The distinct odor of squirrel s#i+?

"You don't have nothing until you have it," manager Charlie Manuel said. "Do we smell it? Of course we smell it, and we want it."

first Move-On, now The Nation...

Concerning Gen. Petreaus: "He has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed the country."

More liberal-pinko-commies HATING America. Let's hope Texas Senator John Cornyn introduces a bill CONDEMNING this kind of dangerous talk in a time of war...

Woops...sorry!...my bad, that was The American Conservative magazine.

Jesus H. Christ, WHO DOESN'T HATE AMERICA???

more weirdness than the cosmos can absorb?

Phillies and Cubs in the playoffs?

Fungster on the road!

Fungster's on the road this weekend, visiting our nation's capital (and Briggsy). Now if Sarge (whose idea this trip was) would show up...

This just in...

He still doesn't get it

I remember you asking me, Jim, I don't understand poor people. I've never lived with poor people or been around poor people much. I don't understand what they think and feel about a lot of things. I'm just a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?

The gift that keeps on giving...

Larry Craig to Senate: I wish I knew how to quit you

Sen. Larry Craig won’t resign from the Senate while awaiting a judge’s ruling on his effort to get a guilty plea withdrawn in a restroom sex sting, a source said Wednesday. Sen. Larry Craig is seeking to overturn his guilty plea stemming from an airport bathroom sex sting.[..] Craig had said he would resign from the Senate if he could not get the guilty plea overturned by September 30. But Craig on Tuesday said he won’t resign until “legal determinations” are made.[..] A Republican source involved in discussions about the case said Craig has made it clear he wants to find a way to stay in office.

In related news, Craig voted against the SCHIP bill and poor chidren. Maybe some poor kid shoulda given "Wide Stance" a handjob? Come on, childrens, do you want health care, or not?

Even 'Crazy' Ted Stevens and Orrin Hatch voted for the bill. Hatch said, "It's difficult for me to understand how anyone wouldn't want to do this." The other "family-value" Republican senators who in reality hate poor kids, could care less if they were all dead, and would rather fund 45 days in Iraq instead (more dead people - YAY!):

Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH Hagel (R-NE) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Kyl (R-AZ) Lott (R-MS) Martinez (R-FL McConnell (R-KY) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Not voting: McCain (R-AZ). And threaten to veto: Pres. Asshole-Shithead-Scumbag.

i'm sure global warming is to blame somehow...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A pet store has bought a two-headed turtle from a collector and plans to keep it on display, the store manager said. The 2-month-old turtle, actually conjoined red-eared slider twins, fits on a silver dollar. It has two heads sticking out from opposite ends of its shell, along with a pair of front feet on each side. But there is just one set of back feet and one tail. The turtle is apparently healthy, and the species can live 15 to 20 years, said Jay Jacoby, manager of Big Al's Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton. The turtle has not yet been named. It is also smarter than President Bush.

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming

Get ready for more bear attacks, fewer frogs, and a dire shortage of guacamole.
The first four all deal with wine and baseball... dat ain't good...

Say goodbye to fly fishing...
Does Angler know?

How not to win a game in the heat of a pennant race.

Start Steve Trachsel .

Steve Trachsel took the loss to the Marlins after giving up five runs in 4 1/3 innings today. So the Cubs clearly would have been better off sticking with Sean Marshall as their fourth starter. Trachsel, who was picked up on Aug. 31, went 1-3 with a 8.15 ERA in his four starts for the club.

more total bull$#i+ by the A$$#OLE-In-Chief

"They said, 'You know, this issue doesn't seem to resignate with the people.' And I said, 'You know something? Whether it resignates or not doesn't matter to me, because I stand for doing what's the right thing, and what the right thing is hearing the voices of people who work.'"--Portland, OR; 10/31/00

"Unfairly but truthfully, our party has been tagged as being against things. Anti-immigrant, for example. And we're not a party of anti-immigrants. Quite the opposite. We're a party that welcomes people."--Cleveland; 7/1/00

didn't the housing market already run out of plutocrats?

Sep. 26, 2007
Condo atop Chicago Spire to list for $40 million
By Andrew Schroedter

(Crain’s) — It's going to cost top dollar — $40 million to be exact — for a place atop the Chicago Spire.

Prices at the Santiago Calatrava-designed twisting tower, which is to be the tallest building in the U.S. when it’s completed in 2011, will range from $750,000 to $40 million for the two-level penthouse in the tip of the 150-story skyscraper...

Winning Hearts and Minds! (WHAM!) (cont'd!)

I knew when I saw this guy on the Daily Show the other night that he was wid da tarrists...

The President (Evo Morales, Bolivia) also spoke of his own difficulties traveling to the UN Assembly. "I don't know how all of you managed to come here to the United States but at least my delegation had a great deal of visa problems," he said, proposing that "perhaps we should change the site of the United Nations."

Bush to Poor Children: "Phokk you, childrens. Didn't hear me? PHOKK YOU. I hope you all get a disease...you know, the kind that makes you dead."

Explain Your SCHIP Vote to the Children.

While 45 percent of all children in the United States are receiving some form of public medical assistance, nine million children are not covered by either public or private health care.

Bush opposes SCHIP, which provides health insurance to children.

Why? He likes people most when they're dead...kids, the poor, soldiers, prisoners, brown people everywhere...pretty much anyone who isn't white and rich. He's a "christian"? If Christ came back today he would never stop throwing up.

