never voted - yet

There was a fellow sitting across the table from me @ May Day a few days ago. His companion had asked where he was from, as he had an odd accent. Their discussion verged into his impending U.S. citizenship.

He is from South Africa, sort of. Born in the UK, he was an English citizen, but promptly left. Growning up and spending most of the first half of his life in South Africa, he never voted. "There was not point." he said. He never bothered to for 2 years back in the UK. He's lived here for 20 years. He can't vote here. In fact,

He's never voted.

Never.

There was a tone of amazement and eagerness in his anticipation of elections in November.

The first time I voted was in 1984. Walter Mondale & Geraldine Ferraro and John Rockefeller were on the ticket. The last time I voted was in April at the nominating convention for the Green party. I wish more American citizens would look at the opportunity to vote with the same awe.
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don't make fun of the zeta function

Comic:
frame 1> lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, she asked me what I was thinking about
frame 2> I should have made something up
frame 3> The Bellman-Ford algorithm makes terrible pillow talk.

me: read the text of the comic aloud, then asked if Mr.Gopher knew what this algorithm was. The comic was already amusing, whether or not I knew what it was. I got the point.

Mr.Gopher: didn't have any idea.

I was surprised.

me: it could just as easily have been the Rhiemann-Zeta function makes terrible pillow talk.

Mr.Gopher: No! continuing enthusiastically It's one of the most important problems in mathematics. It was on the list of significant unsolved mathematical problems 100 years ago; it's still on the most recent one. It's fascinating. Don't make fun of the zeta function!

me:

me:

me: hee hee hee hee hee hee

Mr.Gopher: what's so funny?

.

My first thought

Really, the first thing that crossed my mind was: God, I really do look like my brother. Okay, they're not great pictures, I took them myself.

2nd thought: hey, I'm still a brunette.

It would have taken much more effort to get my hair-do worse than it was. This, seriously, is an improvement. At least I don't look like a walking q-tip.

I think the last time my hair was this short was when I was 6 months old. Cool - it only takes 10 minutes to dry, not 10 hours. but ... I think I look about 10 years older than I did as a long-haired red-head. ah, well ... it will grow back. The whole purpose was simply to get rid of the horrid 'do.

Identity matrix doesn't function normally either

Cute website. My favorite it even made Mr.Gopher smile:

creative profanity

Periodic Table of Swearing.

Done by an English(wo)man, based upon the prolific use of 'sod'

Respecting the Law ... but not my intelligence

I am perhaps more critical of writing which starts by pissing me off.

America, we have a problem. Millions upon millions of people want to move here. Permanently. Even a country as prosperous as ours cannot possibly absorb so much humanity.
1st sentence of the NRO article Respecting the Law

bullshit.

So what happens now? The bullshit detector is on.

next sentence:

As problems go, however, this is not a bad one to have. For the day that “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” no longer besiege America is the day we will have to admit that America has lost its “magic formula.”

well, maybe an intelligent neo-nationalist

8th paragraph, following rah-rah-ain't-we-wonderful self-aggrandizement of the United States of America:

Respect for the rule of law seems natural to most Americans, what America does he live in? and can I get a visa? but it is largely an anomaly in the history of other nations. really? Would this be the 'other nations' whose legal system we adopted, like England? Or China, the oldest country in the world, which has had a rule of law for centuries? Or maybe he really means a 'democracy', which really has little to do with a rule of law? Nowhere is this more evident than in Latin America. South and Central America have seen scores of military dictatorships and autocracies, despite endorsing democracy and democratic institutions, since freeing themselves from the shackles of Spanish colonialism. Because we keep funding the groups which remove the democratically elected people we don't like. ... Far too many of the region’s leaders have learned the fine art of manipulating electoral politics FROM US in order to install themselves as autocrats or dictators with our money and political backing.

The inconsistent adherence to the rule of law has made it difficult for democratic institutions to flourish in Latin America. there? what about here? Moreover, repeated flouting of the law by political and military leaders undermines respect for the law among the general public. only if you're a progressive This is evidenced in everyday life: Consider the streets of many Latin American countries, where simple traffic laws are violated almost universally, and with near-total impunity. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Has this man seen the streets of America? oh, right ... we've already established he doesn't live in the same America I do. Like Michigan, which treats stop signs as general guidance, and Minnesota where running red lights is a local sport on par with jay-walking in Michigan.


