Girl finds two-headed toad in Hopkinton

Take a quick look at the pair of toads 4-year-old Casey Dicken found in her grandparents’ pool yesterday, and they look relatively normal.

They may even look like they’re doing something a 4-year-old shouldn’t see and probably wouldn’t understand.

But look closer, and there’s something different about the two toads.

They are one. They’re connected. The two amphibians are conjoined, un-identical twins.

Do what? They look like they’re doing it to me. Oh, wait, what’s this….

Mating toads, not mutants

Looks can be deceiving. It’s as simple as that. To the untrained observer, two toads enjoying a romantic moment together could easily be mistaken for an exotic, two-headed mutant.

They were so committed to the task at hand that nothing could separate them.

Not even the chlorine of an Alprilla Farm Road swimming pool. Nor the shrieks and cries of 4-year-old Casey Dicken, who discovered the seemingly mutated organism Sunday in her grandparents swimming pool. And certainly not the probing inquiries of a curious bunch that had never witnessed such a spectacle.

But in the end, it was nature, not science-fiction, that explained the apparent phenomenon.

It was just a couple of horny toads.

So what happened to Norman Miller, the “journalist” who wrote the first story? Who knows….

Google Persuader for results ending April 15th, 2002:

Loft story is something French that probably has nothing to do with tax forms or that hottie Elin Nordegren who’s boyfriend won the Masters but still didn’t win the Big Game Lottery or the London Marathon though he did go to Venezuela to try and run in the Boston Marathon only to realize Boston’s in Rhode Island or something like that but maybe loft story has something to do with Turbo Tax of Ugadi greetings, but I doubt it.

I need to stop doing this.

Now THAT’S more like it. Traffic’s actually getting to some sort of normal levels now. Yep. The whole Elin Nordegren fad’s dying down and I’m not doing much more political punditry stuff so I’m going to have to pull traffic on my own. But I’m not complaining, I’m still getting about 50-100 hits a day which is fine with me. At least it’s by my own efforts and not by accident.

Thunderwear

Freaky Ice Online

Jet Powered Bike?

The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamers’s Bible, 2nd Edition

Rate My Implants

Quoth the server….

Fistulated Cows at UC Davis

Why do we hate Flava Flay? Read on:

EXTREME KINDNESS!!!!!

Are you ready to take it to the extreme?

RAOK of the week: bake a cake for someone (they might even let you have a piece)

Bad Cookie

Tourette Syndrome Simulator

Where:

Oh, Jason, you’re so beefy!

becomes:

Oh, JASON, bollocking YOU’RE shit so wank BEEFY!

Pull My Finger

How to be a `web’ `designer’

There is an increasing amount of `web’ `design’ around at the moment, and you may well want to get involved in this exciting trend. Here’s how:

David Barzelay’s “Hello, My Future Girlfriend” Page

Drive your car on 100% used vegetable oil!!

Greasecar vegetable Fuel Systems allow any diesel vehicle to run on straight, unprocessed vegetable oil. Vegetable oil as fuel is a cleaner, safer and less expensive alternative to petroleum based fuel. It can be locally produced, even grown in your back yard.

Predator Pee

John’s Beer Drinking Records

I have been keeping records of the beer that I have drunk since March 1988. They are stored online and the totals are added up at approximately the end of each month.

Commando Chicks

You know what? Uh-uh, nope, I’m sorry. I’m all for vegetarians doing their thing and what not (hell, my girlfriend’s one) and I’m all for them trying to educate, but this damn militant vegetarian crap pisses me off. Look, I don’t get at you over what you eat, so you have no right to get at me over what I eat (well, the fact I eat crap, yes, that I eat meat, no). Leave me and my meat caracass be.

How DePaul University Does Incident Response

DePaul University is serious about computer and network security. When we discover a problem with one of our hosts or users, we respond quickly and appropriately.

