I'm Serious.

Maureen Dowd attempted an obvious rip-off of FrankJ's "In My World" series, and it's completely unfunny, except for this line, ostensibly from Dick Cheney:

We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. It’s time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them.

David Brooks does a little better.

Try These Different ways to Become Invisible

WuzzaDem rocks! Guess their retirement announcement was "nuanced."

She is in all likelihood the most knowledgeable female on the planet concerning firearms and shooting, and is apparently a full-blood Viking.

Not only that, she can turn a phrase — one guess who this refers to:

…the most amoral, power-hungry weathervane to wear a skirt in Washington since J. Edgar Hoover.

Go read Tamara at View From The Porch.

This is a cool service. If you need a cool, easy-to-remember domain name, give these guys a try. Best part — if you don't like any of their suggestions, you get 100% of the fee back.

Go to PickyDomains.com and get a cool domain name!

Feeling creative? Submit your suggestions — you earn $25 every time your suggestion is used!

This is pretty scary.

It even works on phones without GPS chips. The implications for privacy are appalling.

Mobile phone tracking

I was right last year when I predicted Taylor Hicks to win, but SarahK has it down to a science. She watches more TV than me, too.

Check out her commentary at IMAO — and download a podcast or two so you'll hear her cute Texas accent in your head when you read her stuff.

SarahK rocks!

I took a little time today and revamped the look of Acme Anvil Co. I'm now running the latest version of WordPress, and I upgraded several of the plug-ins that I use, and dropped a few that WordPress now does "out of the box."

It took a little longer than I anticipated, so some of you got to see the themes I considered, and even more got to see this one before I had it fully customized. Most of the problem came when I tried to enable widgets, a WordPress function which lets me put stuff where I want it in the columns; apparently there are incompatibilities between the latest WordPress code and the King Text widget; once I disabled King Text, everything worked fine.

There are a few more graphical things to touch up, but they're fairly minor. I did add the widget that shows how many spam comments I've gotten — it's at the bottom of the left column. Akismet is a pretty cool plugin, and as of right now, it has caught 8,522 spam comments!

My good friend William Boyd Chisum has an amazing talent, and an awesome testimony.

Check out his website WilliamBoydChisum.com.

Not only is the left quantifiably more profane, they're vicious and heartless, to boot.

Instapunk has the details.

Here's a random word - zuf5xk. I want to see how long before it shows up in a Google search.

***UPDATE - two days!

Gary has a neat newspaper format… just my two cents' worth. 

The Owner's Manual

Yay! It's finally up! This week's Carnival of Comedy, which I'm calling the Harvest Carnival, since SpaceMonkey won't tell me which number it is. (I got it wrong the last two times.)

My lovely wife is out of town, and since I'm taking care of the girls by myself, I have a good excuse for being late this time — I kept having to choose between taking care of the kids or drugging them and posting the carnival, and I chose to take care of the kids every single time because I'm a wonderful Dad. Ironically, it's a light carnival this week, but I'm still going to be lazy and use the carnival format. That's why they all start with UserName presents PostName, and so forth. Sue me.

Stiknstein presents The Real Thing??..I bet JOLT is better?.. posted at stikNstein….has no mercy. An intro Cocaine, an energy drink with a "fun" name, and a bit of history of the Coca-Cola brand.

Elizabeth presents Meet the master of the lap dance and presidential candidate posted at Creatures of the Earth. I think Elizabeth got us confused with the Carnival of the Cats, which I should create and submit a post for, since I'm a link slut.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents How To Disorganize Your Life posted at MAD KANE'S HUMOR BLOG. I feel sorry for Madeleine, but also for her neighbors, because step 2 involves dashing around the house naked, and although subsequent steps involve leaving the house, none involve getting dressed.

Miriam presents Guns don't kill people posted at miriam's ideas. A heart-warming story of a granny shooting a would-be intruder, which of course is also funny.