It’s no surprise, then, that some immigrants from Latin America evince a residual disrespect for the rule of law in this country. trans: I come from a country without traffic enforcement, therefore I will become a felon here, rape your daughters, steal your dogs, and suck on the teat of American social security.

It explains why so many ______ remain convinced that they have done nothing wrong by _________. Their desire to work hard and provide for their families is, for them, enough to justify their actions — the rule of law is an extraneous concept.

Now, class, let's fill in the blanks above. Is the correct answer:

American politicians // fucking the poor
American politicians // fucking our children's future
American politicians // waging unfunded wars abroad
unemployed illegal aliens // being hired by American companies
undocumented workers // entering our country illegally

If you answered a, b, c, or d - your head is sufficiently far enough out of your ass to smell shit when it's there.
If you answered e, you read Mr. Ortega's article.

Why is it that I think they assigned this piece of propaganda bullshit to a person with an Hispanic family name?

So, in summary:
Latinos have no traffic control and therefore are inherently incapable of obeying any law and therefore are unworthy to enter the hallowed borders of a country which worships the rule of law.

by the way ...

I filed suit yesterday in small claims court against someone in this Rule of Law Worshiping Society who rear-ended me, stove in my back hatch, and has no insurance while driving a vehicle belonging to someone else with no insurance, who then drove off before the cops came, after being monumentally stupid enough to stop and talk to me. If she'd just driven off, no one would ever have been able to prosecute her, since it wasn't her car.
She must have been an illegal immigrant.

I write like ...

cut & paste your writing to find out "who do you write like?" ... although I'm pretty sure it has a really simplistic tool. After all, look at the comparison of the topics and the writers below. It's not my writing style, it's the content. Because while I like Vonnegut, I do not write like him.


This is from my term paper on comparing dry and wet deposition following the Chernobyl disaster.

I write like
Arthur C. Clarke

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

This is from a blog post on my surreal experiences in a Staasi prison in Berlin, Germany

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

From a chapter of a fantasy book I wrote for some friends:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Who in hell is David Foster Wallace?
With its baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references, Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel (after The Broom in the System) will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis. But few others will have the stamina for it. -publisher's weekly

So ... on 2nd thought about the content-only ... I had never heard of this Wallace fellow - but the text I pasted in was a pretty explicit erotic short story. The publisher's review doesn't make it sound like sex.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

and, of course, out of scientific curiosity, I tried something from a famous author, Upton Sinclair, who apparently writes like Arthur C. Clark.
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World Cup, pt. 9

yup - this is long - I don't know who reads this anyway, so if you give up in 3 paragraphs, I'll never know.

The next World Cup starts on June 26, 2011 in Germany. Yes, 2011. This will be the 6th cup for women. Germany is the 2-time-in-a-row defender. We have won 2 of the 5; Norway has the other. In comparison to the men, no one is going to be surprised if the US or Germany makes it to the semifinals.

Now this won't be a rant about women's sports getting the short end of the deal with support from their various national sporting associations or governments. I might, but it will be later. And will involve tea sets.

Oh, what the hell, I'll do it now.

I realize that women's sports doesn't have the draw that men's do. It's stupid, but it's reality. I could argue, rather than about women's sports, about gender discrimination in sports in general. Or the down-side to Title IX in sports. The stupidity of society in general about sports.

Oh, what the hell, I don't know where to start.

Tea sets:
In 1989, after winning their 1st UEFA championship, the German National Women's team received a tea set. Not even a really nice one, either. Not even one in black and white with red & gold highlights, or with the Deutsche Fußball Bund logo, or even the ordinary German eagle, not a really modern design, not even a completely goofy one with the pot designed to look like their jerseys. Nope - a quaint, old-fashioned pastel floral design. Yes, in '07 for winning the World Cup, they got a 50,000 € bonus. You can buy a lot of tea sets for 50k €.

