Freaky

New Bond girl Gemma Arterton was born with six fingers on each hand. If that wasn't strange enough, the extra fingers were "tied" when she was a baby and eventually fell off. So don't worry guys, you won't have to see her freaky-deaky hands in the movie and have it ruin your lust.

I just don't understand why she wants to talk about her childhood deformities, especially if nobody would ever have known if she hadn't mentioned it. (But I may have a somewhat unique perspective on that subject...)

So impending doom either brings out the horny in people...

...or I had some crazy powerful pheromones on Saturday.

After Tornadoes 2: the sequel passed through the city, I went to the usual Ye Olde Waterin' Hole for to drink away my awful stressful week. I got there about 4:30, and within an hour the guy who told me a few months ago that I have DSLs (which I later learned was short for "dick sucking lips") referred to me as a kitty cat. I just rolled my eyes and walked away.

About an hour later, as I started in on beer #3, I decided to go play my favorite video game. (It involves shooting live game and while I could never kill a furry thing with a gun in real life, I can certainly shoot me some computerized deer.) As I was playing, this guy in his early 20's who appeared to get lost on his way to the bathroom wandered to the little back room where the videogames were located. He watched me play for awhile and was clearly hitting on me (asked where my boyfriend was, etc.) but I didn't flirt back at all and thought he would get the message. Apparently my message was not so clear, because within 5 minutes he randomly walked over and started kissing my neck! I asked him what the hell he was doing (pretty much exactly like that--"what the hell are you doing?!") and he responded that he thought we were going to make out. I started laughing and shaking my head and said something like I need guys to work a little harder than that before I'll make out with them. He sort of shrugged sheepishly and then as I kept playing the game he watched for awhile longer and then left. About 45 minutes later, he and a woman who appeared to be his girlfriend judging by her reference to him as "honey" came in to pay their tab. So, this dumbass just tried to randomly make out with a woman he just met at 6pm on a Saturday with his girlfriend in the same bar. Say wha?

If that wasn't frazzling enough, shortly thereafter while I was at the jukebox another young guy came over and started trying to chat it up about my music selections. This was so perplexing to me that I wondered for a second if I weren't part of one of those sophomoric bets that are the stuff of bad teen movies--like let's all go see which of us can go make out with that old hag over there, etc. I just laughed the second youngster off. A few hours later a guy attempted to grope me as I walked to the bathroom, and that one I also laughed off. And then the evening closed with an uncomfortable discussion with yet another guy who I'd never even consider hooking up with no matter how much I had to drink. Who knew too baggy jeans and a purple wifebeater tank top were the hottest outfit in my closet?

This sort of thing almost never happens to me, and certainly not four or five times in one night. The only explanation I can find is that all the terror over whether we were gonna die from the tornadoes had inspired a desire for some, uh, "life-affirming" activity in the menfolk in and around Virginia Highland. It was that, or someone secretly wrote "THIS CHICK IS EASY" on my forehead and I didn't notice.

You'd think it would have been flattering to get so much attention, but I just found it puzzling and annoying. No sense in wasting my attraction on people who I don't want to attract. It's about as useless as getting hit on by married men--I'm not going to take the bait, so I'd just prefer not to even get the offer.

Food Bizarre

If you need to see something strange today, this movie of the history of military aggression from WWII to the present as embodied in food should definitely fit the bill.

New meaning to "Executive Order"

Suddenly and without warning, President Bush has decided to start opposing executions of convicted murderers. Um, dude, the ship has kind of sailed on that whole hope of making the Mexicans like you thing. And it's a little late to try and pretend you understand the meaning of clemency. So what is this really about?

Oh, yes, I should have seen this coming:

Ted Cruz, the Texas solicitor general, said the administration's position would "allow the president to set aside any state law the president believes is inconvenient to international comity."

Yes, we do so like to ignore inconvenient laws with little to no justification.

The case itself presents interesting but terribly confusing issues of international law and comity, issues SO confusing that I can't even be bothered to try and wrap my head around them all. But, you have fun with that if it's your thing--here's the Scotuswiki page for the case.

Despite my opposition to the death penalty, I do have a fundamental problem with the notion that if someone is in this country illegally and kills an American citizen and is arrested by US law enforcement, that we have an obligation to give them access to their country's consulate to assist with getting them out of US prosecution. Those who suffered through first year Civil Procedure (yes so I do have occasion to talk about such things with a first year law student now...shut up) will recall the concept of "purposeful availment." Basically, you can't do business in or utilize the laws of a particular state to your benefit and then try to evade personal jurisdiction if you get sued for your activities there. Along those same lines, my gut tells me that if you come into the US and kill some of our folks, it's pretty bogus to try to argue that you should be tried under the laws of your own country, particularly if the laws of your own country are lax and may result in you being out in a few years and able to slip back into the US to kill more of our folks. Maybe that's just me thinking worst case scenario, but that's my initial reaction to this case.

Anyhow, this case should be an interesting one to watch because it is surprising that an administration so opposed to the notion of international law having any power over United States criminal justice would actually take the position that Texas should be forced to abide by the judgment of the International Court of Justice in this case. Something must be afoot for that to be true. I think the quote from the Texas AG above pretty much says it all. And that's scary.

Strange bedfellows

Apparently there is a secession movement afoot in this country, being pushed both by Southerners who refuse to accept the notion that the Confederacy lost the Civil War and by northeastern liberals who want their ultra-liberal states (I'm looking at you, Vermont) to be able to opt out of a government that is prosecuting wars they don't like. They are hosting a secessionist conference in Chattanooga that starts today. It is times like these that I wish I did not have a job so that I could go watch these dingbats try to rationalize something so collossally stupid to themselves.

I bet the attendees would look frightfully similar to those who go to Ren Faires and Trekkie conventions. I wonder if they, too, will have secessionist orgies?

Strange marketing

I was just on the way home from the office (yes, at 2am on a Sunday/Monday...yes, life sucks) and listening to a local country station when to my great amazement I heard the strains of a distinctly ancient middle eastern sounding violin. It was playing behind a radio ad for Forward, a Jewish issues magazine. The ad asked: "how is the war in Iraq going to affect Israel's continued survival? What will happen with the rise of Hamas in Palestinian-controlled areas? And will the changing makeup of the Supreme Court hurt anti-discrimination laws in the US?" They then proceeded to tout their Jewish singles ad service that has more subscribers than J-Date.

On a COUNTRY station? At 2 am? THAT'S where they decided to spend their clearly limited radio advertising budget in the Atlanta market?!

I don't want to fall victim to stereotypes too much, but I would be incredibly surprised if there was a significant section of the country radio market that's Jewish. Let alone at 2am, when only the diehards and truckers are listening.

Maybe I'm just incredibly tired at this point so it seems weirder to me than it will in the morning, but hearing that ad on that station was pretty fucking surreal just now.