Parroting

Following up on the earlier post related to airport "security" …

I passed along the delightful "Take Off Your Shoes, and Is the Parrot Loaded?" article to my Bh.tv forum friend and African Grey owner Wonderment, teasingly asking if he had a gig at the NYT. His reply is too good not to repost (you should read the article first):

Ha! That article gives a whole new meaning to "Spread 'em."

But no, I'm not Joe Sharkey. My baby is a DNA-tested male, doesn't know the "eagle" trick (or any other trick), and would likely have bit the inspector's fingers off or delayed the flight for 48 hours while basking in police-state attention and gazing nevermore-esquely at his fellow flyers.

I do think Joe should teach Rosie to scream "Allah hu akhbar" at airports in order to prove to one and all that Islam is a religion of peace.

All Hail Crowdsourcing!

My only worry is that some guy at Kabuki Central TSA is going to take this seriously:

Mads Oyen, a policy specialist at Unicef in New York, suggested removing from a plane any specific seat that had been used by a would-be terrorist. “If he used, say, 36E, remove that seat. Then this cannot be tried again,” Mr. Oyen wrote.

(From "Take Off Your Shoes, and Is the Parrot Loaded?")

I will be saying "36E! 36E!" annoyingly frequently in the coming days. Because, well, you probably already heard this one …

[Afterthought] Maybe I'd better not. Some people might get the wrong idea …

Because You Need A New Feed To Read

Sean Carroll tweets:

NPR has a new science/culture blog, "13.7." That's one-billionth the number of years since the Big Bang!

Cal Tech is lousy with numerologists, evidently.

No, seriously. Go see 13.7.

"Hell On Earth" Doesn't Even Come Close

Weigel tweets:

(Here is where his link points.)

In Which I Snicker Like Muttley

Sometimes It Pays To Read To The End Department … 

Here's the first line of a CNN post on the We're Having A Really Big Tizzy Thingy Because We Hate Our Marxist Kenyan Overlord Who's Just Like Hitler, Also, Too, event that teabaggers claim to be staging:

Some Tea Party activists from across the country are planning a 'national strike' on January 20, the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration.

And here's the last:

CNN reached out to a number of national Tea Party organizations. While some were aware of the planned strike and some not informed, none said they were going to actively take part in the event.

---

Update

2022-08-25 Video no longer available. Sorry.

---

(alt. video link)

(h/t: Dave Weigel)

__________

P.S. Came across this interesting (to cartoon nerds, at least) bit of history while trying to remember Muttley's name.

Pr()n! Erotica! Art! Whatever! Kudos!

HuffPo has a short slideshow that they swiped from V magazine of "Nude And Clothed Plus-Size Models." They're pretty hawt, which among other things means they're still considerably more svelte than most non-coastal non-elite Americans, but at least they look like they've had something to eat in the past week besides three M&M's and ipecac syrup, so, hurrah.

Mildly NSFW.

Yes. All reporters should start describing Newt with this lead-in.

Since "disgraced" did not seem to catch on (probably because the media is too liberal), let us all adopt the Juli Weiner formulation:

Rejected minor Sorkin character Newt Gingrich …

Bonus for clicking Juli's link: picture of a polar bear cub! Would have been better if at the bottom, we saw it full-grown, messily devouring the other creature in the picture, but, well, can't have everything.

Lest Ye Forget

(embiggen)

(h/t: TC, via email)

Jim Windolf is Sour

You can take only so much sweetness before you crave something salty. A correction is under way. A popular YouTube video, made by the Internet comedy show SecretSauce TV, satirizes cute culture with a fake trailer for an apocalyptic action movie called My Little Pony: Reign of Buttercup Sprinkles.

I will resist the temptation to snicker at the idea of Vanity Fair running an article complaining about cuteness. So many fish, so few barrels. But, I guess it's worth a look.

Mostly for the links to places where you can go Awww!

Oh, and what's that? You can't even be bothered to click over to see this exciting fake movie trailer? Okay, here is your fancy embedded video, since it does have its moments, and your laziness shouldn't keep you from missing them:

(h/t: Idea of the Day)

Religious Infallibility: Chap. 963, Vs. 471

(h/t: CameronProf)

Alex Pareene Wins The Internet

Now, this (via Jim Newell) is how to choose a photo to dress up a blog post:

Both links are worth following.

Good News

I was going to pass this along anyway, but it really works as a tonic after that last post. Here's a worthwhile -- uplifting, even -- listicle from Jason Linkins: "Ten Things That Did Not Suck About The Media In 2009."

