One trip on a NYC subway and he'd scurry right back to Japan, thankful that there only the women eat and put on makeup in public:

"Women start applying make-up here, there and everywhere in the carriage as though they're sitting in front of the mirror of their dressing board at home! Office ladies are slathering on foundation and you can see their office face appearing right before your own eyes. I bet you'd never see this happening in a carriage where there were men around," Shukan Post rants.
The men's magazine continues in the same up-in-arms tone: "You can even see some women eating! And others blab away for ages on their mobile phones. There's no end to their poor manners."

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The Cartoon Network launches a guerilla marketing campaign in 10 cities and an ever-vigilant Boston shuts down in a panic two or three weeks later. The perpetrators were arrested. Why is no one stating the obvious? If terrorists were going to blow up bridges and tunnels, they wouldn't be making their bombs look like Lite-Brites. Someone's selling one on eBay.

31 Days to Fix Your Finances

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be published on July 21.

From ann1962, a visual History of MS Windows.

"Radar's Teddy Wayne called recruiting stations around the country disguised as a veritable Breakfast Club of misfit would-be soldiers, all dramatically unqualified or unattractive for service in some way: a flamboyant gay man concerned with the availability of hair pomades in Iraq; a bed-wetting mama's boy who wants to bring his own alarm-rigged plastic sheets; a martial arts freak desperate to unleash throwing stars and nunchakus on Osama; a meth dealer who has "hypothetically" done every drug in the book; a chronic IBS sufferer who subsists mostly on celery; and a lobotomy patient whose side effects include problems with "Decision-Making Ethical Opportunities." A couple of generations ago, the military would have rejected them faster than you can say quagmire. But despairing recruiters have some serious quotas to meet. And for the promise of a fresh, warm body, it seems they're willing to overlook a few flaws."

From talvalin, a Japanese artist who has created a form of calligraphy using english and kanji letters.

Just 13 years ago, Republicans thought quite strongly that Congress had the power to restrict the President's power to deploy troops. When the President is a Democrat, that is....

Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor

Seven ways that a business can be mistaken for a spammer

{Insert your own NYC cab driver joke here.} What's the best way to pick up girls in Damascus? "Drive a cab," 25-year-old Khaled tells London's Al-Hayat. "True, that's not enough. You have to use a few lines to start talking to them. Like, 'Love is the fire that burns a man's heart so that a woman can eat it.' A few good lines from books by George Bernard Shaw or other writers are best. It's not enough to have the money to buy a cab - you have to be educated, too."

How to Properly Clean Your LCD Screen

SciAm: The Truth About Online Dating

Pet Shop Boys Angrily Denounce Britney Spears Story

Welcome to the new Solar system, now with one less planet.: “Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight. After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status.”

Something for rparvaaz: That restaurant we’ve been discussing is changing its name.

The FDA approved Plan B by Barr Pharmaceuticals this morning. Full CDER info. Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that, taken within 72 hours after contraceptive failure or unprotected sex, can reduce the risk of pregnancy up to 89%. It is not an abortifacent and does not work on those who are already pregnant. Women may buy it without a prescription, but only with proof they’re 18 or older. Girls 17 and younger still will need a doctor’s note to buy the pills. This compromise is the culmination of a nasty three-year political battle.

Someone has it in for the SciFi Channel. :)

Wisconsin’s Beloit College has published its sixth annual Mindset List.

Does anyone even watch the show anymore? Survivor plays the race card: “So yesterday, on CBS’s morning infotainment program, the network announced that for “Survivor: Cook Islands,” which debuts next month, 20 contestants would be divided into the White Tribe, the African American Tribe, the Asian American Tribe and the Hispanic Tribe. We’ll pause here to give you time to re-hinge your jaw.” More here. Just for laughs,

Just because I love the name: The Velveteen Rabbi Syndicated feed: velveteenrabbi.

10 Tips for Keeping Your Desk Clean and Tidy

The digital toilet


Politics
Back to the Ouija Board: Nuclear Apocalypse milder than expected. A leading Islamic scholar predicted armagaeddon would happen on Tuesday.

Don’t worry. WWIII may yet happen: Israel says “We may have to go it alone against Iran”.
Israel is also using the Lebanon war as justification to put the agreed-upon pullout plan on hold temporarily. In doing so they’re also snubbing President Bush, their staunchest ally. The plan is about a year old. More here. Don’t count on this being the case for too long, though: “Israel’s costly and inconclusive war in Lebanon has triggered a round of internal recriminations so bitter that some observers question whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government can survive.”

The WashPost has had solid coverage of this latest MidEast crisis.

Independent Weekly: Do You Know What It Means to Myth New Orleans? “One of the Crescent City’s biggest challenges is overcoming inaccurate reports and stereotypes that formed in the immediate wake of Katrina”

Choices that come back to haunt you....: “In the heart of Tehran sits one of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States.”

Vanity Fair: Rare scenes from 9/11

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal (US) education grant for low-income college students. The government says “Oops,” (yeah, right) and promises to restore it.

An Open Letter to Günter Grass

I may have to kill someone: How to completely ebuild, repair or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup.

ABC pulled the plug on Gibson’s Holocaust miniseries. Gibson has issued another apology, “to everyone in the Jewish community.” MSNBC: In any language, Gibson is a real schmuck. That last one is from Adam. :)

Get Rich Slowly -- blog