I have no idea why he was reading “Women seeking Men” ads in Craigslist, but a college friend from Yale found it amusing and sent me a link to this current advertisement

I am a charming, polished and elegant batchelorette (sic) seeking a well-off, cultured and chivalrous gentleman. I offer my services as one highly trained in the domestic arts, including the preparation of gourmet cuisine, the organization and hosting of all manner of social events, the designing of couture clothing and the supervision and direction of all domestic tasks. I am an Ivy League graduate in Philosophy and Art History with conversational skills in French, Spanish and German. I am also a classically trained lyric soprano and have received extensive ballet training. I enjoy attending all manner of fine arts performances and I would be the perfect jewel to adorn any gentleman’s arm. I am five feet and six inches in height and am a size four, with dazzling green eyes framed by luxurious long chestnut waves. My presence in any gentleman’s home would provide a finishing touch of elegance and refinement. I have just returned from an extended tour of Continental Europe and find myself lonely without my traveling companions. Therefore, I propose an exchange of my skills and company for gentlemen who are capable of meeting the following stipulations.

Please note that the above arrangement does not support carnal interaction. If you wish to pursue such relations, a permanent contractual agreement is required.

One tends to suspect that the poster’s resume may feature a shade or two of exaggeration, and her shopping list may be too much to hope for in exchange for some vague hosting services in these difficult economic times.

This PETA ad was too racy for NBC and was rejected for display during the Superbowl next Sunday.

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NBC identified 8 forms of inappropriate female-and-botanical-item contact.

Perfection personified

The View’s Joy Behar explained on Larry King Live that the reason for the comedy gap is because Barack Obama is “just too perfect.”

Described as somewhere in China, it’s really a neglected suspension bridge, constructed in the 1950s (and not recently repaired) located in the Akaiski Mountains of Southern Japan. It’s called Musou Tsuribashi.

6:31 video

One wonders if the videographer came back the same way.

From the Daily Mail.

Hat tip to James Lileks.

David Brooks shares:

It’s true, I did break bread with Obama. It was amazing. He was carried into the house by cherubs, Bruce Springsteen and Oprah Winfrey spread rose pedals on the carpet where he was about to walk and he very considerately asked me what vintage of wine I wanted my water turned into.

It’s also a sign that Obama can talk to and understand Americans at all social levels. For example, that night with us, he had an elegant dinner filled with sophisticated ideas and complex policy conversation with a bunch of right-leaning commentators. Then the next day, he had a meeting with some liberal commentators where, I presume, he was just as fluid while using much simpler sentences, shorter words and serving Froot Loops and Hostess Twinkies. There are pundits at all levels of cognitive distinction, and Obama has to learn to address all of them.

Karen will like this one!

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Hat tip to NavySealDad.

P.J. O’Rourke asks the question of the hour: Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn’t president yet?

Would you trade 10 friends for a hamburger?

Burger King is running a promotion called Whopper Sacrifice. The idea is that FaceBook members can receive a coupon good for one free Whopper for every ten persons they eliminate from their friendship list.

Hopefully our (former) friends will understand.

Give these to your kids and they’ll all grow up to write Symbolist poetry. Four for $10.

Hat tip to David Pescovitz.

This characteristically enthusiastic Japanese nature program demonstrates the defensive behavior of the Southern White-faced Scops Owl (Ptilopsis granti), native to Southern Africa.

Confronted by a nearby Barn Owl (Tyto alba), it fluffs itself up into a very large owl. Seeing a more distant Barn Owl, it turns its less visible grey back toward the enemy and reduces its silhouette. All in all turning in a commendable Strigiperformance.

3:20 video

Hat tip to Labrat via Karen Myers.

Chosen by Wired.

Example:

How do you run a profitable interstate trucking company without all the hassle of driving trucks? Step one: Visit the online “load boards” where brokers advertise cargo in need of transport and negotiate a deal to, for example, haul a load from California to Maryland for $3,500. Step two: hack into the Department of Transportation website that maintains the master list of licensed trucking companies, and change the contact information for a legitimate firm to an address and phone number you control.

Step three: Profit! Posing as the company whose identity you just stole, outsource your job to another trucking firm for whatever price it wants; when the load is delivered, collect your $3,500, leaving the company that actually drove the truck trying in vain to invoice the company you hijacked. Step four: Get a lawyer. In October, federal prosecutors charged Russian immigrants Nicholas Lakes and Viachelav Berkovich with computer fraud for allegedly pulling this scam over-and-over again, to the tune of $500,000.

