There were another round of protests a few days ago, as the opposition turned a “traditional day of protest against oppression around the world” into a day of protest against the government instead.

One of the most repeated chants today: “Tanks, rape and torture have no effect anymore.”

Maybe it’s more catchy in Farsi. But the sentiment, and the lack of steam to the movement, are encouraging.

The man in charge says he’s open to the idea.

Blogs are bad, you see:

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” he [Obama] said.

In the meantime, the Washington Post, one of those “respected?” members of the legacy media, had to backtrack on a made up quote today.

The reason? One of those pesky blogs called them on it.

So yeah, by all means, throw some money at the problem. It seems to be working for the auto industry.

This, I believe, falls under the purview of The Irony Czar.

The latest report found that “the Energy Department failed in many cases to use controls on heating, ventilation and air conditioning that are a primary means of conserving energy during non-working hours,” as Dow Jones Newswires put it. That could have cost the DOE more than $11 million.

In May, government inspectors found the Energy Department tended to leave computer monitors on, wasting electricity worth more than $1 million a year. The White House has trouble with energy efficiency as well.

This is old news (from July), but came up today when Obama’s Energy Secretary called us all a bunch of unruly teenagers. No really, he did.

When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons.

Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” (In that case, the Energy Department has a few renegade teens of its own.)

To paraphrase Moe Lane, this is why you don’t see too many scientists in the government.

via Hot Air

President Obama has ordered a review of the US Nuclear Weapons arsenal, and predictably, wants to shrink it.

Because, you know, they are his. No really. They are. Remember, He Won.

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”

We’ll just put that one in the “Imagine if George Bush had said it file.”

At the rate things are going, I’d be surprised if he didn’t just load up a boat of nukes and hand them over to Iran, you know, as a peace offering.

Yet.

The founder of the Jedi religion inspired by the Star Wars films was thrown out of a Tesco supermarket for wearing his distinctive brown hood.

Daniel Jones, 23, who has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules and was ordered to remove it or leave the supermarket.

As a result Jones, who also goes by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, claims he has been ‘victimised over his beliefs’ and left ‘emotionally humiliated’ by the supermarket in Bangor, North Wales.

Really? This freak has 500,000 followers. Dude.

Tesco, for their part, argued that the guy was full of it, and that real Jedis, like Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker all appeared in public without their hoods.

I give it 10-1 odds that he wins the lawsuit. I mean, he has the evidence:

‘They said: “Take it off”, and I said “No, its part of my religion. It’s part of my religious right.” I gave them a Jedi church business card.’

… it would be the fourth largest nation on the planet, with over 300 million “residents”, or users, as we like to call them.

Right behind China, India, and the US.

But Facebook is not a nation. It’s a passing fad.

But it’s just so cool…

It could be the biggest bargain on the property market: a two-storey house that’s being given away for nothing.

The only drawback is that this des res is made entirely out of Lego – and you’ll have to find somewhere to put it.

Top Gear presenter James May has just built the world’s first full-size Lego house – including a working toilet, hot shower and a very uncomfortable bed – using 3.3million plastic bricks.

Read the piece for more, including pictures. And then read with sadness how they plan to hack it to bits with a chainsaw.

I miss Boris Yeltzin. He was way more fun than the two evil guys they have running Russia now.

Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin got so drunk during a visit to Washington that he was found standing outside the White House in his underpants trying to hail a cab to go and buy a pizza.

The following night he was mistaken for a drunken intruder when he was discovered stumbling around the basement of his guest house by secret service agents.

The article goes on to characterize Yeltsin as a someone with a “fondness for vodka.”

I find that hard to believe.

I wrote about the family that had their kids taken away for a month because of some pictures they took of their kids in the bathtub the other day.

Fox News had the family and their lawyer on a few minutes ago.

They showed the pictures. As expected they were innocent. Of the “found in every photo album in America” variety. Not even a hint of creepy or wrong.

They also explained that they are suing Wal-Mart on the grounds that their failure to disclose to the family that they had a policy of turning over “objectionable material” in photos to the cops violated Arizona Law governing business transactions.

Again, best of luck to the family.

And the answer; “the Peccary.”

The peccary, also called javelinas, are swine found in Central and Southwest America. They are 3-4′ long and weigh 40-80 lbs. Although they are native to the Americas, they are often confused with razorback hogs… but they are different because #1) Razorbacks were imported by Chris Columbus and his friends so there would be wild hog around to hunt and #2) peccaries have short straight tusks instead of razorbacks’ long and curved tusks.

Then tend to eat roots, but sometimes kill small animals to eat. They hunt in packs and are aggressive… they’ve been known to kill humans.

Oh, and did I mention the “stink gland?” They rub up on other member of their heard so they can recognise them, even with their bad vision, but the stink is… stinky an can be picked up by humans.