Lasagna Cat

Bow before Zod.

Is anyone ever going to get in trouble for shit like this?

Fun Times

Tonight, on Fox News.

Sean Hannity: Are you prepared to take a stronger stand in South Carolina, where Senator McCain is ahead, and where it benefited you going after Governor Huckabee against Senator McCain, who has been your friend?

Fred Thompson: You know, nobody is going to tell me who to attack next.

Ongoing

Cute. New York Times:

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

The Goldberg Principle. An important new term to learn and understand, in the tradition of Godwin's Law.

Desperation takes hold:

In the 30-second spot, 'First Day,' the announcer tells viewers that "On his first day in office, Rudy Giuliani will send Congress the largest tax cut in American history."

Every American will receive one pony.

I'm also a bit dubious about whether it helps Obama to have Kerry appear on stage with him, but at least Kerry's making this announcement now and not in 10 months. Fine - speak up, pass along your mailing list, and then sit down and be quiet.

GOP Looking For Its Soul

Ron Paul:

“Let’s put it in perspective. We have five small speedboats attacking the U.S. Navy with a Destroyer? They could take care of those speedboats in about five seconds. And here we’re ready to start World War III over this? … You know there are people in this administration and in Washington, D.C., that are looking for the chance” to bomb Iran, the 10-term Texas congressman said.

“I’m worrying about the policy of why we’re looking for a justification. … I mean, we’re already, with our CIA, being involved in trying to overthrow that government, and we don’t need another war. And this incident should not be thrown out of proportion to the point where we’re getting ready to attack Iran over this,” Paul said.

Romney:

Romney responded to that claim by saying, “I think Congressman Paul should not be reading as many of (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad’s press releases.

Go For It, You Dumbass!

Going There

An ugly realization of the depressing self-defeating storyline being worked out in the media for the Democrats :

The takeaway 'insight' from this Hardball was that the Democratic race is now a battle between the racist old bitches and the sexist African Americans. Fabulous. (White men like Chris, you'll notice, are the only ones voting purely on the merits in this little scenario.)

I write to MSNBC:

Hi, folks -

I just wanted to let you know that over the last year I've started watching more and more of MSNBC, almost entirely because of Keith Olbermann. I do wish he'd have people on his show that disagree with him sometimes, but generally I think he's fantastic and insightful and you're really lucky to have him.

However.

Chris Matthews is insufferable! And he seems to be getting worse with every day. His behavior last night on air during the New Hampshire was atrocious - he was like "the 10-year-old child of the CEO" or something, running round saying dumb stuff, and all your folks, like Keith and Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, were doing their best to maintain professionalism. Furthermore, his comments today that Hillary's only where she is because Bill "messed around" are truly beyond the pale.


I wanted to let you know that I love Keith, and he's the reason I look forward to your political coverage (like election night specials), but I don't think I can stand to take much more of Chris. If he's a co-anchor the next special, I plan to be watching CNN, with only occasional switches to check if someone other than Chris is speaking.


Of course I'll still be watching Countdown!

VOTING process

Carol Gee:

We all forget that it is VOTING process. . . not an opinion polling process, not a media process, not a leadership process.

More treasures from Dark Roasted Blend.

Historical Shift

Thers writes at Eschaton:

I think it's perfectly disgusting how the Republicans are playing identity politics by pandering to the horrible decrepit paranoid old white guy vote.

Two Minute Hate

My friend Chris helped me better understand some of the rightwing motivations around Hillary - the prospect of her losing bothers them because they'll lose their Two Minute Hate. It's not as calculated as thinking "she's more polarizing, so we'll be more likely to get independents" or something - it's just the sadness of losing a target to dump hatred on.

Digby catches one Lisa Schiffrin admitting this:

Deep in my psyche, in the place that kind of misses the toothache I've been prodding at with my tongue, I am having a tiny little pang of missing Hillary. Not her, but hating her.

The right feels aimless because they fear they might lose a clear direction to aim their hate.

I'm sure they'll feel out how to hate Barack Hussein Obama if he wins.

Hooray!

Fake Steve:

As you probably know, the Consumer Electronics Show begins tomorrow in Las Vegas, kicking off with a big keynote by the Beastmaster where I'm guessing he will talk about all the new ways in which Microsoft hopes to add extra layers of frustration to people's lives by turning ordinary everyday experiences like making phone calls and watching television into annoying, confusing processes that require you to integrate multiple unreliable and incompatible digital devices into a Frankenstein system that needs a dozen different remote conrols (each one bigger and uglier than the others, with a zillion tiny buttons) and which freezes, hangs and crashes without warning. Or something.

