Space Monsters Rock

Get Your Goat

Ate some mediocre goat a few days ago on vacation abroad, but I'm still a fan.

NYT says yuppies can now eat it.  Whew.

"Modern Day Tragedy"

I'm not so sure about that description...

I hate to trade in species-ist stereotypes, but to me this is more an example of apes going apesh*t.

That, or it's life imitating art.

 

Excellent, Clear Explanation of the Subprime Crisis

Here, on the Litotical Construct blog by my friend "Jack Roy."

Reminder: Report Deadly Peril

No wonder the P.A. system on the subways this morning kept warning everyone to "say something" if they "see something."

As if New Yorkers usually let bombs go unreported to avoid seeming nosy.

 

If I can offer Al Qaida some advice -- to paraphrase Rick in Casablanca -- there are certain sections of New York that I wouldn't advise you to invade.

Ice Age Retro!

The NYT reports that we may be able to re-create wooly mammoths and Neanderthals using their near-relatives as mothers and DNA from the extinct animals' hair.

 

"The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable, and that would be broadly discussed before anyone started to work on it," Dr. [George] Church said.

 

Oh, I'm sure people wouldn't have any problem with ape-protohuman hybrids if you explained that they would be awesome:

 

 

Of course, this is a modification of Russian scientists' plan, reported back in '05.  So it probably won't be done in time for me to ride a mammoth to work this winter.

Everybody's a Critic

No 12-year-old should be aspiring to be a food critic.

In the age of Google, this kid may never live this down.

 

Red State readers, please note that most kids in Manhattan are not dining alone on expensive arugula salads.  Some, I am informed, prefer roasted beets with goat cheese.

All policy, all the time

Topato Potato on criminal justice reform.

"Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”

Is "Joe the Plumber" implying that Barack Obama is secretly Jewish?:

 

"Neighbors were outside asking him questions, and I didn't think they were asking him tough enough questions," he said.

He went on, "You know, I've always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question," he said, "for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance."

He added, "Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr."

At least Obama isn't pretending to be a licensed plumber...

Sylvan Migdal Nails It

Will Wall Street drag Brooklyn over a cliff?

(bonus points for including two of my favorite NYC landmarks -- the Brooklyn Bridge and the WIlliamsburg Bank building)

 

Toles!

Toles!

The Nation Needs His Two Cents

McCain announced that he needs to put off being whupped by Obama in the debate so he can use his complete lack of economic knowledge to help save the economy.
Tenderfoot and I were having people over for beer and shouting at the TV! The Fret in Lafayette! The De-bate in the Dirty State!
If Obama doesn't reject this completely, the Republicans could drag out the bailout legislation until November and blame everything on the Democrats. Or at least until no Friday night prime time slots are left.

So the Markets Are Falling Apart...

...I thought Bear, Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG failing was the end of the world until I just read this:  the IAEA is pretty sure Iran is designing nuclear missiles.

Now that's the end of the world.

Crude!

(pun intended)

 

NYT article on reports by Earl Devaney, the Interior Department's inspector general, about shenanigans at agency that collects oil and gas royalties.  You know, it's just the usual "financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct."

 

According to one report, about one-third of the program's staff accepted prohibited gratuities from oil companies.

 

The report also indicates that staff improperly steered business to former agency employees, abused expense accounts, and accepted tickets to a Toby Keith concert (which should be a capital offense).

 

The program's manager (allegedly) "mixed official and personal business, and took money from a technical services firm in exchange for urging oil companies to hire the firm," and "ha[d] intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine."

 

And on, and on, and on.  A pirate ship has less corruption than this place.  And if it'd been prowling the Gulf when Katrina hit, probably could have saved more people than FEMA did...

 

Anyway, the best excerpt even has a pun:

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers' oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging.

The same two women also "engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts," the reports' cover memo said, adding that "sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

Roger Cohen

...expresses just how I feel when I fly back to the States these days...

My favorite Wikipedia editor's note

This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate details which may only interest a specific audience.

 

See, e.g., klaatu barada nikto. 

Or this great xkcd cartoon.

Our Country Is Now A Game Show

"Barack?" Our future president doesn't even go by his last name?
WHO WILL BE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP OFFICE HOLDER?


So, uh, yes, I DID sign up to be the FIRST TO KNOW.


I think Obama's going to randomly select one person's email and make that person his vice presidential candidate! Kind of like the boule in old Athens...

Keep your fingers crossed -- you could be calling me "Mr. Veep!"

Cejudo!

Here's a great story about Henry Cejudo, who just won the gold in freestyle wrestling at 55 kg for the U.S.

Toddlers with MTA-mania!

This piece in the NYT by Christoph Niemann about his young sons' shared obsession with the NYC subways is bizarre -- and great!

Until TODAY?

Whoa, whoa, whoa--

Robert Mugabe was knighted by the Queen of England, and she only stripped him of his knighthood today?

Scandalous?

Hundreds of Same-Sex Couples Wed in California, reports the NYT.

 

A day for celebration, but ... now that gays can get married in California, am I supposed to disapprove of this couple because they had a baby outside wedlock?

Or... one of them did?  Or they adopted?  Someone help me re-learn how to be judgmental!!

 

 

Also, that baby looks bored.

G3T M0NK3Y B@N@N@, HUM@N!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and you're probably expecting something worthwhile.

And HERE IT IS.

Monkeys controlling robot arms with their brains!!

 

If there has ever been more exciting news, I want a monkey to grab the article and show it to me with a brain-operated robot arm.

 

Seems a little rough on the monkeys, but I'm sure they'll let us know their displeasure in five years when they're tromping through the ruins of Manhattan in their giant robot exoskeletons.  Better have a piece of banana with you then or it's ... WHAM! Robot Arm in Face! time for you and the other human refugees.

Lock and Load, Arizona!

How much do we love guns?

So much that when we're afraid of gun violence, our solution is -- more guns!

