A bit of advice to our favorite web slinger from moi. Ahem. Feel free to use the UN building when you pull your Tarzan routine, but for the love of God, don't actually enter the freakin' place.

{...}In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, publishers of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US school children, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with UN agencies such as Unicef and the "blue hats" - UN peacekeepers.

Camilla Schippa, chief of office at the UN Office for Partnerships, told the Financial Times the script was being written now and the final storyline was due to be approved in February. The illustrators are working for free. After publication in the US, the UN hopes to translate the comics into French and other languages and distribute them elsewhere, Ms Schippa said. The idea came from French film-maker Romuald Sciora, who had been working on other UN projects and is making a DVD about the international organisation that will be distributed to schoolchildren along with the comic books.{...}

Spidey, Spidey, Spidey. Whatever are we to do with you? Poor, naive sap. Mary Jane's behind this one, isn't she? You can fess up. We'll understand.

Whilst I'm sure Mary Jane's heart is in the right place, she's wrong about this one. She fed you some line of bull over cold, leftover pizza, about how the UN, really and truly, is the only international governmental organization that can truly help those in need around the world, didn't she? Well, my web-slinging friend, don't you see that she's taking you for a ride? Mary Jane, while a very nice girl, I will admit, is also an actress. Of course she's going to have a very liberal worldview, wherein the UN is good and wonderful and the mean, old US is withholding their funds and talking trash about the work they do. MJ would understand that it's all about PR. Where better to reap the benefits of good PR than with those who have very little power to distinguish between the facts of the situation---i.e. that the UN is the most corrupt of corrupt organizations and most Americans have formed a bad opinion of them for precisely that reason---and the lure of a free comic book? Yes, Spidey, we're talking about the children; they are first front engaged in any propaganda war because they have a limited sense of the world, and the motivations of the people within it. They're easy targets, Spidey. Go to your history books and check out where Goebbels and Stalin made their biggest strides---and you'll see it was with the children of their respective countries. You're being used, Spidey, in a propaganda war to bring children over to the dark, insidious side of institutional corruption. While I would agree that institutional corruption isn't exactly on the same level as anti-semitic fascism and communism, the toll it exacts, however, can be just as hefty as either of those ideologies.

I fully realize you're a physics geek, who's got bigger problems to deal with in his daily life that don't revolve around widespread corruption at the UN, but, really, you need to wise up.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Clueless

Who better to disparage than lawyers? They're known for talking fast, driving expensive cars and making sure they take as much of our hard-earned money as possible - when we're at our most vulnerable.

Some lawyers are willing to face up to their bad rep. The attorneys at Parsinen Kaplan Rosberg & Gotlieb of Minneapolis have turned it on its head, creating a magazine-style public relations piece called "(Not Just Another) Despicable Lawyer."

Designed for some 5,000 clients and friends of the firm, the magazine contains stories about the good works its lawyers have done, the interesting trips they've taken or the hobbies they enjoy outside the office. It also lists gift ideas that benefit others, like Heifer Project International, which provides animals for families in poor countries.

"I think this piece has really captured the essence of the culture of the firm," said Mary Kay Ziniewicz, the firm's business development director, who came up with the idea.

"Our clients see a side of their attorney that they didn't know before, and so it really opens up conversations," she said. {...}

So, what we have here is yet another waste of paper in the name of "community relations," to put it kindly. It's fluff pr, but it's fluff pr, with style, and a sense of humor about itself. Whilst I will give them credit for the tack they took, they still manage to screw it up, however.

{...}In one of the magazine's more personal pieces, managing partner Howard Rubin talks about his personal crisis of confidence and a simultaneous struggle with his mother's Alzheimer's disease.

"I dwelled on life's problems and what they were doing to us, rather than focusing on what I could be doing," he wrote.

He realized that he wanted to help others and loved to throw great parties. Rubin ended up serving on the board of the Alzheimer's Association, chairing its annual gala.

The energy he gained from that work also spilled over to his law practice. He began to see that his contributions were valuable, and he decided the firm "needn't be dull and laborious - we could have unforgettable parties!"{...}

{my emphasis}

Yay! Unforgettable parties! Who wouldn't want to go to an unforgettable law firm party? We, apparently, can all find higher purpose in this life simply by having an unforgettable (!) party! It's, like, in the Bible or something.

