A US Airways flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles was diverted to Albuquerque after a male passenger removed his clothing mid-flight.

Dan Jiron, a spokesman for the Albuquerque airport, says Keith Wright, 50, of the Bronx disrobed while sitting in his seat in the back of the aircraft.

Jiron says Wright was unresponsive when a flight attendant asked him repeatedly to get dressed and refused to be covered with a blanket.

Oh, and that’s not all. Remember that Air France flight that crashed, where naked bodies were recovered under the theory that their clothes had been stripped off from the wind because the plane had broken up in mid-air? Apparently, it crashed in tact:

A French investigator says Air France Flight 447 did not break up in flight but plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean.

Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, also says life vests found among the wreckage of the plane were not inflated.

All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when it plunged into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Looks like my theory has some validity now doesn’t it?

Also, they decided to automatically hide labels you rarely use. That is also a feature I don’t want. Thankfully, that can be turned off at least.

UPDATE: I’m fucking infuriated about this. This requires serious and immediate remediation.

UPDATE 2: I tried “right side chat” but I don’t like a three column layout (have you noticed?). So I went and hid all my labels. This brings the chat window up to where it used to be, and the labels are now hidden under a “more” label. Clicking on this pops up teh labels should you need them.

Seriously, what a stupid “update” to gmail. I am not at all impressed.

View the whole slideshow here.

North Korea launches a missile and it takes Barack Obama and the UN five days to respond. Iran holds fraudulent elections, kills protesters and it takes weeks before Barack Obama can stand up and say that he is “concerned” about the situation.

Then the people of Honduras try to uphold their constitution and laws of the land from being trampled by a Chavez-wanna be … and it takes Barack Obama one day to proclaim that this was not a legal coup.

Why the sudden decisiveness? Where were these strong opinions on foreign matters when Iranian authorities were trampling protestors and cutting off media access to the outside world? Where was this decisiveness when Kim Jong Ill decided that he was going to launch missiles toward Hawaii on the Fourth of July? Why … NOW … is Obama suddenly speaking out loudly

Read Neil Boortz.

I discovered this song many years ago when I bought this overseas release of Blood on the dance floor. The lyrics to the song are quite alarming. They talk about addiction to demerol and morphine and it seems that he was calling out for help even in his music but no one listened.

Full lyrics here.

US President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States believes that ousted leader Manuel Zelaya “remains the president of Honduras.”

Obama said that the coup which ousted Zelaya was “not legal” and added that it set a “terrible precedent,” and called for international cooperation to solve the crisis peacefully, after talks with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Forget that Zelaya appeared to be attempting a coup of sorts, by amending the constitution by unconstitutional means. Just remember that Obama couldn’t get up the gumption to condemn the slaughter (or obviously stolen election) in Iran, out of respect for the Islamic Republic’s “Sovereignty“.

Our president is turning out to be quite a character.

What if Steve Jobs is Mabus?

I’ll let you know what I find…

I think I may have to delve into Nostradamus’ quatrains to sort it all out. I’ll let you know what I find when I come up for air.

With the world still reeling from the tragic news of Michael Jackson’s untimely death, Universal Pictures made a game-time decision before last night’s U.S. premiere of ‘Bruno’ to cut a segment of the film that poked fun at the legendary King of Pop.

MAKE THE JOKE!!! God, everyone needs to try and show how sensitive they are… what the heck?

Here’s a joke that a friend IM’d me that’s been making the rounds:

So Farrah Fawcett, dies, and goes to heaven. Upon reaching the pearly gates, St. Peter asks her “Any last requests before you enter heaven?” and she says, “I wish the world were safe for children.” And Michael Jackson drops dead.

There.

Did anyone really think his life would end any differently? I’m mean really…

In any event, west-coast samaBlog correspondents gave some pretty extensive coverage of the Michael Jackson trial while it was going on, and now may be a good time to revisit those links:

• Michael Jackson Trial #1
• Michael Jackson Trial #2
• Michael Jackson Trial #3
• Michael Jackson Trial Pictures

If any west coast correspondents venture out to cover the events unfolding in LA, I’ll post what I can here and point you to their twitter feeds. It looks like there’s two twitter tags here and here.

Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006.

Hmmmm… There must be a tasteless joke in there somewhere…

UPDATES: Attempt #1:

I knew butts could give you cancer, but this is ridiculous…

Attempt #2 (thanks Davey B):

Insert pun here.

Attempt #3 (again, Davey B):

Farah Fawcett is dead? No shit???

Attempt #4:

I always thought she had a killer ass…

• It’s weird and creepy that he sparked up a long distance Internet romance. Seriously, I’m a little weirded out by that.
• It looks like his marriage was already falling apart. Sanford and his wife were vacationing separately. This shit happens, and it’s unfortunate. It’s also why one doesn’t go around moralizing about other people’s homes, especially as a politician.
• We haven’t had a presidential election that didn’t involve a divorced candidate since 2000. Before that it was 1993. And before that it had been 1988, and before that 1976. I don’t think that what appears to be Sanford’s impending divorce will necessarily preclude him from a Presidential run, though it may preclude him from getting evangelical support in the primaries.
• It would appear that the South Carolina Republican Lieutenant Governor André Bauer ratted him out. But to what end? Sanford is term limited. Whatever their past differences, this is not exactly the time for Republicans to be turning their firing squads on each other. The Lt Gov needs a serious lashing from party higher-ups.
• As of right now, Sarah Palin is the only contender for the Republican nomination in 2012. Not sure what to make of that. On the one hand, this may make her nomination easier. On the other hand, the attacks on her and her family will likely only intensify as a result of what appears to be Sanford’s dropping out of contention. As for me, I should hope there’s more than one option in candidates next go-around.
• One final thing: I believe that one reason why men in particular get disgusted with politicians who engage in dalliances is that they question the value of the “other woman”. In Clinton’s case, Lewinsky was overweight and not very attractive, which engendered disgust in him (”You mean THAT’S the best you can do? You cheated on your wife to get THAT?”). In Spitzer’s case it wasn’t just that she was a prostitute but that she was a ridiculously over priced prostitute (”You paid WHAT???”). Sanford may be able to redeem himself if his Argentine girlfriend is sufficiently good looking, much like Giuliani did.

I think that’s it.

UPDATE: Emails between Sanford and his lover have been published. I’m assuming neither of them released the emails. Seems to me there is a clear privacy issue here, if not a copyright issue…

Another far-right Republican confesses to an extra-marital affair.

The link to the same entry now reads:

Another far-right Republican confesses to an extra-marital affair. Not the most effective way to keep it under wraps: disappearing for days with no notice. But it’s important to remember at these moments that we’re all human. I just wish the GOP leadership would apply that lesson to everyone else.

Stay classy Sully.

The Washington Times, in an exclusive report, describes how President Obama sent the Iranian regime a letter offering better relationships before the elections in the expectation that President Ahmadinejad would win a landslide victory. The letter, cited by an Iranian official, contains an offer to settle the nuclear problem with Iran and sheds light on why President Obama was so loathe to offend Khamenei.

Read the whole thing at Belmont Club.

“I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran’s affairs,” Obama said. “But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place.”

The Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I really don’t think Obama gets it. He is, after all, keeping open an invite to Iranian diplomats to come over for hot dogs and beer on the 4th of July.

Pathetic.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Hitchens.

He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

We lost 200 soldiers in that attack.

Read more here.

So a friend of mine had managed to get time at CBS studios to make a film production, and I helped him work on it. The film was called, “Big Rig Romance” and it was about three women who ran a CB dating service for big rig truckers. It was a wacky film, and was eventually entered into a film competition being judged by Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola, or someone like that. The film didn’t win anything, but that’s all beside the point now. Remind me to tell you about the film at some point in the future (maybe I’ll get it digitized and throw it up on YouTube).

In any event, I was loading and unloading stuff from my friend’s car and on one of my trips in and out I came face to face with McMahon. He was drenched in sweat, evidently just having come back from a jog. I smiled and nodded at the sweaty blob, but he took one look at me and scowled, like I’d done something wrong to the man. I ignored it and made my way out to the car to grab another box when I looked down at my shirt and saw I was wearing a “Howard Stern for Governor” t-shirt. Stern, at the time, was at war with McMahon, and people had been calling into the show saying they’d seen McMahon here or there and were screaming “BABABOOEY!” at him and whatnot. Bumping into me at the CBS studios must have just pissed him off, and he probably took my smile as disingenuous. I burst out laughing at the realization, and never saw him again.