Scrappleface reports that, while waiting for the inauguration, Barack Obama is working on another memoir. This one will chronicle his days in the Senate.

According to a news release from the publisher, the memoir entitled 143 Days That Shaped a Nation: The Senate Career of Barack Obama, “is third in a series of biennial Obama memoirs and promises a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the senate from an outsider’s perspective, along with personal anecdotes about senate colleagues whom Sen. Obama occasionally met, or heard about.”

“When you have served as long as I have,” said Mr. Obama, “I think you have an obligation to pass on some of that wisdom that comes from your experience for the benefit of the people of the world.”

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich must now choose a replacement who has experience comparable with Sen. Obama’s — a daunting task, the governor said, “when you realize that whomever I pick as junior senator might be just one great speech away from the Democrat presidential nomination.”

The Richter Scales update the old tune to fit contemporary gloom.

2:12 video

Humorist Dave Barry lists strange occurrences in 2008.

O.J. actually got convicted of something.

Gasoline hit $4 a gallon—and those were the good times. ...

The surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are because they are so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.

Stick figure runs amok on PC.

3:26 video

The antics of Bailey the dog enjoying the snow at his home near Ward, Colorado have attracted over 3,000,000 hits.

2:26 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

One of the few places Yale undergraduates can smoke without persecution these days must be New Haven’s famous pipe and tobacco store, the Owl Shop which apparently has, in recent times, installed a bar and lounge.

An on-scene correspondent reports an amusing exchange via graffiti found at the Owl Shop:

“F*** Republicans”
and underneath in different script, of course:
“...because Democrats just lie there unresponsive.”
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Hat tip to Angie Chamberland.

But enterprising West Point cadets exact some revenge by a daring daylight helicopter strike on Annapolis.

3:22 video

2008 Zombie Shoot held by the Langhorn Rod and Gun Club, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

9:53 video
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Hat tip to Geek With a .45 and Atomic Nerds via Karen L. Myers.

The first episode of the classic first person shooter game can be played via browser. The old game software won’t run on the operating systems we use today.

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

The Telegraph reports a continental example of the kind of robust European racial humor that would be completely unacceptable in the politically correct United States.

In an episode that could potentially strain relations between Warsaw and Washington, Radek Sikorski, an Oxford-educated politician who has lived in the US, was reported to have made the jibe by an opposition politician, Ryszard Czarnecki.

Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: “Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary.”

A Nokia commercial.

1:16 video

Office worker burning the midnight oil finds an amazing opportunity at the copier machine.

2:49 video

Ever been wondering why that network printer doesn’t work?

1:03 video

Hat tip to Karen Myers and Anthony H. Mirra.

UK’s Daily Mash reports that, even in this lagging economy, investors are able to identify one hot new sector.

Venture capitalists in New York and London are pumping millions of dollars into Somalia’s booming pirate sector.

The sharp-eyed investors say Indian Ocean piracy has replaced Bangladeshi t-shirt factories as the developing world’s strongest source of high-growth revenue streams.

Julian Cook, head of strategy at Porter, Pinkney and Turner (PPT), said: “The margins are very impressive. These guys can board a Chinese freighter or Saudi oil tanker and turn it around in less than a week. Usually without killing anyone.

“The staff are well-trained and they operate a structured bonus system involving the daughters of nomadic tribal chiefs and as much hallucinogenic tree bark as they can eat.

“The tax position is also very favourable given that Somalia isn’t really what you would describe as a ‘country’ with ‘laws’ and a ‘government’.”

PPT has paid £25.7 million for a 32% stake in Captain Ahmed’s Crazee Bastards with the initial tranche used for capital purchases including new speed boats, 200 yards of very strong rope and a gun the size of a cow.

Abigail M.’s Level

John Derbyshire made level 18, and his posting about it provoked 200 replies.

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Personally, I think all the “put things away in the right place” games have their real target in the female audience. My wife plays this sort of thing obsessively. Myself, I prefer games where you shoot things and cause things to blow up.

The Onion’s bipartisan panel of political pundits discuss government’s response to the current financial crisis.

1:56 video

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Hat tip to Scott Drum.

New York Times:

In the end, a contractor who found $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in bathroom walls received just a few thousand dollars and, he feels, some vindication.