All about electronic masturbation

You have been invited to help me build the world’s most impressive collection of ABC (”already been chewed”) gum! Other invitees include actress SUZANNE SOMERS, diplomat HENRY KISSINGER, game show host JOHN DAVIDSON, cosmonaut YURI GAGARIN, actor ED ASNER, activist JESSE JACKSON, disc jockey CASEY KASEM, and actress JUSTINE BATEMAN.

Yodeler settles his lawsuit against Yahoo!

Wylie Gustafson can really shout “Yahoo!” now.

The cowboy yodeler from Dusty, Washington, has settled his copyright infringement lawsuit against Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. for using his distinctive yodel in its national advertising.

“They wanted to do the right thing and pay for a vocalization that has become a worldwide trademark,” Gustafson said Monday from his ranch in the small town south of Spokane.

Musician to Napster judge: Let my music go

“I am not alone,” he wrote. “Literally thousands of musicians like me, who are purportedly represented by record companies and distributors in the current Napster case, are in my situation.”

“The record companies’ representation that they are legitimate agents for their artists is false,” he continued. “The only payments they make are to those who have the means to force them to be accountable; to the rest, a vast majority, they pay nothing. Therefore, allowing them to collect fees in our behalf does not serve the public interest. I personally would prefer to allow my music to be freely shared, to the present situation, in which only the corporations stand to gain. Until this is changed, the record companies and publishers deserve nothing.”

The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act — a closer look

Anyone who has been following general legal news or the computer trade press over the past few weeks likely has heard that there is proposed legislation in Congress that will destroy the computer industry. The bill in question was originally sponsored by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina as the “Security Systems Standards and Certification Act.”

Senator Hollings’s bill is now called the “Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act” (”CBDTPA”). It has drawn a good deal of criticism from computer experts, computer-related businesses, and First Amendment advocates. Claims have been made that the bill assaults computer programmers’ First Amendment rights and would destroy the personal computer industry. However, few, if any, of the news articles written about the CBDTPA bother to explain what the bill actually says, let alone explain very clearly *how* the bill assaults First Amendment rights or would destroy the computer industry.

Porn star-turned-porn opponent Lovelace dead

Linda Boreman, who starred as Linda Lovelace in the 1972 pornographic film “Deep Throat” and later became an anti-porn advocate, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a car crash. She was 53.

Father bites off son’s thumb, keeps it in his mouth for hours, police say

A man who told police he bit off his 2-year-old son?s thumb, and apparently held it in his mouth for about six hours, was arrested for child abuse and aggravated assault, authorities said Sunday.

Police responding to a 911 call Saturday night found Raymond Jones running on a street naked, said police Sgt. Bill Knight.

Jones, 39, told detectives he had taken several hits of the hallucinogen PCP and had swallowed his son?s thumb because he wanted to mix their DNA, Knight said.

However, Jones apparently had the thumb in his mouth rather than swallowing it, and coughed it out while he was being interviewed by police.

He did this to his 2-year-old kid. A wee one. Bastard. He’ll probably get the crap beat outta him in jail.

I spent the first ten years of my life knowing only one other Jason. Then, suddenly, there were billions just like me, Jason running around, wondering why everyone else was named Jason. From 1976-1980 it reached it’s peak and was the SECOND most popular name for boys. ARUGH!!!!

And I must say John Hiler from over at Microcontent News is a swell guy. I’ve been corresponding with him over the past day and it’s just really neat. Good guy.

The Bean Dog Abduction

One dude’s efforts to stop a good engineer from leaving the company.

For years, Apple has proudly manufactured slow, unreliable, stupid looking computers and sold them at ridiculously high prices!

And with the recent unveiling of the new iMac, Steve Jobs had an idea.

“I have an idea!” he said. “Since most folks seem to think our new iMac is just a really really expensive desk lamp, maybe we should start manufacturing household appliances!”

Steve then danced around a bit, before adding “Hey! Since we’re in the business of making crap, why not start with a toilet?!”

