] A Simpsons toon is coming out of the closet. Not that
] there's anything wrong with that
]
] Speaking during a weekend panel at San Diego's Comic-Con
] convention, show producers dropped a bomb: An upcoming
] Simpsons story line will focus on what happens when
] Springfield legalizes gay marriage.
]
] "We have a show where, to raise money, Springfield
] legalizes gay marriage," producer Al Jean told comic book
] fans. "Homer becomes a minister by going on the Internet
] and filling out a form. A longtime character comes out of
] the closet, but I'm not saying who."

LAME story line...

] It has also become the longest running comedy series on the tube
] and has spawned a billion-dollar franchise for Fox, which after
] some protracted negotiations, agreed to a new four-year deal with
] the show's six stars that gave each of them a whopping pay raise
] to $250,000 per episode.

Okay. Maybe not lame when you make $250k every time you went to work.

'Simpsons': A Gay Old Time

] When David Hasselhoff (news) gets his driving record in
] order, there's a set of hot wheels for sale that just
] might interest him.
]
] Joseph M. Maddalena of the Beverly Hills-based
] memorabilia dealer Profiles in History said he expects
] bidding on KITT to open at $35,000.]
]
] "Nineteen-Eighties television is just huge," Maddalena
] says. "That's all people want. It's just the ultimate pop
] culture icon, and that's what the KITT car is."
]
] Maddalena won't reveal the identity of the KITT owner
] (and seller), but he confirmed it's not Hasselhoff, who's
] due in a Los Angeles court Oct. 28 to be arraigned on a
] misdemeanor drunken-driving charge.

1983 Pontiac Trans Am for sale

] HONG KONG (AFP) - Life as a couch potato is more deadly
] than smoking, according to new research which found more
] people in Hong Kong died from lack of physical activity
] than from tobacco consumption.
]
] The study of Hong Kong residents aged over 35 who died in
] 1998 found a lack of physical activity caused more than
] 6,400 deaths a year, compared with just over 5,700 from
] smoking, the South China Morning Post reported Saturday.

I better start smoking...

Lack of activity more deadly than smoking

] Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque walks at the Safari
] Park near Tel Aviv Tuesday July 20, 2004. The young
] monkey began recently walking exclusively on her hind
] legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her,
] zookeepers said.

wild picture

] NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Courtney Love showed up five hours
] late to a New York court hearing on a reckless
] endangerment charge Monday, drawing a sharp rebuke from
] the judge, who warned the dazed-looking rocker that she
] narrowly missed being deemed a fugitive.
]
] A visibly annoyed New York Criminal Court Judge Melissa
] Jackson admonished the 39-year-old singer that she was
] about to issue a bench warrant for Love's arrest for
] being tardy.
]
]Asked how she felt following the 15-minute hearing, Love answered:
] "I feel great except for this nonsense."

I bet she was feeling "great".

CNN.com - Judge scolds Courtney Love - Jun 28, 2004

[ Attacks against expatriates working in the Saudi Arabian oil patch have
] accelerated in ]tempo and intensity during the past several months. If
] this trend is not reversed -- ]which is not likely -- Riyadh will slowly
] fall from its current position as the kingpin of ]global energy markets.
] Oil prices will be both higher and more volatile, Saudi social ]stability
] far less guaranteed and OPEC less a force to be reckoned with.
] ....
] Al Qaeda is also all about leverage. It is not that the
] oil assets are beyond their reach -- the Sept. 11 attacks
] proved nothing is -- but instead that the oil assets are
] potentially a future target. Attacks against expatriates
] are akin to slowly turning the screws on both Washington
] and Riyadh, while attacking the infrastructure directly
] is a sledgehammer blow that al Qaeda can only use once.
] ...
] Many expatriates have been trying to get the U.S. government
] to pressure the Saudis to let foreign security into the country,
] but since this would just put more Western targets in the
] kingdom, the State Department is likely to try and let the matter
] drop. Instead, at security briefings in the U.S. Embassy, government
] officials are simply warning the expatriates that they
] "should get the [expletive deleted] out of here."

Stratfor rocks...

Saudi Oil Crown Slipping Away? - Stratfor

] Jerusalem used to be the direction in which the prophet
] Muhammad and the first Muslims turned to pray. In time,
] Muhammad changed the direction, or qibla, and Muslims
] began to pray facing Mecca, as they do today. All the
] Bush White House did was change the qibla of American
] Middle East policy from Jerusalem to Baghdad. While the
] present clique of White House ideologues assumed that a
] safe, stable, and democratic Iraq would reshape the
] region, Zinni, Brzezinski, and company still maintain
] that the peace process is the key. They don't know more
] about the Middle East than the Bush White House; they're
] just angry that someone replaced their absurd reductive
] paradigm with another, equally absurd reductive paradigm.

Good article.

Palestine Policy Paralysis - Face it: There is no -key- to Middle East peace.

] Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified
] documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a
] major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note
] that a similar set of documents shows that Reagan also
] played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war that
] followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama
] Bin Laden.

Reagan's Osama Connection - How he turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin

] So, you wanna make your ugly Windows XP interface look
] like Mac OS X, huh? It’s really not all that difficult
] to do, and with a little luck, you’ll be able to
] convince all but the most die-hard Mac users that you run
] an Apple computer. First, here’s a list of the programs
] you’ll need:

This rocks!

Turn your PC into a Mac

] Three of four attackers who killed 22 people in the Saudi
] oil city of Khobar were allowed to escape because they
] were threatening to kill 242 people being held as human
] shields, a senior Saudi Interior Ministry official says.
]
] A group connected to the al Qaeda terrorist network
] claimed responsibility for the weekend attacks, saying
] they were intended to show the Saudi government cannot
] protect its oil workers
] The three men fled in a car belonging to a resident of a residential
] complex they had penetrated. They changed cars several times
] and eluded Saudi security forces, the official said.

So they let the terrorist go. Al Qaeda must be backed by the Saudis.

CNN.com - Saudi: Gunmen allowed to escape - May 31, 2004