At the last day we were at CBS, we bumped into Tom Snyder finishing up filming his late night show, the one that came on after Letterman. We were all waiting for the elevator down, and he got sick of waiting, saying “I’ll take the steps.” As soon as he descended, the elevator arrived, and we beat him down to the first floor. He seemed a little embarrassed at this when he got down there, and we were already there. Whatever. Snyder’s dead now too.

Oh, and also all the games from the Price is Right were packed away in the studios, so I got an up close look at all that stuff too. All in all, it was pretty cool.

So naturally, noticing this confluence of Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice on the same day, I sought out to discover how often these two days intersect. This seemed like a natural job for Wolfram Alpha. But no matter how I tried structuring my query, all I could get it to tell me was that Father’s Day begins within 1 hour and 46 minutes of the solstice. if anyone out there can coax the answer out of Wolfrah Alpha, I’d be most curious.

Happy Father’s Day.

Sure, Ross still wants to keep college students from cramming into apartments like clowns in a Volkswagen, but now Councilor Stephen Murphy has come out of nowhere with a plan to tax college students, Channel 4 reports.

Rather than deal with the fact that the city has an incredibly uneven “payments in lieu of taxes” system for local non-profits, Murphy wants to charge students attending college in Boston at least $100 a year for the privilege of studying here. Students actually from Boston would be exempt under Murphy’s plan, which would require approval of the state legislature and the governor.

Actually, I have a better idea. Let’s apply the State sales tax to college tuition instead of raising the sales tax by 25%. Legislators claim that this will raise $900 million. So let’s run some basic numbers to see what my plan would run.

I estimate that there are approximately 923k college students in Massachusetts, or an average of 7565 per school (there are 122), which sounds about right. Let’s back out the ones from U-Mass to get to 909,567, but let’s just round down to 900k for ease of calculations. Private school tuition is approximately $25k/yr. So that means there should be approximately $22.5 billion of annual tuition that could be taxed. Let’s assume we reduce that by 20% for those on scholarship or are part time students. This leaves us with $18 billion to be taxed, 5% of which is… $900 million.

Seriously folks, isn’t this a better solution? Tax the out of towners instead of us. And besides, it’s a pretty unavoidable tax. Nobody is going to turn down going to one university over another over a 5% price difference, particularly if financed by student loans. While locals can easily avoid the sales tax hike, at least on large ticket items. In fact, I plan on doing some of that this weekend.

So what do you say?

Oprah Winfrey : the world’s greatest boss?

For the second time in recent years, she’s making a strong case for that title by taking her entire staff and their families on vacation. This time they’re going on a lavish Mediterranean cruise.

Winfrey and her staff will leave Chicago on Saturday. The cruise ship will stop in Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece and Malta. She is covering transportation, food, drinks and activities at port stops.

I have friends on that cruise.

More here.

The President yesterday denounced the “extent of the fraud” and the “shocking” and “brutal” response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days.

“These elections are an atrocity,” he said. “If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?” The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy.

The President who spoke those words was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy.[...]

The Iranian rebellion, though too soon to call a revolution, is turning out to be that 3 a.m. phone call for Mr. Obama. As a French President shows up the American on moral clarity, Hillary Clinton’s point about his inexperience and instincts in a crisis is turning out to be prescient.

Read the whole thing here.

I have to take a dump. I eat Soy and Flax Cluster cereal every morning and it’s better than any fiber concoction and/or laxative.

BOOM.

Business taken care of. I’m so happy I don’t have a fear of shitting in public. My aunt can only take dumps at her house – that’s no way to live. Toilets are everywhere, for everyone! Mobile crap attacks are part of the human experience and if you live your life just hanging out around your house b/c the waste that needs to get out of your body can only be dumped in your toilet, you might miss out on a gang fight that’s happening at Mickey D’s.

Read Amber Tozer.

Keep reading the #Iranelection twitter feed.