Why doesn't American society want to spend the time or money on sports other than the Holy Trinity (basketball, baseball & football)? Ice hockey I understand being a geographically limited sport. The expansion of the NHL has made it more appealing in warmer climates, where they now have easy access to it. E.g. Hurricanes, Coyotes, Stars. I understand, given the already limited audience, the limited opportunity for women to have a pro hockey league. But soccer? Not even men's soccer gets the coverage that the lower-Nielsen-rated NHL does. But why not?

If sports are subsidized by commercial advertising dollars, and these companies want to make more money, I would think the opportunity for yet more commercialization would appeal to them. You would have different companies "sponsoring" the women's teams. Victoria's Secret isn't going to advertise for the NFL; although I don't understand why not. If the point of advertising is to a) get name recognition and b) increase sales, why not try to get the guys to buy sexy stuff for their girlfriends? Or themselves? More women are watching pro sports. Why not appeal to them through this venue? Are these feminine-appeal companies worried about being associated with men's sweat? If advertising at women's sports, are they worried about their name being associated with Brandi Chastain's bra?

Look at the sheer volume of ad dollars spent by Nike & Adidas impacting couch potatoes who aren't going to buy actual sporting gear. These guys are the ones buying ordinary clothes with the little swoop/3-stripes adding 175% to the otherwise expensive item. An activity equally participated in by women.

FIFA's general website is pretty thin for the women's branch. The page for the women's world cup is pathetic. Why can't they at least put more stories there? I'm not expecting the same level of coverage as the men. Afterall, the women don't have as much opportunity for professional play and therefore there is simply less to report. Nevertheless, the "recent news" for tournaments has no stories about the women. Sure, you say, the men's world cup is going on as you type, what do you expect? I expect to have one link - just one! - to the story that the first group of teams has been qualified for the women's tournament next year. If you go to a national teams' page, the "honors" doesn't distinguish between men's and women's. For some reason, I'm sure the Dutch women's team wasn't in the 1924 Olympic finals.

Sexism is pervasive in society. Men's discrimination is generally ignored (who cares?) or refuted (it can't possibly exist) or justified (what goes around comes around & they deserve to see what it's like). Title IX has been a godsend to women's sports opportunities. This is good for general public health**, encouraging participation from a location other than the couch. Of course, long-term spending on public health is all too often considered a waste of time. This is good for men. However,

Colleges/universities eliminating men's teams in order to offer women's sports is equally sexist. Of course, it's equally total bullshit offered to deflect their obscene expenditure on Football and Men's Basketball and blame it on the federal government's 'interference'. It's bullshit offered to blame women. Double-dipping at the discrimination trough - make the men blame the women teams and the women defend their desires to have teams. All the while claiming "but football brings in money that we claim to spend on the educational parts of the university". Without exception I don't believe this. Okay, maybe 10 cents on the dollar goes to education. Because we can't in the same sentence acknowledge that the average football coach makes 5-25x what the average professor makes. (ibid, In 2001 the Gopher's coach made $1,300,000 per year.) Plus maintenance for the stadium, a cost no one mentions in arguing the bond issues for building these stadiums on tax-payer dollars, which must also be kept-up on the taxpayer purse.

Some men's teams get screwed under Title IX; some sit back and reap the benefits of the men's gymnastics team blaming the women's soccer team for lower funding.

The Girls of Summer (review possibly coming out later) is interesting, if not so well written. The title, however, pisses me off. Why can't a publishing house, who wants to publish a book about how women's soccer in the US has struggled against sexism and who presumably wants to market it to a primarily female audience, use the word woman rather than girl? grrrr... How about cover art similar to The Women's Room? Despite the content of the book, does the publisher fear female sports are really seen as ok only for little girls who haven't become real women? Or are they worried about turning off the idiots who still think professional women athletes are all lesbians whose uterus is now incapable of functioning properly? Seriously, I remember hearing b.s. like this when I was in jr. high (i.e., ~1976). Stupidity which fails to match the epic don't go swimming when having your period because it will suck the water up into you. It's not idiocy safely relegated to the 1950s or Terms of Endearment.

