200 free copies of my next YA novel, FOR THE WIN, for young reviewers

Tor Books, the US/Canada publisher, has two hundred advance copies of my next young adult novel, For the Win, available for free to young (19 or younger) gamers who are interested in reviewing the book on their blog or school paper. The book is about gamer kids all over the world who use multiplayer games to organize and fight back against abusive employers:

In the virtual future, you must organize to survive

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual "gold," jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, where countless "gold farmers," bound to their work by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who are willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay.

Mala is a brilliant 15-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the title of "General Robotwalla." In Shenzen, heart of China's industrial boom, Matthew is defying his former bosses to build his own successful gold-farming team. Leonard, who calls himself Wei-Dong, lives in Southern California, but spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia, a world away. All of these young people, and more, will become entangled with the mysterious young woman called Big Sister Nor, who will use her experience, her knowledge of history, and her connections with real-world organizers to build them into a movement that can challenge the status quo.

The ruthless forces arrayed against them are willing to use any means to protect their power--including blackmail, extortion, infiltration, violence, and even murder. To survive, Big Sister's people must out-think the system. This will lead them to devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once--a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

Imbued with the same lively, subversive spirit and thrilling storytelling that made LITTLE BROTHER an international sensation, FOR THE WIN is a prophetic and inspiring call-to-arms for a new generation

If you're under 19 and want a free early look at the book for review on your blog/paper/whatever, send a note with your address to torpublicity@tor.com with "FTW" for the subject-line. Also include the name of your blog or school paper. For fun, also share a game you enjoyed recently and why.

We did this with Little Brother a couple years back, on the grounds that books for young people should be available for young reviewers to write about, rather than adult reviewes who try to figure out whether young people will enjoy them. It was a real success and I'm happy to be repeating it.

This is being launched in honor of the American Library Association's Teen Tech Week, and is open to Canadians and Americans. I'm working on a similar offer for the UK edition, for Britons, Aussies, South Africans and Kiwis, and will post about it as soon as I have details.

What the hell, planet earth! Chile was just slammed by a 7.2 aftershock, as inaugural ceremonies for right-wing billionaire president-elect Sebastián Piñera began in Valparaiso. Chile was devastated by an 8.8-magnitude quake on Feb. 27.

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Leaked documents: UK record industry wrote web-censorship amendment

Last week, the UK LibDem party was thrown into scandal when two of its Lords proposed an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill that would allow for national web-censorship, particularly aimed at "web-lockers" like Google Docs and YouSendIt. Now a leaked document from the British Phonographic Institute suggests that the amendment was basically written by the record industry lobby and entered into law on their behalf by representatives of the "party of liberty."

This weekend, LibDem members who attend the national convention in Birmingham will have the chance to vote on an emergency measure affirming the party's commitment to an open and just Internet, repudiating this disastrous measure. If you (or someone you know) is attending the convention, please support the "Save the Net" emergency measure and help rehabilitate the party's reputation on fundamental freedoms in the information society.

Parliamentarians need to recognize that copyright touches everyone and every technology in the digital age. It is no longer a question of inter-business regulation and deals. Getting copyright wrong has the potential to mess up our freedom of speech, prevent us from getting the benefits of new technologies, and damage society in other very profound ways.

It is therefore deeply inappropriate for such fundamental proposals to have been introduced by both the government or the opposition parties at the behest of one side of the debate. That applies just as much to disconnection, which Mandelson introduced in the summer at the last minute under pressure again from the BPI and other rights holders.

BPI drafted the Lib Dem / Conservative web blocking amendment

Recently-exiled latenight talk show host Conan O'Brien will be headlining the comedy stage at the annual Bonnaroo festival. Wonder if he'll pick a random person out of the crowd to befriend and bestow insta-stardom? The date is part of Conan's cross-country comedy tour, also just announced today.

