Too many browser windows open with news stories I will never get to post and babble about, so it’s time for a link dump!

Joe the Plumber, (whose real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher) made some harsh statements about Senator John McCain this weekend saying the former GOP presidential candidate “really screwed my life up.”

When one allows someone else to parade them around in front of other humans and TV cameras like a show dog barking out a party line, one can’t blame the other person for screwing up their life. He didn’t have to do it, he doesn’t have to keep doing it, and from all I have heard about him it seems like his life was pretty screwed up before McCain came into his life. Joe, take some responsibility for what’s become of your life. It’s not like anyone forced your fifteen minutes of fame on you.

There’s been a lot of fuss about the full body airport scanners over in the UK. No matter what their transport department says about how carefully the randomness of the selection process for who gets scanned is, the only non-discriminatory way to use them –or any of the security stupidity at airports– is to put everyone through all of it. Sure, everyone would have to get to the airport a day early, but it’d be fair and who knows what sort of crazies we’d catch!

Speaking of security stupidity at airports:

Did you hear about the Camden cop whose disabled son wasn’t allowed to pass through airport security unless he took off his leg braces?

You’ll just have to read the article. If I start commenting on this story, I won’t stop, and I don’t have the time today to rant at length. Seriously, this is well beyond stupid and far into the outer planes of outright idiocy, if not cruelty.

Don’t be shocked if you can’t find your favorite salad dressing or mouthwash on your next trip to Wal-Mart.

Large retailers — including Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), the world’s biggest — are wrestling with having too many types of brand-name products. At the same time, shoppers are buying less and looking for bargains.

Yes, I have noticed this happening, though not at Walmart since I don’t shop there. It’s definitely been happening at my neighborhood grocery store for a couple of months, and it’s beginning to make me angry. My favorite dish soap (a major, major brand) comes and goes on a regular basis, and many of the brands I have spent a great deal of time researching and selecting are vanishing from the shelves. I will not buy store brands, no matter how cheap they become. They are poorly labeled, and I have no idea where they come from, where the product inside was grown/created, and the quality is always crap. If this trend continues, it’s not going to push me to buying store brands or generics. It will push me to becoming even less dependent on grocery stores for products, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

And in closing … the Austin Zoo has baby lions!!! I have GOT to go see them. It is imperative. I’ve never seen a baby lion up close (or even in person at all), and at the Austin Zoo, everything is up close and personal. Must have photos of baby lions!