A gentile goes into a clothing store and says, "This is a very fine jacket. How much is it?"
The salesman says, "It's $500."
The gentile says, "OK, I'll take it."

Two gentiles meet on the street. The first one says, "You own your own business, don't you? How's it going?"
The other gentile says, "Just great! Thanks for asking!"

Two gentile mothers meet on the street and start talking about children.
Gentile mother 1 (said with pride): "My son is a construction worker!"
Gentile mother 2 (said with more pride): "My son is a truck driver!"

A man calls his mother and says, "Mother, I know you're expecting me for dinner this evening, but something important has come up and I can't make it."
His mother says, "OK."

A gentile couple goes to a nice restaurant. The man says: "I'll have the steak and a baked potato, and my wife will have the julienne salad with house dressing. We'll both have coffee."
The waiter asks, "How would you like your steak and salad prepared?"
The man says," I'd like the steak medium......the salad is fine as is."
The waiter says, "Thank you."

A gentile man calls his elderly mother. He asks, "Mom, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?"
She says, "I'm feeling fine, and I don't need anything. Thanks for calling."

Now you know why there are no gentile jokes.

In this month's Washington Monthly:

About the only failure more pronounced than the president's has been the graft-filled plunder of GOP lawmakers—at least according to opinion polls, which in May gave the GOP-controlled Congress favorability ratings in the low 20s, about 10 points lower than the president's. This does not necessarily translate into electoral Armageddon; redistricting and other incumbency-protection devices help protect against that. But even if many commentators think that Republicans may retain control over Congress, very few think they should.

...

If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government—indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government—is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.

The Daily WTF: http://thedailywtf.com/

Ma Bell, risen from near death like the hydra, now says they own your phone records and will disclose them however they see fit:

The new policy says that AT&T—not customers—owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service—something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.

Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service—a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers' recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.

I will now begin the process of switching our home-phone service...

I love the Straight Dope:

Q: I have asked flight attendants on airplanes all over the world. No one knows. No one even hazards a wild guess. ... Why doesn't the plastic bag inflate? Since it doesn't, what is it for?

First an inside secret: the bag does inflate, but only when you exhale.

Here's the deal. Passenger oxygen masks give you a continuous flow of oxygen (as opposed to oxygen on demand, which only flows when you inhale). The oxygen obviously can't flow into your lungs while you're exhaling, so if there weren't some way to store it temporarily it would have to be vented wastefully. The bag makes this unnecessary. When you start exhaling, your breath plus the incoming O2 flow into the bag.

Cecil Adams rocks.