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The first pictures of Earth from another planet (Mars Spirit Rover). (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M)

Due to popular demand (read: heckling from my asshole friends), I will update the blog despite being ass-busy. But here's my idea. I'll post at least 5 links a day. That way you'll all get regular posts, but I won't actually have to eat up that much time. Certainly I read at least that many articles, see that many picture posts, etc. Maybe a lil' commentary here and there, but nothin too big. Oh, and one video. We'll see how this goes.

• Great, yet another reason to subscribe to the New York Times. Ugh, I just can't justify spending that much money on a newspaper I'll only read half of every day if I'm lucky. Still, I <3 Daniel Clowes. So who knows?
  

• Hah! Bundys in Russian! An article I saw in the NYT a few days ago talked about Married... With Children in its phenomenally successful Russian incarnation. It uses basically the same scripts as the original show, but in Russian. God Bless America.

• Disagreeing with Israel: finally allowed for American Jews. Unless you're this guy.

• For all the bellyaching going on about Petraeus SHOCKING report that we're doing so well that we must stay forever, here's a great post by Greenwald about how America's war culture works, and here's a hilarious post from Duncan Black about the importance of September 15th in the GOP datebook. I'm sure they'll follow up, right? Right? Guys? ((crickets))

• Taking apart an iPod Touch.

Lastly, this is for two musical giants that the world lost this year, and one of the weirdest meetings between musical giants since Neil Young played in a band with Rick James. RIP Pavarotti. RIP Brown. Pour one out for your homeys.

Presidential candidates, Disney movies, Petraeus' report to Congress, and other things to find on ice

Okay, lots of links, so I'll keep the commentary short.

• First up, I hadn't sat down to read Giuliani's piece in Foreign Affairs yet. And now that I have, uh... he's crazy. Perpetual war for perpetual peace: the Rudy Doctrine. All enemies who happen to be Muslim = Islamofascists. Peace = bowing down to American military might or being crushed. Yglesias has perhaps the most succinct thoughts ("this man is batshit insane"). Jim Henley and Dan Drezner have their own thoughts, which are fairly concurrent. (For a contrast of "Foreign Affairs" articles written by presidential candidates, try reading Edwards' vision here. He may be wrong on trade, but at least he's not a bumbling/maniacal warmonger.)

• Yglesias also has this neat shout-out to a competent reporter actually questioning the boilerplate spin given by the federal government.

• At least Giuliani has these guys standing with him. Oh wait...

• In other campaign news, Hillary: The Play! Next up, Hillary on ice! (Hilariously, Priscilla Barnes plays Hillary. Yeah, that's right, Terri from Three's Company)

• Picking a major in high school: good or bad? I'd lean towards bad, just because I've been gleefully listless since whenever, but I bet it'd be good for a lot of kids to stay involved in their studies. Still, picking your job at age 13 seems like a stretch for ending systemic school failure.

• WashPost has an excellent look at the underbelly of pro wrestling. And here I thought it was all underbelly.

• Wroops.

• America gives Israel $30,000,000,000 in military aid (a 25% increase). At this point, does Israel really need aid? I don't think Israel is existentially threatened any longer. Sure, it was in 1973, but these days, I think they can manage with their booming defense contracting industry. (not to mention, you know, their nuclear bomb).

• Oh, that whole surge report thing? Yeah, turns out Petraeus won't be giving it to Congress after all and the White House will manage the language and the report. But, says White House spokesperson Dana Perino: "The Congress asked for these reports from the President." Yeah, except that's not what they asked for. BarbinMD at DailyKos has the rundown of what they asked for: a report from General Petraeus, who looks to be increasingly expendable for the Bush Administration, in his call for (gasp!) troop reduction. But I thought Bush was the Commander Guy!

• Speaking of Iraq, looks like there's a new coalition. With no Sunnis. Let's see how long this can last.

• Do we need a draft?

• Top ten newspaper websites. Sorry LATimes, you get pwnd.

• A ridiculous picture and video of a crowded wave pool in Tokyo. Yes, there is water in that pool somewhere.

• A long but worthwhile essay from Glenn Loury on why America has become an incarceration nation and its long-term effects. Bottom line: upper- and middle-class America benefit from state violence in the punitive justice system, but society on the whole suffers. At what point, then, are we culpable?

• SomethingAwfulites will have already seen this, but I just saw it on Reddit today, so sucks to your asmar. It's a 435-foot slip-n-slide.

• German physicists claim to have violated special relativity. I'm skeptical. But if they've really broken the speed of light, then Alpha Centauri or bust!

• A great series of movies on the making of the Muppet Show. Damn, that's complicated. Oh, how I love the Muppet Show.

• Freakonomics author Steven Levitt wonders in his new NYTimes blog how to best attack America. Homeland Security begins its surveillance.

• Clicked has a good run-down of Peru earthquake news and information.

• This movie looks awesome.

• Oh, boy, it's High School Musical PART DEUX! (High School Musical also available on ice.)

• In more important music news, it looks like Springsteen is reuniting with the E Street Band for his next album (due for release right near my birthday). In less important music news, Counting Crows is also recording again.

• The decline of a great brand: Jaguar.

• And finally, just in from CNN, massive miscarriage of American justice system takes place. Dahlia Lithwick tracks Padilla's journey of mistreatment here, here, here, and here. Full coverage of the saga from MotherJones here.
  

OK, video time. That Muppet Show thing reminded me of how much I love those wacky Muppets. It's one of the Great Summits in American pop cultural history and two of my favorite performers: Johnny Cash meets Miss Piggy.

mini-update

Because Anna's here, I'm not going to make a full post, but I figure a lil' one will do. So, no commentary, just links.

• NYTimes Sunday has all sorts of good stuff. A great slide-show on highway signs, a feature on couples group therapy, why Elvis wasn't a racist, and the one every blogger is linking to this morning, an expose on the failure of the war in Afghanistan (mostly thanks to the war in Iraq taking resources away).

• So, uh, troops? You hate the troops.

• Speaking of troops, LATimes has surfing veteran amputees.

• Wayne Barrett takes down Giuliani with no mercy in this Village Voice piece. Incendiary.

• Jack Balkin refuses the Administration's spin of the FISA bill. Of the anti-authoritarian bloggers, Balkin has been most closely following the tricky legal grounds of the law. His other posts on the subject are definitely worth reading.

• When Republicans leak state secrets, it's OK. I guess that's not really news.

• Are 10% of people really gifted? British teachers say, eh...

• Is virtual marital infidelity as bad as real marital infidelity?

