Rice has human genes.

Oh...you thought I meant...?

No, rice. As in pork fried.

The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods.

The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds.
(Washington Post)

Only this kind you're not supposed to eat, I guess. The idea is to use plants - in this case, rice - as "factories" to produce certain stuff - you know, proteins, enzymes, whatever. It all sounds cool and sci-fi, assuming it works.

If it doesn't, it sounds sci-fi and not so good.

While his boss fiddles.

Surprise! Snow flaunts his flute

OK, that's it. I mean it, too.

With the coupons. I'm serious. I go to the grocery store specifically to get something I have a coupon for (and also, yeah, because I'm feeling way to lazy to make a proper supper this evening so I'm wanting to buy a cheat but I don't want to talk about that), and I take the coupon to the grocery store and then forget to turn it in. That's it. No more coupons. I never use them anyway. They're all going out and I'm not going to save them any more and that's it.

Did you ever have the kind of day when nothing goes right? I mean like, just getting out of bed was a disaster and everything went downhill from there? That's what I mean.

And another thing. The R in your car stands for "reverse." As in backwards. So when you're in one of those slanty parking places - not the square ones, you can drive through the square ones and yes you do too know what I mean - a slanty one, you can not drive through because if you do you wind up going the wrong way. And then all the good, decent people who are following the fucking arrows have to wait for you to get out of the way. If you're in a slanty parking spot back up.

I hope I am making myself clear.

More bad news for the Rs: Pelosi to get WMDs.

Congratulations, northern California! The next H-bomb is going to be built in your back yard! Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is getting the nuclear nod, the Energy Department announced on Friday.
(Danger Room)

Oh oh.

The first time I saw Carol Burnett...

...she was on the late-night Jack Parr Show (in August, 1957 - I had to look that part up), and she was singing a song called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles."

I'm still waiting for somebody to write a song about Condi Rice.

Look out!

Snowjob is spinning so fast he...wait...here he comes again...

At first Snow claimed that this was “an intelligence matter that I’m not going to be able to go into,” despite the fact that the new National Intelligence Director had testified about this topic the day before. He then suggested that bin Laden may now be “marginalized.” A reporter responded, “Isn’t he the leader of al Qaeda?” Snow answered, “Well, I don’t know.
(Think Progress)

Whew, that was close. Are you OK?

Well, hey! Small world!

Those Iraqis have a faith-based government too!

That would put Chalabi, a Westernized secular Shiite who spent much of his life abroad, back in the halls of power and reinforce his image as Iraq's ultimate political survivor.

"There is a firm belief that he is capable of running a ministry, whether it is linked to services or security," a top adviser to al-Maliki said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss Cabinet plans.

(More: See Firedoglake.)

And if that doesn't work out, how about FEMA?

So this woman had these fish in her dress, see, and...

...customs officers heard "flipping" noises coming from her clothes and conducted a search, Australian Customs said.

No, I'm not kidding.

In a specially made apron under her dress, they found 15 plastic bags filled with water and fish: one rare Asian arowana that customs said was worth tens of thousands of dollars, and 14 catfish.

(Yahoo! News)

From the far, far fringes of the looneysphere, good news!

After being assured, recently, by spokesborg Tony Snowjob that the muddle in Iraq is not our fault (the terrorists made us do it), delegates to the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference were assured by Trickshot Dick his ownself that if the US leaves Iraq the "jihadists" (that would be whichever ones we're not liking today) would not follow us home but would go to Afghanistan instead, having "tasted victory in Iraq" and being in the mood for something a little stronger to snort. Or smoke. Or whatever. Presumably.

Because look at what it's done (Afghanistan, I'm taking about here) for the DOOFUS and his gang. And CPAC.

"Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition..."

A merry band of English archers - actually, the Oxford archery club, circa. mid-70s - includes Tony Blair (circled), described by a classmate as "averagely naughty, without being wicked."

(More at Raw Story)

And what's wrong with Disneyland?

