Holy Shit.

Its finally happened.  I started getting a bad feeling when corporate sponsors started not just advertising at sporting events, but buying the naming rights, and the events themselves.  Soon companies were looking for opportunities to buy anything they could get their hands on and rename.

Well now even the government is apparently for sale; and not just the traditional back-room-lobbyist-for-sale we're used to.  20th century Fox has commissioned a special edition US quarter that is legal tender.  It has the Silver Surfer on the back and lists the Fantastic Four movie website.  You read that right, advertising on our money.  How perverse is that?

I like the Silver Surfer and everything, but this gives me the jibblies.  How long before I see the Exxon-Mobile Presidential motorcade or the Mountain Dew Supreme Court?

• Silver Surfer Quarters - Marvel.com news

There's A Special Place For People Like That.

Usually when someone dies all you hear are accolades about what a difference he made, or how good a man he was.  Even if, during his life, many people had many different opinions, somehow death brings out a reverence that joins us all together in mourning.  Unless he was a real douche bag who made offensive, ignorant and small minded statements about as often as he exhaled.  Leave it to the Slate to line up an epitaph sampling crap that spilled from Jerry Falwell's trap.

• Jerry Falwell's hit parade. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine

Selling Cars Takes Bawls.

Chevy is very proud of their new Malibu design. So much so that the best way they can think to sell it is to put a Camry right next to it in the show room. Ah the old coke-pepsi taste test routine. Wait, was that pepsi-coke taste test? Who ran those things and what were they sposed to prove? Crap.

But I digress, Chevy is renting a crap-load of Camrys to put in their show-rooms so customers can kick tires and compare the two without having to leave the dealer. They never want you to leave the dealer. Its hard to tell if the gambit will work out, cause people might not agree that the Malibu is better, and they still have to convince shoppers to stop at a Chevy dealer to begin with. But at least they're rolling the dice.

Bottom line this means for car buyers: there are going to be a bunch of used Camrys hitting the market in 18 months that have almost no miles on them. But the seats will be blown out and the surfaces will have disgusting people grease all over them.

• Chevy dealers told to get a Camry to sell their Malibus - Autoblog

Don't Buy Anything.

Here's the set-up: Guy goes to China, buys a bunch of terrible fake watches as souvenirs for family.  Customs confiscates them and later contacts him with a $55,300 fine based on the street value of real Rolexes.

Sounds rough, right?  Especially when you realize that these are terrible, terrible watches that no one would possibly mistake for a Rolex, and the fine is being levied because they "infringe" on the Rolex Trademark.  Secondly, why is the US government assessing this fine at the border, rather than letting Rolex take up the cause if they deem it worthwhile?  And third, why the hell is a consumer being fined for trademark infringement?  Shouldn't it be the manufacturer of vendor that pays the price.  Trademarks are meant to protect consumers from being tricked into believing an imitation product is authentic, not to confer ownership of the mark.  This guy wasn't selling the watches, so there is no consumer to "protect" except maybe the victim of this ridiculousness.

• Techdirt: That Fake Rolex You Buy In China May Cost You More Than The Real Thing

There's A Reason F1 Doesn't Use Plastic Tires.

Take Lombard street in San Francisco, close it, and add a few hundred people racing down in costumes on Big Wheels and you'll have a spectacle so grand it can only be captured by Internet video. Luckily we're smack in the middle of the Internet video age, so you didn't miss out completely by not stealing your kid-brother's big wheel and last year's Halloween costume. Seriously, watch at least one video about this avalanche of costumed miscreants.

• Laughing Squid: BYOBW2007

Babies Get Terrible Gas Mileage.

That being said, you're still not allowed to trade your baby for a car. A woman traded her 5-month old to a couple in Colorado for a used Dodge Intrepid and an "unspecified amount of cash." Wow; now that's leveraging your assets. The three are in police custody and the kiddo is in a foster home. I can't help but wonder what a baby actually goes for on the black market, and obviously I have no idea. But I think it'd be more than the cost of a used Intrepid.

• AutoBlog: Baby Used as Down Payment

Send Grandma Up The River.

That means 'to jail', right? The new anti-gambling frenzy the US has taken lately is fairly bizarre. They're taking to jailing anyone even associated with online gambling. Well watch out cause they've got one high profile bar matron in custody for running a $50 superbowl pool. Yeah that's right, a 73 year old great-grandmother could face a year in the slammer for something that pretty much everyone in your office did. We've got to make an example out of her though, otherwise people might start thinking that gambling is reasonable.

• TechDirt: Operator Of World's Smallest Gambling Ring Faces Jailtime

Feck you.

Yeah, I've got shit to talk about, did it ever occur to you that I've got better shit to do? Well It appears I don't at 12:18 in the morning, so here we go:

Uh... underground highways, aren't you guys about 50 years too late? I mean, sure I've had visions of the interstate system in a huge tube, no animals in, no emissions out, but that's just silly. Building highways underground at this point looks to be little better than putting walls around freeways. Those retaining walls hold less noise than a three fingered beggar holds ball bearings.