I think they’re making fun of my lunch…

Kenny’s Krib Not me, some other Kenny.

Who Would You Kill on Sesame Street

Get Homland Security

Fake Dr. Pepper Land Dr. Perky rules.

Eat My Hand Bag Bitch

Take the What High School Stereotype Are You? quiz, by Angel.

Bit more on the warblogging front Meryl Yourish tried to respond to me (bottom of the post) but the comments broke. Damnation! Oh well, thanks anyways!

From Reid Stott, aka PhodoDude (thanks to Doc for the original link)

Give the man a dollar. We’re not warblogs, and not peaceblogs, not just because they’re silly words of limited scope and even duration, but because … we’re people! We each cover the range of subjects that interests us, and thus each web log is unique, not part of some Greater Dichotomy.

Oh, sure, you can view it as such. But then you’re missing the point.

Today I’ve watched a TV correspondent surfing the web on the air to convey information during a breaking newscast, and watched web loggers argue about who should or shouldn’t have their web log entries published in a book. But despite these new bumps and surges of convergence, we can’t seem to get away from either/or and us/them. The truth is Jason wrote some very worthy things related to 9-11, whether anyone describes him as a “warblog” or not.

And on the other side of the coin, there are indeed people who may not have been First Wavers like Jason but were veteran bloggers long before 9-11, who consider themselves generally left of center, yet fully support the war on terrorism.

And don’t care if they are published in a book or not.

So build me my own cubbyhole. No label, please.

And lately I’ve been wondering where I fit in here. Not that I want to fit in. Just that I think I’ve fallen in. I’ve become a warblogger. Damn my newsjunkie appetite.

You know what? That does it. Back to basics. No more. J’s Notes will, for the next day or so (or hour, I don’t know how long I can hold it up) go back to being a bunch of kick ass links to fun sites and stupid articles or things of interest that are just neat. Screw this war stuff. I’m done with it. Well, I’m going to try to be done with it. I think that’s part of what’s bumming me out. War sucks. And people who are warmongers suck. But so are morons who argue against these things but with no reasoning. I can’t stand people who do not have a foundation for their beliefs and get frustrated by people who will not listen to reason. Those are the people reeling me in, and I’m through with it. Done. Gone.

Okay, that may be a lie, but I don’t care. I’m a politically/news minded person and actually have a slight desire to get into journalism some day, so don’t mind me if I go off on a political/news related rant time to time. And don’t mind me if I get all personal, it is my site after all and I’m going to use it as a journal kinda thing.

But I’ve been bummed as hell lately and this crap isn’t helping. I want the fun shit again, don’t you?

Yeah, keepin’ it real.

Thanks to Mike Sanders, Mike Porter, and Jennifer E. for bringing me to my senses.

If you can’t find what you want here, embrace the open source model. Fuck up your life and tell us about it! Or at least send us stuff for the site so your fellow parasites can feast their eyes on it.

Church of the Covert Cosmos

The CotCC has only two core articles of faith. And they’re pretty easy ones:

You exist.

If you didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be reading this Web page now, would you? Since you are, you must exist. If you don’t believe you exist, you need a nice nap.

I exist.

If I didn’t exist, this Web page wouldn’t be here for you to read. That would mean you’re hallucinating right now, and we know that’s not true, don’t we? Now I may not be who I say I am, and I may not be who you think I am. In fact, I may not even be who I think I am. But I am. Actually, I may have existed at one time, but ceased to exist after I coded this page…. But that makes things too complicated. Forget I mentioned it.

Dancing With Cats Dude, my cat would kick my ass if I tried this crap with her.

Dexter Ray

I’m 5 years old and this is my blog! And I can barely write! See pictures of me riding my bike and some of my drawings.

Choose Your Own Adventure Your Fun, Fun Relationship

MLB.com Condensed Game It’s a whole baseball game in about 20 minutes or so. Superfast!

Smurfs: Aryan Puppets or Harmless Cartoon Toys?