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Hicksville, a graphic novel mystery set in a New Zealand coastal village

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Dick Burger has been hailed by fandom as the greatest comic book creator since Jack Kirby. Unlike Kirby, however, Burger retained ownership of his characters and became a media tycoon, complete with a private jet furnished with a hot tub and a mansion in Los Angeles. He is also an insufferable bastard.

Leonard Bates is a North American journalist who is conducting research for a biography of Burger. When he travels to Hicksville, New Zealand to visit Burger's childhood home, he discovers that no one in the village wants to talk to him about Burger. For reasons unknown to Bates, they are downright angry at him for even mentioning his name. They are delighted, however, to give Bates access to the town library, which contains the greatest comic book collection on the face of the earth (including several copies of Action #1 which they casually pull from the shelves). It turns out that everyone in the village is connoisseur of comics and they'd all read Bates' earlier biography of Kirby. What is going in here? wonders Bates, and what's the big mystery about Burger?

That's the setup for Hicksville, an absorbing 250-page graphic novel by Dylan Horrocks, and republished Drawn & Quarterly with a new introduction. Horrocks does a fine job of weaving the medium of comics into the comic without making it obviously self-referential. I grew up reading Kirby and later was involved in the minicomics scene, and this book resonated with me. Hicksville was awarded "Book of the Year" by The Comics Journal, which described it as "a sweetly told love letter to the comics medium." It was also was nominated for two Ignatz Awards, a Harvey Award, and two Alph'Art Awards.

Buy Hicksville on Amazon.com

Is inflight videochat in the US illegal? United Airlines thinks so

Boing Boing partner John Battelle was on a WiFi-enabled flight last night, and wanted to say bedtime-goodnight to his kids using videochat. Lots of parents tuck their kids into bed over video when they're far from home. What gentler, more loving example of the power of the internet could there be? Nope. A United Airlines flight attendant told John that this was prohibited because terrorists could use this to coordinate attacks.

201003101937.jpg So what's a curious guy to do? To the Internet! Which is exactly what I did. Responses starting pouring in. Including one from a pal at the State Department, who echoed my basic goal: To use video chat to tuck my kids into bed isn't a crime. Or at least, shouldn't be.

The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits "two way devices" from communicating with the ground. However, the PLANE HAS WIFI. To combat this, not unlike China, United and other airlines have blocked Skype and other known video chat offenders. Apparently, they missed Apple iChat. Oops.

An FAA guidebook says inflight video chat is to be discouraged because it can be annoying to seatmates, but that's very different than banning something because it's a terrorist weapon.

Read: Video Chat on the plane illegal? (battellemedia.com)

The effects of gold-medal hockey on Edmonton, Canada water usage

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I feel a great disturbance in the public utility, as if millions of bladders cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

Pats Papers: What If Everybody in Canada Flushed at Once?

(Thanks, Christina!)

Lesbian panic shuts down Mississippi high-school prom

Mississippi's Itawamba County school district has cancelled a prom after Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old student, asked permission to bring her girlfriend as her date. The student planned to wear a tux. The school district's bureaucratic non-excuse for the cancellation is that it's "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events." The district appears to be tap-dancing around the reason for the cancellation in an effort to avoid openly saying "We are scared of teh ghey," since that would open them up to legal liability. The ACLU isn't buying it. They've told the school district that they've got until Wednesday to change the policy or else.

"A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it's really retaliation," McMillen told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. Calls to McMillen by The Associated Press late Wednesday went unanswered...

The ACLU said McMillen approached school officials shortly before the memo went out because she knew same-sex dates had been banned in the past. The ACLU said district officials told McMillen she and her girlfriend wouldn't be allowed to arrive together, that she would not be allowed to wear a tuxedo, and that she and her girlfriend might be asked to leave if their presence made any other students "uncomfortable."

McMillen said she feared she would be thrown out of the prom because "we do live in the Bible Belt."

Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request

ACLU Demands Mississippi School Allow Lesbian Student To Attend Prom With Girlfriend

(Thanks, Steve!)