Think I'll design a hipster derringer with an integrated MP3 player, cell phone and digital camera so people get used to having guns waved around and pointed at them.  Steve Jobs, are you reading this?

Check This Animation

Very cool.

Here is the guy's website.

Yub! Yub!

Today's NYT reports that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, threatened Israel and accused it of killing terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyeh.
He threatened to take the fight outside the "natural battlefield" of Israel and Lebanon.
Which would be a lot more of a threat of Hezbollah didn't already do things like blow up Jewish community centers in Argentina.
And if he didn't look so much like an Ewok:

Tram Hacker!

A 14-year-old kid in Lodz, Poland built a remote control device that he used to switch the city's trams to different tracks at junctions, causing several derailments and other accidents.

 

This is why I wear a tinfoil hat.  No genius teenager's gonna malfunction my junction!

Mission, Movie, Move?

Overcompensating inspired this inspired trivia quiz in which you guess whether a phrase is an operation in Iraq, an action movie, or a wrestling move.

Iron Fury II?  Three Swords?  Big Boot?

 

 

Watch Out Below

I work in the new New York Times building. On windy days, panes of plate glass occasionally snap off the skyscraper and shatter on the sidewalk below.
And hurt people.

Another one blew off today, on the 40th street side of the building.

I think that deep down the architect, Renzo Piano, believes he won't be respected as an artist until his work kills someone. Like Christo with that killer beach umbrella.

In apparently unrelated news, building management just announced that the birch and moss garden in the lobby will now house three live velociraptors behind new "unbreakable" glass.

Work Is Heck

Goats!

This comic is in no way reflective of my law firm experience.

1) We don't sit around getting to know each other.

2) We can't go shirtless in the office.

3) I think the demon on the right is smiling.

Also:
I love donuts.

I work right near a Dunkin' Donuts.

Their donuts are terrible.

Why did God create evil in the world?

Gorilla Inflation

Go ahead and Google "pound gorilla" -- as in "Microsoft is the 500 pound gorilla" -- and I think you'll see a trend of disturbing inflation in gorilla weight.

 

Used to be a silverback tipping the scales at a mere quarter ton was the metaphorical tough guy who everyone else had to respect.

 

Now I see mention of the 600-, 700-, 800-, 900-, and even thousand-pound gorilla.  I mean, big silverbacks weigh about 440 pounds, maybe 500, with obese captive gorillas reaching 600 lbs.  Do bananas now grow to five pounds each to feed these horse-sized gorillas? 

 

The idiom isn't about diabetic apes eating tourists' thrown Doritos.  Just because we've all seen 800 pound humans on Oprah doesn't mean a gorilla half that size couldn't beat the snot out of the five strongest humans at once. 

 

This is an animal that can punch you so hard your shoes will bruise and your 400-pound gorilla bodyguard will retire and teach middle-school P.E.

 

I am calling on the Federal Reserve to raise the interzoo rate on gorilla flesh half a point to bring the weight of the "X-pound gorilla" back down to a fighting trim 500 pounds.  You can do your part, too, by referring to "the 500 pound gorilla" in conversation and adding, "..that really is as big as a gorilla needs to be to really, you know, be as big and strong as any gorilla."  Catchy!

Tendency to Shade the Truth

NYT has a great headline for its article about Mitt Romney's habit of saying self-serving things that are not true: 

Romney Shows a Tendencey to Imprecision

The whole article reads like someone went through and replaced instances of "inaccurate" and "false" with "imprecise."

George Washington said, "I cannot tend to imprecision.  I chopped down the cherry tree."

 

In other news, I just got back from a lifetime of hunting with my good buddy, MLK.  We shot a fish this big.

Escape from New Jersey

These two sound like bad guys who belong in prison.

So why is it so cool that they escaped?

And aren't there any construction techniques that can keep someone from scraping a hole in a wall with a piece of wire?

Matadoritos!

Baby matadors killing baby bulls in Mexico!

Is there anything cuter?  If there is I don't wanna hear about it.

Unless it's baby gladiators.  Someone?  North Korea?

Superhell. It totally sucks there.

I love Goats.

Fee? Fie!

I love the headline:  Judge Reverses $457 Million Ruling Against Forestry Giant

 

Forestry Giant no like adverse judgment!!  Forestry Giant smash!!

Ecce Ahmadinejad

NYT reports that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University today.

 

I know exactly how this happened.  Columbia President Lee Bollinger had to weigh the pros and cons...

Cons:  Ahmadinejad's country has recently imprisoned and tortured Americans; has likely armed Shia militias in Iraq with armor-piercing bombs; Admadinejad denies that the Holocaust happened; he wants to destroy the state of Israel; Iran is developing nuclear weapons; and giving Ahmadinejad even a hostile reception at a prestigious American university appears to legitimize his wicked nonsense.

Pros: Bollinger vs. World Famous Villain will be TELEVISED.  The Fight's in Morningside Heights.  One ticket buys the whole seat ... BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!!!

Cons never had a chance.

 

Ahmadinejad got to complaint that Bollinger wasn't a very hospitable host.  If he'd really wanted to warm up the crowd he should've said, "I just flew in from Tehran.  Boy are my arms tired!"

Anyway. 

 

As the NYT noted, a flier at the event read: "Bollinger, too bad Bin Laden is not available. You could have presented him with some tough questions too."

In-deed.

 

Oh! Oh!  And he said there are no gays in Iran!! 

I had a friend in college who was born in Iran (although he was ethnically Armenian) and told us a fantastic story about his grandmother.  The grandmother told her grandsons (all then living in Los Angeles) that there were no gays in Armenia.

They said to her, "Oh, come on, grandma.  Of course there are gays in Armenia."

But she was adamant.  She said, "No!  There was one gay in Armenia once.  His name was [Armenian name I can't recall].  But they killed him!"

I think what I like about the story is that she claimed to know the name of the one guy who'd been gay and Armenian.  But died.  Presumably, leaving no offspring.

 

Ahmadinejad, you should totally have adapted that story for your speech!  Maybe next time, when you speak at NYU?

