Something special happened this Valentine’s Day. Willie Nelson released the single “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other).” It’s only available through Apple’s iTunes Music Store, so here’s a download link for the song. Matter of fact, this is the first song I’ve actually bought and paid for at iTunes. Yes, I just had to hear the song for myself and $0.99 was well within impulse buy range.

Apparently the song is 20 years old, originally written by Ned Sublette, according to Boing Boing. I’m guessing it was much better received today than it would have been 20 years ago.

Go and buy the song off iTunes and share your thoughts about the song here in the comments. What do you think? Is Willie just capitalizing on the success of Brokeback Mountain (IMDb), or is he really being subversive and iconoclastic?

So, I was in the local supermarket the other day and my spouse, who knows how much I love teh funny, picks up a can and goes, “Here, you’ll like this.” This is what she hands me:

I quickly put it back on the shelf, whipped out my camera phone, and took a quick snap.

Yes, that does say “Spotted Dick.” It’s a can of Heinz Spotted Dick Sponge Pudding. Those are just five words that don’t belong in a sentence with that kind of proximity. Apparently people eat Dick and like it, when it’s Spotted. Ahh, those strange Brits are just so queer.

UPDATE 2006-06-13: My friend Kevin shares some cock flavoured soup mix. Superb!

Tags:
food,
humor

Earlier this month, I blogged about a Massachusetts witch hunt involving Barbara Asher (aka “Mistress Lauren M”). Yesterday, it turns out she was acquitted. Maybe there’s still hope for our justice system, after all.

One thing is for certain, though: Robert Nelson, the prosecutor, is a stupid gimp. See?

During his closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Robert Nelson put on a black leather mask with a zippered mouth opening and re-enacted the bondage session.

With both hands, he reached back and clutched the top of a blackboard as if strapped to the rack. Then he hung his head as if dead.

Asher’s lawyer objected, and the judge agreed.

“That’s enough Mr. Nelson,” Judge Charles Grabau said. “Thank you for your demonstration.”

Police are apparently accusing Barbara Asher of a bunch of things:

• being a dominatrix by the name of Mistress Lauren M
• having a 53-year-old man by the name of Michael Lord as a slave
• Asher only changing into her outfit after Lord was already naked and bound
• Michael Lord having a heart attack in her dungeon
• having a boyfriend by the name of Miguel Ferreria
• dismembering Lord’s corpse with a hacksaw
• fitting the dismembered corpse of a 280-pound man into eight trash bags
• doing all this without leaving DNA evidence of the butchery, or evidence of cleaning agents

Suppose for a moment that the part about Asher being a dominatrix is true and that Lord was her slave. Lets assume that she’s a pro, because allegedly she was “worried the police would find out about her operation” — I don’t think they mean the sex-change kind, here. The implication is that she was doing this for money or she was afraid because kinky sex between consenting adults was illegal back in July 2000, years before Justice Anthony Kennedy and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) said otherwise. So, if I were a paying customer of Asher’s services for kinky roleplay, I’d certainly expect her to be in her outfit from the start, not after I’m already naked and bound. Otherwise, you’re just not getting your money’s worth, right?

How can they prove that Michael Lord died of a heart attack, if they never recovered his corpse? I know I’m no forensics expert, but I imagine determining cause of death minimally requires observing the corpse, maybe even an autopsy, right? Maybe the police consulted an expert psychic and contacted Michael Lord’s spirit to find out what happened to him? Maybe they just watched the wrong episode of Crossing Jordan and got carried away?

Regardless of all this, lets pretend he really did die in her dungeon. Is your first instinct to call someone like your boyfriend and tell them about it, or to deal with it by yourself and leave no living witnesses? Okay, maybe you are the type to call someone for help — fine. Now you and your boyfriend are trying to figure out how to dispose of this 280-pound corpse. Damn, can’t sell it on eBay. Don’t suppose she’s got some starved pigs in her condominium, either. What’s a girl to do? Oh, duh — pick up the hacksaw and start carvin’ like it’s Thanksgiving! But, then what? Well, it’s 170 miles to Augusta, she’s got a full tank of gas, eight 35-pound bags each full of Lord’s parts, it’s dark and she’s wearing shades. They find Alice’s restaurant and dump their trash and head on home. Right? Because, you know, if someone just died in my freaky sex dungeon in my own private home, this is exactly what I’d do, wouldn’t you?

Sounds like witch hunting is alive and well in Massachusetts. I thought they gave that up in the 17th century. Guess old habits die hard.

