So, the good thing about the government shutdown is ...

... at least this kind of crap won't happen anymore.

On Aug. 8, Mr. Levison closed Lavabit rather than, in his view, betray his promise of secure e-mail to his customers. The move, which he explained in a letter on his Web site, drew fervent support from civil libertarians but was seen by prosecutors as an act of defiance that fell just short of a crime.

The full story of what happened to Mr. Levison since May has not previously been told, in part because he was subject to a court’s gag order. But on Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed documents in the case, allowing the tech entrepreneur to speak candidly for the first time about his experiences. He had been summoned to testify to a grand jury in Virginia; forbidden to discuss his case; held in contempt of court and fined $10,000 for handing over his private encryption keys on paper and not in digital form; and, finally, threatened with arrest for saying too much when he shuttered his business.

</sarcasm>

Science: It's cool, bitchez

How can you not adore a headline like this?

A Wealth of Data in Whale Breath

(tile: cf.)

Or, you might be two steps behind, and headed in the wrong direction

But a nice sentiment, nonetheless.

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead.
    -- Fannie Flagg

Some new research on crack and meth addiction. Or "addiction."

Pretty fascinating article about work done by a Columbia professor named Carl Hart, and a book he has recently published.

It'd be great to hear him interviewed by Mark Kleiman.

The mind reels. (But, really, how else to stay on track with Ms. Noonan?)

Not even a shorter. An actual quote:

Oh, Peggy’s reaching for her martini shaker again.

Maybe it grates on him [Vladimir Putin] that in his time some of the stupider Americans have crowed about American exceptionalism a bit too much ...

Unpossible!

__________

Bonus fun fact: Firefox's spell-checker simply does not recognize exceptionalism.

Communists.

Line of the Day: 2013-09-13

I realize my lack of ruthlessness goes to the heart of the liberal dilemma.
    -- Roy Edroso

Dilemmas are hard.

Eleven-dimensional chess now goes to twelve

Oh my word. You must put off for three minutes whatever it is you were going to do next and read Roy's UPDATE under his latest announcement post.

You will never truly understand wingnuts until you realize how deeply they believe in Obama's seekrit majicull powerz.

(You will actually never truly understand wingnuts. Unpossible.)

Quarterback blackout?

Click the pic to see the caption more clearly.

__________

[ + ]

Not shown above: Geno Smith

__________

Oh, wait. There he is!

[ + ]

Yeah, suuuuurrrrre

Ajit Pai, the lone Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, is on a personal if quixotic quest to save AM. After a little more than a year in the job, he is urging the F.C.C. to undertake an overhaul of AM radio, which he calls “the audible core of our national culture.”

Being fair and balanced Objective™, the NYT makes you click through to page two before the eight hundred pound pilonidal cyst

is perfunctorily disclaimed:

Mr. Pai said he was not promoting AM to advance conservative talk radio ...

Well, good!

Because there's nothing cultured about conservative talk radio.

(pic. source)

Actually, Andrew Bacevich, the correct answers are ...

... Nothing long-term positive that I can think of, Body counts!, No, No, and No, but your point, sir, is well-taken, nonetheless.

“If you think back to 1980,” Bacevich tells Donahue, “and just sort of tick off the number of military enterprises that we have been engaged in that part of the world, large and small, you know, Beirut, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia — and on and on, and ask yourself, ‘What have we got done? What have we achieved? Is the region becoming more stable? Is it becoming more Democratic? Are we enhancing America’s standing in the eyes of the people of the Islamic world?’ ‘The answers are, ‘No, no, and no.’ So why, Mr. President, do you think that initiating yet another war in this protracted enterprise is going to produce a different outcome?”

I have not actually watched this interview, because I'm sure I'll agree with everything else he says, but it's out there if you want it.

(h/t: LibertyBelleJ)

Moar Christians like this one, plz

Yes, yes, we know some of you never watch the videos. WATCH THIS VIDEO.
    -- Doktor Zoom

(alt. video link)

Sopuporific

[ + ]

Swiped from Snipy.

Fair trade?

One hand washes the other?

(pic source: screenshot of the NYT "Recommended For You" sidebar widget. Article links: 8, 9)

Who knew?

[ + ]

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Not getting enough Nice Time™ ...

... from your Wonkettes?

Try this:

It’s not exactly the same as in the novels, but occasionally I’ll read a sex scene she has written and I will chuckle to myself, “Oh, I remember that.”

Line of the Day: 2013-08-25

But as one saying goes, “If there’s not something bigger and meaner than you are out there, it’s not really a wilderness.”
    -- David Helvarg

Practically made me weep.

Hey, Google "+". You know enough about me ...

... that I'd think you could get the goddam pronouns right by now.