Germany: 1 Terrorists: 0

The Associated Press reports that German police arrested three guys who were planning to use 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to make explosives (sounds like a lot of TATP) for blowing up Americans there.

At the risk of offending the various terrorist sleeper cells, these guys generally don't seem very competent. 

 

Pb

Sorry about the light posting lately, loyal readers.

 

Newsflash!

Everything from China contains lead.  Or other poison.

No doubt we'll see more factory heads "committing suicide" soon.

What I Said

Today's Memailed NYT Editorial is so copying my post from yesterday about Bush commuting Scooter Libby's prison term:

Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.

I almost feel... <sniff> like my post was memailed!

Scooter Escapes Justice

So it looks like President Bush has finally fulfilled his promise to be a "compassionate conservative" by commuting the prison sentence of Scooter Libby, convicted of obstruction of justice, false statements and perjury.

 

According to the President's statement:

I respect the jury's verdict.  But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

What's less excessive than 30 months?  No months!

 

Honestly, I don't understand why Bush didn't just pardon Libby. 

This halfway measure will leave his supporters grumpy, knowing Bush "respect[s] the ... verdict" that says Libby lied to keep secret the President's wrongdoing. 

And it won't fool the people who know Libby should go to jail for his crimes.

 

More important, all the other people in the administration who are lying and breaking the law for the President are now thinking, "Is that all the support I can expect from the President?  I sacrifice my integrity and subvert the government to his whim and in return he reduces my sentence?  Where'd I put the number for my old classmate at the Times?"

The Scarlet Blog

Thomas Friedman has a column in today's NYT (sorry, it's Times Select -- fancy!) with more about how the young'uns and how the whole world is diff'rent now, man.

The world is flat!  This time, it's because of blogs and MySpace and Facebook and JDate.

Friedman's theory this time is that if you act stupid or nasty on the Internet as a wee nerdling, your stupidity or nastiness could make you famous for stupidity and nastiness.  Forevah! -- on account of the bits and bytes persist on the Internet for all time and are available as cached Google pages to any potential date, employer, in-law, landlord, friend, prosecutor, persecutor, or stalker.

According to the fad book he quotes today ("How," by Dov Seidman), "The tapestry of human behavior is so varied, so rich and so global that it presents a rare opportunity, the opportunity to outbehave the competition." (emphasis Friedman's)

Ah, what a rare opportunity the Internet has given us.  I can hardly wait to see everyone competing to outbehave me on the Internet.

PWNED, n00b!  U call that b3h@vng?!

Now, to be fair, the Friedman article kinda mushes together the effect on businesses (who may in fact be shamed into behaving) with the effect on individuals, but...

...anyone who looks at the Internet, which basically enables numberless opportunities for anonymously acting like a complete jerk, and sees it as an opportunity for outbehaving... hasn't really looked at the Internet.

New Digs

So, my work is now in the fancy new New York Times Building.

Closer to White Castle .

  Closer to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

     Closer to enough adult DVD shops to summon a revenant Andrea Dworkin (spoo-oooky!).

And, of course, closer to the fount of all things memailed!

Five Boroughs for Fifty States

In light of hints from current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg that he'll run for president as an independent, and polls showing former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani is in the lead among the GOP crowd and current New York senator Hillary ahead among the Dems, isn't it time?

Time to move the capital out of that boring, hazy, institutional burg on the Potomac and back to the Big Apple where it belongs?

 

On second thought, the Pentagon might not be ready.  As Rick said to Major Strasser, "Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

Philosopher's Stone

From today's NYT (memailed!):

IN a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in
a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles
to the men’s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine,
he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar,
a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.

Okay, now we have the method for turning pork into human. If only Og had known that when the Evil Genius turned him all piggy.

But the real Philosopher's Stone is turning pork into something kosher-- maybe goat?

Sore Thumb

One of these terr'rists is not like the others,
One of these terr'rist does not belong!


Um, maybe that tall blond guy dressed like a lumberjack?

Soldier (whispering): Ted -- Hey, Ted! How's the infiltration op going?
Ted (whispering): Shhh!!! You're going to blow my cover! I'm this close to taking down Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia!
Al Qaeda Suspect #1 (in Arabic): One of us is speaking to the American soldier in English!
Al Qaeda Suspect #2 (in Arabic): An infiltrator among us!
Al Qaeda Suspect #3 (in Arabic): A betrayer!
Al Qaeda Suspect #1 (in Arabic): Were it not for these blindfolds we could identify him!
Al Qaeda Suspect #2 (in Arabic): Fiddlesticks!
Al Qaeda Suspect #1 (in Arabic): Abu Elvis, can you tell who it is?
Ted (in Arabic): Alack, no. Sorry, y'all.
Al Qaeda Suspect #2 (in Arabic): Tarnation!

Civil Wars Getting a Bad Rap?

The NYT reports that:

The first aerial survey of southern Sudan in 25 years has revealed vast migrating herds, rivaling those of the Serengeti plains, that have managed to survive 25 years of civil war, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Southern Sudan will announce today at a news conference in New York.

So . . . civil war . . . is . . . good for endangered species?

No, don't try to talk me out of it.  Too late.  Deducto, Master of Inference, is way ahead of you. 

Now, let's watch the Caspian tiger population rebound in Iraq!

Goat in Himmel

I've written before (here and here) on how noble is the humble goat (also check out webcomic Goats, which I've been reading for a while and whose excellence was recently recognized in PC Magazine).

In another memailed article, the NYT is reporting that, in addition to

• tasting delicious
• substiting for the human sacrifice of Isaac
• protecting tenants from Plagues in Egypt (with their, um, blood on the lintel)
• carrying off people's sins (scapegoats)
• weaning farmers off tobacco production
• easing the transition of Somali refugees
• removing weeds in place of pesticides
• preventing forest fires by grazing on brush
• fighting trolls
• giving us goat cheese, and
• making fancy sweaters

...goats also help free the South from the invasive kudzu vine .

 

Time to step up, other forms of livestock!

