12.13.2014

Cute

U.S. pastor against gay-marriage dresses horse up in wedding gown

"'Do you take this horse to be your unnatural wedded spouse to have and to hold,' one of his signs read."

Will this nonsense ever end? It doesn’t seem likely. While washing dishes a while ago I cranked up a (pretty nifty) app called TuneIn Radio on my iPhone and started listing to something called Redstate Talk Radio, a conservative site dedicated, seemingly, to 40-year old boys giggling. I never got the joke. Maybe I just didn’t have enough dirty dishes. But I’m sure it was at least as funny as a horse in a wedding gown. 

Not very, in other words.

You don't have to work for Sony to wind up with your foot in your mouth

REVIEW: Don’t Let Your People Go See Exodus: Gods and Kings | TIME

"‘I can’t mount a film of this budget [$130 million, plus about $70 million in tax rebates], and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such,’ [the film’s director] told Variety. "

Wait, what?

This Baby Sleeping on Top of a Santa Will Warm Your Heart | TIME

"Her mother, Jennifer Sawyer Genna of Abingdon, Md., told the paper that the youngster ‘passed out so Santa decided to take a ‘little snooze’ for her first picture!’"

Passed out? 

O'Rourke, all is forgiven

Up to a Point: They Made Me Write About Lena Dunham - The Daily Beast

"I lived in New York for fifteen years. No one had been to Brooklyn since the Dodgers left in 1957."

Beating the Christmas rush

Is This the End of Michele Bachmann? - Melinda Henneberger - POLITICO Magazine

"On Tuesday, in what the retiring congresswoman from Minnesota figured would be her last White House holiday party, Bachmann used the grip-and-grin moment when she got her picture taken with President Obama to raise a reliably grin-killing topic. ‘The U.S. needs to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities today,’ she informed him."

So sad to see her go.

Is this the party of the season?

The president, the panic, and the cromnibus - Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan - POLITICO

"The House Appropriations Committee, which wrote the bill, partied late into the night in its third-floor Capitol office suite."

Eh. Probably not.

Wait, New Hampshire has a football team?

New Hampshire tops Chattanooga 35-30 in FCS quarterfinals

"The top-seeded Wildcats scored twice in a span of 2 minutes, 19 seconds early in the fourth quarter to finally pull away in a 35-30 win over Chattanooga on Friday night in an FCS quarterfinal."

12.12.2014

First, strap your head on nice and tight

This Optical Illusion Video Will Make Your Surroundings Spin

[Noted by Some Guy in Seattle.]

A little late but still funny

cartoon141124-02_full_900x600.jpg 900×600 pixels

But you can't tell him much

Carr: You can always tell a Harvard man | Boston Herald

Plain words

The Torture Report is Only the First Step | Just Security

"In short, the ‘torture debate’ is over. The report teaches us that the costs of the program far outweighed any supposed benefits. We can no longer pretend that torture is somehow a necessary means to achieve some greater good. Nor, if the world continues to be populated by terrorist threats, is there is any way we can torture our way to security. And when torture is practiced regularly and systematically, it is no longer a means; it becomes the end in itself. As George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four: ‘The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture…. Now you begin to understand me.’"
String Theory
 
iPhone photo: Phil Compton

It's OK to break the law if you're scared

(Or really, really scared, according to rightish critics of the recently-released Senate torture report.)

Charles Krauthammer: A travesty of a torture report - NY Daily News

"In the aftermath of 9/11, there was nothing irrational about believing a second attack was a serious possibility…"

(Krauthammer also cites "a deadly anthrax attack of unknown origin” as something we were scared of, although not so scared we bothered to figure out who did it.)

And then the ever-dependable Trickshot Dick chimes in.

Dick Cheney: Senate ‘torture’ report ‘full of crap’ - NY Daily News

"'The report's full of crap,’ he added, before later admitting that he hadn’t even read it .…
""What are we supposed to do, kiss him on both cheeks and say, 'Please, please, tell us what you know?' Of course not," Cheney said."

Oh that Dick. Always good for a laugh.

12.11.2014

Sorry Sony

Sony emails target Obama and African-American films - San Jose Mercury News

"Rudin and Pascal aren't having the best week. Other emails between the pair surfaced earlier, including ones ripping Angelina Jolie."

Taking on Lara Croft too? Not bright.

And really, if this whole Sony hacking thing is about the not-yet-released film, The Interview, they’re not getting their money’s worth. Here’s the trailer. It looks like a really dumb movie to me.

