Another One Of My Great Ideas, Stolen

Okay, my own laziness is the sole cause. Or, to channel my inner member of Congress, my strategic decision to take a measured approach has allowed the spirit of American initiative to produce results! All hail the free market!

Where was I? Ah, yes. There's a fun article in the NYT describing analysis that was done on their Most Emailed articles list, based on "checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months." (Full disclosure: I was thinking more like doing it once a day.)

There are some interesting and uplifting observations, not least of which was the large percentage of science articles that were, at least fleetingly, thought worth sharing. (By the coastalibrulintelleckshual elite, I mean.)

Nice bit of snark from Tierney, who says well what I'm sure many of us have thought at one time or another:

The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”

Anyway, here it is.

(x-posted)

Rightward, Ho!

Mavericky!

Mr. McCain now sharply criticizes the bailout bill he voted for, pivoted from his earlier position that the Guantánamo Bay detention facility should be closed, offered only a muted response to the Supreme Court’s decision undoing campaign finance laws and backed down from statements that gays in the military would be O.K. by him if the military brass were on board.

No surprise here. As we have been noting, the one thing you can count on John McCain doing is fleeing to his right at the drop of a challenge, but if you'd like some more details on his most recent flip-floppery, the NYT has finally gotten around to writing them up.

Best Tweet I've Seen In ... Oh, Hours

(At least, not counting ones tagged #palinhand or #telepalmer.)

pourmecoffee:

Now, the challenge of a lifetime: Carrie Prejean must plan and execute a wedding with help of only straight people.

Yeah, she is. Now DFHs will have reason to learn the name of someone else in the NFL.

Maybe We Should Vote For Her

Look how she's stimulating the economy.

(h/t: sirStefan | x-posted)

Why Are We Not Surprised?

From some Facebook group page full of fail:

Some time later, it appears, a note was added to the sidebar:

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I came across this when following PZ's link to "We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June," which is silly, but why not click it? (And see PZ's advice if you're troubled by the word believe in this context.)

And while you're at it, click "I bet we can find 1,000,000 People who Support Same Sex Marriage." Again, because why not?

By the way, the numbers at this moment: Believe has 197,810 fans and Don't Believe has 44,562. Also, Support Same Sex Marriage has 723,416.

Numbers don't lie, people: this proves that the Internet is liberally biased and thoroughly gay.

All My Children

Today's news about "Democratic Illinois lieutenant governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen, of steroids, prostitutes, knife-cutting, knife-cutting prostitutes while on steroids, etc etc, fame …"

… brought to mind a past moment from the never-ending soap opera that is American politics:

(Santorum pic. source)

Harold, Please

Like Tom Robbins, I thought MoDo's recent column fluffing Harold Ford was pretty comical. Not to mention eventually nauseating, which is what I blame for reading right past the dumbest part.

But the best line was a headscratcher about Eleanor Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy...

Ford summoned up the spirit of the great Eleanor Roosevelt and insisted she had opposed Robert F. Kennedy when he successfully carpetbagged his way into a New York senate seat back in 1964: "I'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal establishment, too," Ford said. "Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running."

This one caused great head-scratching among readers, and the Times online edition has this addition:

Editor's Note: Harold Ford was quoted in this column as saying that Eleanor Roosevelt opposed Bobby Kennedy's New York Senate run. But as many of our readers pointed out, Ford was mistaken; Mrs. Roosevelt died two years before Bobby Kennedy's run for the New York Senate.

(title: vide)

Small Sign of Hope

At the moment, two of the NYT's top ten emailed stories from the Technology section have to do with using the Web to learn a new language.

One presumes, of course, that it is all smart foreigns looking to talk weller English.

¡Marque dos para español! ← (In hopes that Tom Tancredo is reading this.)

Best-Decorated Post of the Day

Go see what some clever person chose for a picture to dress up a story on trying to be all science-y about online dating.

(previously)

Line of the Day: 2010-02-08

Having “ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition,” Mr. Rusbridger said in a recent speech, “this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content — whether in print or digitally.”

Alan Rusbridger is editor of The Guardian, and he wants to keep his site free. Harruh fro teh Grauniad!

Full story.

Steal The Whole Thing

curv3ball:

Obama is nothing without a teleprompter, other than when he’s waxing the floor with top GOP lawmakers in a little unscripted Q & A slaughterfest. But he is part African, which means he’s dumb. Get it.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, well, obviously, white people don’t need no teleprompters. Even for scripted Q & A fluff fests.

Fear the Dumbpocalypse.

KagroX Wins The Internet

Seen written on Palin's elbow: "Not ass." #telepalmer

Go retweet.

(?)

I Can Haz Broder Resignation Letr Naow?