The pressing question I would like answered, however, is if the firm's clients who received this piece o' work were somehow charged for it----and the postage the firm used to send it out.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:11 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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So, in a bit of precisely plotted populist electioneering, the Serbian parliament was set to pass a resolution today, "{...}implicitly rejecting membership of the European Union and NATO if the West recognizes the independence of Kosovo." President Boris Tadic is up for re-election in January, and, apparently, he's ready to forgo the carrots for the stick. Probably because it'll play well during his re-election campaign, when the prizes double during the rhetoric round.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had this to say in regards to said resolution:

{...}"Kosovo is big enough for Serbs and Albanians," the prime minister added. But "the main problem is that the United States is preventing the Albanians from compromising."{...}

{my emphasis}

Gee, if only those pesky Americans would get the hell out of the way, of course bees would buzz, birds would fly, dogs and cats and Albanians and Serbs would live together in peaceful harmony. If only the US administration would evacuate to Hawaii for the month of January and take up surfing as an admirable past-time, the Albanians would see reason and peace would break out all over, like a particularly virulent case of the crabs.

Yep. It's all our fault. Really and truly. The Serbian Prime Minister said so.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We've gotten some snow here in Cake Eater land over the past couple of days.

Starting on Friday night, we received some sort of precipitation that resembled a slurpee. That froze solid on Saturday afternoon, when the temperature dropped quite quickly after another inch of the white fluffy stuff covered it over. On Sunday, we received about four inches when the tail end of the blizzard that hit Wisconsin rather badly sideswiped us. Yesterday, we received another few inches, and this morning, it's snowing lightly and is supposed to stop in the next hour or so. Reportedly, on Friday we're to get another one to three inches.

The only reason I mention this precipitation pattern is to note that I'm really sick and tired of the snow plow drivers only showing up for overtime hours. As in, the plows are all over the roads late at night, but if you need them to be running at any time during the day, well, that's a crapshoot. The Cake Eater pad resides on a fairly busy road, which is managed by Hennepin County. Across the street, in the Province of Minneapolis, the streets, per usual, have barely been cleaned off at all. Our back alley is taken care of by the Cake Eater City crews, and they've been on the ball---and I've got no issues with them. (They even plow the sidewalk in front of my house, because the plows dump their stuff there and they wisely realize that no mere mortal snowblower could work its way through that crap.) But it appears as if the Hennepin County and City of Minneapolis crews would prefer to make sure they're making as much money per hour of snowplow driving as possible, whilst the roads become completely unmanageable in the meantime. This is not to say I haven't seen crews from my perch, here in the Cake Eater pad, during the day, but they are far and few between during that time period, whereas during the evening, they're all over the place. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what's going on here. Mr. H. reports a similar situation within Ramsey county, where he lives.

I suspect, if the snow keeps up in this fashion, the county and Minneapolis will be announcing sometime in early February, if not sooner, that they've run entirely out of money for snow removal and will come begging to the state for assistance. Of course, when they go a-begging to the legislature, I'm certain they will not mention that their drivers only seem to show up for work when they're getting paid double for their services.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sigh. Don't we, perhaps, have better things to do, o' pointy chapeaued ones?

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Wednesday condemned the film "The Golden Compass," which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God.

In a long editorial, the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano, also slammed Philip Pullman, the bestselling author of the book on which the family fantasy movie is based.

It was the Vatican's most stinging broadside against an author and a film since it roundly condemned "The Da Vinci Code" in 2005 and 2006.

"In Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events," the editorial said.

{...}The Vatican newspaper said "honest" viewers would find it "devoid of any particular emotion apart from a great chill."

{...}The Vatican newspaper said the film and Pullman's writings showed that "when man tries to eliminate God from his horizon, everything is reduced, made sad, cold and inhumane."

The U.S.-based Catholic League, a conservative group, has urged Christians not to see the movie, saying that its objective was "to bash Christianity and promote atheism" to children.

The Vatican newspaper called the movie "the most anti-Christmas film possible" and said that it was "consoling" that its first weekend ticket sales were a disappointing $26 million.{...}

I hadn't commented on this "Whole here we go again, it's another DaVinci Code" thingymabob, because the Vatican hadn't chimed in directly. But now that they have, well, it's time to revisit ground we've covered many, many times before.

