You there!

Why are you just sitting around reading a blog? We're at ORANGE ALERT!

PANNNIIIIC!

Are we ever going to get down to green and blue? Or even up to red for that matter? We only really need two colors on the scale o' terrorism. Yellow, for normal times, and orange, for the times when terrorism indicators are at their highest levels since 9/11. Which has happened like four times already.

I feel we should Rasta-fy AOL by... 10 percent or so.

This AOL memo details the online provider's latest attempt to maintain some shred of relevance. Actual text follows:

We're pleased to announce the initial soft launch of a major new AOL initiative that will soon have teens seeing RED - RED, the new AOL service for teens that is.

Yes, they actually put that as the first sentence of the memo.

This radically new, unique application for teens will allow today's hip-to-click group of Internet users to control and choose the online experience they want, when they want it.

Hip-to-click, eh? That should be the slogan. You guys should hire Huey Lewis to do the song in the commercial... that'll really rope in those 12-17 year olds.

Also, allow them to "control and choose the online experience they want, when they want it?" Do teens have a problem using the Internet, or something? Because when I was a teenager I seem to recall being able to do voluntarily browse the Internet whenever I wanted without AOL's help. Not once did my computer come barging into the living room while I was making out to show me something I totally didn't want to see.

Meanwhile, my birthday is tomorrow, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit already gave me a present: my other favorite corporate behemoth entity, the Recording Industry Association of America, had the smack laideth down upon it.

Winston Churchill and Genghis Khan surrender

From an article in today's Washington Times called "Events in Iraq boost Rumsfeld":

The capture [of Saddam] promises to restore Mr. Rumsfeld's status as the ultimate wartime leader, after months of being pummeled by the Washington press corps.

OK, I guess this post is over, because I can't write anything funnier than that.

Redskins, Wizards, Capitals: You're all an inspiration to me

Redskins (5-9, .357): Quarterback Tim Hasselbeck put up a quarterback rating of zero on Sunday. This matched the number of points the Redskins scored, and also the amount of humility possessed by owner Dan Snyder.

Steve Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy in college as a quarterback; in the NFL, he guided the '76 Tampa Bay Buccaneers to an 0-14 record, still the only team ever to go winless for an entire season. As a head coach at the University of Florida, Spurrier was king of the world, going 122-27-1 and winning one national title, frequently running up the score and enjoying great success. As an NFL head coach... well, these days you look at his face and you wonder who died. Moral: Steve, stick to the NCAA.

Wizards (7-16, .304): After the team's latest loss to the Knicks, head coach Eddie Jordan blamed the officiating. Because, I guess, that's easier than blaiming the players for sucking. "If only we had gotten those calls, we could have been 8-15! 8-15, I tell you!"

The Wizards' number one draft pick from three years ago, Kwame Brown, continues to suck. Every time I see him I wonder if he's somehow mistakenly put on shoes made of molasses. He's slower than John Thompson's thought processes. The 21-year-old Brown lost his starting job again this season, the same year that young draft picks LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have electrified the league.

Meanwhile, free-agent signing Gilbert Arenas was thrown out of a game for arguing a call from the bench. While he was on the injured list and ineligible to play.

Capitals (9-19-1-1 for 20 pts. in 30 games, .333): No-necked whitey owner Ted Leonsis fired head coach Bruce Cassidy about a week after I heard him give the coach a vote of confidence on the radio.

Suddenly, after hearing trade rumors, the overpaid Jaromir Jagr started performing well; sadly for him, he's so overpaid that even the big-budget New York Rangers are unwilling to pick up his contract. As a result of his huge contract, the Capitals were financially unable to sign replacements for defensemen they lost; they've given up more goals than all but one team in the league, and are tied for fewest standings points with that team (Pittsburgh).

All this from a team that reportedly loses $18 million every year.

Average winning percentage of all three teams: .331.

Good seats... are available.

AOL proposes Love.com

AOL is launching a new matchmaking-meets-instant-messaging service, love.com.

The ultimate challenge: finding matches for their employees.

Maybe hold off on that holiday shopping

D.C. schools get into the holiday spirit by planning to lay off a whopping 771-ish employees.

Bomb Threats in NE Disrupt Schools, Traffic

This happened last Friday. I love this story, because not only does it feature some of the under-the-national-radar terrorism we have to face, but also because the D.C. cops once again are made to look 'tarded.

The search for additional devices ended by mid-afternoon, and officials reopened roads and Metrorail lines after concluding that the neighborhoods and tracks were safe. By then, authorities had swarmed upon a home in Northwest Washington and taken a man in for questioning. Hours later, the man was released. No charges were filed.

Police said the man had called 911 from a cell phone about the same time that the threats were called in, also via a cell phone.

Authorities said they identified the questioned man from phone records, began a search for his pickup truck and converged on a house on Kenyon Street NW occupied by his relatives. But they learned that he had called 911 about a traffic accident and had no connection to the case. Ramsey told a reporter last night that equipment was not available yesterday to distinguish among calls made by different cell phones at the same time.

