WINE TIPS FOR BEGINNERS
In a world where people want so desperately to be unique, special, and an expert at something, let me proclaim that I am not a wine aficionado. I can’t even spell the word without a dictionary or a spell checker. So it is with this admission in mind that I offer my personal list of essential facts for the budding connoisseur.

• When the guy next to you swooshes the wine around in his mouth and spits it into a bucket, this is GOOD. Do not say “Whoa dude, that bad, huh?”

• When the guy next to you swooshes the whole bottle in his stomach and throws up in a bucket, this is BAD. Do not say “So, an amusing little Merlot, yes?"

• Red wines go with cheeseburgers; white with McNuggets; blush with large pepperoni and extra anchovies. Nothing goes with Taco Bell products.

• It is OK to say that any French wine is undrinkable. That’s because in general it is.

• Do not snigger when someone says they like Australian wine. They may be Australian and they have some innovative ways of opening a bottle.

• Remember, although it may take a lifetime of wines to become a Master Sommelier, it only takes one crate of wine to become a drunk.

• It is NOT acceptable to shake the bottle first, point the cork towards your colleagues, and shout “Look out suckers or you’ll lose an eye!” Unless you are from Dartmouth College.

• Or any other Ivy League College.

• No matter who tells you this, there is no such thing as a green wine; not even in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day. If the wine is green, do not drink it – period.

• If you’re eating Road Kill, look for wine that comes in a beer bottle and has a label that includes “Grandpa Joe’s…” “Uncle Jim Bob’s…” or “XXX.” Keep the bottles in an ice bucket and be prepared to use the bucket for other things once the wine has gone.

Feel free to share these words of wisdom with any of your friends. Especially the pretentious ones.

ON THE ARRANGING OF BOOKS
The Great Library of Alexandria; the Bodleian Library of Oxford; the Library of Congress; and even Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel – all world famous examples of cathedrals to bibliophilia – the love of books. Since the first caveman scrawled the prehistoric version of “Kilroy was here” on the walls of his rocky condo, mankind has sought to record his story, laying the foundations for a cultural existence. And as the number of literary efforts increases, so does the need for cataloging and organizing them. Whether on tablets of stone, in jars of clay, or engraved onto the surfaces of grains of rice, accessing what has been written is a important as the actual content of the text.

When Melvil Dewey devised his system of classification back in the 1870s, who could have thought that this would become the standard method of choice for the world? And who would argue that this relatively simple and efficient system didn’t make life easier for the common reader.

Well, the editor of In Style magazine for one. The February 2006 edition of this veritable vade mecum of fashion answers the age-old question of how best to organize a collection of books. And here is it, in black and white, from page 325: “Books look best when organized by size or grouped in color blocks.”

So there you have it. Problem solved. And thank goodness, I say, that the Oxford English Dictionary is made up of individual volumes that are (a) all the same color and (b) all the same size. However, bad luck if you’re looking for a copy of the Bible. Considering that there are bibles in as many colors and sizes as rainbows and rocks, finding one might turn out to be a bit of a problem.

Imagine the scenario:

Student: “Excuse me, my fine fellow. Pray, tell me, where might I find the latest offering by that goodly scribe, John Grisham?”

Librarian: “Ah, my honest scholar, wouldst that be the big brown one, the big blue one, or the more portable small black one?”

Student: “Goodness, my educated friend, in truth, I know neither of the size nor the color.”

Librarian: “Ah, my hapless seeker-after-wisdom, then art thou up a raging river without aid of a rowing implement. Without such critical information regarding appearance and girth, I am, alas, unable to help thee in thy quest.”

Student: “Oh, sweet mother of mercy, is there not a way of finding it by, for example, using the first letter of the honorable scribe’s surname of ‘Grisham?’”

Librarian (chuckling softly): “What a unique suggestion, my witty colleague! But if we were to adopt such a method, wouldst it not then make it almost impossible to find, for example, yonder large, green tome? Why, how would I decide where to locate a new middling orange epistle?”

Student (crestfallen and dejected): “Aye, there’s the rub.”

Librarian (surprised): “’Struth, art thou familiar with the contents of the large, thick work – in green, red, and brown – found on the third shelf on the twentieth case in the fourth room?”

Student (equally surprised): “Yes, although in my own humble abode, it is found on the first shelf, next to a fetching gold small tome about a young girl named Alice who finds herself in a bizarre world of fantasy.”

Librarian: “Ah yes, fantasy indeed. A little like your joke about ordering books by letter.

Exeunt Librarian and Scholar, slapping each other’s backs, laughing together at the absurdity.

CONCEALED WEAPONS
On the almost second anniversary of Ohio's law allowing conealed carrying of arms, it's worth taking a look back at how this came about.

Under the heading of “disturbing philosophical arguments,” file the discussions found at Vermillion’s “Open Carry Shipping Day,” where for a two-hour period, the good citizens of the Harbor Town area of Vermillion, Ohio, were treated to the site of gun-toting patriots walking in and out of local stores and restaurants. In an attempt to promote the legalization of concealed weapons in Ohio, around 70 folks strapped on their firearms and wandered around the streets looking for bad guys. Well, maybe just looking for a Christmas present for the kids.

