Perfunction

Bullet With A Bullet

Yet another successful intercept test of our missile defense system:

The Missile Defense Agency said initial results show the interceptor's rocket motor system and kill vehicle performed as planned. Boeing said the warhead was tracked, intercepted and destroyed.

Video here. Sorry, MDA hasn't YouTubified their content (.wmv file).

For those keeping score at home, this is the 29th of 37 hit-to-kill intercepts in the atmosphere and space since 2001---78% success. But "Star Wars" could never work, right? Right?

Like A TechnoViking

(There's a potentially NSFW moment of text in the last five seconds. It's the name of the krautilicious event -- F**kParade -- where this was filmed).

Wait for the blue-haired broad to beat it, for then TechnoViking arrives:

Speaking of beating it, I find this soundtrack much, much gheyer better:

Taco Bell Secretly Funds Space Mission

Ahhh, the joys of space exploration:

Following the shuttle flight, studies using mice showed the salmonella bacteria aboard the shuttle were "almost three times as likely to cause disease when compared with control bacteria grown on the ground," said a university statement outlining the study.

"I Will Not Have My Salad Tossed ..."

"... Even if you say you flossed."

Convergence: the penal system & Dr. Seuss.

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(cross-posted at the most awesome blog in the universe)

Help Kramer & Your Karma

I hate seeing animals suffer---please lend a hand to bmac and his sick pup Kramer:

The Cuffy household has 2 dogs and 3 cats. If you, too, are a pet owner, consider this assistance a small hedge against the maladies that may strike your own furry family. Good luck, Kramer!

Crack Whore Jedi Mind Trick

These aren't the whores you're looking for.

How could she have serviced that 12 year old if she was too busy smoking crack in the crack house? Huh? Answer that, Officer Einstein! Yeah, thought so.

Talk Like A Parrot Day!

SQUAWK! {whistle} HELLO! RAAAWWWRK! {whistle} HELLO! SQUAWK! {whistle} YES, I SLEPT WITH HIM, ROBERT! {whistle} HE'S MORE OF A MAN THAN YOU! SQUAWK!! {whistle} WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ROBERT?! RAAAAWRK!! PUT THE GUN DOWN, ROBERT! {whistle} SQUAAARK!! NO, ROBERT, NO!! {whistle} ... .... ... .... HELLO! SQUAWK! {whistle} HELLO!

Free Prader-Willi

Exactly how many leviathans lurk behind closed doors? This is like the tenth time I've heard of this manuever:

Firefighters cut a hole in the side of a house and used a forklift to extricate a 900-pound man from his second-floor bedroom after a visiting nurse became worried about his health.

The story mentions two other items: "tarp" and "flatbed truck." Really.

Talk Like A Trucker Day!

Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine. This here's Rubber Duck with the pedal to the metal. What's your twenty, come back? Keep your ears on, 'cause we got bears in the air, honey on the highway, and a kojak with a kodak right outside Big D.

Dammit.

Talk Like A Cowboy Day!

Well pardner, I'm gonna git on Ol' Paint and ride the fences lookin' for stray dogies. If'n I find some rustlers, we'll have ourselves a lil necktie party. Saddle up, Hoss, we're burnin' daylight!

What?

Oh.

Bin Laden Trade?

After yesterday's Fed action and the resulting boom day, this little piece of market news from last week has gotten overlooked: someone placed a HUGE options bet---$900 million---that only pays off if the S&P 500 crashes between about 35% to 60% down.

These options expire on Friday, September 21.

Options and derivatives trades get more complex every day and hedge funds are always trying new strategies, but the size of this trade is simply unprecedented. And while traders are a tight-lipped bunch, something this big just doesn't go off without some scuttlebutt. There are clearing firms, counterparties, hell, even trading floor interns who would catch a whiff of a killer new strategy and leak it to a pal. But none of that has happened.

People are talking about the put options (which make money when a stock goes down) placed on airline stocks before September 11, 2001. Those trades are peanuts compared to this $900 million bet.

UPDATE

TheStreet.com throws cold water on the fears.

UPDATE

Hello, Hot Air and AOSHQ. No TV here, so I've no clue whether CNBC has made a peep about this. We'll be holding our breath until market close Friday...

Terrorist UAV

Remember all the criticism about Farenheit 911's depiction of Iraqis as peaceful kite flyers? Sneaky terrorist bastards:

One helicopter encountered difficulty while flying back at night from a recent combat mission after a kite's thick nylon cord became dangerously entwined in its rotor blades.

