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SORT OF BREAKING: The ladies love men who smell like meat!!*
Missed this when I was out–Burger King's Flame "fragrance,"complete with weirdly hairy King mascot in front of a fire. Gives me the shivers, personally. And doesn't make a Whopper sound any more appetizing than the burned pile of extruded...Wheels of Doom, mein Fuhrer
Just sayin'…Cheney's Fedora–if Flaubert's got a parrot…
All the talk of Cheney's chapeau got me thinking. There's the obvious notion that he's channeling Snidely Whiplash, a fitting tribute for a man who always looks like he just got done dining on braised liberals. But the black fedora certainly fires on other...The country's playing Gin Rummy, but they're still on Go Fish
The Right used to have some measure of diversity in its thought, but once you get addicted to screaming "Be afraid!" at every turn, it's apparently hard to stop.Which is to say that finally dealing with the prisoners at Guantanamo with old-fashioned...If you don't have anything to hide…
If these allegations are proven true, will the staunch defenders of Bush-era lawbreaking finally stop defending totalitarian practices? Will we finally have the cojones to investigate the extent of this? But most of all: remember when conservatives opposed stuff like...A Rove-ing
If you look a few blogs down on the main Advocate page at the Public Humanist, you'll find a piece I wrote about This American Life and a sort of narrative/musical project I've been working on. Hope it might prove an interesting read of a non-political...The Disgruntled Chorus
The Memory Hole yields further information regarding the extent of the Bush administration's spying, with two more recent whistleblowers to add to the chorus that also includes Russell Tice, Michael Klein, Babak Pasdar, and Thomas Tamm: "These [people we...Don't Put This Off
If you have a head full of monumental things you wish to complete, as pretty much everyone I know does, you have no doubt suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous procrastination. Happens to me all the time. 'Tis easier to blog and watch the turgid wake that...Fighting Comedy with Comedy?
Norm Coleman: running for court jester?Little else could explain the awesome progression of foibles that has unfolded in the legal contest Norm Coleman (used to be R-Minn.) has brought against Al Franken (probably soon D-Minn.). The contest, in my opinion, is a very...The Curious Case of Bible Spice
Two pieces of today's news are certainly prompters of mixed feelings. First up is word that Obama is continuing the CIA practice of rendition. This is certainly a matter that requires a grasp of subtlety–there is rendition, then there's...Straw Money
We've all seen the "straw man" argument over and over. You know, when someone says "Ice cream tastes good," and somebody else comes along and says: "So you're telling me that a crap souffle doesn't taste good?!? I've had crap...Cheney: Be afraid! Stay afraid! Is this thing on?
In his first big post-Vice Vader interview, Cheney clings steadfastly to the rationalization of the worst excesses of his administration. He's not a stupid man, but he's certainly pandering to the stupid. He and Bush mastered oversimplification tactics, and...From the Department of Unfortunate Analogies, GOP branch office
Ouch! "Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and...Magic in Northampton
Yesterday I caught "Being Harry Houdini" at the Academy of Music. There's something about magic performance that seems to me older than the hills. I know music has been around as long or longer, but the trappings, even the premise of magic, are very...Obama, wherefore art thou?
Obama, in the midst of undoing so many of Bush's abuses of secrecy, just focused on the mother of all secrecy ploys, the "State Secrets Privilege," and has initially signalled that he'll continue abusing it like Bush did. You know what they say about...Incoherity!
Blogger Mark Nickolas tries an interesting trick regarding Obama's speaking level versus Bush's. So, I just finished comparing the transcript of President Obama's first presidential press conference this evening with the very first one that former...Fascinating and disgusting!
I'm in awe of a new find by one of my favorite bloggers, Leisure Guy. Behold in all its glory This Is Why You're Fat. It's a collection of disgustingly appetizing(?) food for those who aren't afraid of things like heart attacks. I think the picture...How to swim the Atlantic
First, start in Cape Verde and go to Trinidad, conveniently cutting down on the approximately 2,500-mile trip by a few hundred miles. Second, spend most of the trip in a boat, not swimming, cutting the voyage by another 1,700 miles or so. Third, accidentally inflate...Mad science isn't what it used to be
I'm on record with my plans to retire someday to a chateau somewhere in the Black Forest, build a lab, lose my hair gel and become an honest-to-goodness mad scientist. But crikey, is the competition getting stiff. Used to be you could hack up a few things, sew...Mos Spec? Biggie Palin?
RNC chairman Michael Steele: "We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings." “It will be avant garde, technically. It will come to...Absolute power, etc.
