the blog quebecois

given that the available custom-written material is by the likes of David Hasselhoff, you can understand why the princes would prefer to light up the "Candle" one mo' time, even if Sir Elton had hitherto pledged, after the funeral, that he would never ever sing it again. You get the vague feeling he's a little embarrassed by it. After all, there's something a little weird about a bioballad being so portable it can simply be rewritten from one celebrity death to the next:

Goodbye [Your Name Here]
Though I never knew you at all
You need a fun'ral singalong
And so I got the call...

Mark Steyn's witty (you expect less?) deconstruction of Elton John's song, reworked for Princess Diana's memorial. He chips in a few interesting thoughts about lyricist Bernie Taupin, too.

cnews:

Liberal MP David McGuinty, the Opposition environment critic, excoriated the Conservative government for its secrecy.

"This is the kind of subterfuge and hidden agenda that the government has on such an important issue," said McGuinty. "It's not intending to bring it to the floor of the House of Commons. We've never had notice of it. There's been no White Paper. There's been no discussion.

"It's time for them to come clean on this."

Bernard Bigras, environment critic for the Bloc Quebecois, noted Ontario and New Brunswick already have issues with dealing with nuclear waste from domestic reactors.

"We have a big problem here in Canada and in the world: how can we manage the waste produced by nuclear (energy)?"

Same way we manage human waste: We elect it to Parliament.

Via SDA

Tips on beating common carnival games:

Coin Toss Game:

The object is to toss a coin onto a plate without the coin bouncing off. There are a few tricks to increasing the odds of winning this game:

1. Use a very high arc, with as little spin as possible when tossing the coin. You can even try tossing the coin right up into the hanging stuffed animals above.

2. Covertly cover the coin with spit before tossing it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the innumerable readers of this fine blog are of exceptional idleness and indolence, at least when we survey their ad-clicking activity.

So I have decided to give you lazy sods no excuse for not preparing this ghoulish decoration* in plenty of time for Halloween. If you start now, you should have quite an impressive pile of rotting orange-colored stuff to put out on the doorstep come Oct. 31.

(*No, I have no idea why it has a guitar. Consider it optional.)

I was home from school sick one day, and was getting hungry, so I started some ramen. I had a headache at the time, and came up with the bright idea of advil ramen. I figured, "I like ramen, and I could use some advil. How can this go wrong?" Needless to say, dissolving advil tablets let off terrible fumes which are not the least bit appetizing. This wasn't one of my brighter moments.

Something Awful readers recount their culinary misadventures.

Warning: I haven't read through all of these; be advised that the language in SA forums can be somewhat, um, rambunctious at times.

Via kerplonka!

This is from a bank security camera in Little Rock, Arkansas. Our hero somehow manages to overlook the uniformed fellow (either a cop or security guard -- more likely the latter) at his left. Next up on the Moron Olympics: Freestyle wrestling and the always-thrilling 10-yard escape dash. Spoiler:

The suspect, 21 year-old Langston Robins, is being held on $250.000 bond.

Warning: There's some commentary added from some people laughing at the video.

Louise Creeping Ivy Framework, dressed like a good dhimmi, brings her overpowering moral authority to bear on the mullahs:

While Arbour was hobnobbing with anti- Semites, butchers, and anti- democratic forces from around the world, Iranians were being prepared for public hangings. Arbour was reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency as having expressed pleasure with being at the NAM meeting and described Iran’s representation office in the U.N. in Geneva as ‘very good.’ In an unusual move, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has so far neglected to put her official statement on their website.

The day after Arbour left Iran the government felt sufficiently buoyed by their U.N. stamp of approval, that they executed 21 prisoners. People are executed in Iran for charges like "enmity against God" or "being corrupt on earth."

You go, girl!

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

"At this point -- with 95 percent of the American public hopelessly lost in his video address -- bin Laden the anticapitalist unveils the only solution that could possibly alienate the remaining 5 percent: religion. Your mistake, he tells Americans, is that "you have separated church and state." The way out of this problem is conversion to Islam.