Crocs: Ripping Off Children

Their toenails (TOENAILS!), that is:

Four-year-old Rory McDermott got a Croc-clad foot caught in an escalator last month at a mall in northern Virginia. His mother managed to yank him free, but the nail on his big toe was almost completely ripped off, causing heavy bleeding.

Now I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I already had a pretty vivid fear of the escalator and its infinite loop of threshing metal teeth. And now we have a popular product that actually feeds the beast's insatiable thirst for toddler blood.

Future quote from the 193rd Harvard Business School case study on corporate crisis management:

Crocs officials said they were working with the Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation on public education initiatives. But the group's executive director, Barbara Allen, said that's not true.

Allen said a Crocs official called her in September 2006 about possible cooperation, even suggesting the company might put a tag in its shoes with the foundation's Web address. But since that first contact, Crocs has not called, and nobody from the company will return Allen's calls, she said.

How could the PR get worse for Crocs? Made in China by slave labor with recycled asbestos and machine shop shavings? Wait a tick:

Crocs headquarters are in Boulder, Colo; although some, if not all, of the shoes are made in China.

This AP story was on the front page of my local paper in blood red typeface this morning. Look for it tomorrow on all the morning news shows. And look for Crocs, Inc. to start scrambling in their hideous, clunky shoes.

UPDATE

Apparently shredding toddler toes is not good for CROX stock price either (plunged 2.54% on today's news). Go figure.

Cute Stuff

I got to this video via Allah's post about Petraeus/MoveOn.org.

Mrs. Thompson pushing a stroller & daughter doing an adorable elephant imitation (skip the glad-handing in the middle). Fred will be unstoppable when the fam starts making the morning show circuit:

Click To Play

Uh, oh. Her trumpeting elephant will undoubtedly be turned into a certain "salute" by moonbats in 5..4...3...

I Did It

OJ's book will be published after all---by Ron Goldman's dad:

The book -- in which Simpson wrote of how he might have killed Nicole Brown, his ex-wife, and Ron Goldman the night of June 12, 1994 -- prompted so much negative reaction that the original publisher, Judith Regan, was fired and hundreds of thousands of copies pulped.

Goldman then gained rights to the book under terms of the 1997 civil court judgment that held Simpson responsible for the murders, and arranged for it to be published again.

But here's the best part:

He hasn't changed a word of the text or the title. But, in a stinging bit of irony, he has reduced the size of the word "If" to the level of the microscopic.

UPDATE

Howdy, Ace pals. Give Tushar a "huzzah" on the Nimitz story!

UPDATE

Welcome, Pajamas Media. Please poke around and enjoy your stay. Say, here's a cute campaign vid.

UPDATE

Here's a rundown of the Goldmans on Oprah this afternoon.

Al-Flyda

Unable to eat the worm (ixnay on the equila-tay), electrifying Al Qaeda spokesterrorist Waleed Al-Sheeri does the next best thing---he snorts a fly up his nostril:

Bad. Ass.

That's a far cry from Mr. Joshua holding his forearm over a lighter in Lethal Weapon.

USS Nimitz Sunk

As the small green dots approached closer on the radar screen, the Indian officer sitting deep inside USS Nimitz knew it was too late to save the ship. Jaguar maritime fighters had managed to come dangerously within striking range to successfully launch anti-ship missiles on the super carrier.

By Indians! Dot-Indians, not feather-Indians.

HGTV Claims First Victim

Sometimes do-it-yourselfers can just get a little too handy:

The roughly six-foot tall guillotine was bolted to a tree and included a swing arm. Covert said police also found several store receipts detailing the materials used to assemble the device.

So Hsu Me

BREAKING NEWS

Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson says:

"Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday. "During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

They're really standing by their man, so deep in the fire.

Wait. What's that? Ohhhhh, he said that last Tuesday, guns a-blazin'.

My bad.

S.S. Nyquil

The homeless in Hawaii soon may not be shipless:

Community groups in Hawaii are hoping to turn a retired US Navy ship into a floating homeless shelter.

"Leave Britney Alone!"

Outraged by the reviews of Britney Spears' 2007 MTV VMA show performance, YouTuber "Chris" completely loses his shit:

Alex the Parrot: Pining For the Fjords

Smartest. Parrot. In the World.

"The phrase 'bird brain,' still sometimes used as an epithet, is in fact a compliment. I'll miss the stubborn little feathered bastard," he said.