James Fallows has a couple of posts up, "Why bipartisanship can't work: the expert view," and "More from the 'why bipartisanship can't work' guy," which are worth a read if you'd like a slap in the face from reality. They are mostly just reproduced emails from Fallows's source. Here's how the first one begins:

I got this note from someone with many decades' experience in national politics, about a discussion between two Congressmen over details of the stimulus bill:

"GOP member: 'I'd like this in the bill.'

"Dem member response: 'If we put it in, will you vote for the bill?'

"GOP member: 'You know I can't vote for the bill.'

"Dem member: 'Then why should we put it in the bill?'

"I witnessed this myself."

I wrote back saying, "Great story!" and got the response I quote below and after the jump. It is worth reading because its argument has the valuable quality of being obvious -- once it is pointed out. The emphasis is mine rather than in the original; it is to highlight a basic structural reality that has escaped most recent analysis of the "bipartisanship" challenge.

Read them both. U2 plz, Mr. Preznit.

And then maybe, just maybe, an idea, from Fallows: "Do we need another Turnip Day?"

(h/t: The Editors | title: vide)

From the Department of "We'll See How Long This Lasts"

Villager of Villagers Dana Milbank pines for The Old John McCain™. Not as in age, as in yoostahbee.

But even this ...

Before writing this column, I reached out to many of McCain's closest aides from the 2000 campaign to see whether they thought there still was such a man inside McCain. Most of them begged off, some saying they had lost contact with him or become estranged.

... doesn't stop him from closing thus:

I may be the last one who still holds some hope that McCain, long before he draws his last breath, may yet rejoin the fight.

[Insert Lucy and football reference here.]

(h/t: Atrios)

(previously)

Oh, My

The hot new hashtags on the Twitter are #telepalmer and #palinhand. This appears to be due to St. Sarah the Commonsense Conservative and Savior of RealAmerica being busted for having notes written on her palm during the totally not scripted part of her Q&A at the Teabaggers' Ball.

To be clear, these were not exactly the sort of concepts you'd think would be that hard for someone being paid $100,000 to give a policy speech to memorize; e.g., "We have got to jump start these energy projects that we have heard so much about."

She actually explicitly wrote "Lift American Spirits." Wow.

RisingHegemon calls it the Triggmata.

One thing's for sure: there will be no stopping the libtards and their snark.

__________

Moar ...

More pix and vids documenting this at the Stefan Sirucek post (same link as above).

__________

• Too bad #telepalmter didn't catch on quite as well. That's even funnier.

• TMZ headline: "Sarah Palin's Hand Gets Job Done."

• The Sunday spin shift at Wingnut Command Central is pathetically not up to the job, but at least we can now be sure that Stephen Spruiell rhymes with tool.

• TBogg also too has an Oh, my. His connection to Ol' Starbursts is FTW.

• And Blingees? Of course there will be Blingees!

Wanna Help Dig?

If you're not exhausted from moving snow around, you might head on over to msnbc.com

Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor's husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked "confidential" from his oil company employer to a state attorney.

They have posted what they have and would like to crowdsource the scrutinizing effort. Many eyeballs make all deep secrets shallow!

The most troublesome aspect so far:

While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government.

"Executive privilege?" I guess "I quit" doesn't quite mean what it used to, hmmm?

The most delicious bit of dirt so far:

The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the $3,252.35 cost of electrical work at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.

Cackling aside, these emails appear to document or at least hint at a lot more questionable behavior than just the above quoted bits indicate, so even if you don't want to shovel through them, the article bears a look.

(h/t: Attaturk)

Why We're Elitists -- Update

Remember that note I posted way back in February of aught-seven, about Harlequin, the romance novel publisher, hooking up with NASCAR?

The spawn is now a swarm.

On the upside: no snowmobiles. Oh, wait ...

(h/t: Attaturk)

A Handful

Baby hedgehog!

(h/t: BDP, via email)

Pun of the Day

the unbearable whiteness of preening

That Wolcott.

Deep Thought

I wonder how many wingnuts have made the joke See, now that Obama is in Washington, even the weather is practicing Chicago-style thuggery!!!1!

'Bout Time Someone Said It

(Someone in the MSM, I mean.) You go, Frank Rich:

John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington’s attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule.

The whole column is pretty encouraging.

Which, BTW, doesn't mean we should let up on the pressure. And here's a good thing to keep in mind, should others start taking their cue from Angry Johnny (the 2010 edition, I mean):

Recalcitrant Congressional Republicans will have to explain why their perennial knee-jerk deference to “whatever the commanders want” extends to Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal on troop surges but not to Mullen, who outranks them, on civil rights.

As in, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The Way the Future Blogs"

Who knew Frederik Pohl is blogging? Not I.

