Category: Stupid

Working off the premise that Americans love their caffeine and their stupid energy drinks, I’m not suprised this is happening. Styled just like a energy drink, Anheuser-Busch is introducing a caffeine-infused beer (with a really stupid name — B-to-the-E).

As the industry leader, Anheuser-Busch is the first major brewer to infuse beer with caffeine, guarana and ginseng. Well balanced with select hops and aromas of blackberry, raspberry and cherry, BE will offer a lightly sweet and tart taste – a great mixture of beer and new flavors for adults to enjoy when out with friends at a club or at a bar after work with colleagues.

I can see this being stupidly popular with the underage and casual drinkers who don’t really want to claim they’re alcoholics. And now considering that caffeine-withdrawl can now be considered a mental disorder, you’re just asking for trouble.

A Paris policeman was injured in an incident involving a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after the son (Hannibal) ran several stop lights and was pulled over. His bodyguards were detained, but he was let free.

The debate tonight won’t truly be a debate. It will be about style more than substance (use freethepress/freethepress to get in). Again, this won’t be a debate. Thanks to an extensive contract we won’t be able to see much of anything that really matters in the grand scheme of things — they even have restrictions on the camera angles used so we can’t see the opponents reaction to what the speaker says. Stupid? Yes. Replace this bi-partisan crap with a real debate and get more of the parties involved (there are more than two candidates, you know).

Oh well. At least the Associated Press is ready with their story.

Leave it to the Government to screw up a great gift:

It turns out that free car wasn’t so free.

That’s because while Pontiac agreed to pay for most of the local charges — things like state sales tax and licensing fees — the recipients have to report the cars as income once tax time comes.

By adding $28,500 to someone’s income, it can push them into a higher tax bracket — which means they will have to pay about 25 percent or more of the car’s value in taxes. And for a nearly $30,000 car, that probably means, for most of the recipients, shelling out $7,125 for the “free car.”

Full Story.

After dealing with the horrible coverage that NBC stuck us with during the Olympics, it’s even more sad that not a single bit of American TV coverage for the the 2004 Paralympics (also in Athens, as Paralympics are traditionally held in the main Olympic city and venues). Boing Boing has a pile of great commentary and links on this event which starts in a few days.

I’m not making this up:

Santa Claus and his eight reindeer might have to bypass Utah’s capital this year if the Salt Lake City Department of Airports has its way.

For years now Salt Lake City has been very accommodating of the jolly old elf and his flying team. The city’s general aviation ordinance makes it clear that Santa’s sleigh has free rein to fly about the city at low altitudes on Christmas Eve despite restrictions on low-flying aircraft other days of the year.

Now, however, some airport leaders want to rewrite the city’s general aviation rules — a revision that includes eliminating the city’s long-standing exemption on low-flying Christmas Eve reindeer.

And other good point brought up:

…if the city bans Rudolph’s low-flying crew, who will be there to enforce the law? After all, the police are too busy and the city can’t afford to pay enforcement officers overtime to go undercover in search of rogue reindeer.

Apparently this came about because in the city’s code aviation code, there’s a provision that calls for small aircraft to maintain an altitude of more than 2,000 feet over the city. There is one exception to that 2,000-foot provision: “On Christmas Eve only, flying reindeer and any cargo they may be towing shall be exempt from the two-thousand-foot height restriction.” This was obviously put in there in good fun, but folks are reading far too much into it.

Apparently I’m racist because I didn’t root for the over-paid, low-talent, egotistical hacks on the U.S.A. Olympic basketball team.

A lady drops her kid over a bridge, and decides to sue the bridge owner.

Am I the only one that doesn’t give a rip about beach volleyball, let alone women’s beach volleyball, in the Olympics? Why is NBC, with their already crappy coverage, force feeding me women’s volleyball every night? Yes, there are scantily clad women, and that’s obviously a ratings boost, but what about the other 30+ sports (with multiple levels and categories in each sport) that are going on during these games? You can pretty much sum up NBC’s coverage in a few words: Phelps, Gymnastics, and Bikinis. I think that’s all I’ve pretty much seen so far. They make me get up at the crack of dawn or skip work to watch anything other than that, and since I don’t have a Tivo, I’m stuck watching the prime-time crap.

At least there are two things that I know: 1) Kerri Walsh and Misty May win the gold tonight, so hopefully that’ll be the last I see of them, and 2) NBC will, at some point in the next 30 years, hopefully lose the rights to broadcast the Olympics (I can’t remember how long their contract is now — until 2010, maybe?). Maybe then I’ll get better coverage.

Meanwhile I’m off to pirate the videos I want.

Apparently the fireworks shot off during the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics managed to set fire to a local park. Whoops.