Oh god, it gets worse. A lamp that tracks your movements, illuminating the tasks you focus on. Seems fine, right? WRONG. Another mode causes a red glow to appear and an iris to focus the beam. They say it's to help you find things, but it looks awfully like a death-ray to us.

The biggest truth to face now [...] is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.

The establishment of those principles by which we might live would begin with three questions. First, what does it mean to be a human being? Second, what is my relation to other human beings? And third, what is my relation to Being as such, the ongoing miracle that there is something rather than nothing? If the answer to these questions is that the purpose of being human is “the pursuit of happiness” (understood as success, which is understood as the accumulation of money); and if our relation to others is a relation to mere things (with nothing to offer but their labor); and if our relation to the world is only to “resources” (that we should exploit for profit); then we should be very comfortable with the world we have. If it goes to perdition at least we can say that we acted in good faith. But if, on the other hand, we answer that there should be a greater sense of self-worth in being a human, more justice in our relation to others, and more reverence for Being, then we must either live in bad faith with capitalism or begin describing a future whose fundamental values and whose daily activities are radically different from what we currently endure.

INTERVIEWER: But when you describe yourself as a "destroyer of stories," that is a theoretical statement.

BERNHARD: Well, people say a lot of things in fifty years of life. If a reporter is sitting in a restaurant somewhere and he hears you say the beef's no good, then he'll always claim you're someone who doesn't like beef, for the rest of your life. You go for a walk in the woods, and someone takes a photo of you, then for the next eighty years you're always walking in the woods. There's nothing you can do about it.

The fear of climatic catastrophes is an ancient one and not unlike our fear of strangers. In the past, people believed that the climate almost always changes for the worse, and only rarely for the better -- God's punishment for sinful behavior. And nowadays it's those hedonistic wastrels who pollute the air so that they can look at some pretty fish in the South Seas. It would be better if we only ever rode bikes. Oh, there's always someone wagging a finger in disapproval.

But that night, while reading something I had written, and laughing out loud so people in Starbucks would ask me what was so funny, I decided to see just how far my reach was to the rest of the world and typed my name into one of the more popular search engines.

I went to Google, typed in Seth Reiss, and in .12 seconds, my entire world changed.

I was not number one. Seth Reiss was. The not-me Seth Reiss. I then read attorney Seth Reisss biography 47 times just to make sure I hadnt forgotten a time when I had, maybe, attended the New College of Florida and received my bachelors degree in biology and chemistry; and that maybe after a few uncertain years of wrestling with idea that I was only doing what my parents wanted me to do, and neglecting my true passion for patent law, I had unconsciously made the personal decision to attend the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and receive my Juris Doctoris. Though it all sounded vaguely familiar, I couldnt say with complete certainty that it was my story.

Attorney Seth Reiss had to die, and then I would be number one. I also had a question about a patent on a public water fountain I had invented, which raises and lowers it height to accommodate any person - a little side project I had been working on tirelessly for the last five years.

American policy, in its habitual fashion, had resulted in creating the very situation which it thought to avoid.

At night, exultant and wounding dreams thrilled and tormented him. He wept on scarlet beaches, the waves climbing in front of him until they hid the sun. He saw cities crumble, mountains slide away, continents crack. He steered a dying world out into the friendly heat of space. He held planets in his hands. Denton staggered down terminal arcades, watched by familiar, hooded figures in dark doorways. Little flying girls with jagged predatory teeth swung through the air toward him at impossible, meandering speed. He came across his younger self in distress and brought him food but an eagle stole it. Often Denton awoke stretched diagonally across the bed, his cheeks wet with exhausted tears.

I love how people treat me with respect in America. Sir this and sir that. I'm 33 but I look like I'm fifty so when I walk into a store, service people practically get down on their knees and beg me to share my old man's wealth. I can live with that.

When you look up the age ladder, you look at strangers; when you look down the age ladder, you are always looking at versions of yourself.

[W]hen you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless.

HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.

[...]

[T]he brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have.

[...]

I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed.

Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Isnt that fantastic! The best insight on the subject of love that one can imagine.

Born in California, where he lived, Lidle was a 34-year-old journeyman starting pitcher who enjoyed a nine-year Major League Baseball career but was not respected by some colleagues because he was a replacement player during the 1994 strike. "The only thing Cory Lidle wants to do is fly around in his airplane and gamble. He doesnt have a work ethic", Arthur Rhodes, a former teammate, said.

Married with one son, he was traded in July from the Philadelphia Phillies to the New York Yankees, and his most recent performance came last Saturday in Michigan, when he pitched terribly, giving up three runs in just over one inning as the Yankees were eliminated from the play-offs by the Detroit Tigers.

Most Profound Man in Iraq -- an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

[...]

Most Surprising Thing I Don't Miss -- Beer. Perhaps being half-stunned by lack of sleep makes up for it.

when i am working on a problem, i never think about beauty. i think only of how to solve the problem. but when i have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, i know it is wrong.

First you picked me up
I licked your nose, we were friends
Then you took my balls

to speak the truth is the most difficult thing in the world; and one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to be able to speak the truth. the wish alone is not enough. to speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. and this nobody wants to know.

