And we have proof.

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Its crew immediately returned fire, forcing the pirates off the hull and back into their skiff, where they dumped their weapons overboard and attempted to escape.

Really, you have to wonder about some of these folks.

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Back in 2007, Congress created a biofuels mandate under which oil companies are required to use a minimum amount of cellulosic ethanol each year.  The mandate was supposed to encourage the development of a domestic cellulosic ethanol industry.  This has not happened.  Several years after the mandate was imposed, there is still no commercial cellulosic ethanol production.  This gets the oil companies off the hook, right?  Nope.  As the New York Times reports, companies are still paying fines, totaling nearly $7 million, for failing to meet a blending quota for a substance that does not exist.  Were that not bad enough, this year the cellulosic ethanol quota will increase, as will the fines for failing to meet it.

Of course. That makes perfect sense, to a bureaucrat. The important thing is not that people comply with the law, but that people not comply with the law, and cough up a ransom for not doing so.

As Green notes, Congress might as well have mandated oil companies blend gasoline with rainbows and unicorn sweat.

That’s phase 2, if Obama gets re-elected.

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A police lieutenant, fired for covering up a hit and run crash involving a fellow officer who she was involved in a relationship with, has been reinstated following an arbitration decision that chastised the city’s Police Commission.

But Christine Burns was demoted to patrol officer and assigned to the Police Department’s records division. She was granted about six months back pay.

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The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.

I am not making this up.

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They claim the 3,000-year-old horse made from crushed white chalk in Uffington, Oxfordshire, was originally meant to be a depiction of the mythical horned beast.

The amateur historians have now received financial backing from ‘well-wishers’ including a £50,000 anonymous donation towards adding a 75-foot long horn to the horse.

The Uffington White Horse – which measures 374 feet – or 110 metres – is owned and managed by The National Trust – who have now received a proposal about the horn from the campaigners.

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A group of women have launched landmark court action against Britain’s biggest police force, claiming they were duped into forming long-term relationships with undercover policemen.

As Tom Clancy reputedly said, the difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be credible.

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‘Braveheart Butter Bombs’ — coming to a state fair near you.

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I suppose that, if you absolutely must have a government minister in charge of broadcast standards, this is the kind to have.

Gotta love Australians.

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The appeals court said Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits services of public accommodation from discriminating on the basis of marital status among other grounds, extinguishes doctors’ common law right to decide with whom to undertake a physician-patient relationship.

The California of the North. No wonder its economy sucks.

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Not the sort of thing you see every day.

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The city of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, will attempt to keep itself cool over the summer by way of a kind of artificial glacier.

According to the Guardian, this “geoengineering trial” will try to “‘store’ freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer.” Project directors “hope the process will reduce energy demand from air conditioners and regulate drinking water and irrigation supplies.” The cool air will presumably be pumped through the city via a continuous and monumental network of ducts.

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If you’re a parent who accepts Medicaid payments from the State of Michigan to help support your mentally-disabled adult children,  you qualify as a state employee for the purposes of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They can now claim and receive a portion of your Medicaid in the form of union dues.

Hey, sucking on the public teat – that’s what it’s all about;
You can goof off all you want to, and they can’t turn you out;
And if they try to cut your pay, just wave your signs and shout:
Look For The Union Label, it gives you lots of clout!

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But folllowing his recovery he quit his bank job to become a hairdresser, grew to hate sport, called off his engagement and started dating a man.

Soon to be a major motion picture, I have no doubt.

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Like other Tea Party groups, the Richmond (VA) Tea Party has played by the rules. They paid permit fees to hold their rallies, they paid for the extra police and portajohns that such rallies demand. In all, they’ve paid $10,000 for their rallies to the local government.

The occupiers? Not so much. In fact, they haven’t filed for any permits and they haven’t paid a dime.

So the Richmond Tea Party, seeking fair treatment, has invoiced the Richmond city government to get its costs reimbursed. This is a brilliant move that other Tea Party groups should follow, if for no other reason than to highlight how the so-called 99% continue to mooch off of law-abiding citizens.

Time for a little equality, it would seem.

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Organizers of Occupy Portland say they fear as much as $20,000 donated to the group through a PayPal account has disappeared.

They also say the group’s finance committee has hijacked the demonstration’s Internet domain name and filed for incorporation against the wishes of the group’s decision-making body.

The demonstrator who filed the papers with the state said Wednesday she did so to protect the protest, and she has received death threats as a result.