Chris Carlisle presents The Shallow End of the Jury Pool posted at The Dimmer Switch. Boy, I sure want to be judged by a bunch of people that aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Tommy presents Microsoft Yields To Open Source Programming posted at The Kag Report. A dream…

Damian G. presents Mother Nature: Republican Operative? posted at Conservathink. Watch for How-wierd Dean to demand an investigation…

Well, that's it for the Harvest Carnival of Comedy, sponsored by IMAO. You can submit your entry for future carnivals at the Blog Carnival. Contact SpaceMonkey (link at Blog Carnival) if you want to host a carnival. You don't even have to do it promptly or well!

… and my post on our vacation is featured.

Check it out at The Owner's Manual!

That's right, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so whenever you can, talk like a pirate! Here's a few words you can use:

• Arrr!
• Matey
• Wench
• Ahoy! 
• Grog 
• Avast
• Scurvy liberal
• Lubber
• Shiver me timbers 

It's not hard — you too can talk like a pirate!

Arrr! 

Swiped from StrangePersons.com.

You may have seen this email floating around: 

Many will recall that on July 8, 1947, witnesses claim that an unidentified object with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and the federal government. However, you may NOT know that in the month of March 1948, exactly nine months after that historic day, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., Hillary Rodham, John F. Kerry, William Jefferson Clinton, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Charles E. Schumer, and Barbara Boxer were born. That piece of information has now cleared up a lot of things.

But according to the urban legend experts at Snopes.com, it's not true. Most of these people were born long before the incident, with Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham born just three months later, in October. 

Interestingly, if the alien/human hybrid had the same gestation period as a rhinocerous, Howierd Dean could be an alien, but neither John McCain nor Arlen Specter — two of the more famous RINOs — were born during this period.

Anyway, as it turns out, Al Gore, who was born on 31 March 1948, is the only true alien in the bunch. Now, 58 years later, he has almost learned to mimic human behavior.

Over the next few days, my family will be praying for the family and friends of Ruth Sheila Lapin.

Ruth was a resident of East Windsor, NJ, and was 53 years old when she was killed by terrorists at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. She was a senior business analyst at Baseline Financial Services.

From one of her friends: "Ruth knew how to have a good time. She appreciated the power of a witty remark and a good laugh. She had a unique spirit that doesn't come along frequently and a deep love for her children. Ruth was a person who left a lasting impression on you. She enjoyed her life."

Rest in peace, Ruth - we will never forget. 

The 2996 Project

Mama Duck at Lil' Duck Duck has posted the Carnival of the Vanities #206, and Acme Anvil Co. is included! (some would say, "of course.")

Thanks,  Mama Duck!

I heard someone on the radio a few days ago that applauded President Bush's finally using the term "Islamo-Fascism," instead of "War on Terror." He pointed out that terror is a way of waging war, and that we didn't fight the War on Blitzkrieg in WWII, we fought the Germans. 

Please note the definition of fascism:

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

We're not in danger of Muslims in general, but there is definitely a clear and present danger from those who practice Islam in very specific ways and demand that everyone do so, or die. 

So, Muslims are okay. But since we believe strongly in freedom — not only for Americans but for all people, Islamo-fascists must desist or be destroyed. 

And as a footnote, I just changed the category "War on Terror" to "War on Islamo-Fascism" here at Acme Anvil Co.

The winner for the Carnival of Comedy #69 — HollyRhea's post on her days in show-choir! Holly has a wonderful ability to not take herself seriously while involved in a "look-at-me" activity.

Good job, Holly! 

Checking my logs, I find that lots of people are interested in confessed killer John Mark Karr's mullet.

They're finding it at this post. I'm trying to remember if any other accused/convicted murderer sported such a hideous coif. 

Any ideas? Post 'em in the comments. 

**Update — See below**

***Updated Again — See further below*** 

Welcome to the Carnival of Comedy, brought to you by the relatively harmless folks at IMAO!

