Drive-Bys

Put-Down of the Day:

That's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
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Now here's a novel idea -- let nature take it's course.
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Greatest letter ever sent on NFL letterhead here.
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Tower of the Hand is having a contest regarding George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons. You can enter if you want to, but I'm convinced ADWD will not be completed until A Game of Thrones runs its course on HBO -- long past 2011 -- so I will not be entering. Until and unless he gets tired of running from set to set and con to con and writing with partners on other series he authors, Martin simply won't have time to complete ADWD. Hmpffff.
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Wonder of wonders, for once I agree with PETA:

Vick is not allowed to own a dog while he is on probation, and PETA wants the restriction extended when he is up for review in 2012. In the same way convicted pedophiles are not allowed to be alone with children, PETA's board says, it believes convicted animal abusers should be denied unsupervised access to pets.

"Children and animals are completely defenseless to an abuser," Lange said.

He may have paid his debt to society, but he'll never pay his debt to all those dogs he already killed and/or abused.
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A different kind of love story:

Frank still urges Anthony to move inside without him. Anthony tells him to be quiet.

"Some people say I'm crazy. Some people say I'm loyal. I just say he's my brother," Anthony says.

"I love him," Frank says.

Go read the whole thing.

Update: One of the Nowotnik brothers is in the hospital and the other has gone missing. The good news?

Meanwhile, Anthony, who is expected to remain in the hospital for several days, has been fielding calls in his room from long-lost relatives who read the story and got in touch after an estrangement of nearly 20 years.

"It's kind of hard to talk to people when they're crying and you're crying," Anthony said Wednesday, lying in a hospital bed, a breathing tube in his nose and an IV in his arm. He said he's looking forward to getting reacquainted with his seven half-siblings and 17 nieces and nephews.

"It took that article to get me back to my family," he said. "A couple of days after Christmas, but I still enjoyed the present."

Update 2:

A 34-year-old businessman moved by a Tribune story about homeless twin brothers is paying for a week's hotel stay for one brother while the other remains hospitalized.

The west suburban businessman, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was looking for an opportunity to help and do something more than put a check in the mail.

"A lot of people talk the talk, including myself," he said. "But walking the walk is another story."

That's a lot of love all the way around.
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Ear Worm of the Day:

Drive-Bys

Ear Worm and Great Big Grin of the Day:

Kids and a sprinkler and a sunny day -- always a recipe for fun.

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Button-Buster of the Day:

"Holy Cow! I just got assigned my first attempted murder case. Craziness."

That's my kid -- taking names and kicking ass. I am so proud of her!

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Mayor Shortshanks proposes bar carts at the gates of O'Hare and Midway and extending all terminal restaurants with bar service and the carts to 24 hour days, making this brilliant proposal on the same day a Chicago-bound flight is diverted to Denver to rid itself of a drunken and disorderly passenger. (Ah, well -- they'll be somebody else's nightmare, not ours. La la la!)

I won't list all the obvious arguments against this -- others will do it better.

I will note, however, that I expect the airlines will be thrilled with the possibility of losing in flight sales and control over what and how much a flyer is served if you can buy a six pack or slam a bunch of shots, or dump half a dozen cocktails into the empty water bottle you've brought along for just that purpose and carry them right onto the plane, just like you can bottled water or soda?

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Speaking of genius-level thought processes, Speaker Pelosi says the way to create jobs is to keep paying people unemployment.

Right.

We've seen article after article here in Illinois and also news from Detroit showing that people refuse to take jobs that pay near the same rate as their unemployment benefit because it's more convenient to just sit home and wait for more and let the government pay them to do it. Then we get peeved when illegal aliens take those same jobs that those living off the government teat are turning up their noses at.

Explain to me how this is creating jobs??? Ooo! Except for the government jobs created to deal with all those unemployment benefits.

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Why I read Ken Levine... and all his comments? First go read Ken's post on how the National Anthem should be sung. It's a thing of absolute beauty.

Then turn your attention to commenter Bevo at that same post, who displays all that is wrong in higher education today and pile on, please.

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Giggle of the Day:

Beginning to end, it's a scream!
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Update: I actually have some appetite today and managed to eat half a sandwich and most of a cup of soup at Panera (I had to walk the couple of blocks to my local grocery store because I had nothing in the house to eat... but since I've eaten almost nothing since Friday night, I stopped there first lest I end up with the shakes). This feels huge. My tastebuds and appetite are completely verfarkled, and normal favorites make me blanch, while things I haven't contemplated eating in years -- liked canned pears, icy cold from the fridge -- have a lot of appeal. Really plain stuff is okay. Turkey. White bread. Mayonnaise. I went a little wild and bought a box of pasta salad mix. Since I was picking so much high food value items, I tossed in a box of all fruit popsicles. That should hold me for the next few days.

I'm still coughing, hacking and wheezing up half a gallon of big green and yellow loogies a day, and my ribs are feeling it. That's on the negative side. On the positive, I'm less achy and a little more focused.

Baby steps, folks. I'm making baby steps.

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One More Thing:

I agree with most people that the vuvuzela is one of the more pernicious assaults on the ears I've heard in a long, long time... which is exactly why I donated money to pay for this creative use of the same:

Adam Quirk, the founder of Wreck & Salvage art video collection, started a campaign on kickstarter.com, raising dough to play 100 vuvuzelas outside BP Headquarters in London for an entire day in an attempt to encourage the company to get a move on cleaning up the oil spill.

Yes, he's met his goal, but why stop at 100?

Let 'em literally hear how pissed we are!

Sunday Funnies

Gleefully swiped from Kimsh.