So wrong in so many ways. I guess if you run into trouble in D.C., and you somehow manage to get through to 911 without getting put on hold, and you manage to get the responding officer to pay attention long enough to your petty not-a-threat-to-national-security problem, you could still get hogtied and taken in for questioning later because their sophisticated cell phone number tracking technology, which must be, like, a divining rod or something, erroneously fingered you as someone who called in a bomb threat.

You are beautiful, D.C. metro police department. No matter what they say. Words can't bring you down.

AOL Cuts Jobs in Consolidation Move

Sigh. Remember when laying off people just before Christmas used to be a cliche?

AAAAAA OOOOOO LLLLLLL!

You will be visited by three ghosts!

The first is the Ghost of AOL Past. You will shudder at the ruination of the Internet, the advent of mass pedophilia spam, and of course, frequent layoffs.

Then, the Ghost of AOL Present. Witness the destruction of Netscape, the mass exodus of subscribers to superior high-speed Internet options, and the consummation of the worst merger ever: AOL and Time Warner unite to become AOL-Time Warner, and then just Time Warner again as everyone tries to just forget it ever happened.

Finally, the Ghost of AOL Future... a company so mired in greed that it finally out-stupids itself, falling into the grave of dead dot-coms.

Whew... I think the chained apparition of Steve Case's home page took over for a little while there.

God bless us every one!

Crusade to Redesign D.C. Flag Fizzles

The effort to officially place the words "No Taxation Without Representation - DC" on the D.C. flag appears to have been for naught.

Wow, I wish they had succeeded; that would have looked ridiculous.

And, hello, news flash - nobody else cares. Unless they think that somebody in, say, Nebraska, going to a) ever see the new flag, and then b) call their local congressman because poor little D.C. has no representatives in Congress? Has that worked with the equally boneheaded "Taxation Without Representation" license plates?

Of course not, because nobody cares. D.C. has a well designed flag; scrawling a useless political message on it would have been a new pinnacle in stupidity.

Alexandria Sheriff's Wife Slain At Home

The mysterious death of the Alexandria sheriff's wife has been ruled a homicide.

Worst. Zoo. Ever.

The Post has unleashed one of its always-awesome two-part investigative articles, this time focused on everybody's favorite crime against nature, the National Zoo in D.C.

After reading the article, it would appear that Lucy Spelman, the zoo's director, is about as qualfied for her job as the Fat Boys are to be orderlies. Only without as much comedy, since many of the animals appear to have suffered quite a lot, and died slowly from long-term neglect.

My favorite part, from this timeline about frequent animal deaths, about a pair of giraffes that died from undernourishment:

After the first giraffe died, Spelman initially withheld pathology details from the media, citing the privacy rights of animals.

The Grinch almost wins

Apparently I'm technically not legally allowed to put up a live Christmas tree in my apartment.

Yeah, I'm doing it anyway. Sucks to your fire code!

41 more sued over music downloads

The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America continues to sue people into oblivion without due process to protect its price-gouging monopoly. You know what to do... boycott 'em.

Time to get fucked up the ass by the federal government, AGAIN

Some fuckwad Oklahoma representative wants to cut federal funding of Metro because they ran a non-profit advertisement calling for the legalization of marijuana.

This week, Istook inserted into a bill language that would cut Metro's funds by $92,500 and prohibit any transit system that receives federal funds from running advertising from a group that wants to decriminalize marijuana.

No... NO... how will Metro pay for the $100,000 SUPER TOILET!?!? HOWWWWW!?!?!???

"Metro is using taxpayer facilities to promote illegal activity," said Micah Swafford, Istook's press secretary.

Um, except it's totally not, you vapid congressional whore.

The ad in question didn't advocate anything illegal; it simply called for the legalization of an illegal drug, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is not an illegal activity, and is covered by that whole "free speech" thing we've got going on in this here country.

Free speech is a great thing, Micah Swafford. It allows you to post a Real Video tour of your living room on the Web, which, let me tell you, had me on the edge of my fucking seat. It allows me to suggest that you take a few minutes to read the Constitution between blowjob sessions with Rep. Istook. (Um, I think I'm probably not going to be invited to Monday at Micah's.)

The moral of the story: stupid, petty federal politics is potentially going to cost us transit money, which is exactly what the city with the third-worst traffic congestion in the country needs not. And it's all because of a blowjob.

I mean marijuana! It's all because of marijuana.

Dulles Metrorail Financing Plan Fails

The Herndon town coucil turned down a new tax district that would have eventually funded a much-need Metrorail extension to Dulles Airport, primarily because the first phase of the project wouldn't reach Herndon, and there was no guarantee the second phase would actually be built.

"We've tried and tried and tried to get the tracks out to Dulles," [former governor A. Linwood] Holton said after last night's vote. "We couldn't. Now the project is dead and it may be 25 years until we see rail to Dulles."

Looks like I'm going to have to keep driving to work. Blah.

Essay Contest Is Less Than a Dream Come True

Sorry to all the chumps who entered this essay contest. The idea was: pay $100, write a 75-word essay, have it judged by lawyers (who are, of course, the world's foremost experts on creative writing), and if you win, you win a house.

Seems that the contest was cancelled due to lack of interest (imagine that, nobody has $100 to blow). But don't worry, you'll still get a refund... a partial refund, that is! Ho-hooo! You've been SPITFIRE GRILLED, LOSERS!!!

Um, yeah.