Oh, the wit of it. Those japing jesters.

Here's the thing: sometimes IRA terrorists, who sort of control those sorts of British prisons, play their own "practical jokes" in return.

Here's hoping it's a really funny one!

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (6)
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...over 150 different men in a single year.

She did manage to meet her future husband. But then, she cast a pretty wide net.

Like many dispirited single women, Maria Headley feared that her taste in men was sabotaging her quest for love. The bookish, intellectual types she favoured seemed to offer nothing but awkward coffee dates and graceless passes - never romance, nor the spark she craved. Such serial disappointment, she concluded, could only be evidence that her modus operandi was seriously awry.

So the budding playwright set about devising her own unorthodox matchmaking scheme. For 12 months, instead of following her instincts, she would go out with anyone and everyone who asked her, regardless of their age, appearance, profession or even sex.

She abandoned her preconceptions and began dating everyone from the homeless man she tripped over on a Manhattan street to the handyman who came to fix her shower.

...

"For the first year, I dated PhD and film students, a lot of writers and actors. But they weren't really what I was looking for. I wanted a real man, but one who had read all of Shakespeare. Instead, I was getting all these wussy guysÂ…"

News of Headley's project left her female friends fearful and her parents appalled, but she was convinced her approach was worth a shot. "I guess it was a kind of extreme dating," she says. "All my male friends were very excited by it, though. They said, 'I so wish all women were like this.' "

Indeed.

Soon, the dates came thick and fast. Over coffee, a man from Cyprus asked her to bite his penis. She declined. A 70-year-old neighbourhood eccentric took her salsa dancing. A lesbian she nicknamed "Wonderwoman" asked her to have her baby. She slept with an actress, dated taxi drivers, psychics and carpet salesmen.

Her book about this is now a bestseller:

Headley has now turned her experience into a book, The Year of Yes, which has been a bestseller in the United States - despite being dismissed by one literary agent as "the memoirs of a slut". "People assume it's all about sex, but it's not," she counters. Many of the dates were platonic, although around nine of those featured end up in bed.

And Headley insists that she did not set out with the intention of using the experiences for a book: the scheme was simply borne out of desperation. "I didn't necessarily want to get married," she says. "I'd never even been in love where it was reciprocal. It was more a case of, 'What if I never find someone?' "

If she didn't have the intention of writing a book, she's a idiot. But she's not an idiot; she's just disingenuous.

Good idea, though.

In related news, coffee may act as an aphrodisiac for women. Or at least on female rats. Close enough, I guess.

As they say, "having coffee" never really means "having coffee."

The A-Man strikes again.

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (75)
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Distressing... except that this sort of bad crazy can't stay in power for long:

Even the Old Guard of Iran's Islamic revolution is openly appalled by the new regime's ultra-conservative policies, with former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in an unprecedented public warning that the new government and its purges are damaging Iran at home and abroad.

...

President Ahmadinejad is a member of the Hojatieh sect, seen by many Shiite Muslims as verging on the lunatic fringe of Islam, and thought to be so extreme by Ayatollah Khomeini whose 1979 revolution overthrew the shah that it was driven underground in 1983. The Hojatieh sect is now very much back in favor with the new Iranian government, and the new president is a fervent admirer of its spiritual leader, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, known in secular circles in Tehran as "the crazed one."

Let us recap: the man seeking the bomb and threatening to remove Israel from the face of the earth belongs to a cult so extreme that even the other Iranian maniac mullahs consider it "fringe" and "crazy."

There is either going to be a revolution or there is going to be shooting war, possibly a nuclear one.

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (14)
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Post what you've seen or heard, if you like.

Update/Repost: The Dems' last attempt to derail a Supreme Court appointee didn't go so well.

Update: Monty liveblogs.

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 AM | Comments (31)
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It's on DVD and PPV now, and I just watched it again on the latter. I stand by my original review -- the humor and characters are okay and kinda fun, but the movie is very weak in the "fantastic" department.

Two action sequences in the whole picture. Two.

Also on PPV, Star Wars III. Here's my pan of it.