Free ebook download: Scott Kirsner's "Fans, Friends & Followers"

Jimmy Guterman (website, blog, twitter) writes, edits, and produces things.

kirsner.jpgTo coincide with South by Southwest, journalist Scott Kirsner is making his 2009 book Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age available free, in digital form, for the duration of the festival. You can download it here.

Lots of folks you've seen at SXSW are featured in the book, including artist Natasha Wescoat, pioneering videoblogger Ze Frank, singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, Burnie Burns of "Red vs. Blue," comedian Eugene Mirman, documentarian Curt Ellis, DJ Spooky, and plenty more. And, if you're at SXSW this year, Kirsner will be conducting a "fireside chat" with Ze Frank on Saturday.

Scott Kirsner's "Fans, Friends & Followers" (PDF)

mirror site if the link above is slow or cranky

How obscure security makes school suck

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Recently out of Virginia's public school system, youngster James Stephenson writes in to say that being a kid sucks. So what's new? A gauntlet of cameras, invasive searches and authoritarian security theatrics that don't make schools feel safer—but do tempt administrators into privacy abuses such as Lower Merion's recent webcam-spying scandal.

Special feature: "Seen Not Heard: How obscure security makes school suck."

Boyoyo Boys, "Back in Town" (Greatest Song of All Time of the Day)

Jimmy Guterman (website, blog, twitter) writes, edits, and produces things.

Everyone from Malcolm McLaren to Paul Simon heard something in South Africa's Boyoyo Boys that they wanted to appropriate. Their '80s records are lively and surprising, both original and emblematic of their time. You can hear where whole chunks of popular American music, from Graceland to Vampire Weekend, were born and raised. After listening to "Back in Town," you'd have broken a UN boycott to work with them, too.

Original D&D art from 1974: our craptastic nerd origins


Something Awful's Steve and Zack have an excruciating look at the artwork and rules from the original, 1974 version of Dungeons and Dragons, which appears to have been drawn by a hyperactive 12-year-old during an extremely boring math class. I remember seeing these not long after getting my first set of the AD&D hardcovers and thinking that they looked intriguing, if a little thin. I also produced an enormous amount of artwork that looked like this for the dungeons I created.

The Original Dungeons & Dragons

Exhausting the entire problem space of animated teddy-bears, cars, people and pigeons

Animator/composer Cyriak just posted this surreal video featuring infinite giant teddy bears climbing out of the sea at the Worthing shore and crossing the road. You'd think that this would be thin gruel for three minutes' worth of animation, but you'd be wrong: it turns out that the number of variations on the themes of pigeons, people, teddies, cars and shore is a lot greater (and weirder and funnier) than instinct would suggest.

Cycles (Thanks, Arthur!)

Magic trick reverso: putting the tablecloth back on the table!

Magician Mat Ricardo writes in regarding this morning's post showing a motorcycle (seemingly) pulling the tablecloth out from beneath a very long table's-worth of place settings: "Here's what I do - for 20 years-ish I've been finishing nmy cabaret act by putting the tablecloth back on the table, underneath all the stuff. Took me years to invent, and I'm the only person in the world performing this trick. Maybe I need to get out more, but what can I say - it's a living!"

You can see the gag around 2:15 in the video, but it's well worth watching the whole thing. I was gutted to learn that I missed Mat last weekend when I took the kid down to Covent Garden in London to see the performers, but I'm looking forward to catching his act next time we head down.

Mat Ricardo showreel (Thanks, Mat!)

Fat is a flavor?

Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition showing evidence that human beings can taste fat -- that is, they can distinguish between two flavourless solutions in which one has more fat than the other.

I believe that this is true -- and that fat can offset bitterness the same way that sweet can. For example, raw cacao nibs mixed with cashew nuts taste sweet and chocolatey.

"We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

"Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste -- fat."

Researchers tested 30 people's ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste -- though some required higher concentrations than others.