• James Fallows has some perceptive takes on China's largely incompetent attempts at censorship. Here's the umbrella post that has interior links to the others. It helps put an article like this in perspective.

• Work faster, cows!

• People in Jordan and Guam can expect a longer life than Americans. I suspect both our girth and crappy infant health.
  

• This kinda thing irritates me to no end. Once they're ex-employees, they criticize to no end, but where are they when this stuff is actually going down? Where's the outrage when they're still on payroll? Colin Powell, I'm looking at you.

• Formin' like Voltron!

• Stephen Hunter sucks.

• Could this story be any more ridiculous? He rented a plane to hunt down his stolen boat! Straight thuggin.

• Speaking of thuggin', please please let this be true. Kanye, do whatever it takes.

• Spider-man breaking up with Mary Jane? MJ dying? Gimmicky comic book non-event? Yeah.

Video choice today is a classic: the greatest cartoon short of all time. "What's Opera, Doc?"

Wait till I get my money right

I can't believe I've missed this. The surrealest video ever. Zach Galifianakis + Will Oldham + Kanye + farm work + Amish Paradise = GENIUS

Higher quality version on Kanye's own website. Check it out. The lip-syncing is uncanny.

My favorite moment is the blotted out tractor logo. Nothing short of brilliant.

Broken promises... so what else is new?

To begin, I am more angry at the Democrats now than I was at the Republicans. Because, face it, I pretty much expected the Republican Congress to blindly enable the Bush Administration with shameless kowtowing to the unconstitutional expansion of executive power. They've been loving that since Nixon. But before I lament the spinelessness of the feckless Democrats (notice how the words applied to the Democrats are -less words? Powerless, careless, worthless. Less, less, less.), let me go over the surveillance law a bit.

It's important to note that the activities allowed by the law basically already happened, but had been ruled illegal by the FISA court (see previous post). Also, the law's ostensible intent is reasonable. After all, with the routing of most international calls through the great fiber-optic switches in the USA, it makes sense to listen in on calls within the country, as long as the two parties who make the call are non-citizens and out of the country. This law is nothing of the sort.

Reasons why this law blows:

1.) It EXPANDS the Attorney General's power. Yeah, that's right. This guy. Rather than leaving the surveillance oversight in the hands of an external court (the FISA court), the attorney general and director of national intelligence get to approve spying.

2.) This law permits wiretapping as long as the party being investigated is out of the country at the time. That is to say, if an American citizen went overseas and called back to another American citizen in the United States, that call could be monitored, violating both of their Fourth Amendment rights.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

3.) The Democrats and Bush's National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell had already struck a deal for wiretapping that closed the loophole without giving all the oversight to the most dysfunctional Cabinet Department ever. Bush nixed the idea and with more fearmongering, bent enough Democrats to get what he wanted.

It's disgusting to see the Democrats submit to pressure, since they're afraid of being viewed as "weak on terror." Guess what? Something tells me that the Republicans will STILL call every Democrat they can "weak on terror." You know what else makes you look weak? Doing everything the President tells you too, because you're so scared. Want to show you have guts? How about doing something you believe in every once in a while? How many non-binding resolutions must the American people endure before this Congress takes real action? ARGH.

More (and better-worded) reactions from Balkinization, Greenwald, and Dover Bitch.

OK, on with the linksesses...

• More broken promises from the Army Corps of Engineers. Looks like the 17th Street Canal, supposedly built to withstand a storm surge of 13.9 feet, can't even take a 6.3 foot storm surge. It turns out that if you have a levee which can withstand a high storm surge at almost all points except one, the storm surge still busts the levee. (More about Army Corps incompetence in this long Time magazine feature.)

• Sarkozy keeps it real. Mad real.

• Imagine my surprise that flooding Iraq with weapons in an attempt to spark the ragtag security forces turned out to be a bad idea. Still, 190,000 firearms? Sweet zombie Jesus. Hey, it goes with the NRA position here... guns don't kill people, after all. Guns defend people from people with smaller guns.

• George Bush, master of history.

• This long piece on one family's experience in open adoption in the LATimes really touched an emotional chord with me. I hope you all take the time to read it. I guess in the age of open adoption, the birth parents can suddenly decide to play a much bigger role, but the strain it puts on a child seems extraordinary.

• Looks like Soriano is injured. Time to trade for Griffey.

• A great piece in the Sunday Trib about the mighty 7-Elevens in Taiwan. If Taiwan had a true national symbol, it would be a 7-Eleven. Or more accurately, it would be an unending row of 7-Elevens down the entire street.

• LCD Soundsystem has a great interview/in-studio performance on NPR's World Cafe.

• Apparently, getting rid of a pheromone sensor turns female mice into raunchy dudes, "complete with mounting, pelvic thrusts, and the ultrasound calls that males use to attract a mate." Good-bye sewing circle, hello Foxy Boxing.

• Via reddit, it's Damn Interesting hunting for the source of the word "thug." I always knew Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom had something to do with it.

• Jimmy Wales refuses to submit Wikipedia to the censorship in China that Google has undergone (and downright complicity in repression in which Yahoo has participated). It's a tough line to toe, but I think Wales can do it. Long live Wikipedia!

• There's no stopping the wave of dangerous Chinese goods. There's just too much of it. So comes the true high cost of low prices... sometimes the products kill you.

• More on the issue of the social contagion of obesity. Here's the original article in the New England Journal of Medicine, with some interpretive riffs in Time. The general idea is, as one person got fat, the chance of his/her friends increased significantly. Therefore, obesity can be 'spread' through social networks. There is, however, a dissent coming from children's health advocates like Dr. Neil Izenberg, whose letter in the NYTimes describes the problems of 'quarantining' fat people. I agree that attaching an additional stigma to being fat can aggravate rather than improve the situation, but it's hard to argue against the fact that friends and family strongly influence eating/exercise patterns. Here's Izenberg's interview in Alternet.

• Final note before the video, Lee Hazlewood, great American musician, died over the weekend. While there are a few tributes here and there, the best tribute I could find was this NYTimes article (Select only, folks) from January of this year. Priceless.

Ok, video time. This is terrible. Awful. Horrible. Maybe the worst commercial I've ever seen. Talking sandwiches, saying Filet o' Fish. In different accents. For a whole minute. It's godawful and had me staring in dumb disbelief that such an abomination was ever made. And that's why you should watch it.

Secrets...