The US Army is denying yesterday's claims that some patients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit were told not to speak to the media.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce tells Think Progress that patients are free to speak to the media; however, they must receive permission to speak with the press while on hospital grounds.

When questioned further, Boyce told TP that if patients wished to speak to reporters without permission, "They can go to Starbucks."
(Raw Story)

"Many of them want to get out [of the hospital] anyway," said Boyce.

Wait. Did Cheney fly over Switzerland the other day?

I don't know. But whatever, there was some kind of weird disturbance in the Force because, as reported by the New York Times (and spotted by Wonkette)...

Switzerland accidentally invaded Liechtenstein.

WWIII was narrowly averted when it was discovered (by whom is not clear, since Liechtenstein has no army) Swiss troops had no ammunition in their weapons.

Good morning. Welcome to the gulag.

New York is the latest state to abandon the principle that people should be punished, once and only once, for what they have done, but never for a crime they have not committed. Sexual predator laws deprive sex offenders of their liberty after they finish their sentences -- a detention that seems to many (but not to a majority of the Supreme Court) to be a second punishment that isn't moored to a new crime....

States are permitted knock the cap off sentences by changing the label from "punishment" to "treatment." The state claims the power to detain and treat dangerous and disordered sex offenders to protect against future sex crimes that it fears the detainee will otherwise commit.
(TalkLeft - emphasis mine)

The proposed guidelines "would also create a new 'sexually motivated felony' that would apply to those who intended to commit a sex crime but did not."

They blew up freaking WHAT???

(WBZ) BOSTON There were some tense moments in Boston's financial district Wednesday morning as police were forced to blow up a suspicious device.

The bomb squad shut down busy Devonshire Street after someone spotted a green box chained to a no parking sign.

Yes? Yes?

The box turned out to be some kind of traffic counting device and was completely harmless.

Oh.

Wait. A traffic counter?

Yes.

Feds lose DVD of Padilla interrogation.

So does this mean they have to pay a late fee?

No? Wait. Why are you looking at me like that?

Boston Herald challenges Globe for wackiest-headline-ever honors.

Lingerie loser gets three-to-five years

Seems a little steep for just, you know, misplacing your drawers.

Spokesbimbo accuses Trickshot Dick of looking in China's underwear.

According to the Washington Post, the spokesman, in response to recent remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney, said:

"If someone always tears through your clothes and even wants to lift open your underwear, saying 'Let me see what's inside', how would you feel? Would you want to call the police?" Qin told reporters when asked about Cheney's remarks.
(Danger Room)

Eewwwww.

Echoes

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

-- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

(Noted by Cintra Wilson at The Dregulator.)

Cupcakes kept me up all night.

I'm just now recovering.

Oh wait. You thought...? Nawww. Chocolate cupcakes with big mounds of green frosting (my grocery store likes a big lead on the holidays). You know. Cupcakes.

It was just the sugar, Sugar.

Yeah, no kidding.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 — Last October, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device, the fruition of decades of work to make a weapon out of plutonium.

For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates, has accused North Korea of also pursuing a secret, parallel path to a bomb, using enriched uranium. That accusation, first leveled in the fall of 2002, resulted in the rupture of an already tense relationship: The United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.

But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.
(NYTimes)

Let's review. DOOFUS makes a dumb decision [no! really?] based on some very iffy intelligence [that's starting to sound familiar somehow, isn't it?] and likely makes matters worse [go figure]. John Bolton [the neocon blowhard with the moustache] applauds.

Now, on to Iran.

Feeling safer yet?

Cheney groundswell gathers.

Starting public service as an intern in the Nixon White House, after declining to waste any of his youthful zeal in the Democrat war in Vietnam, Cheney has learned statecraft from the ground up in almost 40 years of Washington combat.

The Republican Party must persuade him to overcome his modesty and shyness to lead the nation to new heights of respect in the world. Start readying those banners and buttons that would say it all: “Dick!”
(Connecting.the.Dots)

Guy who jerked you around in '04 wants to be your ambassador now.

