Coozer-Bits.

BBC News: Uganda seeking miniskirt ban; claims they cause car accidents.

New Scientist: The Vatican believes in evolution.

NIH: 1 out of 4 US women are incontinent.

Health News Digest: Patients' hospital bills jumped $70 billion in one year.

HuffingtonPost: Russia threatening to steal the Arctic.

Belfast Telegraph: Children's author to write next Hitchhiker's Guide book.

Consumerist: New Best Buy ad sets women's rights back by 50 years.

Hackers break into Sarah Palin's email account.

Update: Gawker has the screenshots. Meh, I don't find these emails too saucily revealing, and I think what the hackers did was lame, but I did like someone's take along the lines of: "If she can't protect her emails, how can she protect national security secrets?"

From SignOnSanDiego:

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.

The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply.

Man has sex with car.

Ananova's got the goods:

A drunk man has been arrested after being caught having sex with a car.

The car's owner left the SUV on a quiet street in the US.

The man, who has not been named, was seen with his pants down and getting friendly with the front of the car.

He was arrested after passers-by called the police, reports Metro.

Talk about a Chevy impala!

Okay, in this case...

Some readers of my blog may think I'm a bleeding heart liberal (Louie D, I'm looking at you!). But I'm all for the death penalty in cases like this:

A man who raped and murdered a 93-year-old woman in her Dallas-area home was executed Wednesday after he apologized to his victim's relatives.

[...] Murray had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for burglaries, but was released on probation after three months. The Ratcliff slaying occurred three months after his release.

Besides the burglaries, his record showed he escaped from jail while awaiting trial and sexually assaulted two other inmates while he was locked up.

Good riddance.

Japanese school ordered to compensate lightning victim.

I would've sued Thor instead, but different strokes...

The Takamatsu High Court on Wednesday ordered a high school and an athletic association to pay some ¥300 million in compensation to a man left blind and paralyzed after lightning struck him during a high school soccer match in 1996.

The court said the accident would have been avoided if a teacher who had led the plaintiff's team requested that the match in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, be postponed.

A lightning advisory had been issued for the area as a typhoon was approaching.

Follow-up: Microsoft axes Seinfeld-Gates commercials.

I think a lot of people wanted the Seinfeld-Gates merger to fail, including me, but were the media critics too harsh? Nah.

From AdWeek:

Jerry Seinfeld's classic sitcom ran for nearly a decade before it went off the air. The iconic comic's tenure as a Microsoft pitchman will apparently last just two commercials.

Valleywag today broke the news that Microsoft's much derided effort teaming Seinfeld and the software giant's chairman and cofounder Bill Gates would cease.

Microsoft could not immediately be reached, but a company representative told the LaTimes.com's technology blog: "All along we said we were having a teaser campaign. We're getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along."

Andrea Peyser is disgusting.

I read a lot of stupid and ignorant op-eds (I do read the Post, you know), but my reaction tends to remain bemused and dismissive. This op-ed contributor, however, is fucking disgusting and seriously needs counseling.

She heartlessly argues that the sadistic, brutal beating of a defenseless cat by a 200+ lb. athlete (minor leaguer Joseph Petcka) isn't a big deal and trying him in court is a waste of time and money. The way she describes the event is so flippant, and she thinks she's so witty ("pawsitively looney!"), I hope reincarnation exists so she could come back the next 50 times in similar paws.

For all her lame attempts at shock value, I don't even think Ann Coulter would condone beating a cat to death. I hope if Peyser has a pet, the ASPCA takes it away from her ASAP. She clearly has no value for living things, which puts her in the same boat as Petcka.

Doctors surgically remove something from Bush's head. Guess what.

From Breitbart:

President Bush underwent treatment for a benign lesion over the weekend, leaving a noticeable scab on his forehead as he went about his business on Tuesday.

Bush had a common skin lesion, known as a seborrheic keratosis, that looked like a brown spot on his forehead. A dermatologist "froze" the spot over the weekend, a typical procedure that destroys the cells and forms a scab as the skin repairs itself.

Feds laundering $ for lumberjacks?

From the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Three conservation groups are suing the federal government over a decision to give $350-million to forestry foundations, charging that the money illegally bypassed the U.S. Treasury and Congress, reports the Associated Press.

At the center of the case is $350-million in contributions made by Canada to settle a 2006 lumber trade dispute. Officials at the office of the U.S. Trade Representative chose which timber groups would receive the donations, and the conservation groups allege that since the money was distributed without congressional approval or public process, it was a form of money laundering.

Peter Goldman, director of the Washington Forest Law Center and a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the way the payments were made violated federal laws because money owed to the United States in the settlement of a lawsuit is supposed to go directly to the U.S. Treasury.

United Airlines charges $130 to check two bags.

I hate the airlines. I need to move to Europe where flights are $20.

From McClatchy:

On Monday, United Airlines doubled its fee for a second checked bag, from $25 to $50 each way. Including a $15 one-way fee for a first checked bag, the airline now charges $130 to check two bags on a round-trip ticket.

It’s the most expensive baggage fee in the industry. And unless passengers rebel, some other carriers may raise their own fees to match United’s new charges.

Albanian parliament erupts in violence over corn.

You know, I read this article three times and I still don't understand what it's about.

From Reuters:

Tempers popped over corn when guards in Albania's parliament grappled with two lawmakers who tried to bring supposedly sterile samples of a French variety into the chamber.

"I told them these objects were not allowed in and blocked the door, but they hit and punched another officer," guard commander Arben Nika said in a statement after the tussle with two opposition legislators on Thursday.

"I fell down and my leg bled," he said.

Satanic gang kill, eat 4 goth teens.

Is there nothing sadder than goth-on-goth violence? From the Daily Mail:

A gang of Satan worshippers murdered four teenagers by stabbing each of them 666 times, police believe.

The number of wounds is the same as that revered by followers of the devil.

The three girls and one boy, all described as Goths and aged 16 and 17, were allegedly forced to drink alcohol by the gang before they were attacked.

The killers then allegedly lit a bonfire under a tree near their cottage in Russia's Yaroslavl region, 300 miles north-east of Moscow, where they cooked and ate their victims' body parts.

Unclean dishes leads to sword attack.

Woman upset over unclean dishes attacks boyfriend with sword. From Breitbart:

The 21-year-old man told police that he became involved in an argument because the woman was upset that the dishes were not clean. Police Lt. Paul Henderson said the woman told the man to leave the apartment, but he refused.

