Links to Assorted Odds and Ends

I'm surprised at how long it took the national media to latch onto the story of the Republican candidate who spoke at a birthday party for Hitler. Tony Zirkle is, well, an idiot. Thankfully, he's only a primary candidate, and reason should prevail and keep him off the November ballot. He's a candidate for the seat formerly held by Chris Chocola, who was my favorite-named member of Congress prior to his 2006 electoral defeat.

Alan Keyes will not be the Constitution Party nominee for president. Instead, the nomination falls to Chuck Baldwin. No information is given on any relationship to more famous Baldwins.

Another CBS newsman demonstrates that he's an asinine moron. He said he was glad to be kidnapped in Iraq rather than taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan. He mentions the al-Jazeera cameraman in American custody without any apparent comprehension that the man is in American custody because he was working with one of the terror groups (I can't recall which and am too lazy to look it up), not because American troops enjoy throwing random journalists into prison (if that were the case, there would be a few more examples, don't you think?). He also said he's glad he's not being "mortarboarded" at Guantanamo Bay. No unfashionable headgear for him, just a sack over his head.

Child Protective Servies can be, well, stupid. In a move worthy of a Simpsons episode (note to any Simpsons writers reading this: you already did it, look for some other idea), CPS took custody of a boy whose father had accidentally given him a hard lemonade at Comerica Park. The father had never heard of alcoholic lemonade. A security guard noticed the boy with the bottle in his hand, had the boy sent to the ballpark physician, who had an ambulance transport him to the hospital. There, blood tests showed no alcohol. That was not enough for CPS, however, which did not return the boy to his parents for two days, nor did it release him to the custody of his aunts (one of whom is a social worker and licensed foster parent). Along the way, each person said that it was probably an overreaction, but they were just doing their jobs. Bureaucracy in action.

Shoes are bad for you.

A nice writeup of Operation Pastorius -- the Nazis' mini-invasion of Long Island in 1942.

Some researchers claim that humans were on the verge of extinction 70,000 years ago. This dovetails nicely with other researchers claiming that the human species started to split 150,000 years ago, but folded back into itself.

Here's a list of seven abandoned wonders of the former Soviet Union.

I think I linked previously to a story about untapped oil in North Dakota and Montana. Well, here's a report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

A man tunnelling under his house in London gets in trouble with the government -- to the tune of nearly 300,000 pounds.

Some people decided to study the circulation patterns of a chain e-mail.

Another study says that China has passed the U.S. as a "carbon polluter" -- so be sure to tell all those whiny people who say that the U.S. tops the field.

I gotta admit, this is a pretty awesome Spiderman tattoo.

One internet company has apparently made e-cards for notifying people that you have an STD.

A man who was bicycling because he lost his driver's license due to too many drunk-driving arrests was killed by a drunk driver. Not quite sure what to say to that.

Scientists are somewhat baffled by an all-female fish species.

This shouldn't really surprise anyone, but Jeremiah Wright inaccurately quoted the Bible the other day. It was not a matter of saying something that wasn't there, but taking it out of context to drastically skew its meaning.