Recently in Humor Category

You might be a Hill Staffer if:

? Indy is not a form of music
? No one looks at you funny when you sleep at the office
? A perfect boyfriend/girlfriend is someone who can actually put up with your work hours
? You know that perfect person doesn't exist
? You work insane hours for little money. . . And you love it
? Your friends visit your office to make sure you're still alive
? Therapy is something you wish you could get for free after the election
? Your track record, has nothing to do with sports
? Your best friend's name is Blackberry
? You have played some kind of sport in your office at least once (i.e. baseball, kickball, football, basketball, etc.)
? You have come to work when you look like you're about to keel over and die
? And you did it by choice
? Your car doubles as a closet during campaign season because frankly, you're not quite sure when you'll get home
? You have gone 48 hours plus without sleep
? Your desk kind of reminds you of the movie Twister, well after the tornado hit
? You watch either 24 or the West Wing compulsively
? When your power goes out or your telephone is disconnected you immediately blame it on the Democrats, or Republicans
? You have encountered at least 3 volunteers whom you are sure escaped from a Mental Institution
? All your friends say how "professional and cute" you look while you're running around on your blackberry trying to prevent Armageddon

In an ironic case of being hoist by ones' own petard, MSNBC (by way of the AP) reports that  Ilkka Kanerva, better known as Finland's Foreign Minister, was forced to resign after a scandal broke which involved Mr. Kanerva, a member of a conservative Finnish political party, sending racy text messages to an erotic dancer.

The scandal, which had been making headline news for weeks, had eroded trust in and respect for Ilkka Kanerva, said Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen, chairman of the National Coalition Party, which holds the Foreign Ministry post in the coalition government.

"The minister does not enjoy trust," Katainen told reporters. "It's a heavy decision. He's a friend and he's done his work well."

I'll note that the AP article says that Kanerva broke not a single law in Finland. However, this isn't the first time he's been involved in a SMS-based scandal. In 2005, when Kanerva was a deputy speaker of Parliament, he was also caught sending naughty texts, and promised not to do it again.

We may find it silly for the Mayor of Detroit to be indicted over some nasty SMS banter with his Chief of Staff (minor detail, despite both being married they were having an affair). On the other hand, Finland is the home of Nokia, the international handset giant, developer of the GSM standard and inventor of the SMS.

Of course, this doesn't rise to the level of Marion Barry smoking crack on videotape, but does anyone know how to translate "g*ddamn b*tch set me up" into Finnish?

On a more serious note, how do these SMS records keep getting to newspapers? Should I be worried about my BlackBerry  storing extra copies of my messages somewhere?

If there are any readers out there who know more about how SMS works and would like to enlighten your felllow man on how secure (or not) SMS is, please let us know.

The guys at 463 win the best April Fool's joke for this year.

April 1, Washington, DC - After years of controversy and uncertainty, DNA testing has finally proven the real father of the Internet. It's a gas station attendant in Norman, Oklahoma.

Given the obvious promiscuity of the Internet's mother, the real father has long been in doubt. Robert Kahn, Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf were all known to have dated the woman, Mildred Pollymokker, in the mid 1960s and 1970s. Others, including JCR Licklider, Paul Baran and Robert Taylor were all known to have "spent time" with Ms. Pollymokker around that time.

"Let's face it, the mother of the Internet got around," said Cerf. "I'd be coming over to visit and I'd see Tim sneaking out the backdoor. I'd get so jealous. I would yell, 'Wrong. Wrong. Wrong."

 

Also, Andrew Noyes at CongressDaily left me rolling on the floor uncontrollably after reading the text of this supposed legislation from Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn.

Sohn was quoted as saying, "This bill should be read very carefully. Anyone would have to be a fool to vote for this bill."

Happy April 1st, everyone.

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence - exclusively reported in the IoS in October - that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.