Henderson said the woman then tried to physically remove the man. During the ensuing struggle, the woman bit the man's right shoulder and broke a picture frame across his face, causing visible cuts, Henderson said.

The woman then grabbed an approximately 2-foot sword and swung it at him, but missed, police said.

Coozer-Bits.

BBC News: UN pulls out of north Sri Lanka.

BBC News: Common plastics (plastic bottles, food packaging, etc.) linked to major diseases.

Boston Globe: "Disastrous" deregulation strategies by Bush and his treasury secretary helped melt down the financial sector.

AdWeek: Best Buy to acquire Napster for $120M.

The Independent: The 50 Best Cookbooks. (I want the Ultimate Curry Bible.)

Live Science: No matter our intentions, we're all snack monkeys.

Raw Story: Planning begins for prosecution of Bush war crimes.

NY Sun: Conservative NYC newspaper close to shutting down. (It's always a little pitiful when a media outlet reports on its own woes.)

UFO spotted in Texas.

You know, Stephenville is maybe an hour outside of Crawford, TX. Maybe the mothership is returning for Laura Bush. From ABC News:

More than a dozen people said they saw it -- the big bright lights in the January skies over Stephenville, Texas. It was unlike anything they'd seen before.

"I look off to the east, see some very intense bright lights coming this way at a high rate of speed," witness Steve Allen said.

The lights reconfigured into different formations several times, he said.

"Then they burst into a flame, a very unusual bright white flame," he said. "Two or three seconds of that, and then it simply disappeared."

Former military air traffic controller Paul Colcleasure said he also saw something remarkable that night.

"I honestly don't know what to think it was. I know what it wasn't," he said. "I've seen pretty much every military aircraft you can think of in the dark, and these lights were -- just the scale of the lights, the size -- not anything I can conceptualize."

In the nine months since, those lights still have not been identified.

PSA: Beware the weeping angel.

I made a huge mistake - I just watched the Steven Moffat-penned Doctor Who episode "Blink."

Holy crap, I don't scare easily, but I am not going to sleep tonight. This episode is easily one of the creepiest, spine chilling things I've ever seen, and I watched the Republican National Convention.

Terrifying or not (it is), it was also brilliantly written and directed. If you're not a Doctor Who fan, start with this one, though I don't think any other episode approaches such creepy heights. (The Moffat two-parter about the girl in the gas mask comes close.)

And remember, don't blink. Whatever you do, DON'T BLINK.

PSA: 14 brands of pet food recalled.

From Consumerist: Mars Petcare US is recalling 14 brands of dry dog and cat food made between February and July of this year, after two people who may have had contact with some of the food became infected with Salmonella.

Click here to check the brands and package codes.

Top 10 All-Girl Bands.

My 10 ten. Yes, I like Puffy Ami Yumi.

1. Le Tigre
2. All Girl Summer Fun Band
3. Cub
4. Puffy Ami Yumi
5. Akiakane
6. Halo Friendlies
7. The Pipettes
8. The Runaways
9. L7
10. Metallica

Honorable Mentions: Go Betty Go, Lunachicks, Betty Blowtorch, The Bodysnatchers (even though they only had two songs).

By the by, anyone know of any good all-girl or female-fronted punk bands from South America?

Coozer-Bits.

Boston Globe: Study: Non-college educated white women more likely to make a very bad decision on Election Day.

NY Times: New Manhattan restaurant only sells globs of mozzarella.

Science Daily: Bees do "The Wave" to repel wasps, Mets bullpen.

Universe Today: First photo taken of likely planet around another sun. (Check out the pic!)

WikiNews: Bin Laden's greatest hits leaked to web.

US Food Policy: Chinese company sells contaminated milk formula for infants.

Slashdot: Nokia creates new technology to scribble notes on the back of digital photos.

Revealing Errors: Glitch in Google News crawler nearly ruins United Airlines stock price.

Human noise underwater is killing whales, dolphins.

Before you ignore this, let me remind you that fewer dolphins means fewer cans of tuna.

Levels of noise in the world's oceans are causing serious problems for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, a report warns.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) says undersea noise blocks animals' communication and disrupts feeding.

Naval sonar has been implicated in the mass deaths of some cetaceans.

In some regions, the level of ocean noise is doubling each decade, and Ifaw says protective measures are failing.

"Humanity is literally drowning out marine mammals," said Robbie Marsland, UK director of Ifaw.

Carjackers toss baby girl from car.

Bill Bryson once said that capital punishment is only justified when someone uses two spots to park their car. I'd add this offense to the list.

From News.com.au:

A FOUR-MONTH-OLD baby girl is recovering after being tossed from a stolen car in the US city of Phoenix, Foxnews reports.

The baby was in a car with her mother when two armed men allegedly fired a gun at one of the windows, spraying glass all over the infant, police said.

After forcing the mother out of the car, one of the men allegedly jumped in and fled with the baby girl still strapped in her car seat, said Sergeant Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman. The other man escaped in another car.

As the man drove off, witnesses allegedly yelled that a child was in the back seat.

Witnesses said the man stopped and flung the baby girl onto the pavement, Foxnews reports.

The child, who was still in the car seat, received only minor injuries, Sgt Hill said.

The two men were arrested a short time later after a police chase through the city.

The history of "Kilroy Was Here".

Interesting article on the history of "Kilroy Was Here" - historians have even tracked down the original Kilroy. I liked this part:

Japanese troops were so mystified by a "Kilroy Was Here" painted on a bombed out tank on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal that they reported the find to their senior intelligence officers, according to a U.S. Marine interviewed by World War II author Timothy Benford.

Hitler supposed that Kilroy was some kind of "Super-GI" or spy, other unconfirmed reports have stated, and ordered a contingent of men to track down the sneaky American. He would never be found.

Article here.

Unidentified submarine shows up in Japan.

But how do they know it was a submarine? I think it may have been an Evangelion!

From Japan Times:

An unidentified foreign submarine temporarily entered Japanese territorial waters between Shikoku and Kyushu on Sunday morning, Defense Ministry officials said.

[...] "It was very regrettable," Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said. "We need to do our utmost tracking down the submarine and getting to the bottom of the incident."

33-year-old woman poses as teen to be cheerleader.

Ananova reports:

A 33-year-old US woman posed as her 15-year-old daughter to enroll at school because she wanted to be a cheerleader.

[...] She attended cheerleading practices and a party at the cheerleading coach's house. She was given a cheerleader locker and paid for her uniform with a check that later bounced.

