From the reader blogs:
- Redshirt’s Lament does Superman as written by Jack Kerouac.
- T.R. Donoghue is glad he doesn’t attend parties where guests are asked to name a few policies that they thought would increase economic growth in the coming decades.
- Zandar says, no, reality tv will not replace traditional political campaigns.
- Arguingwithsignposts calls bullshits on the parson’s strained Obama-as-Job analogy.
- Can’t Explain is counting down the top 100 pop songs of all time. He’s at number 30 now.
rootless_e
The left/liberal activist community has to stop taking people like Greenwald and Hamsher and Atrios seriously otherwise you start out confused and behind and have to battle back.
Mark S.
Meacham’s column is dumb, but Ecclesiastes is some good stuff. How in the hell did it ever make it into the Bible? And what do all these Bible-thumpers think when they read it?
gogol's wife
Thank you, Arguing with Signposts.
Cat Lady
Redshirt’s blog is awesome and I’m proud to claim him as a fellow Masshole.
That is all.
rootless_e
@Mark S.: Stupid bible thumpers read the bible like members of the politburu read marx.
rootless_e
Here’s my favorite underreported news story of the month
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4616433
JPK
Hey DougJ, thanks for the link!
srv
Hey, maybe this has been done recently, but if not, couldn’t we have one of those threads where the creative trolls provide links to their artwork?
With Black Friday discounts and all?
Maude
@rootless_e:
If this is true, the people in Greece are going to hit the roof, so to speak.
I enjoy reading your tweets.
srv
@rootless_e: Creative Destruction is goodness.
North vs South Korea
Greece vs Turkey
Argentina vs UK (UK has no aircraft carriers now)
Nicaragua vs Costa Rica
US vs Iran
So many opportunities.
Mark S.
Truth or Dare was a little more risque when my friends and I played it.
bkny
here’s something completely different — watch these crows egg on these cats to fight each other — and i do mean fight. kittehs can be vicious….
http://gawker.com/5699720/the-most-intense-cat-fight-you-will-ever-see
Redshift
I was listening to Science Friday’s rebroadcast of the Ig Nobel prizes for this year. My favorite, which was amusing but also completely serious, was a paper that mathematically derived from the Peter Principle the conclusion that organizations would become more efficient if promotions were made at random.
Food for thought.
Linda Featheringill
@Mark S.:
What makes you think they have read it?
Cat Lady
@bkny:
Wow. That’s whatever the opposite of Disney is.
bkny
@Cat Lady: isn’t that an amazing clip. those fucking crows — that white and brown kitteh was getting clipped by them and the cat… those damned birds are smart.
rootless_e
@Maude: thanks.
SiubhanDuinne
@bkny:
I’m sorry. That made me laugh.
(YES, I’m a cat lover. It still made me laugh.)
ETA: Loved the way the birds danced around and you could just imagine them shouting “GET him! SMACK him down!”
Music score was perfect, too.
arguingwithsignposts
Thanks for the link, DougJ!
jwb
@Redshift: But what makes this finding particularly ig-noble? This seems like a perfectly reasonable research, even given the drift of the Ig-noble awards over the years toward identifying the quirky and the weird.
Maude
@bkny:
I’ve seen catbirds dive bomb a cat and draw blood.
Isn’t this cheery?
Ruckus
@Redshift:
That’s pretty cool.
Maody
@bkny: that is awesome – and i am a cat lover.
thanks for the blog links… good reading.
Ruckus
Zandar
If the conservatards are making it harder to register and vote won’t that work against them with the old white folks as well? Not that, not shooting themselves in the foot has ever been that high a priority.
Turgid Jacobian
@srv: Sounds like a lame tournament group. Hopefully you’ll use away goals.
bkny
@SiubhanDuinne: it’s like they’re all beating up on the slow kid … just like junior high…
those birds’ behavior is fascinating. i like how they poke after the brown and white cat’s tail, causing him to leap causing the black one to attack him. what fuckers… lol
Linda Featheringill
Off on a tangent:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire
Aside from questions of right and wrong or even of legal versus not legal, the police in the UK are acting in ways that are really, really stupid.
For one thing, the protesters are not lumpen-proletariat. They are literate and internet savvy and have cameras in phones, etc. They have parents who care more about the children than they do about getting along with the police. They will not let this fade away.
The second thing is that now matter what you do, it is possible that someone is filming you. Do the police think that CCTV is the only video game in town?
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Brachiator
Very good stuff. I’m using my post Turkey fest day off to catch up on blogs and podcasts.
I’d like to add a story from the Times of London (paywalled, but available as a 30 day free trial on the iPad), which claims that the British intelligence service, MI6, was responsible for the Taliban imposter pretending to be Mullah Mansour. “We’re finger pointing at you, Mr. Bond!” BBC News has coverage on the story, also (Karzai aide blames British for Taliban impostor).
I would also like to recommend Patt Morrison’s wonderful interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Morrison’s KPCC public radio program.
You can listen to the program at the web site or download as an iTunes podcast.
One thing really stuck with me. Justice Ginsburg noted how the The U.S. Senate confirmed her by a 96-to-3 vote, even though she had worked for the ACLU, and contrasted her confirmation with the current “non collegial” atmosphere which currently poisons the confirmation process.
Maody
@arguingwithsignposts: I Love this music. Thanks!
James E. Powell
Here’s a template to be used for a response to post on the 100 top pop songs:
Are you kidding me? [name of song]? [name of song] isn’t even the best song on [title of album] which, by the way, isn’t even [name of artist]’s best album.
Citizen Alan
Off topic, but Jesus Christ is this for real?!?
Am I to understand it that the Health Care Reform Act that is the linchpin upon which Obama has hung the electoral future of the Democratic Party for years to come has no severability clause? So if a majority of the Robert Supreme Court agrees with Cuccinelli that the mandate is unconstitutional, the whole thing gets thrown out? WTF?!?
Acharn
@Mark S.: They don’t read it. Just like they don’t read the New Testament. Almost everything they clamor for is the opposite of what the the Rebbe said.
Redshirt
@Cat Lady: Alas, I am extremely reluctant to take up the “Masshole” mantle, as I in fact loathe everything about Massholes. Being one – I am, even though I still like to fancy myself a Mainer, after all these many years in Boston – I too, loathe myself, I assure you. I’d cut myself off and flip myself the bird while doing so, if that were possible.
Also, too, if anyone needs a spontaneous Kerouac Generator, I charge 3 Benzedrine per hour.