Tom McMahon

When it comes to imperious skinflints, nobody played them better than Charles Lane.Thin-faced, spectacled Charles Lane was born Charles G. Levison in San Francisco, California.In a career that spanned almost sixty years, beginning in the early 1930s, Lane made a career of looking disgusted at the efforts of others.His hundreds of films include Ball of Fire, Mighty Joe Young, and The Music Man. Among his TV characters were “Homer Bedloe” on Petticoat Junction, “Foster Phinney” on The Beverly Hillbillies, and Lucy’s Boss "Mr. Barnsdahl” on The Lucy Show.
 

Ann Coulter: When they were fund-raising, the Democratic candidates for president all claimed to be Jewish. Now that they are headed for Super Tuesday down South, they've become Jesus freaks. Listening to Democrats talk about Jesus is a little like listening to them on national security: They don't seem terribly comfortable with either subject. . . . . Brent Bozell: What was true 20 or 30 years ago about public civility remains true today. Comparing American political figures or policies to Nazi Germany -- unless it's the actions of the American Nazi Party or their ilk -- is the first mark of a reckless kook. It's just too bad that the kooks now include the Democratic establishment and the liberal media. . . . . Jeff Jarvis: The ads all followed the assignment: Skewer Bush in 30 seconds. And it's the assignment that bothers me. The assignment only extends the problem with liberalism today: It's all about being against. It's all about no. It's all about bad dog, bad. How much better it would have been to assign these creative masses to come up with ads that present a positive view of a better world without Bush and with a vision we can grab onto and support with pride. But there's none of that. This is all about bashing.  

One of the many subjects covered at soyouwanna.com 

"September 10th, 1945 finds a strapping (but tender) five and a half month old Wyandotte rooster pecking through the dust of Fruita, Colorado. The unsuspecting bird had never looked so delicious as he did that, now famous, day. Clara Olsen was planning on featuring the plump chicken in the evening meal. Husband Lloyd Olsen was sent out, on a very routine mission, to prepare the designated fryer for the pan. Nothing about this task turned out to be routine.Lloyd knew his Mother in Law would be dining with them and would savor the neck. He positioned his ax precisely, estimating just the right tolerances, to leave a generous neck bone. "It was as important to Suck-Up to your Mother in Law in the 40's as it is today." A skillful blow was executed and the chicken staggered around like most freshly terminated poultry. Then the determined bird shook off the traumatic event and never looked back. Mike (it is unclear when the famous rooster took on the name) returned to his job of being a chicken. He pecked for food and preened his feathers just like the rest of his barnyard buddies. . . ."

You might want to check out the sculpture done in Mike's honor as well. 

"A cross-country race through France sets the stage as you earn mileage points, overcome traffic hazards and sabotage your opponents! Play 1,000 miles of cards and you win the game. This special Collector's Edition of MILLE BORNES brings back the bright and charming artwork of the original 1962 cards. The 110 cards are poker-sized, the rules booklet is easy to read, and the score sheets are large and convenient - just like they were in the original game! " 

Selections from this comprehensive list:

• It is reasonable to assume that the quality of the training of United States Marine Corps pilots is such that any Marine fly boy could hop into an alien spacecraft and immediately be able to fly it into deep space
• High class strippers with a heart of gold can operate most heavy equipment
• It is not beyond the realm of imagination that the President of the United States would be a fighter jock and would be willing to return to active duty to do battle with invincible alien bad guys
• Alien spacecraft the size of Australia can be taken out with one well-placed sidewinder missile
• Most laptops are configured with interfaces powerful enough to override the communications systems of the most sophisticated futuristic societies
• The most sophisticated labs in the world have impenetrable vault doors buried 30 stories into mountains but use regular hardware store glass panes for observation rooms in the lab nerve center
• The correct military honor for a hero who saves the world by sacrificing his own life by flying directly into the alien death ray is to clap and cheer wildly in front of the hero's family immediately after he perishes

 

Mr. Toast Tours The Solar System! 

