When totally pissed off, Hulk and the Green Giant totally go at it. Just imagine the raging veins on those nice, big, green cocks.

I've never seen a baby decapitated at the QFC.

Seattle is dull and lifeless this time of year.

You're just shopping at the wrong QFC.

Slick Talk: OPEC blames record oil prices on “mismanagement” of American economy.

Of course, they're right. The Republicans response to the economic downturn after 9/11 was completely wrongheaded, and they've stayed on that course ever since. And the American electorate is too stupid to realize what's happening; they still insist that any viable candidate for any office pass the "no new taxes" test, in spite of the fact that we need unprecedented levels of taxation aimed at the top 25% of earners, and to have those taxes spent on a massive domestic infrastructure rebuild -- using domestically manufactured goods in the process. Long-term government contracts for those goods would allow the manufacturing base thus created the stability necessary to compete globally, which would result in moderate and sustained economic growth of the course of the infrastructure improvements. That growth would allow us to replenish our taxbase and allow the American worker to pay down debt and increase savings, even as the new infrastructure reduced the overall cost of doing business in the United States.

But no. Instead we just had a massive tax give-away for people who didn't need the money and enough free credit for American consumers to hang themselves with, and now the American dollar is worth less than a sheet of toilet paper and oil costs a zillion dollars a barrel.

Oh well.

You forgot the link to the story about the twin system of giant stars 8000 light years away that are pointed at Earth like a barrel of a gun. The shockwave from the Gamma Ray Burst pulsing out from the larger one's thought-to-be-imminent death would in the best case scenario erase the Ozone layer and create a high-atmosphere layer of globally-cooling nitrogen dioxide, which would fall as acid rain. In the worst case it would scour most organic life from the planet (there's a theory that regular GRBs may be responsible for the semiregular mass extinctions in the fossil record, as our solar system dips in and out of the relative safety of the galactic plane in its travels about the Milky Way).

On the other hand the "aim" of this pulse only seems to be pointing toward us and may not be precise enough to hit us with that pulse of high energy particles from 8000 light years away.

On the other other hand, Wolf-Rayet 104 may have already exploded -- we're looking at it from a distance that took its light 8000 years to get to us. The gamma ray burst may be bearing down on us already...

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~gekko/pinwheel

In other news, the oil companies have won the Iraq War!

It's taken 5 years, 1,000,000+ dead civilians, thousands of dead and maimed Americans, and the installation of a puppet government that negotiated the deal unilaterally and unconstitutionally, but Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. are finally getting their hands on the Iraqis’ black gold--AND THE IRAQIS ARE GIVING IT AWAY!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_oil_deals

When you're down and out lift up your head and shout, it's gonna be a great day!

And could somebody tell me who won Project Rungay? I fell asleep at 8:30!

Can you give a link for the last item? Something tells me that the story is not in the video.

erp. you missed the news about Downy Jr. playing a black man:

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/first-look-robert-downey-jr-as-black-man-in-tropic-thunder.php

Should go well with the flamed thread on the SNL asian guy playing Obama.

All you people worried about OTHER star's killing us. What if OUR sun just says "fuck you all" and goes Nova. Talk about a light show!

And the beheading of the kid: One less terrorist to be pissed off at America.

Emily @9, see my link above about the GRB threat, or if you prefer, the mass media version:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335186,00.html

Also worth mentioning is that NASA astronomers just released five year findings from their Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). WMAP was designed to map the Universe using microwaves coming from the cooling fireball of the Big Bang.

The highlights:

1) Our Universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years

2) Our Universe is flat.

3) WMAP was been able to determine just how much of the Universe's total energy/matter budget is taken up with dark energy, dark matter, and normal matter. The results showed our Universe is 72.1% dark energy, 23.3% dark matter, and 4.62% normal matter and energy, so we perceive and occupy basically a 5% slice of reality.

http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/index.html

In other news, Hillary still hasn't released her tax returns.

@13, I know, What is Hillary hiding from the American People? Obama released his already.

I am sure ECB would think we are gender baiting expecting HRC to release her taxes.

The Universe is 72.1% dark energy and 23.3% dark matter?

Yup, that feels about right.

@11, our sun will never go supernova, or even nova for that matter. It's simply not big enough. It will go out, not with a bang, but with a whimper. A very big, red whimper.

Judah, really provocative, thoughtful post @4. I don't necessarily agree with you about what we should do to put our nation's economy in the right direction. But I sure agree with you about what we shouldn't have done.

George W. Bush deserves to go down in history as a Manchurian candidate president whose every action appeared to be deliberately designed to undermine the long-term economic stability of the United States. And I kinda feel like history's not going to be too kind to Al "The Bubbleator" Greenspan either.

Here's Bush blaming our economy woes on OPEC:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151ap_bush.html

bicylist blows up military recruiting station in times square

i guess the only way this would have made the morning news was if a military recruiter blew up a bicyclist?

Bush is tap-dancing all the way back to his ranch. Says he will gladly turn over the "leadership" of this country to McCain. So very sad.

Dangit, Jonah, I think you're right. We should avoid reading articles and just read the headlines. I know, we'll get exactly the opposite idea of what articles like the one about snow state, but who cares, right? We can scream sound bytes!