Chuck Holliday, who sounds like he has a relative called “Doc,” wasn’t taking any chances and decided to wear both a .40 Beretta and a .357 Magnum – you can’t be too careful when living in Vermillion. Chuck’s words of wisdom include the phrase, "We are common-sense people." I always worry when anyone appeals to "common-sense" because the definition appears to be “whatever I think is a good idea.”

One of the common-sense notions that Chuck advances is that "When criminals think somebody may be carrying a weapon, they won’t mess with them." Now this raises so many questions that it hardly qualifies as an answer in the first place. If I’m a rootin’, tootin’, pistol-packin’ hombre who thinks some dude’s packin’ heat, it’s in my best interest to plug him first. Hey, the concept of the Pre-emptive Strike is pretty popular these days, especially amongst our leaders.

Of course, if concealed weapons are OK for Joe Average (and it seems a testosterone-fueled thing because one rarely hears from Josephine Average that she wants to pack heat) then it’s OK for Al Capone, Don Corleone, and Tony Soprano to do the same.

A worried shopkeeper calls the police at 1:30 am because three suspicious guys with bulges in their pockets are positioning themselves at the gas station; one by the pumps, one at the door, and the third inside the store heading toward the counter. The cavalry arrives and finds – surprise surprise – that all the guys are carrying guns. But what’s the charge? Well, nothing! They’re carrying the pistols for "personal protection" and were just looking for a late-night coffee. And then they sue the police for harassment.

Ron Wise, another “guns for peace” promoter, feels that carrying arms is “a great idea.” However, his wife, Betty, thinks, “this is the most stupid thing I’ve heard of in my whole life.” Josephine Average? According to Betty, “We’re not living in the Old West. Everybody doesn’t need to carry a gun. We’re supposed to be civilized.”

Ron, on the other hand, says, “If everyone carried a gun, everybody would be civilized.” Which reminds me of an old joke: A man walks onto a plane and the security folks find a grenade, a gun, and a knife in his hand luggage. When asked why he is carrying all this stuff, he replied “Well, I heard that one in a million people will have a grenade on a plane, one in another million will have a gun, and one in another million will carry a knife. I reckon that if I’m the one carrying all three, I’m going to feel much safer!”

SHAVING AND SIN
My battle against chronic procrastination continues, but with a new moral twist. Is it OK to submit to one of the seven deadly sins in order to conquer another? Is a little evil OK to defeat a bigger one? Before we plunge into this, remember that your editor is not a theologian and so prone to error. However, he is a human being and so faces the same dilemmas as everyone else in the world. So let’s start with a little background.

For many years now, I have been toying with the idea of removing my mustache. The small hairy caterpillar sits quietly above my mouth, hiding an imperfection in my top lip. It’s not that I grew the ‘tash to do that; it just happens to fulfill that role. Apart from a period of about one week some fifteen years ago, this little furry patch has been there since I was able to rub hair from my spotty teenage face with nothing more than a wet cloth. Other than a few baby pictures, I suspect there are no images of me in existence that exclude my fluffy friend.

Yet with age comes two changes to how facial hair works; it gets grayer and more brittle. Most of the time I now look like I’ve been eating an ice cream cone and forgotten to wipe my face. And the brittleness is such that when I use scissors for trimming, there is an audible “click” as the blades snicker-snack through the tiny trees. By the time I reach fifty, I suspect they’ll be a noise abatement order taken out against me. So removing the mustache sounds like a good idea.

However, here’s where the moral issue sneaks in: removing the ‘tash is clearly a sop toward one of my much-discussed sins – vanity. There’s no life-threatening condition here, and the fate of my family or career does not depend on whether or not I keep the fuzz. Therefore, it’s plain, old vanity stepping in, tempting me to take a dip in that fictitious fountain of youth in a desire to stop looking older. One the other hand, I’ve been putting off this action for years now, saying, “Maybe next week” or “As soon as the weather gets a little warmer,” and this strikes me as the rumblings of another sin – sloth. Regularly readers will be aware that I have tackled both vanity and sloth over the years, but more so vanity. This is probably the first time both have appeared at the same time.

It seems to me that I can “leverage” vanity to fight sloth, and if that’s the case, is it right? Or would it be “better” if I used sloth to temper the vanity, bearing in mind that I think vanity is my greater failing? And all because of a mustache! Who would have thought that such a moral conundrum could reside in a trivial case of how to deal with facial hair?

I don’t recall St. Thomas Aquinas devoting a paragraph to “On the removal of whiskers and the sin therein” in his Summa Theologica. Then again, I don’t know whether he had a mustache himself, so maybe this sort of issue is the province of the more hirsute philosophers. I know Karl Marx and Friedreich Nietzsche were both particularly hairy, but Das Kapital and Also Sprach Zarathustra were both noticeably quiet on the issue of personal hygiene. So, no help from the moral philosophers then – it’s up to me to solve the problem myself. I shaved it off. Forgive me for pandering to vanity, but I dragged a sharp, new, triple blade across the petrified forest and returned my face to its baby-soft original state. I chalked up a victory against procrastination, followed the same day by another mighty swipe against indolence – I replaced a light fitting in the basement laundry room that hadn’t worked for years: it took me 30 minutes including the trip to the hardware store.