• So, it turns out that a FISA court overturned part of the Bush surveillance plan as illegal, which is why the Bushies are scrambling to expand surveillance. Wait, but why didn't we find out about it until now? Oh, that's right, like all things dealing with this hilarious Administration, it's a SECRET. You know, like this guy's job description. At least, it's only a secret until the Senate Minority Leader reveals it all on Fox News. Then it's not a leaked secret, just a sincere cry to fix our intelligence gaps. Right. In any case, the Post spends a lot of time talking up the potential Boehner leak, but to be honest, what's most disturbing here is the attempt to circumvent FISA through even broader legislation. Overreaching, Big Brother surveillance, and sneaky media manipulation? Check, check and check. Just another day in the life for this farce of a White House.

• Not that Congress is much better. Here are the sober lawmakers having a raucous spat over whether the Democrats counted the votes wrong. Or something. I mean it could be worse... but not much. At least the public approves! I hate to say it, but I liked Congress better when it was Republican. Then at least my hate for it could be uncomplicated. With this Congress, I have to accept that my own party may be lamer than I ever imagined. Sheesh.

• The other failed invasion/occupation. Ethiopia in Somalia and the destabilization that it has brought. (Free registration required)

• Gates testifies bluntly about Iraq's deteriorating political situation. As others have noted, no matter how good the military news is, it's impossible to separate the military aims from the political ones. And the rest of the situation remains terrible.

• Commander Obama toughens his stance, while everyone and their momma chews him out. I don't necessarily see hypocrisy in wanting to talk to North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, while wanting to attack camps inside Pakistan. If you can't control what's going on within your own borders, and those people have directly threatened the United States, why not invade? Obama's "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" shtick on Iraq only makes sense if there is a right war at the right place at the right time. Yet, in the context of the failed Iraq war and the ailing efforts in Afghanistan, we would do better to exercise caution than fling ourselves into a country teetering on the edge of serious civil unrest. I find this to be another troubling example of an Obama campaign more fixed on shrewd political maneuvers than on speaking uncomfortable truths about American policy and bringing about sweeping change. I'm still backing the Barackmobile, but I'm skeptical as ever. Regardless, everybody should seriously consider the remarks by Obama in his sweeping foreign policy speech (Read it in full here). The question of how we construct a substantive foreign policy out of the Iraq debacles must be brought to the forefront. No one but Obama and Paul (in his ultimate isolationism) has proposed anything of the sort.
  

• It turns out that taming the Yangtze doesn't mean taming flooding. Ten percent of China's population (120 million people) were affected by this year's floods, anyways.

• Is this creepy to anyone else? I mean, I understand that we want to market things younger and younger. Also, I know that everyone knocked TV and radio and comic books for kids because it was lurid and whatnot. But isn't social networking for kids a little (a lot) dangerous? Despite assurances that strangers can't get on these sites, come on, it's not that hard to be anonymous online. I dunno, call me old-fashioned, but I think there are enough dangers in the world without adding virtual ones, and the parental units are always so behind the times that online dangers may be the most difficult to detect.

• Uh, how is this not bigger news? Reporter has affair with Mayor of Los Angeles... who she is reporting on while the affair takes place. I'm pretty sure the Los Angeles case even worse than this. Maybe I just haven't been watching the news enough to see more of it.

• A totally ridiculous Ask Metafilter question. Worth reading the whole thread.

• Note to IU football players: If you throw a water balloon at the driver of a car at a stop light, make sure it's not an IU Police Officer.

• I'm fairly certain that this is sorcery. (I know, I know, I always blame wizards, but it's the only reasonable explanation)

• See, this is the part where the NAACP says, "No, we don't want the PR nightmare of publicly defending a coddled athlete who probably hosted vicious dogfights in his home. We learned from the Duke rape case that jumping to the defense of the black person in the situation just because he or she is black, is probably a bad idea." Wait, they're defending him because they're bowing to community pressure rather than doing what's right and staying out of it? Oh, well scratch that last part then. I swear, Chappelle wasn't entirely wrong.

• Are there too many heroes? A worthwhile point; we worship people for just doing what they're supposed to do.

• God Bless America. A story of the most glorious shit in the history of the world.

• Weird hidden photoshopping in al Qaeda images and tapes.

• After Internet 2.0, are we just going to have Bubble 2.0? It certainly seems reasonable. After all, the hype about social networks and user-generated content are outpacing any actual business these people do. Isn't it? Doesn't this sound familiar?

• Hey, maybe we just execute people because we really like executing people. No amount of forensic technology improvements can hide the fact that prosecutors, police, and citizens all want to see suspects arrested, tried, sentenced to death and killed.

• Speaking of murder, here's a disturbing piece in the New Yorker about how a U.S. Attorney wanted to solve the murder of one of his subordinates and ended up axed by the Bush Administration, while the killer of Tom Wales is still at large. It's long and covers the rather unseemly trail of murder, but the worst part is its open-ended ending.

• J-Pod reviews the Simpsons Movie for the Weekly Standard. A strange, if not entirely wrong-minded review. Probably the best negative review of the movie I've yet seen.

• Another long piece, available without subscription temporarily from the Atlantic archives, about why Americans hate the press. Come to think of it, Fallows has some pretty good reasons: The media is out of touch with America, largely accepts the powers-that-be spoonfeeding them, and is so eager to talk about itself with meta-reporting that real issues get avoided. "Bias" isn't why people distrust the media. Laziness is.

• An unbelievable story about how a teacher quit his job after a failed student was passed by administration to boost graduation rates. Just goes to show that the goals of public schools in America have very little to do with education, and a lot to do with being holding pens and getting public dough.

• Say it ain't so! Roy Pearson, the judge of the famous dry cleaning pants case, is going to lose his job. Poor Roy; those malicious Asiatic dry cleaners ruined his pants, his reputation, and his job!

• You may notice there's nothing here about the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Frankly, there's enough out there that you can find it on your own, but here's a video anyways.

• AT&T may be run by Satan, but this Blue Room Lollapalooza live webcast should be pretty neat.. Bookmark it for the weekend here.
  

• Gary, Gary.

• Ha, these guys are blogging about breaking absurd laws that are still on the books. Pretty funny stuff.

• The Real Or Fake Breast Test. Uh, NSFW, kids. I got 14/20. That shit is tricksy!

• A pretty neat trick: solar panels + Stirling engine = 500 megawatts of power with no pollution.

• Oh, also, the Cubs are in a rather unbelievable first place, but I don't think it's gonna last too long with a three-game set against the Mets. Hope Big Z is lights out today. Otherwise, it's gonna be a long series. Let's see some power. Where da HR's at?

• iPwnd. Apple must change its design for its iPhone battery or get class-action lawsuited.