Remedial Lessons in Terrorist Tradecraft

I lived in Fort Dix when I was tiny, and one of my younger sisters was born there.  My Dad was a doctor in the Army for a short stretch.  I called the place "Four Ducks," apparently influenced more by the presence of ducks than by veneration for a Civil War general.  I remember my sister in a high chair and Tonka trucks and, lessee ... a lamp I had shaped like a clown.  Yes, Fort Dix rocks.

 

Now some would-be terr'rists wanna attack it? 

 

The New York Times reports that Yugoslavian brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, along with another Yugoslavian guy, a Jordanian guy and a Turkish guy decided to form a little terror cell in New Jersey and attack an Army base. 

 

Based on a map one of them obtained while visiting the base in his job as a pizza deliveryman.

 

So they trained with deadliest guns and ran in deadlist woods and plotted deadliest plots and thought deadliest thoughts. 

Plus, one was named "Dritan," which already sounds like the name of a villain.  Or like the name of a nasal spray.

 

Their Achilles' heel?  They made a DVD of themselves shooting guns in the air while "calling for jihad and shouting Allah Akbar."  And then went to a store to have copies made.  A store employee found it "disturbing" and called the Law, who agreed.

 

Jack Bauer, we hardly need ye. 

#$%^ A Duck!

In a Memailed article, the NYT reports that male ducks grow enormous spiral phalluses.

 

Why? 

 

Turns out male ducks rape female ducks a lot, and it's better for a female duck if she can reproduce with the mate she chooses (think of all the loser male ducks you know and it makes sense).

So female ducks evolved to have long, labyrinthine oviducts, and the males had to evolve matching phalluses just to keep up and compete with other males.

 

And I thought being oviparous was all mating-for-life and "March of the Penguins."  Yecch.

I'm Not Worthy!

Today at BJJ, Georges St. Pierre came to train.

A really nice guy, but I'm happy not to have sparred with him today!

 

Heroes

If you didn't love Heroes before, you have to love it now that it has Eric Roberts in it.

Eric Roberts? From Best of the Best?

Watch out, Heroes crew:  If I were an eccentric billionaire and Chris Penn hadn't died, I'd get the whole cast together for a live theater production of that movie.  It'd be bigger than Lion King , and Eric Roberts would be recognized for the acting-as-a-character-whose-shoulder-is-dislocated genius he is.

Super News Roundup! Suicide! Gay Cars! Corzine Crash!

The AP reports that a man jumped off the Empire State Building today (and died).

According to the article, someone called the police after seeing a severed leg (wearing a sock) on the street below.

Kudos to the NYPD for its powers of deduction-- police found the leg's owner (minus one leg, and one sock -- Aha!) on a setback on the 30th floor.

 

I presume the AP described the victim as "a lawyer in his 30s" to make the story seem less sad? 

Although the jumper wasn't named, you can probably deduce from this post (and from my general attachment to being alive) that the lawyer in his 30s was not The Litvak.

 

---

 

Also, the NYT adds to its hard-hitting coverage of "metrosexuals" and "man dates" with its report that some cars are "gay."  Bravo to Alex Williams, the Alfred Kinsey of automobiles.

 

---

 

And in related news, I believe New Jersey governor Jon Corzine's near-fatal car crash yesterday, which took place when an "apparently out-of-control driver" swerved into the police vehicle carrying Corzine should be investigated as a hate crime.  Against Corzine's gay car.

Isn't it hard enough being a gay police car?  I wouldn't know, but I imagine it is.  Maybe former Gov. McGreevey would know.

 

I wish Gov. Corzine a speedy recovery-- he's broken his left leg, sternum, collarbone, six ribs on each side and a lower vertebra.  That's 16 bones!  I don't think I even have that many bones!

I'm not a doctor, but I'm convinced the best therapy for Corzine is to just lace his skeleton with adamantium.

That'll be cool for when he's healed up and fights The Governator on top of the White House.

The Onion on Memailed

Check out this great piece from The Onion on the NYT's Memailed list.

Plural of Ho

NYT reports on radio host Don Imus's breast-beating over his inappropriate remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team:

Mr. Imus last week described Rutgers University's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's," and then days later said everyone needed to relax and should not be offended by "some idiot comment meant to be amusing."

 

First, Imus should be fired.  So says this blog.  This blog, which is an authoritative source on journalistic ethics.  Which represents the moral judgment of the community.  Which the powerful read and quake (if they're bad).  Which the oppressed read it and wonder if I'm calling them SHPOSes.

 

Second, should there be an apostrophe used when creating a plural of the word "ho"?  Is it "ho's" and not "hos"?

I need to know.

Black Belt

My old Brazilian Jujitusu (BJJ) instructor-- featured in this post twisting some poor guy into a pretzel at a tournament-- just received his black belt from Renzo Gracie last night.

I didn't know he'd been promoted when I went to train this morning, but I should have known when I saw he had "the glow."

 

The Stare

NYT reports that NYC is using "three aggressive border collies" to scare Canada geese away from eating and pooping on the Kentucky bluegrass in the Sheep Meadow and Great Lawn in Central Park.
Geese, it seems, don't sweat the small stuff and can learn to ignore what's not really gonna eat them (arm-waving humans, most dogs).
But specially-trained border collies "are able to frighten geese via 'the stare,' a particular look and stance that leads geese to conclude that the dogs are predators."
(collie doing "the stare" pictured above)

"I say," one goose says to another, "do you see the look that collie is giving us?"
"I do indeed," says the other goose, biting on the stem of an unlit pipe, "but whatever shall I conclude from it?"
"Well, we must eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"No! Then you're saying that..."
"Yes! I conclude that dog is a predator. Let us remove."
And they poop elsewhere.

Now NYC just needs to hire collies to do a "particular look" that leads people to conclude that they'll be torn limb from bloody limb if they are rude on the subway.

Slow News Day?

Clearly there's not enough people dying in real conflicts; the New York Times is reporting on the death of comic-book character Captain America.  I think the story is that he was killed by a crazy astronaut woman who was in love with him.

