Rolling Blackouts Turn Texas Into California! Enron? Is That You?
Topic: Texas News

The first indication of trouble a-brewing at Enron was the rolling blackouts in California, instituted by a company so desperate for money that they shut down the power grids to drive up prices so they could pay off debt. Is this what is happening in Texas?

Beginning this past Saturday night, rolling blackouts have struck Texas, including Dallas for a period of four hours, which pretty much forced us to sit in the dark and drink beer. Not that's what we weren't going to be doing anyway, but this way we didn't even have a choice of doing something else.

Yesterday the blackouts were instituted again, and today they're back, shutting down grids from Houston to Dallas. But this is, at least according to the power companies, not a lame attempt to drive up energy costs. They claim the reason is due to the sudden surprise heat wave and the plants not being up to capacity after being down for maintenance all winter.

Sounds reasonable... wait a second. That's just what Enron said! We knew it! We would see nothing more enjoyable than TXU going down hard. They're scam artists. Do you hear that state government? TXU is trying to drive up energy costs. Sic 'em!


AP via YAHOO! NEWS

The Damn Weekly DSCC Email; Barack Obama Hates Government, Not President
Topic: Politics

We are a bit, perplexed, to say the least, when it comes to this week's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee email. For the past two weeks, we've been getting hammered by no names. Now, they seem to be pulling out the big guns. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the people that people actually like.

Like this week's guest emailer, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Now the past five emails have consisted of the following sharply written prose; "Bush sucks, Rick Santorum is a douche, give us money so the GOP loses." But Obama, ever the politician, shies away from this Barbara Boxer-esque diatribe and goes off on his own tangent. Choice tidbits and commentary follow.

I've had enough of the attitude that we'd be better off if we just divvy it up into individual tax breaks and let everyone fend for themselves. I think we've all had enough of being told to buy your own health care, your own retirement security, your own child care, your own schools, your own private security force, your own roads, and your own levees. - Nice Katrina reference. Granted, Sen. Obama doesn't have to buy any of this, but he's got a damn good point. We don't even have health insurance.

It's the timidity - the smallness - of our politics that's holding America back and making our people uncertain. The idea that some problems are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them, they'll go away. - This is actually incorrect. The GOP went after the big issues like terrorism, health care, social security and Medicare. They just fucked it up.

We, as Democrats, have a responsibility to change our politics. Now is the time for us to stand up and make our mark on history. It's time for America to learn how to dream again and to do great things in the face of serious challenges. - Of course, as Republicans, the GOP have a responsibility to change our politics too. So do the Libertarians. And the Green Party. Just saying.

So at least this email was a message of hope instead of the "everybody blows but us" hypocritical horse shit of the previous emails. Thanks Senator Obama, for bringing back dignity to politics, even if you are straddling a sharp political fence. We hope you don't slip and hurt yourself.


DSCC

Robotic Boning in 2016? You Better Believe it, Computer Nerds
Topic: Technology

Women are truly wonderful creatures, with the ability to show affection in a wide range before going off on a tangent of why there is a crumb on her favorite section of the carpet. So what if you could have that affection, love and sexual energy without the crazy? How much would you pay for that.

We'd guess a lot. And sex researchers from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University have predicted that sex robots with all the features of a lifelike humanoid will be on the market by 2016, meaning that finally, you can have a date for the prom.

"There is a possibility of developing erotic materials for yourself that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities, the partner saying certain things in that interaction, certain things happening in that interaction."

So this isn't your everyday hand-held battery operated vagina. No sir, this is a full functioning machine who's sole duty is to lie on a bed and be a receptacle for you.

Seriously, these people are screwed up. Why would anyone want to shag a robot? What's wrong with mom and pop, meat and potatoes masturbation? Jesus people. Just because you can make something doesn't mean you should.


REUTERS

Your Tax Day Cartoon! Not About Your 1040 Form!
Topic: Political Cartoons

As an entity who forgot about taxes until the day before they were due last year, we feel for many of you sorry creatures who are still crunching numbers in the hope that you can make it to the post office or file that extension online before the IRS rains hellfire and damnation on you.