Greenwald

I love when this happens. It's a reminder that the political prattle that spews forth from group-think media stars without end and which consumes our political dialogue for a full year is based on absolutely nothing. Also, most predictive 'analysis' from the media stars' cousins, the cogs in the right-wing noise machine, is merely self-absorbed wishful thinking masquerading as objective knowledge.

Every once in a while on the great blue internet, an image just hits you right.

The "Hillary Fails" thread is strong this morning in the rightwingospehere.

Dick Morris at Townhall.com:

Hillary On the Ropes

[...]

Hillary Clinton, in the first really contested election of her own political career, lost dismally-- outclassed, outdrawn, and outpolled by Barack Obama.

[...]

This is a stinging personal defeat for Hillary.

And Rush called it a "humiliating, devastating" night for Hlllary.

My intuition here is that this is pure vindictiveness, pure mean-spiritedness, and not some sort of calculated hope that Obama will win and will be easier for them to defeat.

There's a focus on Hlllary's Great and Humiliating Failure, first and foremost in the rightwing coverage.

And one thing I can't figure out right now - does the rightwing prefer to raise up Obama over Hillary because they like him better and think the country (and their interests, of course) would be better served by him, or do they think it would be easier to beat him?

David vs. Goliath

It takes a good deal of work to find the NY Post coverage of the Republican side of the Iowa caucus results from yesterday. I guess they'd rather not think about it.

And when they do cover it, they're grasping at straws for a storyline to explain the person they'll have to get behind. Their solution:

POOR PREACHER TOPPLES RICH ROMNEY
[...]
Huckabee fittingly compared his win to a biblical David vs. Goliath story, in which he was outspent by the self-financed Romney by 20 to 1.
"People really are more important than the purse," he told cheering supporters at his victory party.

Today will be a fun day to read rationalizations about what's going on in the GOP.

What's That Now?

My Mac is a bit confused this morning.

Do I have a problem? Why does it continue to make me laugh my ass off?

I'm really digging this fffound site.

Gruber:

The irony, of course, is that a site whose entire claim to fame and raison d’étre was the exposition of “Apple secrets” has itself agreed to a secret deal with Apple.

Sadly, No continues to review Jonah's book:

Reading this book is like watching a flaming piano fall out of an airplane and land in a puppy farm.

I Believe That Children Are Our Future

What hand/eye coordination will impress *them* in *their* children? Go Go Videogame Generation.

Gruber dissects what may well be the worst article ever written about Apple.

I can't believe I once had an honest-to-goodness physical subscription to Fast Company.

<shudder>

Let's remember the name of that author, Adam L. Penenberg, because that is one truly, epicly inane article. What shall the future hold for Adam?

Taking the Cake - The Most Dumb-Ass Piece of Iraq Rationalization Yet

Are you fucking kidding me? Karen DeYoung, Washington Post:

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the results. At the very least, analysts optimistically concluded, the findings indicate that Iraqis hold some 'shared beliefs' that may eventually allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war.

Our presence caused everyone to get violent towards each other, but it's cool - cuz we can stop the violence by leaving, and at least everyone's united in believing that!

Newsflash: Candidate Wants to Do Well

How is this a story?

DECORAH, Iowa (CNN) — Fred Thompson is suddenly trying to go from great GOP disappointment, to surprise contender, in record time.

Apparently Fred wants to do well in the Iowa poll in two weeks time, but he's not doing well now, so he has to change how well he's doing in just two weeks. Okay.

Tweaks

It's the Most Wonderful Time...whenever a new Dinosaur Comic comes out.

Nazi Organic Farming

From the inside cover of Jonah Goldberg's new treatise, Liberal Fascism:

The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Bradley asks:

How do you write this shit with a straight face? More importantly, how do you get paid to write this shit with a straight face?

Fake Steve Jobs runs down the value of his recently-released non-fake book:

"It's also only fifteen bucks on Amazon. That's only six cents per page, people. And while some of those pages might be ones where you just read through and don't burst out laughing, I can pretty much guarantee there are not any pages where you'll say, You know what? I want my six cents back.

One To Talk About Evidence

Point:

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

Counterpoint, from Michael D. at Balloon Juice:

He then went on to talk about God, creation, loaves & fishes, walking on water, raising the dead, etc.

Hot Doggy

I like this point from Tim Dickinson on Rolling Stone's National Affairs blog:

"From [Mike Huckabee's] website:

We don’t have a dog in the fight between Sunnis and Shiites - our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises.

