Words - you gotta love 'em. Or hate 'em. Whatever.

Like, for example, the word “nudity.” Just look how awesome that one is.

New Fines for Indecency:

The FCC also denied CBS's appeal to nullify a proposed $550,000 in fines for network-owned stations for airing singer Janet Jackson's brief nudity during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl.

She was about, what, two square inches of nude? Would that be about right? (I blinked and missed the whole thing, myself. Last time I'll ever blink during a half time show, you bet.)

Well, damn. I guess I'll have to throw away my favorite t-shirt then. I was running around nude all last summer and didn't even know it. Although the way I remember it just about everybody else in town was nude last summer too. Skin? You wouldn't believe. (I saw some really, really hot knees. But don't get me started.)

Or maybe it's not being nude if you're, you know, there. Only if you're not. Like on TV. I don't know. “Nudity” is just one of those words, I guess.

War breaks out in France: At least it beats fighting over oil.

Wired News: :

Critics of the draft law say legislators have no business forcing Apple to share its proprietary format, which most customers are aware of when they choose to buy an iPod. But consumer groups argue that the only way to give customers real choice is to break open the restrictions.

iPods. French lawmakers are considering that would force Apple to share the proprietary formats that prevent iTunes Music Store-purchased songs from playing on anything but iPods. Or something like that. And Sony too, same thing. Kinda. I guess.

I don't know about the sister but you can probably get the house online too.

Saw an amusing bumper sticker this morning in Northampton (worked there today): “I haven't been the same since that house landed on my sister,” it said. Turns out you can, naturally, buy it online.

(And no that's not an ad. I used to have an account with Amazon but I lost all the info years ago. I'm getting this one for myself.)

I don't really have a most popular celestial object myself but if I did have one this would be the thing.

Once you have targeted an object the real fun begins.

The SkyScout includes entertaining and educational audio and text information, including facts, trivia, history and mythology about our most popular celestial objects.

Real fun indeed. It's a gadget that identifies stars and then tells you the aforementioned things about them, based on GPS and some other stuff and...oh, go read it for yourself.

Especially the trombone-playing Baptist ones.

Chicago Tribune | Man shoots goose. Will the judge cook his?:

“It shows you what I think is a pretty common reality,” said Roy Domazlicky, an urban waterfowl project manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “Peoples' opinion about these geese vary greatly. And the conflict is similar with a lot of wildlife. ”It's harder managing the people than the animals, to some regard.“

So this semi-retired trombone-playing Baptist from the far 'burbs ”accidentally, sort of“ pops a goose with a pellet gun (this guy could be Vice Presidential material) while trying to shoo it out of the driveway and some Commie pinko bird-smooching neighbor gets ”irate,“ gives him up to the coppers who negotiate a surrender and now the popgun guy's up for ”unlawful taking of a migratory waterfowl.“

Ain't easy managing those people, you got that right.

We are nothing if not practical, here in New England.

Cellphone limit faces an uncertain fate - The Boston Globe:

Drivers in Massachusetts are currently allowed to use cellphones while driving, as long as they keep one hand on the steering wheel.

The “uncertain fate” of the Globe's headline refers to pending legislation about driver distraction, yada yada, as though one hand weren't enough and anyway there weren't whole industries devoted to exactly that end, distracted driving, to begin with.

Similar laws are surfacing elsewhere in the nation, including a proposal in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill., to make ''distracted driving“ a crime, which could include anything from drinking a cup of coffee to changing a song on an iPod while driving

Well anything can happen in Winnetka, take my word. You don't see a one-hand-on-the-wheel rule in Winnetka, do you? I thought not. We have a one-hand rule in Massachusetts.

Be careful out there.

It's happened: guy tries to sue himself.

Lodi man sues himself for vehicle damage:

After the city denied that claim...he and his wife, Rhonda, decided to file a new claim under her name.

If you want my opinion, I think every US citizen should be issued a law degree at birth. And retroactively. Then we can all sue ourselves and get it over with.

“How to tell if you've been abducted by aliens.”

You suddenly discover you are missing a limb -- “You know you started out the day with two arms and two legs, and yet, when it's time to go to bed, one is missing,” said Dr. Longneck. “This is an indication they have kept one of your limbs for dissection purposes.”

Well that's one way. It all seems so easy when Dr. Longneck explains, doesn't it? I wonder if forgetting the coffee filters at the grocery store this morning is another clue. I bet it is.

Actually being at the grocery store was how I found out about Dr. Longneck, in a sort of providentially indirect way. I noticed the cover story in the Weekly World News“ ”Computer Virus Spreads to Humans.“ You can imagine my horror. I spend a lot more time with computers than with birds. Or, for that matter, aliens. (As far as I know.) So when I got home I looked up WWN on the web (you didn't think I was going to buy the paper did you? - people would think I'm weird) but the computer virus story isn't there. Still I bet it's true.

I'm going to take an aspirin and go back to bed.

But no way am I going to close my eyes.

Sisyphus's web site.

You have to be a little weird to like this but if you are - a little weird, I mean - it's pretty funny.

It's pi day - bet you didn't know.

March 14. Pi day. I only found out about this myself (yeah I could fake it and say I remembered but what kind of thing would that be to do?) this morning driving to work. Anyway, let's hear it for the mighty pi! 3.14159! Woohoo!

Google Mars

Nifty.

Type in your home address and it won't show you anything. But if you look around, says this Yahoo News/AP article, you can find out where NASA's hardware is so at least you'll know where your money is.

Google has a moon map too, did you know that?

Ha! Finally! Something useful to do with all those AOL CDs.

This guy collected 4,000 of them, built himself a throne.

OK, sort of useful. Might be useful. Never know.

Anyway it's a lot cooler than just hanging them on a Christmas tree. And I only need about 3,900 more, myself. That thing would look great in the executive suite, wouldn't it?

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)

Canadian girls give bad Google. Ed too.

Bad google: What do people find when they Google you?:

Marchildon got down on her Google after she posted a tongue-in-cheek item on her blog (The Hollywood North Report) about worrying she had put on weight following an accident that prevented her from exercising. Perhaps rashly, she also posted a photo of her (clothed) butt.

Yikes! Talk about your rashly, huh? At least it wasn't, you know, maximum rashly, we can be grateful for that. Or maybe not. (Sarah is that you, “single of the week,” Feb. 23? Just asking.)

And let's not even talk about Ed.

(Sarah, is that really you?)

Find a good hometown grocery store and buy your stuff there.

Jim Hightower | WHAT COLOR IS YOUR STEAK?:

Tyson, Wal-Mart, and other food giants have been gassing their pre-cut packaged meats with carbon monoxide, which turns a steak puckishly pink. This makes weeks-old meat appear to be as fresh as the day it was cut. But, wait – we've been taught that the clearest indicator of freshness is the meat's color: Pink, good. Brown, bad. It's raw consumer deception to let industry pass off old meat as pink and fresh.

(Don't read this right before dinner, would be my advice.)

What's that in blobs per hour, I wonder.

Space: the final junkyard:

Ailor said that among the stranger debris is a Russian satellite with an onboard nuclear reactor that is “leaking liquid metal -- something like 70,000 blobs of liquid metal (so far).” He said the world's space agencies are collaborating on ways to develop anti-debris protocols for future launches.

A San Francisco Chronicle piece about junk in orbit makes the point that all of it eventually comes back to Earth, burns up in the atmosphere - but what happens when radioactive material “burns up?” You're not asking me I hope. I haven't the foggiest. I'm thinking about buying an umbrella though, myself.