Video o the day. It's CHROMEO TIME! The pimpest pizza deliveryman ever chills with Chromeo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o.

Things to do in the Philippines when you're imprisoned

• First up and the must-read: Glenn Greenwald demolishes the O'Hanlon/Pollack NYT Op-Ed (read it here). Really, though, what Greenwald demonstrates here is that neo-conservatism is essentially the active, vigorous foreign policy of liberalism. No wonder the Pollacks and O'Hanlons of the world gleefully continue to cheer the war. This is, in many ways, exactly the war liberals wanted to fight. Let's not forget that mainstream liberal luminaries like Paul Berman and George Packer supported the war, and that the likes of Pollack, O'Hanlon, and Hitchens continue to support the war. It was Bill Clinton who signed off on military action in 1998 and pushed the Congressional "regime change" Iraqi Liberation Act. Greenwald strikes down any notion that liberals can be "Administration critics," simply based on their credentials as "liberals." I would say that I'm shocked, shocked to find out that the media is irresponsibly reporting bullshit, but then, no, I'm not surprised at all.

• Speaking of Iraq, it looks like the Brits are so super-confident in the Bush surge's efficacy that they are planning to pull troops out regardless of what happens. Strange that amidst the brouhaha over the Bush/Brown summit, few news agencies ran with this seemingly significant story. Fake "results" or no "results," the Coalition of the Willing looks like it'll just be us and Estonia. (Also, looks like Iraq's parliament is going on vacation anyways!)

• OK, I agree mostly with this op-ed piece espousing containment as opposed to war, but how did a ragtag band of criminals become the necessary target of a whole new Cold War? Osama bin Laden is probably dead, and the damage these guys do is not crippling in the least. The global economy is chugging along regardless, and terrorism in the West has become more "aspirational" than anything. Compare the London car bombs to the subway bombings just a few years ago. I'm just wondering whether these criminals deserve a whole new Cold War, and I wonder how a Cold War against terrorists would even work. Anyways, count me a skeptic.

• Could this slippery and/or incompetent and/or evil huckster lose his job already? Please?

• Looks like colleges have found a way to stop file-sharing without banning it. Just make it really, really slow.

• Zimbabwe, please, just stop. 100,000 percent inflation?!?! How do states fail? Someday we'll look at Zimbabwe as a textbook example.

• OK, this is from Drudge, so a caveat applies. Also, I don't know how "big" this phenomenon is. If this is like that choking game idiocy last year, it's nothing that's been overblown by media. Right, so vegans are refusing to have sex with meat-eaters. I guess if you saw it as a defining moral issue, you couldn't do it any other way.

• A cool photo essay on life under Antarctic ice. Those penguins are awesome.

• Why The Simpsons is mankind's greatest achievement. Thanks, AV Club. The movie's a B+, by the way.

• GM is mysteriously making money again. Alas, this means their UAW negotiations can't go anywhere but south.

• I never saw the documentary The Bridge, and had almost entirely forgotten it. Then, this LATimes article reminded me about the Golden Gate suicide debate. I'd say the numbers need to be publicized so they can build a barrier. For San Francisco, nanny-state of all nanny-states, to say that they can't build a public safety barrier for "aesthetic" reasons, then cover up the suicides, is quite ridiculous.

• My Super Sweet 16 (or My Super Sweet 2) India-style.

• There are only 12 types of ads in the world. Seth Stevenson details them all.

• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! FUCK!

• Also, in NOOOOO! FUCK! news, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni die one day apart? A tragic loss.

• Remember the AFI re-100? Take a look at the Internet film community's top 100. Yeah... I'd rather have the AFI's, thanks very much. As Schmidtty has noted before, the Internet's top 100 is just a testosterone-loaded, younger AFI100 with its Die Hard (#30) and Spielberg action (Raiders and Jaws in the top 10). I suppose it makes sense, but it's unfortunate that the online film community is so... what is the word? dorky.
  

• My meta note of the day is on America's incarceration crisis. We've got a country which incarcerates a higher percentage of its citizenry than any country but North Korea, with some states' prisons are so over-crowded that they're now sending them across state lines. Meanwhile, it turns out that after getting out of jail, you're not really out of jail, whether it's through sexual offender databases or pot-smokers being prevented from voting. The result of "tough on crime" for years has just ended in prisons crammed with non-violent drug offenders, and no end in sight. We'll commute Lewis Libby's sentence, but mercy for Texas criminals who don't have ties to the President? Eh, screw it (TimesSelect). I'm just a bleeding-heart liberal crazy. Can we get rid of mandatory minimums, please? I wonder what polling information would reveal about the public's view of the prison population.

OK, it was hard to pick a winner for today's video, so I'll include the two other links I would've put on. First, the internet phenomenon of the Filipino prison "Thriller"... so I guess there's something you can do with prison overpopulation. So You Think You Can Dance: Prison Edition! Second, this remarkable video of a man asking a pertinent question for anti-abortionites... so if abortion should be illegal, what should women who abort their fetuses get as punishment? Uh, turns out, no one's been thinking about it. Huh. How 'bout that? Pro-lifers not thinking things through. Whodathunkit?
But the winner today is an older video, Nina Gordon singing "Straight Outta Compton." Even better than Ben Folds' "Bitches Ain't Shit." The incongruity is even greater.

TOONCES LOOK OUT!

• First up, the must-see of the day is a documentary by a Guardian embedded photographer named Sean Smith who follows a group of American soldiers. It’s short, graphic, and a tiny glimpse into the challenges facing our troops (and really, any troops in a war). If you’ve read the quote about challenging the President and members of Congress to sit with a company of soldiers for 15 months, it comes from this video. Every American should watch this video, then look at the now-faded “Support Our Troops” ribbon on the back of their cars, and then think about what that phrase even means.

• Pakistan, our most important ‘ally’ in the War on Terror, seems to be well on its way to hell-in-a-handbasket (BTW, my spell check informs me that “handbasket” is not a word). If Musharraf no longer has control of the military and intelligence services, he’s not going to have control of his country much longer. The suicide attacks and the recent Red Mosque shootout dovetail with this story on the ‘disappeared’ under the Musharraf regime, and demonstrate the bizarre dynamics of a war as poorly conceived as the ‘War on Terror.’ Who exactly are we fighting? Who should we be fighting?

• Tasers: now in pink! Quote from one of the makers: ‘The brothers, inspired by “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” thought to themselves, “Why can’t we make a phaser,” Mr. Smith said.’ Great.