Bush admin wants to turn FBI into CTU.

From ABC News:

The Bush administration is proposing guidelines that give FBI agents far more latitude to assess foreign intelligence and terrorism threats in the same way that they do in more routine criminal cases.

Under the new guidelines, the FBI would be allowed to use the following tools to assess national security threats before launching preliminary investigations: physical surveillance, developing informants, and so-called "pretext interviews," in which agents can ask questions without having to identify themselves as from the FBI.

LSD-like drug legal in Canada.

Salvia is a plant that, when smoked, creates the most powerful hallucinations in the natural world. You can pick it up at the Canadian equivalent of 7-11. From Canoe:

The first time Ryan Fentie smoked salvia, he was overwhelmed by the sudden, intense feelings that swept over him.

A huge hole opened in the ground before him, vines snaked out of the pit and encircled his feet and he felt himself become a part of them.

"I had no idea what the drug was doing to me," Fentie recalled. "It feels like you entered another world."

His high came from a powerful hallucinogenic drug that can be bought -- legally -- at convenience stores and head shops across Toronto.

Saudi Arabia ok's killing "immoral" TV executives.

Not that I haven't daydreamed about issuing a fatwa on Time Warner Cable, but this is pretty scary.

Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.

The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the "deviance of thousands of people."

[...] Among the most viewed Arabic satellite networks is Rotana, which airs movies and music videos. It is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a billionaire businessman and member of the royal family whom Forbes ranks as the world's 13th richest person.

NYT destroys Palin.

I avoid discussing Palin here (too cliche), but this article is quite an indictment. Some snippets.

On her cronyism:

When there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

On her petty vendettas and Cheney-like secrecy:

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

[...] Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process.

When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.

“Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said.

David Foster Wallace killed himself?!

This is really shocking... The LA Times reports:

David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead Friday night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.

Jackie Morales, a records clerk at the department, said Wallace's wife called police at 9:30 p.m. Friday saying she had returned home to find that her husband had hanged himself.

Wallace, who had taught creative writing at Pomona College since 2002, was on leave this semester.

Times book editor David Ulin was in New York City for a National Book Critics Circle Board meeting Saturday. "What was a party is now a wake," Ulin said as the news of Wallace's death circulated. "People were speechless and just blown away.

"He was one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years," Ulin said.

I have to say that I could never decide if I liked his books/stories/essays or not. He was so strange and challenging that oftentimes I thought the "Infinite Jest" was on me. But that's also what made him so interesting and important. He was a true artist and a true original. R.I.P.

GOP forum sells racist Obama Waffles.

Good to know these are the 'values' at the GOP Values Voter Summit. From the Jerusalem Post:

Activists at a conservative political forum snapped up boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing an Arab-like headdress on its top flap.

Values Voter Summit organizers cut off sales of Obama Waffles boxes on Saturday, saying they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material." The summit and the exhibit hall where the boxes were sold had been open since Thursday afternoon.

The box was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tennessee, who created the mix. They sold it for $10 a box from a rented booth at the summit sponsored by the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative group.

[...] Republican Party stalwarts Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were among speakers at the forum, which officials said drew 2,100 activists from 44 states.

Michael Phelps is....

...the guy from My Giant. I noticed it while catching Olympics snippets, and his monologue during SNL confirmed it. I couldn't find a clear pic, but the blurry VHS cover (I assume it's not on DVD) should remove all doubt.

Koozer's Kitchen: Chocolate Toffee Bars

To make this dessert you will need a lot of time on your hands and resistance toward diabetic shock. These bars are so sweet, they were once a diner waitress in Missoula with a sharp tongue but a heart of gold.

CHOCOLATE TOFFEE BARS O' DEATH

Okay, lots of steps here, so keep up.

1. Preheat oven to 350. I couldn't tell you which oven pan to use. Most people use shallow pans for bars, but I used something closer to a casserole dish. Use your best judgment. I can't do everything for you, you know. God, you're so needy.

2. In a bowl, cream together a stick and a half of butter, 3/4 cup of light brown sugar, packed, and 1 and a half cups of flour. Press down into the greased pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until it looks tan. Take out and let cool.

3. In a saucepan, melt together a can of sweetened condensed milk (take it out of the can first) and 2 tablespoons of butter. Heat for 5 minutes but don't boil, and keep stirring the whole time.

4. Pour and spread evenly over crush. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden. Take out and sprinkle a bag of milk chocolate chips over it. Put back in oven for 2-3 minutes, until chips are melty. Using a rubber spatula, spread around melted chocolate chips evenly.

5. Smash up some Skor bars or toffee pieces. Sprinkle evenly over chocolate and push down into chocolate using the spatula. Let cool. Put in fridge for an hour or so. Cut into bars and then put back in fridge for another hour.

6. Eat one and have the sugar rush equivalent to a Red Bull mixed with espresso mixed with the first time you ever listened to Motorhead.

Koozer's Kitchen: Ricotta Gnocchi with Pesto

Okay, time for the big guns. This is how you get that barista girl to fall in love with you, since the kidnapping and Rush album rockathon didn't work. This gnocchi is so good, I've been mistaken for French (nevermind it's an Italian dish - my friends aren't smart).

LITTLE PILLOWS OF DOUGHY GOODNESS (w/ pesto)

PESTO

Start with the pesto; fridge it if you need to while making the gnocchi.

1. In a food processor, add two bunches of basil leaves, 2 garlic cloves, 3 or 4 oil-cured black olives, a pinch of hot pepper flakes, a handful of pine nuts, olive oil, and a bunch of arugula leaves. I blanch the arugula first to make it less bitter. To do so, boil water, throw arugula in for a minute, take out and run under cold water so it stops cooking, then wring out the arugula and get all the water out. That huge bunch of arugula will end up looking like a small cat turd. That's a good thing.

2. Process the mixture, adding olive oil as necessary.

3. Move to bowl and fold in 1/2 cup of grated pecorino romano.

GNOCCHI

I'm really bad with measurements. Try this out and keep extra flour and ricotta on hand to even it out. Too sticky, add flour. Too dry, add ricotta. Too boring, add 2 Fast 2 Furious.

1. Okay, don't sue me if these measurements suck or cause illness. Try 2 cups of flour (use good quality stuff, like King Arthur), 1/2 - 2/3 cup of grated pecorino romano, and a small tub of ricotta.