Dumbya Special

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn..."--New York City, today

it's beginning to look a lot like SO CUB

Pontiac Cubs Poll Question

How are you feeling right now?
Cubs are a lock for the postseason 8.7%
Sitting on the fence 3.1%
Nervous 50.3%
Seeing Bartman around every corner 37.9%

(Results not scientific, but stoooooopid)

don't read this around any sharp instruments

Also, your blood may actually boil.

The Great Iraq Swindle by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury

"Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up."

LoC arrives, sort of

Now the No.1 hit on the Googles for the search: lattice of coincidence.

There are four Google hits for "America-hating Americans hating America," by the way...

Dumbya's next press secretary?

Scott Boras? Nobody can spin it like BorASS can...

"Carlos Pena is the greatest player to ever put on a Devil Ray uniform. This will be kind of a litmus test for ownership. He's a complete player. He's a young player. We'll certainly listen to what they have to say, if they want to say anything."--Agent Scott Boras, on his client, Carlos Pena. Pena is under club control for the next two years, but seeks a long-term deal.

Let's see, greatest Devil Ray...that's like saying he's the best hockey player in Ecuador. Young...will be 30 in May. And what do you trust more: the 590 PA's this year, or the nearly 2000 PA's in prior years when he wasn't a league average hitting 1st baseman? "Say anything"? How about phokk you and give us a call a two years?

"We knew the expectancy level was going to be one that was very high. The one component that we felt J.D. was going to be the greatest contributing factor when he came to Boston is that he was going to bring their defensive acumen to the highest level. When you look at the Red Sox, you look at their outfield defense, you have to understand that this is something the team wanted to improve and shore up, and the reality is that he is in a position where we're talking about one of the better defensive teams because they have two center fielders in the outfield."--Scott Boras, on his client J.D. Drew, who is hitting .261/.365/.404 this season.

Boston signed Drew because of his "defensive acumen"? Even if that was true (and it ain't), Drew has a below average defensive range and fielding percentage this year. Hey Scott, stathead, you can look it up... "Two center fielders"...if that were true Drew wouldn't have played three times the number of games in RF than CF in his career.

"One of the other things we knew was that J.D.'s a lifetime National League player, and any time you take a player and put him in a new league there is going to be an adjustment period... . The lack of familiarity with the pitching is going to take time."

So...they'll will be refunding some of Drew's salary during this "adjustment period"? And "any time you take a player"...i'm sure Corms could come with dozens of players who didn't need an entire season to adjust.

"Eric Gagne is a lifetime closer, that's all he knows. Also, Eric Gagne is one of the most competitive and conscientious players I've known. Now Eric Gagne is in a different role. You can go back and look at closers who are in a different role than a closer's role. Closers have difficulties in non-closer situations. This is not only true of Eric Gagne, but this is true of everyone involved. You can go down the list. I can name a lot of my clients who have had this problem."--Boras, on his client Eric Gagne's move to the Boston Red Sox.

"Lifetime", except when he was a starting pitcher. "True of everyone" and yet he names no one (just like his example above). Well, let's hope Tito sees this and keeps Gagne strictly in a mop-up role...

It's only fair

That when Micro$oft screws up, they get blasted on the LOC too...I did confirm this on my copy of Excel 2007

What's 77.1 x 850? Don't ask Excel 2007
65,535 = the Number of the Beast
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Wednesday 26th September 2007 17:45 GMT

A Microsoft manager has confirmed the existence of a serious bug that could give programmers and number crunchers a failing grade when relying on the latest version of Excel to do basic arithmetic.

The flaw presents itself when multiplying two numbers whose product equals 65,535. Fire up your favorite calculator and multiply 850 by 77.1. Through the magic of zeros and ones, you'll quickly get an answer of 65,535. Those using the Excel 2007, however, will be told the total is 100,000. The program similarly fails when multiplying 11 other sets of numbers, including 5.1*12850, 10.2*6425 and 20.4*3212.5, according to this blog post from Microsoft manager David Gainer.

He stressed that the bug, which was introduced when Microsoft made changes to the Excel calculation logic, occurs only in the value Excel displays in a cell. The result stored in memory is correct. "Said another way, 850*77.1 will display an incorrect value, but if you then multiply the result by 2, you will get the correct answer," Gainer wrote.

Of the 9.214*10^18 different floating point numbers that Excel 2007 can store, six of them are susceptible to the flaw.

We're still at a loss as to why the latest and greatest version of Excel would get tripped up on equations totaling 65,535. The number, of course, is the highest that can be represented by an unsigned 16 bit binary number, so people who muck around with computers encounter it on a daily basis. For example, Internet protocol supports 65,535 TCP and UDP ports.

Microsoft engineers are in the final phase of testing a fix. It should be available for download soon, Gainer said. ®

From Bad to Worse

Lovie's new QB: Griese
Vaughn McClure, 12:30 p.m.

Bears coach Lovie Smith officially announced Brian Griese as the team's starting quarterback Wednesday.

Griese takes over for Rex Grossman, who moves into the backup role. Kyle Orton will remain the third quarterback.

"Offensively, we're not getting a whole lot done," Smith said. "It's not one person. I just think we need a breath of fresh air.

"I'm excited for Brian. He brings a lot of experience. He's anxious to go. Our team will back him 100 percent. ... Of course, decisions like this are not made overnight."

Smith called Grossman a "team player" in terms of the decision, but Grossman was, of course, not happy with the demotion. He's in the final year of his contract and had hoped to parlay a big year into a lucrative new deal with the Bears or another team.

Smith said this was the only offensive change he would make for the time being.