What a great tournament the Germans put on. As hosts, they were tremendous, making the Weltmeisterschaft a safe and joyous monthlong party for everyone.

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: try being rich first. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.

Materazzi himself has not spoken publicly about the incident except to deny a claim by Paris-based anti-racism group SOS Racism, made on Monday, that he had called Zidane "a dirty terrorist".

"It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means," the Italian news agency Ansa quoted Materazzi as saying after the Italian team returned to Rome.

People are taught that the best way of living is to buy other people's energy, to use other people's skill. In other words, a dangerous metropolitan dogma developed that the different subject matters are best handled by experts and no one should violate the borders of his specialized work of profession. So through the division of labor and the mechanized methods not only the production of daily necessities and goods has passed into the hands of specialists but almost every outlet for the emotional life as well. Today the artist-specialists have to provide for emotions. They are paid—if they are—for that. The sad consequence is that the biological interest in everything within the spheres of human existence becomes suffocated by the tinsel of a seemingly easygoing life. Man who has biologically the potential to comprehend the world with the entirety of his abilities, to conceive and express himself through different media, the word, tone, color, etc., agrees voluntarily to the amputation of these most valuable potentialities. Nothing proves better the lost feeling for the fundamentals of human life than the fact that has to be emphasized today: Feeling and thinking and their expression in any media belong to the normal living standard of man; to live without them means starvation of the intellectual and emotional side of life as missing food means starvation of the body. The non-verbalized expression of feeling is what we may call art, but not art on a pedestal. Art is a community matter transcending the limitations of specialization. It is the most intimate language of the senses, indispensable for the individual in society.

As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return.

There are even tantalising footprints of a bear, an animal that has not trodden this part of Ukraine for centuries.

[Barter]
A LARD BARGAIN

From a list of donations to be made by Agip Oil Ecuador to the Huaorani tribe in eastern Ecuador, in return for releasing Agip from any liabilities when carrying our oil exploration on Huaorana land. The contract dates from 2001 and was obtained last year from Bolivar Beltran, an Ecuadorian lawyer, by journalist Kelly Hearn. Translated from the Spanish by Dan Keane.

Two (2) buckets of lard
One (2) sack of salt
100 pounds rice
100 pounds sugar
One (1) chalkboard
One (1) Ecuadorian flag
Fifteen (15) plates
Fifteen (15) cups
Fifteen (15) spoons
Two (2) pots
Two (2) ladles
Two (2) soccer balls
One (1) stopwatch
One (1) referee whistle

When Elvis Presley died in 1997, there were an estimated 37 Elvis impersonators in the world.
By 1993, there were 48,000 Elvis impersonators, an exponential increase.
Extrapolating from this, by 2010 there will be 2.5 billion Elvis impersonators.
The population of the world will be 7.5 billion by 2010.
Every 3rd person will be an Elvis impersonator by 2010.

Let's face it: Many of you dread this course, even to the point of having a full-blown case of "statistics anxiety" (Zeidner, 1991).

And I love gay people. Hey, I've got gay acquaintances. Good acquaintances, who know they can call me anytime if they had my phone number.

it all started when i typed hello.

next thing you know, i'm on prodigy chat with a guy named 'fool4love.' what a trip! anyway, 'love' (that's what i like to call him) and i started talking about everything imaginable. old flames, careers, movies, and meeting online. turns out he's a real computer whiz. 'love' showed me all this great stuff about prodigy including their web browser, bulletin boards and this genius feature called interest groups. i can instantly plug in to the specific area i feel passionate about, like the adventurous traveler, without unnecessary tooling around on home pages. i know what my interests are and i don't want to waste time to get to them. speaking of interests, 'love' and i are still very much involved. we always get online and explore. you never know what you'll find out there. after all , that's where i found 'fool4love.' in fact, i'm meeting him here tonight. i can't wait to see what teal blue eyes look like.

On behalf of the entire ISO staff, we would like to wish you a very peaceful and wonderful December/January holiday. Whether you travel to your home country, to some exotic place in the US or abroad, or you stay right here in Cambridge, we hope you find the time to enjoy relaxing moments with family and/or friends.

Do you have, like, a corporate mission statement? What are you trying to accomplish?

Our mission is never to have, or need, a mission statement. "The software is the mission statement," is the mission statement we might have, but since we don't have a mission statement, it isn't our mission statement.

If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million.

[...]

AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.

- How many folks with ADD does it take to screw in a light bulb?

- Let's go on a bike ride.

[...] increasingly suburban, middle-class, and young.

As suburban parents began to recognize that the users of heroin and OxyContin looked a lot like their own children -- and that, sometimes, they were their own children -- that changed the political dynamics of substance-abuse treatment, Healey acknowledged.

''In the past in America, when there have been drug-abuse problems, it has been the government vainly trying to draw attention to why this is a problem for society," Healey said. ''Parents are extremely concerned that this is now a middle-class, upper-class issue."