Wanna play dodge ball?

Racial Slur Database

The Elephant House

Looney Toons!!!

Celebrity Mullet Hunt

Dr. Flockter, the Web site that can read your mind

Dr. Flockter is the ultimate expression of modern heuristic analysis using neural network structures combined with a massive database of rule-based information on human behavior. In short, it’s a Web site that can read your mind.

Can Weblogs Get Their Own BBC TV Show?

Objective

To have a news-based show (focusing on the weblog community and their interests) commissioned by the BBC.

How You Can Help

You can help to make this happen by giving your feedback regarding the proposed formats, emailing the Genre Managers involved, and linking to this page.

I just like the picture a whole lot. “Moby attacked by vicious pussy”. Heh.

Darts!

Kaliber 10000 Smooth site with smooth content.

BabySmasher.com

Here, you can read the truth about Baby Smashers, which are available to the public all over the nation under the guise of “Baby Changing Stations”. BabySmasher.com exists to provide the public with a means of spreading the truth about Baby Smashers - educating more people about the true use of these devices.

I sir, am he

The Son of God walks into a bar and orders a drink. It’s a Monday night and the bar is crowded with guys named Todd. They’re all named Todd. They’re all wearing white ball caps and plaid shirts. The game is on.

“I’ll have a Sex on the Beach,” the Son of God says.

The bartender says, “Hey, ain’t you the Son of God?”

To which the Son of God replies, “I sir, am he.” He then pulls his robe around his legs - tugging it under his crotch - and slides onto a barstool. Three moves. He pulled it off in three moves without getting his robe stuck on nothing.

This is the Son of God we’re talking about. He’s a real cool character.

Cigarettes, Tea Linked to Lower Parkinson’s Risk

New research provides more evidence of the unusual link between smoking and a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Nude pic shocker for Anna

Tennis smasher Anna Kournikova is to be served up nude in a men?s magazine.

The Russian star will appear in June?s US edition of Penthouse after a freelance snapper took pictures of her with a long lens.

A Penthouse source insisted they were high-quality shots and would be used in a ?lovely, tasteful pictorial?.

Oh my…. That’s some trophy…

Interesting point on the protests here in DC this weekend.

And an interesting take on them:

In my mind, I’ve always thought that leftist protest events inevitably yield hot, free spirited hippie chicks. Isn’t that the way it is on TV? You know, girls with lose morals, lose clothes, and long, flowing, sun bleached hair? Man, was I ever wrong. We got unshaved fat girls falling out of their clothes. And that’s about it.

Very insightful.

Moussaoui: Lawyers Are Conspiring

A man accused of conspiracy to commit terrorism in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks declared in court Monday that he was ending cooperation with his court-appointed lawyers and said he prayed to Allah for the destruction of the United States and Israel.

A hearing on Zacarias Moussaoui’s conditions of imprisonment took a sudden turn when Moussaoui, who could face the death penalty, raised his hand at the outset and said the government and his attorneys were part of a plan to execute him.

“It’s a sophisticated version of the kiss of death,” Moussaoui, speaking at the lawyer’s podium, told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

“The United States will not have a trial without me,” he said. “They only need me for the gas chamber.”

Oof.

And he may not be completely wrong. I mean, think about it. Look at the total hysteria still around from September 11th and how an attorney attempting to defend someone who most of America has already deemed guilty might be under a wee bit of pressure, publically and professionally, to act a certain way. One that might not be what is best for his client. It’s unfortunate, but that’s what’s happened. Innocent until proven guilty is completely out the window, gone, kaput, the Bush administration saw to that when they detained THOUSANDS of Arabs and Arab Americans for no more reason than that they were Arab.

And win or loose, Maussaoui’s out of America. He can’t stay here, not if he wants to live, the public have found him guilty and if a court finds otherwise, the public will have their way with him. Sad, really.

And THIS pisses me off!

How damn short sighted can you be? Now, I’m about to go off on a rant here, not about Israel, but about Iraq and the Gulf War.

