Cool Alert

Just saw a hijab/cleavage combo on a student.

No, Not the Good-Looking George...

A headline from Time raises some questions, my first being...which political masterstoke preceded this one?

Absolutely Awful

Republican evil courtesy of TPM.

A Cartoon

Not many cartoons about villanelles.

Just Do It

Regarding all this nonsense, I think it's worth noting that as a somewhat absent-minded man, I frequently do not know what I am wearing or how I look from minute to minute, day to day, week to week, and so on. That's not necessarily a brilliant way to live, can be disadvantageous, and needs to be addressed from time to time, but there's a real measure of serenity involved in being able to Do Things instead of Worrying About How I Look Doing Things. Who should be denied such serenity if they want it? Whether I'm wearing my tuxedo, codpiece or gorilla suit, nobody bugs me about it, and I'm grateful. People should be able to share my wealth.

The Old Blogroll

Why do I have these blogs blogrolled? I like them, for one, but I actively read them each day. I visit my page, highlight them all and open links in new tabs.

Case by case then:

alicublog

Mean.

Atrios

Mean.

Attaturk

Mean.

Billmon

Mean.

Boing Boing

Fun.

Crooks and Liars

TV.

Firedoglake

Mean.

Google News

News.

Pharyngula

Mean.

The Poor Man

Mean.

Roger Ailes

Mean.

Sadly, No!

Mean.

Talking Points Memo

News.

TBogg

Mean.

Thers

Mean.

Sympathy from the Devil? Nope.

I was listening to NPR this afternoon and there was John Hagee being interviewed by Terry Gross. Wrote this down on a post-it because when Hagee said it it seemed extraordinary, but the guy poops this stuff out all the time. Anyway, referring specifically to Hurricane Katrina: "All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens."

Cranky in Rome

Someone at kuro5hin is upset:

For the worst pizza in Rome, you have to start from the Piazza San Pietro. Face the Basilica, and take the exit from the piazza to your right, fighting your way through crowds of alabastor Americans, as if you were going around to the entrance to the Vatican Museums. At the traffic lights, turn right. The second pizzeria on the right is the one you are looking for. It's called The Swiss Guard, after the clowns who guard His Holiness.

Observe the local customs of creating pizza. Firstly, the base must be thin and dry, and slightly burnt on the bottom. In contrast, the upper surface of the base must be uncooked and as slushy as freshly defouled snow. The tomato sauce must be painfully sweet, denoting its transubstantiation from a powder. The mozzarella must be melted, yet carefully unbrowned - this would add flavour. The prosciutto must have the unhealthy pinkness of a freshly picked scab. No herbs, no pepper, and certainly no salt are added; this would completely ruin the desired sensation of eating medium density fiberboard. Considering that I travelled to Rome primarily because of its reputation for culinary excellence, I must say I was slightly disappointed. The holiday got worse from that point.

Etc.

Pope a Dope

The new pope seems to be a little bit dumb, which I guess is to be expected being a pope and all, but public figures have to watch their mouths.

Still, it'd be nice for public figures to be able to say things about Islam without nitwits shooting nuns and all.

Sweet Satisfaction

Just when you think everything's gone to hell, you find some lemon jello in the fridge. And then you name one of your twins after it.

Porn Defeated

Inside the Mind of James Lileks

9/11 and Personal Conflict

I know someone who makes TV appearances related to 9/11, because a relative died. Every now and then, another appearance and another pledge to maintain the shrine of so-and-so.

The weird part is there's no shrine of so-and-so, and no obvious evidence in the house to show that so-and-so ever existed. There's a replacement for so-and-so, and the family has quite rightly moved on.

Yet a fantasy is generated for the cameras in which this or that of so-and-so's is wept over here and adored there.

I can't tell people how to mourn because it's wrong, I'm awful at it anyway, and the tragedy's a tragedy no matter how you slice it. But my skin crawls.

Is This Better or Worse than "Heckuva"?

Things That Fit on a CD

Since I don't have anything of note to write about, why not music, or a random sampling thereof. This is the last CD I burned for in-car listening:



Method of choosing? Random four or five-star songs, duplicate artists omitted. Seems to be heavy on the oldies, but that's what happens. Part of my problem is a library that I rate as I go: there are many thousands of unrated songs. I may get to a pristine library before death.

Ratings system:
***** I never get tired of hearing this
**** I'm perfectly happy with this but I don't want to hear it all the time
*** Could be better, but offers pleasure
** I'm keeping this around for some reason
* Delete me

The ratings system is purely functional and has nothing to do with a song's cultural or critical worth, thus freeing me from guilt that I'm not listening to Merzbow or the Velvet Underground often enough.

Hard Work, Some Might Say Crazy or Insane or Whacko Work, Pays Off

What's the Opposite of the Sensible Technocrat?

I don't think I understand this argument from Atrios. Although I'm pretty positive I disagree with Brad DeLong about economic policy being more left than he is, this is an argument about expertise. The Sensible Technocrat is an ideal: someone who makes policy based on knowledge. If your argument is that the Sensible Technocrat is not to be trusted, that's an argument against the body of knowledge the technocrat uses, isn't it?

I'm for pragmatic policy. If your argument is that it isn't working, then that's not pragmatic policy and you're not arguing against it.

What a fucking dumbass:

Do you think on the whole, has feminism done more ill than good to America?

Mansfield: Yes, I think it has. Feminism has two main concerns. One is women’s careers, and the other is getting women equal in regard to sex. And it’s in the latter that feminists have done the most damage. But I think we could have welcomed women into the workforce without feminism, and that if we had things would be much better now. But the feminists came along with their notion of creating new identities for women. They thought that this would require that women be as adventurous in sex as men are.

So they made a very strange alliance with sexual liberation and went ahead to play a game that really is a man’s game, the game of sexual conquest. And so they’ve abandoned any standard of sexual morality for either women or men because they were so opposed to the double standard of sexual morality.

Hee Haw Lives

This song meanders through my brain every now and then...the particular joke it's affixed to is always irrelevant...