2. Use your hands and mix together. Don't overwork it - just knead it gently, like a young woman's buttocks. When it's a nice big ball of dough that isn't too sticky or too dry, take small slabs and roll out with your hands, pressing gently. Roll each slab into a chubby worm the thickness of a highlighter (man, where have I heard THAT before!). Take a butter knife and slice off at 1" intervals. They'll look like little pillows. If you want to get fancy, press down gently with a fork for that cool gnocchi pronged indent look.

3. Boil water. Throw in your gnocchi and keep an eye on it. As soon as the gnocchi start floating to the top, scoop out with a slotted spoon. Put on plate and mix with pesto. Laugh maniacally as people eat it. (You should laugh maniacally in any social setting.)

Koozer's Kitchen: Crispy Tofu

Tofu is wonderfully versatile. You can use it as both packing material AND as adhesive. But did you know you can also eat it? It's true! Just fry the hell out of it, the Coozer way.

CRISPY TOFU YOU CAN INGEST

1. Put your oven rack thingy close to the top. Preheat the oven at 400.

2. Pat dry a brick of extra firm tofu. Slice somewhat thin (maybe 1/4 - 1/2" thin, I dunno), and put on lightly greased cookie sheet. Put in oven for 15 minutes, flipping over halfway. Take out of oven and let cool.

3. In a small bowl, mix two egg whites with a couple of tablespoons of Japanese or Korean barbecue sauce. (I used tonkatsu sauce.) In another bowl, add flour. (Or use breadcrumbs or panko if you want. Whatever man, I don't care. Gosh!)

4. Pour oil 1/2" deep in pan. (I used sunflower oil because it doesn't exude too much flavor and it's not as unhealthy as canola.) Heat super hot. Dip the tofu slices first in the egg/bbq mixture and then the flour. Fry, and watch out for spurting oil!

5. Fry on both sides til brown and crispy. Dry off the pieces on paper towels. When a little cool, brush on some more bbq sauce, then put in oven again for 5-10 minutes. I know, crazy!

6. Remove, put on plate, and add a nice dipping sauce. I went with some crazy spicy Chinese sauce. I don't know the name of it, or what exactly it was, because the label was in Chinese. It could've been children's toys melted with asbestos and lead. But I threw some sesame seeds in there and it rocked.

Koozer's Kitchen: Farro Salad

Salads can be stupid. In addition, we're on the brink of autumn, when craisins and caramelized pears start appearing on our salad plates as if they were vegetables (they're not!). But I decided to keep summer going with a farro salad - the least stupid salad of them all!

FARRO SALAD FOR SMART PEOPLE

These amounts refer to a 15 oz. packet of farro, which feeds a LOT of people, or a few very fat people.

1. Put farro in big soup pot. Add 5 1/2 cups of water. Let sit for 20 minutes or so. I recommend watching a DVR'd episode of X-Play.

2. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes or longer. You want the farro to be tender, but still hearty and nutty, like my crotch. When it's done, remove from heat, drain any extra water, and move to a big salad bowl. Let sit, the put in fridge to cool off.

3. While it's cooling in the fridge, add the following to another bowl: one red onion, thinly sliced; four tomatoes, seeded and chopped; one large, phallic-like cucumber, peeled and small diced; two celery stalks, small diced; 20 or so basil leaves, ripped; maybe 1/2 bunch of curly parsley, pulled off the stems and chopped.

4. When the farro is cold, toss in the veggies and herbs and drizzle in olive oil and red wine vinegar. I put a lot in, but if you're a pussy, start with a little and add to taste.

5. Serve to your neighbors while they patiently wait. Meanwhile, have your girlfriend ransack their apartment. Sell their jewelry for more farro.

Koozer's Kitchen: E-Z Pita Chips

I told you how to make pretty decent tahiti-less hummus. But what are you going to serve it with - baby carrots?? LAME. Here's what you do:

E-Z PITA CHIPS

1. Preheat oven to 375. Cut pita bread into triangle wedges, as if you were cutting a pizza. Put pita wedges on a cookie sheet.

2. In a bowl, mix together 1/4 - 1/2 cup of olive oil, and 1/2 teaspoon each of dried basil, dried oregano, and black pepper. Add salt and garlic powder to taste (don't use too much garlic powder or people will think you're a jackass).

3. Brush pita pieces on both sides with the oil mixture. Bake until crispy, but not so crispy that people hate you. Serve with hummus or throw em at cars!

Koozer's Kitchen: Zesty Hummus

If you're just reading this for the news items and/or snarky comments, then you have no idea that I'm a WORLD FAMOUS CHEF (in my own mind). The parents are coming by tonight to watch the Mets-Braves doubleheader and visit their grandson, Rusty. So I'll be coming up a bunch of things and will blog my recipes as I do them (unless I get too drunk - I guzzle wine while cooking).

FYI - my stepdad is a veggiehead, so doing a meatless thing tonight. Don't worry folks - I'll eat twice the veal tomorrow.

Okay, so just made some kick-ass hummus and it took a whopping 5 minutes. Here's how:

COOZER'S ZESTY HUMMUS

1. Set up food processer. Open a can of chickpeas, drain liquid out. Add chickpeas to processer.

2. Add two garlic cloves (halved), a little salt, a couple of sprigs of parsley, and maybe 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin and hot pepper flakes (I use these crazy-hot flakes I picked up from Sripraphai, the best Thai place in NYC [and probably the best restaurant, period]).

3. Squeeze half a lemon in there, or a whole lemon if you like your hummus lemony. Pour in some olive oil.

4. Process for a minute or so - keep adding olive oil if it's too chunky.

5. Now here's where I added the Coozer touch. I never have tahini or sesame paste on me (though it would be funny if I kept some in my pockets), so I had the idea to add a tablespoon of sour cream. Holy shit. It totally gave my hummus that creaminess I always attributed to tahini or a disgruntled Greek chef's bodily fluids. Tablespoon of sour cream. Try it out.

6. Process some more until creamy. Scoop out in a bowl for dipping, or if you wanna get fancy - spread out on a plate, drizzle olive oil around the perimeter, and on the center, garnish with parsley sprigs, a handful of mixed olives, and a dash of paprika and pepper.

7. Hot damn, you just made a fancy shmancy hummus and it took you 5 minutes! Reward yourself with internet porn and booze.

Scientists turn things INVISIBLE!!

Holy crap. Where were these scientists when I was in high school??

