Thank you, Otto Skylark, for signing up for The Daily Me. Our search engine has combed the Internet for up to the minute news items that fit the profile you have so painstakingly filled out for us. Then, we weighted the probability that you would be interested in these articles against forms which showed what people with tastes similar to yours have liked reading in the past. Then, we got news that the greatest living American film director had died. We…we were devastated. We had grown up with his films. Who could forget the sixties classic Gone With the Roquefort? When we were lamenting the materialism of the eighties, he eased our progressive burden with such films as The Smoker and the Long, Long Limo and Dress Party Bongos. Joe Philharmonious has left a legacy of great films that will never be equaled.
What? Who? Altman? What did he – oh, yeah. Okay. He was pretty good, too. Yeah. Altman too bad about him dying.
Enjoy,White Sheet, Black Heart?
President Bush is resisting calls to ban the wearing of white sheets in America. “We try to accommodate a variety of different belief systems in this country,” he told a rally full of adoring fans. “To do otherwise would be to pander to the lowest type of bigotry.”
Critics of those who wear the white sheets say that it makes identifying individuals difficult. “We need to be able to see their faces when we take their drivers’ licence photos,” Mark Zapf, congressional aid, stated. “Otherwise, how would we identify them when they are caught speeding? By the laundry tags on the sheets? I think you see the problem.”
An additional argument is that people who wear sheets aren’t integrating well with society. “Sheets are an indication that the people who wear them don’t share the same values as the rest of us,” Zapf explained. “And, I…I’m not really comfortable with that…”
SOURCE: The Postington Wash
[http://www.postingtonwash.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42881-2006Nov013.html]
more
The Line Forms On The Left – A Wrist Band Policy Is In Effect
The government of Uzbekistan is suing actor Sacha Baron Cohen over what it argues is a glaring oversight in his film Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The Uzbek government claims that it was hurt by the fact that none of its citizens was made fun of in the satirical film.
“If we had been made fun of, yes?” Uzbeck Culture Minister Nicolae Popgadonavonichski explained, “we would have been able to sue big American star for a lot of money. But, when he decide not to include Uzbecks, this Jew Cohen make it not possible for us to sue, depriving us of important source of income for to make life better for our women and goats.”
In response, Baron Cohen sighed, “I’m British, not American.”
SOURCE: Entertainment Right Now
[http://www.entertainmentrightnow.com/mini/smug2006/2006/11/17/boratsleavingasinkingship/]
more
Physicists Can Be Such Yoyos At Times
At first, it was difficult to believe that there could be a Theory Of Everything that united general relativity and quantum mechanics. The state of physics for much of the 20th century can be imagined as a loop with a very short string, as represented in figure A.
String theory was supposed to unite the two theories into one. It is represented in Figure B.
Recently, string theory has come under fire from some mathematicians and physicists; because there has yet to be any empirical evidence for it, some scientists believe that it’s just plain loopy. The state of current research on the subject can be seen in Figure C.
Proponents of string theory hope that experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, opening next year, will offer indirect support for their theory. If so, the state of physics at that point will look like Figure D.
If only there was a pattern here. If something recognizable emerged, we might be in a position to say whether or not string theory is a reasonable explanation of how the universe works that takes into account both large and small forces. If only there was a pattern…
SOURCE: Scientific Canadian
[http://www.scican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sc003&articleID=1124H3BC-2C145-20K5-AAA1583614B733333]
more
I DO! I DO!
When Canada announces a new commitment to dedicating millions of dollars to microcredit in third world nations, even though it had already announced dedicating that money to that cause, it isn’t trying to get credit for the same programme more than once. It’s recycling policy.
When, four years after being disgraced by his support for racist Strom Thurmand, Trent Lott comes out of nowhere to become Republican minority whip, it isn’t an indication of the party’s racial insensitivity. It’s recycling politicians.
Who says North American politicians aren’t concerned about the environment?
SOURCE: Glob and Maul
[http://www.globandmaul.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061112.eladvote1112_@/BNStory/PuttingMentalBackIntoEnvironmental2006/]
more
I Eagerly Anticipate Richard Branson’s Lawsuit
Candidates for the latest Virgin of the Week are:
1) Corporate executives and their media stooges who claim not to have seen the Conservative crackdown on income trusts coming. Economists had been warning of trust tax leakage for years, the Liberal government had conducted consultations on doing something about it and there were even measures in the 2005 budget to curb it. Can you believe the blush on their cheeks?
2) Counter-terrorism experts and various spooks who claim to be surprised that Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, director-general of the British Secret Service, would make public details about home grown terrorist activity in her country and around the world. It’s not like the Bush administration hasn’t been leaking facts and figures since 9/11 and, hey, wasn’t that the RCMP leaking (incorrect) information about the Liberals and income trusts during the last election? The strangled “Oh!” that dies in the throat and the hand fluttering up to the mouth – are they really credible here?
3) Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of his Cabinet who have been whining that other NATO members are not sending more troops to Afghanistan. You mean people’s a gonna dih? Hmm…what country wouldn’t want to send its sons and daughters to die for another country’s mistake? Nope – no downside there. The strangled expressions of surprise and dismay – are they just the slightest bit calculated?
SOURCE: Politics for Dummies
[http://www.politicsfordummies.com/home.asp?did=470&dir=bb]
more
History, Like Indigestion, Repeats
If I Published It, Here’s How It Would Have HappenedRupert Murdoch may have stopped the publication of O. J. Simpson’s If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened, as well as the TV special intended to introduce the book, but even the head of News Corporation couldn’t stop Judith Regan from publishing a book about how she almost published Simpson’s book.
At first, Regan exulted that this was going to be her “confession,” even though the book was about a now hypothetical publication. When pointed criticism of her book started to emerge, Regan became defensive, saying, “To publish does not mean to endorse. It means to make public. And, I wanted my story to be public.”
SOURCE: Unread Book News
[http://217.204.41.13/cgi/NGoto/2/64382861?3518]
more
Screw The Cheerleader. Screw The world.
Antiheroes. Fox. 9pm. Two dozen ordinary Americans find out that they have super powers…and it turns them into jerks. Tonight, the identity of the master villain is revealed, but it doesn’t matter since pretty much everybody is wreaking havoc in their own special way.
SOURCE: Ukrainian TV Guide
[http://www.tvguide.ua/listings/index.asp?referrerID=0&returnurl=%2Flistings%2Findex%2Easp%3F®Mode=0]
more