Googling Germany+national+women+soccer yields a wikipedia page on the national team, which is actually the men's team. Of course, that page was written likely by a political-idiot American who also states that "Germany" has never technically won the world cup. Implying only West Germany has. Ignoring this is the fact that only the English-speaking world called it "West Germany", and it has since May 23, 1949 always technically been the Federal Republic of Germany, which won the Men's World Cup in 1954 . So, depending on how you choose to look at it, either
a) "Germany" really did win the world cup in 1954 because the team fielded was from the Bundes Republik Deutschlands (i.e., the Federal Republic of Germany) and every single year since the team team fielded has been from the Bundes Republik Deutschlands
or
b) In 1990 when the "west" won, reunification had "technically" been agreed upon.
And, the suggestion from Google asking if I really meant Germany+national+women's+soccer still doesn't even result in the German team, only the general page about women's soccer. I realize Google is a responsive tool, but really, to fail to provide the page on Germany when googling the exact title of the wikipedia page?

Of course, some women are self-defeatingly stupid, too. What fucktard thought playing in mini-skirts over hot-pants was a step forward for women's sports? Probably the same person retard lunatic man(you really expect me to believe a woman came up with this idea? ... okay, I guess that is my point) woman who thinks playing beach volley ball in a thong as an Olympic sport was a Bright Idea. Elegant? If the Dutch think this is elegant, I'd really hate to see what they think is unattractive. Look at the team photo - if you're posing and the first thing I think is "wow, you can see up their skirts" ... it ain't elegant, sister, it's selling sexy. Do you really need to look elegant to play soccer? What athlete driven to compete and win is going to care if she looks pretty when she's sweating like a stuck pig and gasping in exhaustion after running non-stop for 45 minutes? Do they seriously think this will encourage 12-year old girls to be aggressive and self-assertive? I gotta tell you, if wearing skirts had been required to play soccer, there is no way in hell you could have gotten me onto the pitch when I was 13. I was all for sports; and all for contact sports on top of that. Karate, judo, SCA-fighting, yes. Mini-skirts? Fuck no! Maybe skirts aren't the reason they're #16. This is Holland, the same team duking it out Sunday for the Men's World Cup Championship. It's not as though they come from a nation devoid of world-class examples, say, Botswana. Afterall, skirts are ranked higher than two shorts-wearing teams from countries with power-house men's teams (Spain & Argentina). Two.

Speaking of which, if one looks at the 16 teams who were in the quarter-finals of the men's world cup this year, you have:
country ---- men's rank --- women's rank
Germany --- 6 --- 2
Paraguay --- 31 --- 116
Uruguay --- 16 --- 116
Argentina --- 7 --- 29
Brazil --- 1 --- 3
Holland --- 4 --- 16
Spain --- 2 --- 20
Ghana --- 32 --- 44
USA --- 14 --- 1 ... yes, yes, I know we weren't in the quarter finals, but our women are #1
mind, this is national ranking and not tournament placing.
The difference between the Dutch men's and women's teams isn't sooooo big. It's not the absolute difference in ranking. Just because one team is ranked higher doesn't mean there's something wrong with the other. But the ranking does compare women, not both. though I am curious about the points - Brazil, men's #1 has 1611 points; USA, women's #1 has 2233. They both use the 3/1/0 point system. Why do the women's teams have so many more points than the men's? This is a serious question and I would like an answer, if you have one.

Ah, I need to stop

**website might not be there, article is:
Physical Activity and Public Health -- A Recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine, JAMA, (1995) 273, 402-407.

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World Cup, pt. 8, 1954

We're out. Germany is out. Jr.Gopher#1 is in tears. Mr.Gopher is disappointed. I'm resigned. It's not as if I expected the USA to get to the finals. No one is surprised that we qualified, nor are they surprised we made it out of the Group round. I would have been surprised for the to make it to the semifinals. No one, on the other hand, is surprised that Germany made it to the semi-finals; and once you get that far, I think it's simply a shot in the dark who's going to make it to the finals.

Bastian Schweinsteiger bekommt das Trikot von Andrés Iniesta. Er legt es sich um den Hals wie ein Handtuch, spricht lange mit Philipp Lahm. Dann geht er als letzter vom Feld wie ein Kapitän von einem sinkenden Schiff.-Der Spiegel
Bastian Schweinsteiger received the jersey from Andres Iniesta. He draped it around his shoulder like a towel, spoke with Philipp Lahm for quite a while. Then he left the field as the last one, like a captain from a sinking ship.