When someone briefs Mike on the Iran NIE, they might want to tell him that comparing Muslims to dogs is not helpful on the hearts-and-minds front.

I haven't linked to Glenn Greenwald in a while, but he's still got a way with words.

One of the principal ways that the Beltway establishment enforces its own undemocratic power is studiously to ignore public opinion and dismiss it as irrelevant, no match for the wise and gilded wisdom of their high priests. But here we see self-interested propagandists like Peter Beinart and David Brooks not merely dismissing public opinion as irrelevant, but just brazenly distorting it, all in order to align public opinion with their own desires, thus enabling them to pose deceitfully as the Voice of the People even as they espouse views which the vast majority rejects.

"It really doesn't matter what retailers do"

I don't have to tell my, um, readers that I'm not personally a "believer in Christ," but here are some great words from my favorite evangelical blogger, David Kuo, on folks getting angry over retailers, for example, not calling a Christmas Tree a Christmas Tree:

I used to be in the ticked off camp. Christmas is, after all, the big deal of the holiday season. More people - by far - celebrate it than celebrate any of the other holidays. It isn't even close.

But I don't think that anymore. It really doesn't matter what retailers do. It really doesn't matter what governments do. At Christmas it matters what churches do. At Christmas it matters what families do.

We waste too much time and too much energy focusing on things that aren't important to faith.

What does it matter if stores and governments acknowledge Christmas as the celebration of Christ's birth? They simply don't. They are, if anything else, a grand distraction to our faith. They are things that can make Christians feel good about their faith without requiring anything of them.

That is the opposite of the faith that Jesus instructed his followers to live. Jesus said his followers should expect hardship and trials and oppression. He didn't tell them to expect Sears to have a Christmas tree. He told them to sacrifice and serve and give and love. He didn't tell them to expect governments to celebrate is birth.

Perhaps de-Christianizing Christmas is the best thing for the Christian faith IF it forces Christians to focus more on their own spirituality and less on the nation's spirituality.

It's the hypocrisy that burns the worst - all around.

Marevlous perspective on rss reading: "Why Are You Reading All That News?"

One of the important things my elected government is doing today is to debate H. Res. 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.

Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.

Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;

Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;

Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;

Whereas Christians identify themselves as those who believe in the salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice of their savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and who, out of gratitude for the gift of salvation, commit themselves to living their lives in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Bible;

Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;

Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its roots in Christianity;

Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;

Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God's redemption, mercy, and Grace; and

Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

Separation of Church and State, muthafucka!

And yes, I know there were previous bills about Islam and Hinduism. Rep. King still sounds like Malkin clamoring about white racism or something.

Oh, Good God preserve me from satan...



Inspired by uncov.

Future-Safe

Dave Winer:

[My uncle] died in 2003. His site is still accessible because I keep it that way. When I die, who will will take over for me? I'm sure the world will survive without his writing, but why? If I love the memory of my uncle, and I do, what can I do to reserve a place for him in the archive of the future. It seems such a small thing, but it's most of what remains of his life.

Now here's a useful list. Boing Boing's 2007 Charitable Giving Guide.

John Aravosis on Democratic complicity in the torture issue:

One final point. I hope this teaches Pelosi and Reid and all the Democrats that no matter what you do, this administration will mark you as a traitor and try to do destroy you. You might as well fight back and try to win, because if you don't, you'll sit back and lose.

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #619

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #619, originally uploaded by Ape Lad.

The staggering brilliance....of Ape Lad.

Religion Requires Roller Skates

Hunter at DKos:

This is just an aside, but one of the things that has struck me about the Republican candidates this season is just how dismal their speeches have all been. Case in point, the Romney "religion" speech, where he announced that "freedom requires religion."

The problem with that line isn't that it's somehow offensive, the problem is that it's embarrassingly ridiculous. You might as well say "freedom requires peanut butter", or "religion requires roller skates" and it'd make as much sense. It may pander to some particularly odd-headed religious base, yes, but at the price of making Romney look like an intellectual dunderhead willing to say anything that sounds good.

And that's completely unnecessary. He could have said "religion requires freedom", left it at that, and it'd be a defensible and noble-sounding position, and the speech would have been every bit as patronizing and kowtowing. But "freedom requires religion?" Ugh -- that's just historically, philosophically and logically silly. It sounds like a flub, not a planned line. So who is that supposed to appeal to, seriously? Why go for the line that just plain looks foolish -- and in a highly anticipated, highly crafted, highly agonized over (and, once delivered, highly disappointing and irrelevant) speech? Who put that dumb line in there? How did it sneak by the vetting process? Is that really the best case they could make for his position, which is, roughly, "um, religion is good. I like it?"