Here is part 1 and here is part 2 of his early memories of Isaac Asimov.

h/t: John Scalzi, who linked to the first, saying:

You Know —

Posts like this are why one of the best blogs you can read right now just happens to be written by a 90-year-old man.

Still need incentive? Pix at the lynx!

(x-posted)

"Is Charles Barkley Blacker Than Snoop Dogg?"

This is just a wonderful piece of video (about three and a half minutes long):

(alt. video link)

Hurrah for, as Senator Bulworth once called it, progressive racial deconstruction.

Tip of the hat of many colors to JonIrenicus for the link, and to Razib Khan and Eliezer Yudkowsky for mentioning it in this week's Science Saturday diavlog on Bloggingheads.tv. The latter bears a look or a download, if you've got an hour for some interesting speculation about the coming age of human gene manipulation. It is for sure the first time I've ever heard the phrase "recreational genetics." (Don't be scared -- it's probably not what you think.)

Philadelphians, commitment-phobes, and Chicagoans unite!

Kill Me Now Later?

What will be the appropriate emo reaction IF ...

(embiggen)

... this week's Storm Of Teh Century is as fierce as SOME say it will be?

(h/t: Arielle Fleisher | pic. source -- likely not to last, obvs.)

Oh, hey, what is this fancy new thing?

This just appeared (i.e., I just noticed this) on the toolbar while I was thinking about composing another post:

And clicking that exciting-looking link leads to a page that looks like this:

(embiggen)

Not that I'm dying to have an About Me page (I already have a whole blog for that), but being able to have a few pages that aren't post pages is a delight! They read my mind!

I must click that Learn more link tomorrow! Or later today!

Meantime, hurrah for Blogger! Thanks, y'all.

Well ...? We're Waiting ...

Will Sarah Palin call on Rush Limbaugh to apologize for saying liberal activists are ‘retards’?

(h/t: Riley Waggaman | title: vide | x-posted)

__________

[Update] In the Comments, Ruth passes along some entertaining follow-up links, here and here. The first illustrates well why we call the lardy one "Boss Limbaugh."

Deep Thought

Meh, cybersecurity is important, but ...

"Manhattan Project" is the new "Rosa Parks."

(?)

Writers Talking About Writing, On Your Teevee!

Or, more likely, on your computer or other electronic device, which is fine, because some of what they talk about is being an old-school writer and trying to deal with this newfangled digital age!

Exclamation points aside, I truly enjoyed listening to this conversation between Susan Orlean and Kurt Andersen. She writes for the New Yorker, he does Radio 360, and they both also write books. If you like to listen to smart people talk about their craft, this is a really good one -- way beyond the usual mindless chitchat one often hears when writers are interviewed.

(alt. video link)

As with all Bh.tv diavlogs, you can visit the "alt. video link" to download an audio or video file for your remote enjoyment, if you'd rather not sit here and stream.

__________

P.S. Just for the record, I went on -- enthused, even, to use a word some other writer (Elmore Leonard?) said never to use -- at some length about this diavlog in the Bh.tv forums. My comments included, you'll be shocked to hear, some bickering over minor points. This is a link you are even more than usual not obliged to click, but there it is, if you want it.

Ah, Good. It's Budget Silly Season.

Not that I have any patience for members of Congress who preen in front of cameras about how they "work hard" … nay, "fight" … to remove "pork" -- earmarks are, as anyone who's not completely innumerate knows, lost in the noise of government spending (vide) -- but this bit from Gail Collins, involving not just ol' Tax and Spend™ Ted, but key players from Teh Party of Fiscal Responsibility™, is pretty funny:

My own favorite target for extinction is a $9 million annual appropriation for museums and educational programs that highlight the “shared culture and tradition” of Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians and “children and families of Massachusetts.”

In other words, whaling.

This was originally the idea of Ted Kennedy and two colleagues from Alaska and Hawaii. Perhaps they had all just finished rereading “Moby-Dick” in a Senate book club. Or maybe somebody bet them they couldn’t think of an earmark that would apply to only their three states.

In 2006, Congress did vote to add a fourth beneficiary of the whaling museum money — the Choctaw Indians of Mississippi. No one seems to know why, but we’re pretty sure it has more to do with the state’s earmark-loving senior senator, Thad Cochran, than Mississippi’s rich whaling tradition.

Cochran happens to be vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and I’m betting he also has the answer to why the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, which was established to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, is still in business 18 years after the fact. I am only saying this because the vice chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees is the former leader of the Mississippi Republican Party. The chairwoman is a Republican realtor from Arizona.

“I feel so terrible,” one budget maven told me. “I always secretly imagined it had something to do with Nancy Pelosi.”