Not every year can be a miracle. Not edited well, but highlights of the '54 finals:

Deutschland 4 : 0 ...??

Argentina????

Ole! ole ole ole ole ... ole ... ole ...
Ole! ole ole ole ole ... ole ... ole ...
Ole! ole ole ole ole ... ole ... ole ...**(hear below if anyone I know doesn't actually know what this is)

Jr.Gopher#2 was standing next to me singing in the middle of the 2nd half of the game. He looked pleased that he could sing with the grown-ups. Which is good, because I'm not sure he quite understood why the adults had been going bezerk.

At the end of the game, after screaming themselves hoarse, the Germans looked at each other and wondered: "4 to zero! ... but, against ... them...??"

Maybe because I'm not German, or perhaps because I'm not a serious soccer fan ... I've noticed the Germans, almost uniformly, seemed stunned at the score. Rabidly enthusiastic, but stunned. I don't get it. Sure, Argentina is good; but did these people assume their national team wasn't all that good? Sure, even I'm surprised, but my non-German mind says "wow, we won, cool. Pass the pretzels."

Goal #3 was a thing of technical beauty.

Goal #2, however, I think demonstrates why Germany won: they simply never gave up once they got the ball.
From 66:50 until the goal, Der Mannschaft just passed and passed and passed and scored. Müller (I think) slips, goes down while the ball hits him, he spins on his butt on the ground to kick the ball while practically lying down, straight over to Podolski and then the video clips pick up letting you see the goal.

Messi might be the greatest soccer player in the world, but you don't win the World Cup by being the best player. Or by fielding the best players. Germany hounded him and simply kept him from doing what he does best; it interrupted Argentina's flow of play. Germany just ran them into the ground.

Ahhh ...

Jr.Gopher#1 got to sit next to another boy 2 grades ahead of him at the German school; they at least got to socialize a bit with someone their own age. One of the teachers @ the German School was there, as well.

I hear the jingle for the ESPN world cup highlights coming from the front room...

I can't find a short version with the chant/song - The first 20 seconds or so of this is all you would need to hear; the rest is icky.

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[lie d'jour] Separation of Church & State

"The tenet of the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine," she said.

"The separation of church and state arises out of the Constitution," Ralston replied.

"No it doesn't, Jon," Angle said. "Thomas Jefferson was actually addressing a church and telling them through his address that there had been a wall of separation put up to protect the church from being taken over by a state religion, and that's what they meant.

Washington Post, 30 June 2010, Amy Gardner, Sharron Angle grilled on Social Security, Medicare, and 'taking Harry Reid out', retrieved 1.Jul.2010

Now, I will certainly admit that the Founding Fathers probably didn't envision the current understanding of this separation. And, I suppose someone might technically argue that she is correct, in that the separation of church and state is actually in the Bill of Rights, and not the original Constitution. This doesn't change my assessment of this as a Lie.

A church being taken over by the State...?
They would have LTAO.

Lecturing to a congregation to fear the government's actions? This would be the same Thomas Jefferson who espoused:
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." [emphasis mine]
as well as
"Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason ..."
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787*

This would be the same Thomas Jefferson who, with James Madison (another Founding Father) waged "a long and successful campaign against state financial support of churches in Virginia." [emphasis mine]

These early American Citizen-Politicians' experiences would have been that the State already had a religion (The Church of England), and they were Out of Luck if they wanted to hold office and weren't Anglican. If you were Roman Catholic, you were just fucked. The majority (Protestants) were probably just pissed that they were being lumped in with the Catholics by being denied.

The C of E had the power, and the American colonists wanted it. The King was the head of the C of E (like the Pope, but with more wives). So, the Founding Fathers' experience was that the only way to get real political freedom was to get rid of the British Government which was run by the British Parliament, which required you to be Anglican to get in, and which required you to consider George III God's Vicar here on Earth.

So - their solution was to eliminate the possibility of an entire government be stuck adhered to one specific sect. How? Prohibit anyone in the new government from setting their flavor of Christianity as the Preferred Choice. In other words: "Let's have no state-mandated religion so we can all equally seek earthly power".