Leads that need to go away: "The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush…"It's a truism of opposing executive power: you're going to be disappointed. Makes sense–Obama stands to expose himself to lots of trouble...Giving Jim Nabors a bad name
Bobby Jindal's response-to-Obama speech came out like Gomer Pyle explaining waterboarding to kindergarteners just before a big tap dance number. And that's not counting the backward-looking political viewpoint. He's a weird dude, Jindal. Also, as a...The all-new hip-hop GOP spins on its head
"Michael Steele, you be da man!" That was Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) dishing out mad props to RNC chairman Michael Steele at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) meeting this weekend.Steele calls for the GOP to go "hip-hop" and...The latest in weird Massachusetts dental news
Out on Cape Cod, a man checked out a wallet at Wal-Mart for possible purchase. And he found 10 teeth inside–one with a filling. This is a story we'll probably never know, but wouldn't you like to know what led to someone storing teeth in Wal-Mart's...Country First
At the edge of an economic chasm, with livelihoods and international reputation on the line, what do you think is most important for Congress to do? It's a time for problem-solving, not win-at-all-costs Machiavellian martial arts, right? And Republicans want the...Apocalypse by Walker, Texas Moron?
What a weird time it is among the right wingers. World Net Daily, believe it or not, is still consumed by a quixotic quest to prove, finally, once and for all, that Obama really was born in Indonesia and Kenya and is a Marxist intruder. And no, I ain't linking to...MacAmerica, Thane of Cawdor and Columbus hereafter?
What if America was "discovered" by a Scotsman? Bring out the haggis, baby, because apparently Christopher Columbus was in fact Pedro Scotto, Italian-Scot, and had blond hair gone white, light eyes and freckles. Claiming Columbus isn't exactly something...The Man Who Was Thursday
I just discovered this gem, a 1908 novella by G.K. Chesterton, thanks to a recommendation from Jed Berry when I had the pleasure of speaking to him recently ("The Debut of a Cycling Umbrellist," March 5, 2009). The prose is densely Victorian, as if just...Can you dust for fletching?
Maybe it's because I'm reading a mystery and writing something science-fictiony right now, but this sounds like the beginning of a very weird plot. A woman in the Bronx was hit by an arrow as she opened the passenger door of her car to let a friend out at a...Stories Without End
Someone very important to me has died unexpectedly. Harris Mills was a veteran of two of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific during World War II, Guadalcanal and the under-reported battle for the tiny island of Peleliu. The reason I bring Sergeant Mills up in a...Sometimes when I'm driving… on the road at night… I see two headlights coming toward me.
Remote blogging is a fine path to amusement. Which is to say, in a tough time and from my current undisclosed location, I have checked into the blogosphere and discovered something that relieves the synapses of their weightiness. I still can't figure out why...The Unintentional Anteater
Thanks to following a link on a story comment, I discovered this quite interesting piece at Salon, about a fellow who sees ants in his cereal and grabs a handful to munch anyway. Sort of an exuberant omnivorous experience, I suppose, from a writer with quite an...In Cold Floodlights
Last night I dreamed I was playing a lot of shows in an indie rock festival. Truman Capote was in charge. I was pleasantly surprised by how much he paid. ADDITIONAL: Has anyone noticed that this cartoonist dude Pat Oliphant, even if he's everywhere all the time...The Burns Event Horizon
Ken Burns annoys me to no end. He makes okay films attached to important subjects, then seems to believe that his film is equal in importance to the subject. When once I interviewed him, he claimed to have singlehandedly revived jazz in America. What a knob. Louis...Origami will destroy the world
Ever since the day my pal Dan and I threw a pot lid in the air and got some really incredible UFO photos, I've not been convinced of the efficacy of photos to prove much of anything. So witness this shot, currently making the rounds as a contest winner and...Torture: it worked, only it didn't…
You know how those crazy liberals kept saying torture is wrong and doesn't work? Well, the Bush administration's Exhibit A for the efficacy of torture, it turns out, is proof of just that, according to a Washington Post story (and a great commentary on the...Simian flu?
Remember when everybody was all afraid of the bird flu? I say remain afraid of the bird flu, and get even more afraid of other strains. If you've noticed a lack of posts for quite a few days running, that's because I have been suffering from what I am...Obama (hearts) Strangelove
Why does Obama persist in being so very wise about so many other things while ripping to shreds the clear limits of executive branch power just like his idiot predecessor? And what are we going to do about it? I'd rather just be able to like what he does across...Heat and Light
The political news is annoying me to no end. Obama, so promising in so many ways (and he remains so, despite the following), is embracing and exceeding Bush's absurdist claims of unchecked executive power. I'm not quite ready to get all worked up to refight,...Robots finally get cool
As soon as I can dig it out, I'm going to post some selections from a list of great SF I've held onto since 1983. In the meantime, I want to issue kudos to someone who is finally making sure that the future is what it was cracked up to be back in 1977. Well,...Obama–a Slight Return?
