Run, Jewboy, Run!

For all of those wondering why the front man for the country music group "The Texas Jewboys" wants to run the Lone Star State, Friedman will put down his cigar and say from under his 10-gallon hat: "Why the hell not?."

"I want to fight the wussification of the state of Texas. I want to rise and shine and bring back the glory of Texas," Friedman said. "I am a writer of fiction who tells the truth."

Friedman, whose first name is Richard but is known by Kinky and a few other names that are not publishable, does not have a campaign platform -- mostly out of fear there may be a trapdoor somewhere underneath that will spring open and leave him swinging.

"There are no skeletons in my closet. They are all bleaching on a beach somewhere," he said.

You want to know Friedman's stand on gun control?

"I do not carry a gun myself, so if someone is going to shoot me, they better remember to bring their own weapon."

On abortion?

"I am not pro-life, I am not pro-choice, I am pro football."

At last, a candidate I can support.

I'm moving to Texas.

Podnah.

Thanks, doorinward

"The figure was weak, and its movements limited. Later, around 1475, when Isabella was crowned queen of Castile, the figure became female but able to move only one square at a time, like the king. Not until 1495, when Isabella was the most powerful woman in Europe, were the present rules of chess established, in which the queen roams freely in all directions on the board," Dr Westerveld said yesterday.

Sadly, the good Queen listened to those who argued that her gut feelings against the Spanish Inquisition were a womanly weakness and ought to be ignored. But is was her great grandson Philip II who tried to convince his wife Mary Tudor that the Inquisition might be all well and good for Spain, but totally inappropriate in England, where Protestants were merely following the faith of their fathers.

If I ever play chess again I shall think of the Queen as my distant cousin -- we Purcells claim descent from one Diego Rodriguez Porcel of Castille.

Isabella was not, by the way, the Queen of Queens. The borough of Queens, I mean. That was Catherine of Braganza, whose dowery included Bombay, the English bridgehead on the Subcontinent, to whom I therefore (arguably) owe my wife.

That's Masons, not Mensans

"Apparently, this ritual has been conducted for a few years at this lodge," Fitzpatrick said, adding that there were two guns present - one carrying real bullets and another carrying blanks, and that the shooter may have used the wrong gun. "He was being inducted into another group within the lodge."

(With thanks to nephthys510.)

Death by Montel

Police and prosecutors said the couple was in bed on Feb. 24 smoking marijuana and watching a Montel Williams TV talk show on surviving a lover's attack. Teri told her husband that his actions resembled those of abusive husbands featured on the show, which caused Cecil to turn violent...

Mason

George Mason:

That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights of which when they enter into a state of society they cannot by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty with the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Sound familiar?