From Chris Pirillo:

Your prayers have been answered! "Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer. It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a computer font that you can use in your word processor or graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica."

 

Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch:

By now, many have learned about how a search for miserable failure on Google brings up the official George W. Bush biography from the US White House web site. Dismissed by Google as not a problem, it points out a case where the real miserable failure is Google itself. This Google Bombing was done by at most a few hundred links pointing at the biography, if that many. Google annoyingly makes it impossible to tell exactly how many links are involved using the term, but to say that this particular campaign is the same as the "opinion on the web" is absurd. So only a few hundred people are able to speak for millions of web users? This isn't the web's opinion -- it's a particular opinion on the web. Calling Google Bombing "cybergraffiti" as the New York Times does is appropriate. Google did have good listings for this query, for the few who were probably doing it before this prank emerged. Now, Google appears happy for this blogging campaign (and now new ones) to spray paint whatever it wants above more relevant listings.

 

From Mike S. Adams, an associate professor at UNC-Wilmington:

In light of the on-going problems with tardiness and cell phones, I am going to modify my class policies this semester. I am not going to follow the advice of my anti-war colleagues who think that we need to talk to tardy cell phone people in order to find out why they hate us. Instead, I am going to let them do most of the talking. The specifics of my new policy follow:

If your cell phone goes off in class, or if you are late to class, you must write a 2500-word paper (minimum) entitled “The Death of Civility at the Postmodern University.” In this paper, you will be asked to write about the decline of civility in our public universities in recent decades. Please note that if you are late more than once, or if your cell phone goes off on more than one occasion, your paper must be a minimum of 5000 words. If you have three separate transgressions, you automatically fail the course. Finally, the paper must be of “A” quality in order for you to stay in the course. You will receive no other credit for completing this project, except, of course, for its positive impact upon your character.

 

From a BusinessWeek interview with Sharper Image company founder Richard Thalheimer:

Q: You're selling a range of products at all different prices, and many of them are more practical than the high-end gadgets that dominated the store just a few years ago. Why?

A: We found that more useful products tended to sell better. It was a real awakening to me that useful products had broader appeal. Now we still have fun stuff and glamorous products, but we also have items you can use every day, like our ultrasonic jewelry cleaner.

 

"We've taken our popular Gold-Plated Kazoo and surrounded it with a custom-designed wooden executive display box. These wooden boxes are designed and individually hand-crafted in solid walnut by Canadian craftsman, W. R. MacTavish. Each box has a tung oil finish, a real glass top, and a padded velvet lining. The Gold-Plated Kazoo fits perfectly inside the box. They have hidden barrel hinges and a hidden clasp, so the box stays closed. It can be displayed flat or standing up. It can even be hung on the wall. This item is only available here at Kazoobie Kazoos. We are building 24 units for sale this season." 

Jennifer Nelson in SFGate:

Berkeley Bowl is a fabulous market. The parking lot and many of the patrons, however, are not. I have never seen such angry people as I saw on my first visit to Berkeley Bowl (and every visit thereafter). These are people who drive used Volvos plastered with bumper stickers that say "Wage peace," "The truly educated never graduate" and "Barbara Lee speaks for me." But many of them have no patience and don't seem to think the rules of the road apply to them. After parking and shopping next to these folks for three years, I'm starting to think that a steady diet of edamame, veggie burgers, organic greens and soy milk makes people really, really angry.

 

A learning and entertainment center loaded with features youngsters and their parents will both love, this 13" color interactive TV helps parents control their child’s viewing habits. Up-to-date technology allows parents to lock channels, limit the number of viewing hours, and prohibit use of DVDs and VCRs, while a V-chip blocks movies and shows based on their ratings. There’s even a "power-on" quiz option that requires children to correctly answer a math question on screen before the TV will function. Designed for ages 4 to 8.  

