Driver's Ed

Ok first put the key in the hole...

Oooo you touch my tra la la...my ding ding dong

www.gunternet.com
I would like to say this isn't real. I would like to say the world is better than this. But the truth is, he's all the rage in Europe. His songs are ring tones, women love him and men want to be him. I mean who wouldn't with that stache?!?!

Paris Hilton Meets Kiss

If my breasts don't knock you out the brotha will! 

Ode to Billy Bob

Billy Bob Thornton on baseball...
"You can love baseball, but it might not love you back. It might even kick your ass. It's kinda like dating a German chick."

Our President the Mastery of English

This is a Bush quote from a commencement ceremony at Calvin College Saturday.

"If any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me."

Great.

I think I would rather have his God's plan...

MINOT, ND—Unemployed factory worker James Harold Gurshner told reporters Monday that God's plan for him, revealed during a moment of divine inspiration, requires kidnapping Ford Motor Company CEO William Ford Jr.


Above: Gurshner, who vows to do God's bidding by kidnapping Ford.
"The Lord works in mysterious ways," said Gurshner, talking to reporters through a metal grate screwed over the window of his dilapidated, hubcap-covered house. "And right now, the Lord is working through me. I didn't choose this path, but if you're called upon, you must look into your heart and make a decision. I have chosen to heed the Lord's command."

Gurshner said he does not know why God "came to [him] in a dream" and asked him to kidnap Ford, but he said he believes that "it is best not to question His motives."

"I didn't question the Lord when He struck down my beloved wife Emily with cervical cancer," Gurshner said. "I didn't question Him when I was dismissed from my job and put on Social Security. I didn't question Him when He commanded me to dig a three-foot ditch around my house and fill it with charcoal briquettes, and I don't question him now. I, James Harold Gurshner, will kidnap the Ford CEO, as that is the will of the Lord."

"Amen," Gurshner added.

Gurshner said he would prefer to kidnap the man who runs the auto-supply store, or simply volunteer at the local soup kitchen, but nonetheless, he is determined to complete the Lord's task.

"The Lord would not have picked me to carry out His will if He didn't think I could do it," Gurshner said. "He'll probably help me along, though. Just like the time I found a perfectly good chair on the side of the road two days after I burned all of my furniture for Jesus. God will provide for those who do His will."

Although he does not have a specific kidnapping plan, Gurshner said he is confident that he will succeed.


"I've been thinking on ways to get that Ford guy the whole time I've been cleaning out the aluminum shed out back," Gurshner said. "That's where I'll store him. I won't keep the CEO tied up and gagged in a dirty place. The Lord wants me to make him feel comfortable."

Although Gurshner refuses to question God's will, he has a few theories about the Heavenly Father's motives.

"The Lord may want to enact retribution for all the people who died in cars, like my daddy did when I was 7," Gurshner said. "But unless the Lord directly tells me to torture Ford, or beat him, I won't. One thing I will not do is make love to the Ford CEO's asshole, no matter what the Lord says. That activity is a sin against nature. An order to do it would be God's way of testing me."

Raised a Seventh-day Adventist, Gurshner said he "got the true calling" in 1998, when God commanded him to kill a stray dog that wouldn't stop barking during the night.

"I saw a bright light and knew in a flash what He wanted," said Gurshner, who explained that God's messages are often paired with staggering migraine headaches. "It wasn't until I put a shovel through that dog's head that God was satisfied and the messages finally stopped."

Gurshner said God usually sends him messages through Bible passages, particularly those found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Sometimes, however, the messages appear on Hardee's billboards or in Kenny Chesney song lyrics.

"I never know what God's next message will be or when I will get it—all I can do is obey," Gurshner said. "It's like when God told me to start collecting plastic laundry-soap bottles a few years back. I still don't know what they're for, but until God reveals His reasons, I'll keep storing them in my living room."

Residents of Minot are well-acquainted with Gurshner's relationship with God.

"Everybody has heard all about Jim's direct line to the Lord," said Officer Nathan Randell of the Minot Police Department. "We try to leave him alone whenever we can. Most people in town feel sorry for him. All that tragedy shouldn't happen to one man. But when Jim gets really riled up, we have to go talk him down, or sometimes even lock him up for a night. He'll tell us that blaring religious hymns from his car stereo on Main Street at 3 a.m. is part of God's plan, but I guess we have to go against His wishes every once and a while."

Ford declined to comment on the Lord's plan.

...But apparently they know what kind of people steal toliets???

They must have had a disgusting job," Helge Homme, a cleaner from road service firm Mesta told newspaper Fædrelandsvennen.

A stinking hole in the floor has been exposed by the removal of the handicapped facility at the Honnevje rest stop.

"A very special theft," said Mesta manager Trond Heia. He has never heard of a complete stainless steel toilet being stolen from a Public Roads Administration (PRA) stop before. There is no question of vandalism, the fitting had been carefully unfastened and removed.

The theft will cost Mesta about NOK 20,000 (USD 3,125) including installation.