• Tree Hugger: Time to build highways undergound?

Why Would I Watch The News?

I can just make up random facts to believe on my own. Did you know that stars are actually chunks of hot meteor orbiting around the Earth? See? It wasn't that hard.

Isn't there some kind of punishment for false inflammatory statements meant to injure the reputation of an individual or group? I mean, I know that Fox News isn't responsible for repeating the completely slanderous information about Barack Obama, they're just ridiculously negligent and will never be taken seriously again. But someone at Insight Magazine needs to go down hard. Moreover, good for Obama for not taking that crap. Click through to read the statement released about douche bags in the media.

• Horses Mouth: Obama Takes On Fox News
  

Bush Really Buckles Down.

President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he'll announce in the new year.

Dammit people, I've spent over three hours thinking about this already and I just can't come up with anything. Will you get off my ass? I mean, ideas can't just be thought up. You've gotta wait for them to come to you. Tidy up your desk. Organize your pens. Play a little solitaire. I'm sure by mid-May there'll be a dynamite plan just waiting in my inbox. Man, my brain hurts. Does anyone else smell burning? Maybe I'll declare a holiday so I don't have to go back to work on Tuesday...

• Bush Taking More Time to Craft Iraq Plan - Forbes.com

I Don't Have Any Kids To Think About.

Uh-oh FCC looks like you're on shaky ground. Ever since that boobslip a while ago (still can't believe I missed that) the FCC has been imposing mystery fines on networks with taboo content. But rather than tell the offenders what is allowed and what is not there are a set of vague 'guidelines'. The effect is that once in a while a network will get a bill in the mail that says "you shouldn't have done that."

Well 3 judges yesterday questioned that practice as well as the root issue of "won't somebody please think of the children?" The FCC is often coerced into regulating content by "Family" groups who loathe inappropriate material and wish the government would shelter their kids. The court noted that the FCC (very rightly) has no jurisdiction over cable broadcasts where kids are much more likely to see the good stuff. The FCC and the government can't protect your shorties from dirty jokes, and if the best way you can think to monitor their activities is to have the government do it, you need to do some thinkin'.

Unless of course the kids are just an excuse and the real reason you're complaining to some magical authority is that you don't think anyone should be watching this stuff. Well too damn bad. This country affords certain freedoms. Movement, assembly, flag burnin and raunchy TV. Hell, its the reason why you're allowed to think that we should all be sheltered like your 5-year-old. But I disagree, so shut the fuck up.

• Techdirt: Court Not Buying FCC's Claims Over Indecency Fines

How To Really Stick It To The Cops.

Here's one you don't hear too often: refuse to have a bullet removed from your body what will be used as evidence against you. Apparently it was a used car-lot robbery gone wrong. Some street toughs started shooting at the owner and he shot back, striking one of the kids in the forehead. I've often thought a bullet to the forehead would kill you, but apparently the "bullet struck the teenager and borrowed into the soft, fatty tissue of his forehead." I wonder how much fatty tissue we're talking about. Was this guy a real porker, or does everyone have the ability to absorb bullets?

His friends ratted him out as being at the scene but upon questioning, the youth denied participating in the shooting. "The officers noticed the guy looks like hell. One of his eyes is black and he has a big old knot on his forehead," Rodriguez said. "He tells police he got hurt playing basketball." The cops got a warrant for the removal of the evidence but bone growths required special equipment and surgery. After the second warrant and availability of suitable medical facilities doctors again refrained from the procedure. Doctors agree that removing the bullet is not a dangerous action, but it seems that the patient's right supersede desires of the prosecution.

Moral of the story, kids, need to hide something from the cops? Don't put it in a cavity, shoot yourself with it.

• Teen fights removal of bullet in head - Yahoo! News

Go Get A Dog.

Especially if you're in an area likely to be hit by a sudden heavy snowstorm. An elderly couple was trapped in a sudden storm out at a shack on their property. They'd been tending to injured birds when trees began to fall and snow blocked their return. Luckily their 160 lb German Shepard-Timber Wolf dug a 20 ft tunnel though the snow and forced them to crawl through.

How are the birds? Dead, imagine. But its good to see a neglected puppy grow up and make good. Next up for Shana, the E! True Hollywood story of her life.

Coming Soon To Your City: Martial Law.

I'm sure its like a carnival, only with more guns and less carnies. The article below details several steps and laws that have essentially given the president power to conscript state national guards, send them to non-local domestic areas and institute martial law. The second part allows for torture and detention over seas. They use provisions set forth under the Regan Administration "in the event of a crisis such as violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad." This was passed as a small rider to the 'defense authorization bill conference report' that raised little debate because it its timing. Senator Patrick Leahy is the only person asking questions about why these provisions are necessary. I'm sure there's more to this than I understand right now, but it sounds not good. Just keep you ears open.

• Slashdot | Bush Signs Bill Enabling Martial Law

original article: Toward Freedom - Bush Moves Toward Martial Law