Alex and I had a lot in common:

Before he died, he was working on learning the numbers seven and eight, and sorting out optical illusions.

Alex the Parrot is deceased. RIP.

Better Days...

How much better the world seemed back then as we slept away our worries.

I lived in Battery Park City until the spring of 2000, in the brown building at the foot of the South Tower (right tower above). I had to pull the shades in the bedroom at night to block the wall of lights beaming in from that Tower---an annoying ritual then, but it rips me up now. That little apartment, like many in Battery Park, was gutted by the collapse blast waves. All windows blown out, and my little nightly sanctuary from the rigors of Wall Street became coated with the ashes of innocents.

We woke up.

UPDATE

My post was more about our pre-9/11 holiday from history. This searing post from Ace focuses on what happened after 9/11---it's not pretty. But it is spot on. 

Recapping the MTV Video Music Awards Recap

I didn't watch it (really, who has watched MTV since, maybe, Beavis & Butthead, if then?). Consider this post a service---removing you one more degree from the vicinity of this pop cultural dreck. Even so, there are only two items (three! see Update below) worth mentioning about the 2007 MTV VMA show.

1.  Kid Rock and Tommy Lee Had Anal Sex Scuffled:

Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, both former husbands of model Pamela Anderson, got into a fight while Alicia Keys was performing.

"There were no fists, they were just holding each other."

Ever so gently.

>>>

2.  Britney Spears Flops, Stomps Around, Farts On Lowly Dancer

No longer boasting the buff body that helped drive her to international superstardom almost a decade ago, the mother of two moved sluggishly around the stage at the Palms casino, often with the support of a troupe of dancers.

If by "troupe of dancers" you mean "Jabba Barge."

Sarah Silverman segued after Spears' seismic strutting:

She took to the stage when the performance was over, declaring that the singer's young children were "the most adorable mistakes you'll ever see."

Ooof.

UPDATE

Something newsworthy actually emerges from the VMA show, if only for the sheer gheyness of it:

For months, if not years, the name of this latest Indy adventure has been debated. Last month, it seemed that the field of contenders had been narrowed when it was discovered that Lucasfilm had registered six names with the Motion Picture Association of America. In addition to the winning name, there was "Indiana Jones and the City of Gods," "Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds," "Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth," "Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold," and "Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant."

The winner? "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." According to these titles, Indy will be battling Nazis in a golden religious city located in the Earth's fourth corner for possession of a holy crystal skull that can destroy the world. That is sooo much better than magic Hindu rocks and a-chilled a-monkey brains.

UPDATE

Getting nostalgic for Beavis, let me say "heyhowzitgoin" to my fellow Ace morons. Thanks, Ace.

Welcome, Hot Air. Much more VMA stuff (including video) in Allah's recap.

Live At The Improv

Remember when Comedy Central was Comedy Channel and 23 hours of its programming consisted of very unfunny hacks standing in front of a brick wall? This is much funnier:

Sweet, sweet justice for Mike Nifong.

Hat tip to Hot Air for the "Mug Shot of the Year."

As a Dukie, I'll be waiting a looooooong time before I ever send an alumni gift.

Morning News Shows: Real-Time Destroyer of Whiny Airline Passengers

First, it was the 2 year old menace on Good Morning America (video to the right of article) who proved how well-behaved he was as he wailed, hollered and basically destroyed the GMA set. His mom was there to decry the actions of their fellow passengers who thought the tyke was acting like a total shit on a flight. How dare they criticize this angel?

Now, the Today Show blunders into the same thing, only this time with Hooters waitress Kyla Ebbert who was there (with Mom and, of course, Sleazy Lawyer) to whine about being kicked off a Southwest flight for flashing her vajayjay wearing inappropriate attire. And what happens on the Today Show?

The broadcast censors had to pixel out her flashed vajayjay as she modeled the exact outfit that got her thrown off the plane.

Settle down, the vjj is pantied, but still awesome too risque for 8 AM over-air broadcast.

The Today Show video is here, though the NBC internet censors are waaaay cooler than their broadcast counterparts---no pixels in the online vid clip (at the 1:15 mark). I haven't found a YouTube of the pixeled broadcast, but I saw it with my own eyes this AM. Promise!

UPDATE 1

Here's Today's online story about this morning's show. Reading the comments, it's clear that NBC censored her crotch in later airings as the segment moved across time zones this morning.

UPDATE 2

Welcome, Hot Air --- feel free to linger. Thanks, Allah.

