Way too much kissing to ever make our list despite a 100 on the Tomatometer, Don't Bother to Knock is a still movie absolutely worth a watch. Made in 1952, it stars Marilyn Monroe in a serious dramatic role, Ann Bancroft long before she became Mrs. Robinson, and Richard Widmark, and is filmed in black and white and very, very noir. If you get tired of hamburgers and fireworks this weekend, look this one up.
‘Wife-carrying’ champion wins again | The Raw Story
A Finnish pair have won the country's annual wife-carrying competition for the third year in a row, organisers said on Saturday....
The 46-year-old lawyer, his partner's legs wrapped around his head, sprinted 253 metres, leaping hurdles and negotiating a water pool along the way, all in a time of one minute....
...I bought a tomato. There it is. It's not a real tomato, of course; it's one of those hard, plastic ones you get at the grocery store. Nevertheless, there it is. A tomato is a veggie, just like ketchup only not as red, which means you can pop a slice of tomato onto a bologna sandwich and right away it's good for you.
Bliss, oh bliss.
Fighting Over Rain Forest Ipe in Coney Island Boardwalk - NYTimes.com
Can a boardwalk be called a boardwalk if it is not made of boards?
The Voice of the Patient: Time To Bring Out the Muzzle? - Larry Husten - Cardiobrief - Forbes
Here’s a thought that probably won’t gain me many new friends: I am really sick and tired of the excessive role given to patients in news stories about health and medical issues.
No new friends. Not one.
What's with all the seeds and stuff? It's impossible to get anything but white bread that's not gritty any more. OK, maybe oatmeal bread, but then they go and screw that up by putting oatmeal all over the top. I hate gritty bread. It confuses my mouth. So from now on, I'm not kidding, I'm just eating white bread and that's that.
Minnesota government shuts down | The Raw Story
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Minnesota's state government began a broad shut down on Friday going into the July 4 holiday...
Parts of the government had already begun to shut down on Thursday ahead of the midnight budget deadline, including some websites and dozens of highway rest stops on one of the biggest travel days of the year.
Hobos Rising: America In Most Jobless Recovery Since World War II
America is winning the War on Employment so well that for the first time in post-World War II history, our economy has failed to create net job growth in the wake of the recession. Was there good news for anybody at all, maybe like for some of those corporations that we are always giving tax breaks to?
Yes, of course there was....
Republican Voters Hate All Their 2012 Candidates
Despite everybody being all “eh” on Barack Obama, he’s still got an approval rating in the middle 40s, which is probably enough to coast to re-election — especially when Republicans are so depressed by their own candidates that a mass suicide of Hoveround-Rascal riders is a distinct possibility next November. According to a new study that proves the GOP is sadder than a goth girl on prom night, overwhelming 67% of Republican voters say “none of the above” when asked which GOP presidential candidate gets them all excited.
Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer, an exhaustively researched, brutally detailed, and grippingly narrated account of the epic naval struggle off the island of Guadalcanal in 1942, is the latest addition to our reading list. Hornfischer also wrote The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, which appeared on the list a year or so ago. Inferno is a terrific book, but one that requires a serious investment of time and effort. For readers of WWII history, it's a must.
Afghans fear transition buzzword just excuse to quit | Reuters
For many Afghans, the situation in the capital is a gloomy reminder of the turbulent years leading up to the Soviet retreat in 1989 and the chaotic, dirty civil war that followed.
They fear the buzzword on the lips of foreign diplomats and the military, "transition," is little more than a public relations tactic to cover a polite rush to the exit, that they have seen before.
The Wageless, Profitable Recovery - NYTimes.com
In their newly released study, the Northeastern economists found that since the recovery began in June 2009 following a deep 18-month recession, “corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1 percent” of that growth.
9:55 p.m. After having had quite enough to drink at a downtown restaurant, a man was told he wouldn’t be served more. This unwelcome news arriving in his booze-bamboozled brainpan set up a ragestorm, which manifested in him flinging a to-go box at the bar, breaking two bottles. And yet – go figure – they still wouldn’t give him any more drinks.
...is that nobody gives a fig for wind chill. Really. My weather widget (currently Weather Underground because they have a reporting site only a few blocks from where I sit and because their predictions are very, very good) doesn't even mention wind chill this time of year. Wind chill sucks. Everybody knows when it's cold the wind feels cold and that's enough. I'm just saying here.
U.S. drone targets two leaders of Somali group allied with al-Qaeda - The Washington Post
A U.S. drone aircraft fired on two leaders of a militant Somali organization tied to al-Qaeda, apparently wounding them, a senior U.S. military official familiar with the operation said Wednesday....
