KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) — Hundreds of protesters brandishing swords and sticks gathered outside Khartoum’s presidential palace Friday to vent their anger against a British teacher jailed for allowing children to name a teddy bear “Mohammed.”

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

You’d think the people of Sudan would have more important things to worry about than a fucking teddy bear– You know like maybe trying to stop the Darfuri genocide that’s claimed at least 200,000 lives and displaced some 2.5 million more.

I’m not sure if I want to go cry or kick someone’s ass. Actually, I think either response would be appropriate.

Matt is right.
While I do relish the idea of telling people off for being examples of why I hate MySpace, the greater political good is a far more lofty goal. Who knows if it will do any good, but if it gets one extra vote somewhere then it’s worth every bit of bandwidth it takes.

It’s all pretty fascinating but this is actually what caught my eye from a Washington Post article:

“The planets have aligned to tackle cancer in a comprehensive way that we’ve never had the tools to do before,” said Francis S. Collins, director of the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute.

Wait.
Did he just refer to astrology in the same sentence as one of the most scientifically complex research programs ever conceived?
Yes, yes he did.

My friend Josh and I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to poke some fun.

I think we made a lot of peoples day.

Chicago police are now publishing the names, photos, and addresses of accused prostitute patrons on a city web site specifically intended to embarrass and humiliate them.

Wow. Can we say lawsuit-waiting-to-happen? I’m all for the publicizing of criminal records but these guys haven’t even been to trial let alone been convicted. This is a clear violation of both the 8th and 5th amendments to the bill of rights and someone’s gonna get kicked in the nuts for it (metaphorically of course).

I hope the city’s lawyers are ready to rumble.

For those who don’t feel like reading today here’s the gist of it– Until JP2 any pope who died was whacked in the head three times with a silver hammer by his camerlengo (read chamberlain) and then yelled at to determine if he was really dead.

What the heck?

I wonder what that hammer looks like and how many dead popes it’s whacked? I can’t help think of the Beatles song…

Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
came down upon her head
Clang! Clang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
made sure that he was dead!

I also found out there’s a fairly active gambling ring surrounding the next pope. The papal successor odds are currently in favor of Dionigi Tettamanzi… whoever that is.

Amen brother, amen.

First, to quote Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, let’s take the recent unpleasantness. It appears that Dubyuh is going to be in charge for another 4 years. It hurts the soul, it really does. I hope these guys are happy!

Second, I moved. It was pretty painless since I hired movers. It’s absolutely amazing how fast three burly Mexican guys can haul all of your worldly possessions across town. Here’s a picture of the outside of the building– more to come once I find which box I packed my digital camera in.

Third, I hurt my eye… sort of. For several days before The move my left eye was very irritated, as though there was something stuck in it. This wasn’t too surprising since I was stirring up a ton of dust and grime while I was packing everything. As the days went by I tried a lot of stuff to clear it out; blinking while holding me head at a certain angle, dousing it under the faucet, Visine by the gallon but nothing worked.
One day, while trying in vain to locate and eradicate the interloping particle, I saw something odd. One of my eyelashes had inexplicably decided to grow out of the bottom edge of my eyelid. Since it was growing straight down, it laid across the cornea causing the irritation. I yanked it out (yes it hurt) with a pair of needle nose pliers and WHAM it was 100% better. I realized afterwards that this must have been bothering me for some time even before I noticed my eye was irritated. It was as if something over the last weeks had been bothering me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and now that feeling had gone away. Judging from a quick Google it looks like that hair took anywhere from 2-4 months to reach it’s eye-jabbing length. I can just imagine it creeping in slowly irritating the eye in tiny increments until it finally gets close enough to a nerve to make me notice.

*shudder*
Bodies are weird.

Fourth and finally, I have been pondering the subject of “hipsters.” Matt (My ex-roommate) and I discussed them at length one morning on the way to Augies and Matt pointed out that they nearly always wear mesh backed baseball caps and t-shirts which they consider ironic in some way, but really aren’t. Obviously someone agrees with me:

…old-timers and the hipsters who have just shown up. Young post-collegiates in ironic T-shirts and forklift drivers in sincere ones.

It just goes to show you that there isn’t a single original idea in the world, not even about hipsters.