There was no mention of whether the results may have been affected by the fact the couples were being watched by a bunch of geeks in white coats while at least one partner had their head connected to a machine that goes bing.

i mean 40 million is comfortable, it's nice to have a limo idling outside, but you still have to look at the bill when you buy your girlfriend a new house. i wanted the kind of money where you don't have to worry about it anymore.

...

writing songs in new york is easy. they just come floating up from the streets. (pointing out the window of his penthouse) hey, there's one over there.

...

early in my life i realized that what i wanted to do in my life was to fly around the world and make love. then it struck me that a pop star does exactly that. that's when i started to take my music seriously.

"When you're young, you devour everything you can about new music," adds 32-year-old teacher Andrew (current opinion of Phil Collins: "not entirely loathsome"). "It makes you feel like you're in control. It's about one-upmanship with your mates and inventing an identity. But when you twig what the whole thing's about, that being 'cool' is all about selling magazines and records and just generating a sense of insecurity, you realise there's no reason to continue taking part. What's the point?"

- so basically god hates at&t, mci, and verizon, yes?

- yes.

In your opinion, which traditional wisdom is more true? (a) don't put all your eggs in one basket or (b) women can't control their emotions

Because Aaron is invited to the baseball game during the week of Passover, he must bring a bag lunch of matzah and tuna to the stadium. But while his friends are off at the concession stand, something wonderful happens.

Oh, but if we could just tax hypocrisy in this country we wouldn't need any other taxes... all the atheists could afford to build science centers and the churches would go broke because all of their members would owe the government and have nothing left to tithe...

Although robots may not yet be self-aware, they are quintessentially "self-conscious" entities, calculating and computing their every move.

Is there any greater irony than the fact that the Christian Right actually got their precious little adolescent daughters to say to their freshly scrubbed boyfriends: "Please, I want to remain pure for my wedding night, so only in the ass. Then I'll blow you." Well, at least these kids are really thinking outside the box.

Her colleagues in financial planning recount many a story of successful people, whose ambitions got them where they are, but whose habits of always needing and wanting more made them so restless that they couldn't enjoy their affluence. In an ironic twist, the very factors that allow for material success can and sometimes do undermine the ultimate goals: personal fulfillment, good health, strong relationships and other things that make life worth living.

[They] ask clients: What is the purpose of money? Do you acknowledge the limits of what it can achieve? How much money is enough, anyway?

[...]

About 450 planners have taken a two-day workshop in "life planning," where the California-based Kinder Institute of Life Planning teaches them to probe what clients crave most deeply and then brainstorm creative ways to finance it.

• Restaurants serve the food people are most interested in eating.
• Most Americans sleep only once a day from 10 or 11 p.m. until 6 or 7 a.m. Weekends are personal time.
• People coming to work or to meeting each other in a routine setting will usually use a verbal greeting and response.
• Americans comfortably stand about 30 inches (75cm) apart when they are talking.
• Students often report to the classroom early and exchange greetings and light conversation.

Holding the hand up, palm forward with the fingers either extended or together means stop. This can easily be confused for a wave of the open hand which means "Hello". You can tell which gesture is intended by the look on the individual's face. Hello is usually accompanied by a smile.

ummmm... < spellingbeyotch > 11/19 09:39:18

No offense, really, but if you're going to USE the word "intelegent" to describe yourself, learn how to spell the word FIRST. Just sayin'.

Try a bookstore... over near the dictionaries.

oops, I forgot to get married < thankfully > 10/16 05:59:41

been working too much for 10-15 years. Casual dating here and there.

I'm ready now. Let the games begin.

In low 40s, look low 20s. Secure, well traveled. Wicked short but extremely handsome. Funny, intelegent.

Any suggestions on where to meet women? Trader Joes is ok. Wish they had events. Food is good.

ERIC CARTMAN: the past several days i've been noticing a steep rise in the number of hippies coming to town. at first i thought maybe it's just a coincidence. but then i noticed this: [pointing at wall-projected map] three new drum circles have sprouted up here, here, and here. they're all growing in diameter, at a rate of two hippies per hour. what this means is that the hippies are conglomerating. they're binding, if you will. i think they're setting up for a [pause] hippie music festival.

COUNCIL MEMBER: a what?

EC: it's simple science. look, when hippies start to nest in a new area, it draws other hippies in. with the right weather conditions and topography - it can lead to a music festival. one that lasts for days, even weeks. reggae on the river, woodstock, burning man, they would all pale in comparison to what we're looking at now. in my professional opinion, i think we're looking at a full-blown hippie jam fest the likes of which we've never seen.

"well i guess you could say i was a milk farmer. i worked on a milk farm".

"oh, and how do you grow milk?"

"you basically have a bunch of cows and then put them in the milking room, and attach them to the machines and get the milk. then a lot of them die and you have to use the forklift to carry the corpses away. that's no fun."

"so do they really impregnate the cows all the time and then take away their calves so that they keep producing milk?"

"hmm. they do seem to impregnate the cows all the time. i don't know if it's related to the milk production."

"it definitely sounds related"

"yeah, probably. the way they actually impregnate them is pretty gross. this one dude he puts on a huge glove and [pantomimes] shhhhhovvvves [pause] his arm all the way to the shoulder into the cow's, well, body. then the inject the semen through a tube running alongside the glove."