Sam Fox is a St. Louis, Missouri-based business executive nominated by President Bush in Dec. 2006 to be US Ambassador to Belgium. Yesterday, in a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his nomination was under consideration prior to a possible vote on the Senate floor. Blogger Bob Geiger presented a recap of the events and a transcript of the exchange at his website this morning.

Fox was a major backer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a so-called non-partisan "527" advocacy group that attacked Senator Kerry's military service record in the 2004 election. In December, the group paid a large cash settlement to the Federal Election Commission for violating federal election laws. Fox gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat Vets group.

When Kerry confronted Fox on this subject in yesterday's hearing, Fox criticized all 527 groups, and said "You're a hero. And there isn’t anybody or anything that's going to take that away from you. But yet 527s tried to."
(Raw Story)

Fox goes on to protest he wasn't "fully aware" of his $50,000 donation.

The wonder is, he didn't get picked to head FEMA.

Imprison

Earlier today [Wednesday], AP military writer Robert Burns reported that "[r]ushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases."

According to Burns, some Congress members are wondering if the "Army is cutting corners in preparing soldiers for combat, since they are forgoing training in a desert setting that was designed specially to prepare them for the challenges of Iraq."...

"Well," [Spokesbimbo Tony] Snow suggested, "but they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq."
(Raw Story)

This is the kind of thing that happens in the early stages of a war when getting troops to the front at any cost is the paramount concern - not four freaking years in. The DOOFUS' adventure in Iraq has now lasted longer than the US involvement in WWII lasted. And they're still so shorthanded and disorganized they don't have time to train the troops?

Impeachment is too good for these guys. Lock them up.

What???

The late inventor of instant noodles was symbolically blasted off into space at a funeral ceremony attended by thousands in Osaka, western Japan.

The event was a tribute to Momofuku Ando's creation of Space Ram, a noodle soup that works at zero gravity....

Delivering a eulogy, ex-prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said: "He was the creator of a culinary culture that post-war Japan can be proud of."
(BBC)

A zero-gravity soup? That's got to be a joke, right? I mean, I might be impressed if it worked underwater or something. Maybe. But zero gravity? Gimme a break.

Because they don't trust the cops.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 28 — NATO and American forces knew that a suicide bomber was at large in the Bagram area before the suicide bomb attack on Tuesday that killed 23 people at the main gate of the United States air base where Vice President Dick Cheney was staying, a NATO spokesman said Wednesday. But despite the vice president’s presence, the Afghan police chief in the area said he had not been informed of the possible threat.
(NYTimes)

Which is to say, things are not going well in Afghanistan.

Nor, it seems, are things going well for Spokestroop Col. Tom Collins, who gets stuck claiming the occurrence of a suicide-bomb attack at the air base where Trickshot Dick was dug in "could have been just a coincidence" and the guys who claim responsibility for it are merely "going for more psychological impact on the population," whatever that may mean, and anyway maybe the bomber was only trying to bump off the 19 hapless Afghans who were standing outside the gate, waiting to go to work.

Accompanying the Afghans were a South Korean soldier, an American soldier, and an American civilian contractor - all of whom, collectively, come in for about as much attention as a gaggle of extras on the set of "Trickshot Dick and His Excellent Breakfast." It does not pay to get too close to the Vice.

Road out of winter.

That girl I met on the ship coming home called it the State of Misery

A senior administration official groping and kissing his gal employees, the chief executive covering the whole thing up, Democrats calling it worse than Watergate, silence payments made from government checking accounts — this would be the greatest scandal of the year, but it’s just some Missouri governor/agriculture director thing.
(Wonkette)

Candy (no, I'm not kidding). From Misery. We snuck into the first class ballroom one evening and danced the night away.

In Chicago, it's da Mare. Again.

"Who's goona voote against Daley?!" said Mr. Shakes.

