A Church statement said the body was in "fair condition", particularly the hands, which Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who witnessed the exhumation in the southern Italian town where Pio died, said "looked like they had just undergone a manicure".
What the hell is "fair condition"? Fair condition for a body that's been rotting for 40 years?
I thought Scientology had cornered the market on weirdness but I see the Catholics are coming right out of turn four with their heads filled with paint thinner fumes.
"Love and Consequences," a critically acclaimed memoir about a mixed-raced girl growing up in a gang-ridden neighborhood of Los Angeles, is a fabrication and the 19,000 distributed copies of the book will be recalled, its publisher said on Tuesday.
Author Margaret B. Jones, is actually Margaret Seltzer, a white woman who grew up in Sherman Oaks in Southern California and attended a private Episcopal school, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.
In addition, bar patrons' option of ordering an additional 1-ounce shot to pour in their drinks, known locally as a sidecar, is being eliminated. Customers will still be able to order shots while they have a drink on the table, but only if it is of a liquor that's not already in their drink.
In other words, customers drinking a margarita couldn't order a shot of tequila, but they could take shots of vodka.
"What'll you have, pal?"
"Uh... I don't know. What does Big Mormon say I can have?"
Happy Friday to both of my loyal Panzo.org readers!
Here's hoping that Friday finds you with the weather you want for the weekend, a fridge full of beer and snacks and an unopened jar of Vaseline.
I'm still slowly getting over whatever the hell I had lodged in my bronchials. The doc told my on Monday that my lungs sound "dramatically better" so I guess they've improved their Method Acting or something.
I'm still using the inhaler three times a day and am under orders to do so for two more weeks. I guess that means it'll be a long while before I can again smoke banana skins.
Work has been fine. I went a whole week on call and only had two service requests that I took care of over the phone. That's a pretty damn quiet week.
Well, I need to sign off now as the rest of the Venutian Death Squad are painting their glamfroks for the invasion tonight and I need to start before all of the chartreuse is gone.
As an over-arching rule, I'm against putting things in my nose. Well, fingers sometimes but other than that I try - really try - to keep other things out of my nostrils.
This last cold, however, acted like a frat boy with a stripper, diving for my chest and hanging on despite beatings from the medical bouncers. In the course of this accursed affliction, I noticed that something was up with my sinuses.
I don't have a post nasal drip, the kind that trickles down your throat (although it's so miserably cold here most mornings that I have the pre-nasal drip of am eight year old). It's kind of hard to explain what I noticed.
Here I am with a chest cold but breathing normally through my schnozzola, right? Well I'm down on my hands and knees one day, shooting expand-o-foam in the space around some poopy pipe and my nose is drippy. When I stand up, I can feel the mucous burbling in my left sinus like I have a head cold that wants to clear. I go apart from others and blow my nose. And blow my nose. And blow my nose. And...holy shit there's a ton of snot coming out of my head! Plus, my sinuses are squeaking after I blow like they do when they're filled during a head cold.
This happens twice during this sickness from hell.
So I buy a squirt bottle of saline solution, jam it up my nose, hang my head over the bathroom sink and fire away. Yeeeeuucckk! I get a whole bunch more mucous out.
With my sinuses clear, I notice that I seem to able to smell the mucous - damn it, you know what I mean if you've ever had a really nasty head cold - and that's not a nice smelling.
Squeezing the saline bottle isn't cutting it anymore. A two-pack of store brand nose saline (the kind with Chinese anti-freeze inside) is running me $5 a snoot.
Enter the little teapot, short and stout. There is the handle. There is the spout. When you tip it over, warm salt water runs through your nose and yellow viscous mucous kersplats out of the other nostril.
Neti pot. I'm not into yoga or all of that other stuff but I breathe a little better after I water my nose and getting colored mucous out of my head is a good thing.
The Times reported that a person with knowledge of the governor's role believes the governor is identified as a client in court papers.
We always hear that good people don't run for office because of the "gotcha" politics practiced inside the fishbowl of public life. Who, the question is posed, would lead the people when every act since 3rd grade will be exhumed from the schmuggy past and have it's bones scraped for political gain?
It's a legitimate question that I don't have the answer to.