(via grigoricennui)

I’ve heard of the Nigerian 4-1-9 scam via email — numerous variations on the Advance Fee Fraud scheme — but this is the first time I’ve seen it carried out via instant messaging! Tonight, I received an IM from some random name on Yahoo! IM. Here’s the transcript:

[21:00] samuelmylove2008: hi
[21:00] samuelmylove2008: hello asl
[21:00] samuelmylove2008: <ding>
[21:01] samuelmylove2008: were are u from sweeti
[21:05] samuelmylove2008: <ding>
[21:05] dossy: ?
[21:05] samuelmylove2008: were are u from
[21:06] dossy: who are you and why are you IM’ing me?
[21:06] samuelmylove2008: are u there what can i do for u
[21:06] samuelmylove2008: am mary am from florida
[21:06] samuelmylove2008: u
[21:06] samuelmylove2008: ?
[21:07] dossy: how’s the weather in florida?
[21:07] samuelmylove2008: well am not right now in florida am in africa
[21:08] dossy: right.
[21:08] dossy: and I bet you work for a bank. or you’re the son of royalty. right.
[21:09] samuelmylove2008: what do u do?
[21:09] dossy: I avoid scams like this. Thanks.
[21:10] samuelmylove2008: what do u mean
[21:10] samuelmylove2008: i dont no much about u
[21:13] dossy: Where in Africa are you?
[21:14] samuelmylove2008: am in nigeria were the meeting was hold
[21:14] samuelmylove2008: i hope u dont mind?
[21:14] dossy: What are you doing in Nigeria?
[21:15] samuelmylove2008: a littel host by our boss
[21:17] dossy: Who’s your boss?
[21:18] samuelmylove2008: oh my managing director
[21:19] samuelmylove2008: we went there to cash a chekq but the chekq was not from nigeria is made from usa
[21:20] samuelmylove2008: sweety can u help me cash the chek only that my boss was not with us and even we dont have money to come back
[21:20] dossy: that’s a pity. Florida will miss you.
[21:20] samuelmylove2008: sweety can u help me to cash the chekq
[21:21] dossy: The Nigerian scam works better if you spell things right.
[21:21] dossy: And claim to be some Nigerian royalty. People really dig royalty.
[21:22] dossy: And you have to use really big numbers, like “TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION (250,000,000) DOLLARS” — need lots of zeros.
[21:23] dossy: You want to go create a new screen name and try it again? You should practice more and get better before you try this on anyone else, you know?
[21:24] samuelmylove2008: what do u mean
[21:26] dossy: *beep beep* That’s the horn of the turnip truck, leaving you behind. You’d better run if you want to get back on it!
[21:27] samuelmylove2008: what do u mean by that
[21:28] samuelmylove2008: <ding>
[21:28] dossy: So, where were you born?
[21:28] samuelmylove2008: am born in usa but my mom and dad bass in africa
[21:29] dossy: Where did you grow up?
[21:30] samuelmylove2008: i grow up frm usa
[21:33] dossy: Where did you go to school?
[21:40] dossy: You know, right now, I bet there’s a Nigerian village that’s missing an idiot.

I couldn’t make this kinda stuff up. I’m still laughing.

I forgot to post this entry two weeks ago when I saw this originally, but better late than never, right?

Cops: Butler man set fire after stealing underwear
Toilet paper rolls used to start blaze at woman’s apartment
BY PEGGY WRIGHT
08/27/05 – Posted from the Daily Record newsroom

BUTLER — A part-time doughnut shop worker has been charged with breaking into an acquaintance’s apartment, stealing 27 pairs of her underwear and setting fire to her home by igniting rolls of toilet paper with a cigarette lighter, authorities said Friday.

Kenneth G. Morgan Jr. of Gifford Street, Butler, was first charged Thursday with breaking into the woman’s apartment at Butler Gardens around 2 a.m. Tuesday and stealing her panties and a bathing suit. While being held on burglary and theft charges in the Morris County jail, Morgan also was charged with committing aggravated arson at the same time he allegedly broke into the apartment.

[…]

On Aug. 18, five days before the fire, Morgan was charged by Butler police with possession of two grams of cocaine. He was released into his own custody after the drug arrest.

(via Topix.net: Butler, NJ)

Yes, even in the sleepy suburban town of Butler, NJ, we have a panty-raiding cokehead arsonist. Fantastic! Was that the sound of my house value dropping?

(Yes, this blog entry’s title is a nod to this quote.)

While I couldn’t help but point out earlier this year that the famous e-tailer Amazon.com sold items such as anal douche (I mean, how can you resist? It’s anal douche! Everyone loves anal douche, right?), it seems Susan Mernit just found out, too. To be fair, Amazon.com now has an entire section devoted to Sex & Sensuality products, now. So, I decided to give it a quick browse to see what’s new … here are some examples of what’s available:

Well, in browsing around, I decided to check out what condoms they had, because that’s always good for a laugh (thanks, Joe Grossberg). What caught me by surprise was this:

What condom product in the world could possibly cost over $500? Turns out, it’s what you’d expect: condoms, in bulk. I mean, to the tune of a case of 5,000 Okamoto Fe+Male condoms — yikes! Exactly who does Amazon.com expect will order this? By my back-of-the-napkin math, if you used three condoms a day, every day, it’d take you almost five (5!) years to deplete your condom supply. I wonder how far out the expiration date is on these things.

I realize my seemingly outrageous conspiracy theory about September 11th isn’t very popular, but as time goes on, I think more and more facts will become known that support it. Craig Newmark (of Craigslist fame) blogs about a NY Times article, 9/11 Group Says White House Has Not Provided Files. As Craig points out, what do they have to hide? I can’t wait to find out …

Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy.com, wrote a hot entry in his blog about Gitmo, where I left the following comment:

Bob,

While I agree that there are organized groups of violent people, which the media has lionized with the name “terrorist,” who should be dealt with as any aggressor against the US, i.e., with places such as Gitmo, etc., how will you feel when the truth finally comes out about 9/11 being a US secret operation to allow us to go to war in the Middle East?