Whilst sighing loudly.

First off, I don't take anything the Catholic League has to say seriously, because, to steal a line from Kathy Griffin, it appears the organization is one guy who has mad emailing/press release-issuing skillz. Second, I'm a little tired of the Vatican feeling threatened by works of fiction. Man up, for Heaven's sakes, because God only knows that there are plenty of men in the Vatican---there should be some spare testosterone floating around there somewhere. I fail to see why the Church would be so threatened by works of fiction that it felt the need to slam them into a wall, much like a wrestler would in a WWE pay-per-view extravaganza, and, furthermore, blatantly ask people to boycott them. It's a move that screams you have no faith in what you're preaching, and that you're afraid, somehow, sometime in the future, people will see that there's just a man behind the curtain and not the Great and Powerful Oz. Stop it. You're making asses out of yourselves. You're supposed to be above this sort of thing.

If someone's faith is so threatened by the mere thought of people going to see a movie based on a book with heavy atheist themes, then you don't really have much faith, do you? That it's the pointy chapeaued ones who apparently don't have much faith in people to view the movie, simply for entertainment's sake, and to not come out of the movie theater as a flaming atheist, ready to rush right over to Barnes and Noble to pick up Richard Dawkins' latest 'God is Dead, You Idiots' screed, is, well, disturbing.

Do I not have ANY readers in Vatican City? For Heaven's sake people, stop making fools out of yourselves!

*My apologies to Robbo for stealing his schtick.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:55 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There's nothing quite like it, eh?

RIYADH (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pardoned a teenage girl sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes after being gang raped in a decision swiftly welcomed by Washington on Monday.

There was no immediate official announcement of the king's decision to overturn the sentence against the 19-year-old girl which had drawn criticism of the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom from key ally President George W. Bush.

The king's decision was instead reported by the Riyadh daily Al-Jazirah but, like the rest of the Saudi press, the newspaper faithfully reflects the official line on all sensitive issues.

{...}The girl, who was 18 at the time she was raped, was attacked at knifepoint by seven men after she was found in a car with a male companion who was not a relative, in breach of strict Saudi law.

{...}In October 2006, a judge sentenced her to 90 lashes for being with the man -- a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes segregation of the sexes.

She appealed against the sentence but despite her ordeal the court ruled that her punishment should be increased to 200 lashes and a six-month jail term.

The judges decided to punish the girl further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," a court source told the English-language daily Arab News.

The rapists were initially sentenced to one to five years in jail, but those terms were also toughened in November to between two and nine years.

A rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the court did not impose it due to the "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions," the justice ministry said last month.

The court also revoked the licence of the girl's lawyer, who has been summoned by the justice ministry to appear before a disciplinary panel.

{...}A Saudi official, who declined to be named, told AFP on Monday that he was unhappy with the "ridiculous" furore over the court ruling that had damaged the kingdom's image both at home and abroad.{...}

So, get gang raped in Saudi Arabia; be charged with 90 lashes for being with a man who is not your relative; have that sentence increased to 200 hundred lashes and six months in prison for protesting; then be pardoned by the benevolent, all-knowing Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques---who, it appears doesn't care so very much about if the law itself is moral in that it hardly protects the victim, but rather because he's tired of taking shit over your case from international do-gooders.

Nice, huh?

Posted by: Kathy at 01:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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For the love of all that is good, holy and decent in this world, no.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We've got a bunch of rocket scientists on the Pakistani police force:

UK officials demanded an inquiry yesterday into the escape of a British terrorism suspect in Pakistan, writes Bob Sherwood in London and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad .

Rashid Rauf, 26, described by Pakistani authorities as a "key person" in last year's alleged plot to blow up airliners flying from London Heathrow, escaped from custody on Saturday after appearing in an Islamabad court, where his lawyers were fighting a UK extradition request.

Pakistan's security forces were searching in NorthWest Frontier Province. They fear he could cross into Afghanistan

Mr Rauf, who has dual UK-Pakistani citizenship, escaped without a shot being fired while he was surrounded by police guards. UK officials asked Pakistan for an explanation and were told an inquiry would be held.

{my emphasis}

But they're rich rocket scientists, no doubt.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, it's good to know that I've got the answers to some seriously pressing questions, eh?

