The Brilliant Old Gringo

An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court was sitting by a river when a Traveler approached and said: "I wish to cross. Will it be lawful to use this boat?"

"It will," was the reply; "it is my boat."

The Traveler thanked him, and pushing the boat into the water embarked and rowed away. But the boat sank and he was drowned.

"Heartless man!" said an Indignant Spectator. "Why did you not tell him that your boat had a hole in it?"

"The matter of the boat's condition," said the great jurist, "was not before me."

- Ambrose Bierce, A Defective Petition, in The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce, 612 (5th ed. 1970).

Mohammed Claims Responsibility for 9/11, WTC Bombing, Katrina

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Suspected terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to mastermining over 30 attacks and plots in the U.S. and worldwide that killed thousands of victims -- including the 9/11 plot, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Hurricane Katrina -- according to a revised transcript released Thursday by the U.S. military.

In his first public statements since his capture, a broken yet defiant Mr. Mohammed expressed regret for taking the lives of children and said Islam doesn't give a "green light" to killing, while still promoting his extreme ideology. "I don't like to kill people. The city of New Orleans and its kids were necessesary casualties in our war of independence."

Mr. Mohammad later confessed to the assassination of William McKinley, the My Lai massacre, and SARS.

In a prepared statement, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow touted Mr. Mohammad's confessions as support for President Bush's pro-torture policy.

I'm Hilarious

From an e-mail sent to a student earlier today:

"A good example of this is Brown v. Board, which is actually two separate but equally important decisions that are commonly denoted Brown I and Brown II."

Get it? I'm such a dork.