"I know, right?" I replied. "The guy's an institution. It would be like voting against the Sears Tower."
(Shakespeare's Sister)

Da Mare cruises to a sixth term with 70 percent of the vote. If he serves out this term he will have been da Mare longer than his father, da Mare, was.

Taking rehab to a whole new level

“Next week,” [Associated Press] entertainment editor Jesse Washington wrote in an e-mail memo obtained by The Transom, “the print team is planning an unconventional experiment: We are NOT going to cover Paris Hilton....

Reached for comment, Mr. Washington said, “There was a surprising amount of hand-wringing. A lot of people in the newsroom were saying this was tampering with the news.” One editor’s response was apparently: “This is a great idea—can we add North Korea?”
(New York Observer)

Washington goes on to say the AP might write about Paris Hilton if it turns out Paris Hilton is in the news. Or if anybody else writes about Paris Hilton. Or something. Which won't be us.

In solidarity with the Associated Press we at Yet Another Media Empire pledge not to write about Paris Hilton or North Korea for one whole entire week. Except this one time, of course. But that was the AP's fault. Or if Paris Hilton and North Korea are spotted in a club somewhere necking.

Maybe then too.

Blue Gal says...

...party time.

(I can't make that rhyme.)

A slippery spot on the net

It must have really happened because we believe it did, says religious guy

James Tabor, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that while literal interpreters of the Bible say Jesus' physical body rose from the dead, "one might affirm resurrection in a more spiritual way in which the husk of the body is left behind."

But Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said Christianity "has always understood the physical resurrection of Christ to be at the very center of the faith."
(CBS News)

So when some other guys claim they've found Jesus' tomb it causes controversy. Imagine that.

[Simcha] Jacobovici and archaeologist Charles Pellegrino also are the authors of "The Jesus Family Tomb," newly published by HarperSan Francisco. Jacobovici said that a name on one of the ossuaries, Mariamene, is a major support to the argument that the tomb is that of Jesus and his family. In early Christian texts, Mariamene is a name of Mary Magdalene, he said.

Oh, right. Did I mention that? Her too.

Looks to me like another job for Tom Hanks.

I was going to mention this, but it's already a really gloomy morning so I won't

Chinese scientists have succeeded in implanting electrodes in the brain of a pigeon to remotely control the bird's flight, state media said....

The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to electronic signals sent by the scientists via computer, mirroring natural signals generated by the brain, Xinhua quoted chief scientist Su Xuecheng as saying.
(CBS/AP)

In case you were wondering

So your mission is to fight the bad Shia but not the good Shia, and fight the bad Sunni, but not the good Sunni. And make sure you don't get the good ones confused with the bad ones, because if you do, you can get in trouble with your own military command and be court martialed. Killing innocent civilians is not okay, but under the clear and hold strategy, you're expected to go through every house, not knowing who is innocent and who is not, and you're expected to confiscate weapons, except that civilians are entitled to be armed with one rifle and one clip of ammo for self protection against people who might break down their doors. But when you go in, you have to break down the civilians' doors, so they're going to be upset at you, and armed, even if they're innocent. And they have enough experience with Iraqi security forces to believe they may be in danger from their own army/police; they're the ones who are watching as you are conducting your joint operations.
(Firedoglake)

The other war

Convoys lack air support. Troops guarding the border where al Qaeda and the Taliban have regrouped, and from which they launch increasingly effective incursions into Afghanistan, lack the men to go on regular patrols. Troops endure two or three times the planned mission length because their commanders lack either the resources to resupply them, the helicopters to remove them or the manpower to relieve them. Plainly and unambiguously the effort to stabilize Afghanistan is suffering because we lack the resources to do the job right.
(Balloon Juice)

They'll stop at nothing, those Iranians.

Iranians have infiltrated our package delivery companies and they are damaging our precious packages.
(The Aristocrats)

No! No! Anything but that!

You can bet that a primary purpose of International Violence Against Women Act money will be to lobby the U.S. Senate for ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women so that its U.N. monitoring committee can force U.S. compliance with feminist goals....