AWESOME:

A research group of the Departments of Applied Physics and Electromagnetism of the University of Granada (Spain), directed by Professors Jorge Andrés Portí, Alfonso Salinas and Juan Antonio Morente, have taken a step forward with regard to one of mankind’s biggest dreams and challenges, often tackled by fiction writers and film makers: invisibility. Scientists of the UGR have managed, by means of a numerical technique known as Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) Modelling method, to hide an object or make it invisible in a certain frequency, inside an electromagnetic simulator. Such studies are the germ to achieve invisibility to radars and even to the human eye.

Animal lover dies from scratch after freeing rat.

From the UK Daily Mail:

Discovering a rat trapped in a wire bird feeder in her back garden animal lover Carol Colburn was swift to act.

The mother-of-three ignored the pleas of her husband to wear gloves and set about freeing the terrified animal.

But she paid for her act of kindness with her life.

The 56-year-old suffered scratches and cuts to her hands in the process of releasing the creature. Unknown to her she had contracted the rare - but deadly - Weil's disease.

Sweet shop's secret ingredient? Psychotropic drugs!

From Reuters:

Police closed down a Berlin sweet shop after discovering the owner was selling chocolates and lollipops laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms and marijuana.

[...] "In the shop we found 120 pieces of magic mushroom chocolate and countless cannabis lollipops," said police, who confiscated around 70 sachets containing various drugs, about 20 marijuana joints, a range of pills and some jars of drug-laced honey.

300th Post Gala Extravaganza!!

300 posts, huzzah!!

How are you guys enjoying The Coozer Files?

Leave a comment and let us know what you liked and loved about the first 300 posts!

Sharing a bed saps men's brain power.

I always suspected this was the case. Interesting stuff.

Sharing a bed with someone could temporarily reduce your brain power - at least if you are a man - Austrian scientists suggest.

When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day. The lack of sleep also increases a man's stress hormone levels.

According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply.

[...] Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert at the University of Surrey, said: "It's not surprising that people are disturbed by sleeping together.

"Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other. It is a bizarre thing to do.

"Sleep is the most selfish thing you can do and it's vital for good physical and mental health. Sharing the bed space with someone who is making noises and who you have to fight with for the duvet is not sensible."

Girl kills herself over Large Hadron Collider doomsday fears.

Gosh, now where this girl get the idea from that we're all gonna die because of the new particle accelerator?

*whistles, shuffles feet*

Damn media and their fear mongering!

*stares intently at fingernails, avoids eye contact*

Butt Bandit strikes back!

Dude is vandalizing his small Nebraska town by smooshing his bare buttocks (sometimes groin) against every surface in town. From Yahoo! News:

Store owners, church workers and school janitors have had to wash lotion and petroleum jelly off the windows he selects.

[...] Some residents of Valentine, a town of about 2,650 people, find some humor in the strange vandalism and have taken to calling the perpetrator the "Butt Bandit." But they also can't help but cringe when finding his marks.

"We were completely grossed out," said Kalli Kieborz, who works in a downtown building. "One day I walked into the office and an employee said, 'Oh, my God, we've been struck!'"

[...] "This is the weirdest case I've ever seen," said police Chief Ben McBride.

US army training psychologists to torture detainees.

Nevermind that it's illegal, against international codes of conduct, and a mockery of the psychology profession. Jack Bauer does it, so it's okay!

Article here.

Top 10 worst ways to alter your body.

I'm surprised "getting a straightedge tattoo" isn't on here.

Top 10 Crimes Against Nature.

The Goldblum = greatest crazy clown ever?

The Goldblum is getting rave reviews for his portrayal of a clown going insane after the horrors of the Holocaust. The Goldblum + insane clown + Holocaust = OSCAR GOLD.

The man is a genius thespian/Jewish Thor.

Jury: Threat of global warming justifies breaking the law.

This is a weird story. Greenpeace activists cause $60K in damages at a coal-fueled power station, but the jury feels their actions were justified because of the threat of global warming. From The Independent:

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

I'm all for the green agenda, but this is quite a stretch. To be clear, the protesters didn't do anything heroic to save the world. They painted Gordon Brown's name on a chimney.

Coozer Prophesy: Supergerms will kill us all.

Antibiotics have only strengthened germs and their resistance is increasing. We are creating our own intragalactic arch-enemies - super destructive microbes that CAN'T BE STOPPED. Experts agree.

I, for one, welcome our new microscopic overlords.

Senator examining rising text messaging rates.

Glad someone is paying attention. Tagged "Awesome" for the senator, not for collusion.

From the Associated Press:

A key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is asking the nation's top four wireless carriers to justify the "sharply rising rates" they charge people to send and receive text messages.

In letters to top executives at Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile, Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl said Tuesday that he is concerned that rising text messaging rates reflect decreasing competition in the wireless business.

Kohl chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. His inquiry comes as European Commission regulators are threatening to impose a cap on roaming fees for text messages sent by Europeans traveling outside of their home nations, in an effort to force prices down by as much as 70 percent.

Kohl said he was concerned that consumers are paying more than 20 cents per message, up from 10 cents in 2005. This increase, he said, "does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," which are small data files that are inexpensive for carriers to transmit.

Kohl said he is particularly concerned that all four of the companies appear to have adopted identical price increases at nearly the same time. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace," he wrote.

The photos I should've taken.

If I owned a camera and had photography skills, these would be the pics I would've taken. These pics are of Salar de Uyuni, the "salt lake" in Bolivia, and I was in the Salt Flats in Salta, Argentina, but the feeling of being alone on a neverending surreal, alien moonscape was the same.

From their travelogue:

"...We finally reached the salt flats. Imagine being surrounded by endless white salt covered by a few inches of water. Without any reference points the sky meets the salt and creates an odd illusion that objects in the flats are flying. I had never seen anything like it...

My fellow Americans: It's called "SODA". Learn it.

Saw this on Digg. This highly detailed map shows how "soda" is mispronounced across this idiotic country of ours.

To sum up:

If you call your favorite carbonated sugary beverage "pop"... you are a moron.

If you call it "Coke" even if it's Sprite or Grape Soda.... you are a moron AND you live in North Carolina. Sucks to be you.

Top 20 most corrupt members of Congress.

CREW just released their annual report. See how your local elected official is stealing your money!

Article here.

