Good For a Goosing

So, if two relatively insufferable twats like Hitch and Dawkins can get their shit together enough to try to get the Pope arrested, surely Michael Moore or somebody on the American left can produce some arrest warrants for Cheney, Yoo and the rest of the Bush-era torture architects, right?

This is national pride at stake here. Are we really going to let the Brits take the lead in bringing notorious international criminals to justice despite the veneer of authority and respectability they used to disguise the nature of their crimes?

Being John Malkovich Was Right

Thanks to Twitter, now everyone in Hollywood really is friends with each other.

I hope someone corrected Aimee Mann though, and let her know that Twitter is actually her and four million other dorky friends ragging on TV stars.

Pre-History of the Teabagger Movement, Part 17

I'm watching WWE Vintage, the show where the WWE digs into the vaults and shows 'classic' matches such as a 20-man battle royal won by Bob Backlund, during the days when he was getting an inexplicable push from Vince despite his lack of anything resembling charisma, size or a bodybuilder's physique.

Anyway, the match immediately following is Lex Lugar vs Tatanka, the Native American Warrior. Tatanka at the time was a bad guy, and palling around with the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, so the crowd was firmly behind Lugar.

At one point in the match, Tatanka had Lugar in the corner and was pounding on him. The crowd, in an effort to energize Lugar, began chanting... 'USA! USA! USA!'

Because, y'know, Native American isn't "real" American.

I'd be willing to guess at least 75% of all the people in the crowd chanting 'USA! USA!' back then now own a copy of Going Rogue.

At the Mountains of Malkin

Earlier today over at Balloon Juice, JC poked fun at Michelle Malkin's use of impenetrable acronyms, which in the comments partially devolved into an extended Lovecraftian riff that still cracks me up when I think about it. Iä! Iä! Lim'baugh Fhtagn!

For the record, my favorite scene in On the Road To Celephais is the one where Bob Hope gets into the yowling match with the cats, and Dorothy Lamour has to hurry them out of Ulthar ahead of the angry mob.

Sigh. They don't make movies like that any more, do they?

Wisconsin DA Threatens To Arrest Teachers For Obeying the Law

Unbelievable. No, wait, let me re-phrase: sadly believable.

A Wisconsin prosecutor is warning sex education teachers they could face charges if they follow a new state law that allows them to instruct students about proper contraceptive use.

A letter sent to five school districts by Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth said the instruction could amount to contributing to the delinquency of a minor if teachers know students are sexually active. He said the districts should drop sex education until the law is repealed.

Just in case you think for a second that his concern is genuine and not rooted in the usual right-wing crazypants rhetoric:

Southworth's letter said law would convert sex education classes "into a radical program that sexualizes our children as early as kindergarten. This, in turn, will lead to more child sexual assaults."

Right, because if a child has received sex ed, then clearly they're just asking to be assaulted. Southworth isn't writing Vatican press releases on the side, is he?

My Brain Hurts

Today I saw a poster advertising a Harry Potter exhibit.

An exhibit taking place at the Ontario Science Centre.

Nine For a Lost God

Y'know, I'm never gonna make the big time in the blogosphere unless I start doing what all the cool kids do -- namely, find clever ways to tie in song lyrics to my posts.

Consider this bit of genius from mistermix over at BJ -- he takes the "left at the altar" quote, riffs from there to Billy Idol's White Wedding, and then picks a lyric from that song that actually has some relevance to the story as his post title.

Had I done that with my last post, the one about April Fool's Day stories being redundant from the corporate media, I would have gone with the line "They do it all the time" as the post title, from the Violent Femmes' "Kiss Off". Oh well, too late now. I'll try to be clevererer next time.

What's So Special About Today?

Last night I get home fairly late from karaoke (started at 244, ended at Czehoski). I check my email and such before going to bed.

From her bedroom, my roommate is also on teh innertubez. She suddenly exclaims "Holy crap!" I ask her what's going on.

"Canada bought half of Hawaii!"

My response is less than politic: "Ummm, no."

"Yes! I'm reading the article right now. We bought half of Hawaii to help them with their debt. It's on sympatico.ca!"

I try to tell her you can't just buy half of a state, or even a whole state. She'll have none of it. "They bought Alaska from the Russians! And New York! What about New York?"

I try to explain that those areas didn't exactly have governments when they were purchased, they were just big chunks of functionally empty land. I do a Google search, and tell her no one else is reporting this monumental news. She'll have none of it.

"I'm trying to read the article! Go to sympatico.ca! It's... oh, crap, what day is it? Crap! Crap crap!"

Now, I'd like to say I knew it must have been an April Fool's Joke, but frankly it never even occurred to me that it was after midnight and therefore April 1st. I'm just so used to having to filter out bullshit being peddled by the media, that this story was just one more log on the fire, so to speak.

I'm not claiming I never fall for April Fool's pranks. I'm just saying that, relatively speaking, 'Canada buys half of Hawaii' isn't really all that far off from the usual spew we get from Fox or CNN or WaPo.

The "news" has all but become one year-round April Fool's joke.

March Travesties

34 different songs sung this past month. The Whole of the Moon is likely to become one of my staples, as much as I have staples. What a glorious song to belt out.

Ain't To Proud To Beg - Temptations
Baba O'Riley - Who
Big Bottom - Spinal Tap
Cult of Personality - Living Color
Dead Souls - Nine Inch Nails
Domino - Van Morrison
Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Fairytale of New York - Pogues (duet w/Lily)
Family Affair - Sly & the Family Stone
Girls On Film - Duran Duran
Go With the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
Heat of the Moment - Asia
Heroes - David Bowie
If Venice Is Sinking - Spirit of the West
It's the End of the World As We Know It - REM
Jeepster - T-Rex
Johnny Come Home - Fine Young Cannibals
Life In One Day - Howard Jones
Little Red Corvette - Prince
Love and Happiness - Al Green
Midlife Crisis - Faith No More
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band
November Rain - Guns n Roses (duet w/Mathew)
Rio - Duran Duran
Seven Seas - Echo & the Bunnymen
She's Electric - Oasis
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
Six Months In a Leaky Boat - Split Enz
Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
White Room - Cream
Whole of the Moon - Waterboys
Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw

Masochism Alert

DougJ picks another fight, this time with Glenn Greenwald over the Hamsher PAC nonsense. Consider yourself extremely fortunate if you don't know what that is.

John Cole needs to kick Doug's ass to the curb before he ruins an otherwise great blog.