The effects of our defective society - one that finds entertainment in parsing every vowel movement of every two-bit county judge and dead-headed celebrity for usable kernals of feed for the chicken masses - is on the quality of the leadership in every sector of life.
There's a reason little girls still worship Britney Spears even while she sits in a soft room blowing saliva bubbles. There's a reason more people can quote the shitty pith of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore than even know this moment who Kurt Vonnegut and Bill Buckley were.
And so on.
Then there are assholes like Spitzer.
Beware of the crusaders. From the anti-gayers to the anti-smokers to anti-purple mohawks in schoolers, the Holy Rolling Flatulatti just have something wrong with them.
A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD.
Paging The Mr. Dogg Snoopy Snoop Collective...Telephone for The Mr. Dogg Snoopy Snoop Collective...
That's me! Hello?
Hello, is this The Mr. Dogg Snoopy Snoop Collective?
Yes?
I'd like to talk to you today about the social irresponsibility of marketing your sexualy-charged ghetto chants to young black kids and their affect on the attitudes and, consequently, the bodies of these children.
Yakima police took notice when 11 Hondas were stolen in a two-week period. Now they are investigating nine Honda thefts that occurred in a period of about 24 hours. The cars were taken Monday and Tuesday, and police say most were early to mid-1990s models.
They've all been sneaked over the mountains, had the tour amps from Guns n Roses installed under the seats, had an empty #10 can jammed in the end of the muffler and are being driven 'round and 'round my God damned block!
Seattle is an odd town. Ok, so it's not Las Vegas or Hollywood odd but it is on the odd side nevertheless.
Take last week's trip to the supermarket.
We have about half a dozen "markets" that are locally owned and serve a clientele slightly more hippyfied than your average Safeway. I like Central Market in the nearby burg of Shoreline because of its wide variety of Asian items.
Outside of Central Market last Saturday were no less than three Cause Hawkers: Girl Scouts selling cookies, a dude selling the local homeless entrepreneur newspaper Real Change, and a woman gathring signatures in order to place a "death with dignity" initiative on the ballot come November.
I'm empathetic. I see and feel things about other people that most others miss. I "read" body language very well. I believe that I notice these things so that may learn from them. What did I learn from the bizarre collection of causes outside of a sueprmarket on Saturday?
Too many cookies will make you homeless and you'll want to die with dignity? Dying homeless girl scouts will let you have their cookies?
No. I pretty much learned that they all scatter while screaming when rapidly rolling shopping carts fly at them.
A Russian rocket launched a communications satellite produced by US defence company Lockheed Martin into space on Saturday but failed to take it into the planned orbit, Russian space officials said.
But the Briz-M booster failed 10 minutes later and the satellite is lower than the planned orbit of around 35,000 kilometres (21,750 miles) above Earth.
What Roskosmos needs is better sponsorship for its Proton-M rockets... (click the pic, Bozo)
(AP) Protesters gathered at an abandoned military site in the Australian capital Saturday to prevent the planned slaughter of 400 kangaroos blamed for ruining the habitat of rare lizards and insects.
"We are all determined to see that the kangaroos are not killed," said protest leader Pat O'Brien, president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia, whose patrons are the family of the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.
Can't we think of a better way to stop 'roo reproduction? Perhaps a monitoring system? (click it, Friend)
"The Associated Press discussed the photos obtained from the MySpace page in great detail and found that they were newsworthy," said Associated Press National Photo Editor V.W. Vaughan. "We distributed the photos that were relevant to the story. Those photos did not show nudity, nor were they explicit."
So it's ok to make a buck off of photos under copyright if they're "newsworthy"?
Well, welcome to the Panzo.org News ya dirty bastids! There, now all AP photos are free for me to use.
No, not the extermination of the Irish, the day the Irish celebrate St. Patrick and his Orkin-like ability to drive the snakes and toads from Ireland (of course, they just came back disguised as politicians).
Seattle officially celebrated on Saturday with a parade down 5th Avenue. The city painted a green stripe down the street for the benefit of those in the crowd who started tipping early. The line made it much easier for them to crawl along the route.
