The Daily Grill

Ranty McRant

Sorry to interrupt the comedic backwash, but I can't help but mention that my bemusement continues as the blog I'll affectionately refer to as the Ax Grinder tries inanely to push buttons and get a rise out of the local weekly that I phodoodle for. Most recently the web dude who gamely touts his bloggery as a "news site" (where he is the editor, which is interesting as he does the majority of writing as well) took the weekly to task for the use of the word "demand" in a headline regarding a story about a local citizen seeking a recount when he was ousted from the city council in the recent election.

The web dude's perspective was that such word use made the loser look like a "sore loser", and suggested the euphemistic "request", "asks for", or "seeks" would have been more appropriate and, I suppose, more genteel. The fact that the word "request", in the same context, appeared in the third sentence of the actual article following the headline failed to mollify the blogger's desire to maintain a sense of overt political correctness.

His howling about it doesn't do much to offset that his blog failed to carry any real mention of the other citizen who managed to unseat the incumbent in the aforementioned election. It seems that sore losers abound...

R.I.P. Brother Richard

When Push Comes To Shove (AKA Electrodes Attached To Sensitive Groinal Areas)

Britain's highest court has declared that evidence obtained through torture is not admissible in British courts. "The issue is one of constitutional principle, whether evidence obtained by torturing another human being may lawfully be admitted against a party to proceedings in a British court, irrespective of where, or by whom, or on whose authority the torture was inflicted," said Lord Bingham, writing the lead opinion in a unanimous ruling for the Law Lords.

How ridiculous. Their position is so...so...unAmerican! But I do love the term "Law Lords"...

DVD As Communion Wafer

According to a front page story in the New York Times, some of the nation's most prominent "megachurches" have decided not to hold worship services on the Sunday that coincides with Christmas Day. One such "jumbo redemption center", the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., has Christmas decorations, but not services. Considered a pacesetter, the "WorshipMart" among megachurches, is handing out a DVD it produced for the occasion that features a heartwarming contemporary Christmas tale. Cally Parkinson, communications director at Willow Creek, which draws 20,000 people on a typical Sunday, said "What we're encouraging people to do is take that DVD and in the comfort of their living room, with friends and family, pop it into the player and hopefully hear a different and more personal and maybe more intimate Christmas message, that God is with us wherever we are."

Funny -- that's the same excuse people have been using to skip out on church for generations.

The Passion Of Bashin'

The conservative Christian group Focus On The Family has yanked all of its delicious money out of Wells Fargo after the bank donated dough to a gay rights group, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. I'll bet the bashing was only secondary to the fact Focus On The Family probably gets better interest from the Nebraska bank they went to instead.

Learned Tripe

Have you ever used Wikipedia, this online research resource that's entirely constructed by unscreened volunteers? A guy recently discovered that someone had implicated him in both Kennedy assasinations in a Wikipedia entry. Apparently "wiki" stands for "When Idiots Knowingly Interfere".

Favorite eSpammers Of The Week

Here's a rundown of the best names that appear as the senders for some of the hundreds of pieces of spammail I received this week. Anyone sound familiar?

GREGORIO HENDRICKSON
ALPHONSO SLOAN
NORBERTO GARDNER
LATISHA ROY
EUGENE N. MAYNARD
FERDINAND GREENWOOD
OLIN T. FELIX
JEMIMA BERRERA
JAMAL I. AKINS
LUCIANO DOWNEY
AZALEE RODRIGUEZ
JARMROD PARDO
NUT F. DISTANT
GRACIELA L. YODER

As always, you are welcome to send in your own contributions to the list via the Comments feature!

Koko Gone Wild

Two women have settled a $1 million lawsuit with their former employer, The Gorilla Foundation, who they claimed pressured them into displaying their breasts to Koko, the gorilla made world-famous for learning over 1000 words in American Sign Language, who's not only female but apparently has a nipple fetish. No one's saying how much the settlement is for but it's a safe bet that it would have been cheaper to get Koko a subscription to Playboy.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

The banks that collectively own MasterCard Inc. are about to kickoff an IPO. Funny -- as competitive as MasterCard is, they'll no doubt have no problem letting people buy as many shares as they want with their Visa card.

Deja Phew

It seems President Bush has received a jury summons, calling him to jury duty in his home county in Texas. Never a stranger to shirking his duty (to judge by his no-show Air National Guard record or his frequent vacations), Citizen George is not expected to show up at the courthouse.