"so no steers are involved in the process, huh?"

"no, not really. i actually couldn't drink milk for a while after i worked there. a lot of gross things going on. like when there's shit running down the teat and it just goes into the milking tube. nobody really cares. or then there's the 'chocolate milk cows'. basically cows that produce a darker hue of milk, because it has blood in it. and all the puss that gets mixed in with the milk. it basically has the same color as milk, so it's hard to tell."

"they should put the guy with the arm inside the cow on the milk cartons. that would be cute"

"yeah, and they said we were one of the cleanest factories. i don't even want to know what goes on in the other ones."

"thanks for sharing that. i see they just got some toscanini's out on the table. let's dig in"

But Netscape is so cool

Yes, but not everybody can, or even wants to, use Netscape or Mosaic. Some of us are quite happy with our 286s and 386s and see no reason to spend several hundred dollars to upgrade to Windows. Some of us are blind and can't use a graphical interface. And some of us realize that, freed from the dependence on increasingly complex graphics, Lynx offers a faster way to find information on the Internet than Netscape or Mosaic.

[It is wrong to believe] that a composition can be contrary to the rules. It may be contrary to certain principles supposed, in ignorance, to be general, but every great composition is in harmony with all true rules and involves thousands too delicate for ear, or eye, or thought to trace;

Central Park! A good arena for our race. Let us try a run. Here is a by-path, no one observing but those two black swans with crimson beaks, sailing majestically on that tree-encircled lake. Catch me, if you can. Ah! I outdistance you, for, like all women, you roll instead of run. Recall the attitude of the fighting gladiator, the excentro-exctenric; forward leg strong, knee bent, torso thrown well forward. The run is a continuous succession of these attitudes. Try for me. Very well; you are an apt scholar. Shall we race again? We cannot; a gray-coated policeman appears. He eyes us with suspicion. He thinks us "children of too large a growth" for such games. We will go home; the sun is setting.

Terminal Graduate Paralysis (TGP)

Indications: This chronic, debilitating, and sometimes fatal condition represents the most serious and widespread of the many behavioral disorders facing the graduate-student population. Symptoms often appear in the fourth year of graduate study, though this can vary from discipline to discipline.

Early signs are typically mild and therefore easily overlooked or ignored. These often include a subtle shift in media-consumption habits, from National Public Radio to South Park, and from professional journals to extreme-makeover television. More serious symptoms include compulsive retitling of the dissertation;

[...]

The Department of Homeland Security is experimenting with a controversial new method to keep better track of immigrants who are applying to remain in the United States. It is requiring aliens in eight cities to wear electronic monitors 24 hours a day.

The ankle bracelets are the same monitors that some rapists and other convicted criminals have to wear on parole.

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. [...] How does he feel when he realizes that be has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-band. Life has by-passed this man.

A laugh response was defined as any highly stereotyped utterance characterized by multiple forced, acoustically symmetric, similar vowel-like notes separated by a breathy expiration in a decrescendo pattern.

(From Provine RB (1993) Laughter punctuates speech: Linguistic, social and gender contexts of laughter. Ethology. 95:291-298. )

Coser (1960) studied the social functions of humor among staff of a psychiatric hospital and found a downward drift of laughter from senior to more junior staff. In other words, senior staff rarely laughed but produced the highest number of laugh-inducing anecdotes per staff member despite doing the least amount of talking.

(Coser RL (1960) Laughter among colleagues: A study of the social functions of humor among staff of a mental hospital. Psychiatry. 23:81-95 )

"Reverse masher...masheress...?"
"Masher! Help!"
"What do you think you're doing?!"

[...]

It's toothsome, isn't it? Cause my breasts are full and firm."

Well, two distros means choosing a good boot loader. Which would my grandmother like better, Lilo or Grub? Personally I think Lilo is more straight-forward, but Grub is easier to configure. Since I wasn't sure if grandma Helen planned on getting under the hood of the boot process at all, I decided to install a boot switcher so she could choose between Lilo or Grub each time.

dogs have been described to be just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to do it.

The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.

Here's what's up: These fighting secrets have NEVER been revealed before to anyone outside the Israeli Special Forces compounds. Nir has agreed to share them because, first, he created this special system himself. It's mostly his. (The Israeli army begged him to stay and continue teaching, but he had other plans after his long and distinguished service.) And second... Nir (along with so many other front-line veterans) realizes it is past time for Americans to learn how to fight.

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your interest in the position with our group. We enjoyed meeting with you and learning about your background at our recent round of interviews.

This year, we have an unusually small and not very competitive applicant pool. That said, the Search Committee has reviewed your application and discussed your case, and we are less than unimpressed with your work. While your interests seem perfect for us, and while we are desperate for people in your field of research, you simply did not make the cut.

While we are always willing to make great compromises and accept mediocre -- and even weak -- candidates, we decided to not include your application for the next round of interviews. Such decisions are, typically, hard to make. Fortunately, in your case, the decision was easy, and the Committee voted unanimously. You did not come even close to being seriously considered.

