Philipine Karaoke Killings

OK, this is from my wife. I've sent a link to the Dave Barry Blog (who amazingly has not referenced the story, possibly because he's face-deep in a beer filled kiddie pool in the Miami hosted superbowl. Anyway, this could be one of the craziest articles I've read: Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord. Some choice quotes:

"The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”" ... "In the past two years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” "

"Stand-alone karaoke machines can be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning."

"But in karaoke bars where one song costs 5 pesos, or a tenth of a dollar, strangers often rub shoulders, sometimes uneasily. A subset of karaoke bars with G.R.O.’s — short for guest relations officers, a euphemism for female prostitutes — often employ gay men, who are seen as neutral, to defuse the undercurrent of tension among the male patrons. Since the gay men are not considered rivals for the women’s attention — or rivals in singing, which karaoke machines score and rank — they can use humor to forestall macho face-offs among the patrons."

Pic from here of some weirdness from Japan.

Who Knew Greece Was the Party Country?

From my brother, in today's Times story quietly entitled: Is Greece’s Debt Trashing the Euro?, we read this:

"Striking is a bit of a national sport in Greece. Last month, the country’s unionized prostitutes took to the streets, protesting unlicensed competition from Russian and Eastern European immigrants."

I am speechless.

Pic from here.

Madoff and Me Update

Mr. Nonymous, an unknown Brandeis student (I believe), commented on my original post about the Madoff Chair, said that the plaque had been stolen. This was a good rib-tickler, or so I thought. Turns out that she/he was telling the truth (as the picture attests): someone took the plaque down. Will Madoff's trechery not cease?!

The Doodle-Flu

My youngest son a stomach-flu two weeks ago, which spread quickly to my whole nuclear family. It started on Tuesday, the week before Purim, and my last day with it was Purim itself. The symptoms were all gastric (pretty similar to the ones of the food poisoning in Airplane!; I'll see if I can find a clip).

I call it the "doodle-flu" because I call my kids 'doodles' (yeah it's cutsie-poo; there's a long story behind it, but my kids are cute so it works for them).

We knew he wasn't feeling well because he had a lack of appetite even when we were in our favorite restaurant (as you can see in this pre-dated story): the Brandeis cafeteria. Then, near the end of the meal, my youngest let loose with a truly heroic Yorq.

We were mortified (this happened a few months ago to our oldest and we think that there's an unwritten 'three-yorqs-you're-out' clause somewhere). But they were very nice about it. We thought it could have been caused by any number of factors (kids don't need excuses to boot; for the first 12 months of their lives they boot frequently), but as the night progressed we saw that it was part of a constellation of symptoms that developed into the Doodle-Flu.

Now my youngest probably got it from some of his miscreant toddler friends at day-care, and when we called our doctor's office they told us that it was running rampant through Boston.

And that's what I was willing to believe, until this morning.

In preparation for telling the Campus newspapers about my Madoff chair, I went to the website of one of the two papers, The Hoot, where I saw this headline:

Kosher food not responsible for G.I. bug
by Ariel Wittenberg
March 13, 2009

The Health Center confirmed that there was no food poisoning in Sherman Dining Hall after 29 students came to the center complaining of vomiting and diarrhea.

The complaints came from students falling ill after eating at the dining hall, specifically, in the Kosher section; however, Nursing Director Kathleen Maloney said that these students were suffering from a norovirus, or “tummy bug,” and not food poisoning.

[snip]

... [Nursing Director] Maloney said that only three of the 29 students who went to the health center with the virus reported on their health records that they followed a Kosher diet, despite the fact that rumors had speculated that Kosher food was to blame.

Jenna Rubin ’11, who chairs the Student Union’s Dining Services Committee, said that she heard the rumors of food poisoning from multiple students who, after becoming sick, refused to eat food that came from the Kosher Dining hall.

“They wouldn’t eat kosher food, so they couldn’t eat any food on campus,” she said. “They were eating chips and fruit for two days because they were so afraid of it.” [more]

Circumstantial evidence falls to blaming my young son - who is too cute for serious punishment; I still feel guilty.