 

Sniff... only the super die young...

 

Omo Plata!

Click here to see a clip of my old Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor's 2/17/07 match at "Grapplerquest." 

(He's the one who wins in a few seconds with an omo plata)

Go Jason!

Internet to Litvak: I Miss You

Sorry about the posting hiatus, loyal reader(s?).  I was turned off of the Internet after that "belly punching" thing.  Yecch.

But thanks to Girls are Pretty posts like this one, I'll bravely live to click again.

Regarding Last Post

I have never been so sorry I Googled something, ever.
NSFW (Not safe for work).
Bad The Internet! Bad!

Belly Punching?

So, the search engine elves in Google's servers have started sending more people to links of my descriptions of Brazilian Ju Jitsu techniques .

 

Which is kinda neat.  Except that I've seen more than one who got to the "Knee on Belly" position by searching for "belly punching."

 

I mean, granted, these searches are from places where English isn't the predominant language, but, yechh, what are they looking for?

If it isn't something wholesome like a instructions of how to immobilize someone by putting all you weight on his solar plexus with your knee, they're going to be very disappointed. 

 

Seriously, if you know what "belly punching" searchers are looking for and it's not going to further erode my respect for the Internet, let me know.

Imagine There's No Intellectual Property / It's Easy if You Try

WARNING:  Law-related post

 

So Steve Jobs('s lawyers?) wrote an aw-shucks-folks open letter basically responding to legal attack in Europe that claims Apple's Digital Rights Management (DRM) software locks competitors out of its iTunes service.

 

He says the status quo is great (Apple's DRM won't play with others). 

 

He rules out licensing Apple's DRM software (what the lawsuits presumably seek to compel) because then the secrets of the software would come out and it wouldn't work as copy protection anymore as employees of companies less noble and trustworthy than employees of Apple help crack the software.

 

Or, Jobs says, we could get rid of DRM altogether, and all music would be unprotected, and he says that'd be fine, too.  Fine with him, he means, but he knows the music companies would rather have someone pay for their music.

 

This is the CEO equivalent of a kid who's told to share his Halloween candy with his younger sibling and responds that he earned that scarce candy and splitting up candy is difficult and reduces incentives to gather candy and besides, the real problem is:  Candy isn't free.  His little brother could have as much candy as he wanted if only society didn't insist that we place legal protections on it.  Share the sweetness, man.

 

The interesting question in my mind is whether Apple's agreements with the music publishers would even allow Apple to license the DRM software to manufacturers of other music players.  Not that my vast knowledge of European antitrust law tells me whether that would matter legally.  But it might matter that a decision against Apple could mean it loses the right to distribute all the music governed by agreements with the music publishers...

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Astronauts

Astronaut's Stalker Kidnap Kit:

• Car
• "Adult diapers" (so you won't have to stop in public and use a restroom)
• Disguise:  trenchoat, dark wig, sunglasses (everyone knows you-- you're a famous astronaut!)
• $600 in cash (don't create a paper trail by buying gas with a credit card)
• BB Gun ("Get outta the car or I'll shoot you with this real gun!)
• Pepper Spray ("Take that, rival for other astronaut's affections!")
• Rubber gloves (don't leave fingerprints)
• Rubber tubing ("Hold still a minute...")
• Love letters ("'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'  You stole from the Bard!")
• Steel mallet (You don't want to know)
• 4-inch folding knife (ditto)

Gluttony in the BK!

The Amateur Gourmet (a friend of Tenderfoot) reviews some Park Slope restaurants .

His review of Franny's is spot-on.  My shorter review:  That is some damn fine pizza.

I'll have to eat my way through the other places in the 'hood.  Though, technically, I live in Prospect Heights, on the other side of Flatbush.

NYT Goes all "Forrest Gump" About Horses

The NYT Editorial page is determined to lionize horses with this dimwitted piece about Barbaro, the racehorse who was just put down.

The piece asks "Why should we feel so much grief at the loss of one horse?"
I hadn't felt so much grief, so I wanted to know.
The way I saw it, plenty of noble cattle were slaughtered for t-bones today and I wasn't sad. For that matter, dozens of Iraqi people were blown up at the bazaar this week and I went to work anyway. What's so special about Barbaro that I'm supposed to be wearing sackcloth and ashes?

The Times explains the answer, which is something about how Barbaro was a very athletic horse. And, of course, "It was tragic because of what every horse is."

And what is every horse?

You would have to look a long, long time to find a dishonest or cruel horse. And the odds are that if you did find one, it was made cruel or dishonest by the company it kept with humans. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every horse — Barbaro included — is pure of heart.

Oh, good thing you qualified that with nearly every horse. I mean, you wouldn't want people thinking the NYT was defending Hitler's horse, or the Four Horses of the Apocalypse (steeds to the Horsemen).

And the statistics about dishonest horses' bad human influences ("odds are") are an indispensable disclaimer for people who are considering entering into business dealings with horses. You wouldn't want to be swindled by that one sneaky horse who's been around people. Make sure that if you're lending money to a horse he hasn't picked up any filthy human vices.

Other than that, I think the NYT has convinced me that every day, in every way, I will strive to become more and more like a horse.

Lithuanian Visitor to Litvak Chronicles

Today at around 5:00 am the blog got what I believe is my first Lithuanian visitor!  Or, at least, my first visitor with a URL in Lithuania:

 

Domain Name		takas.lt ? (Lithuania)
IP Address		82.135.243.# (Joint Stock Company Lietuvos Telekomas)
ISP		Lietuvos Telekomas
Location		Continent  :  Europe Country  :  Lithuania   (Facts) State/Region  :  Vilniaus Apskritis City  :  Vilnius Lat/Long  :  54.6833, 25.3167 (Map) Distance  :  4,319 miles
Language		Lithuanian

 

I guess he was searching for Litvaks and this blog is the 7th listing for "Litvak" on Google Lithuania .

I'm famous!

