There were 20 referrals from that, but it doesn't work if you try it, since that's the results of a translation page.  It appears to be one that works from Japanese to English, and vice versa. So 20 people from Japan used that to translate a page on this site?  Or one person used it for 20 pages? (more likely)  Interesting, but not a significant portion of the (small) avalanche of traffic yesterday.

So where did they come from, and how did they arrive, if there are no sub-pages that brought them, or referrals showing from whence they came? My best guess is that somewhere this site's address was posted in a busy forum or chat room or something like that, where it wasn't directly clickable, which is why there are no referrals.  If you type in the domain name, or have it bookmarked, the hits just show as direct request, rather than as a referral from somewhere, as they would if you'd clicked a link to get here.  Anyway, if anyone came here for the first time yesterday from a link somewhere, feel free to let me know where it was.  I ask out of curiosity.  Anyone else who wants to reply to say how they first found out about the site is welcome to do so also.  I'll post some of the replies, anonymously if you like.

On with the news, since there's plenty of it today, with leftovers for tomorrow.

It seems to be working thus far; Korea has advanced to the elimination round.  This reminds me of the old joke where athletes always praise Jesus when they win, but you never here one say, "We was runnin' and going to win before Jesus made me fumble!"

• Because those altar boys are just too sexy to resist?

• The US completely choked in their final opening round match in the World Cup, losing 3-1 to Poland, who had lost their previous two games and was already eliminated from advancing, while the US had a win and a tie and needed just a tie to be sure to move on:

Luckily for the US, South Korea scored a goal against Portugal in the other match in their group, and beat them.  So Portugal finished 1-2-0, and the US was 1-1-1, and goes in as the second place team from their group.

It's ironic that the US is playing Mexico next, since that's the nation they play the most often, usually in friendlies, but also in World Cup qualifying.   Mexico owned the US for decades, but with soccer finally gaining some popularity in the US, and talented athletes playing it, the US is about even with Mexico over the last 8 or 10 years.  I saw a feature on the rivalry on ESPN2 a week ago, and the US team's record against Mexico is like 8-7-9 the last decade or so, after it was something like 1-30-2 the previous 30 years.

However if the US team was playing scared and tentative against Poland in a game where all they had to do was tie to be assured of advancing, how will they play against Mexico, in the single-elimination round? We'll find out Monday, at the TV-friendly time of 4am or so.  I say 2-0 Mexico.

• Here's how you know you're getting way too involved with the whole World Cup; you start setting up televisions so animals in the zoo can watch.

Here's how you know you're insane; you start thinking they (the seals) care:

• This is a gruesome news item, a woman got in a fight with her boyfriend, stabbed him with a utility knife, and then once he was down, she started hacking away and cut off most of both buttocks. Yes, this man has no ass.  Why?  I mean why the ass?  I'd understand just killing him, or cutting off his balls/penis, if she were so pissed, but the butt seems an odd target.  This crime occurred in Mississippi, which shouldn't be a real surprise if you know anything about white trash and the deep south.  The quote from the accused is simply priceless.

Kimberly King, 26, of Aliceville was jailed without bail. "This ain't right," she told a TV news crew as she was arrested.

She then snorted and spit out her tabaccah, afore goin' inta that thar new jail house Cletus' brother done built fer tha city.

oday I have a bunch of news items, and for no particular reason several of them are on the same topic, more or less.  So I'm putting them all in this lower essay portion, since they are "thematically-linked".

Sounds like a porno about a writing group orgy, doesn't it?

The items are all about governmental stupidity, or at least controversial, potentially-dumb actions.

I usually find Ted Rall pretty full of shit, but his new column is a good one.  He makes a few outrageous comments, as usual, but he does a good job of toning them down with logic and disclaimers.  It's about the military jailing and constitutional rape of Jose Padilla, who the administration accuses of collaborating with Al Quida and plotting to obtain and detonate a dirty bomb in the US.  But he's a terrorist, on US soil, so it's good that he's locked up, right?

Well, the problem is that he's a natural-born US citizen, a guy from Chicago.  The government has no evidence of anything.  They can't prove he was planning, they have absolutely no case against the guy that could stand up in any court of law.  Their only real evidence is an accusation from another terrorist who they have been interrogating.  Padilla has not been charged with any crime, he has no access to a lawyer, he can not defend himself against the charges in court, and he's not going to be have a trial any time in the immediate future.  He's being held indefinitely in a military prison.