My bold.

Freedom

New York Times editorial board gives a Reality Check:

Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Mr. Romney was not there to defend freedom of religion, or to champion the indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination. No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact.

Wow. Bush's approval rating is at only 37 percent - among military families!

"Soberly Intoxicated"

Clif from Sadly, No!:

As usual Peggy [Noonan] can’t write a column without saying something that makes her sound like some drunk you get stuck sitting next to on an 11-hour flight.

That comment, by the way, was this:

I’d rather be governed by Donny and Marie than the Washington establishment.

Not only did Bushie give out the wrong phone number when announcing today a hotline for homeowners getting squeezed by the mortgage crisis, the phone number he gave out happens to be for something called the "Freedom Christian Academy — a Texas-based group that provides Christian education home schooling material."

Chresus Jist.

You Can Think What You Can Think

Romney:

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," the GOP contender said.

Bullshit.

If you find it helps your humility towards your fellow being to believe in something you can't explain, or in the limits of your own mind, fine. Go ahead. I get that humility myself, by simply believing there are things I don't know, and through my sense of how unknowably large and old and bewildering the universe is.

I call nonsense on the claim that religion is an essential component of so-called "freedom." And now look, I've been sucked into debating the metaphysical properties of this GWB-ish concept called "freedom."

Perhaps I should have said that whatever this concept "freedom" is that you say requires religion - I do not need it.

Update: I liked this comment on CNN's page.

With his pronouncement that "Freedom Requires Religion", Romney says exactly what he needs to say to potential voters: My religion may be different than yours, but I hate and fear atheists just as much as you do. The fact that this loathsome comment doesn't put him out of contention -- and in fact strengthens his standing -- speaks volumes about the American notion of freedom.

Kuo on Huckabee

Evangelical writer David Kuo:

I like Mike Huckabee the politician. He's affable, funny, positive, and has a broad definition of what it means to be a conservative. He thinks, for instance, it is sound policy to ensure that poor children are insured. He would never have vetoed SCHIP legislation that expanded health care coverage for lower-income children. He doesn't think cutting taxes is the sine qua non of leadership. And he doesn't think illegal immigrants are the root of all evil - something several other Republican presidential candidates apparently believe. He cares about the poor.

But I am ever more concerned about Mike Huckabee the pastor. The hotter he gets, the more explicitly he wraps his candidacy in his Christian faith and the more he recruits other Christian pastors to hop aboard his political train. All the while his theology gets shoddier and shoddier.

They Write What We Tell Them To Write

Many have been quoting this, but it's really quite revealing. This is Dan Bartlett, former Counselor to the President under GWBush, speaking to Texas Monthly about right-wing blogs:

That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

My bold.

No reason in particular.

Bushie stands up for Democracy, in a phone call to Putin.

"I said we were sincere in our expressions of concern about the [Russian] elections," Mr Bush told reporters at a news conference in Washington.

Come again?

This is why God created the "Shorter" concept.

Divorce is bad for the environment?

"Hopefully this will inform people about the environmental impact of divorce," Liu said in an interview yesterday. "For a long time we've blamed industries for environmental problems. One thing we've ignored is the household."

Well, sure. And so is not committing suicide.

More health reporting like this, please!

CHICAGO (AP) -- A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms.

The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said.

Sure, it's probably not that surprising to many. But it's simple, useful brandless knowledge, passed around and shared by the human species using a dedicated "knowledge spreading" organizations like a newswire. That is a Good Thing.

Always Right

You want a delusional response to the National Intelligence Estimate report that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and has not been for 4 years? You got it.

Witness Victor Davis Hanson. Let us listen in, as he starts us off with a nice "Everything That Ever Happens Is Bad for Democrats" tale...

Revisionism and The Iranian Non-Bomb
The latest news from Iran about the supposed abandonment in 2003 of the effort to produce a Bomb — if even remotely accurate — presents somewhat of a dilemma for liberal Democrats.

Are they now to suggest that Republicans have been warmongering over a nonexistent threat for partisan purposes? But to advance that belief is also to concede that, Iran, like Libya, likely came to a conjecture around (say early spring 2003?) that it was not wise for regimes to conceal WMD programs, given the unpredictable, but lethal American military reaction.

