The Iraqi government decided not to release (or not release yet) the full video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, but rather to allow only a small part, showing Saddam walking up to the gallows and having the noose placed around his neck and tightened. Once again, cell phones have proven dangerous to those who would seek to control the flow of information. Someone got a cell phone camera into the execution room and video taped the whole thing. (The quality is poor, but it clearly shows Saddam dropping through the hole in the platform). It was added to Wikipedia shortly after 5PM EST. The rest, as they say, is history.

You can sail the seven seas…

A local kosher restaurant (Maccabeam) just switched from a rather unreliable hashgakha to a more reliable one (the Philly vaad). The best part of it is that they’re right around the corner from where I work. I met a few people there for lunch yesterday, and here’s the quick review:

1. Bad: The service is very…. Israeli.
2. Good: The food is too.

In teen horror zombie movies, why do the brain seeking zombies always go after the hot blonde cheerleaders? Shouldn’t they be going after the chess club instead?

I went to Amazon.com and typed the word gentoo into the search field. Although the search results from items 2 and onward was unsurprisng (Linux related books and accesories), the first item was a shocker. How to do girls – Bikini Calculus. Honestly, I don’t even think I can think of a good joke that’s as funny as the item itself.

update: Some of the clips from the DVD have found their way onto google video.

I was going to blog about an atrocious spelling mistake made by the AP (which I still may do later), but the BBC’s incredibly poor use of any sort of ethical standards whatsoever has trumped poor spelling. They have a heartstring-tugging article about a Palestinian man, and show how this was an awful year for him, and by extension, all Palestinians. Buried halfway through the article about this poor unemployed and broke father of 11 was the following statement:

“The bullets should be used against the Jews and not the Palestinians,” says Hatim, who was once a local leader in the al-Aqsa Brigades, a militant wing of Fatah.

Boy, what a great target for the BBC’s sympathy here – a man who admittedly wants to kill Jews, and his last job was to plan terrorist attacks designed to kill Jews. Gosh, I really feel for him.

Note to the BBC: There are Palestinians who are unemployed who have not previous engaged in crimes against humanity. Try to find some carpenters, bus drivers, or construction workers to be objects of empathy – this guy doesn’t deserve it.

Believe it or not, I’d never heard this one before:

“Oy!” says a woman to her friend. “My son the doctor! He’s so good to me! He writes! He sends presents! He flies down to visit…”

“Oy, My son!” says the other. “He loves me so much!” He goes to a fancy therapist. There he pays 150 dollars an hour! And the whole time, who does he talk about…ME!!”

I never thought that I, of all people, would be posting about virgin births in late December, but apparently I am.

I’m watching the football game right now, and the only thing more annoying than the Eagles ability to take stupid drive-killing penalties, is the commercials for the Pennsylvania lottery. In addition to the overall annoyingness of the commercials themselves, is the fact that Pennsylvania, a state which has outlawed gambling, is running a gambling operation themselves. They claim that it’s for the good of the state as 31% of the proceeds go to support “the elderly”. Not only that, but they manage to spend 25 million dollars to advertise something they apparently consider inappropriate.

Either gambling is enough of a public nuisance to warrant prohibition, in which case the state should play no part except enforcement of the prohibition, or it’s a simple vice, which is simply regulated (and perhaps taxed). I don’t see how the state can have it both ways. If they are going to have a lottery, they should at least get rid of that [explitive deleted] groundhog.

I haven’t blogged in a while, but instead of thinking of anything creative, I’m just going to steal a recent post from my friend Amy who shows that apparently, some Amazon.com reviewers have a sense of humor.

A few days ago we finally got the thermostat in the room at work to actually have some control over the heating and AC system. Since it’s a small enclosed room with no windows, one door, and lots of computers, climate control is actually a big deal. (It’s remarkable how unproductive you can be when the temperature is 80*, which it was one day a few weeks ago). Two days ago, one of my coworkers noticed something odd. Whenever the door to the room is open, the fan is on. When the door is closed, the fan turns off. At first I assumed it was a coincidence, but after several days of testing, I’ve become convinced that it’s clearly more than a coincidence. None of us however can find a logical explanation for this phenomenon.

Several people have suggested it must have something to do with the change in air pressure, but given that the door is far from airtight, and I see no good reason for a differential anyway, I can’t see how closing the door would cause the air pressure to change. Furthermore, I don’t see how it would cause the fan to start or stop. The temperature between inside an doutside is also too small for a person to notice, and the fan turns on and off almost immediately when the door opens and closes – too quickly for the temperature to adjust. Unless anyone can come up with a plausible explanation, I’m going to call unsolved mysteries, mythbusters, or the physic friends network.