Oh the shame! I don’t know how long the mustache will be gone. Maybe it will be back in a week; maybe never. Doubtless they’ll be suggestions from my family and friends as to which way I should go, but then if I use this advice, am I not submitting again to vanity, growing or not growing it to “look better?” No wonder Aquinas, Marx, and Nietzsche gave this one a wide berth.

BURGERS AND RESPONSIBILITY
Hippocrates once said “Everything in excess is opposed to nature.” His name, curiously enough, comes from the Greek words hippos, meaning horse, and kratos, meaning power. Fortunately for the car sales industry, engine makers opted for abandoning the Greek hippo to describe the power of their machines. I’m not sure folks would be wowed by a Porsche that was described as having the equivalent pulling power of 605 hippos.

As well as being almost famous for sounding like a huge, fat, water horse, Hippocrates is acknowledged as the founder of modern medicine, with the Hippocratic Oath being named after him. As a doctor, he apparently not only talked the talk but walked the walk when it comes to looking after oneself. According to legend, he lived into his 80’s, with some sources claiming he hit the century mark. Clearly, avoiding excess and adopting the maxim of “moderation in all things” worked out just peachy for old Hippocrates.

Contrary to this philosophy, Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Moderation is a fatal thing... nothing succeeds like excess.” Not exactly noted as a believer in temperance, Wilde died at the age of 46 – only half way towards Hippocrates’ expiry date.

However, the spirit of excess lives on in the USA. If Wilde had been alive today, no doubt he would have found his way to the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona. Armed only with your check book and a portable defibrillator, you can tuck into their infamous “Quadruple Bypass Burger,” (QBB) a name that is as accurate as it is graphic.

Here, for the morbidly curious, is the list of contents for a QBB, from top to bottom: Bun, lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes, bacon, red onion, cheddar cheese, ½ lb beef, more onion, more cheese, another ½ lb beef, more onion, more cheese, yet another ½ lb beef, more bacon, another onion, an unashamed fourth ½ lb beef, gourmet sauce, and a bun.

I should say that in a nod towards healthy eating, the lettuce is described as “crisp” and the tomatoes as “fresh,” so things could be worse. For those on a diet, it is possible to order the less destructive “Triple Bypass Burger” (only 1 ½ lb of beef in total), the middling “Double Bypass Burger,” which is barely meaty at all with a measly 1 lb of beef, or the supermodel special, the “Single Bypass Burger,” which with a mere ½ lb of beef makes it practically vegetarian.

For those of us who think that a flight to Arizona just to sample a huge burger is just a little too extravagant, there is the more mundane option of popping in to the local Burger King and ordering a “Quad Stacker.” For a lot less than a plan ticket to Tempe, you can fill yourself with 1000 calories, 68 grams of fat, and another 30 grams of saturated fat.

Burger King management are unapologetic about the burger (as are the owners of the Heart Attack Grill). In an official BK statement, a marketing executive said, “We’re satisfying the serious meat lovers by leaving off the produce and letting them decide exactly how much meat and cheese they can handle.” Notice that “produce” is used as a euphemism for “vegetables.”

Although sorely tempted, you intrepid Editor has so far been able to resist the lure of the Quad. However, I have to admit to having tried the Triple and lived to tell the tale. I guess I’m OK with one Triple, which is surely an example of “all things in moderation.” My concern is that not everyone knows when to stop; when to “just say no”; when to draw that proverbial line in the sand. At what point does the individual have his or her right to gorge on excessive foods be taken away because “someone” thinks it is bad for them? If a line has to be drawn in the sand, who should be drawing it; the individual or Society?

Consider the following: Russian Natalya Kashuba, 27, is the owner of an up-market clothes shop. She drank up to three liters of Coke every day for five years. Then, at the beginning of this year, she took legal action against the soft drinks giant after claiming that she had suffered insomnia and heartburn. Miss Kashuba said she had become addicted to the drink as a result of a promotional offer that allowed consumers to swap Coca Cola caps for prizes. And guess what? She won! Although the damages were a token $100, the principle is that it was not her fault but Coke’s.

I know this might sound a little off the wall, but does anyone else think that three liters of ANY sugary soft drink per DAY might be just a tad bad for you? I’m no nutritional scientist, but it’s been fairly common knowledge for as long as I can remember – and that’s about 40 years – that excess sugar = bad.

Maybe Hippocrates had a point after all.

REPEATED WORDS

How often do you find yourself in a situation where you’re writing a letter or article and when you review it, you see you’ve written the same word twice? If you use a word processor, a good one will pick this up and highlight it for you. But how often is it actually correct to use multiple instances of a word?

Over the weekend, my daughter and I were deciding on when to go to the movies. She said she wanted to go to the late show, to which I responded with “Do you want the early late show or the late late show?” For a few moments, we looked at each other wondering if there was anything wrong with either the notion of an “early late” show or even the double-barreled “late late” show. “It’s OK,” I said, “to have ‘early late’ and ‘late late’ so long as we understand that ‘late show’ is actually a single noun meaning ‘a showing that is held in the evening at some indeterminate time, but such that it would not be considered early.’”