After all, what critic would wish now to grant that one result of the 2003 war-aside from the real chance that Iraq can stabilize and function under the only consensual government in the region-might have been the elimination for some time of two growing and potentially nuclear threats to American security, quite apart from Saddam Hussein?

War is unpredictable and instead of "no blood for oil" (oil went from $20 something to $90 something a barrel after the war, enriching Iraq and the Arab Gulf region at our expense), perhaps the cry, post facto, should have been "no blood for the elimination of nukes."

In the meantime, expect a variety of rebuttals to this assurance that for 4 years the Iranians haven't gotten much closer to producing weapons grade materials.

Mmmm-hmmm, good!

Kevin Drum

This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA — all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.

Non-Random and Cumulative Nature

Steven Novella on attempts to dispute evolution from the perspective of Information Theory.

Scientists do not claim that random processes can create information. Evolution is not a random process. There are two components to evolutionary effects on information: mutations and recombination increase the amount of information in a random manner, and then natural selection provides for non-random survival of that variation. These processes, working in tandem, can explain both the increase in the amount of genetic information over time and the non-random and cumulative nature of that information.

It never hurts to restate this kind of thing. The "how can a 747 just assemble itself in a junkyard?" argument still keeps popping up.

(via antimattar)

Sadly, No takes stock of our situation.

Watching the unfolding train wreck that is the 2008 preznidential campaign, I’ve come to the depressing conclusion that every major candidate makes me want to throw up at least a little bit. The major Republicans spend every single one of their debates arguing over who’s the crazier asshole, while the major Democrats nearly get into fist fights over which one of them is most likely to get coveted endorsements from David Broder and Tom Friedman. What I’m really looking for is a leader who will get up on the podium and say, “I hate everything about Washington, DC. As president, my first act will be to remodel the entire Washington Monument into a grand middle finger statue in order to properly reflect the contempt and disgust I have with our political class. From the Iraq war to the FISA mess to the bankruptcy bill to the Military Commissions Act… can’t you stupid insane clowns do anything that isn’t insanely and clownishly stupid??!!”

And after he delivered that crazed tirade, he’d preferably instruct Barrack Obama to forcibly implement Sharia law. Just because.

But seriously: there are times when I want to throw up my hands and say “Screw it!” and vote for a Ron Paul-Kucinich Kucinich-Paul Unity ‘08 ticket. Because while each one of them is, respectively, a wee bit flaky or crazy, I’m pretty sure they’re both sincere. Face it, folks: people who claim to have seen UFOs and who want to return America to the gold standard aren’t trying to deceive the American public by telling them what they want to hear. So when Paul and Kucinich say that they’ll end the stupid-ass Iraq war, I actually believe them, because in reality they’re saner than every damned Villager candidate who is too fearful of offending their overlords at AEI, Brookings and the Washington Post op-ed page. So bring it, peeps. Unity ‘08, starring Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Me, in my own head: "Wow, NYC, settle down about the end of the Broadway strike! You're going on about this as if there had been a hostage situation that finally ended!"

Imagined Response: "Well, in a way there was."

Me: "No there wasn't."

In GOP debate, YouTube questioner asks the candidates to list the details of the guns they currently own. Each now tries to tell the most down-homey story about their guns. Truly pathetic little bunch.

Rudy Guliani learned a second word! Now he knows the word "9/11" and "Ronald Reagan."

What the hayyyyll?

CNN Tells Us That Romney Plays Football

Well put commenter "M.R.":

Romney didn't take "some time off the campaign trail" Look at that giant banner in the background. The football field is the campaign trail!

Posted By M.R. in L.A., CA : November 28, 2007 1:12 pm

Dinosaur Comics wonders out loud today.

Atrios, with the uncanny knack for simply describing the world we live in.

There have frequently been moments in the discourse surrounding our unfolding Iraq disaster when "only crazy people think that" magically transforms into "of course everyone always knew that" in an instant.

The Mouth of Alex Williams

Alex Williams, in his piece "Jolly and Green, With an Agenda," in the Fashion section of the Times today, likes to listen to himself write.

The holidays have always been an emotionally combustible time for families, bringing together a sometimes volatile mix of siblings, crotchety grandparents and ill-behaved children. But in recent years, a new figure has joined the celebration, to complicate the proceedings even further: the green evangelist of the family — the impassioned activist bent on eradicating the wasteful materialism of the holidays.

Otherwise known, at least to skeptical traditionalists, as the new Grinch.

