WannaGo

17. Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.

This is one of my pet peeves. I hate when the waiter acts as if he's trying to hurry you up so he can get in a few more tips before the night is done.

Surprisingly tobacco use in the US has risen recently, after many years of decline. I believe smokers are about 20% in the US.

How recently are you talking about? The 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health by the Department of Health and Human Services had this:

The rate of current use of any tobacco product among persons aged 12 or older decreased from 29.6 percent in 2006 to 28.6 percent in 2007, but the rates of current use of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipe tobacco did not change significantly over that period. Between 2002 and 2007, past month use of any tobacco product decreased from 30.4 to 28.6 percent, and past month cigarette use declined from 26.0 to 24.2 percent. Rates of past month use of cigars, smokeless tobacco, and pipe tobacco were similar in 2002 and 2007.

With the help of NASA technology, they now use beeswax to clean up oil spills

Wait, I thought oil spills were a liberal myth, like global warming.

It seems as if this is all calculated to inflame people as much as possible...which is irresponsible as hell.

I find these superstitions rather silly, myself.

Yeah, me too...but so many crappy things have happened to me on Friday the 13th that I just can't help it. It's the only superstition I allow myself to indulge, so I figure I'm OK.

I remember a story about the government buying overpriced tolet seats.

Didn't you see Independence Day? The overpriced toilet seats, hammers, etc. was all just cover so the government could funnel money into secret research of the Roswell landing.

Obama is the third US rep to publicly deliver that message in the last month...looks like we're making a coordinated effort to put pressure on the junta.

The last paragraph of the story paints a pretty dire picture, doesn't it?

Whatever the tactics, everybody can agree on one thing: time is running out. Modeling by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit published in the Malaria Journal in February predicts that if nothing is done in the next two decades, "resistance to artemisinins will be approaching 100%." And if that happens, it won't be long until the resistant strain spreads from Cambodia's precious gem mines to Africa, putting half the world's population at risk of catching what would be an untreatable, deadly disease.

More protests on Sunday by the yellow shirts over Thaksin's visit to Cambodia. According to the following report, four people were hurt when somebody on a motorbike threw a firecracker into the crowd.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091115/wl_afp/thailandcambodiapoliticsprotest

I've read in several stories that people were injured, but nothing so far has explained how they were hurt. Given that it was just a firecracker and not an actual explosive device, I'm assuming the sound caused people to panic and trample each other, and that's how the injuries occurred. Anyone know for sure?

It is bad enough that the bailiff has to tell guys to take off their ball caps.

You know you are way down in the South when you see a bailiff tell a guy to leave the courtroom so he can spit out his chewing tobacco.

On the flip side, at one time, most everyone believed the earth to be flat.

Kinda sums it up, don't it?

Don't know about you guys, but foreskin creeps me out a little.

All I can say is thank god they didn't have mobile phone cameras or other video equipment around when I was a teenager (or in my early 20's too). Most people do a few stupid things that are surely best forgotten (and definitely not documented!).

I hear ya...in a few instances I can remember, the video would have been called "prosecution exhibits."

Read something this morning that said not only does Palin not attack Levi in her new book...but she writes it as if he wasn't even on the campaign trail with the family.

Back in my hometown, we used to joke that a criminal is somebody that's so dumb that even a detective can catch him (which, of course, was a double swipe at both the dumbass criminals and the Barney Fife's of our police department).

There's a sheriff's department in Florida that started a anti-gang squad of undercover cops and actually named it the ROGUE Unit (I forget what the acronym stood for). They couldn't figure out why anybody thought the name was a bad idea. First week, they shot an unarmed retarded black man in the back.

Before Spice magazine was called Spice it was called Sticky Rice. The guy who picked that name didn't know what Sticky Rice referred to.

LMAO

That's what I loved about the Tea Party crowd when they first started all their protests a few months ago...they kept talking about tea-bagging and had no idea what they hell it meant. Might have been immature, but I laughed til I cried.

I have know guys who were too well endowed...

Now there's a problem I wouldn't mind having for a little while.

Considering the fact that I made a point not to leave the house today because it's Friday the 13th, I won't even try to claim that I'm not at least a little superstitious...not sure how happy I would be if I had to walk past bad-luck statues and then get on a freaking airplane.

In N. America and Europe having daylight saving time during the winter months would be counterproductive. People would be getting up in the dark and using more electricity to get ready to go to work or school.

California looked at going to year-round DST a while back...according to the state energy commission, "Daylight Saving Time saves energy for lighting in all seasons of the year except for the four darkest months of the year (November, December, January and February) when the afternoon advantage is offset by the need for lighting because of late sunrise."

Not sure I buy the idea that DST saves much energy at all.

Interestingly, researchers from the University of California-Santa Barbara conducted an energy study last year in Indiana, where only half the state is on DST, and came to this conclusion:

Our main finding is that — contrary to the policy's intent — DST increases residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase are approximately 1 percent, but we find that the effect is not constant throughout the DST period. DST causes the greatest increase in electricity consumption in the fall, when estimates range between 2 and 4 percent. These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. We estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $9 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.7 to $5.5 million per year. Finally, we argue that the effect is likely to be even stronger in other regions of the United States.

Thaksin is either ballsy or stupidly arrogant...not sure which.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Thailand said Friday it would not be provoked into violence in its diplomatic tussle with Cambodia over fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, even as the ousted leader taunted the Bangkok government by meeting with political supporters in the neighboring country.

Thaksin's visit to Thailand's doorstep has highlighted his ability to command headlines in his homeland and destabilize its politics, even three years after he lost power and fled into exile.

Dozens of opposition politicians and other Thaksin supporters drove across the border into Cambodia to meet with the ousted leader, irritating Thailand's government, which considers him a convicted criminal and a threat to its power.

Thaksin's warm welcome in Cambodia has strained already uneasy bilateral relations.

On Thursday, Cambodia expelled a senior Thai diplomat and arrested a Thai employee of Cambodia Air Traffic Services — which manages flights in the country — for allegedly stealing Thaksin's flight schedule and giving it to the diplomat.

More

The majority does not rule?

You're being facetious, right?

As I recall in the US many establishments have signs that read, "NO SHIRT, NO SHOES. NO SERVICE."

Yeah, I'm not surprised when I see some yahoo wandering into a restaurant or a store shirtless or shoeless...but I have a hard time wrapping my head about the idea of a person too ignorant to realize he shouldn't show up at the courthouse without a shirt on.

Sounds like Afghanistan, pre-invasion.

Not exactly the same...the chaos in Afghanistan ended about the mid-90s when the Taliban took over. There was no freedom, but there was social order. The Taliban had the country tightly controlled, except for a few remaining opium warlords in the north, when the US invaded in 2001. Somalia, on the other hand, has had little social order since the civil war started in the early 90s. The religious militants have tried to impose control through Islamic law, but the country is still fragmented and unstable.

Do most see this as another Jihadist terrorist act?

So far, there's been nothing to indicate this guy was an extremist. Even DoD says the contact he had with a radical cleric -- which was intercepted and monitored -- was strictly for research purposes. Read something today from a profiler who says the whole thing plays out more like the crazed-loner mass murder scenario that we see in the news three or four times a year.

Barney Frank has never struck me as a particularly clever man...but then, I guess I could say that about the majority of Congress.

But hey, at least he ain't Michele Bachmann.

I agree 100 %, although it doesn't necessarily screw up all kids. Tiger Woods seems like a well adjusted adult. Although for the one success I bet there are many failures.

Exceptions prove the rule.