The legal basis for this action is a twisted joke. "Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents," ruled the Supreme Court in a precedent-setting case in 1942. The United States, however, is not at war. Congress has not declared war against the Taliban or anyone else. And while Padilla may indeed have plotted hostile acts at the behest of Al Qaeda, no one accuses him of belonging to the Taliban army. How could they? The Bushies denied P.O.W. status under the Geneva conventions to Guantánamo inmates by arguing that the Taliban never had an army.

Rall wraps up the article with the following:

You're probably not all that troubled about what happened to Padilla. You haven't hung out with Islamic extremists, boned up on your bomb-making skills or fantasized about Chernobylizing the Washington Mall. But don't forget: a court of law hasn't proved that Jose Padilla did either. And if George W. Bush has his way, it never will.

I can't help but find this troubling.  This is the sort of thing we used to feel so superior to the Soviets and other totalitarian governments for.  America, land of the free, etc.  We allow dissent and free thought, people here can criticize the government and demonstrate against it, criminals here are given trials and have rights.

The fact that such niceties as due process and the Bill of Rights are suspended during times of war isn't news; you could ask the thousands of Japanese Americans who were locked up in concentration camps in the middle of the desert during WWII about that.  And it's certainly better that Padilla is locked up than that he's out trying to put together a terrorist attack.  But the problem, as Ted Rall says, is that we have no proof that he was going to do anything of the kind.

The government says he was, but this is the same government that did such a good job not-preventing the 9/11 events in the first place, and the same one that had Wen Ho Lee convicted of every act of espionage known to man.  After 9 months of solitary confinement he walked free, guilty of one minor charge of the dozens that had been filed against him, his jail time reduced to time served.  I'd say Dr. Lee there was damn lucky to have his trial before 9/11, eh?

Tom Tomorrow has some good comments on the Padilla case as well.

In yet another example of questionable legal practices by our leaders, a guy was arrested and spent the night in jail after arguing with a county zoning supervisor.

He had frightened County Commissioner Marcie Kreager during a conversation outside the county administration building the previous day. He didn't threaten her. He didn't touch her. He just scared her.

The article hints at deeper issues.  Basically there are a lot of people who feel the county is screwing them with shady zoning practices, dump locations, etc, and they are trying to act up with some civil disobedience to get back at them and draw attention to the matter.  The county officials are fighting back with their superior legal resources.

Whether this is a case of some local kooks stirring up trouble, or a case of local government corruption being exposed, isn't at all clear at this point.

Article here about a guy in the UK who was railroaded for a crime he had nothing to do with.  Not that this sort of thing is uncommon, but the article goes into nice detail about how the police and prosecutor ignored evidence that the guy was clearly not involved, ignored the fact that there was a second robbery he clearly couldn't have committed, and still convinced a jury that he was guilty.  He got five years, and after less than a month in jail, met the guy who had done the actual crime, who was in for a different robbery!  The innocent guy was able to get another trial and a better lawyer, and was released, with the appeals court delivering a strong condemnation of the tactics of the prosecutor.

Which is all well and good, but the guy still spent months in prison, had his car stolen by the police (who alleged he bought it with the profits of the crime) and lost about 90 pounds while in prison.  Nice diet plan they must have.  The moral of the story is that if you are accused of a crime, even if you know you had nothing to do with it, and the cops have a very weak case, do not assume you'll get off just because you are innocent.  You have to assume the worst in that situation, get the best lawyer you can possibly obtain, and fight extremely-aggressively.  So at least when you do end up in prison anyway, you won't have any regrets.

Sort of the epitome of idiotic local government in this article, with wheels coming off of city buses in Baltimore 18 times in less than a year.  There are dozens of accident claims pending.  It's sort of hard to imagine that the bus technicians aren't smart enough to tighten a goddamn lug nut.  In addition to the incompetence, there's every sign of corruption and covering up.

It was not until a 10th accident had occurred that MTA's acting administrator, Virginia L. White, launched an investigation into the problem on April 20. Even then, she limited the investigation team to a handful of officials from the MTA, and excluded the agency's safety department.

In late April, a safety officer reported that a lubricant was being applied to wheels against the manufacturer's recommendations in the main bus maintenance facility, run by White's husband. White challenged the finding, saying the safety officer had overstepped her authority.

When the safety department brought in an independent consultant to inspect the buses, White ordered the inspection to stop.

So the woman in charge is an idiot, she's got her unqualified husband running the bus depot in some sort of kick back operation, and when a safety inspector shows some initiative and tries to get things fixed, she orders the inspection stopped.  Not that she has anything to hide, mind you...

I could probably do 10 of these a day, without looking all that hard for the news items.  It's not like there is any shortage of governments around the world, nor are they getting less dumb in any sort of hurry.