Someone asked me why the parade was being held on Saturday and not on St. Paddy's Day Monday. I told them it was because you wouldn't find an Irishman in Seattle who can walk straight on Monday.
There's a lot of Scots here in the Northwest and we'd like to remind everyone that we have our St. Andrew's Day on November 30th. That day being normally wet and cold here though, we have a much shorter parade. Most of us just march across the liquor store parking lot.
Ok, ok. Happy St. Paddy's Day to everyone and just remember that though everyone is an honorary Irishman today, if you're truly not Irish leave the damn sheep alone.
"When you're dealing in international relations with countries as important as China, obviously when you make economic decisions it's sometimes at the expense of human rights," he added. "That's elementary realism."
"Honestly it's very nice to talk about human rights, I've spoken about them all my life and I will continue to speak about them," Kouchner said. "But there are two sides to the coin."
Well there you have it all you France haters. The French are just like us after all.
Starbucks is introducing a new automated espresso machine and getting back to grinding beans in its stores as the coffee retailer seeks to re-energize its slumping business.
Grrrrr! NO! Do you want me to really love Starbucks? Make me feel like the local sucker of this multi-tenacled thing that has suckers is unique.
Hey, I have a Starbucks in one of the buildings I spend most of my time at. I'm not running off to some other joint to blade my lines of caff, ok? But if something else opened nearby, I might just do that.
Ok listen. Starbucks? Do coffee. Don't do bears and music and cards and branded espresso machines and branded thongs and whatever else you think you must do in order to sear your name into your customers' subconscious.
Do coffee. Grind beans, tamp the powder by hand, pull the hot water expertly. Coffee. Food is cool but no more McRipoff McMuffles. None of this automatic machine bullshit.
Just. Do. Coffee.
Stop with the engineering of the trendy coffeehouse atmosphere with veneer and particle board, all right? I'd really love it if this Starbucks looked different inside from that Starbucks. After all, the reason I patronize the other coffee shops when I'm at home is because they feel like real places.
To keep customers loyal, Starbucks is adding new rewards for people who use the company's reloadable purchase card to buy their lattes and scones. Beginning in mid-April, the company will pay for any syrups or whipped cream people request with customized espresso drink. It will also offer cardholders free refills and a complimentary drink of their choice if they buy a bag of coffee beans.
WTF is the point of a Starbucks card other than giving it as a gift? Don't we have enough cards in our wallets now? My debit card is just as fast and it gets reloaded every two weeks without me doing squat (I mean to reload it. I'm really working very hard, Boss.)
Until The Beast gets around to embedding a chip in my forehead, I'll just use my debit card, thankyewverymuch.
An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys on Thursday and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her, a Florida wildlife investigator said.
First Steve Irwin, now this poor woman. And who knows how many more wounded and too embrarrassed to admit it.
It's time we did something about these rampaging Rays. The police need to keep them off of the corners where they deal fish powder and stink bait.
In recent weeks, conservative talk radio stars Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have urged loyal listeners to vote for the much-despised Clinton in open Democratic primaries so as to prevent Obama from sealing the nomination, and there are some indications that their calls have already been heeded in states like Texas and Mississippi.
Even in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, where the April 22 primary is closed to independents and Republicans, there are signs that some Republicans are going so far as to switch their party registration by the March 24 deadline to participate in what Limbaugh has dubbed "Operation Chaos."
Aside from the point that calling for anything like this is completely against the American ideal of fair play, it's for situations like this that state governments should stop footing the bill for the political parties' beauty contests.
As staunch supporters of lower taxes and judicious spending at state and local levels, I know both of these lick spittle media whores will support any movement to limit the use of taxpayer money for party-affiliated expenses.
State and local governments should get out of the business of the nominating process and force the parties to decide their candidates on their own dime.
Now here's a handy little gadget for Dads and Grads: from the boundless mind of gadget god Ron Popeil comes the Pocket Forecaster.
With an accuracy level that's at least as high as the average television "weather reader", the Popeil Pocket Forecaster is sure to be a hit with its recommended audience: farmers, students, gang members and golfers.
Thanks to Popeil's ingenuity, the "high tech CompuCup" used by the forecasting devices also doubles as a rain gauge.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996.
