The World's Number One Weekly Weblog - Issue 41 - Week of 09/23/2002 - Monday Edition
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Humor, Satire, Animation and News

Bush Resents Hitler Comparison

George Dubya Bush

Washington (IWR Satire) -- George Bush today demanded an apology today from  German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin  for comparing Mr. Bush to Adolf Hitler.

"Mein Kampf, er, my pride was hurt when I heard that the das vaterland's, er, German Justice Minister's comments comparing me with that schweinehund, Hitler," said an infuriated President Bush as he goose stepped across the White House lawn. <Discuss>

The Week in Humor and Kitsch

• Make Your Own Bush Speech (BX)
  Yes.  Now you can make your own Bush political speech in Dubya's own words.

• NewZoid Headlines
  A William S. Burroughs cut-up approach to headlines or "Headlines from Parallel Worlds" as NewZoid would put it.  Pretty funny stuff.

• Electrolux Kelvinator: Washy Talky (BB)
  Meet Washy Talky.  Here are some of Washy Talky Samples [takes awhile to load].  It loops so remember to close the lid.

• Flight of the Chickenhawks
  This a great political and sci-fi parody [Flash] of those pesky chickenhawks.

• Try this at home (BX)
  Here's what your Lego people are up to during the night.

• Radio gives mighty roar to quiet cars
  This is just what I need to spruce up my old Geo Prism.  Vroom! Vroom!

• Groucho Marx to Warner Bros (BB)
  Great letter from Groucho Marx to Warner Brothers over the use of name "Casablanca" in the Marx Brothers "A Night in Casablanca".
  
  "I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan or releasing your picture [Casablanca], I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try"

• Bill Gates is Satan According to Google
  Type "go to hell" with the quotes in Google and see what the top page is.

• World, Meet Roomba
  Now you can dance all day to rumba music because Roomba will vacuum all your dirty carpets for you.

• Hubzilla
  You gotta see this one.  It almost makes we want to go out and buy a Mac!

• Mystic Pizzas?
  It looks like bad planning by the Scottish firm planning to sell pizzas to Italy, because Italians are planning to boycott pizza and pasta in anti-euro protest.  I can't imagine ordering a pizza from a guy in kilts anyway!   BTW, here is an article on the pizza in Naples.

• Snow White goes Kung Fu
  Somehow, I just can't imagine Snow White karate kicking Bashful in the crotch.   Grumpy perhaps, but not Bashful.

• Fayetteville Pickle recipe gets a bit saucy
  Hold the pickle.

• Making McDonald's Healthier
  The Onion has some ideas to make McDonald's food Healthier.

• The Duke of Dubya?
  So that explains his imperial presidency.

• Five Ways To Spend $1 Billion (SD)
  Fortune Magazine takes a shot at parody.  I like the geek one best.

• False Advertising - A Gallery of Parody
  A humorous look at corporate messages and logos.  Here is a good one for Prozac.

Jackie Chan to Star in a Kung Fu Version of "It's a Wonderful Life"

Jackie Chan

Hollywood (IWR Satire)  In a promotional announcement today, DreamWorks productions announced that Jackie Chan will be staring this Christmas season as George Bailey in a Kung Fu remake of "It's a Wonderful Life".

You'll watch with awe as George Bailey cleans up Bedford Falls, once and for all, as he karate kicks Mr. Potter out of his wheelchair whenever he shows his ugly mug in town!
<Full Story>

Animal Crackers

• The beaver cried uncle (F)
  An 87 year-old man turns up CBC Radio all night long to aggravate some pesky beavers, and, presto, no more beavers!

• Scientists teach old owls new tricks
  See you're never to old to learn.  Well at least if you are an owl, that is.

• Mutation gives sheep beautiful buttocks
  OK, but I wonder what kind of wacky tobaccy they are smoking at Duke these days.

"Let's Execute That Liberal Mister Rogers" -- Ann Coulter

Mister Rogers

Washington (IWR Satire)  -- Last Night on the O'Reilly Factor, Ann Coulter was quoted as saying that  Mister Rogers should be executed and used an example for liberals and all their tainted  offspring.

"I get tired of hearing Mister Rogers spout all this liberal gibberish about love, compassion and tolerance.   Mister Rogers has the worst possible advice for our kids.   I mean is he like gay or something?

