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A federal employee gets hassled by Homeland Security for antiwar stickers on his car. Is it a mistake, a new rule, or the part of a trend of the First Amendment being bullied out of existence? Read the transcript, read the rules and decide for yourself

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Suppose a politician promised to reveal the details of a simple proposal that would, if adopted, produce hundreds of billions of dollars in savings for American consumers, significant reductions in traffic congestion, major improvements in urban air quality, large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and substantially reduced dependence on Middle East oil. The politician also promised that the plan would require no net cash outlays from American families, no additional regulations and no expansion of the bureaucracy.

As economists often remind their students, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So this politician’s announcement would almost surely be greeted skeptically. Yet a policy that would deliver precisely the outcomes described could be enacted by Congress tomorrow — namely, a $2-a-gallon tax on gasoline whose proceeds were refunded to American families in reduced payroll taxes.

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Kane Quinnell’s photograph of lightning striking his neighbour’s house in Old Toongabbie. The picture features in a new Bureau of Meteorology calendar for 2006.

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Sen. Arlen Specter helped direct almost $50 million in
Pentagon spending during the past four years to clients of the husband of one of his top aides, records show.

Specter, R-Pa., used a process called “earmarking” 13 times to set aside $48.7 million for six clients represented by lobbyist Michael Herson and the firm he co-founded, American Defense International. The clients paid Herson’s firm nearly $1.5 million in fees since 2002, federal lobbying records show.

Binnenkort op de televisie…

met dank aan geenstijl:

Goedenmorgen Mercatorplein. Onderweg naar Mekka, Goede Hakbars Slechte Hakbars, Oliekust, Djellabahoek, De Glazen Moskee, Slotervaartse Vrouwen, De Rijdende Profeet, Bassie & Mohammed, Medisch Centrum 020-West, Geytengeur en Thee-lime, De Keyzer & De Mullah Advocaten, Man bijt Kameel, Eigen Moskee & Tuin, Osdorps Next Top Model, Wie is de Kafir? Met het kromzwaard op tafel. Zestien Miljoen Imams, Jouw Schaap Mijn Schaap, Moskeejenpad, As the world burns, Jouw schaap, mijn schaap, Netgeenwerk, Mad about everything, Besnijden doe je zo!, Knoop in je hoofddoek, CSI:Kanaleneiland, Hoe schoon is jouw balkon? Boer zoekt geit, Villa Achterbuurt, Schaap op de weg, Alle maagden tellen mee, Temptation Thuisland, Blingo, Get the prophets picture, De Hamas jongerendag, Talitubbies, Help mijn man is berber, zeg eens Allah, Toen was een burka heel gewoon, Dagboek van een Christenhond

(er zijn overigens zoveel arabische, turkse en marokkaanse satelietkanalen gratis uit de lucht te plukken dat de kans dat Cohen op deze manier extra kijkers trekt voor een duur kabelabonnement gewoon nul is)

Als er iemand preventief geruimd moet worden, is het Van den Anker, wethouder (Volksgezondheid) van Leefbaar Rotterdam wel.

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Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said Wednesday that he has lost confidence in the state’s ability to hold fair and secure elections this fall, and called for paper receipts for Maryland’s electronic voting machines and the delay of early-voting procedures approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature.

In a sharply worded letter to the chairman of the State Board of Elections, Ehrlich said he is concerned about the controversy over Diebold Elections Systems’ electronic voting machines in other states, which use technology similar to that of Maryland’s touch-screen voting equipment.

It’s so useful they have to pay you to use it.

Tell me if didn’t see this one coming:
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On Tuesday, blogger “Oilman” of Oilman.ca found that MSN appeared to have used a rudimentary search engine optimization tactic, “keyword stuffing”–which involves including the secret contest-winning keywords in the site’s meta-keywords tag. Oilman posted the list of 1,165 keywords to his blog. Some of the terms appear correlated to the prizes; the terms “Starbucks,” “Starbucks locations,” and “Starbucks gift card” likely all refer to the Starbucks Gift Card prize. Other keywords, such as “iconoclast,” “placenta,” and “Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,” a 19th-century German-born modernist architect, are more cryptic.