So today we give you a tax cartoon from Larry Wright of Caglecartoons.com. It actually isn't about your complicated tax books and 1040 forms. It's about estate taxes, because we think that Larry finally hit the nail on the head and broke down what both political parties are getting greedy over. So enjoy, and good luck on your returns. We can't wait until the IRS deposits our paltry refund check into our bank account and then proceeds to audit the deposit as "extra earned income."

The Diabolical Duke Rape Case Gets Indictments! Hooray!
Topic: Sports

The weird case of the alleged rape by the Duke University lacrosse team is getting stranger by the day, as the grand jury convened today and handed down sealed indictments (81 in total... wow - ed.) and the victim picked two of the three boys out from photographs 100% of the time and the third 90% of the time. But, remember, she did dance for them before they allegedly raped her.

But that's all normal for such a case. Here's where it gets weird. After the assault occurred, a women who was later discovered to be her co-dancer who also went to the lacrosse team's house and wasn't raped stopped in a Kroger parking lot for help. The hospital and police station were much closer to the site of the "assault" and the driver claimed that she just picked up the victim on the side of the road.

The security guard who called 911 from Kroger said that they woman in the passenger seat seemed high and was passed out, while the driver smelled of alcohol. He was quoted as saying that there was no way the passenger was raped or assaulted.

So what happened? The victim's fellow stripper who went with her to the lacrosse party isn't admitting to shit, and at first didn't even admit that she knew the victim. Then she took her to a Kroger instead of the police station or hospital, even though it was way out of the way. Plus, they were both on something, be it drugs or alcohol. And there was no DNA evidence from anyone on the lacrosse team anywhere on the victim.

Just what the hell is going on here? Sometimes we wish justice were instant, like in Batman movies. Because man, that would kick so much ass.


ABCNEWS

Former Illinois Governor Guilty of Racketeering, Other Major Crimes!
Topic: National News

Today is not exactly a great day to be from the state of Illinois. Former Governor George Ryan has been convicted by a US District Court Judge of racketeering, mail fraud, tax fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to the FBI. Ryan, once a big critic of the death sentence, reportedly steered big business to Illinois and companies that he and his family had personal stakes in, including a business deal with IBM that netted him $25 million.

So now we have corrupt politicians from states other than our own. Thank god, because it's embarrassing to have Tom DeLay in the news everyday. Now it's Ryan's turn. Oh wait, no it's not. He's a Democrat. Ha ha! We said it.


ABCNEWS

Idiot Russian "Student" Gives $160,000 to Psychics to Remove Curse
Topic: World News

College students are notorious for spending gobs of money on crap they don't need, like ping pong tables, video game systems, and massively over sized truck tires. Well, a Russian student can trump anything you throw at him, after she gave a pair of "psychics" $160,000 in jewelry and money to lift a curse.

The two wanted women have not yet been found, but we're pretty sure they're the best salesmen ever and that their mark was a total moron.


REUTERS

Here Comes Easter!
Topic: Stupidity

Seriously though, be safe and have a happy Easter everyone. We're out of here early today, mostly because these are the autumn years of our mid twenties, and we have many a video game to play. Peace.

Oops! Katrina Hero is a Drug Dealer
Topic: Embarrassment

21-year-old Jabar Gibson saw 60 of his fellow city mates stranded in the Louisiana Superdome and thought to himself, this will not do. After hot-wiring a yellow school bus, he loaded up the elderly and tired and drove them the entire way to the Houston Astrodome, right as the Superdome flooded, which would have sealed his passengers' fates.

The man is a definite hero and the epitome of someone who takes care of your fellow man. But that's because he's actually a drug dealer.

Mr. Gibson was arrested, for a second time, mind you, for possession of cocaine, heroin, and a .357 magnum. He was out of jail on bail when he rescued those 60 people from the Superdome, and it looks now like his movie and book deals will either peter out or take off due to the heartbreaking end of his story.

