MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Six friends spruced up in fake blood and tattered clothing were arrested in downtown Minneapolis on suspicion of toting "simulated weapons of mass destruction."

Police said the group were allegedly carrying bags with wires sticking out, making it look like a bomb, while meandering and dancing to music as part of a "zombie dance party" Saturday night.

"They were arrested for behavior that was suspicious and disturbing," said Lt. Gregory Reinhardt, a police spokesman. Police also said the group was uncooperative and intimidated people with their "ghoulish" makeup.

One group member said the "weapons" were actually backpacks modified to carry a homemade stereos and were jailed without reason. None of the six adults and one juvenile arrested have been charged.

'Zombies' arrested in downtown Minneapolis

Wendy's renames its 'Biggie' drinks, fries to medium

"Biggie" fries and drinks at Wendy's have been demoted.

The Biggie portion size, formerly the fast food restaurant's equivalent of a large, will now be called a medium. It's only a name change, and the portion customers get -- the equivalent of almost three 12-ounce cans of soda for the drinks -- won't get smaller.

Wendy's International Inc. research shows demand for big drinks, but people were confused by the designation of Biggie and Great Biggie, the former extra-large size, spokesman Denny Lynch said. Switching to more straightforward small, medium and large sizes made sense, he said.

What: Horns Across the Hawthorne
When: Tuesday Jun 06, 2006 at 5:30 PM
Where: The Hawthorne Bridge; we meet at the bottom of the NW pedestrian ramp.

It's going to be the rockingest photo EVER. A line of Portlanders, spanning the Hawthorne Bridge, all giving the devil horns at 6:06pm on 6/6/06.

We gather at 5:30pm, snap this soon-to-be-famous picture at 6:06pm, and then retire to Dante's for a 6/6/6 party featuring a Pentagram of Prizes. This happens once in a century, and this photo will be legendary.

Spread the word...tell everyone you know...and BE THERE! Click here for all the FAQs

(Note the above should be blockquoted but it isn't)

Just because I don't like Butt Rock, and think the horns hand sign is silly doesn't mean I don't appreciate The Rick Emerson Show

<blockquote> We all know the in-flight emergency mantra to "fly the airplane" but Monty Coles' handful on a flight from West Virginia to southern Ohio last week was of a different nature. Coles was just setting up to land his Piper Cherokee at Gallipolis, Ohio, when a four-and-a-half foot black snake slithered out of the instrument panel. After first swatting it to the floor (where the reptile landed under the rudder pedals) Coles finally grabbed the snake behind the head and held on while he called the tower -- as the snake wrapped itself around his arm and began reaching for anything else it could grab. "I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane. They cleared me in," he told The Associated Press. Coles told the AP that while nothing in his training could have prepared him for this, he did remember the standard admonishment from his instructor 25 years ago to fly the airplane, no matter what. After single-handedly landing the airplane, Coles even posed for pictures with his passenger. Then he let it go. "That snake resides in Ohio now," he said. "I wasn't about to bring it home. I don't mind snakes, but I sure like to know where they are." Assuming the snake is a black rat snake(a non-venomous constrictor), it should be right at home in Ohio, which is part of its normal range. Ironically, an old nickname for that species is the pilot snake (from the mistaken belief that they led rattlesnakes to safe denning sites). Had Coles' regular passengers -- his wife and a dachshund named Killer -- been on board, the ending might not have been as happy, however. "If my wife had been in the plane, I wouldn't have a wife, a plane, or myself," Coles said. </blockquote>

http://www.avweb.com/newswire/12_23a/briefs/192393-1.html

why isn't the blockquote tag working???

OK, I have mixed feelings on the Illegal Immigration issue.... But this is funny

Announcer: This ad was paid for by Air Force Academy graduate Vernon Robinson.

        Every night, 7,000 aliens rush into our country illegally and your ultra-liberal congressman, Brad Miller, refuses to guard the border. Instead of deporting them, he votes for amnesty and throws them a party with your tax dollars. (Mariachi band music starts playing in the background)

        Brad Miller gives these aliens welfare, drivers licenses, Social Security, free health care, free lawyers, free public education, even free school lunches. These aliens pay no income tax and pay their money back to Mexico. Then, they take to the streets, waving the Mexican flag and demanding more. Unbelievably, Brad Miller voted to allow these illegals to burn the American flag while waving the Mexican flag.