We want to emphasize that it is the low quality of your work, and not of your character, that the Committee was put off by. However, it would make some sense for you to take this also as a personal criticism. Please interpret this as a clear indication of a lack of enthusiasm for both your research and your future prospects.

We wish you success in your career search.

Sincerely,
Search Committee Chair

Sitting at the head of a long conference table in a cabin at the front of the presidential plane, Bush wore a blue Air Force One flight jacket with a red tie and crisp white shirt.

From the beginning, it was a high-risk, but worthwhile venture.

Results

Check this shit out (Fig. 1). That's bonafide, 100%-real data, my friends. I took it myself over the course of two weeks. And this was not a leisurely two weeks, either; I busted my ass day and night in order to provide you with nothing but the best data possible. Now, let's look a bit more closely at this data, remembering that it is absolutely first-rate. Do you see the exponential dependence? I sure don't. I see a bunch of crap.

what did the behaviorist say after making love?

'it was good for you, honey. was it good for me, too?'

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness.

The Band Aid Dilemma....

You want this record to succeed, because you feel for the plight of the refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan and this project is funding aid projects on their behalf. However, you hate this recording and feel your musical ego looming and refusing to be bruised.

The answer?

Whats more, one of the companies that makes the protective plates for the Humvees used in Iraq said last week that it could easily have increased its output if only the Pentagon had asked. Remember how often on the campaign trail the president trotted out his sure-fire applause line, promising, Ill make sure our troops have the best. They deserve the best? Maybe he was referring to the quality of their funerals.

Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With a Menorah:

You know, when Bill O'Reilly, Fox "News" broadcaster and a man for whom one falafel in the hand is worth two in the bush, told one of his radio callers, in essence, "If you don't like Christmas, Jewey McKikenose, then maybe you oughta head to Israel and spin your dreidel in the sand," the Rude Pundit wondered what O'Reilly would tell, say, an atheist who finds the whole let's-give-Jesus-a-helluva-bris treatment a bit over the top. Would he tell the Hindu guy down the street to head back to India? Would he tell the Buddhist woman at the local Super Shanghai Buffet to get back to Mongolia? Would he tell the atheist to go to the moon? Where would that atheist, that Buddhist, that Hindi be safe from the marauding Christ lovers in the mall with their multi-colored light nativities a-twinklin' on their lawns? All the poor self-proclaimed Jew on the phone with O'Reilly said was that, as a Jew, he felt pressured by the Christapalooza of Christmas, which really only is a guilt trip distraction from the passion of the shopping. And, you know, the whole deal only became a holiday in 1876 because of pressure from businesses benefiting from the growing orgy of tree decorating and goose-killing.

When O'Reilly declared that "overwhelmingly, America is Christian. And the holiday is a federal holiday honoring the philosopher Jesus," all the Rude Pundit could wonder is where the fuck's Plato's holiday? Or Kierkegaard's? Or perhaps John Locke's, considering his influence on, say, the actual creation of the country?

ten: woman finds fingertip in salad

nine: study finds dogs understand language

eight: canadians open arms to americans

seven: dog saves woman's life by calling 9-1-1

six: wedding guests eat victim

five: frequent sex cuts cancer risk

four: pup shoots man, saves litter mates

three: swimmer drives with shark on leg

two: barbie and ken call it "splitsville"

and the most e-mailed story by cnn.com readers:

bear guzzles 36 cans of beer, passes out at campground

Do you know your Dada from your Moma? Try the quiz and see.

Everyone has got their opinions, but they won't help you here! For the purposes of this quiz, "art" is something that has been exhibited as such by an artist.

Shortly before harvesting the muscles, two fresh liters of amphibian ringer solution were prepared according to a protocol specifically designed for frog organ culture. [...] A broad-spectrum, antibiotic/antimycotic was added out of necessity for long-term maintenance of the muscles, ex vivo. We observed, for periods greater than 24 hours, septic degradation of the muscle specimens in the absence of the antibiotic/antimycotic agents. After each muscle was placed within a Petri dish, a small volume of ringer solution was used to surround each muscle, the balance being used in the test tank for the swimming robot evaluations. The total amount of time between muscle removal from the animal to finalizing the muscle installation into the robotic swimmer was approximately 1 hour.

Muscle installation was carried out with the robotic platform partially immersed in ringer solution using #5 forceps (Fine Science Tools). After installation was complete, the muscles were allowed to acclimate for a period of approximately 5 minutes before stimulation.

After swimming the full length of the test tank, the robot was manually repositioned to the opposite end of the tank where it began, once again, to swim across the tank width. Typically, a period of swimming activity (~3 min) was followed by a period of swimming inactivity (~30 min). Due to muscle fatigue, periods of inactivity were required to restore the robot's peak swimming velocity to at least 75% of its maximum value measured during the first session of robotic swimming (first 10 minutes of the robot's lifespan).