Australian researchers say fat is 'sixth taste' (via Kottke)

(Image: Beale's Open Kettle Rendered Pure Lard, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Steve Snodgrass' photostream)

TSA analyst indicted for tampering with terrorist watchlists

A former TSA analyst has been indicted for computer crimes after being allegedly caught tampering with various terrorist watchlists (his work duties involved keeping these databases up to date). He'd been given notice that he was being fired before the incident. The article doesn't explain what he's suspected of doing, though the possibilities are interesting: adding enemies to watchlists? Taking people off of watchlists?

Douglas James Duchak, 46, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday with two counts of damaging protected computers. According to a federal indictment, Duchak tried to compromise computers at the TSA's Colorado Springs Operations Center (CSOC) on Oct. 22, 2009, seven days after he'd being given two weeks notice that he was being dismissed. He was also charged with tampering with a TSA server that contained data from the U.S. Marshal's Service Warrant Information Network.

He "knowingly transmitted code into the CSOC server that contained the Terrorist Screening Database, and thereby attempted intentionally to cause damage to the CSOC computer and database," prosecutors said Wednesday in a press release.

Former TSA analyst charged with computer tampering (via /.)

Hackers on Planet Earth NYC conference is looking for tech-art

Aestetix sez, "Traditionally HOPE [ed: Hackers on Planet Earth, the annual NYC conference put on by 2600 Magazine] conferences have been more about the talks than the physical projects, but with the 2008 conference that started to change, and this time organizers are pushing for an even stronger showing of projects and tech art. This call for projects goes out to hackers, makers, technologists, artists, and free thinkers around the world. Come share your passions and ideas with 3,000+ of your soon-to-be closest friends."

Fun-loving hackers and improbable tech-art: what a match made in heaven! HOPE is probably my top conference that I've never been to (I almost made it in 1999 but the flight was cancelled!). I continue to miss it every year, despite my best efforts (it usually overlaps my birthday, which is family time, for obvious reasons!), but I vow to go someday.

I mean, just have a look at that call for proposals: games to be played by thousands of hackers over three floors of a massive hotel; midnight to 9AM sessions; hardware hacking village... Talk about nerdvana.

Call for Projects and Tech Art (Thanks, aestetix!)

Pulling the tablecloth out from under the place-settings with a performance motorcycle

This is a very clever way to promote your performance motorcycle: BMW chains a very, very long tablecloth with a very, very elaborate cluster of place-settings to a S 1000 RR "superbike" and has a driver roar off, taking the cloth away and leaving the dinner setup intact. Impressive acceleration!

Video: BMW S 1000 RR pulls off the old tablecloth trick (Thanks, Alan!)

Ben Greenman invents the 3*TYPE 3*TYPE process, saves text-based media from ignominious death death.

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Minute To Win It: fun game show premieres this Sunday on NBC


My friend Eric Hoberman helped develop a new game show that will premiere on NBC on Sunday March 14 from 7-9 p.m. ET/PT. It's called Minute To Win It, and the object is to win a series of 10 easy-to-understand but increasingly-hard-to-win challenges. As the title suggests, the players must successfully complete each of the games in a minute. The award structure is like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire -- the cash amount increases with each game up to a million dollars, you can walk away with what you've won at any point, and you can lose it all if you blow a challenge.

Eric gave me a box of props so I could try out the games myself. The show's contestants are also given props and rules for the games before they come on the show so they can practice. The props are household items -- golf balls, cookies, a deck of cards.

Here are a few of the challenges contestants will have 60 seconds to complete:

• Move two Oreo cookies from your forehead to your mouth using your facial muscles only. (I failed!)

• Stack three golf balls vertically. (I failed!)

• Balance a deck of playing cards on a soda bottle and blow all the cards off but the bottom one, the joker. (I failed!)

