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.

 

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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.

 

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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...