This Grinch, however, is not out to spoil Christmas, but merely to use it as a platform to advocate ecological responsibility. Perhaps emboldened by the “Live Earth” benefit concerts and Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, this is the family member who is the first to point out, over the bountiful Christmas dinner, that the 2.6 billion holiday cards sold each year in the United States could fill a landfill the size of a football field 10 stories high, or that those conventional lights on the Christmas tree contribute up to nine times as much greenhouse-gas emissions as the leaner-burning L.E.D. models; or that some Christmas-tree growers use as many as 40 different pesticides, as well as chemical colorants, on their crops.

The question that an increasing number of families face is whether the proselytizing green member of the clan adds spice to the proceeding, like, say, a cup of whiskey in a bowl of eggnog, or an explosive element, like that same cup of whiskey tossed into the fire on Christmas morning.

This is the same Alex Williams who wrote in September, in a piece called "Brooklyn's Fragile Ego-System":

The number of trendy boutiques, bistros and music clubs in Brooklyn may have spiked in the last five years, but its infrastructure of cool still represents only a fraction of that found in Manhattan. Its new identity is moored to a finite number of shops, restaurants, luxury condominiums and, yes, celebrities. If even one leaves, a void is created. Could the borough’s new status vanish as quickly as it ascended?

Can't wait for the novel, I have to must say!

Awesome. John Stossel uses Thanksgiving as a chance to bash sharing communism.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. "Isn't sharing wonderful?" say the teachers.

They miss the point.

Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it.

When the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth Colony, they organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share everything equally, work and produce.

They nearly all starved.

Attention!

"If the passenger with the IPhone would be kind enough to use it to check the weather at our alternate, calculate our fuel burn due to being rerouted around the storms, call the dispatcher to arrange our release, and then make a phone call to the nearest Air Traffic Control center to arrange our timely departure amongst the other aircraft carrying passengers with IPhones, then we will be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the Flight Attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multi-million dollar aircraft and its passengers to safely leave."

390 Million-Year-Old Sea Scorpion Found, Man-Size

Fuck yeah.

The creature, which has been named Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, would have paddled in a river or swamp.

The size of the beast suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were much larger in the past than previously thought, the team says.

The claw itself measures 46cm - indicating its owner would have been longer even than the average-sized human.

David Brooks: The Last 25 Years of Music Is At Fault In This Way

Good gravy, this is an irritating article, wherein Brooks blames someone or other for the terrible fragmentation in culture today and how, without the Rolling Stones around to unite us, music stinks, and young musicians don't know their past.

Classic Brooks Dumbass Statement #1:

Technology drives some of the fragmentation. Computers allow musicians to produce a broader range of sounds.

Classic Brooks Anti-"Elite" Rant #2:

People who have built up cultural capital and pride themselves on their superior discernment are naturally going to cultivate ever more obscure musical tastes. I’m not sure they enjoy music more than the throngs who sat around listening to Led Zeppelin, but they can certainly feel more individualistic and special.

Sure, unity's great, David. Education on the past of music is great, but I would *never* turn to you to understand the history and present of the musical landscape.

So the beta of Firefox 3 is out. I was excited to check it out, because this version is supposed to demonstrate greater mac-like interface elements. Software interface design is important to me, and I live with the functional limitations of Safari because all the other osx options are so awkward and ugly.

But check out this screen - the "Places Organizer," which I think is the bookmarks organizer. Ick! Sure, this is a beta, but come one.



It does finally have aqua widgets - which would have been nice 2 years ago, before Apple began ridding the os of such things.

(IcanHas, of course)

Shoot Me.



(an ad I found on the yahoo weather site)

Not directly related at all, but this ad reminded me of this old classic.

More on the terrible effects of Typhoon Sidr on Bangladesh, from the excellent Dr. Jeff Masters.

The story gets worse and worse.

BAGHLANI-JADID, Afghanistan (AP) -- Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.

Shitty AP Coverage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

I know it's hard, but...

(AP) -- When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.

(my bold)

Right. A "pseudo-deity." As opposed to...? Say it.

"A real deity."

I would love to see the AP's official list of non-pseudo deities.

I imagine the writer was trying to make some point along the lines of the unique properties of a language like Esperanto, but as written, this is bunk.

It doesn't end there, however, and on the whole I was pretty disappointed with the article. As I said, I know it's tricky to cover exactly what the FSM represents, since it cuts to the bone about the undebatable pedestal we tend to let religious beliefs sit on. But this kind of coverage is so oddly irrelevant.