• Eating beef is less green than driving. Eat a steak, raise earth’s temperature. It’s notable how the global warming problem is changing our ethical worldview. Really though, it’s not that different than traditional morality: we have to give up some personal pleasure in order to promote a greater good. Yet, in the climate of selfishness imbued by the roots of capitalism (I’m not going all proletarian here, just stating the fact of the matter), it’s tough to convince people to give up their hard-earned monetary and material gains (like a tasty Big Kahuna burger) for something as abstract as ‘the planet.’

• If the White House thinks that you have “a significant risk of committing an act of violence” (whatever “significant” means), they can take away your stuff. I don’t think it’s nearly as dire as redditors are making it seem, but it is just another example of Bush overreaching to expand his own executive power. What seems like a judicial tool to freeze assets is actually a dangerous move that suggests that anyone who tries to “destabilize” the world doesn’t deserve to hold property.

• Firefox 3 preview. Bag o’ dimes.

• I think Petraeus is a fine soldier, but when you appear on Hugh Hewitt’s show for a big interview, I think your words lose credibility. If he had given this interview on, say, 60 Minutes or 20/20, this would be front-page news. As it stands now, he’s just another puppet of the right-wing propaganda machine.

• So Trix is too sugary to market to kids any more, but Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs... that's still cool. Seriously, could this be any more disingenuous? If you're making a cereal with a cartoon rabbit as its mascot and a motto like "Trix are for kids!" I don't think stopping a few commercials is going to change your target audience.

• Hah, Leahy sends his questions to Gonzales beforehand so he can’t forget the answers. I’ll bet he still refuses to answer, can’t remember, doesn’t know, and keeps his job.

• A visual representation of every girl this guy’s hooked up with for the last 27 years. The best part is the cryptic little graphic in the stop sign that indicates why they broke up.

• 40 Years of Eric Carle: Watch the audio slideshow. If you don’t like Eric Carle, go sit in the corner.

Today's video selection is an oldie-but-goodie from the SNL archives. Actually, did I say goodie? I meant terrible. Still, Toonces makes me laugh every time.

Belated blogiversary

• Happy Blogiversary! Yeah, I’m late to the party, but anyhoo, Ross Douthat has some thoughts on the blogosphere being ten years young. I agree with the first half of Douthat’s post that blogging is good for punditry, but I’m not sure that it’s necessarily bad for deeper writing. Yes, editorializing is probably not a great way to start writing novels or even long-form news analysis. For example, take a look at Glenn Greenwald’s new book (excerpts here and here). It reads (surprise, surprise) a lot like his blog, and yes, many of his prose tendencies show up in droves (too many block quotes in a row, long, convoluted sentences, and a bit too much eye-rolling). Regardless, it is a book and has long-form prose that works. Sure, it ain’t Anna Karenina, but why should it be? I would venture that very few bloggers are actually looking to write philosophical treatises and novels. Or more importantly, to counter Douthat, that very few people looking to write philosophical treatises and novels are out there writing blogs.

• Something I’ve been curious about… what ever happened to the war czar? It was such a big deal maybe three weeks ago, and now, Gen. Lute is nowhere to be found. It’s all Petraeus this and Pace that. Lute appears to be meeting with lawmakers, but he’s nowhere in the public eye. A search on GoogleNews registers 33 stories for “war czar” but over 9,000 for “Petraeus.” Wasn’t Lute supposed to be the point man on the war on terror? How strange that he’s an invisible media figure…My theory? He’s a mild skeptic of the surge, and therefore unfit as a non-true-believer to be displayed before the media, lest he give his actual informed opinion.

• That ‘new’ bin Laden tape that everyone was crowing about? Turns out it’s not so new. In fact, looks like it’s five years old. Wroops!

• The FDA is a ham-handed, ineffective piece of government bureaucracy. At least now everyone knows it.

• Watch Barnaby Philips’ report on Turkish Kurds here. It’s just a hint of how hard it could be to simply retreat to “Kurdistan” in Iraq (the preferred strategy of Andy Sullivan).

• A weird LATimes story that was inexplicably at the top of their e-mail newsletter, with an intriguing title that should please everyone: ‘Nudity, explosives, and art’.

• Duke Cunningham talks bitches and hos with the FBI from inside the joint. Scroll down to the bullet points for the true hilarity. It’s a riot.

• Rating squirt guns on Slate. No Oozinator, though.

• A new Smoove B column!

• If you saw this xkcd comic a while back, you’ll love these photos. Chess on a rollercoaster!

• Art Brut meets Harry Potter. ‘Nuff said.

• Should we watch movies with actors in drag?

OK, so you know how I love well-told stories. Well, here's one that I watched a while back that's definitely worth watching if you haven't yet. The punchlines are incredible.

An update for Glen

OK, I’m back in America and should seriously start updating again now that I have nothing but time on my hands. I’ve decided to write the updates in an open Word document all day and then just copy and paste them into Blogger whenever I feel the posts are long enough. So here goes with today assorted internet stuff.

• Apparently, it’s a good thing that guys don’t do all that communicating. When chicks do it too much, it gets ‘em down. Grunting and muttering about sports is enough for us, thanks. Quote: “Getting people with issues together doesn't always make things better.” I’m looking at you, LiveJournal…

• While Conrad Black awaits his hearing on his flight risk, Chris Hitchens gloats about it here. It’s worth the read if only because there’s nothing more fun than reading Hitch tear someone to shreds.

• Steve Brodner explains Bush foreign policy in cartoon form. Explanation only slightly less convincing than Bush’s own National Intelligence Estimate. So, we’re supposed to believe that our strong offensive against terrorism is working, even though we’re also told that al-Qaeda is as strong if not stronger than ever?

• Speaking of Iraq, the Democrats are pulling their all-nighter Senate slumber party to kick-start the Iraq war debate, but I don’t think the GOP is biting. These guys drive me crazy. Like Arlen Specter on the Judiciary committee, these guys moan and groan about how shitty the Bush Administration policy is, then do nothing to change it. Not that the Democrats are any less worthless. Still, complaining that the event is a mere stunt has been soundly rebutted here by Dick Durbin. Watch the whole video if you can. The transcript is unreliable at best.

• Hah, American software firm punks Iran.

• So, while Drudge today trumpeted DOW 14K from its front page, David Leonhardt at the IHT reminds everybody that 14,000 ain’t quite what it seems like, thanks to inflation.

