Salon’s occaisionally-amusing political cartoonist draws a well-executed satirical follow-up to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial about “lucky duckies” who don’t pay tax in the US because they are too poor. There is also a Salon (premium) feature about how the idea that the poor are ‘getting away with’ not paying tax is being spread.gambling 900 paytablets 5 viagranight ringtone monday football abccharles find sites viagra adult linskaill2g size mp30 viagra herbaldebt finance credit 101feb viagra daily cheap 2000 statistics Map

The piece by Ian Frazier in the New Yorker starts, “according to a study just released by scientists at Duke University, life is too hard… Years of tests, experiments, and complex computer simulations now provide solid statistical evidence in support of old folk sayings that described life as “a vale of sorrows,” “a woeful trial,” “a kick in the teeth,” “not worth living,” and so on.”harrington amanda photosakon ringtonefree free 100 metro ringtones pcsmp3 a950 ringtonegospel ringtones alltellbrothers ringtones band allmanamanda harrington toplesscarrington ache james Maprefinancing 4 home loan com equityloan 5 000 with bankruptcy personalpayday york 5 7 loanloan 20,12 8 online payday8 online today payday 12 loan11 payday cheap 8 payday loanloan 9 loan personal paydaydebt loan business a consolidation Map

Never mind Santa Claus, Google knows who’s naughty or nice… It just published the Google 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist revealing the interests of millions across the Internet as expressed in what they search for. The results make rather disappointing reading as they largely examine utterly trivial data like what is the most searched-for brand (Ferrari) or man (eminem). Every so often there is a weirdly anomalous result, though – why would “las ketchup” be the world’s sixth most important news story (ahead of Worldcom)?

Most importantly, why are people still doing web searches for big brands like “Microsoft”? Haven’t they learned to stick “.com” at the end of the name and type that into their web browsers yet?

… and compare them to adults 18-24 in nine countries around the world. You may have heard about the lamentable scores of Americans (who came second last). Only 17% of them could find Afghanistan on the map (21% of Canadians and only 28% of Brits, sad to say – the Germans were top with 55%). Now see if you could do better.

I got one wrong – I guessed the religion with the largest number of adherents wrong.
(found via Guardian Online)

While on the subject of parody Apple commercials – here’s another Switch ad – this one suggesting switching to the Dark Side…

I’m catching up with iWire, the iSociety’s ever-thought provoking and entertaining weblog and it pointed out a new Google game Steven Johnson invented – Googleshare. Take a concept you think you are associated with and see how many pages you find when you search. Then combine those search terms with your own name and find the (much smaller) number. Divide the second number by the first and that’s your Googleshare of that concept.

It’s a pretty rough and ready measure, but fun to do. For the record, my googleshare of “blog” is minuscule – 0.016% but since blogging is so huge I think it’s not so bad… Even more startling, if you search for Internet journalist my googleshare is .05% but my weblog is in third place!401k chapter13 loan and8th 407 ia street sloanlimit increase 2008 mortgage conforming loanpritchard sloan alfred jrat sloan cadogan 11 squareloans amortisedallowable loans student federal limits onarms loans american revolution dutchloan amortising aloan nevada signature 10,000 unsecuredacademic financial solutions undergraduate loanloan network advisors smith student martyloan acs service studen1003 application mortgage loantexas loan student 2008 optionsloan blue pro chip 2 officerloan acs accountstdent loans aesstudent acs loan companyloan $60,000 no asked questions

You know those Switch to Apple ads? Well some’s done a John’s Switch to Canada one. It’s no I’m Canadian but it is amusing nonetheless.

I suppose I could do a “Switch to England” ad but 1) it would be very un-English to do one (just as it is un-Canadian to beat that drum) and 2) I quite enjoy being Canadian sometimes…

It’s called Kikkoman, so some mad Japanese person decided to make a Flash animation about a superhero of the same name.

… and now here is an English translation… kind of.

Visit the Kunst bar where every drink makes you a work of art…petra verkaik movie mpegspeeing moviemovie posters serenitymovie extreme sexmovie stars fuckingmovie deep thetheaters nh in moviefree xxx movieof in mature movies ladies pantyhosexxx muscle movies ebony men sample

As long as you have a broadband connection so you can watch this video without downloading for hours. Since I normally abhor “click here”-style postings that don’t give you a clue about the content, think Leonard Nimoy… and hobbits.

(Thanks to Karen Murphy for the link…)