Interesting, even promising in light of how much he's frustrated civil libertarians like me with certain actions, that Obama did the right thing (well mostly) in releasing Bush torture memos yesterday. The immunization of torturers from prosecution is certainly a...Sharpen up your conspiracy pencils
Mark Twain said, "To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman."Who would believe that the Bushies wanted to wiretap members of Congress? Oh, sorry. I would too. But who would believe that a congresswoman would be on the phone...Nuremberg redux
It's hard to know who most deserves the Up Is Down Award right now, especially when it comes to the Room 101 case currently unfolding to reveal that Bush and his apologists really were every bit as bad as his most vociferous detractors said.I mean, which of these...The problem with a big mouth
Forget the Super Bowl. This is the event I'm waiting for, as promised by Sean Hannity's television antics:Charles Grodin: You're for torture. Hannity: I am for enhanced interrogation. Grodin: You don't believe it's torture. Have you ever been...Refiftance is futile, good firs
This one will play well in these heady days of Royalists, Whigs and Tories. Mitt Romney: "We are the party of the revolutionaries, they are the party of the monarchists."Rumor has it he later called Arlen Specter and said, "Gird thyself, sir, for a...Blowing the Whistle
Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has had a rough time making her whistleblower allegations known–when Ashcroft was Attorney General, he shut her down using the state secrets privilege. Her fairly complicated story, unfortunately, also doesn't have a ton...Mad Science and Twisted Silverware
The fringes of science always prove the most fruitful, at least if it's fiction you're pursuing. And when real discoveries come from that intriguing zone, they're usually humdingers. But there's big danger there. Even (or especially?) earnest...My new favorite site
Awkward family photos? Oh, yes, they've got 'em!It's like the whole pain of childhood concentrated and delivered via a shocking blow to the head. Awesome. And first up–Lionel Richie's long-lost pale cousins, 1985, just after they listened to the...Peacenik interrogators and their excellent results
A real bellwether? Reminds me of the great fried chicken and brownies ending of White Noise somehow. (From Daily Kos) There you'll also find some discussion of Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran, who put the lie to the reprehensible supporters of torture by doing...Turns out the Bushies thought Iraq was officially a Christian war, too
Talk about being left speechless. I just checked out the formerly classified cover sheets to briefings produced by Rumsfeld's Pentagon during the early days of the Iraq War. It's hard to count the ways in which they are offensive. Long story short, they show...More, and Worse, Torture Allegations
Binyam Mohamed, released from Guantanamo three months ago without charge, and the Air Force lawyer assigned to represent him have levelled some fairly horrifying allegations. I haven't seen much about this before in the American press, though there is a little out...A short debate
"'I want to find out if [waterboarding] is torture,' [Eric] Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture." (That's shock jock Eric Mancow,...So it really was the Empire they were hoping for after all…
Funny how all the commenting dried up with that last post… And for today, we've got a fascinating look back at 2002, when the Weekly Standard, that bastion of neocon philosophizing, had the good grace to explain just how screwed up we really got as a nation...The hazy liberal high of arroz y frijoles
Certain members of the right are concerned Sonia Sotomayor's fringhteningly Puerto Rican diet may affect her decisions. This is chilling stuff from The Hill:Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz,...Philosophy Monday
The disintegration of the GOP has provided no small amount of entertainment, from watching Michael Steele take the GOP to the masses with his new "off the hook" party of "hip-hop" to witnessing multiple apologies as underlings (i.e., congressmen)...My Fellow Post-Protozoans
Some cool news: Amateurs collaborate on a grand scale make a Google Earth extension so anyone can look at the details of North Korea. Now you too can peer at the glories of Kim Jong-Il's summer home.Some bad news: The methods we've used to search for life (or...A mysterious creature in Vermont
A lake monster in New England? Burlington's Eric Olsen captured some interesting footage of something in Lake Champlain. Here's a stabilized version of the footage–Olsen got tired of all the attention and seems to have disallowed embedding of his video....The Invertebrate-American lobby; Baptists gone loco
Many Americans, of course, want universal health care. Large numbers of us want a version that lowers costs enough to force insurance companies to give up and actually cover people instead of devising ever more ingenious methods to avoid coverage and turn bigger...Another glimpse into how torture happened
How come the New York Times read emails full of damning information about the genesis of the infamous torture memos and came up with a story mainly saying that even the memo's detractors agreed that torture was legal? Freaking liberal media.It bears noting as well...E-Edition
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