Before you stop reading, I should explain that yes, we do talk like that, especially when we’re having breakfast and just “chillin’” or “shooting the breeze” – though how you can shoot a gentle waft of air is probably best left for a future column. The more ridiculous the topic, the more we talk. “Of course,” I continued, “If the late show in question was now no longer in existence, we could have the sentence ‘We used to go to the late late late show,’ because this new use of ‘late’ refers to something now passed on.” This triple play of “lates” got us to thinking about how many such words you could get into a sentence legitimately. Examples such as “Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!” as said by an excited child who’s just been asked if he wants a trip to Disney or a free bucket of ice cream would be excluded. The sentence has to be coherent and valid.

So we moved on to the notion of a city having a “down town” area. If that area had a region that was depressed and unappealing, you could use the word “down” (as in “I’m feeling a little down today”) as a descriptor. You can thus have a “down down town.” Then, if that city was built on a slope – Seattle, for example – you could conceivably have a physically higher area described as the “up down down town” and a correspondingly lower region called the “down down down town.” Finally, you could use the word “down” again to describe the action of going somewhere, forming the sentence “Let’s go down down down down town.”

At this stage, we were finding it hard to keep up, and as I was writing this article, my word processor was having a real hard time with so many multiples of the same word, drawing many red lines under them screaming “Stop it, that’s not allowed!”

This is not the longest word run of which I am aware. Stephen Pinker, in his book The Language Instinct, gives the following example: “The Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” Frankly, if you can work this one out, you’re way too smart to be reading this column! But if you can’t, let me know and I’ll end you the reference.

STUPIDER AND STUPIDER
So who was it that started tossing around the notion that with Age comes Wisdom? The wisest thing I can offer is that as far as I’m concerned, with Age comes Ignorance. Day after day, I am reinforced in my knowledge that in truth, I know very little. And the more I add to my tiny sponge-like brain that soaks up trivia like an Oreo soaks up milk, the less I understand about the world. Sure, I know an awful lot about the tiny piece of the world of linguistics that I use to make a living (I’m a Speech Pathologist by training who specializes in language disorders amongst folks with severe physical disabilities) you could fill a solar system with the stuff I haven’t a clue about.

Take the word apophasis, for example. Doubtless some of you dear readers have heard this word before and can even define what it means. But for me, it is a new one. And that’s all the more depressing for a guy who gets paid for his so-called skills in the English language. Fortunately, I at least have access to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a two-volume tome that is possibly the most valuable investment I ever made; until I can pluck up the courage – and the cash – to buy the complete Oxford English Dictionary. Wedged between apopetalous and apophlegmatic, both of which are not picked up by my spell checking software, is apophasis, [Late Latin – from the Greek meaning denial] Rhet. A figure in which we feign to deny or pass over what we really say or advise. You may not have known the word itself, but you have doubtless seen it in action.

Politicians in particular seem to be positively apophasic when it comes to talking about their opponents: “I don’t intend to mention Senator Chamber’s seventeen felony convictions because what’s important is how our party intends to deal with crime.” What is also troubling is that while looking up the meaning of this new word, I discovered that I also didn’t know the meaning of the words immediately before and after it in the dictionary. In fact, I had to skip over eight unknown words until I found one that I knew – and that was apoplectic, something I was beginning to feel.

So if I only understand around one out of ten words in the dictionary, and I am supposed to be a linguist, how much more don’t I know about other fields. Physics, chemistry, math, biology, history, geography, football, baseball, boules, and even the plot of Days of our Lives. The more you try to educate yourself, the more stupid you feel.

This realization probably explains how irritated I get with people who claim to know everything about everything. You know the sort – it doesn’t matter what topic you’re discussing, they have something to add. And to make things worse, it isn’t always easy to refute what they are saying because you don’t know. I look back fondly to a conference some years back in Antwerp, where a group of researchers from a UK university did a one-hour presentation on a special software package they had developed that they claimed would make machine-generated language easier. To support their argument, they drew heavily on earlier research carried out by a Professor Van Balcom.

At the end of the presentation, they triumphantly announced, “Any questions?” and scanned the audience. From the back of the room, a portly, bespectacled gentleman stood up and said, “I’m afraid what you’re doing will not work.” Stunned, the lead presenter asked what evidence he had for this statement and the man replied, “Because I am Professor Van Balcom and the reason I stopped working on this line of programming was because it didn’t work.”

If Pride goeth before a fall, then the virtual thunder of researchers hitting the ground was deafening. And schadenfreude is a word that I do know the meaning of.

CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE: TAKING A DUMP
Where oh where is "Miss Manners" when you really want her? Probably not multi-tasking in the toilet I dare say.

I'm not sure about the rights and wrongs of the phenomenon of using the cell phone while dropping a log in a public lavatory. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't do it, but is it OK for other folks? Are busy executives really so short of time that turning off the cell for a quick crap is too much? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty sure that I would be mildly disturbed to realize that the bloke I'm chatting with over the phone is simultaneously drowning the kittens at JFK.

Sure there's not much else to do as you sit down to heave a havana, but it somehow seems a little tacky to fill in the spare time by chatting about your latest business venture. If life is so hectic that spending five minutes and a penny is time poorly spent, then I suggest reviewing your career choice.

Time management gurus may well be proud of their students who can squeeze extra job time and a loaf at the same time, but I can't persuade myself that it is the right thing to do. Why not treat unleashing the holy leviathan as a moment for introspection and self-examination, not an opportunity to simultaneously drop a call and drop a cobra.