 

Testimony for Sale!

If you want to confirm that some plaintiffs' lawyers are slimy, check out this piece about the fee dispute between law firm Thelen Reid and guy from France Francois Marland.

 

The case involved a whistleblower suit on Marland's behalf against a consortium of French banks who'd used a shell company to secretly buy an insolvent California insurance company in violation of California law restricting foreign ownership of insurance companies.

Deep breath. 

Yawn--  I mean... the plot thickens.

 

When the California Department of Insurance brought a suit, too, Thelen got Marland's permission to represent it as well. 

(Legal Ethics Rule #1:  You can represent clients with potentially conflicting interests unless they waive the conflict -- and sometimes not even then.  Actually, this is the only ethical rule most big firm lawyers deal with frequently.)

 

Under the fee-sharing agreement, Thelen Reid provided legal services and Marland and some lawyers he put together would secure documents and testimony ... especially Marland's testimony. 

 

The article notes that "[t]he fee-sharing agreement in the dispute has raised the hackles of legal ethicists, who say some provisions skate dangerously close to buying Marland's testimony."  Actually, it looks like they fell through the ice.

 

And stop snickering at the phrase "legal ethicists."

 

In the 1999 version of their agreement, "Marland and a group of lawyers he'd assembled would receive 52.5 percent of Thelen's take (65 percent if the case settled quickly). The large cut would be in exchange for securing documents and testimony, among other services. A later amendment would reduce Marland's cut by two-thirds if he failed to testify at all, and by half if he testified only before the grand jury but not during the civil trial."

 

If that's "not buying testimony" then Murder, Inc. was "not hiring contract killers."

 

The article makes a big deal out of the fact that Marland wasn't a lawyer at the time of the first fee-sharing agreement (it's okay to fee-share only with a lawyer).  But even if he'd been a lawyer, that doesn't mean you can pay for his testimony. 

 

Hey, maybe that could be Litvak's Rule of Legal Ethics, if it were a rule of legal ethics.  Actually, it's just law that applies to everyone.  You can't sell testimony.  Even if you're a lawyer!

Go figure.

Lore: Funny :: Google : Information

I mean it.  Check out this piece.

I'm ashamed to say I got the Shadowrun reference at the very end.

China: Orphans Need Svelte Parents

The NYT has an article about China's restrictive adoption policies.

According to the article, among other restrictions, "the new regulations call for a body mass index of less than 40."

 

So, if you're trying to decide whether you want fries with that, think about whether you also want to adopt a Chinese baby.  FYI.

Missile, Schmissile

China developed a "satellite killer" missile and yesterday used it to destroy one of its own satellites. The New York Times reports that this action challenges the United States's supremacy in SPACE.

Pentagon officials now plan to use our own missiles to shoot down all of our satellites.

(I'll be here all week! Take my wife, please!)

For Every Thing There Is a Season

It's too much SHPOSiness for one day.  Delicate readers may want to skip the rest of the post...

 

This afternoon I stepped into a bathroom stall at work and whoever used it last didn't flush.

Yes, but "grosser than gross"-- no toilet paper in the bowl.

No toilet paper! In! The bowl!

And I don't think he took it with him, either.

I'm going to stop shaking hands.

 

With these people, the time for "this is how big people do it" is way past.  And the time for methodical harpooning is long overdue.

SHPOSes Ascendant

This past weekend, Tenderfoot's bike was stolen off the bike rack across the street from the police station.

 

This morning, I came outside and someone had stripped the front wheel off my bike.  I don't think anyone else on the block has had a bike touched, but we've each had our seats stolen, and now this.

 

Then, I step onto the B train and into-- a pile of (what I really hope was) dogshit.

Dogshit.  In the train.

 

I take back the nice things I said about New York.

$250m for 5 years

The Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team just signed a 5-year, $250 million contract with David Beckham.

I hear they offered him a cool billion, but he refused their condition (leaving Posh in Europe).

 

 

Some SHPOSes, but some Mensches, too

I know I complain about our SHPOSes a lot, but New York had lots of decent, admirable people.

When a man had a seizure and fell onto the subway tracks, Wesley Autrey jumped down and saved him , lying with the man between the rails as the No. 1 train screeched to a halt over their heads.

PIMPING

This YouTube link to a weird animated German music video's kinda interesting...

(Hat Tip: Lore)

Five THOUSAND Visits

If you check out the "visitor counter" at the bottom of this blog, you may notice that I've just passed the 5,000 visit mark.
Five thousand hits in about two years. Really, it's a testament to you, my throngs of readers.

For those of you who have a difficult time wrapping your mind around a number as large as 5,000, let me make it a little easier.

First, divide by two, because half those hits are probably from me visiting to marvel at my own cleverness.

Then remove another 500 for people who clicked through from Google image search looking for the picture of a goat and another picture of Parker Posey.

Now it's down to a slightly less mind-boggling 2,000 visits (thank you, Google spreadsheets!)

In Biblical times, when people lived to be several hundred years old, many of the most compulsive and brilliant thinkers would spend their entire adult lives counting to see if numbers like 2,000 existed or were merely theoretical. Historical sources tell us many of them went mad, but whether it was due to the endless counting or the consciousness-altering secrets contained in such numbers was never recorded.
Then people died off at around 35 for a few thousand years, and until the invention of computers "one thousand" was still just a story told to scare naughty children.

Now we know that even larger numbers exist-- numbers like a million, and that great worm of naughts and commas, the billion. The consensus among scientists is that there are about a billion things in the universe, give or take 1,000.

And 5,000, give or take 1,000, is how many visits there have been to my blog.
Excelsior!

Hang In There!

So the FDA is having a hearing about whether antidepressant labels should mention the risk of increased suicidal thinking.

 

Well, that's an interesting thought-- you're seriously depressed and your pill bottle says:

"Hey, man.  You ever think about just ending it all?  Eat me, and that could happen.  Happen more, that is.  Life is hard.  So hard."