        Brad Miller supports gay marriage and sponsored a bill to allow American homosexuals to bring their foreign homosexual lovers to this country on a marriage visa. (assorted noises of shocked people gasping plays in the background)

        If Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals. (Mariachi band music starts playing in the background again), but if you elect Vernon Robinson, that party is over.

        Robinson: I'm Vernon Robinson and I approve this message because Brad Miller is out of touch and soon, he'll be out of Congress.

I should note that while I heard and downloaded the previous commercial "Twilight Zone v. Leave It To Beaver" a while ago, I first heard the new commercial on The Rick Emerson Show which is organizing Horns Across the Hawthorne next week.

This guy is wasted on politics. He should be making experimental music like Negativland and The Evolution Control Committee.

Get your mp3 here

Another fun poll from the anarchist who listens to industrial music.

How many answers are there to a Yes or No question?

Let me know what you think.

And any more questions I should have asked or should I have left it off at the first question or two?

Anyone else looking foward to this movie?

I mean, you've got snakes.... on a plane.

What more do you need to make a great movie?

And the title explains it all.

I love it.

Thank you Rick Emerson I am spreading the word.

LOS ANGELES -- A woman is in stable condition with bubonic plague, the first confirmed human case in Los Angeles County since 1984, health officials said Tuesday.

The woman, who was not identified, was admitted to a hospital April 13 with a fever, swollen lymph nodes and other symptoms. A blood test confirmed the bacterial disease, and she was given antibiotics, officials said.

Bubonic plague is not contagious, but if left untreated it can morph into pneumonic plague, which is. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted to humans from the bites of fleas infected by rodents.

Health officials said they suspect the woman was exposed by fleas in her home and that there was no cause for alarm. An estimated 10 to 20 Americans contract plague each year, mostly in rural communities.

Bubonic plague is believed to have been the "Black Death" that killed 25 million people in Europe between 1346 and 1351.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/1500AP_BRF_Bubonic_Plague.html

Insert some joke about panicking here.

And I couldn't find a good topic for this. I am suprised that there are no medical/medicine/health-care type topics.

In the Parade of Nations at the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, "Funkytown" was played as the Iranian Olympic team entered.

This information is just too important to keep quiet. I encourage everyone to tell everyone they know.

something something

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funkytown

Electric Avenue in Brixton, London, gets its name from being the first electrified shopping area in London. The street was built in the 1880s and now hosts Brixton Market, selling a mix of Caribbean, English, Portuguese and Chinese products. It is located just round the corner from Brixton tube station (1972). The elegant Victorian canopies over the pavements survived until the 1980s. The road gave its name to the song by Eddy Grant.

I don't really have much to say about this, but does anyone else ever confuse these two songs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Avenue

I created a poll about what people think about John McCain and if they would vote for him for president etc etc.

posted October 6, 2005 (October 24, 2005 issue)
Pat Tillman, Our Hero

Dave Zirin

"I don't believe it," seethed Ann Coulter.

Her contempt was directed at a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle story reporting that former NFL star and Army Ranger war hero Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan last year, believed the US war on Iraq was "f***ing illegal" and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite authors. It must have been quite a moment for Coulter, who upon Tillman's death described him in her inimitably creepy fashion as "an American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." She tried to discredit the story as San Francisco agitprop, but this approach ran into a slight problem: The article's source was Pat Tillman's mother, Mary.

Mary and the Tillman family are relentlessly pushing for answers to the questions surrounding Pat's death in Afghanistan. They want to know why it took the Pentagon five weeks to tell them he died in a tragic case of friendly fire. They want to know why they were unwitting props at Pat's funeral, weeping while lies were told by eulogizing politicians. Mary is now hoping that a new Pentagon inquiry will bring closure. "There have been so many discrepancies so far that it's hard to know what to believe," she said to the Chronicle. "There are too many murky details."

Read the rest of the article.

The San Francisco Chronicle article refered to.

Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.

The animation was approved by the family of the Smurfs' late creator, "Peyo".

Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. The reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.

The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic, the 1918 Flu Epidemic, and La Grippe, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 25 million to 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919. It is thought to have been one of the most deadly pandemics so far in human history.

The nations of the Allied side of World War I frequently called it the "Spanish Flu." This was mainly because the pandemic received greater press attention in Spain than in the rest of the world, because Spain was not involved in the war and there was no wartime censorship. In Spain it was called "The French Flu". Spain did have one of the worst early outbreaks of the disease, with some 8 million people infected in May 1918. It was also known as "only the flu" or "the grippe" by public health officials seeking to prevent panic.

Read More

In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.