I swear to God, the referral logs are a never ending source of amusement.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yep. You guessed it. It's Britney Spears. Who's looking suspiciously healthy after she claimed illness to get out of a deposition yesterday.

Back when VH1 used to have 'Behind the Music' on the schedule---a show I dearly loved---I was fond of claiming that I couldn't wait to see Britney's episode, because I was sure the meltdown would be fast, furious and glorious to watch. Now I'm not so sure. Anyone this stupid is bound to be boring as all hell. Her downfall has become tedious.

Can we just get it over with already?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, if you hadn't already figured it out with my kvetching about bereavement fares, we've had a death in the family.

The husband's grandfather, aged eighty-four, passed away last week. In many ways this is a blessing. Grandpa hadn't been doing so well lately, and had been moved into a nursing home. He received phenomenal care, not only from the nursing home, but from the hospice organization, which helped to organize his care. (Seriously, folks, if you are, sadly, in need of a hospice for one of your loved ones, we highly recommend Odyssey Hospice. The organization is located in several states and they have bent over backward to make Grandma comfortable when she passed away this spring (they even had a harpist in to play for the patients, because hearing is one of the last senses to go. This pleased my mother-in-law to no end and helped Grandma to find peace.) and to organize Grandpa's care, even on visits to their home in the DFW metroplex. They also sent a nurse with the in-laws while they were trying to find a nursing home for him, to answer questions and help them evaluate a situation about which they knew very little. They have our sincere gratitude for making a difficult year a little better. ) But Grandpa was missing his wife of sixty-five years terribly, and he finally decided it was time to go and be with her. While he was a cantankerous soul at times---well, who am I kidding? He wasn't exactly a cuddly sort---he will nevertheless be missed.

So, while Grandpa's passing is a blessing, the time that we've been dreading has come. It's time to divvy up the estate. Fortunately, the potential fraud that I alluded to in that post never showed up. That's fortunate, but the ghouls are already at it, and have been since before Grandpa's body went cold. They've been harping on about travel costs to the funeral, which is being held in Illinois, not Arizona, where Grandma and Grandma retired, and where the ghouls had settled, as well, presumably to be closer to the cash. Apparently, they thought they shouldn't have to fork out to travel to their own father's funeral. Then we have the added joy that one of the ghouls is, apparently, worried about taxes from his inheritance, because "he just doesn't have the money to pay them," working off the assumption that the payday was going to happen right after the funeral. Evidently, there have been plenty of other rude and presumptuous statements made, but the father-in-law has chosen not to share them for fear of upsetting the applecart.

I'll repeat: I just DO NOT GET THESE PEOPLE. The funeral is on Thursday and I'm not going, but I can only imagine what it will be like. The ghouls are crass people. They are uncouth and have no class whatsoever. Undoubtedly, at the funeral they will make statements along the lines of "I can't believe how much this costs"---even though the funeral arrangements were made and paid for long ago. Undoubtedly, they will also whine about the cost of the casket, and will wonder aloud why their father needed to be buried in such an expensive box. They will comment on who is there and who isn't there, and will make foul statements about them. They will whine about how much the trip is costing them and will try and freeload meals and rooms and rides from anyone they think is responsible for paying for it (i.e. my in-laws). I'm not exaggerating about this either. They are actually this crass. If, God forbid, there actually happens to be a meeting with the lawyer about the estate, they will want checks cut, right there and then, and will whine, volubly, when the wheels of the legal system do not move as quickly as they'd like. Their life's work has been waiting for their parents to pass away so they can cash in, and now that the moment's here, it's going to get ugly if they can't get their filthy paws on what they think is owed them right away. (Particularly because one of them is, I believe, counting on it for gas money for the trip back to Arizona.) God help us when they find out that the amount they think they should get is different than what it is in actuality.

The ugliness is at the doorstep, knocking on the door, and because of the way things work, the husband's family has no choice but to open said door and let it in. All we can hope for in the meantime is that, hopefully, the ugliness is survivable.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:02 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Toward the end, I was sincerely hoping her arm was going to be pulled right out of its socket. Because, it's apparent, she deserved some pain for inflicting that on the rest of us.

After watching that, the Guns-n-Roses' version is growing on me.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:12 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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For the love of Christ...

{ht: wwtdd}

Posted by: Kathy at 12:41 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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