Clash of the Tittens

This is pure fun.

Stupid Songs

John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan

Ooh, spelling error right off the bat.

John Wesley Harding
Was a friend to the poor,
He trav'led with a gun in ev'ry hand.

That'd be forty guns. No wait, two.

All along this countryside,
He opened a many a door,

What the hell does that mean?

But he was never known
To hurt an honest man.

He was, however, interested in killing Negroes.

'Twas down in Chaynee County,
A time they talk about,

Ah yes, the onion-belted elders among us.

With his lady by his side
He took a stand.

Clicheometer rising...

And soon the situation there
Was all but straightened out,
For he was always known
To lend a helping hand.

Clicheometer smashed by stray deus ex machina.

All across the telegraph
His name it did resound,

Turn down that telegraph you crazy kids!

Rest of rebel millionaire's idiot music ignored due to boredom.

But no charge held against him
Could they prove.
And there was no man around
Who could track or chain him down,
He was never known
To make a foolish move.

Michael Fumento's Dignity Restored

That's a Nice Soufflé You Got There.

Lately, the Zagats have also raised a few eyebrows by selling plaques to the businesses they rate. While they still give out window stickers for free, they charge $149 to $199 for restaurants that want customized plaques. (One twist: The better the rating, the fancier and the costlier the plaque.) Restaurants are told that refusing to participate in the "recognition program" won't affect their scores, yet some can't help but wonder. "There's a little bit of a feeling like, I'd better buy this," says Betsy Alger, owner of the Frog and the Peach Restaurant in New Brunswick, N.J. The Zagats say that "the people who handle our plaques have no connection with any aspect of our editorial process."

Invasion of the Noonanites

Mark Noonan is considering running for office.

The obvious symbol is the Noonanite.

Gawd

I don't think I've seen a worse initial sentence this year.

Internet pedophile suspect arrested in Thailand
By Seth Mydans
Published: October 19, 2007

BANGKOK: At first, on the Internet, he was just a swirly face, something akin to a large multicolored lollipop that a man might give to a little boy.

Marky the Pinhead

Help!

Context here.

Insurance

It occurs to me that a lot of the global-warming denial makes great use of the idea that we shouldn't take drastic steps on a just-in-case basis.

It's an argument against insurance.

The Wages of Laziness

I sat down to do some work and somehow ended up with Debbie Schlussel and a sandwich. This process is mysterious.

Yokel Bothering

Vote for the black guy or vote for the woman? Today's hair-salon yammerers have no answers.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

20 years ago the Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens "Top Gun Anthem" won a grammy.

The category was:

A. Best German-American Promotion of Militarism
B. Special Award for Silver Clothing
C. Least Tolerable Bullshit Most Agreeable to Entertainment Executives
D. Most Egregious Fuck-Faces in Near-Muzak

Satan Speaks!

You have also dared to try to take dinosaurs away from me. I have used dinosaurs for nearly 200 years to teach billions of people that the earth is billions of years old and that God's Word is not true. Your seminar on dinosaurs strikes at the heart of my kingdom. I intend to destroy both your ministry and your reputation for good. Dinosaurs are especially effective for me to deceive children. You are taking children away from me, so I took yours away from you!

Visit PZ Myers for background, though I think Satan's work stands on its own.

Hyperlexia

The five-year-old and I went to test her mettle at an Early Autism Project office. The tester was charmed, as she should have been, and impressed by the young one's obviously powerful nerd mojo.

My sweetie got almost every language-or-reading-only question right and almost everything else wrong, but my favourite wrong answer came after her geek abilities had been well-established and the tester was just fooling around:

Q. What's the biggest ocean?

A. The Yangtze River.

I think it's been established that being spectacularly wrong is not necessarily better than being wrong in a more mundane fashion, but I'll take it in this case.

Blacks Not Yet Domesticated

Joseph Farah on why John Edwards is a racist:

Let me tell you something. No amount of midnight basketball is going to stop young black men from killing one another if steps are not taken to put the black family back together. The black family was destroyed by people like John Edwards – people who believe blacks can be domesticated by government programs that provide them subsistence livings and make them dependent on Uncle Sam for their material needs.

What's a Poo's Favourite Vegetable?

A pea.

Many thanks to the five-year-old.

Heather Wilson Deathwatch

Via TPM:

Do They?

I was somewhat hopeful that what was roiling the Iraq war debate was something of substance.

The Dishes Can Wait

Once there was a stupid cat
He lived inside a giant's hat
He had no need to feed on mice
But feasted on the giant's lice

Hey! I'm stalling!

Through the whorls of giant hair
Our kitty pranced without a care
When nature whispered calls to him
He peed right off the huge hat's brim

Paperwork avoidance demands more stanzas.

An ogre once came rambling by
Receiving cat pee in the eye
"I say good sir" quoth ogre pissed on
"Oatmeal's what you'll soon subsist on

"As I'll knock out your fucking teeth."
"Friend ogre!" lisps the giant, "Pleath!
"Thith kitty pitheth lucky thtreams!
"Itth thtench fulfills the wildetht dreams!"

"How so?" the ogre asked the giant
"Here'th how" said giant now defiant
And ogre's head was split asunder
Fallen Leaving bags of gold to plunder

Let's All Pull Together

I'm working on a care package to some citizens of Iraq. Thus far I have included beer, hot-dogs, and puppies, these being some of the greatest comforts Western culture has to offer. Who's with me?

Strings

It's depressing trying to do relatively simple research on Iraqi universities and having to filter out horrific news articles by adding "-death" "-bomb" and "-killed" to the search. Can't use "-war" because that's more likely to be in what I'm looking for and is the measure of an era.

Here's a link to a list of Iraqi academics killed or otherwise mishandled in some way.

How About That

Who'd have thought that the big fish reeled in in the Oil-for-Food brouhaha would be a Texas oilman?