[ + ]

Above: my G+ posts page as viewed by "public."

They is me? Sounds like Pogo.

Welp, all I'll say ...

... about this is that, back in the day, I thoroughly enjoyed pissing all over the urinal screens featuring Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No To Drugs" message.

(Ask your grandparents, kids. Oy, how we suffered.)

Well, no, I will say one other thing. What happens when someone gets it in his or her head that the better coupons are always near the inside of the roll?

Please help spread that rumor.

Good night, and good luck

-- or --

Why we so rarely blog about politics anymore, part [manyromannumerals]

Y'know, there's lying to pollsters because Activism. There's tribamalism, there's the decades-long crippling effect of the rightwing noise machine, there's the black-guy-in-the-White-House thing.

&c.

And then there's this set of responses to a survey question ("Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?"), from within the past week (via):

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible.

Bonus! "Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame."

I'm walking on sunshine, oo, oo. And don't it feel good.

Yeah, sure. Like we don't already know the answer will be "Derp!!!1!"

(h/t (and pic source via): Rebecca Schoenkopf)

And you were worried about our coming ROBOT overlords

Yeah, because Zimmer didn't freak you out enough with that other thing.

As Humans Change Landscape, Brains of Some Animals Change, Too

Evolutionary biologists have come to recognize humans as a tremendous evolutionary force. In hospitals, we drive the evolution of resistant bacteria by giving patients antibiotics. In the oceans, we drive the evolution of small-bodied fish by catching the big ones.

In a new study, a University of Minnesota biologist, Emilie C. Snell-Rood, offers evidence suggesting we may be driving evolution in a more surprising way. As we alter the places where animals live, we may be fueling the evolution of bigger brains.

PSYCHO SHOWER SCENE SOUND EFFECT.

Just be careful who you call varmint cong from now on, is all I'm saying.

Also, at risk of being thought of as all Hoot-Smalley, I really hope I never meet Dr. Emelie, because I am sure I would end up calling her Prof. Rell-Snood.

(It's a Catholic thing. Just nod and play along. It'll all be over soon.)

(pic. source)

(?)

(??)

Michael Bloomberg: Ultimately, a legacy of utter failure

I haven't been paying much attention to his stint as mayor -- he was marginally less creepy than Rudy Giuliani, wasn't he? -- but there is no walking this back:

(h/t: I blame)

[Added] And don't fail to follow this link from the preceding. Not for the first time do I marvel at Roy Edroso's scalpel and how gracefully he wields it.

Line of the Day: 2013-08-23

Ah, man. I probably shouldn't blockquote this, since it's the closing paragraph of a post of which you should read the whole thing.

But it's that good.

Okay, your choice: do the usual trick, if you really don't want to read the few paragraphs that come first, or go get yourself some context.

When it's important I'm willing to make common cause with some rightwing asshole to push the tide back on civil liberties. But when you line up with Rand Paul you know what you're getting. [Jeff] Jarvis is so full of shit, he's as useless as an ally as he is as an opponent -- maybe even more useless; he discredits any cause by adopting it. I'm beginning to think newspapers would already be utterly dead by now if Jarvis hadn't spent the past ten years predicting it.
    -- Roy Edroso

Txt spk

But don't worry. The tomatoes are laughing WITH you.

[ + ]

Out of pocket

Either I forgot it completely, or somehow never read this one back when I was all about Marlowe, but I just finished Lady in the Lake a couple of nights ago. It was a great read, as is everything in the terribly small Raymond Chandler canon.

Among the delightful archaic terms encountered: our hero reports at one point checking his strap watch.

Are you able to name any other extinct retronyms?

Huh. You mean some other country is even dumber than the US about what it classifies?

Who knew the Communist Party was worried about this?

Besides everybody on the planet, I mean.

Story link? Really? You want one? OK.

Line of the Day: 2013-08-19

I usually just ignore Twitchy, which isn’t really a news site so much as an effort to stoke and direct the apparently bottomless desire of right wingers to harass people online, which they appear to mistake for activism.
    -- Amanda Marcotte

May be the most polite thing anyone (to the left of Limbaugh) has ever said about Malkin.

(h/t: TBogg)

Good piece on Dave Chapelle

Here.

Maybe this'll just confirm your liberal biases ...

... but Rick Perlstein's Baffler piece from a few months ago, "The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism" is an enjoyable read, in a faintly horrifying way.

Lotta money to be made out there, if only you didn't have a conscience.

(h/t: Julian Sanchez)

I'll give that a big Oh, Snap!

We have so many Tea Party readers and followers. To lose all zero of them due to our September cover would be devastating.

— EBONY (@EBONYMag) August 7, 2013

(h/t: Doktor Zoom)