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A couple days ago, I posted a small write-up on a new program called “Who’s A Rat” which places the profile of law enforcement officials into an open online database. Bob, a friend of mine whom runs a professional mediation service out of the Houston-area, followed the link and placed nearly 100 officers into the database (he gathered the information from the public domain off the Montgomery County website).

As a result, he received a number of complaints, threats and otherwise, non-friendly responses from the Men in Blue. Additionally, he was interviewed by Stop the Drug War, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of drug prohibition:

One multi-narc contributor to Who’s A Rat is not a defendant in a criminal case, but a Texas libertarian from The Woodlands named Bob who has posted the names and personal information of dozens of law enforcement officers. “If the state is going to have databases on us,” he told DRCNet, “it seems only fair that we can have a database of agents and informers as a tool for defense attorneys and defendants. I don’t have a particular negative law enforcement experience, in fact I’ve done ride-alongs with some of these guys, but if I can open a file on them maybe people will look out for them.”

“The Woodlands is a pretty quiet place, but you’d be horrified at how many drug busts there are — it’s pretty much all they have to do,” said Bob, who after getting 9% of the vote in the 2002 race for local state representative as a Libertarian, has forsaken politics for a career as a mediator. “I know some of these guys, they are doing what they think is right, but they’re apt to do some wrong things. If somebody moves to The Woodlands, they deserve to know whether their neighbor is out there looking to arrest them. This is a resource for people looking to stay out of trouble, not just for criminal defendants and defense attorneys.”

For the record, neither Bob or I use any form of illicit drug such as marijuana nor do we encourage the use of such a chemical compound. However, just because neither of us use it does not mean we are granted some Puritanical moral authority to enforce our lifestyles onto others. It’s your body, the State does not own it nor does anyone else, feel free to consume whatever you want (why isn’t there a War on Krispy Kreme or Big Macs too, those are hardly healthy — in fact, there has not be a single medical case of a marijuana user dying from the substance, so how come cigarettes and alcohol are legal?).

As a side note, does anybody else remember the TIPS program? It’s the one where you rat on your neighbor for doing something you consider suspicious and unAmerican?

So I’m checking out at Fry’s and an item from the impulse section sticks out at me: the kitchen sink of furnishings, the duct tape of tools, the MacGyver of ingenuity:

Crazy Swiss.

Sprechen Sie ‘cuddle?’ Publisher to offer ‘german/woman’ dictionary:

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) — A leading German dictionary publisher plans to launch a guide it says will help men translate the subtext of female conversation.

The Langenscheidt publishing group, best known for its well-respected yellow foreign language dictionaries, will launch sales of a 128-page book to translate such baffling female banter as: “Let’s just cuddle” into “No sex tonight please!.”

“Each themed chapter offers men behavioral tips and exposes hidden messages transmitted by women in everyday situations, such as on holiday or during shopping trips,” said Silke Exius, chief editor at Langenscheidt.

Other examples in the “German-Woman/Woman-German” edition due out in October include explaining why a woman asks a man to take interest in the pair of shoes she may be trying on.

She wants him to look because he’s about to pay for them.

Damn straight.

I should remind you that this is the most important part of the Holy Translation Trinity, the others of course being Baby Babble and Canine Chatter.

Via Andrew Moroz.

Being the smartass I am, I tried to at first register the classic: antidisestablishmentarianism. Apparently an even more adroit smartass thought of the same thing. When neither floccinaucinihilipilification nor honorificabilitudinitatibus were available, I was besides myself.

So I did what any other warm blooded American would do, google the longest words.

Electroencephalographically is the longest unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. And since I’m all about the collegiate-kosherness of a word, it passed the stringent litmus test.

The 5-seconds of instant gratification culminates into this 90-letter email address: electroencephalographically@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com

And yes, their main page fits the bill for Truth in Advertising. Just like Skyhigh Airlines.

Via DiVERSiONZ.

This weekend Mike Ewens is helping me move the blog from Movable Type to Word Press. Everything (knock on wood) seems to be going smoothly — the most annoying thing is having to import my staple+tape blogroll.

So in the meantime, I tried to find the worst Geocities-esque “Under Construction” picture to show off:

That one is winning because if you zoom in close enough, the creator didn’t bother chunking the hovering mouse image.

Is it just me or are more and more trial lawyers marketing themselves with wrestling monikers? Like Jim Adler, The Texas Hammer; or Brian Loncar, The Strong Arm.

Via Stephan Kinsella.

Company pulls candy bags with toy depicting 9/11 attack:

MIAMI (AP) — Small toys showing an airplane flying into the World Trade Center were packed inside more than 14,000 bags of candy and sent to small groceries around the country before being recalled.

Lisy Corp., the wholesaler that distributed the candy, said Friday that the toys were purchased in bulk from a Miami-based import company.

The toys came in an assortment purchased sight unseen from L&M Import in Miami and included the toys depicting the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the twin towers, whistles and other small toys, said Luis Pedron, Lisy’s national sales manager. The invoice said the toy was a plastic swing set.

Now I might be fussy about small details, but you know what they say, better safe than sorry.

I put together another collection of photos from the economics conference I went to a few weeks ago. Click on the picture for more luvin.