Ahem.

WE COULD NOT SAFELY REMOVE SADDAM FROM POWER IN 1991!!!!!

Now for the reasons.

Who would have replace him? There was no strong successor in place, the government would have been in shambles. Sure, we could let the Kurds fight for it, but they hardly represent the Iraqi people, living primarily in the north and only being a small percentage of the overall population. That and the fact that Turkey hates them too (but, of course, they’re NATO so we forgive them of any problems there). The best they could do is break off, so, yea, you now have a balkanized Iraq that’s a bunch of weak states. And if that didn’t happen, and it all reamined one Iraq, you’d still have a government with no direction, no strong leader to show it the way. A puppet government supplied by us. Yea, nation building!

Then we’re looking at a permanant military presence in the middle east, and while we wouldn’t want that, we’d have no choice because as soon as we stepped away, the balance of power enters another court.

Iran.

Ah, yes, one third of the axis of evil would have held complete control over the middle east. Really. Iraq and Iran hate each other. Saddam is great for keeping Iran in check. They spend most of their time and resources keeping an eye on each other. That’s good. It keeps them from turning their full attention elsewhere, say, Israel or Afghanistan.

So everyone who’s out their bitching about how we should have finished the job ten years ago needs to stop and think a bit. No, I mean REALLY think. Screw this armchair pundit bullshit, I want you to do some reasearch, read up a bit, and realize that the best thing we could have done is what we did because the alternatives are a hell of a lot worse.

What can we do about it now? Not much, really. The Bush Administration is looking at attempting an Afghani style of campaign in Iran, fund the resistance and have them overthrow Saddam. Only, there’s one problem. Saddam has done a wonderful job of keeping any resistance weak and without a central leader. He had killed his own brother because he saw him as a threat. There is no one figure who can lead Iraq other than Saddam.

So what are we do to? Let’s bomb the hell out of him again. We need to remove his capacity to carry out any aggression on his neighbors and his ability to make and use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. We also need to limit his ability to fund terrorist activities in other areas (West Bank). Then require him to allow not just UN inspectors, but NATO and Arab League inspectors into his country. It was our inability and unwillingness to force Saddam to accept the sanctions and inspections that has led to where we are now, not just that he’s still in power.

Unless the administration knows something I don’t and have a strong successor waiting.

I’m sure there’s a better long term solution, let me think on that more and I’ll rant again in the future.

You can tell the tourists in this town (DC) because they’re the ones who stop and watch every police escort that goes by. Another one just went by my job and I looked out the window to see a handful of people on the sidewalk and half the folks in the park across the street all watching the cars go by, their heads bouncing back and forth like they were watching tennis or something. Funny, really.

Aerial Photographs of Jenin

Nominations for the BlogBook concerning September 11th.

America Can Persuade Israel to Make a Just Peace

Ariel Sharon is a strong and forceful man and has never equivocated in his public declarations nor deviated from his ultimate purpose. His rejection of all peace agreements that included Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands, his invasion of Lebanon, his provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the destruction of villages and homes, the arrests of thousands of Palestinians and his open defiance of President George W. Bush’s demand that he comply with international law have all been orchestrated to accomplish his ultimate goals: to establish Israeli settlements as widely as possible throughout occupied territories and to deny Palestinians a cohesive political existence.

All from Jimmy Carter.

MINIGOLF!!!!

The Crime Library

The Evolution of Alex Trebek’s Hair!!!!

When the tater gun’s in the shop, there’s always Cheese Racing

milksucks.com

In reporting McKinney’s insatiable appetite for her own boots, The Washington Post noted that McKinney has often “given voice to radical critiques of U.S. policy, especially in the Middle East.” Given voice? Radical critiques? Let’s call a farm implement a farm implement and translate that for the nice folks back home: “McKinney has made yet another over-the-top publicity grab, not yet grasping that most Americans consider her an imbecile.”