From the department of heh:

MONROE, Ohio -- A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

What a great loss to humanity -- a 62-foot-tall Jesus statue made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame. Gone. Plastic foam and fiberglass. Plastic. You showed your love for your chosen deity with a plastic sculpture. No fucking wonder he thought you were being tactless and zapped the ugly thing when he had a spare moment from killing birds in the Gulf of Mexico.

I mean, really, now: we're always being told by the oh-so-pious that this, that, and the other calamity is God's way of telling us he's pissed off. Pat Robertson was quick to claim that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for the gays in New Orleans, and the old saying "may God strike you down" was always used to imply that he really was a sort of Zeus-wanna-be with a big taser and could drop you if you got too far out of line. Well, guess what: Touchdown Jesus got zapped, not some random gay guy up the road or the lesbian couple down the way. The Jesus statue got grilled.

If we're to take the almighty God myth seriously, what the hell does that tell you about his feelings for his most devout and committed followers? And if this shows us that, really, the whole God thing is a bit retarded, then surely Mr. & Mrs. Bishop -- the couple who spent mucho moolah on the plastic fantastic hommage to their favorite dude -- are feeling a bit embarrassed at this time -- as well they should.

(Photo of one of God's other practical jokes by Matthew Mcvay/Corbis)

What a coinkidink -- just as Sir Change-a-Lot is getting ready to yet again defend (and ask for money for) the continued and increasingly unpopular American involvement in Afghanistan in spite of any measurable progress (unless American soldiers killed in combat and billiions of tax payer dollars spent is "progress"), down the pike comes this little nugget of exploitative potential, courtesy of the New York Times:

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

So, not only is Afghanistan key to moving oil & gas from the middle of nowhere to a market conveniently near us, it also turns out it's the next great location for some good ol' environmentally devastating mining and all-out looting and pillaging of mother nature's riches. Nothing is more American than that, is it now, so of course we have to stay for the party and make away with our "fair" share of the spoils of our war.

What's really frightening, however, is that we have to hear about this new discovery from Vice Roy Petraeus, America's favorite son, the macho man in charge of all the US carnage in the region. "“There is stunning potential here," he says. Really? Silly me, I thought we'd hired the general to run our war on those pesky brown people who insist on inhabiting the neighborhood -- since when did Petraeus become so interested in minerals and geology? As a matter of fact, why does the Pentagon have a bunch of geologists running around Afghanistan exploring the potential for mining? Why, it's almost as if they were charged with finding some plausible justification & potential profit for a long-term US military involvement in (aka occupation of) Afghanistan...

Oh, but with an upstanding guy like Hamid Karzai in charge, surely the riches from this potential windfall will end up benefiting the Afghan people rather than, say, foreign interests (aka American mining companies) and their local cronies (aka Hamid Karzai's wealthy friends). Right? Right?

(Photo by Lihee Avidan)

(From Caoimhin Laochdha at GMD)

Bikeseomwhere.com sucks.

The end.

No, seriously, this is one lame, pathetic place to shop. Don't. Just don't shop there -- even if they have the best deal on something, their crappy shipping, dubious business practices, and complete lack of customer response (would it kill you to actually answer the phone or respond to email?) puts them about as far down the list as you can get. Between the four of us in my family we have 11 bikes, so I am constantly buying replacement parts, clothes and etc. for both mountain and road bikes. I've shopped Pricepoint, Nashbar, Performancebike, Alfred E Bike, Treehouse Bikes, Speedgoat and countless other shops over the years, both online and off, and while they certainly haven't all been stellar I can't remember ever being so completely bummed about a bike shop. I usually like people who work at bike shops -- I assume that, because they like bikes, bikers and biking, they must be "good people". But evidently the crowd behind bikesomewhere.com couldn't care less about their customers, and it shows. I needed the stuff I ordered for a big ride this coming weekend, and now I've got to go out and get it locally instead. Next time, maybe I'll just do that in the first place, and leave bikesomewhere.com the hell alone.