• A dollar bill is sandwiched between two bottles, one upright, the other inverted and placed on top of the upright bottle. You have four tries to remove the bill without touching or toppling the bottles. (Success!) I'm interested to know if anyone can successfully complete the tasks I failed at. If you make a YouTube of it, please provide the link so we can watch it!

Minute to Win it site on NBC

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Lady Gaga trash mosaic portrait, Jason Mecier

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Lady Gaga, a "trash mosaic portrait" by San Francisco-based artist Jason Mecier, who has shows coming up in LA and SF. Richard Metzger has more at Dangerous Minds.... more

White trash video addiction: Bargain Barn

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"You buy it, you like it!" Bargain Barn was a public access cable show in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the mid-1990s—a sort of QVC for hillbillies, a televised flea market where one might pick up stray drill bits, chickens, or stained and ripped pillows. As WFMU notes, it's a damn crime YouTube shows only one upload of this gem. The host/barker, whose face we seldom see, is selling nothing but absolute crap. He himself admits most of the junk is "broked," "tore up," or "needs to be warshed a few times." I ... more

Fight terrorism with science: Scott Atran

"We are fixated on technology and technological success, and we have no sustained or systematic approach to field-based social understanding of our adversaries' motivation, intent, will, and the dreams that drive their strategic vision, however strange those dreams and vision may seem to us."—Anthropologist Scott Atran, who believes the quest to end violent political extremism needs more science. (edge.org)... more

Old Jews Telling Jokes: Charlotte Bornstein

Eric Spiegelman of "Old Jews Telling Jokes" explains this episode: "My cousin Michael recommended that we get Charlotte Bornstein on camera to tell some jokes. He also advised that we 'just keep the camera running.' You'll see why." Many more new episodes of this stripped-down, oldschool comedy at oldjewstellingjokes.com. (Technical note: If you have trouble viewing the embedded Flash videos hosted on Blip.tv, as I did, you may have better luck downloading the videos as iTunes podcast episodes.) Previous... more

Quote of the day: 7-year-old boy, calling 911 when armed men attacked home

"Bring cops... a lot of them!... And soldiers too."—Carlos, a brave 7 year old boy from Norwalk, California, calling 911 after armed attackers broke into his home and threatened to kill his family. (Audio of the call)... more

Untitled 3

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Yup.... more

More on Alexander McQueen's final collection (and tweets): Angels and Demons

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Snip from Wall Street Journal article on the last collection of Alexander McQueen. Twice in the weeks leading up to his Feb. 11 death, Mr. McQueen messaged on Twitter, 'Hells angels [sic] and prolific demons.' What seemed a non sequitur now appears to be a reference to the collection he was working on, imprinted with the angels of Sandro Botticelli and the demons of Hieronymus Bosch. He had finished some 16 looks, about half of what the collection would typically include, at the time of his death. ... more

BristleBots and LED throwie art at Crash Space

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Look at Todbot's BristleBots go! He held a workshop at Crash Space in Culver City, CA last night and showed people how to make them. (I'm sorry I didn't announce it in advance!) BristleBots and LED throwie art at Crash Space... more

Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris!

"America is not a democracy. It's a Chuck-tatorship. (...) We'd go down the line and he'd say, 'He's honest. He's honest. He's corrupted.' And I'd walk up to him and I'd say, 'You're fired." If he didn't move immediately, I would choke him unconscious and lay him over to the side there."— Mr. Chuck Norris, who, as Rachel Maddow reminds us, turns 70 today.... more

EV Gray and the "fuelless engine" Fascination car

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I, too, am very, very anxious for the day to come when I can purchase a Fascination car with an EV Gray fuelless engine. The Fascination Car was the brain child of Paul M. Lewis, of the Highway Aircraft Corporation. It was developed with a standard engine, but he wanted to power it with ANYTHING that didn't burn gasoline. He was in negotiations with Ed Gray for a while to use the EMA Engine, but that fell through. He then approached Josef Papp for his plasma engine. Ultimately, neither the engines or the... more