Robin Good on a very neat bookmark manager called "delicious":

In practical terms delicious allows me to bookmark on the fly any content, Web site, article or resource I find online. No matter on which browser or OS I like to work I can use delicious by installing a simple bookmarklet in my preferred browser. Once installed, bookmarking a resource is just one-click away. When clicked, delicious automatically records URL and title of the resource while prompting me for a short description and for any number of tags I may want to attach to this information item. Just like similar boomarklets from popular blogging systems.

As you keep bookmarking relevant sources online and tagging them with appropriate keywords you automatically generate a multiple set of delicious views of your online resources which can also be viewed/filtered instantaneously through the tags (categories) you have attached to each one. You explore, discover, review, filter and share with others while following your own personal interests and goals.

Is there a better way to learn while enriching everyone else? Very strongly recommended.

 

Dick Morris:

From 1972 to 1999 or 2000 we had what I see as the Media Age in American politics--which empowered guys like me who do television commercials, fundraisers, fat-cat donors, special interests and a handful of people who became the new political elite. But starting, I think, with Clinton beating impeachment in '99, and going through the Dean campaign of 2004... the media is losing its power in politics and the Internet is gaining it.

If you just read the New York Times and Washington Post you get blindsided by all this stuff. It's the new age in which everybody is a publisher of a newspaper and they can circulate it to anyone who's interested in reading it. And that period of freedom--that free exchange of ideas, unmediated by who has a station license or can afford paper and ink--really I think is just the essence of the Internet era.

 

From New Scientist:

American football players sustain a blow to the head equivalent to a severe car crash in every game, a new study has found. Furthermore, players sustain an average of 50 knocks to the head, each equal to a boxer's punch, in every match, according to the first results from researchers at Virginia Tech. Stefan Duma and colleagues used helmet sensors on their college football team to measure the movement of the head due to blows. The average force of a blow was 40G - 40 times the force of gravity. "That's loosely analogous to a boxer punching another boxer with a gloved hand," says Duma, director of the Center for Injury Biomechanics. The most severe blows, at 120G, were "more analogous to a severe car crash", Duma told New Scientist and at least one or two such powerful hits occur during every game.

 

http://www.weather.com/weather/print/90210 will give you the 10 day forecast for Beverly Hills, California. To get the 10 day forecast for your city, just replace the "90210" with your zip code. 

From Barbara Simpson:

Mad Cow is a story with all the elements to grab the emotions of the public: a killer disease, tainted food, suffering animals, foolish bureaucrats, incompetent government, greedy corporations and enough blame to shovel everywhere a foot deep. But blame isn't the only thing that's a foot deep, and a lot of that has been shoveled via conservative talk radio. Conservatives sometimes just drive me nuts! It's bad enough when it's a neighbor or a family member, but when the radio talkers turn into script-spouting sheep, I see red.

The tragedy is not only the damage to us and our food supply, but that many ranchers have tried for years to have imports labeled and to have better feed-lot and slaughter-house inspections – to no avail. We'll pay the price and conservative talk hosts should stop making fun. The real story is there, if only they'd see it.

 

From Andrew Sullivan:

When you read a piece like this one by Arthur Miller, you realize that for a certain generation, there's no chance that they will ever get their heads around the horrors of communism. Here's Miller, dining with a murderer, thug and dictator, and finding some elegant way to remain committed to liberal principles. He can relay Castro's obvious megalomania; he can see his monstrous narcissism; but he still hangs in there, blaming the embargo for almost everything, mainly concerned that he's being kept up past his bedtime. He still longs for a world in which Castro might have succeeded, a world which cannot exist, and which never existed - except in the minds of aging Nation-readers. There is, I think, no chance of persuading this generation. They are lost. But eventually they will die off, and a new realism can take hold. Tick-tock.

 

By Marjorie Williams:

At long last, the revelation I've been waiting for: the reason why -- beyond the prospect of epic, McGovernesque defeat -- I feel so uneasy about Howard Dean.