The airstrike makes Somalia at least the sixth country where the United States is using drone aircraft to conduct lethal attacks, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. And it comes as the CIA is expected to begin flying armed drones over Yemen in its hunt for al-Qaeda operatives.
The Daily Freeman: Serving the Hudson Valley since 1871 (DailyFreeman.com)
NEW YORK (AP) -- How do you steal a white 500-pound piano sitting in a public park?
Towns near NM fire, nuclear lab wary of smoke - Weather - msnbc.com
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Residents downwind of a wildfire that is threatening the nation's premier nuclear-weapons laboratory are worried about the potential of a radioactive smoke plume if the flames reach thousands of barrels of waste stored in above-ground tents.
Really. Our friendly National Nuclear Security Administration says it "feels comfortable" and furthermore it has "170 people who validate their measure. They're in steel drums, on a concrete floor."
What? Ruuuun!!
Michele Bachmann's Holy War | Rolling Stone Politics
You will want to laugh, but don't, because the secret of Bachmann's success is that every time you laugh at her, she gets stronger.
Ethanol Production Wastes Corn - NYTimes.com
Even in a crowd of rising food and commodity costs, corn stands out, its price having doubled in less than a year to a record $7.87 per bushel in early June. Booming global demand has overtaken stagnant supply.
But rather than ameliorate the problem, the government has exacerbated it, reducing food supply to a hungry world. Thanks to Washington, 4 of every 10 ears of corn grown in America — the source of 40 percent of the world’s production — are shunted into ethanol, a gasoline substitute that imperceptibly nicks our energy problem. Larded onto that are $11 billion a year of government subsidies to the corn complex.
...is a very cool place that collects all kinds of useful (and some not so useful) stuff from the Internet's thrilling past, including this page...
...which is what remains of my own web site as on Nov. 11, 1998, which is a long long time ago in Internet years. And a pretty long time in any years at all. Eventually I gave up the domain name and it currently does not exist, as far as I can tell, although there is a tedsnet.de.
Meanwhile here is the link to the Internet Archive itself, which contains lots and lots of excellent ways to waste time (and is also on our Work Avoidance List).
Michele Bachmann Constantly Answering Her Own Questions Wrong
A Politifact.com analysis of 24 Michele Bachmann statements showed that 23 of those fell somewhere between stretching the truth and insane.
Can small businesses bank on loan fund? - Josh Boak - POLITICO.com
Nearly nine months after its formation, a $30 billion government fund to foster small-business lending has yet to pay out a single dime, even as the nation struggles with traumatic levels of unemployment.
H/T Mike the Mad Biologist, who notes:
$30 Billion to Lend, and Treasury Can't Figure Out How to Do So : Mike the Mad Biologist
This is an unforced error. Again.
Why being vegetarian can kill more animals than eating meat « Measure of Doubt
The most common justification I hear for vegetarianism is “It’s wrong to kill an animal for food.” Of course there are other motivations, such as health, religion, environmentalism, preventing suffering, and trying to score with liberal chicks...
Wis. Gov: Supreme Court needs to resolve discord - Yahoo! News
MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Scott Walker took the state Supreme Court justices to task Monday, saying their infighting has to end for the sake of public confidence in the court.
Judge blocks parts of Ga. immigration law - Yahoo! News
ATLANTA – A federal judge on Monday blocked parts of Georgia's law cracking down on illegal immigration from taking effect until a legal challenge is resolved.
Undernews: Obama expands trashing of Fourth Amendment
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concerns about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years — and because during those years President Obama has quietly moved from being a Senator skeptical of the provisions to being an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them.
The Supreme Court goes soft on mutual fund misstatements - The Boston Globe
The US Supreme Court spared the mutual fund giant Janus a lot of trouble recently when it excused the firm from responsibility for misleading its customers...
Bridge Comes to San Francisco, With Made-in-China Label - NYTimes.com
SHANGHAI — Talk about outsourcing.
At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge....
,,,and really we're all still in high school.
WI Justice Prosser issues denial of attack on fellow judge | The Raw Story
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser has issued a denial of witness reports that he grabbed fellow justice Ann Walsh Bradley by the throat on June 13....
Stay tuned for tomorrow's story: Did Too!
Rare Billy the Kid photograph sold for $2.3 million - Yahoo! News
DENVER (Reuters) – The only authenticated photograph of infamous Wild West gunslinger Billy the Kid was auctioned off to Florida billionaire William Koch for an $2.3 million on Saturday night.
Undernews: Bachmann's a welfare mother
LA Times - The Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies....
And much, much more at the link.