...writes Phyllis Shlafly at Human Events.com (leading the "conservative movement" since 1994).

So what, pray tell, would these feminist goals be?

That agenda includes everything from requiring unlimited abortion rights to rewriting schoolbooks to eliminate so-called "stereotypes" and gender-specific references.

Oh. Well, then.

Our teachers is learning.

Twelth-graders' [sic] reading skills have hit a new low, but their grades continue to climb, according to federal officials who suspect the nation's schools are inflating grades.

Suspicions that teens' rising grade-point averages may be unmerited are fueled by two new national reports released yesterday at a Washington, D.C., news conference. Both reports are from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a U.S.-sponsored program that tests representative samples of students in academic subjects.
(am New York)

Who is this "Q" and where did he learn to pitch like that?

This guy, "Q," who, it appears, was flying around with Trickshot Dick the other day in Air Force Two (which is either the Air Force's number two plane - somewhere between Nancy Pelosi's plane and the Starship Enterprise - or, possibly, a newer and more powerful version of Air Force One, I'm not sure) - anyway, as I was saying, this guy "Q" put on absolutely the most awe-inspiring demonstration ever of pitching big, fat, slow ones right over the plate, to wit:

Q Did you at any time consider changing your itinerary about Kabul after learning this news? Or was that never--

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Never an option.

[Woohoo! Did you see that? But wait - it was just a warm-up.]

Q I guess, the question was, do you suppose in light of the current situation in Afghanistan that if a group does the act that it did and it suggests that they were going after you in some way, it's more a self-serving symbolic statement to their own people, look, we're on the attack against the Vice President, regardless of how ludicrous it is because you were so far from the scene of the actual incident?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government. Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that. But it shouldn't affect our behavior at all.
(Not yet deleted from whitehouse.gov)

Does that take your breath away or what? Trying to find ways to question the authority of the central government!

Oh, those wacky terrorists! Don't they get it? They don't have to blow themselves up - they can just go stand in the protests pens, like we do.

And you're counting the days until your kids move out?

Owner finds home for last 2 elephants

(Chicago Tribune)

Emergency: We're running out of sports.

The first ever World Cup in the new extreme sport of underwater ice hockey has been staged in the frozen White Sea lake in Austria.
(Ananova)

Weather guys: Take a long, slow breath. Exhale.

What is there, some kind of award for most alerts? I'm not kidding, every time I look at my weather widget there's an alert about something. I don't know if this has got even worse since I switched to the Weather Channel widget of if the weather has just got more alertful in that time, but anyway, the other services are almost as bad. This morning's alert was: The roads might be slippery.

Gimme a break, weather guys. It's freakin' winter here. Of course the roads might be slippery. Take a nap.

OK, no more scrotum jokes. I mean it.

Greatest Headline Ever: “Librarian Censorship of Scrotum is Just Nuts.”

And more from The Carpetbagger Report's Monday Mini-Report.

If your garage doors open the terrorists win!

Or close. Whatever. Either way. But don't worry - the Pentagon is on the case.

All over the United States, garage door openers have gone bonkers ... and it's all the fault of the U.S. Military!

The Government Accountability Office in Washington released the results of a special investigation on Thursday, saying the cause of thousands of garage-door mishaps is a new military radio system apparently used all over the country.

In a colossal screw-up only the Pentagon could pull off, the new Land Mobile Radio units operate on the same frequencies as most garage-door openers.
(Sploid)

OK, worry a little, maybe. But not too much.

Go, Al!

No, not that Al. Al Sharpton, I'm saying here.

In case you haven't been following this story, Sharpton recently got involved in some kind of genealogy stunt perpetrated by the New York Daily News, which turned up the info that one Coleman Sharpton, Al Sharpton's great-grandfather, was once owned by the great-great-grandfather of former South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, and if you don't know who Strom Thurmond was you shouldn't have much trouble finding out.

"It was probably the most shocking thing in my life," Sharpton said at a news conference Sunday, the day the Daily News reported the link.

