, but a victory nonetheless. Actually, they've been rife there since 1990 or so, when the anti-fireworks forces allowed themselves to be conned into a "compromise" bill where people would be allowed to buy them in Indiana, but have to sign a form that stated that you were buying them to resell. I mean seriously - life in Indiana can just be surreal sometimes.

Were I inclined to dishonesty, I might have signed my resale forms "Richard Milhouse Nixon, 1313 13th Street", since nobody ever checked, and then gone ahead and shot them off in Indiana anyway. But of course, that would have been wrong.

On a more serious note, when you pass stupid laws that aren't enforced, and which people have to routinely break to conduct normal, harmless activities like shooting bottle rockets, you encourage general contempt for the rule of law.

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I'm guessing that if Lopez-Obrador wins the Mexican election, there'll suddenly be a whole lot less pressure coming from the White House and Senate for an amnesty for illegal aliens.

Comments

[duke-otterland.livejournal.com]

I heard Lopez-Obrador wants to sever all ties with the U.S., so I'm definitely concerned about the elections down in Mexico and hope Calderon, the PAN candidate, wins (close elections always get me nervous >_>).

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

So, Schizophrenics have a reduced rate of cancer, eh?

I'm betting the rate is split in two.

[gedrean.livejournal.com]

Well that's what happens when you put it in the brass can. however, you can make a decent sparkler bomb and it doesn't explode (quite so much) but you can get a pretty bright glow. In the proper conditions (good non-flammable non-meltable surface you don't mind scorching under the setup, and nothing for a good five-to-ten feet in any direction and nothing directly above) you can get a pretty nice tower nearing 500.