The PRA and Mesta may be stumped by the toilet heist, but are used to very petty thievery. Road workers regularly find that lamps, blinking lights on danger signals and even the hinges off garbage can holders disappear.

"We don't know what kind of people steal these lamps, we've never caught anyone," Heia said.

Never Thought I'd Agree With Kevin Manix....

Enough!
As if we needed any more evidence that the end is nigh and that time has stopped, consider the paradox blowing the Nose's mind right now.
1) Kevin Mannix is making sense!
2) The Democrats in Oregon's Legislature-particularly in the Senate, where they run the show-are acting like they left their spines in storage somewhere near Winnemucca.
The issue that has re-arranged the cosmic order? The question of whether utilities should be able to charge ratepayers for taxes...and then not actually pay taxes.
The basics: Everyone who pays for power shells out to cover the taxes the utilities are supposed to pay. And the power companies make out like they put $2 on Giacomo to win the Derby. Enron, the ghost ship that steers Portland General Electric, charges Oregonians about $200,000 per day for taxes. PacifiCorp, which is owned by Scottish Power, tacked over $70 million onto bills to cover taxes last year.
Drum roll, please, for the beauty part. The utilities don't actually have to pay those taxes! You pay your bill, including the tax charge, to a subsidiary like PGE or PacifiCorp. Then the megacorps can claim that losses in other corporate divisions offset the tax bills on their profits.
So here's what Mannix has to say: "Utility rates should be based on taxes a company actually pays, not phantom taxes their parent company pockets." Democrats' response to the Republican governor wannabe? Well, that's a longer story.
Several ideas for dealing with the scam have surfaced during the current run of the Salem Follies. One suggestion: Stop even trying to tax utilities. But backers were told by Senate Dems to forget it-the utilities, political heavyweights all, would never sign on to the death of this most excellent revenue source. Another bill basically took the Mannix position and would have required that utility rates only include taxes actually paid. That bill has been completely mutated-now, all it does is allow a biomass fuel plant on Warm Springs tribal land.
Then there is Senate Bill 171, which hit the Senate floor this week. Originally, the bill introduced by Democrat Rick Metsger sounded decent: Change tax-filing requirements to prevent companies from pulling their tax shell game. However, the poor thing was subjected to ye olde "gut'n'stuff"-its innards were stripped and replaced by toothless language that requires utilities' parent companies, essentially, to do nothing.
Who's to blame for the Senate's wussified approach to the power companies? You could start with Kate Brown, the Portlander who is the Senate's majority leader. Says Metsger of his efforts to stop the tax scam, "I'm surprised by the opposition by some of my own members."
Why do they do it? Depends on how high your Cynicism Alert Index is today. If it's yellow, consider that utilities have always been friendly places for Democrats to drop résumés after their brilliant legislative careers careen to an end. If your dial's at orange, note that PacifiCorp hired lobbyist Alan Tressider, an all-star of the legislative persuasion business who has more Democrats in his pocket than the Spokane mayor has skeletons. If, however, your cynicism cup runneth over, maybe the best explanation is this: In 2005, Salem has become a parliament of whores.
Hold your breath till '06.

Written by The Nose at Willamette Week

Rogue of the Week

Account-holders at Portland Teachers Credit Union may want to heed a Roguish lesson one couple came away with after its dealings with Oregon's largest credit union.
That lesson, courtesy of Scarlett and Shamus Lynsky: "If you don't have anything nice to say, you'd better not say anything at all."
The Lynskys, who are married, filled out comment cards at an annual members' meeting in March with the credit union's board of directors. They scribbled their concerns over increasing credit rates and the $1.6 million salary of CEO Cliff Dias, then checked a box requesting a response.
When no response followed a month later, Shamus fired off an email asking when they'd get answers. The emailed answer from Tom Glatt, executive vice president and chief operating officer for the 161,000-member credit union: "I am authorized to inform you that the Board has decided not to respond to your comments, as is their privilege.... I would like for you to call me directly so I can personally facilitate the closing of your accounts, and your membership." Glatt declined to discuss the matter with WW.
The Lynskys followed up with a request for a peek at the credit union's bylaws. This time, they got a letter from Daniel F. McNeil, a lawyer representing the credit union. "Your free speech rights do not include the right to make false or misleading statements about PTCU," it warns. "Please understand that PTCU...will not hesitate to pursue defamation or other business interference claims against you."
"The letter is self-explanatory," McNeil told WW. "I'm not at liberty to discuss it further."
The Lynskys are thinking of ending their business with the credit union, but doing so could be difficult. Along with several savings accounts, the credit union handles their mortgage and retirement CD. "This is a credit union with members that own a stake in it," Scarlett Lynsky says. "It's amazing that they've put up this brick wall."

Portland Teachers Credit Union BY BRANDON HARTLEY of the Willamette Week

The Ditch Blair Project ~ WOW!