 

I think a better label would say something like:
"Hey, man!  No pill is perfect, but this pill can help some!  Hang in there, things will turn around.  Come on-- would it kill you to at least finish the prescription?"

I Regret That He Has But One Life to Give for His Country

So, Ahmadinejad?

I hear you're hosting a conference in Tehran to debate whether the Holocaust really happened. 

You pretend millions of Jews weren't murdered and you state that the purpose of your nuclear weapons program is to kill another few million, which is okay because that hasn't really happened before.

All kinds of crackpot anti-Semites are scurrying to bathe in your glow-- David Duke, Robert Faurisson and various other "Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars and white supremacists from around the world." 

I hear even Red Skull is giving a talk.

Dammit, Mahmoud, you're making it awfully tempting to drop bombs on Tehran.  I wish we were too smart to fall for it ... but less every day.

Ancient Computer Rocks the Classical World

This NYT piece describes new research on the Antikythera Mechanism, built in the 2nd century B.C. to predict the movement of the moon.
2100 years later, and we're finally almost as cool as the Greeks were then.

Separated at Birth-- And Mama Only Loved One

They just have the same beguiling ne'er-do-well thing going on, is all.

And Who Will Police The Police?

So, uh.  Iraq is in the news again.

 

Gunmen dressed in Iraqi police uniforms and driving what appeared to be official vehicles rounded up scores of people inside a government building here today and drove off with them.

***

A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police, announced on state television several hours afterward that orders had been issued for the arrest of several police commanders who were responsible for the area where the kidnappings took place.

The kidnapping prompted an anguished address on the floor of Parliament, carried live on television, by Abed Thiab al-Ajili, the higher education minister and a member of the country's largest Sunni political bloc.

Mr. Ajili reported that 100 to 150 people had been taken, including employees and visitors to the building. He said he had repeatedly asked the government for additional security to protect his ministry and members of the university community, who have been under threat since collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime.

 

Arrest warrants have been issued for police commanders in connection with a 150-person kidnapping.

Iraq is seeking any police who are willing to try to serve the warrants, or anyone who will dress as police...

It don't take a brain surgeon to piece this one together

NY Times: "Neanderthals in Gene Pool, Study Suggests"

 

I thought they might be referring to my study of the sidewalks of New York.

 

Turns out the study has something to do with the distribution of a variant of a gene that regulates brain size.  Homo Sapiens - Neanderthal loving about 37,000 years ago, they say. 

 

Some days, I wish I could believe in Genesis.

Dowd Sizzles, Dubya Fizzles (Memailed)

Ouch! (Times Select, sorry, folks)

 

From Dowd's memailed column:

 

Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they're taking it back. 

****

Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes.

 

 

 

Teapot D'oh!

Q:  What's the difference between President Grant and President Bush?

A:  Grant ended a civil war.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Tenderfoot and I have talked about her moving out to Brooklyn-- my neighborhood is a lot less expensive and very livable (although she does live 2 blocks from work, which is a blessing of a sort).  I live in a nice one bedroom "floor-through" in a 3-story townhouse, convenient to good subways (the B, Q and 2/3) and close to Prospect Park.  I love the park and have been biking around it lately.  Plus, my mishpachah lives about 1/2 mile away.

 

I pay less than 2/3 of what TF is paying for her studio in a luxury building in Hell's Kitchen.  TF is the one who found my present apartment, sweet-talking the landlord into giving it to me instead of the hordes of other interested apartment-seekers.  He loves her and is always asking after her.  I think the rent I'm paying is probably below market because that the neighborhood has gotten safer and schamncier.  Occasional SHPOS harpoonings aside, however, I am an excellent tenant and add panache to any stoop.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I paid off a big chunk of my law school loans and was telling TF about it.  She said that she oughta move to Brooklyn.  Thing is, TF's family wouldn't like us living together.  They wouldn't like us dating either, but that's a whole other blog post.

 

So I asked her where she wanted to live in Brooklyn-- which neighborhoods, near which trains, etc.  TF said she wanted to be close to me-- one commute (to work) is enough -- near the same trains, safe, etc.  I set up this Craigslist search and said I'd check out some listings because I know the area.

 

Then TF says the best solution would be if she could move into the apartment on the third floor of my building.  Now, this is a very silly thing to say because (1) look alive, come on, renting two apartments in a 3-unit building? and (2) someone lives there.  No matter, we discuss this for twenty minutes.  The pros (maintain illusion for TF's family, proximity to Chez Litvak, cost) and cons (ridicule by friends, lack of near-work apartment, basically paying two rents for a big apartment with two kitchens, more ridicule).  I was on the "con" side, but mostly 'cause I thought it'd be silly.

 

I mention another con-- what if we broke up?

TF said she'd pour water on her floor to flood me, play loud music, etc.  I volunteered that I'd fill my landing with Rottweiller puppies (TF is terrified of dogs).  With all the contingencies addressed, we started talking about something else.  Probably how I knew Dr. Gray from Gray's Anatomy wasn't going to end up with Dr. McDreamy anytime soon. (Reason?  Then there's no plot left in the show.  Instead of whatver plot you get from intoning "Ally McBeal does surgery" over and over.)

 

Less than a week later, I'm browsing the Internet and check Craigslist.  In the list I see a 1BR with... my address.  For a moment, I think my landlord is renting my apartment!  Of course, it's the apartment above me.  The woman who lives there (it turned out) had just decided to move in with her boyfriend and posted the listing that morning.  I e-mailed TF, who called me back, excited, and I got excited, and TF called the woman who lives upstairs and my landlord... pre-empted another crowd of apartment hunters and is moving in on November 1st!

 

We're not sure if it's Destiny or silly coincidence or temptation from the Devil.  But I think it's pretty cool, if totally ridiculous.  Wish me luck with my new neighbor!

Movie Review: The Departed

The Depahted.

Matt Damon plays a "Southie" mole in the Massachusetts State Police (the "Staties"); DiCaprio plays a Southie Statie deep undercover among Southie gangsters run by Jack Nicholson.  Not a character played by Jack Nicholson, as far as I could tell, but by Jack himself.