Moviegoer stabbed for complaining about a woman on her cell phone — 12:23 Wednesday — 29 comments

Kitty cosplay — 11:45 Wednesday — 6 comments

Widespread support for toilets that separate crap from urine — 11:37 Wednesday — 28 comments

Woman imitates Michael Jackson after brushing her teeth — 11:34 Wednesday — 17 comments

GDC Gallery: How The Indie Fund Could Change Game Dev Destiny — 11:15 Wednesday — 7 comments

Little Billy's Letters to famous and infamous people — 11:10 Wednesday — 41 comments

Did Charley Patton play that way? — 11:05 Wednesday — 19 comments

Art of film title sequences — 10:48 Wednesday — 12 comments

OK Go leaves EMI, launches their own record label — 10:36 Wednesday — 7 comments

The Clash, Blondie, and Cobain sneakers from Converse — 10:32 Wednesday — 28 comments

Google maps goes bike-tacular, just in time for spring — 09:07 Wednesday — 62 comments

Sex, technology, and diabetes — 08:58 Wednesday — 21 comments

Man marries body pillow girlfriend in Korea — 08:35 Wednesday — 52 comments

EU Parliament votes 663-13 against ACTA's enforcement measures — 07:40 Wednesday — 17 comments

The international war over exit signs — 07:40 Wednesday — 101 comments

Features Reviews Videos
Comments
  • ""There are some 'merkin traditions I really can't wrap my mind around. Like those 'proms'. Why isn't it a normal party on school ground where whoever attended the school during the year can come ? Like everywhere else. Why the need for something so formal and stupid in the process?" I'm sure the traditions and riturals from wherever you're from *all* make perfect sense. For example, the tradition of lumping all "'mericans" (which technically include Canada, Mexico, the Central American Countries, and Sout..."
  • "It may be targeted at YA but it sounds like a good read to me!..."
  • "So do the terrorists use sign language to plan attacks now? Or do they just hold up signs to the camera? Wouldn't nearly every single form of two way communication other than a webcam be more effective for coordination? I mean if everyone around you can see and hear you planning something that more or less ruins your plan, right?..."
  • "Article would have been ten times funnier if it were just showing how bad the artwork was, omitting the "look how hip we are on the 'Net in 2010!" inanity. It did make one excellent point, though: "Gygax didn't have 50 writers and 100 artists and color printing. He just went out there and said, hey, here's how you subdue a dragon and sell it as a slave. Here's what a robot is doing in a fantasy game. Deal with it. I made it up, deal with it." Lord, how they've changed your game, Gary. All the artists on..."
  • "Nice pics. A friend and I drank some chica with a group of happy folks in Aquas Caliente, and soon we were happy too. Later, in Cuzco, a young man shared some lightly fermented chicha with me in exchange for help with his English homework (I'd told him I did not want to get drunk). . Very tasty. My Wild Fermentation book tells how to make chicha, and I will soon be planting my corn..."
  • "Parents have a role to play in what their kids' schools are like, even when their kids are in high school. My kids are in primary school, and when they started doing lockdowns I objected to the school, the Board and the parent association. Like security cameras and locker searches, lockdowns don't improve security. They're another tool to train students to be obedient and scared. Parents -- whatever grade your kids are in, write to their principals, meet with them, ask what their security policies are, and..."
  • "So... speak out loud video chat is illegal, but the seat to seat instant messaging service embedded in every seat back isn't? Mind you, I was flying on an Emirates Airbus, so they probably /want/ to assist the terrorists, right? (oh how I wish there was a sarcasm font...) ..."
  • "But water usage only dropped by 20%. I'm disappointed by all those people who weren't watching the game. Shame on them!..."
  • "so the intel is true... they've got bombs with ipod docks, the 'dock-n-awe'...."
  • "Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post, but kudos to this girl for having the guts to not only come out in highschool, but to try and assert her right to bring a female partner to the dance. That's an extremely brave thing for her to do...."

 

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