Australian weds television set Twice-married, twice-divorced ‘Mitch Hallen promised to “love, honour and protect” his
true love at a ceremony witnessed by friends and
performed by a priest at his Australian home.

The 42-year-old, from Melbourne, wears a gold wedding
band as a testament to his love and has placed a
matching ring on top of the widescreen TV.’ Ananova

Postal Experiments: The zany folk at the Annals of Improbable Research set out to test the “delivery limits” of the U.S. Postal Service. “In short, how eccentric a behavior on the part of the
sender would still result in successful mail delivery?” You may not believe some of the things their investigators got the post office to deliver. [via the null device]

The title of Cintra Wilson’s book sounded interesting — A Massive
Swelling: Celebrity Re-examined as a
Grotesque, Crippling Disease and other
Cultural Revelations — but her attempt to get humbuggy in Salon just isn’t anywhere near as clever or amusing, IMHO:

And here’s a
variety of other holiday-type pranks to use as an antidote (or an
additive) for your Yuletide misanthropy:

Build a panhandling snowman: Make a sad, one-armed snowman
sitting on the sidewalk, wearing old, grimy clothes. Then put a
crudely written cardboard sign next to it that says, “I am a 56
year old Vietnam veterin [sic] with Hepotitis D Please help.”
Make sure you put out an old hat, and come by every half-hour
or so to collect the money for your very own Christmas smack
fund.

Hang an apartheid wreath: Burn a radial tire and put a metallic
bow on it, then hang it on your front door: “In Remembrance of
those brutally murdered under Apartheid.” Way to bum out the
neighbors and win points for PC sensitivity, too! Plus, the
carcinogenic aroma of burning rubber alloy should transplant
those of clove-studded roasts, pine needles and any other
chestnut-roasting jive smell in your own home and those of all of
your surrounding neighbors for several hours.

Here’s a real Xmas morning “stumper”: Instead of toys in the
stocking for the young ones around the house, fill each stocking
on the hearth with a prosthetic foot — a real ampu-teazer.

Find any church nativity set and surround it with “Police Line —
Do Not Cross” tape, then make it look like baby Jesus shot one
of the Three Wise Men with a handgun. Preferably the black
king. Then you can have Jesus with a talk balloon, saying, “I
thought the frankincense was a gun!” A two-headed baby Jesus
is also a fun changeling substitution.

Another fun one is to rip up cotton balls and throw ketchup on
them, in front of the fireplace. That way, when everyone comes
into the living room for Xmas morning, you can say, “Uh-oh.
White hair and blood. Looks like the dog got him. Poor Santa.”

The peevish porcupine beats the shrill rooster. Camille Paglia covers ground in her year-end wrap-up column. I love the pastiche that cultural critics can make in the name of their craft. She comments on various absurdities of the Florida vote boondoggle and the media’s coverage of it, praises Rush Limbaugh’s integrity and fluency (and credits him with ending the era of political correctness in America), and compiles a hot dog geography of the U.S. I’m glad she includes Simco’s on the Bridge in Mattapan, Mass. I was once lucky enough to work a block away from there and indulged frequently, although the people with whom I took my lunch break there were as much the attraction as Simco’s dogs. Salon

For Busy People, Staying Fit Is Possible. That probably includes you (it does me). If you don’t have enough time to do what you “should,” it still works to do less, especially if you can do it more frequently. Thanks to Rebecca Blood for pointing to this; she titled it “10 min. x 10.” Washington Post

Many Feel They Are ‘Not the Same Person’ They Were “How do you answer the following question:
Am I the same person I was 8 years ago?

New research shows that a large proportion of people believe that they are
not the same person that they were a few years ago. The more time that passed, the less likely this group was
to be connected to their `previous’ self. Reuters

The Third Culture “consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world
who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional
intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives,
redefining who and what we are.” John Brockman takes us further toward (or over?) the edge in convening this online book-length anthology of current deep thinking about the nature of things.

Cowboy Trent Set to Ride Roughshod. “As the law courts make ready the way for Bush Redux, the likes of Senator Lott are
emerging from those dark, cold places in which they were stored during the
governor’s campaign. It’s a wonder that the Gore team never did manage to point
out that the Clinton administration, for all its flaws, acted as a foil for the likes of the
cowboy-hat crowd, those faux populists who pose in denim and carry out the
businessman’s agenda of low labor costs and minimal government regulation. The
government shutdown in 1995 was but a metaphor for their fondest wishes, a world
without the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration,
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, etc. Why didn’t Al Gore make
this case, or make it better? Then again, why didn’t Al Gore do a lot of things, chief
among them: act like a human being?” New York Observer

Joe Conason: Behind Bush’s Smile Lurks a Florida Fanatic. Tom Feeney, the Speaker of the Florida House, who is attempting to ram through the Bush elector slate in Florida by legislative action, has been called the “David Duke of Florida politics,” and was dropped from Jeb Bush’s ticket as a political liability because he’s so reactionary. New York Observer

Truth Catches Up to Fiction Dept. (cont’d.): Doctors arrested in kidney-running ring. “Indian police have arrested nine people, including two
doctors, for illegally purchasing or transplanting kidneys.” The kidneys were reportedly bought from cash-strapped Indians for between $1000 and $4000. Ananova

An Amish man chose to spend three days in jail rather
than pay a fine for refusing to put an
orange “slow-moving vehicle” triangle
on his buggy because he said the sign
violates his religious beliefs.

Barbara Ehrenreich: The Civility Glut. ‘I call some corporate bureaucracy and, whether
out of loneliness or confusion, opt for “0,” — the chance to speak to an actual
human. “Kelly” or “Tracey” wants to know my account number, which I willingly
share.

“Great!” says Kelly.

Next she wants to know my zip code, and it turns out to be “Perfect!”

Or suppose I’m calling a publishing company and get an administrative
assistant with a pricey British accent. When I tell her my phone number, she
declares that it’s “brilliant!”

I should be flattered, of course, to be associated with such an admirable
collection of numbers.’ AlterNet

Politicians Who Love Global Warming (PAC money received in 2000 elections):

Environmental Working Group