WASHINGTON – As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

IRS tracked taxpayers’ political affiliation | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA

Despite the host/location, a fascinating look at the physiology and science of word recognition. Damn fine read.

The Science of Word Recognition

There can be only one.

Highlander in 30 seconds with bunnies.

It's usually polite to mention that you'll be giving spoilers away with a review of this type, but I think that can be waived for lack of any suspense or surprise for the entire movie. There's nothing to give away.

Most bowel movements contain more excitement... While they might not normally be so interesting to film, at least they gain points for concision. I have never taken a 3 hour shit, but King Kong was as close a simulation as I'm likely to find. You don't even get to see the star for a full hour. Most adept film makers generally take advantage of a full god damn hour of your time by providing mostly relevant content so that the story moves along. Samuel JacksonU (oops... make that PETER Jackson) seems to have a different theory on this because it takes him a full hour to show the main characters get on a boat and go to a fucking island. During which time we meet in detail several mostly irrelevant characters. Oh, and they spend ten minutes avoiding a wall in a drawn out unremarkable sequence. They finally land at the island which seems at first to be abandoned... but is really filled with dirty dark people who've apparently been hiding in holes since prehistoric times just to ambush a group of idiots. They seemed to be chanting something which sounded really close to "DONKEY KONG!!!!" over and over. But anyway you finally get to meet the main character Donkey Kong as he quickly runs away with the girl. The movie then takes 45 minutes to re-hash Jurassic Park and kill off a few people in interesting and pointless ways. Then the wimpy script writer saves the girl from Donkey Kong and everyone else captures the thing. They don't even bother explaining how they got the fucking thing on the boat, they just cut to the unveiling of Donkey Kong Live on stage. It doesn't take him long to break free, break a bunch of shit, harass the wimpy scriptwriter, and recapture the girl (who goes seeking out Donkey Kong). This is where they take about 15-20 minutes to turn Kong into an ET like figure with things like a ten minute ice skating sequence. Yep, that's right Ice Skating! He and the girl climb up the empire state building where they slowly fall in love (because 25 ton gorilla's are so damn endearing). Occasionally even the ape would get bored and climb higher to swat at air planes. Then go back to courting the bitch. Eventually she climbs up with him to protect him from the air planes which are shooting him. Donkey Kong then promptly falls over and dies. The girl hooks up immediately afterwards with the wimpy scriptwriter (what a slut... she could have at least waited until they buried the fucking thing). The End. But not before Jack Black says something puke-worthy.

I want to see an edit of this movie thats a half hour long even though I know they're probably going to stuff an even more bloated 5 hour version on the DVD. I also think they need to make an alternate version where Donkey Kong has the face of George Bush. Oh well... It would probably still be dog shit.

Some really neat stuff.

ashes and snow Portfolio - ashes and snow

Take a look at the ten images below. Some of them are photographs
of real objects or scenes, others are created by computer graphics
(CG) artists. Test your ability to tell which among the array of
images are real, and which are CG. If you want a closer look, click
the image to see a larger view of the picture. Once you've decided
what's what, click either CG or REAL to begin the tally of your
score. Work through each of the ten images. When you've finished,
you'll be prompted to get your score.

Fake or Foto?

DENVER -- Federal prosecutors have decided against filing misdemeanor charges against a woman who refused to show identification when a bus she was riding in entered federal property.

Still would have been nice to have had the precedent set.

TheDenverChannel.com - Health - No Charges: Woman Wouldn't Show ID On Bus

believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

There Is No God By Penn Jillette

Fun java game...

I survived 133.7 seconds

Escapa!

AMIENS, France, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The world's first partial-face transplant has been conducted in France, where a woman was given a new nose, lips and chin following a brutal dog bite.

Something like this needs before after shots.

World's first face transplant in France