Lest Ye Forget

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(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)

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(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.

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Update

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

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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:

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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

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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?

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(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

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(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:

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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.

Every once in a while ...

... it's worth clicking on a banner ad. Here is one of a couple of dozen hilarious designs available from Teach the Controversy: "Intelligently designed t-shirts."

Here is a fun listicle ...

... with no tiresome multipage layout, to boot: "Top 30 Failed Technology Predictions."

What's nice is that most of them concerned what we wouldn't be able to do. (In fairness, "Dude, where's my flying car?" did not make the list.}

(h/t: @kriswager)

Happy Thanksgiving!

How pumpkin pies are made

(h/t: Twin | orig. pic. loc.)

When Harry Met Spine

Oh, snap:

Reid then (accurately) described Broder as “a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while.”

First time I've had a warm fuzzy about our so-called Senate Majority Leader since that time back in ought-seven.

The new line passed along by DougJ, whose short post is worth reading in full. (Hilarious title, too, if you're up on your Ericksonisms.)

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Afterthought: I wonder how many of the Furious Fighting Keyboardists will forget that they've spent the last forty years calling the WaPo the LIEbrul lamestream state-run media, and start howling about OBAMA-REID CENSORSHIP!!!1!

Even if you already have your own and you swear by it ...

... you must read Ken Layne's recipe: "Wonkette’s Actual Awesome Real Cranberry Business."

Line of the Day: 2009-11-25

TBogg catches a detail about the wingnut who thinks quitting's so nice, he did it twice:

So it is entirely possible that Hoffman didn’t receive any contributions to pay for a recount proving that money is about the only thing a teabagger won’t put where their mouth is.

Oh, okay. That's fine, then.

The news from one of Rupert Murdoch's organs:

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Yes, that is Lou Dobbs, your new Republican candidate for president (he thinks), who also said his image as "the No. 1 enemy of Latinos" is nothing but "the efforts of the far left to characterize me in their propaganda as such."

The only remaining question: a bigger liar than Sarah Palin or a bigger flip-flopper than Mitt Romney?

I'm with Ken Layne on this one.

(pic. source)