Things like the UK war memo are only a foreshadowing of this truth. This is not just crackpot conspiracy theory. It is the only logical explanation for how the “terrorists” were allowed to strike both the NY and DC targets concurrently. Okay, I concede that gross incompetence on our part could also be a viable explanation, but surprisingly, I don’t think honestly think we are indeed that incompetent at defending ourselves, given the gross overspending on our military as it is. We have the best toys in the world and we surely know how to use them.

On the morning of 9/11/2001, I stood in the parking lot at work with the rest of my co-workers, and I said to one of them, “Today is not the worst day. The worst day will be when America learns of the truth behind how this event was allowed to happen.”

That day is still coming.

Interestingly, an article was published by New York Newsday on September 12, 2001, titled “Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted.” Here’s the relevant quote from the article:

Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.

“Today was the first day there was not the extra security,” Coard said. “We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn’t figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that.”

The emphasis in the quote is mine: when that one seemingly innocuous sentence was originally published, it should have been a huge clue as to the true nature of what happened on 9/11. Crashing two jet planes and burning jet fuel alone could not have been sufficient to cause the damage to the Towers that we saw on September 11. This was a planned demolition, whether you still believe it was done by foreign terrorists, or domestic ones.

So, what of all this conspiracy theory about there being bombs responsible for what we saw on 9/11? Just because there was reduced security by means of bomb-sniffing dogs, that doesn’t immediately mean that bombs were involved, right? Sure, except for this recent article by Greg Szymanski, titled “Second WTC Janitor Comes Forward With Eye-Witness Testimony Of ‘Bomb-Like’ Explosion in North Tower Basement, published just a few days ago on July 12, 2005. I suspect that whoever is actually behind what happened on 9/11 didn’t anticipate there actually being any survivors from the sub-basement levels of the Towers to come forth and tell their story about what actually happened on that day, but there apparently are. Here’s what I think is a particularly relevant quote:

In the 2002 taped statement, Sanchez recalls, at the same time Rodriguez and the others heard the explosion, being in a small sub-level 4 workshop with another man who he only knew by the name of Chino when, out of nowhere, the blast sounded as the two men were cutting a piece of metal.

“It sounded like a bomb and the lights went on and off,” said Sanchez in the tape recording. “We started to walk to the exit and a huge ball of fire went through the freight elevator. The hot air from the ball of fire dropped Chino to the floor and my hair got burned,” said Sanchez in the tape recording. “The room then got full of smoke and I remember saying out loud ‘I believe it was a bomb that blew up inside the building.’

The article goes on in more detail, indicating that there may also be other survivors from the basement who can further corroborate this story. Obviously, this could be the “UFO sighting phenomenon,” where people will claim to have a shared traumatic experience because they need some way to rationalize what they experienced with an explanation, but the plausibility of the explanation — that bombs were detonated in the Towers’ sub-basements — while something we don’t want to believe, is finding more and more evidence that supports it.

Over two hundred years ago, this country was formed by a group of people who were known as “Patriots.” These people fought against the rule of a government that didn’t serve its people. What it meant to be “a patriot” back then was to support the revolution in overthrowing the former government. It meant fighting against huge odds because to continue to live the way things are would be far worse than trying to overthrow the government. It was downright treasonous to be a patriot, but these people did it because that’s what they felt was the right thing to do. They risked everything because they couldn’t go on living the way they were — they were pushed past a point.

Today, the words “patriot” and “patriotic” get thrown around, but in the same breath with things like the “PATRIOT Act” and “Homeland Security” — implying loyalty and support of our current government — but when and where did the meaning change? Perhaps it really hasn’t. Perhaps there will be a new generation of patriots who will overthrow this government and install a new one whose interests, once again, lie with the people it represents. They will be fighting against huge odds, and be treated as traitors — maybe even labelled terrorists — and will risk everything for something they believe in. But, how many 9/11’s will it take before the American people are pushed past their point and become true patriots? We will see.

What seems, to me, to be a thoughtless, knee-jerk response to the July 7 London bombings, according to the Associated Press wire via WCBS 880 (AOL News, CNN) …

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area transit hubs, bridges and tunnels, decided last Thursday to indefinitely sever power to transmitters that provide wireless service in the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, spokesman Tony Ciavolella said Monday.

This overly reactionary safety strategy makes me think about Bruce Schneier‘s recent blog entry about talking to strangers and why the conventional wisdom of “don’t talk to strangers” is a poor strategy. In a world where the good guys far outnumber the bad guys, cellular phone use in the tunnels stand a greater chance of being used to provide advanced warnings of possible attacks rather than to cause them.

In order to better prepare and defend ourselves from terrorism, we need rational and thoughtful security strategies put into action, not last-minute, ill-prepared and panic-driven reaction. It makes you wonder what all that money for Homeland Security is really buying us …