Tina Fey, Our Goddess, Returns

Tina Fey, the last good thing SNL has going for it, was back last night, and God, did we enjoy basking in the glow of her new MILF status. She made jokes about SpongeBob the TV show finally being aired in China, so that the sweatshop workers will now know what the hell they are making, and some other crap... we were too busy drooling over her to listen much. BTW, thanks to Shandy for the shout-out.

Johnny Cash in the Remainder Pile

The other day, we sighted All I Did Was Ask, a collection of Terry Gross interviews from her NPR show, in the remainder pile at the local bookstore staffed by stereotypically bookish lesbians in their coke-bottle lens glasses. "We'll wait for the audio book version," we thought to ourselves.

On closer inspection, though, Terry Gross interviewed Johnny Cash in 1997, at the height of his Rick Rubin Renaissance, which IS worth a listen. So go listen.

The Unsung Heroes of Powerball

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) won nearly a million bucks in this week's lottery. According to the WaPo interview:

"I'm truly deserving," declared the New Hampshire Republican, who was one of 49 people across the country to win second place in a drawing Wednesday night. He collected his winnings yesterday at D.C.'s lottery claims center. "I feel this is the result of my ability and talent." He said this over the phone so it could not be determined whether his tongue was in his cheek.

We suspect it wasn't, as the good Senator gloated that he will be using the "majority of the money personally."

Stormy Weather

In anticipation of another dark, stormy, generally disgusting weekend, we'd like to suggest everyone join us for one of these, courtesy of Slashfood.

While we're on the subject of alcohol, here's an oldie worth re-linking: The Esquire Drinks Database. Follow the rules, but mostly just drink the drinks.

Tater Tomater

Okay, this is a WEIRD one. A moronic girl working in some backwoods diner in what appears to be the Carolinas stands over the steam table all day, offering "tater? tomater?" to customers. Moronic to start with, the rhyme seems to be rotting her brain. The film is only about 15 minutes long (although after you watch it you'll think it was much longer), but the complete weirdness of it along with the plight of a girl driven crazy by the hell of a mind-numbing job make it, well, endearing. That, and the portrayal of the Southerners in the diner is spot on: "Any employee what's got har has to war a har net." Unfortunately, we do not know where to find the video outside of the cult-like website.

Scopes Trial 2005: Update

To follow-up earlier posts on creationism and the tree of life, we'd like to direct your attention to Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover School District, et al, which we prefer to think of as the latest attempt by Christian right wingers to undermine what is left of American superiority in the sciences by replacing high school biology classes with pseudoscience.

How would you like it if you went to the doctor and he told you that you have cancer. "A lot of work has been done directed at a cure in animals," he goes on. "But I don't believe any of that atheist 'science'. In fact, I know in my heart that anyone who thinks animals and humans share anything other than the air we breathe is going to hell, so I am sure you wouldn't want any part of that. I'll pray for you, though, and if your heart is pure, God will miraculously heal you."

wtf?

The Elements of Style Illustrated? (via NYTimes)

UPDATE: The Institute for the Future of the Book, if:book, who are more enthusiastic about an illustrate Elements than we, have info on operatic music based on Prof. Strunk's admonishments.

The Tree of Life

No, not that Qabbalah crap.

We're reading, with pleasure, Richard Dawkin's Ancestor's Tale, which describes what would happen if we walked back in time to meet our evolutionary ancestors: the great-grandparent who would become ancestor to both Homo sapiens (Homo insipiens?) and the Neanderthals, then further back to meet the ape who became ancestor to both us (all Homo species) and the chimpanzees, back to the creature that became ancestor to both apes and monkeys, and so on, back to the pond scum that became ancestor to all life on Earth.

This Chaucerian pilgrimage is a neat little way to survey evolutionary theory, and Dawkins tells enough tales along the road that it is no where near as dry as it sounds. That, and he has cautionary (almost threatening) footnotes to creationists who would misquote him and he includes biting criticism for American conservatives who wield nukuler power while having the IQ of a chimpanzee.