When I said we were under fire, we weren't.
When I said we had no ceremony, we did.
When I said we were forced to run to the cars with our heads down, we were not.
When I said that was what happened, it was not.
But everything else is the absolute truth.
(Staunch Hillary supporter and) Former Army Secretary Togo West, who accompanied Clinton to Bosnia, said he was not surprised "that there could be confusion" when someone who has taken a number of trips tries to recall details of a particular trip 12 years earlier.
Why, it must have been a totally different trip that Hillary was on when she came under sniper fire, had a welcoming ceremony canceled and had to flee to her car with her cankles held low. Which trip was that, Togo?
"The important thing is that she was there. Our soldiers saw she was there and heard her and knew that our country cared about them and what they were doing," West told the AP during a telephone interview.
Yeah and Sinbad and Cheryl Crow. Maybe one of them should run for President.
Hillary Rodham Clinton adviser James Carville is refusing to apologize for comparing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas.
"Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out (Jesus) for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," he said.
Screw Bill Richardson. That's politics. What Carville (aka, Martian Man) should be doing is apologizing to a few hundred million Christians for suggesting that Hillary Clinton is Jesus Christ.
"If things get really bad, we'll have all sorts of problems," said Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of Washington, who thinks a recession is still unlikely.
Ok. First, who's Dick Startz? (Mine does! Mine does!)
With that out of the way, let me tell you what: I will serve as a source for the economically obvious for half of whatever this Dick makes. Hmmmkay?
Paleontologists say they have found evidence of a new species here related to the Triceratops, known to have the largest head of any animal ever to have walked the earth.
Holy shit! It's really true! There really is a Limbaughasaurus!
Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.
It's not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen.
I guess it's time to start doing whatever the hell I want to.
It's not like I'll recall being embarrassed in 20 years anyway.
The U.S. military's mistaken delivery to Taiwan of electrical fuses for an intercontinental ballistic missile has raised concerns over U.S.-China ties. It has also triggered a broad investigation into the security of Pentagon weapons.
You know, I think we're spying on the wrong people in this country.
Rather than trying to catch those Godless terrorists by listening to phone conversations between you and your Grandmother in Toledo, we need to start to seriously spy on our military. They're the ones who have all of the nasty weapons of mass destruction that Osama bin Loungin' wants.
After all, Gran's beet soufflé may make your bathroom dangerous for a couple of days, but at least it won't give you the means to launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM at the local Girl Scout troop.
Here at Panzo.org, we're all about saving the planet. But since pushing stupid people off of cliffs is against the law (not to mention a logistical nightmare - how do you lure them all to the edge?), Panzo.org is making known our Green and Clean® program.
Panzo.org will join the ranks of larger, more popular web sites like TonyaHarding.com and WatchMichaelMooreEat.com in reducing its carbon footprint, eliminating its ozone-depleting emissions and leaving its lawn clippings on the lawn to act as mulch.
Here are some other programs we'll be implementing in the days to come it order to help save the planet:
Recycling 90% of the schtick from the first two years
74% of all content will soon be post-consumer
The Idea Lightbulb will be powered by cow flatulence
Conserving energy by unplugging life support sooner on most stories
Growing all of our marijuana in our used coffee grounds
Reducing the number of times a day that we exhale
Using only electric vehicles on the Information Super Causeway
Here at Panzo.org we urge every web-enabled person to surf responsibly.
I can't tell you how much it upsets me that we are being so grossly mischaracterized in the newspapers by the media and I want to personally let you know that we would never condone any type of behavior that would lead anyone to conclude that we would take money from our people. When I read these headlines about Starbucks skimming or stealing from our partners it's just beyond my comprehension how irresponsible it is.
Oh, Howie! It isn't that Starbucks was stealing from its partners. It's that Starbucks violated California law by having the shift supervisor share in the tips. It's pretty simple.
California recognizes that supervisors are higher up the butt of The Company and most likely getting premium pay for being there. Cali just decided that their position should exclude them from sharing the gratuities the average slob leaves, thinking it's going to some struggling student barista.
And cut it out with the "headlines about Starbucks skimming or stealing". Editors don't put those words in headlines. They're too long.