The man is a doctor. This is the least-examined chapter of his career. But suddenly it all makes sense: Where else but in medicine do you find men and women who never admit a mistake? Who talk more than they listen, and feel entitled to withhold crucial information? Whose lack of tact in matters of life and death might disqualify them for any other field?

 

Local6.com:

Palm Beach County prosecutors investigating Rush Limbaugh for his prescription drug use have filed "doctor shopping" charges against only one person in the past five years, according to a review of court records.

Limbaugh's lawyer said the review by The Palm Beach Post in Saturday's editions offers more evidence that the conservative radio commentator is being unfairly targeted.

Doctor shopping, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, is duping at least two doctors into prescribing the same controlled substance in a 30-day period. Prosecutors are examining Limbaugh's medical records to determine whether he should be charged with "doctor shopping."

 

Every now and then you'll find one like this:

I was first diagnosed with cancer in March of 1991. The doctors agreed that even with surgery and the fifty-two chemotherapy treatments i underwent, i had roughly a ten percent chance of survival, but only for a year or so. I read all the literature, educated myself on diet and lifestyle, and bought a copy of 'Final Exit' just in case. But then.... I thought about my life, and death, a lot.... and decided the old saying i'd heard was true: it's not how you die, but rather how you live that counts. And i was determined to live as well as i could for as long as i could. In spite of more tumors, more surgeries, i count my blessings every day, for i love and am loved in return. In the time i've had which reason said i shouldn't, i have watched my children grow stronger, witnessed new life born to my family, and met the one to whom i am now wed. I believe with all my heart that the key to my struggle was attitude. My time remaining is a mystery as i realize i've been running on empty for over a decade; but for now, i enjoy the grace and wonder that is each flower, each child, each sunset, and each kindness received. Faced with my own mortality, i finally learned how to live.

Hold me in your heart, that i might live forever.
Anne Mathewson
2003

 

Some Highlights:

. . . U.S. coalition-building efforts are dealt a severe blow when France announces that it will not participate in the impending Iraq invasion, a decision that, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "could seriously impair our ability to surrender."

American citizens show their disdain for all things French by boycotting French wine, calling french fries "freedom fries," and taking showers.

American Airlines, in a move to cut labor costs, replaces some pilots with baggage handlers, but stresses that this change applies "only to daytime flights."

In entertainment news, CNN switches to a new format that consists entirely of Larry King talking to former prosecutors about Laci Peterson.

On the crime front, Martha Stewart is indicted on charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice. "Also," states a federal prosecutor, "we believe that some of her casseroles contained human body parts."  

The Telescope Game (via Fishbucket) 

The AtlanticBlog reports on this late-breaking development:

Finally done with traveling, I returned to Cork to learn from my wife that it is now possible to buy A&W root beer in Cork. I have never before seen root beer of any sort in Ireland before. Now if only they bring an actual A&W to Cork, and I will be in permanent bliss.

I've got to find out where it's now sold in Cork. My American-born cousin Patty lives near there and every family member who goes over to visit is required to bring root beer with them. Her kids savor it like it's champagne. This could be huge (well, at least for us!). Developing . . .  

Shocking Roulette Game:

Feel The Fear! Fear isn't the only thing you'll feel when you play this exciting game of chance. It's truly electrifying! Select the number of players, put your finger in one of the four slots, and let it "spin." Lights and sounds start out fast and gradually slow down (just like a roulette wheel) to prolong the tension. When the sound stops, someone gets the shock of their life -- and everyone else gets a big laugh! Victims are selected at random electronically, so you never know who's next. Sure to be a scream at your next party. Not recommended for small children, cowards, the extremely unlucky, Russians or persons with a medical condition.

 

This man, who is a descendant of Davy Crockett, is The Guinness Book of World Records holder for greatest number of hours on network commercial television. He is a bit too calm, bordering on severely boring and dull. He hosted the game show 'Concentration' (1958-69). Any guesses? 

