PETA Dissident Names Self KFCruelty.com

19 year-old PETA staffer Chris Garnett has changed his legal name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. The Clog Almanac asks: Will he please consider franchising humanely raised/slaughtered chickens, and come up with a secret recipe better than KFC chicken? Because we're hungry and ready for a new recipe.

More here.

Technorati: KFC, chicken, PETA

New Years Croquet: "No Brag, Just Fact."

Today the afternoon temperatures have pushed into the 70's in north central Florida. No brag, just fact. What to do on a lovely warm and clear winter day, the last day of 2005? Croquet! The Clog-wife's 18 year old son laid out a course around the grounds of Clog House Est. 1935, and we had a jocular tourney under the happy sunlight. Yours truly won the day. I revel in my victory, this once.

Technorati: Florida, New Years, croquet, Will Sonnett

What's New Pussycat? - Tom Jones Knighted

Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Tom Jones.

Schwarzenegger Name Removed From Austrian Stadium

Those life-loving Austrians were a bit peeved when the Governator refused to pardon Tookie, who is dead. In response to a petition from Green Party leader Sigrid Binder, the Graz City Council changed the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium to Graz-Liebenau Stadium, but not before a little political maneuvering and sour grapes from Arnold.

Full details in Richard Bernstein's International Herald Tribune article.

Technorati: Schwarzenegger, Austria, Graz

UK Torture Documents Loose In The World

Blairwatch has posted documents implicating the UK and US in obtaining intelligence from the Uzbek Secret Forces that were gained through torture. Now The Independent has picked up on the story, just a few hours after the documents were circulated by speedy bloggers.

The documents include secret telegrams sent to British Foreign Office superiors by former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. Murray's career path hasn't been all primroses, as this Wikipedia entry attests.

Technorati: torture, Uzbekistan, Craig Murray

United In Death - December 30

The Clog Almanac's Friday Mashup of notables who died on a December 30.

2004 Artie Shaw - American bandleader/clarinetist
1992 Ling-Ling - First beloved panda given to the US by China
1979 Richard Rodgers - American composer of Rodgers & Hammerstein fame
1947 Alfred North Whitehead - British mathematician and philosopher

Pandas aside, this conjunction of musicians and mathematician here interests me. Two of the extremely accomplished musicians in the old-time string band in which I play guitar are also math-heads: professors of mathematics and of ecological modeling, respectively. I'm interested in hearing of other math and music overachievers that visitors to this site might know.

Some math/music links, here, and here. Here's a book, if you're interested.

math, music, math and music

Blog Plagiarism Alert

Om Malik has a post alerting bloggers to the growing problem of wholesale ripping and repurposing of web content by unscrupulous thieves seeking unearned advertising dollars. This problem is likely to get much worse before it gets better.

Florida Crazy - 2005 Sour Orange Awards

Tom Zucco and Craig Pittman have posted the 2005 Sour Orange awards for the wackiest Florida news stories of 2005. A special report from the St. Petersberg Times Online.

Perhaps like me you've missed Dave Barry's regular Miami Herald column which frequently provided side-splitting commentary on some of the Sunshine State's quirkiest residents and their habits. Barry took a sabbatical from the column at the end of last year. Editor and Publisher now report that Mr. Barry will not resume posting the weekly column.

Barry will continue blogging as usual.

Technorati: Florida, Dave Barry

Cheesecake

Our office building suffered a break-in last night. No computers or other office equipment were stolen, the digital cameras were untouched. A few drawers and cabinets were jimmied. Evidently the perpetrator was after cash. The only items missing are the varied contents of the damn community cuss-jar.

On a brighter note, this morning I treated the office mates to an amazingly delicious NYC cheesecake from the Carnegie Deli. It lasted all of 5 minutes. Something there is about the combination of butter and cream cheese that is irresistable.

Technorati: cheesecake

Robbery Victim Outsmarts Police AND Thief

When a graduate student realized that the only copy of her finished masters' thesis had been stolen from her locked car along with her purse and other items, she ignored the police who cautioned she'd never see her stuff again, analyzed the clues, thought like a thief, tracked her stolen property to a Wendy's refuse bin in another town, and recovered the stolen thesis, and other articles.

She must have emerged awfully grimy from the successful dive in the dumpster. Somehow, I think the police are the ones with egg on their faces this time around.

Carnival Of The Vanities #171

The most recent Carnival of the Vanities is up over at Chicken Soup 4 The Damned, where yours truly has a post (purr), below the fold, and below the snarky tonguelashing (grrrr) from the administrator to those who did not follow his submission protocols to the letter and last jod and tilde, and submitted through the Conservative Cat's carnival submission form.