We're officially offering Mr. Gibson $2,000 for the rights to his story. Don't worry though, because we have no plans on turning around and selling them to Warner Brothers for hundreds of thousands. There's no way we're letting this story go for anything less than a billion.


MSNBC

Florida Sucks Today; Kitten Tosser Not Going to Jail
Topic: National News

For some reason, all the news today is coming from Florida. We'd like to think we had something to do with this, but we know that's merely a delusion.

Perhaps you remember the case of the Florida kitten tosser, who allegedly drove down a highway reaching into his back seat and nonchalantly tossing kittens out the driver's side of his rust bucket. Today, a jury exonerated him of all charges, after the only person to see the man do this failed to convince the jury he's a monster.

"It looked like they were coming from underneath the car," she said. "He was hanging his hand over the door ... and flicking them underneath," she said. "It was just horrible."

The accused's response?

"I'm assuming that there were cats in my car," he told the jury during his trial. "I'm assuming that as I turned on to Whitfield, these cats abandoned ship and jumped out.

"I wish I had noticed something," he said, "so that I could have turned that car around and took those kittens back where they belonged."

Okay look, we're not saying this guy is guilty, but the burden of evidence was on the prosecution, and they definitely didn't prove anything. Personally, we think he did it, and this is just another reason why we own a camera phone.


SPLOID

Thank God We Left Florida When We Did; Snakes Are Attacking!
Topic: Weird Shit

Our time spent in West Palm Beach, Fla., while fun, was just a day short of being too long. Thank goodness we didn't have to be there now, as an increasing Burmese Python problem seems to be spreading across the state. Yes, that's right. Big fucking snakes are trying to eat Florida. Like they didn't have enough problems with the hurricanes and bullsharks.

"Last year, we caught 95 pythons," said Skip Snow, a biologist with Florida Everglades National Park.

The problem seems to be when people purchase them as babies at flea markets for relatively cheap. Then the pythons get bigger and get released into the wild or flushed down the john. After one year the snakes can be seven feet long. That's a lot of snake to flush down a crapper.

But state Representative Ralph Poppell is tired of this catch and release attitude (plus, he's a snake hater - ed.) and wants people that purchase Pythons to be required to take a class and obtain a license to care for the snake, or face jail time if they care for it improperly or let it loose in the everglades. Good show, Mr. Poppell. Even though we think hunting them down with shotguns would be more fun.


AP via YAHOO! NEWS

One of These Days Alice! Japanese Wife Tries to Bankrupt Family; Police Step in to Help
Topic: World News

A Japanese family who had $42,000 in yen (five million or so - ed.) thrown away in the trash by the wife had the money returned to them by police today, thus negating the evil wench's probable plan of bankrupting her family, thus causing her husband to honorably kill himself in ritual suicide which would leave her with the house and his life insurance, free to go wherever she pleases and stick her black widow fangs into another hard working husband.

No, we're just kidding. The dude put the money in a trash bag and hid it in the garbage, so what the hell did he think was gonna happen on trash day? She wouldn't empty the bin? That's grounds for a smacking in Japanese custom.


REUTERS via YAHOO! NEWS

New White House Policy; Everybody Makes Mistakes
Topic: Politics

This has been a day filled with political news, be it President Bush's falling approval ratings or new admission of incompetence by the White House. Well, in light of that second breaking story, WH Spokesman Scotty Mac unveiled the new policy for dealing with reporters; everybody fucks up.

“The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency.”

He stopped here, only a nano-second short of saying "It's an intelligence ignoring agency."

It would appear that President Bush and his administration did indeed ignore or not even notice statements by scientists that the trailers Bush claimed were used for making nerve gas and chemical weapons in Iraq weren't actually used for that at all. We're going to let the Washington Post explain, because we seem to have a way of wrapping a rant around the facts.