<Full Story>

Animation and Shorts

09/23/2002 -  The world's greatest animator, Hayao Miyazaki, has a new film that is being  released [even as we speak] at various theaters in the USA. Here is the Spirited Away Trailer [QuickTime 5].  Miyazaki's [Studio Ghibli] beautifully detailed backgrounds put Disney's to shame.  The subtitled version is available on DVD.

Featured on Wired this week was Joe's Story 01 and Harvard has some time lapse movies of the Crab Pulsar Wind.

09/16/2002 -  Lots of Robots and RocketPants are two great shorts by Andy Murdock [Quicktime].  Here is a teaser from Pixar's - For the Birds.  Also from Animation Express, there is Livro (Book), and how about a Flash on the spread of the West Nile Virus.

09/09/2002 - Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels is a great short by Extinction Stinks!, Vancouver Indymedia (BB).  Also from Animation Express, is Power of Art (Erotic Rabbit) by Valdimir Denizoff and Mr. Man in The Fool by Steve Whitehouse.

09/02/2002 - Perk is an excellent Hungarian animation of an unemployed mine goblin [Quicktime].   Punk Kittens is a rather silly Flash but worth a quick look.  The Animatrix is a new anime movie to be released in 2003 [QuickTime 5 Trailer]. 

Parody Newsline

Bush Sends Troops To West Nile
The Onion (09/18/2002)

President Releases Confiscated Top-Secret Iraqi Documents
Whitehouse.org (09/18/2002)

Bush's Iraq Policy 101 [Funny, but so true!]
Political Humor on About.com

Political Humor

Special Ops
by Mark Fiore

This Modern World
by Tom Tomorrow

Boondocks
by Aaron McGruder

It's All Downhill, Jack
Art Buchwald, WP (09/17/2002)

NewsWeird

• Duct Tape Wall Tapings (BB)
  Don't this at home.

• Miss Universe fired
  Russia's Beautiful Oxana Fedorova was fired as Miss Universe and replaced with Miss Panama, Justine Pasek [oolala!]. 

• Forget Mars bars, Twinkies now the deep-fried treat (BB)
  Yuck!

• Virgin footballers can't score
  You got to love this headline, anyway. I mean its a real philosophical conundrum.  Is the reason the footballers can't score is because they are virgins or are they virgins because they can't score?

• Rival blamed for China poisoning
  This certainly is taking competition too far!

• Daughters sue the Godfather of Soul
  Say it ain't so James Brown?

• The Official Fetish Map? (BB)
  How all fetishes are related? 

• Sexy Pin-Ups Model Coffins for Funeral Home
  Isn't this taking sex and death too far?

Sites

Computing and Technology

The Week in Computing

• Delete the workers [SysAdmins]
  According to the Economist, Sun has a  "covert nerd-reduction program" named N1.
  
  IF THE number of Elvis impersonators continues to grow at the current rate, it will exceed the earth's human population around 2010, it is said. The nerds in the typical firm's IT support department are proliferating nearly as fast. According to IBM, growing complexity means that the number of IT workers required globally to support a billion people and millions of firms connected via the Internet—possible within the next decade—may be over 200m, two-thirds of America's population.

  But fear not. Help is at hand for anybody who fears that their office is about to be swamped by Playstation addicts. It comes in the form of N1, a new sort of über-operating system unveiled on September 19th by Sun Microsystems, a computer maker. N1 will make it much easier to run corporate data centres—thus eliminating much of the work now done by armies of systems administrators. "

• Law firm out $2.1 million in African fraud
  The Detroit Free Press reports that a bookkeeper at Law Firm in the area fell hard the so-called Nigerian spam scam.  As P.T. Barnum once said: "There's a sucker born every minute."

• Google Launches News Service
  Google News is a cool tool for news searches.  You can search over 4000 news sources by category, e.g., Sci/Tech, and it will list stories by topic with the age of the article in hours listed on top of each result.

• Learn for free online
  MIT sees OpenCourseware (OCW) as the new wave for the future.   This is a brilliant use of the Internet by taking the OpenSource philosophy and applying it to the cyber classroom.  The MIT site calls it's direction, an "unprecedented step [that] challenges 'privatization of knowledge'". Imagine being able to take nearly any class at MIT for free!!!

• The Antikythera mechanism
  The economist reports on this intriguing device which was found on shipwreck around 1900 could really be an ancient astronomical computer used by the ancient Greeks.

• Withdrawing Into Our Cells
  Interesting LA Times article on the state of affairs on "cell yell".   