Posted byJohn Nichols @ www.thenation.com

In Britain, the leader of the government is not elected by a national vote. Rather, the prime minister is the head of the dominant party caucus in the parliament.
It is probably a good thing that the United States decided against going with a parliamentary system, as the boss of the largest partisan caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives is a fellow named Tom DeLay.
But the parliamentary system does force British leaders to campaign on a more human scale -- and to face more poignant and powerful questions.
To retain his post as prime minister, Tony Blair must lead his Labour Party to a national win Thursday. But he also must be reelected by the voters of his parliamentary riding -- the equivalent of a congressional district -- in the north of England.
In all likelihood, Blair will prevail. His riding, Sedgefield, has for generations sent Labour Party members to parliament.
But he faces a tougher fight than ever before because of his decision to march British troops into George Bush's "coalition of the willing" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Blair's most aggressive challenger in Sedgefield is a man whose passionate opposition to the Iraq war is rooted in personal experience.
Reg Keys, a retired ambulance driver who is running as an independent candidate against Blair, is distributing a simple letter to voters in the Sedgefield riding. It reads:
"Dear Friends. You may ask why I have decided to stand against the Prime Minister. I am not a politician. I am an ordinary family man.
"The last time I saw my son, Tom, was at a railway station when he marched off down the platform with his head held high, proud to do his duty for his country. He believed what he was told. But the Prime Minister misled the country, and Tom and eighty four other soldiers who had their oath of allegiance betrayed came home in coffins - having died for a lie.
"It is time to bring the accountability back in to politics. People in this constituency need an MP they can trust to speak and act honestly on their behalf.
"If you would like a poster, are willing to deliver leaflets or help the campaign in any other way or just want to tell me what you think, please do contact me at the address below
"Yours sincerely, Reg Keys"
The campaign that Keys has waged to hold Blair accountable has drawn national attention and support. The Sedgefield vote has become a referendum on the war, and on the question of whether those who lie in order to launch an invasion ought to be rewarded with another term in office. That is the choice that Americans should have been presented in 2004, but they were denied it by the miserably inept campaign of John Kerry and by a media that has generally shies away from applying standards of "truth" and "accountability" to our politicians.
Britain is seeing a more honorable campaign, particularly in Sedgefield.
Among those who traveled to Sedgefield to campaign for Reg Keys was the novelist Frederick Forsyth, the author of The Odessa File and The Dogs of War.
"So why again did we invade Iraq?" asked Forsyth, in a speech delivered before the memorial to local men who dies in World War I and World War II. "The answer was because one man -- and it was at the time one man, the sitting MP for this constituency -- decided, in secret conclave with the American President, that the American president intended to invade and would not be persuaded from that ambition, and that he, the British premier, would send British troops in to assist the Americans, come what may."
Unfortunately, explained Forsyth, there was no justification for war. So, the author said of Blair, "He made it up... And that is why Tom Keys had to die. He did not -- I'm sorry, I'm sorry for his father -- he did not die because his country was genuinely under threat. He died so that a man could have a standing ovation in Washington..."
Then, with a passion rarely seen or heard in American politics, Forsyth declared, "I ask you: think of Tom Keys in his grave. I ask you to think what he would say. What he would say I think is clear: 'Give your votes to my Dad. Send my Dad down to the palace by the Thames.' I concur with that. If you send him there he will represent you well, and more, he will give you your honour back."
Words such as "honor" are rarely heard in America politics these days. Perhaps that is why it is so refreshing to catch their echo from across the sea.

The Pathos Of Our Realities

Package Delivery posted this site last week, but it is well worth another look. Alarmingly, I think we can relate to more than we choose to acknowledge.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Quite Comical Really

Invading Cuba
Posted by Noam Chomsky at July 21, 2004 04:43 PM
Cuba was officially regarded as a security threat to the US until 1998, and when the Pentagon decided that maybe the US could survive a Cuban assault, the Clinton administration insisted that the threat must be defined as "negligible," but still real.
Back 40 years ago when Kennedy tried to get Latin American governments to join the US in declaring Cuba a security threat to the hemisphere, the Mexican Ambassador refused, saying that if he told Mexicans that Cuba was a threat to their security they'd all die laughing. Fortunately we are much more cowardly here. So who knows, maybe somewhere hidden in a cave they are doing something that could harm us.
None of this, of course, has anything at all to do with the efforts to strangle Cuba, continuing with the shameful refusal here to permit payment for Cuban technology and inventions. The Cuban health system is a particularly thorn in Washington's side, its biotech industry as well. The exception in this case is interesting, however, including the justification.
Kennedy didn't make a clear promise not to invade Cuba again, and immediately reinstituted the terrorist war against Cuba when the missile crisis was over, continuing until his assassination. The charge about bioweapons was made by the Bush administration at a time when they were riding high, before the Iraq debacle, and there were serious possibilities that they might go on a rampage, though an attack on Cuba is unlikely unless it erodes sufficiently within so that there will be no meaningful defense against an invasion. Like Iraq. Even the administration hawks understand that it doesn't make much sense to attack anyone who can defend themselves.