McA-Levels

Global Higher Ed:

Today a BBC report stated that the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in the UK had just announced that the fast food giant - McDonalds, along with Airline Flybe and Network Rail - would become one of the first set of private firms in the UK to offer their own nationally-recognized qualifications - up to A-Level standard.

A-Levels are what you do before you get into university in the UK.

Earful for the Deaf

I know very little about Foxy Brown except that she said "MCs wanna eat me but it's Ramadan" which is funny. There's good evidence that she's not a great person, as she's in jail.

It still seems pretty low to mock a recording artist who recently went deaf by saying someone gave her an earful.

Making Fun of Jonah Goldberg Never Gets Old For Me

Hats off to D.

There's a Slogan

John McCain: "There will be other wars."

The Ticking Time Bomb

This post by Robert Farley is a good exploration of the ticking time bomb scenario.

You Must Change Your Life

When you wake up after a long and detailed dream about going from shop to shop searching for a used vacuum cleaner something's gotta be done.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Part of the Problem

John McCain

The Knob-Gobblétron Unit Mark 6
Automatically satisfied dicks
But the secret inside
Was McCain who was fried
And was giving out blowjobs for kicks.

54 New and Used from $0.22

John McCain

The campaign worker looked up in shock
What the hell was that ungodly squawk?
"John McCain," said her boss,
"Has salad to toss
Before he sucks lobbyist cock."

More McCain Limericks

The campaign workers' guts growl with gas
As they dread what may yet come to pass.
The handler's pain:
To prevent John McCain
From felching his running-mate's ass.

Goodness, my Firefox spell-checker didn't know "felching". I taught it.

Anyway I hope there will be more John McCain limericks here.

Why Didn't I Know About Emitt Rhodes?

This guy appears to be a thieving genius of the kind I like a lot. Why no re-releases? Good Christ. That some indie label hasn't jumped on this stuff astonishes me.



On a secondary note, the old version of iMovie remains awesomely easy to use and I can easily create make ("create" is one of those faux-ensmartenizing extra-syllable words) movies of which I should be ashamed.

That New Mac Air

A funny cartoon.

The Truth Hurts...Someone Else So It's Funny

Boxed Wine

Okay, my sister buys a box of wine. Inside the box are little pink cans. Each little pink can has a little straw.

This is a remarkable world.

Such Detail and Such Care

Wow.

From Tigerhawk:

[...]

[...]Eric Sevareid would do these editorials at the end of the CBS evening news. [...] Sevareid said that if fascism ever comes to the United States, it will come disguised as liberalism. [...]

Anyone know where to find 'em?

I recommend sending a carrier pigeon to Telemundo.

Terrible Homages Dept.

It's a good thing this guy apologizes to Chris Ware.

I Don't Condemn That Obviously Illegal Thing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said in a magazine interview that waterboarding would be torture if it was used against him personally, but stopped short of condemning the controversial interrogation technique.

McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was quoted in the New Yorker edition released on Sunday as defining torture as "something that would cause excruciating pain."

Asked if waterboarding -- the practice of covering a person's face with a cloth and then dripping water on it to bring on a feeling of drowning -- fit that definition, McConnell said that for him personally, it would.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful!" McConnell said in the article. "Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But he rejected a suggestion that he personally condemned the practice.

Really?

George MacDonald Fraser, RIP

I saw this over at Crooked Timber. Henry got creeped out by the Flashman books and a few commenters jump all over him. I really love those books, but it sure isn't wrong to find a thoroughly horrible lead character repulsive enough to want to avoid.

RIP Mr. Fraser and thanks.

Movies

It seems I am allowed by the gods to see movies.

I agree with Roy about No Country for Old Men. It's apparently faithful to the novel, but the speechifying is baffling. Money well spent anyway because the bulk of the movie is the stuff I'm interested in. I also really enjoyed seeing a film without music.

Juno was too yappy yet sweet and has Kimya Dawson songs that make me all weepy. Have I mentioned that I'm a big sap? Anyway, also money well spent although Diablo Cody is not the second coming of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. I made an excellent decision to move away from some determined yappers/loud laughers early on: right after "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Gob." my moviegoing experience was saved.

Just came back from a freebie of There Will Be Blood, which was good, but reached neither the highs nor the lows of No Country despite having irritatingly similar landscapes for a while. I spent the movie doing comparisons unfortunately, and was disappointed that there was obtrusive music, and that I "felt" an expensive camera watching things in a way that didn't happen in the aforementioned not exactly better movie. Nevertheless that Daniel Day-Lewis guy is really marvelous. Since no money was spent, it was money well spent.

The Only Show That Matters

The Shrek Star

Yessir, he's the best at annoying donkey voices. Dunno what else he does.

Rejiggerations

You know what's creepy about reconfigured Star Wars IV-VI? The last movie's director was dead when George Lucas decided he wanted to erase my unaccountably charitable memory of it.