---

Weekly targets Star-Bulletin
"defectors"

Looks like Honolulu Weekly, the "alternative" giveaway information organ, has wised up and stopped including categories like "Best Columnist" in its annual "Best of Honolulu" reader survey. Their readers apparently did not understand that all the print media categories were to be won by the Weekly's own writers. In years past, the readers repeatedly chose writers from the Weekly's competition as winners -- like me, for instance.

So this year's "Best of Honolulu" survey includes the strange category "Best Star-Bulletin Defection." A number of my office mates have fled to the "other" daily newspaper for various reasons, but several people from that paper (including our publisher, Dennis Francis) have fled to the Star-Bulletin.

I'm unclear what the "best" refers to in the Weekly contest. I know that the Weekly has no love for that "other" daily, so I can only assume that it considers those who defected from the Star-Bulletin in the heat of the biggest newspaper war in the state's history as something like traitors. It will be interesting to see if the Weekly's readers will be able to figure out which way they are supposed to vote. (Personally, I urge all Weekly readers to launch a write-in effort reprising the "Best Columnist" category and vote for, well, you figure it out.)

Now the news ...

Evian just isn't enough

ATHENS, Georgia (AP) » A man who repeatedly drank holy water from St. Joseph's Catholic Church was arrested by police.

Stacy Lamar Bradford has a history of trespassing at the church and in the past has assaulted the pastor and broke a processional crucifix, according to a church spokesman. He said Bradford shows up at the church about every two weeks to drink holy water kept for use in baptisms.

(Church officials should forgive the troubled man and remember that all things must pass, including holy water.)

Pigs in Space! Sort of.

BEIJING (BBC) » China is planning to study the effects of space on sperm by sending the semen from pedigree pigs into orbit. Some 40 grams of pig sperm will travel aboard the Shenzhou VI spacecraft after its October launch. Surviving sperm will be used to better understand the processes of pig reproduction.

(A small, er, step or whatever -- for pigs, a giant step for all pigkind.)

'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday

The growing consensus among Sensitive Abstruse Progressives (SAPs) is that it isn't nice to use the term "terrorist" to describe psychotically religious depraved murderous worms who deliberately kill innocent civilians with bombs. They might be right. But on the other hand, "terrorist" is so much shorter than "psychotically religious depraved murderous worms."

Quote me on this:

"To succeed in life it is not enough to be stupid. One must be well-mannered as well." -- Bonar Thompson