News roundup

• The Federal Reserve loaned AIG $85 billion of my money for two years to help it stay afloat, because it's "too big to fail," and its failure would cause too much turmoil in the world markets. Too fucking bad, I say. Let it fail. I do not appreciate being ripped off like this. And now the Dow is down another 500 points. Sigh. This is the kind of stuff that makes people stop paying their taxes. Why bother, when the government will just waste the money?
• Noel Gallagher, the lead singer of the band Oasis, was attacked by a fan onstage in Vancouver, British Columbia. Those crazy Canucks. Although I commend the attacker for his actions, because I hate Oasis too.
• Elsewhere in violence-plagued British Columbia, a black bear swam across a river, climbed onto a dock, jumped into a fisherman's boat and mauled him. The bear was probably just expressing some Canadians' dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's policies.
• Britain has legalized Muslim sharia courts. As long as both parties agree to be judged by the sharia court in civil disputes like divorce or business lawsuits, the sharia court's decisions are legally binding. I did not know that Jewish Beth Din courts have existed in Britain for over a century, in a similar arrangement. I can't help but think that such arrangements are a bad idea for the longevity of the state.
• Almost 500,000 federal employees failed to pay more than $3.5 billion in taxes that they owed last year. Of them, that's 31,000 US Postal Service employees, 1000 Capitol Hill employees, and 58 Executive Office of the President employees. Well, heck, if they don't pay, why should you?
• Companies are now shredding computer hard drives to prevent their data from being hacked. I think it's more fun to take my old hard drives to the rifle range and put a few armor-piercing rounds through them. Although now that I have a drill press, I can just do it in my garage, more quietly.
• Palm Beach County, Florida, gained notoriety in the 2000 Presidential election for the voters' inability to figure out how to vote using the age-old paper "butterfly ballot." Then they briefly switched to touch-screen machines (which were then discarded because there was no paper audit trail), and now they can't figure out how to use the paper-based optical scanning systems for their ballots. I think it's pathetic. Why even allow them to vote at all? (Although this time it seems that it's the election officials' fault, not the voters'.) Personally, I think it would be a triumph just to prevent dead people from voting. Though in Palm Beach County, it may be difficult to tell which voters are dead, and which are not.
• Scientists think that logic, not emotions, drive moral decisions. That's not a surprise to me, though I know some people who would be simply shocked, shocked that gambling is taking place in this establishment.
• Ten years after MTV's Total Request Live program began, they're cancelling it. That's about nine years later than it should have been cancelled. Actually, they should just shut down MTV while they're at it. I'm sure they could use the bandwidth for another Discovery Channel, like "Discovery Plumbing." They already have lots of saggy-pant plumber's cracks on MTV, so it would be just more of the same on The Plumbing Channel. No one would notice the difference.
• Pakistan says it will shoot at US forces if the US forces conduct another cross-border raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan to go after terrorists. Hmmm. I think they're kind of missing the point. After all, US forces wouldn't need to be there if the Pakistani forces were doing their job. Getting all surly about it doesn't help things.
• Here's a creepy skin condition called Morgellons, and doctors can't agree on whether it actually exists. Looks real to me. Those multicolored fibers are really weird.
• Plastic is bad for your health, especially bisphenol A (BPA). I thought everyone knew that already. But apparently the FDA still doesn't believe it. Sigh.
• Watch where you sit, especially on sofas made in China. They can give you a nasty rash.