Folks, do yourself and your communication partner a big favor and try turning off the phone while you make a deposit at the porcelain bank. Please!

LAPTOPS FOR THE WORLD? I DON'T THINK SO!
Boy am I in a cynical mode today! According to the One Laptop Per Child group, their new XO laptop computer is set to change the world and level that proverbial playing field - again. In an article from the good folks at eWeek, the $175 laptop is poised to give disadvantaged kids around the world the same access to porn, MP3s, viruses, adware, Instant Messaging, and rabid hate-speech as every other member of civilized society.

So handing laptops to the world makes it all better, eh? Folks, 90% of people who currently have computers have no clue how to use them, spend half the time downloading porn, have great difficulty copying a file from their hard drive to a USB drive, and complain that it's "too difficult." And you don't have to spend long in the Blogosphere to discover that those folks who at least grasp the basic concept of stringing words together and tossing them onto a web site end up writing the most pointless, egocentric, turgid drivel about their babies, pets, vacation in Cancun, and how much they hate foreigners.

No, a cheap laptop solves little, particularly in a world where most folks should stick to the technology that best suits their abilities - a piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser on the end; as complex a "delete" function as they can understand.

A B.A., A B.Sc. OR JUST A DD?
In Italy, it's now not enough for a girl to graduate from college with a few letters after her name. Now she's not going to settle for anything less than a DD - and I don't mean a Doctor of Divinity.

According to web site Ananova, the most common graduation present for young ladies is now a boob job. The liberated, educated college graduate may revel in her intellectual independence and a first-class honors in Physics, but unless she's got the jubblies to go with the academics, life's clearly at an end. After all, who wants to hire a woman physicist with a flat chest when there are others whose attributes are large enough to generate a gravity field capable of sustaining a small moon.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, just as Italian women are using their boobs to further their careers, one American woman was forbidden from using hers to - well - feed a baby! Retailers Fossil settled out off court rather than go through a law suit brought by clothing buyer Lass King. On a visit to a New York showroom to meet with another buyer, King was told that she was "making people feel uncomfortable" by breast feeding her 8-month-old son, Cody. Of course, if she'd simply gone to "Scores" nightclub and waved them around a bit for men's pleasure, no-one would have cared AND she'd have ended up with her panties stuffed with dollar bills. But actually using her boobs to feed babies is obviously sick and twisted.

"Fossil" sent a letter of apology and a few thousand dollars, presumably after finding that New York law says that women can breast feed "in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be." Good for New York!

It's worth remembering that mammary glands are there for the purpose of feeding babies, and that folks who are offended by this need to get some therapy.

EVANGELICAL CYBER-SQUATTER'S "BAIT-AND-SWITCH"
It seems, as ever, that God needs as much help as He can get when it comes to promoting His agenda. And if that help includes just a smidgin of sharp practice - nay, maybe even fraud - then that appears to be just fine for some evangelicals. Although not quite up there with the bizarre rationalization that shooting doctors who perform abortions is "doing the Lord's work," creating dodgy web sites is one more manifestation of the lengths some folks will go to to do God's job for Him.

In a recent posting to the "Daily Telegraph" online edition, I erroneously entered my blog address as "thenakedbystander.blogpot.com." Notice the missing "s?" Well apparently I didn't but someone had figured out that this is a typical mistake to make. anyone clicking on my link found themselves at a biblical message site filled with evangelical cant at its best! The "Mega site of Biblical Studies" not only tosses out pop-ups for crap but runs an ad for an iPod, a Capitol One account, and some other dubious fluff.

The site is a wonder to behold if only because of two things; its stunningly bad design (clearly not "Intelligent Design" and the topics available, running from Armageddon to the Voice of Satan - and all points in between. Running the ads seems to be a bit pointless because one of the main thrusts of the page is that the End is Nigh and opening a long-term Capitol One Savings account doesn't strike me as being worth the effort.

Now, by snagging the "blogpot.com" domain, you'll find that if you type pretty much anything in front of it you'll end up at the Mega Site. I tried "satan.blogpot.com" and I was saved! And to make sure errors are leveraged more, the misguided malefactor has also registered "blogpsot.com." This practice is not illegal, but you have to ask what the motivation is of the people who buy such domain names, who clearly know what they are doing. And waht they are doing is at least shameful and at worst fraudulent. And doing it in the name of the Lord just makes it all the more tackier.

And who is this mastermind? Here's the WHOIS entry:

Doug Powell (DME) use this one (BLOGPSOT-COM-DOM)
PO Box 10142
St Petersburg, FL 33733
US
+1.7275428374
amazingbible@verizon.net

Feel free to call or spam him, and give him my regards.

OHIO PRUDES PUSH NUDITY-FREE STRIP CLUBS
"Rules forbidding touching of strippers and requiring them to keep on some clothes when dancing past midnight were approved today by a House committee as a compromise on a statewide crack down on adult businesses.

The no-touching rule for customers and the semi-nude dancing provision are part of a new version of legislation that was brought to lawmakers through petitions circulated by Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati-based Christian group.

The group, which also backed Ohio’s gay marriage ban, agreed to the changes to its proposal that originally had sought a 6-foot clearance between dancers and patrons and a ban on stripping after midnight." (C) Associated Press.