Despite the upbraiding, I retain the pleasure of knowing I've never been much of a jump through arbitrary hoops with a fake smile sort of bloke. Why jump through a hoop when you can run around it? Besides, wouldn't you agree that herding bloggers is more difficult than herding cats, conservative or otherwise? Purr.

Technorati: blog carnivals, Carnival of the Vanities

Not Your Typical Egg-Timer

I frittered away way too much time last night fooling around with this falling sand game.
(via blogdex)

Freedom House 2005 Report

Freedom House has issued its annual press release charting the progress of freedom in the world. Purchase the organization's 800-page 2005 Freedom In The World survey here.
Technorati: freedom, Freedom House

In Praise Of Stanley - Thermos

The Clog-wife and I spent a wonderful 12/23 on Cumberland Island. It was cold but we were dressed accordingly, and had brought plenty of food and hot drinks. Now let me digress and plug praise my thermos.

I carried a quart of hot spiced cider onto the island in my old Stanley thermos. You know the one - big old bluegreen thing with the shiny stainless steel interior and twist-on cup/lid - the one Fred Flintstone might take to the job at the quarry. The cider went into the thermos at a slow boil around 6:00 a.m. When we left the island 13 hours later the remaining cider was still steaming and fit to warm us on the windy sunset cruise back to St. Marys.

Old technology with no moving parts, a tried and true design. I bought the thing at George's Hardware in Gainesville, FL. The neat thing about George's is that the proprietor buys top-condition items at flea markets and antique stores, and displays and sells them on the shelf right next to the new items. I could have purchased a new Stanley thermos, but got this one in perfect condition for 1/4 the price. Ditto with the old hammer, axe, anvil, socket wrenches, chisels, and other things I've picked up at George's over the years.

Key This? Graf That

The year has almost played out and if you're like me, you've just about had it with 2005. The days between Christmas and getting back to work in earnest after the New Year are liminal time-out-of-time days where I just can't bring myself to commit to the daily grind as usual. My head is in a different place and I find myself doing things that I'd not do otherwise. Things like washing my collection of colorful old bottles shaped like banjos and fiddles, which occupy the sunny sill of a long bay window at Clog House Est. 1935, or dusting off my Silvestri accordion.

For this season's betwixt-and-between days I hied me to the hardware store and purchased a tube of powdered graphite and goosed all the locks around the place with the stuff - cars, house, shed, bicycles, toolboxes. I daresay the pleasure derived from feeling a key opening the silky innards of a well-lubed lock exceeds that of even, well, replacing a toilet flapper and fixing that leak that causes the commode to heave a dismayed sigh at annoying intervals.

Noted: December 25th Deaths

For those who died on Christmas day show pity where pity's due,
And likewise, bless the rest of us who's lives are not yet through.
For the living all have work to do, yes, we all have work to do. - CALL


1996 - JonBenet Ramsey - Murdered child beauty queen
1989 - Billy Martin - Famed NY Yankees manager, player
1989 - Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu - executed Romanian dictator and wife
1983 - Joan Miro - Spanish abstract surrealist
1977 - Charlie Chaplin - Blacklisted actor/director and icon
1946 - WC Fields - American comedian, actor, writer, juggler

United In Death - December 23

The Clog Almanac Friday Mashup of people who died on December 23

2000 Victor Borge - Great Dane, Funniest Man In The World
1982 Jack Webb - Joe Friday of US TV series Dragnet
1972 Charles Atlas - legendary bodybuilder and tycoon


My brother and I were once shushed by an attendant on a transatlantic flight because we were laughing so violently at Borge's signature phonetic punctuation of a fairy tale, unwisely piped into the seat headphones.

A Day At The Beach

Tomorrow the Clog-wife and I will spend all day at Cumberland Island National Seashore. Cumberland Island is the southernmost of the famous Georgia Sea Islands.

The place has lots to offer, beginning with a ferry ride, since the island is only accessible by boat. We'll spend the day hiking through woods, past dunes, and combing the beach. I expect to add a shore bird or two to my life list. We hope to glimpse the wild horses, and 0f course, bring back some great photos and memories. The trip is a gift to me from the Clog-wife.

Yes Virginia, There Are Alligators

In Idaho. I'm an Idahoan who lives in Florida and my kin in the West think its pretty neat that I frequently see alligators in my peregrinations. Now that they've discovered that there is an alligator farm in southern Idaho, they've one less reason to come to Florida for a visit.

Idaho, alligator, alligator farm

Barbie Doll Mutilations

You've seen them, the legless, armless Barbie dolls, whose twisted hair couldn't even be salvaged into a bundle of blasted ratty dreadlocks: But that lowly end, that state of hopeless dishevelment is no accident, no this-is-the-way-the-world-ends demise. It's Barbie mutilation.

The horror, the horror.

tags: Barbie, mutilation, girls