Pic of a doodling bug, a doodle-bug, from here.

Madoff and Me

Unwittingly, I have occupied the Bernard Madoff Chair at Brandeis University. My recent, favored, seat in the library is in the Farber Mezzanine computer cluster/study area. I've found that it's quiet, the computers are good, and I was given a gift of a free copy/printer card that only works at that cluster. On pure chance, the carrel I prefer to use is on the far wall, and I've been sitting at the carrel for the past few weeks without noticing that it was donated by "Mr. & Mrs. Bernard Madoff." It could be the Madoffs of Hoboken, Weehawken, or Sheboygen... but I think it's Inmate # 61727-054.

I told the library people and they'll probably tell the campus newspaper (if not, I will), so this will become news soon. But it's my scoop, heh.

UFO Thoughts

People ask why UFO sightings always seem to occur in America's heartland. A few thoughts:

1. Other places see them too, see map (from here)
   
   
2. In the old days, people called weird/scary phenomena them dragons, in modern societies they're updated technologically to UFOs. Same thing.
   
   
3. The areas of UFO sightings are often near military bases where the experimental aircraft that most people call UFOs launch from.
   
   
4. The rural areas have overhead electrical towers - as opposed to dense urban areas - which also lead to people thinking there's UFOs (basically the wires reflect a car's headlights and it appears to be a rapidly ascending-descending light that keeps pace with your average hillbilly pickup, yet disappears as soon as you stop to investigate).
   
   
5. Urban areas have more to do than stare into space while tweaking on axle-grease moonshine.

More anon.

Backpost finished on 2009-11-30. Basically I had the whole post but the map.

Groundhog bites hand of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Found on Haaretz, but from the AP:

Everyone knows it means six more weeks of winter when a groundhog sees his shadow. But what does the future hold if he bites the mayor's hand?

According to German superstition, if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas - winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.

Staten Island's famous groundhog, Charles G. Hogg, inexplicably bit Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his annual holiday ceremony on Monday, drawing blood from the billionaire.

Said Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser: "It nicked his hand."

He was told there was no risk of rabies. The 2-year-old animal was born and raised in captivity and has had no interaction with other animals.

Daily Targum?!?

OK, in a standard online ping-pong surf, I was looking at Spencer Ackerman's catty blog (and his attacks on familiar names from the New Republic) and I wanted to see why he was fired from the TNR (his own claim is because his life appears to be a chapter in a punk soap-opera). Anyhoo, the Wiki page on Ackerman says that he went to Rutgers and was the editor of their newspaper, the Daily Targum.

Now 'targum' sounds like a familiar word. But maybe it's the name of the founder or something. Nope; according to the wiki:

1866: Then Rutgers President William H. Campbell lectures to Rutgers men on the original text of the Old Testament, including Aramaic language paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures, called Targums. The word "Targum" means interpretation in Aramaic and is used as a slang word when referring to crib sheets, among various Aramaic terms that become part of the campus vernacular. This is the inspiration for the name of the forthcoming periodical.

Now, I thought it was weird that Yale has Hebrew on it's logo, but it's not named for an actual Hebrew word ("the Fighting Thummims" or something). The Rutgers paper is the case I know of where a non-Jewish entity is named for an overtly religious-Hebrew term that has not been before or since co-opted as a Christian term.

E.g. Shibboleth, Halleluyah, Amen are all Hebrew words taken into English through Christianity. But 'targum.' Maybe other people know about this already, but I found it weird.

Carter UFO Report

I'm on vacation and I've decided to spend a few in between moments trying to clean out the 'drafts' section on the blog. That said, the computer I'm using for this housecleaning is a seized-up laptop. I hate laptops, and while I appreciate the mobility, the lack of a mouse is driving me buggy. Even an external mouse doesn't eliminate the stiff 'mousepad' that is directly in path of my typin' hands - making for unintended button clicking (e.g. like the one that sent this post to be published long before I had intended it to.)

The following is from a number of months ago.

