"Aw shit, they let anybody into this century!"

• Matt Yglesias has some interesting thoughts on the Demolition Man-ification of America. I don't know if he's entirely correct, but the idea of employers encouraging health in employees so they don't jack up costs seems silly. Are smoking bans really the supreme moralizing of government? I dunno, but certainly I can see the Demolition Man analogy. One hopes that Wesley Snipes isn't masterminding something as we speak. Oh wait...

• What's in a Southeast Asian nation's name? Jonathan Foreman at the Corner seems to think that referring to Myanmar is de facto endorsement of the regime. Obviously, the NYT isn't actually endorsing the regime, as evidenced from their story standing sympathetically with the monks in the streets. Jon Stewart, though, makes fun of Bush here for still identifying Burma as a country. Is calling Myanmar Burma a political statement? Or a factual error? If someone called Israel Occupied Palestine, wouldn't they be in for a load of trouble?

• Matt Bai talks about his book The Argument, about bloggers and the intellectually bankrupt Democratic Party, on TPMCafe's book club. He actually responds to the commenters, leading to a quite lively discussion. Worth the read. (Reviews of the book here and here. I've yet to read it, but I've read a decent amount about it.)

• Um, does anyone know what just happened in Syria? Cuz I don't.

• Not as good as the Harvard-Yale game hacks, but this one's pretty good.

• It's a ninja crime spree!

• Heh, Reddit's front page has Cracked's list of the 8 most unnecessarily detailed Wikipedia entries. I particularly like the entry on Universe of Metroid Video Game. Boy howdy, that's long.

• My roommate is a dick [dot com]. Heh.

• OK, I'm not one to defend Bill O'Reilly, but this story seems like it's being blown out of proportion. Yeah, he went to a restaurant in Harlem, and then professed his shock that black people were not all uncouth, gun-toting, profanity-spouting gangstas. The liberal blogosphere has predictably used this as a moment to laugh at Bumblin' Bill. Still, here's a guy, going to eat a meal with Al Sharpton, being taught a lesson or two in how deep his ignorance of blacks was, and immediately here comes the (mostly white, mostly upper-class, mostly male) blogosphere to pillory him. Certainly there's a cultural image projected of "blackness," which remains the only form that O'Reilly or the ruling elite actually see (despite living in Washington, D.C., the blackest city in America). If anything, Bill O'Reilly is trying to become enlightened, and we're smacking around him for it.
  

• Long piece worth reading: Life is more than a moment. Elizabeth Eckford walked to school in Little Rock. Hazel Bryan taunted her. Elizabeth was black. Hazel was white. The moment was captured here, Labor Day 1957. What happened afterwards became a story of unlikely friendship and the hope that all of us have to change and better ourselves. It's not often that you hear a story of good rising up from the depths of hatred. This is one.

• Bed-wetter nation. More response to Ahmadinejad's visit, in comparison with Khruschev in 1959.

• Great, this is still a story, kept alive by CNN, the new National Enquirer. Honestly, has anyone else noticed just how lame CNN's website has become? Yeesh. See my take on "FUCK BUSH" here.

• Ian Parton of the Go! Team has a Guest List on Pitchfork. (Video: The Go! Team - "Doing It Right")

Schmidtty reminded me about DerrickComedy so I checked out the website again. They're still pretty funny, even if not quite to the extent of "Bro Rape."