LiPhone Released Today!

(EX) - Radio Free America and the Right Honorable Mrs. Alberto Gonzzzalessssa Rice today announced the release of the LiPhone. Rumors had existed for years about the existence of the LiPhone, but until today's release, no one in the government would speak on the record. Executive Privilege and Presidential Counseling concerns were cited. The LiPhone is a joint venture between DARPA (the folks that brought you both The Internet and the Total Information Awareness program,) Marta Stewurd's Omnipresent Media, communications giant XXXXX. and the popular computer and electronics-maker, XXXXX.

Every American will be given the "opportunity" to purchase a LiPhone, in the color of their choice. (As long as it's black, white or gray.) Sales are reported to be "tapping right along", stated Scooter, the anonymous spokesman.

© 2007 The Eleventy O'Clock News

There's Absolutely No Evidence

(EX) - There's absolutely no evidence that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met via SecurePast™* link with Gengis Khan, 13th century Mongolian lawyer....er, warrior last weekend in Rawlins, Wyoming.

When contacted, Cheney's office declined to confirm or deny reports that Dick is a decendent of Khan's son Tushi. He also vigorously denied that he's an Ass, but knowledgable sources say that's a matter of public record.

© 2007 The Eleventy O'Clock News

*SecurePast™ is an unregistered trademark of the All Spy All The Time Network™, brought to you by DARPA, the folks who brought you the Total Information Awareness Program. Or not. It's hard to tell, since it's a secret, and is protected via Vice Presidential fiat.

The Orange Shoes of Paris

It isn't just about the blonde socialite, it's about us, and our judicial system, and our love/hatred for royalty and privilege, and that's what makes it all so delicious.

I'm talking about Paris Hilton, of course, and the lovely romp we've had through the ins and outs of California's revolving incarceration door this week.

In any other town, the sheriff would lose his job - in LA, he might not, because after all, he gives perferential treatment to celebrities, and this is a town of celebrity. In any other state, the sheriff wouldn't have had the authority to reduce a sentence like that without first going back to the judge.

The sheriff of Maricopa County (Phoenix) is dying to get his hands on Hilton, so he can stick her in one of his desert inmate tents and get her skinny butt on a chain gang. He's proud of the fact that he's got the only female chain gang in the nation. This guy's ballsy, and always has been. He's also an attention whore of an entirely different kind.

I'm sure there's some sort of commentary to be made about the styles of the 2 sheriffs. One in the glitterati-West, and one in the desert-baked-my-brain-West. Oh! that gives me an idea.... *

Why do we focus on such trivial shit? Because we get to trash a rich, empty-headed young woman who's known nothing but privilege her whole life. (And yet, she managed to earn $7 million in the last year, much of it from fees she charges to attend all those parties, and pose for all those photos.) I think it appeals to the proletariat in us all. Deep down, we believe that everyone in this country is equal, and we resent when someone sets themself up as royalty, and when our fellows allow them to do it.

Salon really trashes the whole story here. Not the best Salon story I've ever read, but it does show the photo of Paris being driven to court, hysterical. The reason that's interesting, is because of who the photographer is: Nick Ut. He took another very famous photo of a hysterical young girl on June 8 - 35 years ago. You'll see which one I mean on this page.

There, perhaps, is the best commentary of all. The contrast between Phan Thi Kim Phuc, and her fight for freedom (she later defected from communist North Viet Nam to Canada,) and Paris Hilton and her fight for freedom.

Maybe the judge should sentence Paris to spend her time in prison reading about Phan and the entire Viet Nam war - a whole different kind of reality show.

June 9, 2007

Image by Ned Mudd, "The Orange Shoes of Paris"

Sippy Cup Attack!

All airports beware! Tots & moms are attacking our nation's airports with sippy cup spills! There's water on the floor everywhere! Terrorists have infiltrated the Secret Service, and are creating secret baby sleeper cells by impregnating their mothers, and causing them to crazily spill water on the floor in defiance of our anti-terrorism laws!

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is taking the unusual step of posting security camera footage on its website.

It comes as the administration denies allegations an airport screener seized a toddler's cup and mistreated his mother.

At issue is whether Monica Emmerson, a former Secret Service officer, was improperly detained June 11 after she spilled water out of her child's cup at Washington's Reagan National Airport.

Myth! cries the TSA. Here are the videos for you to view for yourself. Let me know... dial up precludes me from seeing them in this lifetime.

Now, I'm not dissing the TSA completely. The mom was probably pissed - after all, she was travelling with a toddler. That's enough to make anyone a bit nutso. I wouldn't vouch for the rationality of any mother in that situation.

But come on.

We let TB patients with big red warning screens that say to isolate & detain ("but he didn't look sick!") through our borders, but we don't let moms with crying toddlers and sippy cups of water through security checkpoints?

Have we become a nation of idiots who don't know when and how to use common sense?

I am the face of TSA.

I use innovation, my experience, and state-of-the-art technology to protect the traveling public.

I respect the individual needs of each traveler, carrying out my duties with dignity, courtesy and integrity.

I am intensely committed to ensuring fair treatment in the screening process.

I am the frontline of defense, drawing on my imagination to creatively protect America from harm.

I am a Transportation Security Officer.

*Image and credo from the TSA website.

Half a brain is better than none

The operation known as hemispherectomy—where half the brain is removed—sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the last century, however, surgeons have performed it hundreds of times for disorders uncontrollable in any other way. Unbelievably, the surgery has no apparent effect on personality or memory.

The first known hemispherectomy was performed on a dog in 1888 by German physiologist Friedrich Goltz. In humans, neurosurgeon Walter Dandy pioneered the operation at Johns Hopkins University in 1923 on a brain tumor patient. (That man lived for more than three years before ultimately succumbing to cancer.) The procedure is among the most drastic kinds of brain surgery—"You can't take more than half. If you take the whole thing, you've got a problem," Johns Hopkins neurologist John Freeman quips.

Scientific American