Lucas Johnston, the third Florida student, argues the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism exhibits at least some of the traits of a traditional religion -- including, perhaps, that deep human need to feel like there's something bigger than oneself out there.

He recognized the point when his neighbor, a militant atheist who sports a pro-Darwin bumper sticker on her car, tried recently to start her car on a dying battery.

As she turned the key, she murmured under her breath: "Come on Spaghetti Monster!"

A. In what delusional word do you believe that FSM represents a "deep human need to feel like there's something bigger than oneself out there?" Absolutely not. It's about the authority vested in some myths, and how that authority gets there. The whole thing springs from a bit of skepticism over this "deep human need" shit.

B. "militant atheist?" Where'd you get that language?

C. When your atheist neighbor whispered "Come on Spaghetti Monsters!", you thought that that indicated that the atheist believed there was something "bigger" than herself, and she was unconsciously asking the Spaghetti Monster to help her car start? Thus indicating her hypocrisy or something and proving that all humans are "religious?" Actually, that does seem to be the overall lazy premise of the article:

In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?

This misses the point entirely.

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, so...

I read Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz via Daily Lit a couple months back, and found the following passage pretty fascinating:

And Ozma has an enchanted picture hanging in her room that shows her the exact scene where any of her friends may be, at any time she chooses. All she has to do is to say: 'I wonder what So-and-so is doing,' and at once the picture shows where her friend is and what the friend is doing. That's REAL magic, Mr. Wizard; isn't it?

Could you conceive of such incredible technology?

You can donate to the relief efforts for the victims of the terrible Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh here.

Andrew Sullivan:

Isn't it remarkable how eager the Republicans are to declare the Democratic race over?

Absolutely. It's like they don't want to waste any of their mud on folks that won't end up running. They don't understand that the primary period is a valuable time for a political party, while we work out what we stand for and what we believe in. The goals of the party are more important than what Personality we decide is "faultless" (or, in the case of the repubs hoping that the candidate gets locked down soon, "always wrong").

Who do I want to listen to answer the question "Can America rise above the divisions of the 1960s?" Not the Wall Street Journal, that's for sure.

Why weren't you fuckers complaining about a lack of civility and bipartisan cooperation when Bush and the Repub congress were steamrolling the country in the last 5 years?

To the degree and manner that you do, please pray for Bangladesh.

Liquidy

4-part video interview with Kevin Shields in a pub, on (among other topics) the new My Bloody Valentine record - which he calls coming out "this year."

One great quote from Part 2:

We didn't use reverb, and flanges, and choruses, and delays, and stuff like that, you know what I mean, there was none of that. I just used one effect, which was that reverse-reverb thing. And that was only because I could get that simultaneously up-front dryness as well. And yet it was all liquidy.

Cramps

About 20 years too late, I'm finally getting around to checking out The Cramps (thanks, Rob!). They're a bit more rockabilly than I usually like (witnessing the rise of Union Pool was enough to make me cringe from that for a while), but I'm digging them all right.

The truth is, though, I have no choice but to love them, since one of their albums has what may well be my very favorite album cover of all time. I loved this image for at least a decade before I even knew who The Cramps were!

Oh, Judith Warner.

I'm sure your article itself will argue why it exists, but that would necessitate me reading it.

Gothamist: Exactly What Makes James Lipton So Irritating? By the numbers.

Great thoughts from the Bad Astronomy Blog about the freakout that erupted around the Best Science Blog Weblog award this week.

Again, let me be clear: I applaud McIntyre’s efforts to work through this. He has clearly done some good, and I have said so in previous posts. An argument can be made that my use of the term “denialist” for him may be too strong, but it still does seem to me after reading more of his site that he comes at this from the angle of trying to tear down arguments made for anthropogenic GW while not going after the antiGW claims.

That’s where I stand. I wish this hadn’t become such a foofooraw, but there you have it.

So: tomorrow or the next day the votes will be tallied, one of us will take the prize, and that will be that. Good.

I have learned quite a bit from this, as I’m sure others have as well. For my own part, I will try to be even more diligent about categorizing others. I have also been exposed to a whole slew of sites I didn’t know about, which is an obvious side effect of this whole awards thing, and that’s good. And maybe when this all blows over we can go back to trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.

Absolutely beautiful insect-et-al photography by Igor Siwanowicz. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

This being Chelicerata, I've chosen a beautiful shot of an Amblypygi.

Links to Links to Links

Oh, boy, My Bloody Valentine new album rumors!

Horror.

