I’m sorry. I know this is old news, and I know I shouldn’t think this is funny, but I can’t help but laugh:

Reprinted from Sept. 2002 — Pitt junior Brandon Smith wanted a tattoo that proclaimed his manliness, so he decided to get the Chinese characters for “strength” and “honor” on his chest. After 20 minutes under the needle of local tattoo artist Andy Sakai, he emerged with the symbol for “small penis” embedded in his flesh.

…

Sakai, an award-winning tattoo artist, was tired of seeing sacred Japanese words, symbols of his heritage, inked on random white people. So he used their blissful ignorance to make an everlasting statement. Any time acustomer came to Sakai’s home studio wanting Japanese tattooed on them, he modified it into a profane word or phrase.

I wonder what ever happened to Sakai. I suspect that something like this would leave one open to a lawsuit.

I find the first example incredibly funny, since I can’t help but think that someone who needs a tattoo on his chest to proclaim his manliness is very possibly compensating for something, and the idea of that tattoo just makes me laugh.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Hillary Clinton, who collapsed during an appearance in Buffalo.

She walked out under her own steam, and it was apparently a stomch virus thing, nothing too serious, but I can’t help thinking that collapsing is never a good sign. I may not agree with Mrs. Clinton’s politics, but I don’t want her to be sick or injured, either.

I think a huge congratulations is in order for Mohammed and Omar and all of the people in Iraq.

As they said in their post’s title, “The People Have Won” in Iraq today. Or yesterday, or whatever. Timezones make my head hurt.

I wrote a long post yesterday that, for reasons beyond my control (specifically, my own stupidity), got lost without being posted. Honestly, in the long run, that’s probably a good thing, because the post consisted entirely of quotes from various sources with comments that you really don’t need — the sources are wonderful, and more than capable of speaking for themselves.

From Dean’s World is a piece by Moses Sands (as told to Vassar Bushmills) titled Cleaning Up Dodge. It’s a look at the current War from a homespun wisdom point of view. It’s very long, but worth your time.

There’s a specific quote in Dean’s post, regarding mothers sending their sons off to war for places that aren’t immediately important to her. That reminded me of a piece on Ethical Selfishness by the much-missed Steven Den Beste. If you haven’t read Steven’s blog posts before, you really should at least go to his Best Of page and check it out. He’s a wonderful writer, and presents his points very logically. While I fully understand why he quit maintaining his blog, I’m very sorry that he’s gone.

One final post, which has nothing to do with the others, and wasn’t included in the original version of this: Ian of Banana Oil has posted The Banana Oil! Incompleat Stylebookpost. It’s full of some neat stuff that hadn’t occurred to me, especially with regards to making links easier to track down if link rot should get them and citing sources. Since I tried to follow it in this post (more or less, anyway), I figured I’d add the link here.

Short post tonight.

I’m tired of hearing people complain about Bush’s cabinet. One minute, they’re ranting about how the cabinet is merely pulling the strings of the stupid “puppet” President, and the next, they’re complaining about Bush’s habit of surrounding himself with yes-men.

Make up your minds. It can’t be both.