• I just attended the Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend, and it kicked eight kinds of ass. Despite minor quibbles about sound cut-outs and a tad bit of overcrowding (the Chicago Fire Department shut down Girl Talk’s set early), the music, atmosphere and price ($50 for 3 days?!) were just right. Good recaps here and here. Best sets of the weekend: Clipse, Battles, Of Montreal, Jamie Lidell, De La Soul, Menomena, and Sonic Youth performing Daydream Nation.

• Vote for the best sports mustache of all time. If you didn’t vote for Rollie Fingers (or write in Rod Beck) then you’re not a true American.

• Learning to like like. Like, totally. A linguist’s view at a linguistic quirk.

• When your ex-employer pisses you off, sometimes you have to destroy their property with a tank.

• The end of paper? Scripps closes down Cincinnati and Covinton, KY papers, while BusinessWeek wonders how long to keep the presses running. At some point, isn’t a major paper going to have to axe its print product? And if it doesn’t survive, will that spell the end of newspapers in general?

• Real men dig The Fifth Element. Oh, Ruby Rhod.

In honor of both the Clipse and the old-school Transformers movie, here's an amateur music video of Wamp Wamp with clips (pow!) from the movie. It's not particularly well done, but to see the chorus is worth it.

AFI re-100

OK, one more movie thing. Schmidtty pointed me towards the re-evaluated AFI rankings of the top 100 (American) (narrative non-documentary feature) films of all time. Only one movie from the the Aughts is in the new ranking (versus seven from the 90s on the 1997 list). That movie is LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings. A decent choice for the epic Aughts, but I'd think Eternal Sunshine and maybe Million Dollar Baby or possibly even Requiem for a Dream would deserve some mention. I'd put movies like Waking Life, Spider-Man 2 or Memento on my shortlist of consideration too. Let's not forget that they put Dances With Wolves on the list last time (a movie that has not aged well at all).

Right, things about the list I'm happy about: the rises of Raging Bull and American Graffiti as well as the inclusion of Nashville, Shawshank, Do the Right Thing, and Blade Runner. The descent of Forrest Gump (but not far enough!), the near-removal of Ben-Hur, and Gone With the Wind out of the top five.

Removals that blew my mind: All Quiet on the Western Front, The Third Man, (come on, when we talk about "most influential," how can we leave that out?), Jazz Singer, Doctor Zhivago, Manchurian Candidate, and Fantasia. Also, Fargo. Come on.

Additions that blew my mind: Titanic (higher than Pulp Fiction?! higher than Do The Right Thing?!), Intolerance replacing Birth of a Nation (by the AFI's standards, Birth certainly had more influence, historical impact, and long-lasting popularity. I like Intolerance more, but Birth is more justly Griffith's American "classic"), Cabaret (this one doesn't blow my mind so much as I didn't like it), including Toy Story at the expense of Fantasia. (Does a list of great American movies only deserve two animated ones? Not that I don't love Toy Story, but why couldn't they have made room for both?), Sixth Sense (I'd give it another decade), Saving Private Ryan (same).

Undeserved bump-ups: The Searchers (Is this really going to be canonized as the great American western? God, I hope not. It's not bad, but there's plenty better, even on the list.) The Sound of Music. (I love this movie to death, but really, #40?) Rocky. Yeah. No. (Can anyone believe that Stallone was nominated for the screenplay Oscar?

Undeserved knock-downs (there were a lot): On the Waterfront down 11 spots, Clockwork Orange down 24 spots, and French Connection down 23 spots. One trend was that movies which once set the bar for "edgy" (Bonnie and Clyde, Jaws, Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, Clockwork, Manchurian, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Taxi Driver, etc.) were deemed somehow weaker after the passing of time. (There are exceptions: Deer Hunter comes to mind.) I suppose it's fair that since we see the violence of Bonnie and Clyde, the sex taboos of The Graduate, or the psychosis of Taxi Driver magnified enormously in rather bland contemporary studio movies for the masses, it's hard to find it shocking any more, which admittedly lent much of those films' power.

Also, knocking It's A Wonderful Life down 9 spots? Not cool.

Movies that continue to be excluded for reasons passing understanding: Anatomy of a Murder, Night of the Hunter, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, any Lynch film (Eraserhead? Blue Velvet? Mullholland Drive? Take your pick.), L.A. Confidential, Saturday Night Fever (yeah, you read that right.), Lady from Shanghai, Dog Day Afternoon, Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Red River.

OK, that's my spiel. Obviously, as Schmelee says, these lists are best for consideration by others and inspiring debate. I definitely give the list props for accepting changes and searching further rather than defining film greatness concretely. Still, many of the weaknesses of the first list remain, just updated for newer films.

P.S. Here's the grand Canonizer Ebert's take on the AFI list.

An update

OK, folks, I'm back, after sloth and vacation. I was just going to wait till I go back to the States to update again, but there's enough that I'm reading that it's worth mentioning.

I wonder whether I should go with smaller items. Oh well.

• First off, another week, another Bush administration resignation. What was that old Freedom Movement poster?

  "There's a street in Itta Bena called Freedom. There's a town in Mississippi called Liberty. There's a department in Washington called Justice."

Justice, it appears, is only the name of the department, not of its profession, which is obfuscation and denial.

• The noise surrounding Guantanamo closure seems genuine this time, despite White House denials. Still, I'm not holding my breath. Let's not forget that over a year ago, Bush said he'd "like to close Guantanamo, but..." Deferring again, this time to the military, Bush eschews responsibility that belongs to him solely. Way to lead.

• Religious students have abducted foreign nationals in Pakistan and are holding them in a mosque for "immoral activities." Say, there seems to be a deafening silence from the Pakistani Parliament on this injustice, right after they condemned England's knighthood of Salman Rushdie. Irshad Manji nails the hypocrisy of demanding "tolerance" towards Islam while its extremists use it to justify the greatest intolerance.

• If you haven't seen the trailer for the Coen Brothers' new movie "No Country for Old Men"... you should. Javier Bardem is a bad-ass. If you love Westerns, blood, or Cormac McCarthy, this is the movie for you.

• (Speaking of which, I'll blog soon about the last two solid films I've seen, Persepolis and Death Proof, which was released in France separately from its Grindhouse partner, Planet Terror.)

• Google's solar panels. Pretty neat business.

• Um, isn't photography legal? I guess not.

• NPR runs down some helpful facts and analysis on health insurance to think about surrounding Sicko, the new Michael Moore feature.

