Medary.com

A niece of ours is a Franophile. I think that's safe to say. She's in college studying design, and France is one of the world's leading centers of fashion. We can all agree to that.

I think most of us can also agree that the French are otherwise not particularly loved around the world, almost as much as Americans. We're hated because we're strong and generous, and not always quite sensitive enough to use that strength and generosity wisely, in the opinion of some in the world. The French are hated because, well . . .

I'll let this article from the UK's Telegraph say it:

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

Words used by other Europeans to describe the French include:
stubborn
humorless
pretentious
agitated
shallow
cold
impolite
preaching
flesh-loving
egocentric
immoral
dirty

Yikes. Be careful what you ask for, eh?

Houston has a grackle problem.

Excerpt:
Aggressive grackles around the County Administration Building launched attacks Monday that left a lawyer bloodied and county employees wondering whether Hitchc ock's The Birds was make-believe.

I shouldn't do this, but I can't help myself:
Did someone flush a copy of the Crow-ran down a toilet, maybe?

Uff Da! Dem crazy Lut'rens up dere by Okoboji are just goin' nuts over dere, yah sure ya betcha . . .

Political satire by IowaHawk:

Military efforts to stabilize the violent ethnic Protestantism of the region have had a mixed record of success. U.S. paratroopers first landed along the Iowa/Minnesota border in early 2002 to root out extremist Uff Da militants, followers of the charismatic Lutheran cleric Pastor Duane Gunderson. Despite fears of being bogged down in the harsh Mankato winter, troops encountered little resistance, save sporadic eggings from ill-equipped insurgents atop the grain elevators of local cornlords. U.S. forces achieved swift success, taking as many as 1,500 Lutheran rebels into custody and bringing a momentary measure of stability to what has long been considered a dangerous Scandinavian backwater.

The closer you are to Sioux Falls/Sioux City/Minneapolis, the funnier this is.

Kathleen Sullivan, in the Orlando Sentinel:

First, we all can agree that flushing a Quran down a toilet, if physically possible, would be both insensitive and rude, though Westerners generally have a higher tolerance threshold for such offenses. Put it this way: You could flush a Bible down the toilet in front of Goober in Kabul, and it's unlikely that Mayberry suddenly would be awash in blood.

I'm not exactly sure why this is in "Diet & Lifestyle" but it's gotta go somewhere.

It's garage sale time? Our little subdivision has its community garage sale this Saturday, so it's time to go through the garage and basement and drag out all the stuff that we don't want any more but is too good to actually throw out.

Snookums came across this site, which caters to the diner who (in part):

Passes by the familiar, bland comfort of the Red Lobsters, Olive Gardens and Golden Arches that have taken over suburbia, insisting on driving a few minutes or hours further - knowing that somewhere down the road is a barbecue pit, a truck stop, a diner, a drive-in. a greasy spoon that may well become the highlight of the journey.

Well worth the time to browse around on the site. It could be a bit better organized, but all in all a good-natured (if somewhat filling) homage to The Greasy Spoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you:

The World Famous Kansas City Marching Cobras!

Sometimes, the headline writes itself--it certainly did for Stars And Stripes: Sauerkraut triggers alarm at Osan mall, post office

This is excellent:

A Challenge (the Second Amendment)

A well regulated Intelligentsia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.

What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

If you're using Firefox as your web browser, an update (to 1.0.4) is available - - click the little red triangle update button at the upper right corner of the screen to download and install the update.

Just remember to unclick the "Use Firefox Home Page As Your Home Page" or whatever the heck it says. Boy, that annoys the heck out of me that they always want to redirect your home page back to Firefox's home page. That's user-unfriendly behavior that's almost Microsoftian in its hostility, in my opinion.