I know everyone knows it sucked. I just want to go on the record as to why it sucked.

And since I have the search page up, an old 80's music/geek-movie quiz.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (15)
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So, so stupid:

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."

[...]

[The language of the law:]

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

The article notes that a previous House draft of the bill made it illegal to intentionally inflict serious emotional harm anonymously. Which makes sense-- that would seem to criminalize death threats and true cyberstalking.

But two years in jail for annoying someone anonymously?

I guess that, as Thomas Jefferson said, "Free speech is quite overrated."

This was a little-noticed provision to a much larger bill. I hope that Bush and Congress come to their senses and strike this ludicrous free-speech chilling provision. I hope they didn't even notice it, and now that it's brought to their attention, they will repeal it double-plus-quick.

Yes, make death threats and the intent to frighten someone anonymously illegal, as it is already illegal to do by phone. But please -- let Jersey, Geno, Proud Liberal Vet, Jason, and Tubino continue to annoy without fear of federal penal retribution. Quite frankly, I need the hits.

Thanks to JackStraw. And also, the A-Man.

Have We Been Had?: That's what one poster suggests. This is not dispositive, but this version of the s. 113 of the bill does extend the normal federal rules regarding phone calls to the Internet.

This... is the Act (meaning it was passed) as reported by the Senate, and it indicates it extends the normal laws against "annoying" communications to the Internet (again, see s. 113).

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (72)
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Claiming "international immunity" from the investigation, he's trying to pitch a deal where an envoy would receive the questions, then Assad would answer them in writing.

More trouble-making of a welcome sort from former Syrian VP Khaddam:

Beirut's staunchly anti-Syrian An-Nahar newspaper quoted Khaddam as having told French RTL radio that he had met with Detlev Mehlis, the outgoing head of the Hariri investigation team, in Paris and gave him "specific facts" about Hariri's assassination.

Assad isn't getting the help from the Saudis he'd hoped for:

In wording clearly meant to encourage Mr. Assad to cooperate, the Saudi royal family released a statement saying that at the meeting, King Abdullah "affirmed the kingdom's desire for stronger relations between Syria and Lebanon in all fields, so that the interests of both countries and security of the region are protected."

I don't find that wording all that clear, myself. But the New York Times says it's clear, so it must be true.

Thanks to The A-Man.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (1)
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Really just an excuse to show the picture, but I think a pretty good one.

As part of an experiment, researcher Peter Glick asked a woman to wear a sexy, low-cut blouse with a tight skirt, cardigan, teased hair and lots of makeup. Then he made a set of videos in which she played either a receptionist for a Chicago advertising agency or a senior manager.

The result of the Appleton, Wis., psychology professor's study?

The sexier a woman dresses and the more prominent a position she holds within a company, the more negatively she's perceived.

"If you play up your sexiness and you're in a more powerful position, you're going to get slammed for it as a woman," Glick said.

The survey querried 66 total friggin' homos who are trying to ruin everything for the rest of us.

Come on. You guys already have Paco, the cute mail-boy with the ass like Olga Korbett in her prime. You can't throw us a boner?

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (29)
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...depending on the answers he gives.

Right.

Lindsey Graham, one of the Gang of 14, was on Fox News Sunday making the case that this simply was not part of the "extraodinary circumstances" loophole they all agreed to, and that a filibuster would be inappropriate. He seemed pretty insistent about that. Not sure if he'll vote for the "constitutional option" if a filibuster is launched against Alito, but both he and Mike DeWine have previously said the'd support that controversial step should that come to pass. Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (4)
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"No more time for games," they say.

They're demanding the UN impose crippling sanctions, now. The statement doesn't say "...or else," but that's the flavor of it.

Meanwhile, the EU says there's plenty of time for games left. Talk of sanctions just isn't ripe yet. They're taking a "wait and see" attitude on the nuking of Tel Aviv.

The UN is inviting yet another war while it works for "peace."

Thanks to the A-Man. More great news.

You know: I forgot. Allah's blog was always such a downer, wasn't it? I like happy news, about job creation and puppies and kittens and vaginas.

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (7)
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