Here, bin Laden swings for the stands of transpartisan weirdness and connects, combining in a single sentence religious fundamentalism, anticapitalism, and a nontax flat tax: "Islam will deprive [the war profiteers and owners of large corporations] of the chance to swindle the people out of their money through arms deals and such, for Islam has no taxes and only limited alms that stand at 2.5 percent."

Surprisingly, President Bush is contemplating bin Laden's offer:

"If I convert to Islam and order all of our troops to do the same," said Mr. Bush, "we can stay in Iraq indefinitely, drop the restrictive rules of engagement, save a lot of money by using cheap, unguided bombs, clear neighborhoods flat out, blow up mosques with impunity and still go to heaven -- not to mention that I’d get more favorable coverage from the U.S. news media."

The president added that he might convert to Islam just to "find out what it’s like to be a man who wears a dress and a bonnet and dyes his hair like a girl."

The Smoking Gun:

Meet Carlton Davis. The Minnesota man, 26, is facing felony charges for allegedly stealing a cell phone and purse from a woman he mugged on a St. Paul street early Saturday morning. According to police, after the woman turned over her belongings, Davis announced, "Now I'm going to suck your feet." Which he did, after the 24-year-old victim removed her shoes. Davis, who fled when passersby approached, was apprehended by cops a few blocks from the crime scene. He was booked into the Ramsey County lockup, where the below mug shot was snapped.

I had to dump the picture into Photoshop to lighten it up. The original at The Smoking Gun is so dark that you can barely make out his eyes.

Funniest line goes to a commenter at Fark:

Damn, you gotta hold back a bit. You sucked yourself crosseyed.

Or for that matter, in the daytime. Talk about your twisty little mazes, all alike.

Photograph by Scott Peterman (slightly larger version here) of the Ecatepec district (I've never been there, but judging by a quick skim of this Wikipedia article, the city is divided into different administrative sectors, not unlike New York's boroughs.) of Mexico City.

Defamer:

Among the hot topics that Rosie [O'Donnell] delves into is her painful childhood secret. She writes that as a child, she used to break her own limbs with "a baseball bat" or a "wooden hanger."

[...]

On page 186, it reads: "My hands and fingers usually. No one knew. My secret." Why? "Proof," she writes, "that I had some value, enough to be fixed." And later, Rosie cryptically adds, "There were many benefits to having a cast. In the middle of the night, it was a weapon."

Used mainly on her own skull, I'm thinking.

It loses something in the translation:

My bone of contention is that people will stand on the street outside pubs, shops and restaurants and everyone is fagging out in the road.

Wired:

Jhannet Sejas, 19, pleaded guilty last week in Arlington County General District Court to one misdemeanor count of filming a motion picture in a movie house owned by Regal Cinemas. The statute, like the 37 others nationwide sponsored by the motion picture industry, deems filmgoers guilty for filming a "portion" or a "portion thereof" of a movie.

I have no firm position on the legality or lack of same in videotaping movies in theatres. I do feel strongly, though, that naming a child "Jhannet" should result in a felony charge against her parents.

It reminds me of a woman I knew who was named Julia, one of the prettiest, I think, female names. Unfortunately her numerologist had convinced her that she needed to add a "U" and an "H" to it to make it "numerologically correct." So, where do you add "uh" to "Julia"?

Julia-UH, that's where.

Needless to say, the wedding was off.

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

From a test given to job-seekers at Google. I assume that they're looking for creative answers; the ability to think "outside the box," as it were. Via Jason Kottke (his readers' guesses at the question here.)

More Google questions here. Microsoft has a similar test (even some of the questions are the same).

