• At least I now know how Al Keiper will be going out, and it will be in style. Wonder if the Phillies will win a World Series by the time his expiration date arrives?

• My question here is who would go to an event called the “Turkey Testicle Festival”? And if you go, I sure as hell wouldn't be eating any of the available food for sale. Then again, it couldn't be as bad as hot dogs.

Organizers of fourth annual Turkey Testicle Festival can keep their name, despite concerns about the propriety of the word and the island's virtue.

 

The Fort Myers Beach Council voted 4-1 Monday to allow the Surf Club bar to use the Turkey Testicle Festival name after a laugh-out-loud discussion, according to the News-Press.

Below is the article’s next paragraph. I’m willing to bet that one of the dozen cities the councilman mentions below is San Francisco.

Councilman Charles Meador said this year's festival will the fourth annual, and went on to list more than 12 other cities that host annual events with the name "testicle."

• I hate to side with the commies on this one, but complaining about a bumper sticker titled “I’m tired of all the BUSHIT” and giving someone a fine for displaying this phrase on his or her car is stupid. Almost as stupid as the same person who gets fined then sues for PUNITIVE damages over the whole ordeal. (I think I've seen that sticker around the Shittsburgh area -- I know I've seen "Duck Fubya" and "Buck Fush" a few times. What offends me most about these stickers isn't the message but rather the lack of creativity. Then again this is a union town, so I don't expect much effort put forth into anything other than trying to find excuses not to work.)

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia filed suit in federal district court on behalf of Grier. The suit alleges that a ticket she received in DeKalb County for displaying a "lewd" bumper sticker on her car is unconstitutional and violates her freedom of speech. The suit seeks to ensure no one else gets cited under the law and asks for punitive damages.

 

According to the lawsuit, Grier was driving home in March from dinner with a friend when a DeKalb County police officer pulled her over on Chamblee-Tucker Road. The officer wrote her a $100 ticket for having a bumper sticker that read, "I'm tired of all the BUSHIT" on her car. The officer said it violated the county's "lewd decal" ordinance.

• I don’t really give a shit about Bono. I don’t really give a shit about Bono wanting to save money. But when Bono lectures one country for not spending enough money on Africa, then moves his funds from that country to another one with a lower tax rate, I start giving a shit. Well, maybe “giving a shit” is too strong a word – how about finding the whole thing “post worthy”?

Bono, the rock star and campaigner against third-world debt, is asking the Irish government to contribute more to Africa. At the same time, he is reducing tax payments that could help finance that aid.

 

After Ireland said it would scrap a break that lets musicians and artists avoid paying taxes on royalties, Bono and his fellow U2 band members this year moved their music publishing company to the Netherlands. The group, which Forbes estimates earned $110 million in 2005, will pay about a 5 percent tax on their royalties in the Netherlands, less than half the Irish rate.

• I don’t really care about the political stuff in this article. It’s just when I read this I picture a bunch of Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts fighting about how someone’s Level 15 thief failed a Save v. Poison roll while opening a treasure chest and died despite the wizard in the party casting a “Detect Traps” spell in the previous round. Then again, the fact I know what this shit means depresses me. Oh fuck it, I’ll embrace my D&D roots. I was always a fan of elves because they could use most weapons and cast spells. Two-handed weapons, if memory serves, were out of the question, but I never liked them anyway because they took too much time to swing.

While many Democratic activists and fund-raisers are in an almost celebratory mood at the prospect of taking one or both houses of Congress in next month’s election, the professionals charged with the behind-the-scenes mobilizing and deploying of the party’s vast voter database are troubled.

 

The problem lies, specifically, within the geeky subculture of Democratic get-out-the-vote strategists and data managers—the guardians of the voter information that has become the lifeblood of recent elections. Just as the Democrats were making strides toward the ultimate goal of catching up to the finely tuned Republican micro-targeting operation, the Democratic corps of data nerds became engaged in a low-grade civil war, trading old allegations of miscues and strategic gaffes in the run-up to the 2004 election.