One more nail in the coffin for “Progressive Ohio.” While the business bureaus try to encourage the world to come to Ohio to create jobs and industry, the spirit of Puritanism lives on in the hearts and febrile minds of “concerned individuals” who are little more than religious bigots trying, as ever, to dictate how things should be. It appears that up until midnight, nudity is OK, but then between 12:01 and 5:59 am, strippers must wear something. I hate to state the obvious, but you go to strip clubs to see naked women and if the women are not naked, you don’t go. Which, of course, is precisely the aim of the Citizens for Community Values group.

Apparently, the logic seems to be that prior to midnight, Strip Club patrons are reasonable, sensible men who are out for an evenings entertaining. However, at the stroke of12, their animal lusts take over and they become slobbering perverts desirous of the most heinous and depraved acts of sexual lust. Unless, of course, they are members of the Citizens for Community Values, who have long been sleeping after reading an uplifting biblical verse before retiring. And, as we should know, these folks are capable of controlling their animal urges whereas other people are not.

I hope the CCV will now be big enough to reimburse ALL Ohio strippers for their lost earnings. My guess is that (a) they won’t, and (b) they don’t care, because “caring” is something religious bigots are not good at. And by the way, perhaps the CCV might want to consider that their sense of “community values” are as skewed and biased as any other special interest group’s values.

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
-- Mark Twain

Would somebody care to pass the milk to those folks at the CCV - it's past their bedtime and they need to go sleepybies.

MORIBUND - BUT NOT DEAD YET!

So what's been happening with the Bystander? Why is three months since the past post? Is he dead, kidnapped, the victim of a Fatwa? Maybe he's just decided to quit writing altogether.

Sadly, none of these is true. Despite what it may seem, the Bystander has a real job, one which requires him to produce stuff and do lots of traveling. Glamorous the international jaunts may be, but they take up lots of time before, during, and after the events.

The job also requires the writing of documents, depressingly staid ones at that. A technical document on the merits of a new algorithm for creating new databases is hardly an opportunity for rollicking satire and misanthropic barbs. The occasional footnote can be added as a momentary diversion, but that's really about it.

With a trip to Montreal coming up in two days, the Bystander may continue its gentle side into obscurity and pointlessness, but even if there's only time for a few lines of comment, your Editor is still keen to maintain a presence in the Blogosphere.

LET'S START THE NEW YEAR WITH A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED LYNCHING

Talk about lost opportunities! Following last year's successful pay-per-view seance with John Lennon, you have to think that someone in the international media would have had the sway and cojones to sign up Saddam Hussein for the first global hanging in human history. But it seems neither Rupert Murdoch nor Al-Jazeera was able to pull off the Big One. No. The kudos goes to some unknown bystander with a cell phone camera who managed to snag some grainy footage of Saddam's Last Stand - followed by his Last Fall.

And clearly the spirit of Capitalism has yet to take a hold in newly democratized Iraq because the phone-toting idiot appears to have passed on the images free to anyone who has an Internet connection. Yeah gods, even Paris Hilton can operate a web browser, and my cat seems to have grasped the fundamentals of point-and-click.

So, no tie-ins with Burger King ("free dangling Saddam with every Kids Meal combo"); no Special Edition T-shirts from Nike ("Just did it!"); no Super Bowl-style multi-million ads between noose-wrapping and lever-pulling ("...we'll be right back to the Big Drop after a word from these sponsors..."); and no Limited Edition Franklin Mint Commemorative Plates ("...and edged in fine, gold leaf, the noose around Saddam's neck is counterpointed by the realistic bulging veins...")

In the rush to get the whole thing over and done with, the Iraqi government simply hustled him away to what looked like a warehouse outhouse and unceremoniously hanged him. If only the US had dropped marketing textbooks instead of bombs, this could have been a major triumph for 21st century television.

And of course, we all know who's to blame for Saddam's death? Yup, that's right - Saddam Hussein. Oh, wait... sorry... I mean George W. Bush and America. His supporters have rallied in the streets to proclaim his innocence and how he has been murdered by Bush and all who sail with him. They, naturally, brush aside Saddam's massacre of Kurds and Iraqis, which was obviously legitimate and ordained by Allah. Yes sir, St. Saddam has been poorly treated by the Infidel.

But didn't Saddam believe he was "destined by God to rule Iraq forever"? Well, it looks like he was stunningly wrong on that score. Doesn't it occur to the Sunnis that maybe Saddam's death is the will of Allah and that Allah was royally pissed off with what Saddam had done to his own people? If Allah loved Saddam so much, how come He allowed him to be bombed, found, tried, sentenced, and hung? Clearly Allah either didn't like Saddam or doesn't exist. The latter appeals to the Bystander.

Still, I'm sure that CafePress.com will soon be hawking the "Saddam's Well Hung" and "Saddam Lives - NOT!" paraphernalia within a week. Oh wait, I'm too late. You can already get the official "Saddam Hussein: Hangman Champ 2007" stuff here, or "Hangin' With Saddam," or even "I HUNG Saddam Hussein and all I got was this stupid SHIRT!"

Now THAT'S what I call Capitalism.