• Good news from Iraq? I hope so. Instapundit notes that this has been weakly covered by MSM, but let's be fair, we've heard this "good news" spiel before. It only goes to further emphasize how September is a meaningless date. When Petraeus and the new commanders testify before Congress in September, the "We're Winning!" spin will just keep on coming, while people continue to die unnecessarily. Anbar has been subdued, but the top al-Qaeda commanders slipped away in Baqubah. We squash one insurgent group and another one rises up. And, surprise, surprise: the political situation is still a mess, with the sectarian tensions not weakening.

• Slate's slideshow of (really) early movies is worth a gander.

• Noel Murray and Scott Tobias do AV Club crosstalk about the efficacy of the MPAA's rating system. Worth the read if you've got time.

• Ridiculous. 78 in a 55 zone in Virginia = 1,250 bucks. It's another perk of being rich... you can afford to speed.

• Must-read: Seymour Hersh's piece on Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (Ret.), who wrote the report to investigate prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Essentially, he was sold out for doing his job and having integrity. As we've learned in this Administration, being a good man and a good foot soldier are incompatible. Taguba has some harsh words at the end:

  “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service,” Taguba said. “And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”

• For today's video selection, I really wanted to pick the International Players' Anthem with UGK (ft. Outkast), just because it's so nice to hear Andre rapping again with some great beats and a solid video. You can see it here. The winner, though, is the video that has taken the internet by storm, a five second, erroneously named clip that shouldn't (and isn't) funny, which of course didn't stop me from laughing at it. Here's "Dramatic Chipmunk."
  

At least the Bush Administration can say it's best in one respect

...Most Ironic Administration In History

• Adding to his various ironic schticks (the emphatic "I'm the decider/commanderguy" bit, the "We do not torture" while torturing, the "Freedomerica" while breaking down our freedoms... the list goes on), here's Bush in Prague with the Czech President yakking about press freedom (scroll to the last blurb). Seems that the press conference was one of those where the press don't get to ask any questions. Bush at the end thanked the media for a "chance to discuss these issues with the media." Apparently, "discuss with" now a synonym for "force-feed to". On the one hand, I should love it because of the irony... but on the other hand, I'm dying inside because this guy is my President.

• Meanwhile in the race to replace the guy... uh, what the hell planet is NRO on? I'm sorry? There's so many things wrong with this idiocy. First, the "winner" of tonight's debate if there ever was one was McCain. He stood his ground, held unpopular positions, and reminded Republicans why they liked him in the first place. But second, and most importantly, Levin posits that Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney are "Presidential" while the three leading Democrats, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are not. Really? Where the hell is this guy coming from? This is a perfect demonstration of the Republican conflation of testosterone and leadership. Note that the three Levin picks are the three best conveyors of testosterone... Giuliani the presumed 9/11 hero, Thompson the actual actor, and "Double Guantanamo" Romney the game show host. Never mind that McCain actually fought in a war. These guys have "guts." These are the "dream" candidates?

• While the Republicans distance themselves from Bush precipitously, they are all still descendants of his legacy: on torture, on foreign policy, on big-government "conservatism," etc. Greenwald fairly well dismantles the right's supposedly sudden discovery that Bush is not a "true" conservative just as soon as he's not popular any more. Now, as Atrios suggests, the Republicans can go embrace a new Leader to replace the disgraced one. As soon as he's unpopular, Bush is no longer useful to "the movement." These guys drive me nuts.

• With all the Rome/America comparisons floating about, here's a more in-depth piece in Vanity Fair excerpted from Cullen Murphy's new book on the subject. Murphy identifies the problem of private contractors and government outsourcing as the source of the downfall of the "empire" as it were. I'm not sure if I entirely agree, but no doubt, Murphy succinctly breaks down the problems of the contractor-based system.

• So the Second Circuit ruled that if the words "fuck" and "shit" are used on air in an off-the-cuff comment, the station can't be fined if they reach the audience's ears. A victory for the First Amendment! But wait! FCC Chair Kevin Martin doesn't think so, releasing this press release... which contains the dreaded words "fuck" and "shit" themselves. So... in Martin's world, if CNN broadcasts his press release, can they be fined? Should they? Hey, Kevin Martin. Fuck you.

• The New Republic (free registration) has a series of pieces on Bernard Kouchner, France's new Foreign Minister. It's definitely worth a read, since Kouchner will no doubt be the new global face of France and has almost no previous exposure in America.

• Am I the only one who finds the "PARDON SCOOTER" talk a bit silly? Isn't this the same party that thought that perjury was a high enough crime and/or misdemeanor to impeach Bill Clinton? And, not that it matters when it comes to perjury, but Clinton's was about a blowjob, and Libby's was about the outing of a covert CIA agent. While Libby's defenders may fight to make the public think that Valerie Plame was a desk jockey, make no mistake. She was a covert agent. So covert that the CIA won't let her disclose information already in the public domain in her memoir. This guy broke the law and lied under oath. Where are all the "law and order" guys now?

• In memory of great "Hey! It's That Guy!"s, Cracked has a list of the 20 best "That Guy"s. Amazed that Walsh isn't number one, though. And I don't think Cromwell can count as a "That Guy." He even had a starring role in a short-lived family drama.

• Bye Bob. You made so many summer weekday mornings Righter.

• I bought my ticket to go see the sneak preview of Persepolis Friday night. If you aren't familiar, Persepolis was originally a French language graphic novel in four volumes by Marjane Satrapi, detailing her flight from Iran and consequent interactions with her homeland, her family who was left behind, and various historical events like the Iran/Iraq war. It will be remembered as a monument to the 21st century autobiographical graphic novel, and I love the book and its sequel Persepolis 2. That's why the thought of a movie was so intriguing. I had no idea they were making one until it won the Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Needless to say, I'm pumped. Plus, the filmmakers will be there! And possibly Satrapi, too (although I'm not sure on that one... it may just be the other animation director).

• Gas prices pimpin all over the world.

• Hah. Amp'd Mobile goes under, because almost half its subscribers don't pay their bills. The danger of approaching the youth market rear their head. We are irresponsible fickle bastards.

OK, that's it for now.
Video clip. It's the Human Slinky! Not that difficult to figure out, but hypnotizing to watch.

Lurn to spell edition

• I really like the idea that the guys who bust these kids' balls and brains over the spelling of diverse English arcana can't spell Maryland right. Apparently, they misspelled Virginia as "Virgina," too. I normally have few qualms about spelling errors. Whatever. Even elementary fleas do it. But when you're holding spelling as this idol to be worshiped and slaved over, you'd better spell the names right. Yeesh.

• Speaking of spelling bees, do spelling bees work in other languages? Slate says... sort of. I actually participated in a "word memorization" competition in Chinese school for a few years. You were given a word and then had to give a number of phrases which used the word. This was easy up until they started to get obscure, and in a language with tens of thousands of characters, it's not hard to do.