High Concept?  Think "Good Will Hunting" meets "Reservoir Dogs."  But with even more blood.  And the characters all drop their "r"s.

 

The best thing in the movie is Mark Wahlberg playing a character who is supposed to be a cop or something, but whose job appears to be to drive every other character into a frothing rage with inappropriate insults taken to extremes.

Example:

DiCaprio:  Thanks fah meeting me, Sa(r)ge..  I'm sca(r)ed Jack Nicholson is gonna kill me, pa(r)k my ca(r).

Wahlberg:  #&(%! your mother.  I'm going to let them gut you and then I'll #&$! your dead %$^*!.

DiCaprio:  What's you(r) problem?  I wo(r)k fo(r) you.  I need your help.

Wahlberg:  Are you listening to me, #&$!*?  I'm too tired to help you after all the $(*%!@ your sister %$*#! $^^(#!$ on %^(!@ and $^*&!)#.  Oh, and ^$^&)(*&@!.

DiCaprio: ?

 

Not a bad movie.

No Time For Losers Cause We Are The Champions

Thanks to Jack Roy for this link about an insane lying Yale undergrad and his bizarre self-promotion, cons, and especially, his autobiographical video of how AWESOME he is. Read it, watch it.
Of course his name makes it pretty likely he's a member of the tribe-- and me without the power to cast him out.

That's a Hot Falafel

So, I wanted to make sure the best Lebanese place in New York -- Carroll Gardens' own Zaytoons-- is open for dinner tonight, and when I tried to open their webpage, I got this!:







Silly the Internet.
I'll have to check out that hot falafel-on-pita action at home.

First you get the money. Then you . . . give back the money.

Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, the brothers who ran the Cali drug cartel in Colombia, pled guilty and were sentenced to 30 years in a federal court in Miami.

They agreed to pay $2.1 billion in forfeiture.

The Miami US Attorney's office is definitely getting a better coffee machine.

Then again, there's these guys.

Ordinarily, I feel envious of other countries' leaders.  They just seem to be more impressive than ours.  The greatest sign of the power of the U.S. is that it can survive so many mediocre presidencies. 

But other countries need sharp, competent leaders.  And often have them, too.

Even the tyrannical ones are generally bright and well-informed-- Uncle Mushu is a badass, and so is Putin.

 

Then again, there's these guys...

"Guess which hand is hiding the uranium?  Go ahead, guess!"

Even Educated Fleas Do It

From the 9/27/06 Goats:
Some days the world makes more sense to me when I start from the axiom that we're all really puppets on the hands of a petulant intelligent broccoli god.

Thirty Thousand Feet Under the Sea

NYT reports that Chevron, Devon Energy and Statoil ASA have discovered an oil deposit in the Gulf of Mexico that boosts the U.S. petroleum reserve by about 50 percent.

Thirty thousand feet under the sea.

I just want everyone to know that that's really really deep.  It would take me a long time just to fall that far.

Litvak's Law #1

The world is composed of two kinds of people:  Those who cannot do the simplest things right, and those who can only do the simplest things right.

I'll Demote an Axe in Yer Gangly Shanks!

So, tha New York Times says tha International Astronomical Union has "demoted" Pluto to tha status of "dwarf planet."

Demoted, eh?
Well, we Dwarves will nae take this sitting down!
An', nae, I am not sitting down! I'm just short! A short Dwarf! Aye!
An' we don't need a Dwarf Planet. We have Earth, ye smooth-faced, uh, lanky type!

I guess that's all I hae ta say. Apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, an' to Scotland fer borrowin' yer dialect.

Baruk Khazad! Khazad aimenu!

Amen.

Uncle Mushu's New Book!

Uncle Mushu (Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf) has an autobiography (In The Line of Fire:  A Memoir) coming out soon, reports the BBC.

 

The byline (By Zaffar Abbas BBC News, Islamabad) explains some of the gem quotes:

 

If projections being made by some sections of the publishing world are to be believed, the book has all the ingredients of a big hit, and possibly even a best-seller.

Uncle Mushu will be bigger than DaVinci Code!  I'm sure they'll cast Sanjay Dutt as Mushu, but who'll play A.Q. Khan?

 

Since [supporting the U.S.-led invastion of Afghanistan], he has been perceived by many in West as one of the most liberal and enlightened faces of the Muslim world.

...who ever controlled the Pakistani press with an iron fist?

 

Soldier he definitely is, but is Gen Musharraf also a writer?

Definitely, yaar.  Definitely a solider.

Sit Back and Build Up Armies!

"Jack Roy" at the Litotical Construct is all worked up that the GOP wants to goad us into attacking Iran , figuring that that's totally batsh*t insane.

But he hasn't considered the basic military strategy I learned from the game of Risk: "One of the easiest ways to gain armies is to hold continents. If you hold an entire continent for an entire turn, you receive a number of extra armies, which is dependent upon the continent."

So if we hold (not control, mind you-- that's hard) Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran at once, we'll generate, like billions of dollars worth of armies for free! It's like printing money!

Lebanon Link

I know everyone who visits my blog also slavishly visits my links, but just in case... if you're interested in what's going on in Lebanon, I've had a link to this guy for a long time, and he's great. 

 

Einstein, This Man Isn't

Check it out.

What an idiot.

Link courtesy of Paul Phillips.

Bigotry's Cool in Atlanta - former Mayor, U.N. Rep

Wal-Mart has "accepted the resignation" of Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and a former United States representative to the U.N., from his position as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart.

This, after Young told an African-American newspaper that Wal-Mart was preferable to mom-and-pop stores.

"You see those are the people who have been overcharging us," he said of the owners of the small stores, "and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs."

Huh.  Don't worry-- he sort of took it back:

"It never should have been said. I was speaking in the context of Atlanta, and that does not work in New York or Los Angeles."

Really?  But that works in Atlanta?

To paraphrase a Woody Allen movie, if MLK were alive today, he would never stop throwing up.