From Scrubbles.net:

I heard it in a restaurant two days ago. Like the flu, it lingers on. Dan Fogelberg's "Longer", which ascended into the Billboard Top 10 exactly 24 years ago, has to be the wimpiest song ever. Fogelberg sings as if he were strolling through a meadow, plucking petals off a daisy. There's even a fey trumpet solo. Gag me with a granola bar! Outside the occasional 'American Idol' contestant, one doesn't hear much sensitive male balladry these days - and never anything as passive as ol' Fogey. Can anybody top this?

Hopefully not! 

Ben Stein follows this program:

1. I am powerless over other people's anger and envy.
2. I have all the strength I need when I turn all of my problems over to God.
3. My life here and everywhere is unmanageable by me. But it is child's play to God.
4. One day at a time is the answer to everything.
5. There is only one real wealth: peace of mind.
6. My greatest power comes from my surrender to God's will every moment of every day.
7. Fear is the common human condition. The only solution that lasts is faith in God.
8. What happens to me is not terribly important.
9. I cannot control other people, and when I try, it leads to disaster.
10. Acceptance of God's will is my only option today. It is not a choice but a necessity.
11. The problem in our lives is powerlessness. The solution is also powerlessness.
12. What is health? Put your trust in God and go on with your day's work.
13. Self-pity is prison: I want out.
14. Envy is as bad for me as strychnine. I won't drink any of it.
15. My job today is to do a bit of work and stay calm and not hurt anyone, including myself. That's it.
16. Today, I am not going to judge. Not even myself.
17. Today, I will stay away from people who are foreseeably harmful.
18. Instead of trying to figure out the universe, I will think about what I am going to have for lunch.
19. I am not the director of the movie of my life. That is a far greater power than I will ever be.
20. What happens to me today is what is happening to one of eight billion people on this earth. That should give me an idea of how important I am.

 

Celebrity Guest Voices on the Simpsons  

Experience the exciting thrill of weightlessness. Bounce up high in the air, flipping forward and backward. A special harness safety feature keeps players centered over the trampoline.  

Radio Controlled Blimps in 4 foot or 6 foot models 

"As married people sometimes reaffirm their vows, Gallagher believes corporations should reaffirm their relationship to the community they live in. Gallagher dares Maytag of Newton, Iowa to publicly define their decision-making to Galesburg, Illinois or Amana, Iowa or their Hoover plant in Ohio.

Sample vows between a corporation and community:

I vow never to leave you.
I vow to be mindful of what we mean to each other.
I vow to remember that money isn't everything.
I vow to listen, to respect, to cooperate, to talk.
I vow to pledge allegiance at board meetings like they do at schools and union halls.

Maytag presently refuses to pay any property taxes in Galesburg Illinois, causing the dismissal of teachers, firemen and community programs. They refuse to talk to the Mayor, state officials, union officials or workers, and then surprise them with a plant closing. They hold their stockholders meeting at 7 a.m. in the morning and refused the Lt. Governor of Illinois a chance to talk, but he talked anyway and got a huge cheer.

Fred Maytag said there are things in business that can't be valued with money. If the business of America is business, don't give the business away. You're giving away our country.

That's my Iowa and my Illinois. I sell tickets in small towns across America. Laughter is a discretionary expenditure like vacations and conventions. Who does Arnold Schwarzenegger think is coming to California if the Midwest is losing its manufacturing base? " 

Mona Charen:

Time magazine has chosen the American soldier as its Person of the Year. Ha! Meaning no disrespect at all to the world's finest fighting force, I have a feeling that the excellence of our men at arms had little to do with this decision. No, it seems pretty evident that the editors of Time were desperate to find someone, anyone, to name instead of George W. Bush.

 

“If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”
-- Charles Pierce in a January 5 Boston Globe Magazine article. Kopechne drowned while trapped in Kennedy’s submerged car off Chappaquiddick Island in July 1969, an accident Kennedy did not report for several hours. (via MRC)