Matthew Yglesias, in discussing pundit commentary on Pakistan, notes a pattern:

How many times have I read a column making an argument like 'Iraq is all fucked up for reasons A, B, and C but given the price of failure we have no choice but to close our eyes and hope really hard that A, B, and C vanish for some reason'? It's really foolish, a way of trying to present oneself as wise and knowledgeable about difficult questions without putting anything out there that one can be held accountable for if things don't work out.

Leopard Corners

There are certainly some rough edges to the new Mac OS, Leopard, but there are also many things to be happy about in it.

Most new menu items, including contextual menus, have rounded corners. But note here how the upper left corner of the included sub-menu does *not* have a rounded corner. It visually suggests the relationship between the two menus, better than two self-contained interface pieces, each with 4 rounded corners. Someone had to notice this issue, make the suggestion, and a group had to successfully decide to do it. Bravo, Apple, for the little things!

Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

This is a staggering statistic, and terribly sad. It should should hopefully throw a little water on the War As Heroics bullshit that's so deeply ingrained in our country.

Being in a war fucks you up. Deeply.

GWB should fall to his knees and beg the forgiveness of those he was responsible for sending.

Sad, but good to remember. Kos.

[W]e go to D.C. with the weak Democrats we have, rather than the strong Democrats we wish we had.

Sadly No yesterday posted a pretty awesome BlogsForBush double-take post yesterday:

I discovered a lengthy anti-Bush comment preceded by the following taunt:

I don’t think you have the b***s to allow this post to the blog. Let’s see.

Well, guess what? The comment was published… But I’ve taken it down.

But Mark keeps up the stoopid this morning, with this one:

The Border Fence is Working
At least in the small area its been completed, according to this new story.

The Kung Fu I've been practicing in my head totally saved me in when I was punched in a fight the other day - at least in the part of my body where I wasn't punched!

Fakery, or Defending Quayle and FEMA

Jonah Goldberg is, um...objecting to Saturday Night Live's mockery of the fake FEMA press conference (and the blocked promotion for the director who ran it) because, um, Weekend Report is fake news itself? And Colbert was a jerk for running for President, or something.

Really, Jonah, this is stretching it. The topics just flow and drift as you start with a failure of a group tangentially related to Bush, and end up relating it to the litany of faults you find with the mentality of the "hip, iPhone crowd."

But how about you get to the heart of it?

The problem of parsing fact from fiction, news from entertainment, has been inherent to broadcast journalism from the beginning. Radio newsman Walter Winchell got his start in vaudeville. But in the modern era, I blame "Murphy Brown," the show about a fictional TV newswoman who talked about real newsmakers as if they were characters on her sitcom. When Brown had a baby out of wedlock, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the writers of the show. Liberals then reacted as though Quayle had insulted a real person - and so did the fictional Brown, whining about how she'd been personally attacked. Ever since, journalists and politicians have been playing themselves in movies and TV series, perhaps trying to disprove the cliche that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.

Murphy Brown ruined America! An old classic.

Update: I guess when reality makes you look like a fool, the only option left is to focus on the "fakeness" of media! Michelle gets into it, too, with her latest spin on "faux hate crimes" and everything else she can think of that proves that all the shit we're pissed about can't actually be trusted to exist.

200 year-old sketches from the Swedish East India Company, via BibliOdyssey (which provided this detail of a chelicerate):

Indy Fails

Sad but true.

To paraphrase Wolfman: In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis' big plan is to locate and open the Ark of the Covenant. Indiana Jones tries to stop them at every turn. He fails. Because at the end of the film, the Nazis still get the Ark and open it. Look at it this way: if you remove Indy from the film, the outcome is the same. The Nazis go to Marion Ravenwood in Tibet and get the headpiece of the staff of Ra. They already know where the Map Room is, so — possessing the actual headpiece which will give them the right height for the staff — they find the Well of Souls easy-peasy, put the Ark on a truck, and drive it to a submarine bound for the island. (Or, they could've flown it there as planned.) Then, they open the Ark and everyone dies.

While I can't lay claim to this theory, it saddens me to say that I wholeheartedly agree with it. All Indy does is slow them down and cause a little property damage. He never stops them from getting the Ark. And, I guess, he saves Marion's life. But the Nazis win. (Oh, and by the way, remember that fertility god statue Indy was after in the film's open? Belloq gets it.) Not only is Indiana Jones a completely reactive character, his actions dictated entirely by what other people do, he's a big honking loser.

Marv Wolfman, to whom this EW writer attributes the theory, is this person.

2007 is the most deadly year for American troops so far in Bush's War.

And there are still two months left.