Of course, the flip side listicle was doubtless both easier to brainstorm and harder to prune, but the first one does give me some hope that we need not always put quotes around "news" providers.

New Low Achieved in Tasteless Misogyny

I kind of hate to give an asshat like this attention, since that's doubtless what he craves, but (1) sometimes, the atrocities must be documented, and (2) just in case you are carrying a cast iron skillet and you see Noah David Simon's face, may they meet repeatedly.

So that you don't have to click over, here's how this "man" begins his stream of bile:

Hey Rosa Brooks, mommy Barbara Ehrenreich has breast lumps

Barbara Ehrenreich has breast cancer. ...I'm now in a good mood. maybe the disease will take her wench daughter too.

[...]

... it's great news. it means your days are limited Barb. I'm glad you are dying. you made life miserable for the male sex. Take your feminism and die painfully and slowly. Do us a favor and write an agonizing synopsis of what it feels like to loose your knockers. I'm very curious about all the agonizing details. you know? for posterity at the very least. do I sound bitter?

Among many other things, Simon evidently suffers a vocabulary deficiency, because "bitter" doesn't even come close to describing how he sounds.

Irish Humor

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bono and his NYT op-eds. And a listicle, to boot. But at least read the first two paragraphs.

(Some of the rest is non-horrible, too.)

That's No Way To Start A New Decade

Ugh. Michelle Malkkkin will be a guest for three hours on Book TV on 3 January 2010.

Hey C-SPAN standards: Your slip is showing.

Complain here.

Krebs Leaving WaPo

Brian Krebs has announced he is leaving the Washington Post. He does not say why, although he says he will remain on the computer security beat. Let's hope so -- he's one of my first stops.

His final Security Fix post is here and his new personal site is here.

Christmas Pun of the Day

Paul Krugman on the new bosses in the Republican Party:

No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

Here is a suggestion from Garry Emmons I heartily second: corporate leaders should stop reading Ayn Rand and start reading John D. MacDonald.

Everyone else, too, I'd say.

... even Travis McGee dismisses her writing as "portentous gruntings."

(h/t: NYT's Idea of the Day)

Teach the Controversy!!!1! (Chemistry Edition)

(embiggen)

(previously)

(h/t: KK | pic. source: uberg33k)

The Party of No

Krugman:

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

"Toxygene"

Here is a song from last millennium that I just heard for the first time last night. The video may strike you as either comical or warmed-over Clockwork Orange, depending on your mood, but it's the music we're after here. Play loud.

---

Update

2022-08-25 Video no longer available. Sorry.

---

Kind of an interesting history to this song.

(h/t: Space Station Soma)

LOLquatch

That John Hodgman is pretty funny:

(orig. pic. loc.)

WATCH!

The first one was my favorite:

(alt. video link)

Great tagline at the end, too.

(h/t: twishtoo)

The Real Question Is: How Much of the Package Will They Show?

Lede from the NYT:

Stephen Colbert has joined the legions of athletes and swimsuit models to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The host of Comedy Central's ''The Colbert Report'' appears on the front of the magazine's latest issue wearing an Olympic speedskating uniform.

Levi Johnston, eat your heart out.

(?)

Your Moment of Eye Candy

(embiggen)

The above is a Chondrocladia lampadiglobus -- a Ping-Pong tree sponge, to us non-Latins -- and believe it or not, it is a carnivorous creature, according to Olivia Judson. Next time you're 20,000 leagues 1300 fathoms under the sea, look around.

Oh, and to her main point: next year (2010) will be the International Year of Biodiversity, and you should read her post for many reasons, but especially for the toast at the end.

(Above picture originally published in “The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss” by Claire Nouvian/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. It and several more equally amazing can be viewed in a slideshow.)

Why Doesn't Obamacare Cover These???1?

(embiggen)

(pic. source, via mostly harmless, via Three-Toed Sloth, via claymisher)

Deep Thought

How come no one ever talks about seeing the last robin of fall?

NYT: FTW

James Fallows has an instructive post up that looks at the difference between the reporting of the NYT and the WaPo on the issue the denialists would like to call "Climategate."

(h/t: graz)

The Risk of Excessive Self-Referentiality

(embiggen)

(h/t: KK, via email)

Deep Thought

Here's a thirty second clip from a fascinating diavlog between Razib Khan and David Sloan Wilson that bears frequent repetition:

(alt. video link)

If you'd like to watch the whole thing -- and I strongly recommend it if you'd like to learn something about group selection -- visit the show page. There are also video and audio download links there, if you'd rather not stream.