• On the topic of consistency, we return as always to the Bush Administration and its war-cheerleader base. So, maybe you've heard about the al-Qaeda torture training manual (warning: NSFW, graphic, cartoonish depictions of violence)? Well, maybe you haven't. Probably because it hasn't been heavily reported by mainstream media... because the fact that al-Qaeda tortures people is not news. We know they do. They're a fanatical, amoral, nihilist group of killers bent on destroying Western civilization and employing any means to do it. That's why they are bad guys. The right-wingers, however, are riled up. How dare the mainstream media report every piece of news where Americans are accused of torture, but sweep under the carpet this (in their deluded eyes) equally important story? Let's note that the manual is a little shady on its own... if you're al-Qaeda do you really need Tarantino-esque bloodspurting? But let's suppose it is authentic and surprise! al-Qaeda tortures people. Do these guys listen to themselves when they talk? This is their basic question: why is it news when we torture and not news when al-Qaeda tortures? And the simple response is... because we're not supposed to. They want to accuse the media of "boycotting" the al-Qaeda torture story? Fine. But torture is now the policy of my government, and it undermines the ideals of our nation. The only reason our global dalliances were justified was our moral standing as an extraordinary nation, that never tortured, that valued human rights, that invoked the "Four Freedoms." Now, we're trying to be the moral equivalents of al-Qaeda. What a long way we've come. (I was thinking this yesterday and mentioned it to someone, then came home and read Greenwald. And what do you know? Greenwald basically says the same thing I do, but, you know, better. Man, that guy's a hoss. Also, you should read Andrew Sullivan's piece on "enhanced interrogation." It's among his finest work.)

• A side note: the right-wing is always accusing us lefty academics of being wishy-washy "moral equivalence" relativists who don't mind women being subjugated so long as it's done by another culture. Because we have to "respect cultures" and whatnot. But the greatest "moral" leader of their side (who they now run away from as if he was carrying antibiotic-resistant TB) has led America into the worst depths of morally ambivalent behavior. Never mind natural laws, or the rights of man. We can hit them because "they" hit us, and sometimes even before "they" hit us. We can torture because "they" torture. We feign outrage at China blowing a satellite out of the sky even though we're trying to do the same thing. We feign outrage at Abu Ghraib prison photos while the horrors depicted within become our policy. We feign outrage at clamp-downs on the press in the Sudan, while Cheney kicks the reporters out of the room. I think we're still suffering whiplash from the last 7 years, and everything that we have lost. When all the Republican candidates for President stand up to out-Rambo each other on how much they'd like to torture people, and the crowd cheers, you know you must be in America... or Pakistan.

• ARGH FIRE HIM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

• Onto lighter things, here's a website at which I wasted about ten minutes. It's called Celebritymustache.com and it's exactly what you think it is. Celebrity faces + drag-n-drop mustaches. Awesome.

• Surprise. David Hyde Pierce is gay. You don't say.

• I really want to see this movie. Why, oh, why does France have to release it three months from now? The New York Times Magazine feature last week on Judd Apatow is enlightening, too.

• Finally, here's an intriguing and disturbing paper I read from Bryan Caplan at the Cato Institute. It's an excerpt/adaptation of his new book about why democracies choose bad policies. The intriguing stuff: voters often pick dumb policies and misunderstand basic economics with systematic errors and biases. The disturbing stuff: the only way to eliminate such problems is to leave things up entirely to markets (what a surprise coming from Caplan). But I've been chewing on this for a while. After all, democracy shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all of governments, right? We should always keep improving, and what comes next? Also, I found his thoughts about anti-market bias as rather thought-provoking... are we who don't understand economics worse for our country? Maybe we should be teaching economics in high school, eh?

And today's video selection has a special place in my heart... from the dear old Chicago Cubs clubhouse. Looks like business as usual. GO CUBS!!!!!1111one1won11!two

Take out the trash edition

• First off, the Naples trash crisis is getting pretty fucked up. IHT reports, pics here.

• Want to buy the set from Family Feud? You can on eBay! It only costs a few hundred bucks... plus the estimated $5000 to move... but the chance to stand in Louie Anderson's shoes?!? Come on. Priceless!

• A debate with Kucinich, Gravel, Biden? This could get to be the most hilarious debate in recorded history. Certainly more entertaining than the last one...

• Slate notes just why the Supreme Court gender-pay ruling is so ridiculous. Short summary: Suppose your employer was stealing from you for years, but you didn't find out for ten years. If you think you're entitled to something, you're wrong. If you think you should complain within the first 180 days, you're in the majority of the Supreme Court! And if you're a working woman, you can go screw yourself (or allow your employer to keep screwing you)! You've come a long way baby... or not. Sometimes the best option is the Dolly option.

• This article in NYT makes it sound like just finishing a marathon is better than actually, you know, running in the marathon. It's healthier, less stressful, "everyday Everest," etc. But I'm not sure. I mean, it certainly seems like the distance alone is dangerous if you're not properly trained. And it feels to me that a really slow marathon participant (I'm lookin at you Mike Skinner) could be doing himself more damage if it's just a one-off deal.

• Someone voices my evil McGonagall theory about Harry Potter. I think it's fairly persuasive... and worrying. I hope it's not true, but no one is above anything in these books any more.

• How Ted Kennedy kicked Mitt Romney's ass. HuffPost has the ads. It's pretty brutal.

Today's video comes via YourDailyAwesome. Midgets were the first ghost-riders, it turns out.

Memorial

Andrew J. Bacevich has been one of the war's most fervent academic opponents and has written at length about American militarism and the dangers it poses. He was a soldier in a brutal, unpopular war, and a conservative in many traditional aspects of the word. As a sharp critic of the Bush Doctrine, he has noted that neither Democrats nor Republicans have acted in America's best interests, and as a scholar, he has helped lend credence to his brand of paleoconservative isolationism as an alternative to the Iraqi slaughterhouse.

He is also, more importantly than all those things, a father. His son, a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Cavalry, was killed by a suicide bomber on May 13, 2007 south of Samarra. No matter your political leanings, I implore you to consider exactly what it means to "give one's life for one's country." Instead of offering my weak words to honor the dead, I hope that Bacevich's words will suffice (read the whole heart-breaking piece here):

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier -- brave and steadfast and irrepressible.

I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.

But there may be hope that this ungodly war will end, and that Memorial Day next year will not have fresh graves to mourn.