WTF Is It Now?!?

GOOD STUFF
Don't forget to read DU's Top 10 Conservative Idiots! This week: the Now Watch My Drive Edition.



AT LEAST SOMEONE'S THINKING
Eleven alleged members of San Francisco's Big Block street gang claimed in a court filing in June that they have a constitutional right to carry guns, pointing to a declaration last year by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that changed the law. Previously, the Justice Department had thought that Second Amendment rights applied only to state militias, but Ashcroft declared in May 2001 that henceforth, the Second Amendment would be regarded as giving fundamental gun-toting rights to individuals. Nonetheless, in July 2002, the federal judge trying the Big Block gang declined to dismiss the gun charges. - San Francisco Chronicle, 7-4-02, via
News of the Weird.




THE DECLINE OF CIVILIZATION
From time to time News of the Weird has reported on the fluctuating value of the late Italian artist Piero Manzoni's personal feces, which he canned in 1961, 30 grams at a time in 90 tins, as art objects (though, over the years, 45 have reportedly exploded). Their price to collectors has varied from about $28,000 for a tin in 1998 to $75,000 in 1993. In June 2002, the Tate Gallery in London excitedly announced it had purchased tin No. 004 for about $38,000. (The price of 30 grams of gold at press time was a little over $300.) - Sydney Morning Herald, 7-1-02.