Their solution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Anyone who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate should be expected to know and understand the contents of the Constitution of the United States of America. Which is unfortunate, since I am under the impression that the only parts of the Constitution most politicians read is a few sentences within the Commerce Clause. They tend to be much more likely to quote from the Bill of Rights, especially the First, Second and Fifth Amendments.

It is doubly unfortunate they don't read it, since it is one of the shortest constitutions in the world. This one document has had a greater impact on the entire world in the past 220 years than anything imagined by the men who wrote it. I think they would be shocked at the scope of the impact of these 4 pages.

I think the early Americans would also be shocked at the idea of acknowledging the populist religion (evangelical/pentacostal Christianity) as the de facto Religion of Choice for the operation of the government.




*Thomas Jefferson, letter to his nephew Peter Carr, from Paris, August 10, 1787; Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings, New York: Library of America, 1994, pp. 900-906.

as an afterthought ... I really hope she isn't elected; I might have to add another woman to the euphemistic category She Who Must Not Be Named.

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Lie d'Jour

bumper sticker of the month? What a silly idea! Who needs a bumper sticker? We can have

drum roll

the Lie of the Day!

This ought to be just as amusing, and probably much more closely related to reality.

So, here we go:

in order for it to be considered for the Lie d'Jour, it must

a) be a lie
As I'm trying to explain to Jr.Gopher#1, it is rude to call someone a liar. This is because I'm not sure he can understand the longer version: "It's rude to call someone a liar if you just don't like what they say, or if you don't happen to agree with them." My definition of a lie, so far, is: "When you say something that isn't true, and you know it's not true, and you want someone to think it is."

Because my best effort at a "real" definition has another item: "when you say something that isn't true and you know it's not true, and you want someone to think it is, because you want to take advantage of them ... it's a lie"

There is a sometimes fine, sometimes incomprehensible, distinction between a LIE and JUST PLAIN STUPID. Lying will get you ridiculed by me here.
So - looking ahead at the 1st entry from Ms. Sharron Angle, contender for the U.S. Senate from Nevada.
She claims the separation of church & state is not based in the Constitution. LIE: it is based on the Constitution, even if the current incarnation isn't what the Framers had in mind.
She claims that God has a plan for everyone and therefore victims of rape/incest aren't allowed to have abortions. STUPIDITY, but not a lie.

and last, in this description ...

It needs to be either demonstrated by evidence or by very convincing logic that the Liar actually knew they were wrong. Just getting something wrong doesn't make you a liar. At least not immediately.

b) come from a reputable source (as defined by me)
Wikipedia is not a reputable source. The footnotes in Wikipedia might be.
My blog is - if I put references with it.
The New York Times or Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or the Strib or Der Spiegel might be.
If you personally heard someone say it, and I believe you, it is.

c) be significant to the public or me

Tiger Woods saying "i've never screwed around" might make it for criteria a and b, but totally fail on c because I don't care.

d) be so gross a mis-representation of the Truth as to create a Lie

This is to cover the Idiots who lie to themselves so often for so long that they believe it. Like the people who think the Founding Fathers wanted to establish a Christian Nation. Some people espousing this idea are Liars. Some are Just Plain Stupid.

e) be relatively recent or so far back in time as to provide historical amusement

Within the past month or so, preferably in the past few days. Otherwise, it gets stale.
Otherwise, Chester A. Arthur stating he was the 22nd President of the U.S. might count, especially if he said Rutherford B. Hayes was his Vice President.


Submissions are welcome and will be posted if I think it's funny enough or produces enough Road Rage. If you want me to post it, you need to provide

1. the lie
2. where you found it -- provide links or else standard references
3. why it's a lie
4. why I should care
   

so, we're off to the races:

#1: separation of church & state unconstitutional

bumper sticker of the month

Of course you can trust the government:

Ask any Indian!

Groundhog groovin' @ Glockenspiel

This past Sunday at the Glockenspiel, St. Paul
Germany 4 : 1 England
- or -
Germany 4 : 2 England
- depending on who you ask - a normal human being or a FIFA ref



















Groundhog Groovin' @ the Glockenspiel








exhausted after the soccer weekend

American news media & soccer

Just to demonstrate how out of it American media are about soccer, Yahoo's sports report on some amusing story was in English. The YouTube clip, however, was narrated in German.