New wave of Jessica Simpson jokes in 5...4...3... The dumb blonde can't even spell "desert"! No wait... it IS supposed to be "dessert". Love the re-purposing of the old Charlie the Tuna "good taste - taste good" meme. more inside

Bra Tax I couldn't make this up if I tried. This is another great idea from George W. Bush. The president recently said his critics support "protectionist trade barriers." The bizarre thing is he brags about his support of free trade and then does things like this. more inside

ETA suspected in Madrid bombings. I have long been fascinated by the mysterious Basque & have some general knowledge of the ETA/Basque separatist issues...they are historically rooted much more deeply than most people realize. For a more scholarly source on these matters also see Emmanuel Leroy Lauderie's Montaillou, the Promised Land of Error, a definitive work.

Ultima comics: Imanewbie. A fading souvenir of Ultima Online in its glory days. This classic comic strip starts off with Imanewbie simply being snuffed by player killers, but it eventually weaves a hilarious tale of life in Britannia and things that should not be. A must-see for any Ultima fan. A request - please share any other great comics you know of that parody an an actual computer game (Sims is one possible candidate).

The Ides Of March ...are almost upon us. It turns out, though, that J.Caesar did not die after all. He later wrote such memorable books as the 'Esoteric exercises in subtlety'. In England he became a judge and was knighted. He then took up painting (my favourite is the one of George Biggins in a balloon). Later still, he took up cricket, being a member of the first England team to tour the USA - 'the first Yankee I meet on British ground I shall give a hiding to...'. Does anyone know what he's doing these days?

More than 170 people killed in Madrid bomb attacks. A string of deadly blasts has hit three Madrid train stations during the rush hour with latest reports speaking of more than 170 people killed. Spain's government has blamed Basque separatist group Eta for the attacks which come ahead of Sunday's elections. more inside

Morality in a Monkey's Mind

The capture of Osama bin Laden. "In order to save time, the following article is being printed several months ahead of schedule as a service to readers and nascent conspiracy theorists."

Fetid Milter The runions are grunning in the Golden State. more inside

The Men You Hate to Love

Gym teacher from Hell: It seems the woman made a boy perform so many push-ups that it caused kidney failure. more inside

How it feels to see God killed. The Archbishop of Canterbury (the Anglican Church's nearest equivalent to the Pope) reviews the stage adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. more inside

The Sine Fiction series is an electronic music project in which "each release is an invented soundtrack to a notable science fiction novel." The catalog currently includes compositions based on Orwell's 1984, Asimov's Foundation, Burroughs's cutup trilogy (Nova Express, The Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded), Calvino's Ti Con Zero, and the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, among others.

Karen Kwiatkowski: Whistleblower Karen Kwiatkowski is a conservative and and retired career Air Force officer. She was shocked by the incompetence, lying, and public hostility from neoconservatives during her time (in the now defunct) Office of Special Plans.

Instead of developing defense policy alternatives and advice, OSP was used to manufacture propaganda for internal and external use, and pseudo war planning.

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The libertarian purity test. "You are a soft-core libertarian. With effort, you may harden and become pure." [via DayPop.]

Fantasies about... um... Tonya Harding. "It's been a long ten years since the Olympics and Lillehammer. The Fantasy area is all in fun and is not to be taken seriously. So, these Fantasies are just for adults. We hope you have a sense of humor about it all ..."

Curious, George: E-mail appointment book. I need a dayplanner, but I'm often not at home or office, or not on my usual computer. The only thing that's predictable is that I'm on E-mail every morning. Is there a reliable E-mail-based calendar "service" where I can maintain my schedules with a Web interface? My obligations could be E-mailed to me every morning. That would rock!

Manhattan Monkey Man. "A wanna-be Dr. Dolittle was busted yesterday [9 Mar] for turning his tiny Manhattan apartment into an urban Animal House." Will elderly New York socialites abandon their Pekingese dogs for monkeys and Bengal-Siberian tigers? [via monkeywire. more monkey photos available in the gallery.]

That was then, this is now. Then: In a debate with Vice President Al Gore in October 2000, Bush said: 'I believe they've moved that sign, `The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to `The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good for the country." Now: President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year, including foreign dignitaries, family friends and at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers, documents show.

Hey you guuuuuuuuuuuuys! This site offers up a good batch of MP3. and video clips from