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

You just have to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

This e-mail message and any attachments thereto contains privileged and confidential information intended for a specific addressee and purpose only. If you are not the addressee or have received the message in error you may not use, disclose, copy, distribute or take action based on the contents thereof and should kindly inform the sender immediately and destroy all copies thereof. The opinions or views expressed or implied in the message ( and its attachments ) are those of the sender and do not constitute the opinion or view of the company or of its management unless it is clearly stated to be the case. This e-mail message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. The company does not, however, guarantee that the message is free of computer viruses and accepts no responsibility or liability in this regard.

The first time that hummus is produced by your own hand becomes decisive: From now on, every time you make hummus, it will always have exactly the same taste, the same personal stamp of flavor. It's not the Magimix, and not even the type of chickpeas. The hummus just won't let you be anyone else.

Santa, please find me a man with the following essential criteria:

• Intelligent
• Good looking
• Thin, athletic body type. I go to the gym every day and want someone to have the same motivation
• Driven, motivated
• Sense of Humor
• Sense of Style
• Average - Above average penis
• Manicured (shaved) pubic region - I hate hair down there!
• A gentleman
• Someone who is sweet and sensitive - I'm not sure if I could deal with a mushy guy though!
• Someone headstrong, opinionated, enjoys quick banter
• Someone a bit sarcastic, but not towards me
• Someone appreciative of a nice thong
• Someone who loves to travel and explore

It took me more than 30 seconds to bang out this post, so if I get two flip lines from you, I'll delete it. If you flame me, I'll delete it too. If you send me a picture, I'll send you one too. If we click, we can meet up for a drink later this week. If you are a Dean at MIT and believe that my post "is behavior unbecoming of a faculty member" then you should see what the tools at Harvard are getting away with.

if you're one of my students, undergrad or doctoral, and respond to this post, I *will* find a way to fail your sorry-ass.

Second, although Camp David undoubtedly was a breakthrough, and although Israel was prepared to concede far more than in the past, the deal nevertheless didn't meet the minimum requirements of any Palestinian leader. Washington now welcomes the new leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Korei, but it is worth bearing in mind that neither could have embraced the Camp David ideas and neither did.

The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures.

It's far from over. The tunnel is just a little darker -- and longer -- than we imagined.

"I've been rooting for the Sox for the past 20 years, but I finally gave up hope on them this season. I was expecting them to lose, so they managed to let me down again."

מחשבה אחת החלה קונה אחיזה בנפשו, וזו היא: שאין פשר לכל הדבר הזה.

[...] there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration's actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government.

Globe reporters began observing Dichio on Sept. 28 and concluded their surveillance on Oct 20, a period covering 16 workdays. (Oct. 11 was Columbus Day, a federal government holiday.) Dichio took vacation days three times during the period, and Globe reporters lost sight of him on roadways around Greater Boston on three other days, so those days were excluded from the calculation.

At the Market Basket, he pushed a shopping cart down the aisles, sampling cheese at the deli counter and exchanging pleasantries with other shoppers. He left the store with five bags of groceries at 1:22 p.m., returned an hour later for bathroom cleaner, and stayed home the rest of the day.

[...]

On most days, the former trooper drove the highways at speeds frequently exceeding 85 miles per hour to Boston, passing cars and changing lanes.

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

In Europe the royalty and the aristocracy used to eat a lot better than the peasants - they weren't eating the same things at all. It was either partridge or porridge, and each class stuck to its own food. But when Queen Elizabeth came here and President Eisenhower bought her a hot dog I'm sure he felt confident that she couldn't have had delivered to Buckingham Palace a better hot dog than that one he bought for her for maybe twenty cents at the ballpark. Not for a dollar, not for ten dollars, not for a hundred thousand dollars could she get a better hot dog. She could get one for twenty cents, same as everybody else.

Another thing we have to remember, which is very hard to remember in sort of our fear-laden society, is terrorism hardly ever happens. Very often I hear people from administration saying, Our policies are working because in the two-and-a-half years since 9/11, nothing else has happened, and I think about it and say, Well, nothing happened two-and-a-half years before 9/11 either. You did not have any policies. What does that prove?

[calling 'crossfire' a debate show] that's like saying pro-wrestling a show about athletic competition.

Rubenstein described that time to a convention of pension managers in Los Angeles last year, recalling that Malek approached him and said: ''There is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. . . . Needs some board positions.'' Though Rubenstein didn't think George W. Bush, then in his mid-40's, ''added much value,'' he put him on the Caterair board. ''Came to all the meetings,'' Rubenstein told the conventioneers. ''Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years: 'You know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company.' He said: 'Well, I think I'm getting out of this business anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board.' And I said thanks. Didn't think I'd ever see him again.''

Bush would soon officially resign from Caterair's board. Around this time, Karl Rove set up meetings to discuss Bush's possible candidacy for the governorship of Texas. Six years after that, he was elected leader of the free world.

so, do you know anyone at *** who might have some extra dough laying around?

er, i mean, you know - who has a vision that fits in with what our lab is doing.

what's peculiar is during the original controversy regarding the sign on the Lincoln, the administration first said that the seamen had put the sign up, and the president had nothing to do with it.

but then when they were pressed they said

oh you mean that mission accomplished sign, oh yeah, that was done by an outside company.

this friendly little cafe is run by a local couple and the menu is changed frequently. unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the table linen.