The 20 most corrupt Members of Congress

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
• Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
• Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
• Rep. Vito J. Fossella (R-NY)
• Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-LA)
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
• Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
• Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL)
• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-CA)
• Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
• Rep. Timothy F. Murphy (R-PA)
• Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
• Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)
• Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
• Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
• Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)
• Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Dishonorable mentions

• Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
• Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)
• Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
• Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH)

Coozer-Bits

Boston Globe: Al Franken takes MN primary for Senate.

Breitbart: Peanut butter & pastrami pangs lead to pot arrest.

McClatchy: McCain steals Obama’s flags for cheap political stunt.

AOL: Meanwhile, Obama sends out embarrassing pic of Palin.

Chicago Sun-Times: Follow-up: Giant robot ape found in VT cornfield.

Times Online UK: 80% of French prefer Obama over McCain.

LA Times: Texas judge had affair with prosecutor, probably biasing death row case.

FTC: This might explain why every prepaid calling card I’ve ever used seems to last only 90 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

University of Michigan: New, ultra-rare particle discovered.

EurekAlert: Mayonnaise can only be explained by mathematics.

McClatchy: As people die, Haiti still being ignored.

Newsweek: Beijing lends only one hand for the Paralympics.

Page One Q: FL gay adoption ban ruled unconstitutional.

Consumerist: Bloodbath & Beyond offers up good apology for letting baby roast in parking lot. Props!

Man finds happiness with 25th wife.

I do love a love story. Especially ones featuring sherpas. From BBC:

After 24 failed marriages, a 49-year-old porter in eastern Nepal says that he has finally found happiness in his latest union.

The simple reason is that the landless labourer's latest marriage seems to be working out, unlike the previous ones.

Ramchandra Katuwal, of Khandbari municipality in Sankhuwasava, and his wife recently celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary.

He say that his marriage to Sharada has been a "journey of happiness".

Trend Spotting: Youth suicide in China.

Who can keep up with kids' trends?!! The new one is in China, where all the cool kids are offing themselves. It's now the #1 cause of death for young people, beating out car accidents, overdoses, and sitting through "Epic Movie".

In the rural areas, it might be because of arranged marriages. In the urban areas, it may be the popularity of a comic book titled "The Rabbit Which Wanted To Kill Itself."

Kids today!

We're still alive... for now.

The Large Hadron Collider has been fired up and the strands of existence appear to not have been unraveled thus far. However, they've only fired a proton beam around in a circle. I do that with a laser pointer for my cat every day.

Best ska song ever?

I have to give the Pop Punk Bored credit for finding this amazing ska song/video. I'd link to them, but they hate teh n00bs.

Anyway, enjoy.



"Zap!"

DOJ undermining anti-monopoly laws; Federal Trade Commission lashes back.

I should wait for someone smarter than I to blog about this report from the Department of Justice, because I barely understand it. But according to the Federal Trade Commission, the report significantly weakens and undermines existing anti-monopoly laws, giving mega corporations even more power over us dopey consumers.

The FTC had some strong words, actually:

Commissioners Harbour, Leibowitz, and Rosch believe that the Department’s report, if adopted by the courts, “would be a blueprint for radically weakened enforcement of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” Commissioners Harbour, Leibowitz, and Rosch identified two “overarching concerns” with the DOJ report. First, while the Supreme Court has declared the welfare of consumers the primary goal of antitrust laws, the Department’s report “is chiefly concerned with firms that enjoy monopoly or near-monopoly power, and prescribes a legal regime that places these firms’ interests ahead of those of consumers.”

Read the DOJ report and FTC's response. And let's hope Alternet or someone blogs about it so I know what all this government in-fighting is about.

Doing drunk things and not remembering explained by SCIENCE!

Finally, proof that I'm not lying when I say I don't remember doing the things I do. I AM BLAMELESS!! BLAMELESS!!!! *takes swig of schnapps, punches passerby girl in the face*

From the Telegraph:

Research at the University of Sussex has found that alcohol influences the brain's ability to form memories, making memories before a drink stronger and memories of things that happen while under the influence weaker.

It means that while a drinker may remember the happy events such as socialising with friends at the start of a drinking session, they are less able to recall the negative effects that happen later in the night.

Professor Theodora Duka, from the department of experimental psychology at the University of Sussex, said: "This bias towards positive memories means that people are more likely to drink heavily the next time they go out because they only remember the good memories about the last time.

"It is not exactly clear how alcohol changes the way memories are made, but it could be altering the neurotransmitters that form memories."

Follow Up: End of the world scheduled for 3:15 am EST.

Damn it, I'm gonna be asleep and not have any cool last words. Like "Oh crap!" or "I regret I only have one life to give for an unnecessary overgrown physics project."

From the NY Daily News:

Mark your calendars: the End of the World may come around 3:15 a.m. tomorrow.

That’s when scientists will flip the switch on the world’s most powerful particle accelerator in an attempt to begin answering some of the oldest scientific quandaries.

Some critics have warned that the activation of the 17-mile-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, can create black holes on Earth for the very first time — pulling us all into oblivion.

Scientists working on the massive project were quick to assuage fears, explaining that any black holes would be tiny and last a fraction of a nano-second.

The secret ingredient is love. (Or animal cruelty.)

ABC News:

Pssst. The secret's out at KFC. Well, sort of. Colonel Harland Sanders' handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices was to be removed Tuesday from safekeeping at KFC's corporate offices for the first time in decades. The temporary relocation is allowing KFC to revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country's most famous corporate secrets.

[...] So important is the 68-year-old concoction that coats the chain's Original Recipe chicken that only two company executives at any time have access to it. The company refuses to release their name or title, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents.

Zombie Watch: American Airlines loses corpse.

I hate American Airlines. I forced myself to fly with them for years just to rack up enough miles so I could get my free trip and never fly with them again. But for all my issues with AA, none compare to this guy's ordeal. From the NY Post:

A Brooklyn man who claims he suffered the nightmare of all lost-luggage stories is demanding millions from American Airlines after it allegedly misplaced his deceased wife's body for four days.

According to the lawsuit, filed last week, the body of 57-year-old Teresa Olaya was so badly decomposed when it finally arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador, that her grieving husband, Miguel, had to forgo a traditional open-casket funeral.

Coozer-Bits

Reuters: Zombies lose silliest book title award.

ABC News: Kim Jong Il mysteriously absent from parade. (Reminds me of another recent article claiming he died a few years ago and has been replaced by a lookalike.)

BBC News: Vitamin B12 may prevent memory loss.

Boston Globe: Iran arrests two celebrated Iranian doctors who were involved in US-funded relationship-building exchange program for trying to "destabilize the Iranian government".