Ah, yes, the Left in action. The most disorganized fascists in history. It would be funny if it weren’t so pitiful.

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Whether you’re a warrior in the boardroom or the bedroom, make your underwear match your samurai spirit with our world-exclusive Samurai Underwear. These-ultra premium briefs breathe like you wouldn’t believe, won’t itch, and feel silky-smooth against your skin. On top of that, have you ever seen a cooler or more manly-looking pair of underwear?

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A Zimbabwean man has told a court that he hired a prostitute who during the night transformed into a donkey, and that he is now “seriously in love” with the animal, according to state media.

Tell him to go to California and wait a couple of weeks.

Sure, these people are ready for self-government….

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That squeaky sound you hear is me trying not to laugh out loud, which would be insensitive.

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Three activists arrested for selling 10 cent cups of lemonade on the lawn of the Capitol building in August are facing up to one year in jail for their thirst-quenching crimes.

Will Duffield, Meg McLain and Kathryn Dill pleaded not guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Oct. 4 to “sale of goods on U.S. Capitol grounds” — a crime that carries a 180-day maximum prison sentence.

The three face an additional 180 days in jail after refusing to submit to a urine test and being held in contempt of court.

Well, you know, you can’t be too careful these days.

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Yoko Ono is launching a global campaign to raise money and awareness to help fight childhood hunger and poverty.

As if Yoko Ono knows anything about either child hunger or poverty. Does it still count as White Guilt if you’re Japanese?

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In a decision denying basic property rights and even exceeding the FDA’s contempt for the rights of private contract and food freedom of choice, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Fiedler has issued an order holding that owners of cows do not have a fundamental right to consume milk from their own cow.

In his opinion the Judge rejected out of hand the Zinniker plaintiffs’ argument that they had a fundamental right to possess, use and enjoy their property (including “a fundamental right to own a cow, and to use their cows in a manner that does not cause harm a third party”); he stated this claim was “wholly without merit.”

When I was a kid, this was a free country.

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Küng, 41, rents out her guinea pigs, a service that has been in high demand in the Alpine nation ever since animal welfare rules were tightened up a few years ago. Switzerland has forbidden people from keeping lone guinea pigs because the animals are sociable and need each other’s company.

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Presumably there’s a measuring stick somewhere that has the appropriate units for ‘intensity’.

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Lock your doors….

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A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that the declining use of cigarettes explains our obesity rates.

No good deed goes unpunished.

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Yesterday police in Springfield, Oregon, acting on a tip from the FBI, broke into a man’s condominium to prevent him from killing himself. They believed the situation was urgent because the man had purchased a mail-order suicide kit. Seven months ago. For a local newspaper reporter who was doing a story about suicide kits.

Well, you don’t want to rush these things….

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A 90-year-old Brazilian man has fathered at least 50 children by four different women – including his sister-in-law and his mother-in-law.

Must be that funky Latin beat.

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South Africa’s foreign minister spent £20,000 on a private jet after getting into a shouting match with security officials at Oslo airport when she refused to let them X-ray her handbag, it has emerged.

Well, let’s see what we can observe from this incident.

1. Members of the Crust have no hesitation in squandering taxpayers’ money to suit their own convenience.
2. Even members of the Crust can run afoul of the Security State.
3. Diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean what it used to.

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The world is full of pointless activity.

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Professor at his first lecture of the semester to Canadian university students: “Despite what you may have heard elsewhere, everyone is not entitled to their opinion. ‘All Jews should be sterilized’ would be an example of an unacceptable and dangerous opinion.”

Student misunderstands, and launches attack on professor for being anti-Semitic. When the context was explained to her, she refused to relent: “The words, ‘Jews should be sterilized’ still came out of his mouth, so regardless of the context I still think that’s pretty serious.” (Anyone who says “Jehovah” will get stoned!)

So a professor urging his students to be Politically Correct gets busted for being Politically Incorrect. We live in the Irony Age.

More here. This is going to provide right-wing humor for at least a year.

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Last month WEAC announced that it was laying off 40% of its staff.  With little over which to collectively bargain, and with dues no longer withheld from paychecks, the need for and sustainability of a union bureaucracy could not be justified.

Now WEAC is being boycotted by National Staff Organization (NSO), a union representing educational union employees.

Isn’t that great, education union employees have their own union?  Is there a union for employees of education union employee unions?

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Further adventures in the mythical world of ‘intellectual property’.