An autopsy proved that the victim had suffered an acute reaction to protein contained in the homicidal hamster's saliva.

There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds. Some are fit only for entry level jobs, but others are ready to rule the world if they can find someone to handle the paperwork for them.

Fuck the media for giving our mothers, sisters, and daughter eating disorders. Fuck the media for making men insecure about their car, penis, house, hair.

What's 75% of your spam mail in your inbox. That's right.

The other 25% is for medication that we need after living the life they give us.

Folks, this isn't multi-tasking. This is advanced case of Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. I am unable to function at my desktop unless I've got, at least, five things going on at the same time. If your count came close, you're probably afflicted, as well. Most excellent.

⑪ During the 2000 debates, you stated that you believed our troops should not be used for "nation building." Could you explain what our troops are now doing in Iraq and how that differs from nation building?

Although robots defuse or in the laboratory personally with pipettes jonglieren today long dwellings dust eyes, bombs, the way to the philanthropic art nature is far.

the things i like most when i visit in israel, are the simple things. like when i tell them 'my name is yael', they say 'ah, cool, yael', and when i say 'i am moroccan', people get a little scared.

• scared?

no, i'm kidding, you know, moroccan, knives, gotta be careful. i'm just kidding. in israel they get what 'moroccan' means. when i tell people here 'my name is yael', a whole saga starts of me trying to teach them my name. and when i tell them 'i am moroccan', they say 'ah, how interesting. where's morocco?'

city lights lay out before us
and your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder
and I had a feeling that I belonged
and I had a feeling I could be someone

- i keep wanting his mom to come into starbucks, so that i can tell her that i'd be the best daughter in law she can imagine. maybe then she'll tell him to call me.

'{ FIRST 10 DIGIT PRIME IN CONSECUTIVE DIGITS OF E }.COM'

top 10 reasons to procrastinate

1.

One serving of two medium-sized kiwifruit offers:

• Far more nutrition than an apple, with fewer calories and more dietary fiber, vitamin A precursors, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and iron.
• More than twice as much vitamin C as an orange.
• More dietary fiber and vitamin C than a peach or a serving of strawberries.
• Measurable amounts of other nutrients, including vitamin B6, niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin A precursors, calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, copper and pantothenic acid.

a few dozen fatah members, some armed, went out last night to the streets of ramallah, and tried to prevent residents in restaurants, coffee shops and other locations to watch the 'arab superstar' competition.

Fact of the week: running a query across our mail databases tells us there are over 500 references to the phrase 'my wife' written by over 200 different SINGLE users. You guys are sick.

Why Invite Your Friends To OkCupid?

Because you can:

• browse your friends' friends
• compare test scores
• scientifically measure how good your friendships are
• analyze personalities and single out weak links
• sort your friends by how they match you

and when you'll return you will carry me in your two hands
from the field to the river
you'll wash my face and say words
like only you know

To a great degree there is no Democratic party candidate John Kerry. There is an abstract "anti-Bush" candidate who has been compelled, in accordance with the US electoral system, to take on human form and assume a human name...

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

Colleagues: This weekend, Mayor Menino and the business, art and cultural communities say thank you to Boston area residents and DNC volunteers by offering discounts and freebies at attractions thoughout the city-- giving local residents an opportunity to enjoy many of the wonderful things that have been showcased this week to visitors from around the world.

Check the web site for details.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/Info2004/thankyouboston.asp

a scientifically supervised anecdotal study has shown that 98% of the participants reported an increase in sexual potency.

If you think its good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerrys your man.

On the other hand, we introduced a mental space with three independent parameters, the Learning System, the Mood Vector, the Second Order Equations of Emotion, the Robot Personality and the Need Model as the mental model for humanoid robots [7].

Ironically, Moore ignores the fact that he too is making a hefty profit from this war. Like all propagandists, Moore fails to perceive himself as part of the problem.

i'm nobody! who are you?
are you nobody, too?
then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
they'd banish us, you know!

how dreary to be somebody!
how public, like a frog
to tell your name the livelong day
to an admiring bog!

The separation wall and fences are a good example. The fence's route in the northern West Bank, and around the settlements, has ruined the livelihood of masses of Arab peasants who returned to working the land after they lost their jobs in Israel. The wall in Jerusalem destroys the fabric of life for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents of the Ramallah, Abu Dis and Bethlehem regions. But Israeli public opinion has become deaf to Palestinian suffering, because a clear equation has been created in Israel: They are suffering - but we are not being blown up. They will lose their livelihoods, and their children will not be able to reach their schools or doctors' clinics, but we will be able to ride the bus or go to the supermarket with less fear.

Lemme float a theory (again).

"Layne" was created by Odin Soli, who worked at Aptura and knew Mitch from when they worked together at Integrity Solutions. A certain "Greg" who dug up information on Aptura and presented it on Joshua's blog, mentioned that Odin Soli is a "self-professed novelist." Mitch described the person behind Layne as an "accomplished but frustrated writer."

Now for the intriguing part.