Victoria Times Colonist:

Vancouver pot advocate Marc Emery and co-author Dana Larsen -- who manages a Vancouver company that sells marijuana seeds by mail-order -- have penned a pot-filled parody of the Harry Potter boy-wizard saga entitled, Hairy Pothead & The Marijuana Stone.

The book is set for release on Oct. 20 and follows the high-jinks of Hairy, "an ordinary boy -- until he is rescued by a biker, gets a glass bong, rides the magic bus, lives in a Cannabis Castle, attends Hempwards School of Herbcraft and Weedery, learns to play Qannabbi, does battle with an evil policeman, and smokes tons of fine marijuana."

According to the book's website: "Hairy Pothead is a hilarious and subversive parody which will be enjoyed by anyone who gets a kick out of cannabis."

Yeah, I went to the website, where you can read excerpts; and I think you will definitely require large -- possibly fatally large -- doses of ganja to find this lame ripoff funny. Let's hope they get their asses sued off. Now that's entertainment.

Over to you, Ms. Rowling.

It sort of works, somehow. Though Robin as a Russian hooker is kind of stretching it.

Then the Dostoyevsky fans wade in:

you americans are so stupid. 85% of your nation are retards and that is your own statistic. you think all of you are so dump because of the major evil? no. you are so dump because you have no culture, only comics.

It should be noted, though, that not all Russians are enamoured with Dostoyevky. Vladimir Nabokov:

Dostoevski, who dealt with themes accepted by most readers as universal in both scope and significance, is considered one of the world's great authors. Yet you have described him as "a cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar." Why?

Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevski as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous, farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment -- by this reader anyway.

The Geography of a Woman:

Between the ages of 18 - 21 a woman is like Africa or Australia: Half discovered, half wild and naturally beautiful with bushland around the fertile deltas.

Between the ages of 21 - 30 a woman is like America or Japan: Completely discovered, very well developed and open to trade with cash or cars.

Between the ages of 30 - 35, she is like India or Spain: Very hot, relaxed and convinced of its own beauty.

Between the ages of 35 - 40 a woman is like France or Argentina: She may have been half destroyed during the war but can still be a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between the ages of 40 - 50 she is like Yugoslavia or Iraq: She lost the war and is haunted by past mistakes. Massive reconstruction is now necessary.

Between the ages of 50 - 60 she is like Russia or Canada: Very wide, quiet, and the borders are practically un-patrolled but the frigid climate keeps people away.

Between the ages of 60 - 70 a woman is like England or Mongolia: With a glorious and all conquering past but alas no future.

After 70, they become West Belfast or Limerick: Everyone knows where it is, but no one wants to go there.

The Geography of a Man:

Hillary Clinton aims to soften her image. It isn't working.

Warning: The title of this post is not entirely accurate.

Update: Jon Stewart's take on Hillary's spontaneous, lilting laugh:

Scrappleface:

Columbia University promised a full investigation into charges of police brutality after today’s reported Tasering of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had come to the Ivy League school to give the annual Adolph Hitler Memorial Peace and Tolerance Lecture.

Like a similar incident at the University of Florida last week, the stun-gun assault by police followed a lengthy anti-American rant by the alleged victim, and was immediately condemned by civil rights advocates.

According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Ahmadinejad was dragged from the room shouting: "Do not make to Tase myself, slang brother man."

Back in the days of the Mulroney Government, a report on women and the criminal justice system was commissioned. The purpose of this was to funnel a few million in salaries to the otherwise-unemployable feminist hacks who wrote it.

The report is lost in the mists of the pre-Internet age; but allow me to summarize the authors' conclusions: No woman should ever be sent to prison, for any reason whatsoever. Fraud, arson, murder -- women would never commit these crimes unless they had a very good reason to do so, and a man made them do it anyway.

So everyone had a good laugh about it, and the report was shelved. But O happy day, they've blown the dust off just in time for this horrendous child-abuse case in Edmonton:

Darcy Bannert, 26, was handed an eight-year prison term this morning on convictions of sexual interference, unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon, common assault, uttering threats and two drug charges.