Bush declared in a May 2003 television interview, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.” The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was cited at the time as supporting evidence for the decision to go to war.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that experts on a Pentagon-sponsored mission who examined the trailers concluded that they had nothing to do with biological weapons and sent their findings to Washington in a classified report on May 27, 2003.

One day later, the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency publicly issued an assessment saying the opposite — that U.S. officials were confident that the trailers were used to produce biological weapons. The assessment said the mobile facilities represented “the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program.” On May 29, 2003, the president repeated the claims from the public intelligence report.

Of course, Scotty Mac, master of the legendary move called "The Brush Off," did in fact brush this off. Damn he's good.


MSNBC

The Damn DSCC Weekly Email Update; Things Getting Less Rosey
Topic: Politics

Every week we receive updates from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee just reminding us how much Bush is dicking up and how much our previous financial assistance (none - ed.) has been appreciated. This week's email comes two days early and from yet another person we have never heard of or received a communication from in our lives; Executive Director J.B. Poersch. Mr. (or Mrs. for all we know) Poersch isn't a fan of Bush either, but makes absolutely no points other than a solicitation for money, because even though last week's fundraising bout was good, apparently $800,000 isn't nearly enough to run a successful campaign. We respond here with "no shit, idiot."

Sen. Conrad Burns was the number one Senate ambassador for convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The good news is that it's working. The latest polls show Burns losing to either of the leading Democratic candidates. - First, we don't know what's working, but whatever. Second, if he's losing to either two, that means that combined they're beating him, but separately, they're losing. Send money, please.

The latest polls show Democrat Bob Casey with a strong, double-digit lead. I am certain that now is the time to keep the pressure on and put Santorum so far behind, he can't possibly recover. - Santorum sucks, but he hasn't started campaigning yet, and Casey's been campaigning for eight months now. He'd better watch his back if he wants to kick sleezeball out of office. Send money, please.

For some reason, Rick Santorum has been the focus of all of these emails, and it finally came to light to us. In fact, it's so simple we should be required to drown ourselves for not noticing sooner. Santorum is from Pennsylvania. Lots of Electoral votes. Ahhhhhhhh.

So, this week's message was? That's right. Democrats need money. Here's another ad for you.

Norwegian's Weirder Than Originally Thought
Topic: World News

We report this story with great sadness, as we have Norwegian ancestry coursing through our veins. It turns out that not only are Toeheads obsessed with cross country skiing, but they also celebrate Easter by reading about murder and watching crime thrillers on TV. This can be attributed to Norway having the lowest crime rater in Europe while having some of the richest citizens and a five day Easter break. Gotta do something to waste the time away, we guess.

"People sit inside their cabins, watch crime on television and then read crime books at night," said book reviewer Ane Farsethaas. "It's a very Norwegian thing to do."

Sure, Norwegian. Or just strange. It's Easter for Christ's sake, and the number one book in the country is titled "Men Who Hate Women."

God why couldn't our ancestors been from Finland?


REUTERS via YAHOO! NEWS

DEA Agent Sues DEA After Shooting Self in Foot; For Serious
Topic: Stupidity

DEA agent and former pro football player Lee Paige has sued the Drug Enforcement Agency for "illegally" distributing a video that shows Paige shooting himself in the foot in a demonstration to school children. Paige asserts that the video turned him into a laughing stock and finished his career in law enforcement, when perhaps he should've realized that the fact that he shot himself in the foot only moments after stating he was the only one professional enough to handle the gun probably did more to hurt his career as a DEA agent.

Paige, who writes that he was "once regarded as one of the best undercover agents, if not the best, in the DEA," points to the clip's recent airing on popular television shows and via the Internet as the reason he can no longer work undercover. He also notes that he is no longer "permitted or able to give educational motivational speeches and presentations."

Dude we would hope not. These were middle school kids and you discharged a gun mere feet away from them. If you ever even came on school property again we would want you arrested, law enforcement agent or not. You suck. And watch the video, with the sound up, to see the proof.