UPDATE 3

Hey, thanks Ed! Thanks for stopping by, Driscoll readers.

UPDATE 4

Another fine rundown of the Today peepShow, including this gem quote from the Today Show's producer's blog:

But when she sat down, we learned just how short that skirt was—when she flashed our national television audience. Yeah, that skirt was short.

So maybe my earlier vajayjay flashing strike-throughs weren't too far off the mark?

UPDATE (11-16-07): Wow, this AirSlut is the gift that keeps giving. Thanks for stopping by, folks from The Blue Site --- don't know what brought you here, but welcome! Here's a later update on the wonder of Kyla Ebbert.

Clinton Fatigue

Earlier this year I wrote about the unspoken discomfort with Hillary and the inevitable---and quite necessary---reliving of all the partisan and personal battles that swirled around her and Bill in the '90's. It's really starting to manifest itself.

Shady foreign, Asian campaign donors. Talk of co-presidents. And now, the "Bimbo Eruption" saga is re-awakening like a sleepy Vesuvius ... with the added bonus of a Watergate style break-in:

Kathleen Willey had planned to spend the Labor Day weekend proofing pages of her forthcoming book, “Target: In the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton.”

Instead, she says, someone broke into her Powhatan County home Friday, Aug. 31, and stole a copy of her unpublished 230-page manuscript. Her publishers are “aghast,” she says.

“I think it’s a Clinton operative,” Willey says. “It sounds like Watergate. It’s amateurish, but I know they’re not amateurs.”

As I said before, when voters realize they will be forced to relive the Clinton scandals (now turbo-charged by the Internet, its easily-accessed permanent record, and rabid bloggers on both sides), Hillary is toast.

Add to that the simple question "Is it really a good thing for American Democracy to be led by two dynastic families for 20 consecutive years (1992-2012)?"

Hillary will never be President.

UPDATE

Here's a gossip column (scroll down) that appeared two days before Willey's break-in:

Hoping to give Hil the Willeys

Kathleen Willey, who famously alleged that Bill Clinton fondled her in the Oval Office in 1993, is hoping to return to the national spotlight.

The former White House volunteer is set to publish "Target: In the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton" through the conservative World Ahead press in November.

"The timing is intended to hurt Hillary in her Democratic primary campaign, by getting negative stories out there," according to a source.

The book promises new details on what Willey claims were physical and verbal threats from the "Clinton machine" to silence her allegations of sexual assault. A rep for the publisher told us the book would also examine what it says are campaign-finance violations by Hillary.

Among the other piquant claims expected to be revived are that Clinton agents slashed Willey's tires, as well as kidnapped (and probably murdered) her cat.

Meow!

Two days is pretty quick turnaround for the Clinton fixers.

UPDATE

Welcome, HotAir fellow readers.

US To Putin: Oh Yeah?

With Putin engaging in Cold War nostalgia by ordering new Russian strategic bomber patrols, I can't help but think this is no accident:

A B-52 bomber flew the length of the United States last week mistakenly loaded with as many as six nuclear armed cruise missiles last week.

Oopsey.

Merchants of Death: Big Popcorn

Attention fat-ass secretaries who are convinced that those 3 bags of popcorn you zap every day are healthy meal replacements while you torture/annoy your coworkers with the luscious buttery goodness wafting through the office which makes the rest of us come to your desk and act like you're our friend so we can get a handful from your hot steaming pile of starchy wonder: You're killing us all.

Popcorn Lung has arrived:

Doctors there believe they have the first case of a consumer who developed lung disease from the fumes of microwaving popcorn several times a day for years.

Rose said the ailing patient, a man whom she wouldn't identify, consumed "several bags of extra butter flavored microwave popcorn" every day for several years.

Now, once upon a time in college, my roommate and I consumed several bags of extra butter flavored popcorn one afternoon. We also added maple syrup to the pile and a side of pizza rolls. But I think we were attacking the lung disease thing from a whole 'nuther angle.

We Love To Fly And It Shows!

"Please to be stepping over the sacrificed goat carcasses. Exits are at the front and rear of the SkyGod chariot. Thank you for flying Nepal Airlines, come again":

The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions.

These Nepalese Hindus have been getting some awesome press lately...

Goatse In Bioshock

I haven't gotten Bioshock yet---I'm waiting for one of my impending Big Purchases in the coming months (new gaming PC or XBox360 or both--wheee!). It is getting rave reviews, so it's cool that the developers inserted this little easter egg: