A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

NOT A REAL NEWS STORY. FAKE. MADE UP. NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY CABLE PROGRAM INVOLVING TALKING MILKSHAKES.

BOSTON (RayP)-- Residents of this beleagured city awakened once again to the sights and sounds of terror, all resulting from an attempt at entertainment.  One day after guerilla marketers planted electronic devices around bridges and other potential terrorist sites, police and Homeland Security officials were called to the North End on Thursday night to investigate a series of explosions coming from inside the TDBanknorth Garden.

Passersby began calling 911 shortly after 7:00 p.m. with reports of metallic sparks, bodies crashing into glass and suspicious chants from unfamiliar occupants of the building, believed to be wearing "gang colors" of gold and blue. The reports escalated when flashing red lights, horns, and screams of "around the world!" and "Pominville population!" began coming from the building sometime before 8.

It all proved to be yet another stunt, for a live broadcast on an obscure out-of-state cable network named MSG. Officials initially doubted the network's claim of responsibility, in that most of the participants seemed to be Canadian and Eastern European rather than Chinese, and no cooking paraphernalia could be found. However, after review of this incriminating audio from the scene, police issued arrest warrants for one Christopher Drury of Flatbutt, Ontario province, and one Blaise T. "Tom" Golisano of Penfield, New York for their roles in aiding and abetting the terror.

No representatives of the Boston group using the Gahden could be reached for comment. Several observers noted they hadn't seen any of them for a couple of weeks.

Bail was set at $1 million cash or one large multi-tiered cup. Attorneys for the group promised to deliver the latter no later than the end of June.

END OF FAKE NEWS STORY. WHAT FOLLOWS MAY ACTUALLY BE REAL. BUT DON'T BET ON IT.

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Apparently you can't be too careful these days. All hockey aside, I remain continually amazed by the tiers of stupidity which keep coming out of the real Fake Boston Terror Incident. Ted Turner's having his picture taken later today for the upcoming publication of Webster's Tenth Collegiate edition, where it will be displayed next to the word "clusterfuck."

The original stupid was stupid enough. Boston may not have been bombed on 9/11, but there's a touch of sensitivity there, I'm sure, seeing how it originated the WTC flights. Then the guerilla marketers apparently passed the word to their in-town operatives to keep the truth of the stunt "on the down low" even after the panic had begun settling in. And now we get the two main perps walking out of their arraignment shucking and jiving about the whole business. 

Worst of all? People are talking about it, and I'm willing to bet that Aqua Teen Hunger Force has its ratings go through the roof.

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Yesterday's reports of the Wednesday idiocy coincided with a whole bunch of new rules which took effect on February 1 governing lawyer advertising in New York. They were toned down quite a bit from the original proposed version, which could have theoretically made me mail copies of every entry on this blog, even non-advertising ones, to my friendly local appellate division for review.  Most of what remains is intended to block the tackiest and sleaziest of the operators. Not surprisingly, it took one of them- one of the Syracuse "heavy hitters"- all of one day to announce his intention to declare the rules unconstitutional violations of his free speech. Gee, Einstein, I thought your freedom of speech ended when it got to my eyes and ears, and I am really sick of seeing your 60-ounce Louisville slugger and Jim "The Hammer" and his blinking dollar signs and gold coins falling from the sky and a parade of BMWs following every ambulance on its way from a car crash. Nice job, by the way, getting a public-interest action group to back your constitutional challenge. Don't let the courtroom door hit you where the good Lord split you.

The ultimate irony in these rules, though? I cannot solicit accident victims for 30 days. I must disclose all paid performers in my ads and label everything as an advertisement if it is one. I cannot use tacky monikers or deceptive promises. But there's nothing in there stopping me from putting a dozen of these at the international bridge crossings and subway stations:



On second thought, that might just make a perfect Valentine to send to Zdeno Chara.

active_apathy had a busy morning with fake blood and chocolate cereal, to which I could not possibly add any more justice, great or otherwise.

She did, however, end her tale with the mere toss-off of this news story:

2,000 Teddy Bears Burn in Australian Warehouse Fire

Now that's something I can work with.

[Poll #909082]

So. About the latest gay marriage decision, this one from our own New York Court of Appeals:

God help me for what I am about to say, but as much as my heart wanted the court to do the right thing, my Machiavellian little brain is glad they didn't.

If the highest court in this shrinking but still-influential state had found a state-constitutional right to marry, several things would have happened politically, most of them bad. 

One, we'd be subjected to busloads of freaked-out Fundies for the remainder of time, all of them using this decision in the short term to stir their prejudiced little pot and rile up red-staters all over the country to come out from under their rocks and re-elect their incumbent Republicans.   This is not the time for that. We're too close.

Two, in the weird but totally predictable world that is Ynabla ("Albany" backwards), every state official in our capital- from the Governor to the lowliest Democratic state senator to the third cousin of Erastus Corning  II who runs the city dog pound- would be doing nothing for the next six months but having to deal with the pressure to "fix" this "horrid" decision.  With all due respect to Adam and Steve, this state has far more to worry about right now than the two of you. Go to Boston for the weekend. It's a nicer place than this hellpit, anyway.  Instead, the court decision, by not taking action on its own and putting out a specific call for the Legislature to deal with the problem, made absolutely certain that our chicken little Legislature will do no such thing for the remainder of this year's session.

About the only thing I regret is that, if the court had found a fundamental right of marriage in our state constitution, we might finally have a serious discussion about rewriting the whole gorram thing. The New York State Constitution is no Jeffersonian paragon of virtue, in either substance or writing style, but a bucket of special-interest guarantees that's been inassailable since 1938, despite a requirement that voters re-ratify it at least once every 20 years.  Here's an example of what it says, from Article XIII, the Public Officers article:9-12. There are no sections 9-12.

(So is it any surprise that the court went on in Rule 7 to say, "No pooftahs"?)

I would have supported an explicit right of any two people, not otherwise disqualified by current marital or imprisonment status, to marry, divorce or even root for the Yankees, however morally reprehensible THAT would be. It would have been far more satisfying than the court somehow cobbling such a right out of the state constitutional prohibition on imposing tolls on state canals.  Now the chances of a reconsideration of the whole shebang is off until 2017. To parahprase Radar O'Reilly: I'll be 58 years old. That's practically dead!