Washington Post: Palin bilked taxpayers for nights spent at home and family travel.

Chicago Sun-Times: Teen girl stabbed in head with screwdriver during school fight.

Reuters: Moroccan blogger jailed for criticizing king.

EurekAlert: Water bears are the first animals to survive the vacuum and radiation of space.

LA Times: Protesters sitting in trees for 21 months fail.

IHT: Church of Scientology in France charged with fraud.

And the players move into position...

My friend Louie D sent to this me and at first I thought it was a hoax. But no - Russia really is looking to send nuclear battleships into the Caribbean. The fleet includes Peter the Great, "one of the world's largest combat warships", and Admiral Chabanenko, "Moscow's most modern destroyer." Article here.

Russia said on Monday it would send a heavily-armed nuclear-powered cruiser to the Caribbean for a joint naval exercise with Venezuela, its first major maneuvers on the United States' doorstep since the Cold War.

Russian officials denied the mission was in any way linked to a naval standoff with U.S warships in the Black Sea, but it will take place at a time of high tension between Moscow and Washington over the conflict in Georgia.

Russia has criticized the United States for sending a command ship and two other naval vessels to Georgia, on its southern border, to deliver aid and show support for President Mikheil Saakashvili after Moscow sent troops into Georgia.

Bloodbath & Beyond.

From Consumerist:

Bed, Bath & Beyond refused to let some customers use the phone to call 911 after they saw a toddler locked in a hot car in the store's parking lot. The witnesses told the local news that the employees told them, "...You cannot call no one, what goes on in the parking lot is not our concern."

"I said, lady, there is a child out there in a hot car and it's locked and it needs help. And I said, will you let us use your phone and call and she said no, we will not get involved."

The Lexington police arrived, smashed the car window and gave the 3-year-old some water. The mother was arrested and charged with wanton endangerment.

Alternative post title: Bed, Bath & Beyond Decency.

Group offers Jews $50K to move to Alabama.

From Breitbart:

[The] Blumberg Family Relocation Fund is offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least five years, the group's leaders say, and the money doesn't have to be repaid.

Hmm. On one hand, $50K could pretty much buy Alabama with some leftover for your daughter's braces. But on the other hand...

Trying to lure Jewish families to a quiet Southern town in a state with a reputation for hard-right politics and racial intolerance might be difficult. About 20 Jewish families have sought information about Dothan, though none has made the move.

Oh, the decision! Oy, my kishkes!!

New type of Pocky discovered in the Amazon.

CandyAddict, the only blog that matters, stumbled upon a very unique Pocky flavor - Brazilian Pudding! Samba over to their review of multicultural coated pretzel snackage!

“Ooh, a new flavor of Pocky,” I said to myself. No, not out loud, in my head – what, do you think I wanted all the other shoppers to think I was crazy? “The box is kind of pretty. Wait, what the… Brazilian Pudding? What in the blue blazes is Brazilian Pudding?” The only things I could name that came from Brazil were Brazil nuts, jaguars and Brazilian waxing (and we are so not going to go there on a family website). None of those things had anything to do with pudding or Japanese chocolate-coated pretzel sticks.

My curiosity had to be satisfied, so I picked up a box. After all, there was a toucan on the front, and I’ve never been steered wrong by a product with a toucan on the box.

Teen beaten unconscious by flying fish.

It's only a matter of time before all fish start pummeling our faces. We must landlock ourselves before it's too late. Inward, citizens!

It's a fishing tale that packs a wallop so strong it broke the jaw of a southeastern Arkansas teen and covered him in fish blood and guts.

Seth Russell, 15, of Crossett, was cruising Lake Chicot on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a Silver Asian carp leaped from the water and smacked him in the face. Seth was knocked unconscious.

"He doesn't remember anything at all," the boy's mother, Linda Russell, said last week. "He was laughing, and the next thing he remembers, he is waking in a hospital."

The teen has had oral surgery to wire several teeth together and still experiences back pain that doctors attribute to whiplash from the high-speed collision, his mother said.

The end is nigh.

The BBC wonders why everyone's all worked up about the dangers of the Large Hadron Collider recreating the Big Bang as well as thousands of black holes, potentially unraveling existence as we know it (or at least creating a black hole where our planet used to be).

"Why the fascination with the end of the world?" they ask.

Well, maybe I'm not as calm and collected as the BBC, but my fascination with the end of the world is derived from the possibility OF THE END OF THE WORLD.

Cyborg woman has feelings in fake arm.

This is crazy. She can control objects with HER MIND. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!! From ABC News:

As a result of an experimental surgery, Mitchell has become the first real "Bionic Woman": part human, part computer.

[...] The "targeted reinnervation" surgery was developed by Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. It was a radical idea: a robotic arm controlled not by a patient's stump or shoulder, but by a patient's thoughts.

[...] During the six-hour procedure in 2006, doctors took the severed and dormant nerves in Mitchell's shoulder, nerves that are used to control the movement of her arm, and put them under the muscle in her chest.

They wanted the nerves to reawaken and work her chest muscle. The doctors eventually used the electrical nerve signals from that chest muscle to power a new bionic arm.

Now, when Mitchell wants to move her arm, she thinks "move." The signal travels from her brain to the muscle in her chest. According to Kuiken, Mitchell's chest muscle then contracts and "lets tiny bits of electricity out."

There are tiny antennas built into the robotic arm, which pick up these electrical signals. The signals then go to an internal computer that decodes them and tells the artificial arm what to do. It's almost instantaneous.

Follow-up on the sausage bandit.

Fresno Bee has the details, including some really funny ones (the dog ate the weapon!). Reprinted in full because I love this story.

A burglar who broke into a home just east of Fresno rubbed spices over the body of one of two men as they slept in their rooms and then used an 8-inch sausage to whack the other man on the face and head before running out of the house, Fresno County sheriff's deputies said Saturday.

Lt. Ian Burrimond, describing the crime as one of the strangest he's ever heard of, said a suspect was found hiding in a nearby field a few minutes later and taken into custody on suspicion of residential robbery.

Deputies, he said, had no problem linking the suspect to the crime.

"It seems the guy ran out of the house wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts and socks, leaving behind his wallet with his ID," Burrimond said.

Arrested was Antonio Vasquez, 22, of Fresno.

Burrimond said deputies headed to the victims' home in the 300 block of South Thompson Avenue near Kings Canyon Road shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday regarding a burglary in progress.

