!! D-I-S-R-E-S-P-E-C-T !!

On U.S. Vice-President Cheney's attire at a solemn ceremony commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz, Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan writes "The vice president was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower"

While other leaders such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots, Cheney "was resplendent in a green parka embroidered with his name and featuring a fur-trimmed hood, the laced brown boots and a knit ski cap reading "Staff 2001.""

Sheesh, what a dolt.

Wacky Packages

If you're as old a I am, you might remember Wacky Packages. Wacky Packages were produced by the O-Pee-Chee Candy Company in London, Ontario and were at the height of their popularity in the 1970's. Each pack contained a paper thin stick of rock hard chewing gum, and several stickers that spoofed popular products of the day. I had HUNDREDS of them (I wish I had kept more of the junk I had as a kid - it would be worth a fortune today) .

This one was my favourites. If you want to see more, check out Greg Grant's Wacky Packages web page at www.wackypackages.org/

Here you can find image of almost every sticker. There is even a section on "Gum" (apparently that's a collectable too??)

U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV

The Onion | U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV

Condoleeza Rice looks like the Taco Bell dog!

I saw this picture on Dan Miller's FABULOUS website, planetdan.net

Dan created it after reading the following quote in The Onion about the U.S. Senate confirmation of Rice as Secretary of State:

"Great. Now the public face of U.S. diplomacy is that of a pissed-off terrier."
—Ted Ramos, Upholsterer

An actress is nothing without a meaty part.

My friend John is quite the videophile, and he's always finding these obscure movies that I have never heard of. Last time I visited, we watched one called "Girls Will Be Girls", and I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. The synopsis from the film's website reads:

"Evie, an aging actress in the twi-dark of her career, drinks her way through the day, longing to jump-start her career and any man in the vicinity. Her roommate and verbal punching bag, Coco, only yearns for one thing: to have a child with the doctor that performed her abortion. When Varla, a country girl with a bit of an eating disorder and her own dreams of making it as an actress, joins the household, their aspirations and sordid pasts come to an unforgettable boiling point."

What makes the film so funny is that all three characters are played by men in drag! Anything I write here can not do it justice, so click the link below to go to the SRO Pictures website to view the trailer.

Girls Will Be Girls

Seperated at birth?

Does anyone else find this spooky?

Talk about easy money!

From the Associated Press

Omaha, Neb. — A web-page designer who auctioned off the use of his forehead for advertising space is letting it go to his head.

Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, who put his forehead for sale on eBay as advertising space, received $37,375 (U.S.) on Friday to advertise the snoring remedy, SnoreStop.

Fischer will display the SnoreStop logo on his forehead for one month.

Lesbians with long fingers better at parking!

'Bad' women drivers: hormone link - From The BBC OnLine

Map reading and parking may prove difficult for some women because they were exposed to too little testosterone in the womb, researchers suggest.

The study, in the journal Intelligence, fuels the age-old male myth that women are deficient in these skills.

Scientists from the University of Giessen, Germany, found a lack of the hormone affects spatial ability.

Low testosterone levels are also linked to shorter wedding ring fingers, they say.

The research looked at the spatial, numerical and verbal skills of 40 student volunteers.

Spatial skill is the ability to assess and orientate shapes and spaces. Map reading and parking are spatial skills which men often say women lack. Women tend to disagree.

The researchers also looked at the length of the students' wedding and index fingers.

In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men, the ring finger tends to be much longer than the index.

For one of the spatial tests, volunteers had to tell which of five drawings could not be rotated so it looked like the other four.

The other test involved the ability to think in 3D by mentally "unfolding" a complex shape.

Overall, men achieved higher scores in the tests than women.

But women with the male pattern of finger length did better than those whose wedding finger was shorter.

They also scored better on the numerical tests.

Writing in Intelligence, the researchers, led by Dr Petra Kempel, said women who had 'male-like' finger length ratio patterns outperformed other women.

They added that the differences seen within the group studied were "remarkable."

Another study controversially suggested that finger length ratio could also be linked to sexual orientation, with lesbian women having a greater difference in length between their ring finger and index finger than straight women do.

Talk about paranoid...

Christians issue gay warning on SpongeBob video

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Conservative Christian groups accuse the makers of a video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon characters of promoting homosexuality to children.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.

"A short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality," wrote Ed Vitagliano in an article for the American Family Association.

The video is a remake of the 1979 hit song "We Are Family" using the voices and images of SpongeBob, Barney, Winnie the Pooh, Bob the Builder, the Rugrats and other TV cartoon characters. It was made by a foundation set up by songwriter Nile Rodgers after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in an effort to promote healing.

Christian groups however have taken exception to the tolerance pledge on the foundation's Web site, which asks people to respect the sexual identity of others along with their abilities, beliefs, culture and race.

"Their inclusion of the reference to 'sexual identity" within their 'tolerance pledge' is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement released Thursday.

Rodgers said he was astounded by the attack.

"That is so myopic and harsh," he told Reuters. "You have really got to look hard to find anything in this that is offensive to anyone. The last thing I am going to do is taint these characters."

Dobson was quoted as having singled out the wildly popular SpongeBob during remarks about the video at dinner this week in Washington, D.C.

SpongeBob, who lives in a pineapple under the sea, was "outed" by the U.S. media in 2002 after reports that the TV show and its merchandise are popular with gays. His creator, Stephen Hillenburg, said at the time that though SpongeBob was an oddball, he thought of all the characters in the show as asexual.

It is not the first time that children's TV favorites have come under the critical spotlight of the Christian right. In 1999, the Rev. Jerry Falwell described Tinky Winky, the purse-toting purple Teletubbie, as a gay role model.

Darth Tater 

Now are these ridiculous or what???

Stella Awards

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella Awards.

The Stella's' are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired
the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the
United States.

Unfortunately, the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonald's, the
teens who allege that eating at McDonald's has made them fat, was filed after
the 2003 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2004 awards
list without question.


THIS YEAR'S AWARDS GO TO ...

5TH PLACE (TIED): Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded
$780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over
a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the
store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the
misbehaving toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.


5TH PLACE (TIED): 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000
and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda
Accord. Mr. Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the
wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.



5TH PLACE (TIED): Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was
leaving the house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage.
He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic
door opener was malfunctioning. He could not re-enter the house because
the door connecting the house and garage had locked when he pulled it shut.
The family was on vacation and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the
garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large
bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowners insurance, claiming the
situation caused him undue mental anguish. The Jury agreed to the
tune of $500,000



4TH PLACE: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500
and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next
door neighbor's beagle dog. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced
yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog
might have been a little provoked at the time, as Mr. Williams, who had
climbed over the fence into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet
gun.


3RD PLACE: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson
of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and
broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms.
Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier, during an
argument.


2ND PLACE: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a Night
Club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to
the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred while
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak in the window of the Ladies Room to avoid
paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
expenses.



1ST PLACE: This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago
Motor home. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the
Freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the
driver's seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly
the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued
Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do
this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor home. The
company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case
There were any other complete morons buying their recreational
vehicles.

... but is it a jury of her peers?

Attorney meets the 'jury pool from hell'

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the "jury pool from hell."

The group of prospective jurors was summoned to listen to a case of Tennessee trailer park violence.

Right after jury selection began last week, one man got up and left, announcing, "I'm on morphine and I'm higher than a kite."

When the prosecutor asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime, a prospective juror said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed.

Another would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. "I should have known something was up," he said. "She had all her teeth."

Another prospect volunteered he probably should not be on the jury: "In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin (as your lawyer), you're probably guilty." He was not chosen.

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin's client was found not guilty.