The discovery amounted to little more than grief for the contractor, Bob Kitts, who could not agree on how to divide the money with the home’s owner, Amanda Reece.

It did not help Ms. Reece’s financial situation either. She testified in a deposition that she was considering bankruptcy, and a bank recently foreclosed on one of her properties.

As for the 21 descendants of Patrick Dunne — a wealthy businessman who stashed money that was minted in a time of bank collapses and joblessness, only to have it divvied up decades later in a somewhat similar economic climate — they will each get a small fraction of the find.

“I called it the greed case,” said Gid Marcinkevicius, a lawyer who represents the Dunne estate.

“If these two individuals had sat down and resolved their disputes and divided the money, the heirs would have had no knowledge of it,” Mr. Marcinkevicius said. “Because they were not able to sit down and divide it in a rational way, they both lost.”

Mr. Kitts, who called his discovery “the ultimate contractor fantasy,” was tearing out the bathroom walls of an 83-year-old home near Lake Erie on a spring day in 2006 when he discovered two green lockboxes suspended by a wire below the medicine chest. Inside were envelopes with the return address for the P. Dunne News Agency.

“I ripped the corner off of one,” Mr. Kitts said in a deposition in a lawsuit filed by Mr. Dunne’s estate. “I saw a 50 and got a little dizzy.”

Inside the envelopes was $157,000. And a cardboard box in another wall held about $25,000.

Mr. Kitts called Ms. Reece, who had hired him for a remodeling project, at work. She got there within 45 minutes.

They counted the cash, piled it on the dining room table and posed for photographs. Both grinned like lottery jackpot winners holding an oversize check.

But how to share? She offered 10 percent. He wanted 40 percent. From there things went sour.

Read the whole thing.

Red State Pundits argue whether Elrond Half-Elven started an unnecessary war which precipitated the dwindling away and passage to the West of his own people.

Besides, no One Ring was ever found when the allied armies invaded and occupied Mordor at the cost of millions of gold pieces per month, the loss of thousands of elves, dwarves, and men, which war-of-choice resulted also in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of orcs, trolls, wild men, and Southrons, and the enormous and wide-spread destruction of Mordorian infrastructure.

An anniversary has recently passed. On October 25, 3018 Third Age, Elrond Half-elven, son of Eärendil of the line of Thingol, bearer of Vilya the great Ring of Power, made a critical decision for his people.

Rather than allow the last remaining outposts of the Elves at Imladris and Lothlórien continue without disruption from the outside world, he chose to invest the Elves in a grand global fight to rob Sauron of his power permanently, in the process destroying the Rings of Power of his own and Galadriel’s. At the Council of Elrond, a Fellowship was constructed, representing Elves, Men, Wizards, Dwarves, and Halflings, all united by a supposed common cause.

But where are the Elves now? All gone West. Was this great act of foreign policy by Elrond a self-destructive act? Would Elves not have been better off allowing Sauron to remain, acting as a counterweight to the Men, and preventing Men from being an undisputed hyperpower in Middle-earth?

Model 1841 12 pound Mountain Howitzer

This web-site explains how to hunt white-tailed deer using a Civil War-era Model 1841 12 Pound Mountain Howitzer.

This method of hunting seems likely to provoke criticism, but, after all, the hunter is restricted to a single shot before having to undertake an elaborate and time-consuming process of reloading. There can be no second shot at the same target. And just look at all the effort required to transport, maneuver, and aim the weapon! Besides, the unreasoning prejudice of today’s authorities toward any kind of seriously innovative approach to reducing game to possession makes the project still more sporting by introducing a distinct note of hazard for the sportsman.

If the idea makes you squeamish, or you start getting all liberal and statist, just repeat after me: Rats with hoofs! Rats with hoofs!

I do kind of think myself that a real artillerist could get his buck with an exploding shell, and someone really good could do it with solid shot. If those darned Civil War cannon were just a little cheaper…

Run for your lives!

The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces Blog offers an amusing and eloquent chronicle of human reactions to the abundant bad news in these difficult economic times. Some of these people look to me like they’re suffering enough to deserve those large-figure bonuses they won’t be getting this year.

Obama Campaign Manager David Axelrod in foreground

Somehedgehog imagines this year’s presidential campaign as a game of D&D:

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I’m a level 72 ranger and he’s only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA: Well, if you’d bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you…

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty “Matterhorn, son of Marathon” shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: “My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one.”

MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.

Via Cory Doctorow.

