After years leading Palestinians in their struggle against Israel, Yasser Arafat has decided on a new career. He has accepted an appointment to lead a small, blue race in their own struggle. Arafat will be crowned the new Papa Smurf early next week.

“Smurfs have lived under the thumb of that Semite Dog Gargomel long enough. Under my guidance they will finally live free,” the former PLO leader claimed.

The former Papa Smurf, whose real name is Karl Lafargue, was on hand when Arafat received the news of his appointment. Lafargue has served as Papa Smurf since 1981 and is stepping down from the post citing his failing health. However, inside sources claim that Papa Smurf is bowing to political pressure from militant smurfs who seek to gain independence from Gargomel, a regional war lord.

And now, your Conversation Enhancement of the Day:

Screwed by design

Used in a sentence:
I’m quite sure I’ve been involved in several business ventures that were screwed by design.

Shamlessly scraped from In Passing.

If you’ve never heard of Chipotle (pronounced Chee-Poat-Lay), then you simply must pay a visit to a state that has these behemoth burrito outlets. I loves me some Chipotle. But to be honest, a Chipotle burrito is prototypical American gluttony.

The following WBQotW (#4 for those keeping count) comes from a comment made to a Chipotle customer just before engaging his recently purchased, tortilla wrapped pound and a half of glut.

“You realize that all of that will eventually have to come back out of you.”

I don’t know about you, but that just ruined MY lunch.

What happens when you use a WYSIWYG editor to build your web page, and then you click one of the format buttons over and over? You get code that looks something like this:

<BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><B><BIG><BIG>
Home Building Manual
</BIG></BIG></B></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG>

Nice, huh? Well, what happens when you view it? IE incorrectly ignores the extra tags, thus encouraging bad code. Here’s the page in a 1024 x 768 window in IE.

But view the same page in FireFox, which correctly and dutifully obeys the rotten HTML code, in the same 1024 x 768 window, and you get something like this.

To be precise, that’s 814 px font. Now, THAT is BIG!

Here is the actual page. See for yourself.

(Link via Randy Pants.)

Check out this awesome Flash presentation for HPs new line of iPAQ hand helds. Double wow.

On a side note, I really dig Regine Hohnsbein’s accent. Kind of like Ahhnold, but sexier… Hmm. That sound really weird after I said it.

http://h41111.www4.hp.com/gomobile/uk/en/learning_centre/videos/ipaq_flash.html

(Link via Airbag.)

There was a time, decades ago, that the NAACP was a civil rights organization devoted to defending the life and liberty of Americans of color. Sadly that time has long past and the NAACP is no longer working for the Advancement of Colored People. Instead, it has become the most bigoted and hate driven organization in the DNC’s arsenal.

Case in point:
Georgianne Pitts, “working on behalf of the NAACP National Voter Fund”, has admitted to paying a drug addict to file over 100 false voter registrations. The payment? Crack cocaine.

Chad Station was arrested for filing 124 voter registrations in Toledo, Ohio, using many names, including Mary Poppins, and Janet Jackson. He told police he was filing the false voter cards in return for drugs.

When police searched Ms. Pitts residence they found more drugs and more registration forms.

How could the NAACP condone giving out drugs? Easy. Chad Pitts is white. They’s just bringin’ down da man! Das all, sho’ nuf.

the complete story

We are creatures of habit after all, and it is the third week of October. Time to break out the funny pumpkin pictures. Every year, I think I’ve seen them all, but no! There’s always a new silly squash to make my Halloween bright.

Please comment with links to your own favorites!

Oh… I almost cried… but I’m going to hell for it.

Ever have one of those moments when you can’t stop laughing about something, even when it’s really off color or tacky? My boss, Dave had just such a moment, and from it, I gleaned this great quip.

Just incase you were looking for more signs that the end of the universe is just around the corner…

It’s official, Warner Brothers is slated to release a movie version of “The Dukes of Hazzard” in 2005. Yes, the show that brought us the worst cultural stereotypes in history is going to the silver screen. And it gets worse, as hard as that is to believe.

	Seann William Scott (aka Stifler from American Pie) as Bo		Johnny Knoxville (aka Jackass) as Luke		Jessica Simpson (aka the worst airhead in America) as Daisy
	Willie Nelson (aka the nastiest long haired man ever) as Uncle Jesse		Burt Reynolds (aka should have retired after Smokey and the Bandit 2) as Boss Hogg	Stifler, Jackass, Jessica “Chicken of the Sea” Simpson, Willie “Wash your hair” Nelson, and Good ol’ Burt doing Dukes of Hazzard; proof positive that there is no God in Hollywood. I can’t wait. This is going to be the most sucktacular movie of all time!

(Kudos to Apropos of Something for the tip.)

Someone please help me! I seem to have forgotten how to add.

Last week (Thur., Oct. 7) Several financial news outlets reported, and I quote, “Jobless Claims Decline Sharply.” An Associated Press article said:

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of new people signing up for unemployment insurance benefits dropped by a seasonally adjusted 37,000 to 335,000, the lowest level since the beginning of September. In the prior three weeks, claims had gone up.

The latest snapshot of the layoffs climate was better than economists were expecting. They were expecting claims to decline to around 355,000.

So, that’s great news! Unemployment is down. Right? Well…

This week (Thurs., Oct. 14), an AP article explicitly blamed the Bush administration for the fact that jobless claims are up this week. It states:

The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose by 15,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted level of 352,000…
…
[The labor market] is continuing to confound economists’ expectations.
…
The administration … argues that its policy … represents the best approach to keeping America competitive in a global economy.

However, the nation has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs over the past four years and some sectors vulnerable to foreign trade such as textiles have been particularly hard hit

Ooh doom and gloom. Boooo Bush! Okay. Now for my math problem:

335 + 37 = 372

So, there were about 372,000 jobless claims at the end of September, but only 335,000 the following week. And this was reported as good news. So good in fact that it was “was better than economists were expecting.” They thought it would only go down “to around 355,000.” But this week:

335 + 15 = 350

If claims went up by 15,000 this week, then there should be 350,000 jobless claims this week, but somehow 335 plus 15 is not equal to 350, it’s 352. Okay, whatever. Even if you allow for the rules of addition to be “skewed” a bit:

352 < 372 So, we are STILL better off now than we were two weeks ago. Further more: 352 < 355 Which is to say that we're better off now than even the skeptics thought we would be last week. Never the less, the AP insists that the economy is SO BAD that even economists can't understand it. Apparently, I can't understand it either. As for me and my circle of friends, just three years ago, I and most of my friends WERE unemployed and suffering badly. But somehow, magically, we all found jobs in this horrible economy. We're all employed and prospering. I just got a plump profit sharing check last week that tells me my company is doing VERY well. Hmm. Go figure.