According to the following site, Odin Soli was a casket-bearer for an Irene G. Thompson at her funeral on July 1, 2003. Judging from a photo on the Web, Odin must be at least a generation younger than Paul Soli, brother-in-law of the deceased. In other words, Mrs. Thompson was Odin's aunt.

Layne's post for the next day (July 2, 2003) was titled: "Burying Aunt Inga"

Hmmm.

Posted by: Jimmo at June 23, 2004 05:51 PM

these days, girls is 'avin sex at younga ages, de's an increase in absentee fathers, and mo an' mo people is 'avin affairs... but we shouldn't just concentrate on da good thangs.

Harley people hate jap bikes, crotch rocket riders think harley and cruiser people should sit home on the couch, Gold wingers think sport riders are young and stupid, european bike riders think jap bikes have no character, canyon carvers think the bling bling riders are poseurs, and everyone who doesn't have one thinks the gold wingers are so uncool, but secretly envy that stereo.

the country that invented disneyland has somehow succeeded to cram dozens of its most important historic sites into an amusement-park sized area, in the heart of a single city.

Meine Lust aufs Schreiben, wie meine Lust auf Sex, ist periodisch. Manchmal will ich nicht oder manchmal habe ich einfach zu viel anderes zu tun.

I have returned from a long weekend in the hudson river valley, and am thrilled to be reunited with my Personality, which tends to suddenly disappear in the presence of my girlfriend's relatives, turning me into the Most Boring Person on the Planet. The reasons for this are manyfold and not interesting enough to get into but thankfully my personality was waiting patiently in the car all along, not buried alive by some psychopath in an unmarked grave.

Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I…I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.

Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry.

i am morally opposed to romance novels the same way that i am morally opposed to pornography. both promote unrealistic views of the opposite sex and let their users escape to a fantasy world rather than forcing them to be content with normal interactions in reality.

[Roboticists'] limited awareness is their downfall and their strength. The biologist makes no distinction between human and nonhuman life-forms. The roboticist takes this a step further, refusing to distinguish between living and nonliving objects.

"we have found the way to deal with terrorism, so from now on i will focus on solving our social and economic problems."

israeli prime minister ariel sharon, december 2001

"Chinese leaders understand what world they are living in. They have a general equilibrium view of the world that what they do affects us all and then comes back to affect them."

The psychiatrist discreetly shifted in his chair and said, about nothing in particular, "good." Depending on how much of the hour had elapsed, he would prompt Bruno again, or simply say, "we'll leave it here for today?" stressing the last word a little to make this a question. As he said this, his smile was polished and effortless.

the reason the clans of past generations got married at younger ages, im learning, is because you'll do anything when you're young dumb and full of idealism. you'll sign up for the army, you'll vote republican, you'll get tattoos, you'll knock up your girlfriend, and you'll even swear to stick together until you die. all fucked up things that should probably be illegal. two kinds of not giving a fuck: when you dont know any better and when youve seen it all.

I thought, my love, that I should overtake you;
Sweet heart, sit down under this shadow'd tree,
And I, I will promise never, never, to forsake you,
So you will grant to me a lover's fee.

Whereat she smiled, and kindly to me said -
I never meant, I never meant, I never meant,
I never meant to live and die a maid,
I never meant to live and die a maid.

"How do I compare the NYC music scene with the Tokyo one? Why is that interesting? I'm not a sociologist. The problem is that everyone who goes to Japan for a few years thinks he needs to write a book about it. Fuck you! What do you know about this country? I don't know anything about this country. I just lived there. Lived there and wept."

"I'm not here to be happy. I'm here to get work done. What does happiness got to do with any of what I'm doing? Fuck that. The problem with this culture is that it puts so much value on happiness. Happiness is for kids. Kids can be happy, not adults. Kids -- and yuppies."

"I hate the saxophone these days. You're asking me what my instrument of choice is today? I don't know - sitting on my ass at home? (laughs) No, A pencil I guess."

empty; unoccupied or uninhabitated [...] empty is one of those words that reveals unspoken attitudes. lacking people, it means. no humans equals nothing [...] the word 'empty' inherently expresses contempt for everything that is not human. the old puzzle about the tree falling in an unoccupied forest would not be a puzzle at all in a world where trees [...] were assumed to have some justification independent of humanity."

thanks to the dentistry school i have a job that pays well, that's flexible and that allows me to help people improve their appearance in ways that can change their lives.

when the breasts and butts that titillate us on a daily basis come without the packaging of a thin piece of cloth, the barrier of a pay-per-view fee or the apparent protection of an online adult verification service, entertainment suddenly crosses the line, becoming lewd and obscene exposure that should be banned, censored, fined, and lambasted.

"I am driving home with my friends in the car and we get pulled over. The typical tough-guy, straight from the marines, cop walks over. [...] "You were speeding" He lies. So instead of getting mad, I make a joke. I forgot cops dont have a sense of humor.

"We were not speeding, we can go on our way" I say in my best Obiwan Kenobi voice as I waive my hand past his face in the window. With cat-like reflexes, this cop snatches my arm and starts to drag me out the window.

Now, I did the whole Obiwan imitation perfect. It should have worked.