Security, Scams, Hacks and Patches

The thin gray line
CNET (09/23/2002)

MS silently fixes password sniffing bug with XP SP1
Register (09/19/2002)

Cybersecurity Draft Plan Soft on Business, Observers Say
TechNews (09/19/2002)

Two flaws taint Microsoft's Java
CNET (09/18/2002)

Politics and Business Computing

The Packaging of Video on Demand
NYT (09/23/2002)

Reporters Find New Outlet, and Concerns, in Web Logs
NYT (09/23/2002)

Demand for IT Workers Drops Sharply
Internet News (09/23/2002)

Sticker Shock Still Reigns In Broadband
CBS (09/23/2002)

Want A Date? We All Cal With ICal
Wired (09/21/2002)

IBM, MS reject MySQL (SD)
InfoWorld (09/20/2002)

Apple, IBM Team on 64-Bit CPU
Eweek (09/20/2002)

Greek gaming tragedy turns to farce
Register (09/19/2002)

MS slammed for antitrust deal violations in XP, Win2k SPs
Register (09/18/2002)

The New Challenge to Microsoft
NYT (09/18/2002)

Trade group: P2P not illegal or immoral
CNET (09/17/2002)

Sites

Science and Health

The Week in Science and Health

• Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates
  Good article on how Right-Wing governments, with their "winner-takes-all" politics, lead to feelings of dispare in those who are not part of the ruling elite.   I wonder how the suicide rate will fair during the Bush Administration's tenure?

Psychology, History and Human Origins

Maya Carvings Tell of 2 Superpowers
NYT (09/19/2002)

Brain probe triggers out-of-body experiences
NS (09/19/2002)

Civil War Submariners' Teeth Tell Much About the Men
NG (09/19/2002)

How food benefits mood
BBC (09/17/2002)

Health

Your genetic code on a disc
BBC (09/23/2002)

California defies Bush on stem cells
BBC (09/23/2002)

Hope for arthritis treatment
BBC (09/21/2002)

Stem Cells Key to Diabetes Cure
Wired (09/20/2002)

Green Tea May Fight Allergies
SD (09/19/2002)

Parasites may sap male longevity
NS (09/19/2002)

Animal Behavior and Evolution

Dinosaur like chicken-rabbit cross
N (09/19/2002)

'Weird' Bucktoothed Dino Found in China
NG (09/18/2002)

Astronomy, Physics and Space

Bright dust rings highlight Earth-like planets
NS (09/23/2002)

Crystal remembers sounds
N (09/23/2002)

Nova in Sagittarius
ST (09/22/2002)

Earth's magnetic field 'boosts gravity'
NS (09/22/2002)

Cosmic polarization detected from South Pole
NS (09/19/2002)

Rings around Earth shaped past climate: study
CNN (09/19/2002)

Signs of water found on distant planets
NS (09/19/2002)

Antimatter is mass-produced
BBC (09/18/2002)

"Runaway Universe" May Collapse In 10 Billion Years, New Studies Predict
SD (09/17/2002)

Midsize Black Holes in Midsize Star Clusters
ST (09/17/2002)

India Offers Cheaper Taxi Rides into Space
SpaceDaily (09/16/2002) (SD)

Environment and Nature

Building the underground computer railroad
Salon (09/23/2002)

Community forestry takes root in Bolivia
BBC (09/21/2002)

Bush Orders Streamlined Transportation Project Reviews
ENS (09/19/2002)

Russia Struggles with Post-Soviet Nuclear Legacy 
ENS (09/19/2002)

Vietnam Takes Stock of Environmental Degradation
ENS (09/19/2002)

Will Global Warming Improve Crop Production?
SD (09/19/2002)

Africa's deserts are in "spectacular" retreat
NS (09/18/2002)

Scientists Map Global Air Pollution
ENS (09/18/2002)

Distemper Kills Thousands of European Seals
ENS (09/17/2002)

Sites

Politics and Commentary

The Weekly Rant

• New Strategy Courts Unseen Dangers
  Peter Slevin of the Washington Post points out the risks associated with the new "Bush doctrine":
  
  'Just as Russia, India and Israel cited last year's U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan to justify aggressive measures against opponents they labeled terrorists, a preemptive attack by the United States on another country could prompt other governments to bypass the United Nations and launch a unilateral strike against a foe.

  "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," said Oxford University professor Adam Roberts. "I have to say it puzzles America's allies that that danger doesn't seem to be fully grasped."'