Read More

In the greater scheme of things, this is trivial, but it gave me a weird laugh.
I should be saying something more serious after so long without any journals but wtf. I've been busy with school, and now I am busy with vacation. Maybe I'll post more later. The video is worth rebooting to windoze.

Enjoy:

http://www.lies.com/wp/2005/08/31/right-wing-mob-drives-off-protest-warriors/

Right-wing Mob Drives Off Protest Warriors

Check out Norm of Onegoodmove's account and re-hosted video of a hilarious turn of events at the "Cindy Doesn't Support Us Rally" in Crawford: We don't do irony.

It seems the good subversives of Protest Warrior, who like to stage counter-demonstrations with signs bearing clever (well, at least they think so) slogans like, "WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING (except for ending slavery, fascism, naziism and communism)", carried said signs into a pro-Bush rally, and were driven off by angry Bush supporters who mistook them for Cindy Sheehan fans.

The poetic justice is really too, too much. I love the part of the video where they are trying to explain, and one or two of the crowd get it, and are saying to their angry brethren, "No, wait, read the sign, see? They're on our side." But the crowd looks at the sign, and squints for a few seconds at the big print ("WAR NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING"), and decides that nope, these smart-ass kids are making fun of us, and screams and yells at them until they're forced to leave.

If you Protest Warriors want to do humor and irony and subtle/clever mocking, you probably should stick to counter-protesting against us leftists. We may argue with you that you're wrong, but at least we get the joke.

Face it: You have more in common with us than with them.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002331.html#002331

We Don't Do Irony

The right-wing doesn't do irony, at least not intentionally. The Protest Warriors a group of young freepers that show up at anti-war rallys to protest the protestors with signs sporting 'ironic' messages such as "War Has Never Solved Anything (except for everything)." were in for a surprise when they showed up to support the Cindy Doesn't Speak For Us Rally in Crawford. The irony impaired crowd took them for anti-war protestors and despite their protestations that they were on their side, knocked their signs to the ground, and chanted "Get Out of Here Liars" The Protest Warriors shaken by the less than friendly welcome left.

Read the whole story at Indybay They have Windows Media Video of the event filmed by Jeff Paterson. I've made a Quicktime version for those who prefer that format. (hat tip to Josh for the link)

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762933.php

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/protest-warriors_sm.wmv

http://www.protestwarrior.com/

And for the rest of those who are not obsessive Nurse With Wound collectors, what the hell is wrong with you people? - Jonathan Dean

Today I was curious if the nomination of John Bolton has been put to a vote or not yet, I did a search to see if there was any news.

Nothing in particular came up. I came across this funny blog entry though.

In the end, it doesn't really matter whether John Bolton was in reality the buttcheeks-in-leather he's now cracked up to be, back in the day (though it's sure as hell entertaining); what does matter is that he has made an entire career out of opposing peace, compromise and reality-based intelligence analysis - with the deadly results we have seen in Iraq.

That's just the last paragraph. It has a number of interesting looking links, from serious, to sex scandal to Lizards From The Fourth Dimension. IE the kind of stuff that makes me find Ground Zero so entertaining.

But I am really curious as to how this turns out. I'm hoping that between this and social security BS that this will finally prod the few decent Republicans still out there into defying the leadership of the Republican party. (Because said leadership has been completely taken over but stupid liberal "neo-cons.")

I used to even have some respect for John McCain, but between him supporting the current invasion of Iraq, but now that even the mainstream corporate liberal media is reporting that Intellegence was "adjusted" to fit the policy (of invading Iraq) all he has to say about it is he "doesn't agree with (the evidence)." OK, I've studied psychology, I can recognize this as Cognitive Dissonance.

The thing is, dispite that I have a lot of values that some might call "liberal", I have a conservative background. I am a Republican turned Libertarian turned anarchist. I still have a lot of conservative values. The GWB administration offends my conservative values a lot more than my "liberal" values.

Even though I've completely given up on the Republican party, I still like to think that there are still a few good conservative (not stupid liberal "neo-con") Republicans out there.

Are people ever going to wake up?

(Note when I say this that I have no love for the Democratic party. I mostly split my votes between Libertarians and Greens, favoring Libertarians in Executive positions.)

This is yet another nomination that makes me think the current administration is deliberately trying to insult.... the ignorant masses.... everyone? Or testing the population to see how just how far they can go, and finding out that you should never underestimate the stupidity of the masses. Or would ignorance be a better term. I wonder what percentage of the population even knows who John Bolton and John Negroponte are?