Blender Defender has a solution.

Apple mocks Microsoft’s approach to defending Vista through advertising.

0:30 video

An unidentified comedy team in Britain tests the memories and attention of some ordinary passersby.

2:05 video

A sad story.

“I walked up to the casino table with nothing really in my pocket. And I’m leavin’ with nothing really in my pocket. But in between that time? Man, was I on a roll.”

3:28 video

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Gizmodo takes perhaps an overly censorious view of one man’s passion.

Personally, I think the Bradster’s setup is highly impressive, in its own peculiar way Homeric. It would be interesting to watch him multi-task.

World of Warcraft player/dorkmaster supreme Bradster has caved to his smack addiction-like dependence on WoW and created 36 separate accounts that he plays simultaneously on an epically ridiculous rig. He claims to spend over $5700 per year just on the game, and plans to pick up 36 copies of the new expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King when it’s released. ...

Bradster’s setup features a whopping seven separate laptops, four desktops hidden away under the desk, and an array of screens that’s disorienting even in a static image. He might be the only person on earth who’s capable of using the 15-button mouse.

The Howard Stern Show tests the role of the issues in the decisions of some Harlem voters.

2:48 audio
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Hat tip to Scott Drum.

British comedians John Bird and John Fortune explain the whole thing.

8:49 video

Jim Treacher has the scoop.

BBSpot has the story:

Nigerian philanthropic billionaire Esenam Ayele said that he would make $80 billion dollars available to US banks from his accounts in Nigeria. All he needed to transfer the funds was a trusted associate at the bank.

It couldn’t come at a better time for Wall Street as the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and government bailout of AIG has left markets tumbling with no bottom in site. The guaranteed funds should bring some stability back to financial institutions.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said Ayele could be trusted. “I know he’s had problems in the past with people believing him, but I assured the folks over at Washington Mutual that he was for real.”

Ayele, who has returned to wealth with the rise in oil prices, said from his palace in Lagos, “I just need someone to fax me a copy of the transfer codes on some bank stationery, and I’ll get the money right over.”

He added that his widowed sister also had more funds she could transfer out of the country which she inherited from Prince Ugube of Tanzania. “She just as helpful as I am, but she’s unable to come to the United States because of a visa issue. If somebody could just send her a cashier’s check for $1000, she’ll be able to clear everything up and transfer the funds.”

The American government would rather have private funds involved as to not create the appearance that taxpayers will rescue every bank from dumb mistakes.

“I’m glad I can be of service,” said Ayele. “The American people have done so much for me. I’m thankful to return the favor.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,458 points on the news.

Not super funny, but Fey does imitate the governor’s vocal mannerisms perfectly.

5:10 video

Those loveable clowns Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld are back. This time intruding on a suburban family in order “to connect with real people.” Our heroes, as Seinfeld explains to Gates, have a problem with being “a little out of it. You’re living in some kind of moon house hovering over Seattle like the mother ship. I got so many cars I get stuck in my own traffic.”

4:30 video

Mildly amusing, at least in parts, but still completely and utterly irrelevant to competition from Mac and Linux, or the merits of Vista as an operating system (or the lack thereof). The complacent condescension of the great men’s self-referential exercise is beginning to wear thin.

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

The Anchoress pictures the scene in which a poll-sinking prodigy comes hat-in-hand asking for the aid of the man he disrespected.

Future News via Patriot Room and Category 5 Hurricane Sarah Makes Landfall at Daily Kos.
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New Sarah Palin Facts:

TWylite: Sarah Palin shot a moose in Juneau, just to watch him die.

Chuck: Sarah Palin saved Obama’s butt by finding eight missing states.

OK, you’ve seen those amusing Apple commercials in which the cool and complacent Mac patronizes the hapless and stuffy PC. Well, here’s the first salvo of Microsoft’s counterattack, for which they paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million. It even features Bill Gates himself.

I’m not sure Apple shouldn’t offer to pay to run it themselves, demonstrating as it does that Microsoft’s clueless obliviousness runs all the way to the top.

1:30 video

Presumptive democrat looker tells Q&O in a comment:

Jesus was a community organizer. Pilate was a governor.

To which Treacher responds:

And last night was the crucifixion.

And in a later moment of l’esprit de l’escalier, the same Treacher adds:

You know who else was a community organizer? Don Corleone.
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Via Instapundit.

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I wonder if this program is as obtrusive and controlling as Vista.

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.