• The Iraq debate gets curiouser and curiouser
  Molly Ivins makes the point:
  
  If you add up all the reasons that the administration has advanced for going after Saddam, the only thing left to say is: "We need to take out Pervez Musharraf right now!" Musharraf has destroyed democracy in his country; he's backing terrorists in India, our democratic ally; his CIA was hand-in-glove with al Qaeda; his military is riddled with militant Islamists; his madrassas teach hatred of the West; his heroes are Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler; and he not only has nukes -- he's threatened to use them.

• Culture War With B-2's
  Maureen Dowd sizes up the Bush Administration Iraq policy:
  
  "The administration isn't targeting Iraq because of 9/11. It's exploiting 9/11 to target Iraq. This new fight isn't logical — it's cultural. It is the latest chapter in the culture wars, the conservative dream of restoring America's sense of Manifest Destiny. "

• Great expectations
  "Emperors from Alexander to Julian headed eastwards, into the ancient Middle East and beyond, to fulfill their dreams of becoming Asian princes. They were swallowed up by the vastness ahead of them. The U.S. may want to heed that message as it embarks on its first imperial venture since the end of the Cold War."

• White House, in Shift, Backs Inquiry on 9/11
  The worms in the White House have finally turned.  After providing nothing but barriers To 9/11 Inquiry for months, the Bush Administration finally caved in to the calls of victims for a blue ribbon commission to investigate the 9/11 tragedy.  It's about time that they listened to people like Kristen Breitweiser, the co-chairperson of the 9/11 Advocates.  What took you so long Dubya?

• We Need Answers, Mr. Bush
  The LA Times poses some question that the Bush Administration needs to answer before attacking Iraq.

• The Fifty-First State?
  James Fallows of Atlantic Magazine asks the key question.  Are we ready to make Iraq our 51st state?
  
  "Going to war with Iraq would mean shouldering all the responsibilities of an occupying power the moment victory was achieved. These would include running the economy, keeping domestic peace, and protecting Iraq's borders—and doing it all for years, or perhaps decades. Are we ready for this long-term relationship? "

• The Smoking Gun: Limbaugh's Glee
  The Smoking Gun lets the air out Limbaugh's balloon.  I wonder if Rush still has that war deferring cyst in his chickenhawk butt?

• A crack house divided: Noelle Bush case shows Bush's conservatism isn't compassionate -- or even consistent
  Arianna Huffington proposes that Jeb Bush and family evicted from the Governor's Mansion as any person who lives in public housing would if their daughter was caught using crack!!!

Commentary and News of the Week

Suddenly, Jeb Bush in Close Race
David Von Drehle, WP (09/23/2002)

Twenty Years For Shaving?
Editorial, WP (09/23/2002)

The Costs of Bursting Bubbles
Stephen S. Roach [Morgan Stanley], NYT (09/22/2002)

Politics Over Principle [Democrats]
David S. Broder, WP (09/22/2002)

11 Million Acres of Shame
Editorial, LAT (09/22/2001)

Middle East and The War on Terrorism

Gulf veterans leery of another war (C)
Foster, Rocky Mountain News (09/21/2002)

Shoot First - Bush's whitewashed national security manifesto.
William Saletan, Slate (09/20/2002)

Just Asking... (C)
Eric Alterman, The Nation (09/19/2002)

Great expectations
Michael Young, Reason (09/19/2002)

Cooling as the Clock Ticks
Richard Cohen, WP (09/19/2002)

Iraq invasion could 'worsen terrorist threat'
NewScientist (09/18/2002)

U.S. Failed to Act on Warnings in '98 of a Plane Attack
James Risen, NYT (09/18/2002)

Saddam's concessions will never be enough for the US
Simon Tisdall, G (09/18/2002)

Lemon Fizzes on the Banks of the Euphrates
Maureen Dowd, NYT (09/18/2002)

Iraq, Upside Down
Thomas Friedman, NYT (09/18/2002)

Untested administration hawks clamor for war
James Bamford, USAToday (09/17/2002) (C)

Recipes for Death
Nicholas Kristof, NYT (09/17/2002)

Bush Administration

Conscience of Convenience
Fred Hiatt, WP (09/23/2002)

The Bush Doctrine
Editorial, NYT (09/22/2002)

The End of Deterrence
Carol Brightman, LAT (09/22/2002)

Persistence on Iraq Pays Off for Bush
Dana Milbank, WP (09/20/2002)

HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views
Rick Weiss, WP (09/17/2002)

Cronies in Arms
Paul Krugman, NYT (09/17/2002)