Museum Seeks More Old Crap

Has anyone seen Fred Warner's outhouse?

If so, please contact the Governor Warner Museum in Farmington, Michigan. They lost it.

Strippers Ignite Protests

Alleged discrimination in Norway's tax law on bare assets is sparking an international controversy, according to an AP story.

It seems that the all-male American Chippendale strip troupe has to pay only a 15-percent tax on their revenues. Meanwhile, foreign female strippers have to peel 24-percent of ticket sales off the top to give to the Norwegian tax man.

But Norway's Gender Equality Ombudsman Kristin Mile is investigating. Ed. imagines that Kristin will determine the naked truth of the matter after stripping away all the rhetoric and grinding out the raw numbers.

In a related story, Ed. reports that the Ombudsman of Lapland, Lotta Tatas, has filed suit in the World Court seeking past and future royalties from strippers across the globe who perform her country's native choreography routines without license and without paying the Laplanders their due.

"It's a gross violation of international copyright laws," said Tatas. "We created the Lap Dance and have been performing it at festivals for hundreds of years. Now, we understand that Lap Dances are being performed at every strip joint in the world. We want our fair share."

NEWS FLASH ... Ed. Note Endorses PETA

The Chicago-Sun-Times, Friday, reports that PETA is again mired in controversy. Personally, Ed. does not understand all the fuss being raised over PETA. Ed. likes PETA. In fact, he thinks PETA is the greatest thing since sliced white bread!

Imagine, Ed. says, what the world would be like without PETA.

No gyro sandwiches! No little grilled wedges of tasty white unleavened bread to eat on the side with your salad!

No jobs for all the factory workers who slave away all day and all night making those little round PETA bread thingies that go great with any meal!

Ed. is saddened by the thought that all this commotion may someday mean the end of PETA, and he wonders "what a town without PETA caaaaan dooo."

So You Think The 1st Thanksgiving Was About Crops and Turkeys

Well, as my dad used to say, "everything comes out in the wash."

Remember how piously your grade school teachers used to tell you about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, and how Puritan settlers suffered through hard winters until they learned about agriculture and the abundant wildlife in the New Land?

Ha!

Wildlife indeed. As Bill Duryea of the Scripps Howard News Service tells the Chicago Sun-Times, the Pilgrims weren't such a bunch of dour, joyless fanatics after all.

Nope, it turns out that they drank three times as much booze per person as modern Americans, loved to go bowling, approved of premarital sex, and let their daughters bed down with the hired help as compensation for a full day's work.

Four hundred years later, on this day, let us reflect on the bounties that we enjoy, the humble origins of this great land and the lasting traditions handed down to us by our forefathers and foremothers ... among them, bowling, booze and sex. May we, through daily effort, forever be worthy of this feast so hard earned by those who came before us to carve out a new life in a new land.

Now, pass me the dark meat and hey, while you're up, can you grab me another beer and flip the toob to the bowling finals on ESPN.

And tonight, hon ... we're going to play "Settler woman and the Indian Chief."

God Bless America!

and God Bless You All!

This Is Not Funny

What in the world is fertility specialist Dr. Severino Antinori thinking?

In an MSNBCi, AP and Reuters story, Antimori, speaking from Rome, is saying that the first-ever cloned human (his doing) will be born in January. In May, the Italian embryologist announced that three women were pregnant with clones. In animal experiments, according to the account, there are hundreds of unsuccessful tries for every cloning success. Most scientists reject human cloning because of the great risk of creating deformed or sick babies.

Ed.'s questions: If the experiment fails to deliver a whole, healthy child, what will the fate of the live newborn be? What (Italian?) law will be applied to that outcome, and what status will be attributed to the unfortunate creature that results?

There are those who desire they be the sole arbiters of what constitutes human life, and when. The laws of the United States have allowed that, to a point.

Now what?

Bearly Compatible

A new dating service is now available in Beijing to help smelly, lazy, dim-witted suitors find their ideal mates. It seems males of the species refuse to do the nasty with prospective females, who apparently are only open to the idea once every two or three years, anyway.

And This Message from the CPSC

The Cobra are Poisonous Snakes Commission reminds cobra promoters and handlers that grabbing a deadly, venomous snake by the tail can have serious consequences, as told in this Chicago Sun-Times story, courtesy of AP. As noted in the account, "Without warning, the snake bit his left hand."

In their never-ending attempt to legislate common sense, the few remaining Democrats in Congress pledged to push a bill that would outlaw warningless snake bites. "People have a right to know that they are about to die from a snakebite," said one top House Dem. Supporting the measure were members of the pro-human advocacy group, Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People. While fellow Democrats on the Hill also pushed for warning labels on lethal reptiles, House GOP member were crafting a "carry law" that would allow people to carry concealed deadly snakes for self defense purposes.

Meanwhile, a top White House official said President Bush would ask the United Nations to authorize deployment of a Poisonous Snake Inspection Team to inspect foreign countries believed to have Reptiles of Mass Destruction (RMD). Under the measure, the subject nation would have 10 days to declare the presence of RMDs and another 10 days to defang them, before UN troops and inspectors entered the country. Bush, however, is asking the UN Security Council to authorize unilateral military action by the US should poisonous snakes be located by inspectors.