We're going to do this a little differently — this post will remain on top for a while, with each submission noted in a separate post below. And in an experiment to see whether you feel like we care about your opinion, you get to vote. And by "you," I mean blog-owners; yep, just like the old days of democracy, where only land-owners got to vote.

Here's what you do — read through all of them, then write a post on your site sending people to your favorite, and send a trackback both to the original post and to my critique here on Acme Anvil Co. If I'm still interested, I'll count the votes after 10pm Central time on Sunday, and post the winner as an update to this post. 

I already hear some of you whining — "But I don't haaaave a blog!" Well, get one. You have plenty of time between now and Sunday. Try Blogger; it's free. Or user WordPress like I do, cause I'm smart. Remember to learn how to use trackbacks.

Keep referring back to this post, and I'll include an update when the reviews are finished. I just included a new category for the carnival just to make your lives easier — look for the link to the left.

Want to be included in next week's carnival? Submit teh funny here or here. 

**Update — Almost finished! Keep checking back! 

***Update again — I'm done! Every entry has it's own post, and they're all in the new Carnival of Comedy category, so you can find the easily. The category is to the left, or you can click here. 

Also, it turns out this is Carnival of Comedy #69, so that's twice I've mis-labeled the carnival. The first time was SpaceMonkey's fault, and this time… well, you get what you pay for.

Don't forget to vote, if it's not too complicated. 

Also — please patronize my sponsors, so I can buy a new gun.

A Filthy Lie

Glenn Reynolds posts on his blog that his daughter starts middle school this week, and that his mom gave her a copy of A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School: Everything You Need to Know About Juggling More Homework, More Teachers, and More Friends.

He then whines that he didn't have a book like that when he was a little girl, but a bottle of cheap scotch got his mom to tell me about several books that changed Glenn's life during middle school:

• A Smart Boy's Guide to Fitting In: First, Stop Peeing Your Pants
• A Smart Boy's Guide to Islam: Don't Bend Over in Front of the Imam
• A Smart Boy's Guide to Smoothies: Puppies Are High in Protein
• A Smart Boy's Guide to Hobos: He Probably Didn't Have Anything to Live For, Anyway
• A Smart Boy's Guide to Intellectual Fakery: Use "Heh" and "Indeed" a Lot

In no particular order, websites I think you ought to try. 

Rich Galen's Mullings — funny and insightful political commentary. 

William Boyd Chisum — my good friend Boyd is a Christian musician, writer and motivational speaker. Read his story online, and listen to his latest music.

Kim Komando — you can always depend on Kim for good advice for your PC.

The Sconce — Col. Jeff Cooper's Commentaries. Col. Cooper is the father of modern shooting, and designer of the Scout Rifle. Historical perspective on current events. 

ThinkGeek — cool toys for geeks. Also clothing, caffeine and books. 

AMSOIL Synthetic Oil — 100% synthetic oil not only makes your car last longer, but it can improve fuel economy and help reduce dependence upon foreign oil. 

TQFD — My cousin Craig is a chaplain and chemical dependency counselor. He's also one of the best Bible teachers I know. This site is his Thought & Quote for the Day. You can sign up for email updates.

Christ, the Better Way — My friend Bob Graham wrote a Christian devotion in sonnet form for every day of the year, and a few extras. Each devotion also includes the appropriate references from Scripture. This link takes you to today's devotion; there are links at the bottom of the page for the rest of the site.

Rev Ed mentioned my post on Malik Z. Shabazz, Quanell X, and The New Black Panther Party at the Heat Wave Edition of the Christian Carnival.

Thanks, Rev! 

As insightful as anything else you'll see on the Connecticut Democrat primary — and funny besides. 

IMAO: Kos Ends His Losing Streak… Kinda

Instapundit.com is five years old today!

But of course, Instapundo Delenda Est. 

Awesome, beautiful, ever-changing screensaver! From their website:

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Visit the electric sheep screen-saver site and download. You can also buy a DVD of the most popular "sheep" with music accompaniment.