Like millions of other kids who grew up during his heyday, I was enamored of the man and his jumps.

It's hard to explain to a overloaded generation that carries instant world-wide wireless entertainment in a pouch on its belt just how excited a kid could get over what often essentially amounted to a single episode of Jackass (Snake River Canyon? Rocket bike? Duuuude?).

But there was so much showmanship (seriously lacking in much of today's goobertainment), pageantry and buildup swirling around an Evel Knievel jump and it was so rare to see something like his act that each attempt became a bona fide "event".

There was also the pure "dare" in his daredevilishness. Some people tuned in to see him crash. Some people tuned in to see his succeed. Everyone watched to see him dare fate and physics without a net. That daring-do is sadly lacking nearly everywhere today (Bumfights Volume 73, anyone?).

Good luck and Godspeed, Evel. Smooth landings as you touch down in the Hereafter.

Couldn't you get a lot more if you used the gun rather than turning it in?

San Francisco Offers Gift Cards for Guns

Participants received $100 gift cards for turning in rifles or shotguns, $150 cards for revolvers or semiautomatic pistols and $200 cards for assault-type weapons like AK-47s.

Hah?

Wash. school calendar forgets Christmas

"In our efforts to be inclusive, we missed the obvious."

While it's an unfulfillable hash pipe dream ever to be able to consider a program for kids who are "differently smarted" as anything but elite and exclusionary, the real truth behind the institutional racism of America's public school system lies not with programs like this but with the system itself.

Until we allocate money and resources enough at all levels to allow the low opportunity kids the same chance to develop into "gifted" students as high opportunity kids, studies of established programs like this will always present unreliable conclusions.

Poor students of color less likely to be in Seattle's gifted program

The 1,300 students served by the Accelerated Progress Program don't match the racial and economic makeup of Seattle's public schools, the report found. White students make up 70 percent of the program's students, but only 40 percent of the overall district population.

"Some of the belief structures and language used to describe the students and the program contribute to a perception of the program as elitist, exclusionary and even racist," the report stated.

"Hey, why does that big Jew thing tower over that big pagan thing? Christians are insulted!"

Hello? For the 942nd time, you idiots: CHRISTMAS TREES AREN'T CHRISTIAN!

This sooo reminds me of the All In The Family episode in which Meathead is razzing Archie over the possibility that Archie is Jewish because of his parents' names.

Archie says, "My parents' names are David and Sara, two names right out of the Bible! Ain't got nothing to do with the Jews!"

There truly is no hope for America if people are this stupid.

Residents: Menorah Dwarfs Christmas Tree

When city officials planted a 7-foot-tall Christmas tree next to a 20-foot-tall menorah in the plaza in front of City Hall, some residents barked. They telephoned City Hall, wrote letters and testified at a public hearing that the tiny tree in the shadow of the huge Hanukkah symbol was an insult to Christians.

Before Seattle filled up on itself, before the city movers and shakers determined that the Queen City would try to purchase world-class status at taxpayer expense, before it tore down everything that made the city livable and erected scads of needlessly expensive stacked hamster cages with cookie-cutter retail space below them, before I moved here, Seattle was like this.

The city used to not be so serious. Whenever it was, good folks stepped in (Emmett Watson and his marginally tongue-in-cheek "Lesser Seattle" movement for instance) to remind the city to laugh at itself. For far too long, since about the time that Almost Live went off the air (the first time), Seattle has been afraid to break its over-inflated ego bubble.

The fear is that there is a little boy somewhere along our self-congratulatory parade route who will succumb to the laughter and indelicately point out that the Gentry City is, in fact, naked in its acquisitions of greatness.

So, God bless the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band! Long may they sit!

Billed as "the finest non-marching Sousa band in all of Ballard," it also features the world's only sedentary majorette, Edith Farrar, who takes her place on a folding chair at the front of the 40-or-so-member band.

SAN FRANCISCO - Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of the spectacular color displays seen in the northern lights. New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through 68 year old Driggs, Idaho resident Earl Klemper.

Thanks, Earl!

Tell me again why we send our technology jobs to this backwards country?

I mean besides the fact that they'll work all day for less than the cost of a Starbucks latte.


Attackers chop off man's 'magic' leg

"This seems to be a case of superstition."

Not a long enough list by far!

Dickheads of the Year

My picks for the biggest assholes of 2007 by Bill Maher

299 inmates escape in jailbreak in India

Nearly 300 communist prisoners overpowered guards and escaped from a prison in restive eastern India Sunday, police said.

About 1 in 5 IBM employees now in India

IBM Corp.'s expansion in developing countries shows no sign of relenting. The technology company revealed Friday that it now has 73,000 employees in India, almost a 40 percent leap from last year.

Hello, OnStar? Where are YOU?

Users left in lurch by network shutdown

Perhaps a million cell phones will lose service, but those are cheap and easy to replace. The effects will be felt the most by people who have things that aren't phones but have built-in wireless capabilities, like OnStar cars and home alarm systems.

Some much needed anti-Christmas spirit.

Art Conrad has an issue with the commercialism of Christmas, but instead of just shunning the malls and turning off his television, he's decided to share his distaste with his West Bremerton neighbors by displaying a 15-foot crucifix bearing Santa Claus in place of Jesus.

Merry Christmas to both of you from Panzo.org.

Also, as part of the mayor's health initiative during Momma's Back Month, they're filling in the cracks in all of the sidewalks across Reeves, La.

La. village drops 666 from its number

Beginning this month, residents and businesses can change the first three digits of their phone numbers from 666 - depicted in the Bible as the mark of the beast - to 749.