How not to make money.

Some dopey PETA-head has somehow sold enough hemp clothing to buy a building and has banned pesticides.

Sigh. Should serve him or her in good stead when all of the tenants move out and the bank takes over the property.

"Hey, Mrs. O'Shea, what does your son do again?"

"Uh, he tries to attract horny giant squid so that he can videotape them."

This story is too good to be true.

"The freezer bag at home - to my wife's disgust - is actually full of giant squid gonad samples. We're going to grind all of this up, and we're going to have this puree coming out from the camera, squirting into the water.

"Hopefully the male giant squid, absolutely driven into a frenzy, is going to come up and try to mate with the camera.

"This is the dream - we're going to get this sensational footage of the giant squid trying to do obscene things with the camera."

And to think this guy's mother wanted him to be an accountant.

Ananova - Ban on Russian ads depicting euro having sex with dollar

The Euro may no longer have sex with the dollar.
The "Moscow Committee for advertising and information" (Ouch! Soviet-era flashback!) has "banned a poster campaign showing the euro having sex with the US dollar," the campaign being "judged immoral."

I think it's because they do not appear to be using condoms.

Thanks to Yvonne for the tip.

Oooh! My deal made the Times!

Well, now I must be important. One of my deals got a write-up in the New York Times.

The short summary of the deal is actually pretty good:

Members of the family that founded the Reckson Associates Realty Corporation, the Long Island-based real estate investment trust with more than 20 million square feet of office and industrial space in the New York area, are in the process of taking part of their properties private in a $315 million transaction.

Of course, the Times then goes on to say that Israel's policies are to blame for the condition of industrial real estate on Long Island, and that in the absence of any evidence of WMD, the deal is inappropriate at this time.

Holy Grail On Broadway

Mike Nichols is evidently set to direct a musical adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Broadway, written by Pythoner Eric Idle.

Life is good.

Clearly, they've never dated a Jewish woman...

I don't know how I missed this last week. FOX News reports that the Saudi Committee for the Propagation of Virture and Prevention of Vice lists Barbie dolls on its website as offensive to Islam.

My favorite part:

"Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful," said a message posted on the site.

Having spent my dating years fruitlessly searching for a shameful decadent Jewish woman with revealing clothes, I congratulate the Saudis on finding one.

How to get there...

"Pardon me, would you happen to know the way to Mordor?"

The Tenant vs. the Rabbi

Over at Volokh, David Bernstein points out the incredible arrogance of a rent controlled tenant shown in an article from the New York Times.

As David notes:

Quote from a typical abuser of New York's anti-landlord legal system: "If I lose this apartment, I leave New York. Why should they lose me just because the rabbi wants this apartment for his own use?"

Umm, how about because the Rabbi owns the apartment? And I, for one, think New York would be much better off without you.

Rent control is a holdover from (get this) World War II. And it should have gone out with sugar rationing.

Petition: Ninja Assassins as an Alternative to War

A interesting online petition:

To: Bush Administration, U.N.

We, the undersigned, request that as an alternative to war on Iraq, a team of elite ninja assassins be employed to take out Saddam Hussein. We feel that this method would result in significantly less American casualties, less innocent Iraqi civilians being slaughtered, less damage to the infrastructure of Iraq, and would preserve much of the oil that would otherwise be ignited by bombings. Also, we believe that ninja assassins are really, really cool.

He does have a point -- they are really, really cool.

No use crying over...

"I thought you had it"
"No, you said you had it!"
"Well, now, who's gonna clean it up?"
"Not me."
"Well, it's not gonna be me."

OPUS RETURNS!!!!!!!!

Berke Breathed is going to return to cartooning with a Sunday-only strip called (what else) Opus.

The French are unbelievable.

On September 11, the French newspaper Le Monde publishes this.

The best thing I've read today...

James Lileks is amazing. Just read today's Bleat.

What I was doing all that time...

Well, one of those deals I was killing myself on was announced. See, I really do work for a living!

Ummm. Eeewww.

According to a poster at Chowhound.com, at Taka, a sushi place uncomfortably close to my apartment, one can get a special dish:

It was grasshoppers.. For three bucks i got about 10 crispy sweet grasshoppers... They crunch when you bit [sic] into them and had a sweet sake taste to them.

Amusingly, he continues by saying that "the dessert section looked poor."

Well, sure it did after the grasshopper entree!

31st Anniversary of the Munich Massacre

Noted today by Jewish World Review:

Today in 1972, Arab guerrillas attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic games; 11 Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer were killed in the siege. One of the chief plotters … "Palestinian Prime Minister" Mahmoud Abbas.

Well, I'm celebrating it...

Don't forget, Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19!

Star Wars Episode IV Screen Tests...

This is old, but it's still funny. Kevin Spacey and others recreate "Screen Tests" for Star Wars.

Every man's worst nightmare...

"Pleased to meet you, how are you? My name is Dr. Bobbitt."