So, you send me an order confirmation on the 2nd, charge my credit card on the 3rd, and yet not until I email you on the 10th to ask where my stuff is do you take that key step of shipping the damn stuff?!? How long would it have been sitting in your warehouse if I hadn't taken action?

I'll let this review join the many here, here and at bizrate (including several that mention their inability to actual ship the product they sell), and hopefully it'll keep at least a couple of customers from having the same sorry experience I had. I'm bummed at qbike.com for even bothering to list items from bikesomewhere.com -- they really should filter their stuff better.

So, thanks for nothing, bikesomehwere.com, that was a total waste of time and money. Let's see if you survive this season -- I hope not.

My local chief of police just sent out a missive on the town list serv warning of underage drinking in connection with the pending graduation parties. Fine, probably not a bad idea. But then this jumped out at me:

Some consider underage drinking a "Rite Of Passage".  In Vermont, we consider it against the law.  With the continued emphasis on our budget to conserve every dollar, it is more important then ever to reduce the financial burden that underage drinking places on our stretched-thin budget.

I'm not sure I can follow his logic. Is he saying that parents should do the right thing because he doesn't have the money to deal with arresting their drunk kids? Does he really think that's the incentive that'll make parents act any differently?

Given his reasoning, I'm curious to know if Chief Robinson has a similar problem with the financial burden placed on his budget thru his required involvement in the pointless yet exhorbitantly expensive war on drugs? Imagine if he could stop spending time and effort (as he must, since in Vermont "it's against the law") chasing responsible adults who grow, trade, and use marijuana? I wonder if that wouldn't have an even greater impact on his budget than parents telling their kids to put down the beer 'cause the police chief is running low on cash?

Of course, relieving him of the need to allocate resources to fighting the war on drugs would require a change in policy -- either federally (yeah, good luck with that, given Obama's dismissive & derisive laughter at the notion of changing anything about his War on Drugs -- it's going almost as well as his War on Afghanistan and his War on the Environment), or on a state level. The latter might be possible -- particularly if local law enforcement chiefs like, say, Chief Robinson, went to their state reps and asked for them to take the futile and counterproductive task of enforcing pointless laws off their hands and budget.

A crazy, far-fetched idea? Hardly. From the Marijuana Policy Project:

If this year’s town meeting day ballot in Vermont’s capital of Montpelier is any indication, voters in the Green Mountain State are ready for a change in marijuana policy. In partnership with the Vermont Alliance for Intelligent Drug Laws, MPP sponsored a town meeting day ballot resolution aimed at building support for decriminalizing marijuana possession. By a margin of nearly 3-1 voters implored state legislators to pass legislation that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Nonetheless, Vermont’s elected officials were apparently too busy looking for ways to close the state’s gaping budget holes to be bothered with such a sensible and fiscally responsible proposal.

Indeed. While legalization could help save significantly on local law enforcement budgets (not to mention the judicial and prison system budgets), and while "the people" are clearly in favor of legalization, a majority of politicians, even in Vermont, don't seem to want to take off their blinders and make the right choice. The argument that legalization will give us more trouble with kids getting into drugs is bunk, and has been debunked repeatedly. “The notion that we have to keep something completely banned for adults to keep it away from kids doesn’t hold up,” said Bruce Mirken, communications director of the MPP, quoted in an article in the Seattle Times, which specifically discussed the notion of suffering state budgets and the untenable perpetuation of the war on drugs.

Chief Robinson (and others like him) might find the courage from retired Vermont cop Tim Datig, former chief of police from Weathersfield, Bristol, and St. Albans, who now works with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and has visited Vermont repeatedly to lobby in Montpelier and educate acoss the state on the issue. According to this set of statistics, Vermont is second only to Alaska in marijuana usage, so decriminalizing it would like have a significant impact on law enforcement budgets.