THE SMOKING GUN

The End Game for Ariel Sharon; Too Fat to be Revived from Coma
Topic: World News

Israel Prime Minister has reached the end of his days after his massive stroke back in January of this year. Even though there were rumblings this morning, it has finally been announced that the coma is not temporary and, barring a miracle, Sharon is "permanently incapacitated." Under Israeli law, after 100 days, the leader is called such so that a new one can be found. While the deadline expires Friday, Passover begins on Wednesday, so the deadline crossed this morning.

Now, much like warring neighbor Palestine, Israel must find a new leader, one who will come to power at a hard time, especially after the joyous election of Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas (a moderate) and then the election of the hardline Hamas government.

So we'll find out next week who will take over after the Israeli cabinet votes on the man who would be targeted next. So a sad day for Israel, and we're sure Hamas all just simultaneously orgasmed at the news. Thank god we live in Texas, where Jewish people are confined to banks and Palestinians held captive in their convenience stores. We don't need any more protesters walking past our house Sunday at 10 a.m. chanting things we can't, and don't want to, make out over our vodka soaked headache.


CBS NEWS

LAPD Cracking Down on Old People Crossing Streets
Topic: Stupidity

An 82-year-old woman who was slowly crossing the street and didn't make it before the light turned green received a $114 ticket from a LAPD bike cop for obstructing traffic. It is all part of Los Angeles's "Get Out if You're Not Hot" initiative.

"I think it's completely outrageous," said the old bag, who called herself a Cherokee medicine woman. "He treated me like a 6-year-old, like I don't know what I'm doing."

The LAPD's excuse is that they're cracking down on slow walkers due to increased rates of pedestrian deaths, even though we honestly fail to see how that is the person crossing the street under the "walk" sign's fault. Maybe the bike cop should be worrying more about the speeding smug assholes in the hybrids than the old lady on the Rascal electric scooter.


AP via YAHOO! NEWS

Fox Lets Jack Bauer Violate Geneva Convention Rules on 24 for Three More Years!
Topic: Entertainment

Hooray, huzzah, and boo on you Fox pricks all at the same time. Fox announced today, stupidly, that Keifer Sutherland has signed on for three more years to play Counter Terrorist Unit ultimate bad ass Jack Bauer on our favorite show, 24.

However, we're pissed at them because we were for sure that he was going to die this year, especially after the deaths of President Palmer and Soul Patch Tony.

So way to go Fox for realizing you have one of the best shows on TV, and eat our ass for announcing it in the middle of the season you over-zealous assholes.


VARIETY

The Ever-Present Duke Lacrosse Team Scandal
Topic: Sports

We hate the collegiate institute that is Duke University. Not because everyone there is usually smart, or wealthy, or an ex-girlfriend of ours. No, no. It's because they think they're better than every other person in the world. Guess not assholes.

However, new evidence in the stripper/rape/lacrosse team case might exonerate the whole lot of them and show that public hysteria is the reason a student athlete was suspended, the team's season was canceled and their coach resigned. So here's the bracing evidence... wait for it...

DNA evidence just released proved that there was no match on the woman with anybody on the Duke men's lacrosse team.

Yeah. So after today's earlier announcement showing a timestamped photo of the woman already bearing the injuries she said she incurred inside the building where she supposedly raped, before the rape supposedly occurred, and now this evidence, it might not bode well for her case.

Oh yes, and there's also the woman's criminal past. Now while we don't rush to judgment and have in fact met some very nice girls that were exotic dancers and have even had some brushes with the law, this is just... damn. We're going to use the Associated Press's words because they did a hell of great job describing what she got pinched for.

The alleged victim stole the taxi of a man to whom she was giving a lap dance at a Durham strip club. Court records say she led a sheriff’s deputy on a winding chase at up to 70 mph, and tried to run him down as he approached the cab.

She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of larceny, speeding to elude arrest, assault on a government official and driving while impaired, and spent some weekends in jail.

Yeah, that's right. Damn.


MSNBC

P.S. - Laugh at our owl. LAUGH!