‘Nobody knows who owns the rights to these books, but we’re a group of authors and so we have the right to stop you using them!’ Uh, guys, mind your own business. If you have an interest here (i.e. it’s one of your books), then come talk to us. Otherwise, STFU.

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The fashion industry has its knickers in a twist over “manties.” A contraction of “man” and “panties,” the wordplay is meant to describe certain undergarments for males.

It’s part of a special lexicon that has emerged, over the past decade, as a sort of shorthand for men’s fashion. Men can also wear “mandals” (male sandals), “murses” (purses), “mantyhose” (pantyhose) and “mankinis” (swimsuit variants)—though not necessarily all at the same time.

You knew it had to happen.

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A mother-of-two had a ‘first date from hell’ after she was duped into becoming the getaway driver for a thief she met on Facebook.

Leah Gibbs, 23, had planned to spend an evening watching a DVD and getting to know 21-year-old Adam Minton.  

But instead, when she arrived at his home, he asked her to give him a lift – claiming he briefly had to visit a friend.

 She drove him to a shopping area, where he left her for five minutes. When he returned in a panic he ordered her to: “Go, go, go!” 

That fizzing sound is my trying to keep from laughing.

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Not bad, for a Communist country.

Here’s proof.

Read it.

Ah, the New York Times. Once the paper of record, now the paper that has broken all records for idiocy and irrelevance brings us the ruminations of a dozen “Americans who don’t labor in politics or the media” on “what they’d do if they were president.”

Searching for, ” ideas that might challenge or inspire, ” Jesse Kornbluth assembled a group of 12 illuminati and asked them what they would do if they lived in the White House.

The responses, which come from professors, authors, a CEO, a nun, the president of something called the Children’s Zone in Harlem, an artist, an inventor and an astrophysicist, read like a perverse combination of Rainbow Fish and Pedro’s campaign speech from Napoleon Dynamite. (Vote for me and your wildest dreams will come true.)

An exellent fisking of peripheral members of the cognitive elite; not one person who ever made something intended for sale, all people dependent on existence in an apex civilization such as ours. I’d be more interested in how well they would survive if stripped naked and dropped in the Pacific Northwest. I suspect that the ‘inventor’ might make it out alive, but the rest would be bear-food.

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Look at the picture. Quick, which one is the First Black President?

Answer: The one who looks like a white guy.

There’s modern America for you.

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We’ll swap you one of Obama’s kids for Prince Harry.

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NCAA bans use of skraeling names. (Can’t be insensitive, you know, not that it’s any of the NCAA’s business.)

North Dakota university sues NCAA. (Butt out. None of your business. We’re proud of our Fighting Sioux.)

University settles with NCAA; name to be discontinued. (Academics cave under charges of raaaaaaaacism, as usual.)

North Dakota passes law ordering that the name be kept. (Nyaa, nyaa.)

A quartet of skraeling students, under the wing of a law firm famous for greenmail class-actions against corporations, sue the university, the governor, the legislature (and probably George W. Bush, for all I know). (Sue! Sue! It’s what Americans do!)

So your guess is as good as mine — except that I can’t help but think that everybody involved has better things to do rather than sue about the Sioux.

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This is getting extremely silly. You’d think these guys had better things to do with their time.

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We need more deranged leaders: mad science turns its baleful stare upon political science.  Nassir Ghaemi’s thesis is that certain types of mental illness make for better leaders.  Sanity is not only overrated, but saps a leader’s abilities.

Unfortunately, all we get are stupid, corrupt, and greedy ones.

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I’m not sure how walking across Australia is going to raise money for charity, unless there are people out there with money who are actually sillier than this guy, depressing though that prospect might be.

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A retired widow who says a brain tumour turned her late husband into a transvestite has launched a £500,000 High Court battle against his decision to cut her out of his will.

And you thought you had troubles….

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If, of course, that’s something that you want to do.

The company sees two markets for their stove: Families in developing countries, and avid backpackers and campers.

Of course. Everyone who has to burn wood for cooking needs his mobile phone charged. That makes perfect sense.

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Charles Imwalle, 41, of Lake Mary filed a lawsuit Monday against Winn-Dixie and Passion Growers LLC claiming he suffered pain, disfigurement, medical bills and lost wages after pricking his finger on a thorn from a rose he purchased from his local Winn-Dixie in February, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported Thursday.

Goodness, what a prick.

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And, quite frankly, never gave a shit about….

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Irony is no longer a course module in the Home Ec curriculum.