The victims, both farmworkers, told deputies they were awakened by a stranger applying spices to one of them and striking the other with a sausage.

Both the spices and the sausage, Burrimond said, reportedly were obtained from the victims' kitchen.

After the man fled, the victims discovered the home had been ransacked and that some money was taken, Burrimond said.

Burrimond said the money was recovered, but that the piece of sausage used in the attack was discarded by the suspect and eaten by a dog.

"That's right, the dog ate the weapon," Burrimond said.

"I tell you, this was one weird case."

Burglar wakes men with spice rub, sausage whacks.

This is the coolest burglar ever. If I were a criminal, this is exactly what I would do. Stay tuned because I'm gonna try to find more info on this case. Short item here.

Authorities say they've arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.

Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Ian Burrimond says 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez was found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxers and socks after the Saturday morning attack.

He says deputies arrested Vasquez after finding a wallet containing his ID in the ransacked house.

The farmworkers told deputies the suspect woke them Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an 8-inch sausage.

Trend Spotting: Cupcake boredom.

This is a dumb article from the NY Times because anyone following NYC trends knows that cupcakes were out three years ago. They were supplanted by burgers, then last year's obsessions with frozen yogurt and barbecue, and now it's ramen. (I have it on good authority that the next NYC foodie trends will be pigs' feet and chocolate made by Brooklyn hipsters.)

Anyway, just to put an end to the debate once and for all, the best cupcake place is Sugar Sweet Sunshine. The other places taste like my red velvetty ass in comparison.

Toasters' drummer, John McCain, featured in the Daily News!

Fluffy article about a guy named John McCain who's voting for Obama. But when I gave it a second look, I realized it's none other than Jonathan McCain of the Toasters!

Well, I found it cool, but I am a big ska dork.

Gary Coleman's latest hit.

This should be amusingly bizarre, but I find Gary Coleman-related shenanigans depressing. From Newsday:

Actor Gary Coleman hit a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a local bowling alley, police said.

Payson police Lt. Bill Wright said Colt Rushton and Coleman got into an argument in the early morning hours Saturday over pictures Rushton had taken of Coleman inside the bowling alley. He said the argument continued outside, and that Coleman hit Rushton and a car as he was backing out of a parking space.

Neither man was issued a citation, and Wright said it wasn't clear whether Coleman hit Rushton on purpose. He said neither man was giving authorities much information.

Toxic drinking water found at hundreds of schools in Australia.

Nearly 300 schools in Australia have unsafe drinking water, some with lead levels at 12 times the safe maximum level. It's also inferred that the schools knew about this and didn't inform parents. Article here.

Why does it hurt when I pee? Fed gov't to spend $38m to find out.

The headline is cheeky. This is a good initiative to study chronic urological disorders.

$38 million though? I'll pee in a cup for a lot less... NIH press release here.

Marijuana fights powerful bacteria.

Too bad it's a gateway drug to MADNESS, or else it would save lives and have countless benefit to humankind. From those junkies at the New York Times:

Researchers in Italy and Britain have found that the main active ingredient in marijuana — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — and related compounds show promise as antibacterial agents, particularly against microbial strains that are already resistant to several classes of drugs.

It has been known for decades that Cannabis sativa has antibacterial properties. Experiments in the 1950s tested various marijuana preparations against skin and other infections, but researchers at the time had little understanding of marijuana’s chemical makeup.

The current research, by Giovanni Appendino of the University of the Eastern Piedmont and colleagues and published in The Journal of Natural Products, looked at the antibacterial activity of the five most common cannabinoids. All were found effective against several common multi-resistant bacterial strains, although, perhaps understandably, the researchers suggested that the nonpsychotropic cannabinoids might prove more promising for eventual use.

Follow-Up: Other LI'ers have equally giant zucchinis.

At The Coozer Files, nothing interests us more than ginormous phallic vegetable matter. That is why it pleases us to report that our original report may not be anything special. In fact, many Long Islanders are coming forward with tales of mutant, tubular veggieflesh.

As it turns out, Long Island's wonderful mixture of toxic soil, artificial fertilizer, and cancerous drinking water has created wonderfully mammoth vegetables that no sane person would ever want to eat or stick up their cooter. Article here! Phallic/creepy gallery here!

And you thought American politics were bad...

An Israeli minister is accusing a rival of spending Holocaust funds for election purposes. I'm glad the Holocaust didn't happen in the US, cuz then this shit would be accused and thrown around on a daily basis. Article here, though honestly it just sounds like pissy, juvenile politics as usual.

I'm going to vomit.

My gas is so noxious tonight. It's so utterly foul, my cat threw up.

Here is what I ate today. Please post a comment on what you think is the culprit. It may save my life.

6 cups of coffee.

Fried and broiled tofu with a dipping sauce of Japanese bbq sauce and raw egg. (My cooking)

A soft brie with rosemary crackers.

Rigatoni with eggplant and ricotta. (My wife's cooking)

Two bottles of wine.

Please help.

Devo on the Polysics.

Two of my favorite bands are Devo and the Polysics. The Polysics have styled themselves after Devo, in their own weird Japanese way, and I absolutely love them. But I've always wondered how Devo felt about such close emulation (tho with said weird Japanese-ness). Luckily, Devo recently toured Japan, and here's an awesome Japanese interview with them on this topic (bold mine):

"Actually, Polysics helped us out," Mothersbaugh says of the Tokyo band who copied Devo's visual style so acutely it goes beyond flattery and becomes a bit embarrassing. "We had a case with some of our smaller things in it come off the plane upside down (when Devo arrived in Japan), so one of our key sample triggerers was out. But Polysics had the exact same piece, so they let us program our songs into it. They came to the rescue."

Polysics have never been shy to admit their love for Devo — every Polysics album carries a thank-you to the Ohio band, and when asked for his influences in interviews, frontman Hiroyuki Hayashi has said, "Only Devo." But when both bands appeared just hours apart on the same stage at last month's Summer Sonic festival, both dressed in boiler suits and using similar stage play, it was pretty clear who were the innovators and who were their emulators.

Devo don't seem to care. When asked how it feels to have had such a direct influence on a band more than 10,000 km from home, Jerry Casale, the redhead, says, "Nice. We were always liked by other artists and musicians. We always were embraced by other creative people. We might not have inspired critics," he laughs, "but we inspired other creative people."

As a Coozer aside, can I just say I LOVE the Polysics? My god, gentle reader, pick up some goddamn Polysics!!!