BAD NEWS ON THE BULGING BONER FRONT
In my previous posting, I expressed how comforted I was by the fact that 28% of women would be quite happy to tickle my tiny todger because they don't care about size. However, I spoke too soon. This morning, I received a new email with the stunningly honest title of "Adding few more inches to your Johnson" that dealt a crippling blow to my already fragile ego:

"Salute Chap

I don't care why your woody is so small, but 88% of women do.

They are pretty sure that bigger thing will make their desire

stronger. You have the chance to change your life."

Oh my Lord, the goalposts have been shifted. The acceptable 28% has become a frightening 12%, which, if it represents a mathematical progression, suggests that if I don't around to swinging the strawberry snake this weekend, by Monday there's a good chance that zero percent of women will be interested in my minuscule Moby.

So it now looks like that if I want to join the ranks of those guys with tremendous tallywhackers, I'm going to have to shell out for the "Prolonging the Perpendicular Pickle" program after all. I just hope it doesn't involve weights and string.

Addendum
Also in today's fun-filled can of spam I received an invitation from Dr. Nikolai N. Vaganov of the "Children's Clinical Hospital" to "Save Children." Tragically, I already have two and no space in which to save any more. Sure, the ones on sale appear to be relatively cheap - about the price of one Starbucks latte per week but without the rich, satisfying aroma and smooth, tongue-caressing flavor - but in my experience, they have a high operating cost. Besides, they are also difficult to flush down the toilet when you get bored with them, unless you cut them into tiny pieces and that's messy. I recommend hamsters as an alternative because (a) they flush easier and (b) can make a tasty kebab snack if you have a few of them.

Still, don't let my experience of saving kids put you off. Why, I hear there are lots of sad, lonely men out there, surfing the Internet, who would be only too pleased to save a few children. I bet Dr. Vaganov could even charge a premium for some of them.

I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT MY SMALL PENIS - HONEST!
Truth in Advertising. There's a phrase that is often preached but not always practiced. However, at least some folks in the Spam world are brave enough to say it like it is. Take for example the e-mail I received some minutes ago with the no-nonsense, in-your-face title of "Hello man, your woody is really small!"

Kudos first of all for getting the right gender. I get particularly annoyed by spam that exhorts me to increase my breast size or pay more attention to my feminine hygiene. The least a spammer can do is identify me as a male.

I also have to admire the way in which the spammer leverages right into the common male insecurity of penis size. After all, which guy actually thinks his schlong is too long? No, 99% of men think they are under-endowed; the other 1% are fooling themselves.

The text of the message is even more honest in tone:

Hei dude

Don't tell me why your thing is so small, I will better help you to make it really Bigger!

Why bigger? Because over 72% of all women need a longer prick to satisfy their desire!

Go there and get your solution.

It'll really help you!

We will ship it worldwide within 24 hours, and if you find our product useless - we'll refund all your money!

I could, of course, resign myself to having a small penis and be content with finding the 28% of women who, apparently, don't need an extended tallywhacker to reach satisfaction. But then again, a simple click to a website could open up my potential pool of partners.

I hope the "solution" includes a way of advertising my new-found length. After all, what's the point of having an enormous three inches if nobody knows about it. How are those 72% supposed to be cognizant of the fact that I can now bring them to the heights of sexual ecstasy with a mere wave of my magic wand? Maybe the spammers have an e-mail list of these women and will be happy to send them my address. Or perhaps the solution comes with a T-shirt along the lines of "I have a big penis - wanna take a ride, baby?"

I can't lose because they will refund ALL my money if the product is useless, although if I have a small penis and continue to have a small penis, do I really want to go through the indignity of proclaiming that fact to the world?

Still, I can't fault these folks for honesty when it comes to describing what they are marketing. Sure there's no picture of the "solution" (which could be, for all I know, a strap-on extension or an eight-pound weight on a piece of elastic) but if it makes Little Timmy into Big Bobby, then life's good, yes?

HEADS THEY WIN; TAILS WE LOSE
So here's a clip from a Reuter's article published in the Mercury News:

"If the United States and its allies leave Iraq without a clear victory, it will embolden terrorists from the Middle East to Indonesia, and damage international efforts to contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Australia's leader said Tuesday."

At the same time, Iraqi rebels pledge to continue their fight against the US until the "invaders" leave. Other terrorist groups threaten to strike against Americans on American soil until the "oppressors" leave Iraq and the Middle East.

Which suggests the following: If the US troops stay in Iraq, and the Middle East, terrorists will do their best to attack and kill Americans across the globe; if the US troops leave Iraq and the Middle East, terrorists will feel "emboldened" and... kill Americans across the globe.

What is abundantly clear to all involved is this; whether the US stays in Iraq or leaves Iraq, it will not make one blind bit of difference to anti-American terror groups. It will not change the mind of Kim Jong Il, whose nucleur ambitions are independent of US foreign policy; it will not make Iran shelve its nuclear plans, which, for all their protestations of innocence, will include nuclear weapons.

So, if staying or going makes NO difference, why are we staying? The right-wing pundits tell us that leaving Iraq makes the US look weak and will simply encourage more acts of terror against the West, whereas left-wing pundits say that leaving Iraq will save hundreds, maybe thousands, of American lives from a fruitless conflict.

