The worst part of the looming WB / UPN merger?

In the future only one broadcast network won't be covering the State Of The Union.

Obscure but useful link of the day: A hobbyist compiled listing of the size of every USPS Priority Mail Box, including ones not available as part of any order that doesn't meet an 11 pallet minimum.

Hey, at least he wasn't diddling little boys.

The Church of St. John the Martyr, on East 71st Street, says in court papers the losses were due to thefts by Monsignor John Woolsey. After the losses were discovered, Woolsey was forced to resign as pastor and a Manhattan grand jury indicted him.

Prosecutors charged that Woolsey, 67, funneled at least $820,800 from the church into his personal bank accounts, including $47,000 given to the church by parishioners.

Prosecutors said he used the stolen money for country club expenses, designer watches, fancy clothes and trips to Vermont, Florida and Spain. They said he used a church checking account to pay nearly $16,000 in personal credit card charges.

The investigation of Woolsey began in 2004 after a civil lawsuit was filed charging that he used undue influence to get an 88-year-old parishioner to sign over at least $490,000 in cash and stock to him before she died.

And here's the potential understatement of the year:

Woolsey "may not have been a good bookkeeper," the statement said.

Can property tax become a taking? From the state that brought you Kelo, here's yet another disgusting property story out of CT.

In 2002, Denny Andrews received his first tax bill after a townwide reassessment of taxable property. Andrews Point had climbed from a full-market assessment of $858,000 to $6.8 million and the taxes shot up, too, from a little under $20,000 to $89,000. Andrews was able to argue his assessment down to $6 million. But he knew it was only a temporary fix.

Really, should someone have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in property tax per acre per year for residential property, to a town that doesn't even provide fresh water to the property?

Totally bizarre marketing effort being put out by VW in anticipation of the MK V GTI coming to the United States: Project Fast.

Man arrested for trying to get a refund from Priceline.com

 

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/61998.htm

 

PIANIST THROWN IN PEN FOR HARPING

A meek but persistent concert pianist was tossed in jail after repeatedly demanding a refund from Priceline.com .

In a bizarre tale of "extreme customer service," Juilliard-trained Ronnie Segev sued Priceline earlier this month alleging the corporate giant billed him for a $953 plane ticket he never purchased, then had its top lawyer call the cops after he phoned 215 times to ask for his money back.

Segev, who has played Carnegie Hall, was handcuffed and hauled out of his Hell's Kitchen apartment building early one morning in May.

The cops hit him with 215 counts of harassment — one for each call he made to Connecticut-based Priceline from January until his arrest.

"I tried to talk to them," he said, shaking his head. "Now I get the chills every time I see a Priceline commercial."

A judge later dismissed the charges, but not before Segev spent 40 hours in a Manhattan holding cell with hardened criminals who laughed at him, threatened him and tried to steal his fancy watch and sneakers.

 

Interesting website set up for the fictional True Vinyl Records, employer of the lead character in CBS's new show "Love Monkey", including links to actual myspace accounts for the characters on the show.

NBC did something like this for The Office, though it didn't buy the DunderMifflin domain in time, so the Dunder Mifflin home page is here instead.

True Vinyl Records Logo Clothing & Gear Shop.

(Click image for story link.)

Sen. Patty Murray said Friday that returning contributions from Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff would "taint" the tribes.

The state's senior senator, a Seattle Democrat, said there was nothing wrong with accepting more than $40,000 in campaign donations from out-of-state tribes represented by the disgraced lobbyist.

I guess she's wearing taint-proof gloves...

Proof that Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America, simply doesn't interact well with everyday people.

In an email sent out today notifying sellers about changes to fee structures, Mr. Cobb used the word tranche where tier, or even level, would have sufficed.

Twice.

First use of tranche. Note that the emailed version, quoted, differs in wording a bit from the announcement version posted on ebay:

For core insertion fees for auction-style and Fixed Price listings on eBay.com, we're again lowering the lowest tranche fee (i.e. for items with a starting price of $0.01 to $0.99) - from a quarter to twenty cents.

Second time:

For final value fees for auction-style and Fixed Price listings on eBay.com, we are increasing one fee this year - the final value fee for the middle tranche, which will increase from 2.75 to 3%.

In a letter explaining to ebay sellers, the vast majority of whom don't have a finance background, Mr. Cobb threw in a term of art from the bond trading industry.

I'm guessing he either didn't have this proofed, he didn't read it, or (most likely) the people who proofread it either didn't realize how out of place tranche was, or didn't feel like they could tell Mr. Cobb that they felt it didn't belong in a mass emailing.

Either way, the letter strikes me as being written by someone who is out of touch with his customers.

The ultimate boss button.

I'm pretty sure the results of this DNA test won't get as much media coverage as the lead up to the tests being ordered.

New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, the governor said Thursday.

Yup. Pretty much dog bites man.

With all the media coverage of Diamond Pet's contaminated products killing dozens of dogs that ate products containing aflatoxins, I found this useful page describing Aflatoxins.

Aflatoxins are toxic metabolites produced by certain fungi in/on foods and feeds.
...
The occurence of aflatoxins is influenced by certain environmental factors ; hence the extent of contamination will vary with geographic location , agricultural and agronomic practices, and the susceptibility of commodities to fungal invasion during preharvest , storage, and/or processing periods.

In an experiment for a British TV documentary, a single mother spent a month drinking every night to see what it did to her body and mind.

Overused speech mannerisms and their occurrences on Google searches:

• "No shit this really happened" - 298 Results

• "So there I was, minding my own business, when" - 1360 Results.
  No occurrences of its bastard brother "So there I was, reading my bible, when."

• "You are never going to believe" - 1590 Results

• "This guy I know told me that" - A mere 171 results

Made with this gadget, from the same website as the Lego Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, below.

When is a wall more than a wall?

"We consider the construction of a wall to be a violation of human and international rights," Carmona said.

I wonder how he'd feel about a moat?

Cool Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster model built out of Lego toys.

Via Lugnet.

For my own reference Buzz Rickson's Catalog, in Japanese.

Old, but good:

          The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army.

Reminded of this by a post today on FR.

ATRA has released its updated list of judicial hellholes.

The jurisdictions that made this year's list are, ranked in order from first through sixth: Grande Valley and Gulf Coast, Texas; Cook County, Ill.; Madison County, Ill.; St. Clair County, Ill.; South Florida; and West Virginia. In addition, ATRA gave a ``dishonorable mention'' to the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a series of decisions overturning tort reforms.

A leading Illinois tort reform advocate complained that having so many jurisdictions listed as hellholes is hurting the state's reputation.

``Having three of the six `hellholes' within our state is an embarrassment and a severe detriment to economic growth and development-and to the creation and attraction of private-sector expansion and jobs,'' said Edward D. Murnane, president of the Chicago-based Illinois Civil Justice League, in a statement concerning the report.

It isn't just full of judicial hellholes, if you catch my meaning.