So now, reports today's Washington Post, Sharpton gets his licks in by asking for a DNA test. Which is way the coolest thing I've heard all day.

"I think the odds are slim he would match," [Genealogist Megan] Smolenyak told the News.

Yeah, maybe. But just the idea of it is excellent. Go, Al!

Faux News guy, "Gibson," will tell you anything you want to hear.

[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.

GIBSON: Oh, there’s a war on, there’s a war on. Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else. Maybe that’s why they all thundered to this story.

[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.

GIBSON: My complaint about this is what you’re listening to when you hear that guy lecture the audience, is you’re listening to news-guy snobbery. Essentially saying, “I’m better than you. I know what you want to hear about, but I’m better than that story. I’m too high class for that story. I won’t stoop to what you want to hear about.”

I’m not playing that. People want to hear about the Anna Nicole story, I’m happy to tell them.
(Think Progress)

Faux News: Fair, Balanced, and Fun,

If you're surprised, raise your hand.

The [White House] website evidently has been busy scrubbing links to interviews and perhaps other public appearances by top officials. The operation has proceeded somewhat unevenly, though aggressively. Pretty clearly the WH wants to make it much harder to research the administration's past pronouncements, especially unscripted ones, and especially those pertaining to Iraq.
(Undernews)

Might as well settle for what you can get, I guess.

In possible farewell, Farrakhan calls for unity at Ford Field

(Detroit Free Press)

But "Windows for warships" is such a turn-on, isn't it?

All this raises a number of worrying issues. First up is basic reliability and usability. Most of us have stared in helpless despair at the dreaded blue screen; how much worse would you feel if that wasn't just your desktop gone but your combat display, and it really was the screen of death?
(The Register)

OK, well, right, there's that. But it still has "Minesweeper," doesn't it?

If you're looking for love on the boards, baby, buy hot shoes.

So say some guys from the University of Bologna (yeah, right, but I'm not kidding) who monitored a bunch of fetish discussion boards on the net (nope, still not kidding) and kept score. Feet won. And kinky boots. In bad news for drug stores everywhere, hair barely made the chart. And, hard to believe though it may be, hardly anyone gets turned on by stethoscopes.

Really.

Sure, I know how the Democrats feel.

Also, Charlie Brown. You know, in that strip where Lucy jerks the football away. That's exactly how I feel every time I open a box of rice.

Now, OK, I know, it's lame to buy rice in boxes, so don't get started on that. If I buy a whole sack it goes stale before I use it all. So I buy a box and bring it home and there, every time, on the top is that little flap that says "Lift Here." So I lift. What a dope.

It never lifts. It just sort of rips in some irrational way. And there's some sort of wimpy so-called "spout" underneath. Or maybe not so called. Or maybe not at all. So there's no way to get the rice out of the box without ripping the rest of the top off and dumping the rice all over the countertop and, you know, swearing a lot.

Next time, potatoes. I don't care.

Little Miss whatever, if you ask me.

Yeah, I know. You didn't. So, another year of being a totally clueless geezer for me. I'm getting used to it.

Maybe if they put the Oscars on a one-year time delay they'd make more sense. I hardly ever go to the real movies any more; I watch a lot of DVDs. By next year this time it'll all make sense, I guess.

I've heard some good things about several of the films on this year's "Best Picture" list, but "Sunshine" is the only one I've seen. The thing I liked about "Sunshine" was that it didn't wind up with one of those everybody's-happy endings - or, in other words, the best part of the movie was its end. Which isn't much to say, is it, about a "Best Picture," after all.

As to the end of tonight's Oscar show, I'll just assume it has one. I doubt I'll hang around to find out for sure. You're on your own.

...and yes, even the dogs are above average.

CLIFTON, N.J. - The city of Clifton is not going to the dogs. At least not if the City Council has anything to do about it.

Later this month, the council is expected to introduce an ordinance setting a limit on how long dogs can bark.

(Dependable Renegade)