Evidently, in 1969 Jimmy C saw a UFO. And he filed a report. Yup. He was a full bore loony-toony way before he became president. Check it out: Carter UFO Report

Israeli ambassador found naked, drunk

This is not a Purim post; I am not making this up. The Jerusalem Post reports: :

"Two weeks ago, police in El Salvador discovered Tsuriel Raphael bound, naked, and drunk on a city street."

I'm not sure how much more embarrassing this could be for Israel. Oh wait, this is how:

"According to reports, the ambassador was wearing some accessories which hinted at sado-masochistic acts. Although drunk, Raphael managed to introduce himself to police as the Israeli ambassador to El Salvador. "

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

This is not a drill! As of Friday, according to the Washington Post:

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

OK, the headline is better than the lede, but it's still a heckuva story. And some true-to-life Purim Torah. Have at it.

The Real Cheese

For those who are skeptical about the dollar value for the hello kitty grilled cheese, see this story in Slate about the $28000 original. Note, I made a cheese sandwich this morning (and am in the process of eating it) and, hey, it looks like a cloud.

Hello Kitty Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Bid quickly - especially if you were outbid on the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich, the Hello Kitty Sandwich is still available:

eBay item 5536791340 (Ends Nov-25-04 14:19:11 PST) - A Cute Miracle! Hello Kitty Grilled Cheese Sandwich!

And this was a Blue State

According to this New York Times story (5 Killed in Hunting Dispute in Wisconsin):

BIRCHWOOD, Wis. (AP) -- As several deer hunters made their way through the woods of northern Wisconsin, they were startled to come upon a stranger in their tree stand. .... Asked to leave, the trespasser, wearing blaze-orange and carrying a semiautomatic assault rifle, opened fire on the hunters and didn't stop until his 20-round clip was empty, leaving five people dead and three wounded, authorities said.

Makes you feel glad the assault weapon ban was led to die in Congress. Or else these men would have been killed by a crazed deer!

{2009 Update: link fixed to this CBS story. And pic of crazy gun from here.}

Giant Shape-Shifting Lizards

I can't even explain how I got to this website, but it's very useful for all of us part of the International Jewish Conspiracy. One of the major wackos behind the paranoia claims that the most powerful Jews of the Illumianti are in fact, yup, giant shape-shifting lizards. INJEWCON: You Can't Be Too Sure

Religious Weirdness Alert

Dave Barry, who has made a point of keeping the world abreast of all the stark craziness on the web, linked to this site at some freaky Baptist 'anti-triclavianist' church.

I roamed around this site for a few minutes and found myself getting seriously creeped out. Check out the kids' page (with Habu the Hindu elephant, Prof. Giraffenstein the Creation Scientist and, my favorite, Hopsiah the Jewish Kangaroo from the Middle East "where his ancestors and those of all the other animals and humans alive today exited Noah's Ark 4,000 years ago. But unlike the other Kangaroos who hopped to Australia, Hopsiah's family stayed behind to witness the coming of the Messiah!")

Back at the original link, the Pastor explains his anti-triclavianist standpoint. If someone can explain the following terms he uses in the following verbatim (schizophrenic?) posting, I'd much appreciate it:

August 13, 2003: Some have criticized my stance on triclavianism as being counterproductive, arguing that making a point of doctrinal contention over not making a point of doctrinal contention over adiaphora is itself non-salvific. However, my critics are overlooking the dangers of triclavianistic doctrines: allowing adiaphora to creep into our credenda -- while possibly pushing the theologoumenic envelope and providing exciting new opportunities for supererogative works -- will most often serve to muddy the soteriological foundation of Faith, leading in general to ultramontane excesses and, in extreme cases, ebaptization (which is unacceptable pastoral malpractice, however rare it may be.) Doctrinal integrity, and hence salvific effectiveness, is best served by working to end triclavianism and similar erroneous, or simply adiaphoric, doctrines.

I Blame Hillary's New Book

We have to blame somebody! The New Jersey authorities claim that they were "lured perhaps by the smell of dirty diapers in the trash" -- but we all know what *that* is a code-name for!