The truth is that terrorists who are plotting against the US will plot whether troops are in Iraq or not. They will plot even in the US gives away free kittens to Iraqi orphans, or holds a big party to welcome North Korea and Iran into the "Nuclear Club," complete with free beer and strippers. They will plot even if there is only one American with three heads emerging from a post-nuclear shelter 300 years from now.

That's what terrorists are about. Sure, they claim to have some "Cause" in mind, but at some point, the thrill of killing, plotting, wheeling, dealing, and wielding of power becomes their raison d'etre.

Whether we stay or go has nothing to do with safety because we are unsafe whatever we do. We should decide based on our interests, not on what some terrorists might or might not think.

SEX, DRUGS, VIOLENCE... AND WAFFLES
The story has it all. Hot, naked chick kicking butt; drug abuse; and a waffle house.

In Nashville, Texas, patrons of the Waffle House restaurant were treated to an unexpected performance by way of a naked couple crashing through the cream-filled Belgian specials.

Texas resident, Larry Boyd, had been intending to spend an amorous night with his girlfriend in a hotel just opposite the Waffle House establishment. Apparently, in an effort to make the experience that little bit extra special, Boyd decided to take a hit of cocaine. Tragically, the cocaine failed to raise his ardor but did raise his temper and he attempted to strangle his paramour.

Naked and scared, the girlfriend fled from the hotel and ran to the nearest place of safety - the Waffle House. Stunned diners watched the naked woman run through the tables and lock herself in the bathroom. She was almost immediately followed by the raging Boyd, also naked, waving more than just his arms in hot pursuit.

Unable to use his obvious gentlemanly charm to coax her from the toilet, he left, jumped into a car, and drove off. After a short chase, Boyd was caught by the police and dragged off naked to jail. He was charged with driving under the influence and evading arrest. Other charges were also pressed but modesty forbids revealing the sordid nature of these.

It's not known whether business at the Waffle House has since decreased or increased.

ELECTIONS? WHAT ABOUT THE "SHAKE-IT-LIKE-SHAKIRA" LOSER?
So the Democrats are taking over the asylum. Whoop tee doo. The real story is about a bar, a contest, and that Great American Sport - Suing For Cash!

In July 2006, the folks at Calico Jack's Cantina on 42nd Street New York invited folks to join in their "Shake-It-Like-Shakira" contest. Ersatz Shakiras were asked to perform for the bar patrons by shaking their booty in a Shakira-like fashion. The grand prize was set at $250 - and the undying admiration of the crowd.

Enter New Jersey resident, Megan Zacher, 22, of Delanco. Unashamed by the prospect of wiggling her botty in front of strangers - and with an eye to the cash - Megan jumped on the bar after her second drink of the night and promptly began to strut her funky stuff.

Unfortunately, the bar had become a little slippery - as bars do - and she ended up going arse over tit onto the floor, and in the process tearing a knee ligament. The severity of the injury to her leg was such that she needed surgery. The damage to her ego wasn't reported. Needless to say she didn't in the contest.

Now add attorney Lawrence Simon to the mix. At the request of his client, the bar owner is being sued for an unspecified amount of money because he was "negligent, reckless and careless" in "permitting the bar area to become and remain wet and otherwise in an unsafe condition."

Simon also claims that the owner should have know that the contest was "dangerous and likely to lead to injury."

Of course, he is playing down any suggestion that drinking alcohol and dancing on a bar may, to some people, seem to be a little on the risky side. But the innocent Ms. Zacher is clearly simple-minded enough to be unable to process such obvious risks. On the other hand, she was able to pony up the $35 entry fee and would, no doubt, have happily accepted the $250 if she had won.

Once again, we see the full force of the law being used to support and reward the stupid behavior of mental midgets who either have no ability to detect risk and avoid it, or who are all for taking risks but then want to blame somebody else when it things go wrong.

If only she'd fallen a little harder and broken her neck: at least then she would have weeded herself out of the gene pool for good.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: LAWSUIT FAILS
According to the Associated Press, a lawsuit by Muslim groups in Denmark has been dismissed by the Danish courts. Following the publication in February of this year of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, seven Muslim groups entered a defamation lawsuit alleging that "the cartoons depict Mohammed 'as belligerent, oppressing women, criminal, crazy and unintelligent, and a connection is made between the Prophet and war and terror.'" The irony that the same plaintiff fail to point out is that the response to the cartoons included "protesters killed in Libya and Afghanistan and several European embassies attacked." In their defense, this, of course, only shows Muslims being belligerent, criminal, and crazy, not the Prophet.

Meanwhile the Iranian-sponsored anti-Jewish cartoon competition is over, with the top three having been chosen. As predicted by the Bystander, (a) they are not funny and (b) no-one cares. Anti-Muslim riots did NOT take place, nor did any killings, maimings, firebombings, or name calling. Israel has not called for Iran to be wiped off the face of the earth, nor called on the world to kill all Muslims. Bummer, eh?

The actual winning cartoons are currently available at the Religious Freaks web site and clicking on the link will clearly confirm the non-funny nature. They are also so stereotypical that they are hardly even offensive - just what you might expect from bigots with no sense of humor.

Maybe it's time for the "Kim Jong Il needs a serious haircut" competition...