"This was not a circumstance of poor parenting skills," said Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Darlene Acton. "Mr. Bannert was the player in control of this case and the focus in this particular case can only be on Mr. Bannert.

"This was not a momentary act or an angry outburst of a person who loses control because a child has misbehaved," continued Acton.

"This was a systematic plan and an abusing and controlling pattern of behaviour within an environment where Mr. Bannert chose to focus his attentions on (the girl) in a physically abusive as well as sexually abusive manner."

Acton said if she would have added up the sentences on each conviction, the result would have been a 12-year prison term, but said she had to reduce it to a global sentence of eight years based on the totality principle.

Bannert was also given 28 months credit for the 14 months he spent in pre-trial custody, leaving him with five years and eight months left to serve.

The former drug dealer, who himself was physically and sexually abused as a youth, showed no emotion during the sentence and simply listened to the judge while sitting in the prisoner’s box with his arms folded across his chest.

Bannert was also ordered to surrender a sample of his DNA for the national DNA databank and placed on the national sex offender registry for 20 years.

Acton noted the victim, who is now six and in foster care, suffered "significant emotional and psychological distress" at the hands of the man she used to call "daddy."

Court heard the "escalating" abuse included the girl being handcuffed to various objects such as a milk crate, an iron grate, table and chairs for Bannert’s "amusement."

She was also locked up in a dark, spider-filled basement where Bannert had a marijuana-growing operation.

The liquid-deprived child was also tormented by being sprayed with a water bottle during meal times.

And she was sexually abused during showers.

Court has heard the girl has been diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and reactive attachment disorder and needs extensive therapy.

However, social workers say she is very resilient and there is hope for her.

And where was mama when all this was happening?

Bannert’s ex-girlfriend, the girl’s mom, [her name suppressed by court order, to "protect the girl's identity" -- ed.] was earlier found guilty of assault for punching and slapping the girl and for causing the child to be in need of protective services.

She was handed a two-year conditional sentence to be served in the community, which the Crown is appealing.

In other words, house arrest. Which is probably not unusual, given the kid-glove charges levelled by the Crown. The prosecutors must have agonized for months finding excuses for this woman's behavior.

Make no mistake about it: She knew full well of and was deeply complicitous in every aspect of this child's torture. Either that or she is so oblivious to reality that she should be institutionalized for her own protection.

She didn't even have to play the usual trump card, what I've come to call the Nuremburg defence -- I vas chust volloing orders!

By which we are to understand that women are inherently timid, passive creatures, incapable of defying a man's will (if only!).

(Which perhaps would also lead to the inconvenient question of why we let people of such frail and flickering character operate heavy machinery, let alone give them the responsibility of voting or occupying elected office.)

If anything, the comparison is insulting. To the Germans. The officer or politician who objected to a command from on high couldn't very well ring up the Gestapo and denounce his superiors. He'd likely have been on the wrong end of a firing squad by that same evening.

Whereas that telephone would have been an instrument of deliverance in this case.

Do you doubt that had she made that phone call and alleged half of what was reported above that the police wouldn't have been dragging her boyfriend out in handcuffs within five minutes?

a cat-washin' chimp . . . you got your cat-washin' chimp.

Warning: Music, other noises.

Even if you don't follow American football, you might have heard of Kevin Everett. The Buffalo Bills' tight end suffered a spinal cord injury on a kickoff return. (Warning: All links have embedded video and sound.) At first it was feared that he would be paralyzed for life, but doctors are now optimistic that he'll walk again, though his career is probably over.

With that in mind, view this clip starring one Pat Murphy, of News 12 in West Palm Beach:

Oops. The clip shown was of a robbery suspect named Wendel Hollingsworth, who appeared to be unhappy with his circumstances. (And hey, who wouldn't be?) Bonus: One of the bailiffs or other court personnel gets accidentally Tasered in the fracas.