Game on

Army vs. Navy football ‘spirit videos’: The good, the bad and the hilarious - The Washington Post

Creepy but somehow disturbing and just weird

Happy holidays, exclamation point, from the Joyes - Opinion - The Boston Globe

Our heart goes out

Wall Street in grip of Geithner nostalgia

Maybe not exactly the people we'd ask first

Psychologist says U.S. Senate's CIA report makes false charges | Reuters

"(Reuters) - One of the two psychologists who devised the CIA's harsh Bush-era interrogation methods said on Wednesday…"

Oh no! Oil is getting cheaper! (Imagine our dispair)

Oil resumes decline, falling toward $64, oversupply weighs | Reuters

"Crude prices sank on Wednesday as OPEC forecast an increasing supply surplus in 2015, U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly rose and OPEC's most influential voice, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, shrugged off the need for an output cut."

(But why am I thinking this isn’t likely to cut the cost of heating oil much?)

On the literary front

“The poetry of lust describes many inspirations: the moon, a stray wisp of hair; but only now and then cites haven’t done it for a long time."

–Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe

This much I agree with (the rest, eh)

If you would reap power, sow despair | RedState

"The shrieking alarms of ‘crisis’ and thunder of ‘warfare’ weaken our resistance to command.  That’s why every political initiative is portrayed as a dire emergency, or the moral equivalent of war.  You’ll notice that all those politicized ‘wars’ on domestic issues are eternal – there are no victory conditions or exit strategies."

If this doesn't make you fear Christmas, nothing will

Hipsters Are Hanging Christmas Tree Decorations From Their Beards (Photos)

"One of those sources is a London advertising agency that has begun to sell Beard Baubles, which are essentially ornaments for people who think Christmas trees have become a little too mainstream. "

The blissful world of advertising

From a package of liquid hand soap:


I can't wait.

12.10.2014

A dog and lentil soup

I made lentil and garlic soup for supper yesterday. It was a concept I ran across in a novel about the Spanish Civil War. The recipe I just made up, but what could go wrong with lentils and garlic anyway? Too much garlic. But only just a little bit too much. (Chop some garlic and cook it in a little oil at the bottom of the pan first, then add lentils and water, and simmer.)

Also chicken parts. When I make lentil soup I generally toss in a couple of chicken thighs, makes for a pretty good meal.

But I ate all the chicken last night and still had some lentil soup left. This is a problem akin to eating bread and honey. I happen to have more chicken parts, but they’re frozen. Hence the dog. 

This gives me an opportunity to also eat ketchup, an automatic second vegetable (thanks, St. Ronald!).

We're Republcans and we approve of rectal feeding

Republican Senate report: CIA 'saved lives' | Fox News

"‘We have no doubt the CIA’s detention program saved lives and played a vital role in weakening Al Qaeda while the Program was in operation,’ said the report written by Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Richard Burr, R-N.C.; James Risch, R-Idaho; Dan Coats, R-Ind.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and Tom Coburn, R-Okla."

Nuke the whales!

Honey, there's a nuclear bomb in the yard

"The US says its missiles are pointed to land in the middle of the ocean."

What could possibly go wrong?

12.08.2014

Mmmm

There’s nothing like chewing on a few icy-cold just-out-of-the-fridge leftover Brussels sprouts to make you want more meat.

Wait…they need a trick?

The Trick Big Food Uses To Get You To Buy Candy In The Checkout Aisle | ThinkProgress

The jolly, generous CEO of Exxon Mobil, on the other hand…

Santa Claus Should Earn More Than Your Mom: Study | Money.com

"If Santa was paid for the work he does, he'd make around $140,000 annually—a bit more than what moms would theoretically bring home, and twice what dad caregivers should earn."

gets $40.3 million.

And doesn’t have to drive reindeer. 

We give up

Louisiana's Moon Shot - ProPublica

"The state hopes to save its rapidly disappearing coastline with a 50-year, $50 billion plan based on science that’s never been tested and money it doesn’t have. What could go wrong?"

In passing

Here’s a book, Spam Nation, by Brian Krebs, which purports to be “the inside story of organized cybercrime” but really is about how Brian Krebs dares any hazard (“My hands had grown so cold I could no longer hold onto my beer glass…”) to promote his shiny new cybersecurity web site. It (the book—I don’t frequent the web site) won’t really tell you much about cybersecurity you don’t already know but it’s highly skimable and—in passing—offers a nifty takedown of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. You can read it in a couple of days, easy. So, maybe.

I say let's put W, Cheney, and Rumsfeld on a stage and make THEM read this report, and then march them off to cells.

Mike Rogers predicts 'violence and deaths' if Senate releases report on CIA terror programs - Washington Times

"Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under Mr. Bush from 2006 to 2009, rebutted claims that agency officials lied about the program during his tenure while acknowledging that the program’s details were ‘very complex.’"

And while we’re at it, that John Yoo, too.

Feeling a little sarcastic this morning, are we?

In the Arena: Resistant to change | The Recorder

"Greenfield taxpayers can nestle all snug in their beds this holiday season safe in the knowledge that the collective bargaining rights of public employees remain alive and well in their fair city."