Anyway, we didn't set out to review the thing. We set out to find illustrations, because Dawkins's fragments of the ancestral family tree make it hard to see the structure of the whole. So here it is, the Tree of Life on the web.

Katrina and Guns

America loves her guns. Taking up arms, which is to say, empowering yourself to take another's life for the simple reason that they make you uncomfortable, is a great aphrodisiac. And there is nothing as addictive as sex, right?

So Instapundit figures that with the reports of armed gangs that roved over New Orleans after Katrina, many will arm themselves "to be prepared next time." Coming from a family of mentally unstable hunting gun owners, we know that a large segment of middle America agrees: Because guns caused so much additional misery during the disaster, we need more guns for when the next disaster comes a-knocking.

We'd like to quote Dr. Berggren of the now-defunct Charity Hospital, New Orleans, who wrote in this week's New England Journal of Medicine:

The real Katrina disaster was not created by the elements but by a society whose fabric had been torn asunder by inequality, lack of education, and the inexplicable conviction that we should all have access to weapons that kill.

That's right: hurricanes and earthquakes are not real problems in our society. Our racism, our ignorance, and our guns are real problems in our society.

IMDb Turns 15

We did not realize IMDb has been around so long... but it has been. 15 years, to be exact.

To celebrate, they have--what else--put together top 15 lists of their favorite movies since 1990. We're glad to see The Shawshank Redemption, LA Confidential, and Memento receiving props. But Tremors? And The Passion of the Christ? And we wish Pixar had never Found Nemo. Batman Begins deserves any one of those spots and there is simply no excuse for leaving out O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Best Magazine Covers Ever

The best 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years, or so they say.

Question: Is this pic of two camels going at it really the best we can do?

Book Nerd Moment

We'd like to introduce The Little Professor (no, not that one), who has a wonderfully bookish blog going on. It is going to take us weeks to surf through her nerdy collection of links, but we got a good start with LibraryThing, which can now be seen at right. Well, what you see to the right is just the tip of the iceberg; LibraryThing now contains most of our books and will link you to a random sampling. We smell the potential for something more interesting things to come of it...

Anyway, Little Professor shares our short patience with those who cannot write in English to save their lives. (The Elements of Style should be required reading, and any one breaking its rules should be shot on sight.) Of course, as a teacher of reading and writing, she is a better person that we are, since we tend to mock anyone who can't write articulately and leave it at that.

Free Piglet!

In the past coupla weeks, rumors that Britain plans to all pig-related cultural icons from Animal Farm's fascists through Charlotte's "Some Pig," and yes Piglet, too, have grown to meme-status. While we're skeptical that all this porcine paraphernalia will actually be sent to the slaughter, we're interested to see what becomes of this.

Christian Exodus (The Words of Christ in Red Version)

ChristianExodus.org wants to concentrate evangelical 'Christians' in South Carolina so that they can enact all sorts of quack laws in the name of the Lord. "So what?" you say, "I don't live in South Carolina, cradle of the Confederacy."

Consider this: The organizers, in addition to encouraging armed resistance if the government should ever plan to confiscate firearms (If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other one also [Mt 5:39]), diverting public money to 'Christian' schools on the grounds that public schools have done nothing but teach "generations of school children to hate America," and, in a move to return to the heyday of Christendom, requiring property ownership as a prerequisite for the privilege of voting (Amen I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God [Mt 19:24]) within the South Carolina, they promise that once they amass a 'Christian' majority in the State, they will pursue similar national legislation.

As outlined at their convention, they have a handful of national reforms in mind, specifically the removal of certain amendments from that once-pure-but-now-sullied document, the US Constitution. They suspect the 14th, 16th, and 17th amendments to the U.S. Constitution were not legally ratified, so they plan to suspend them until a genuine 'Christian' accounting can be made and the amendments either truly ratified or permanently discarded. We slept through most of US History 101, so we looked up the amendments in question for you, dear reader...

Amendment 14 promises citizenship, the right to vote, and basic civil rights to freed slaves. Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. [Mt 25:40]

Amendment 16 allows the federal government to collect income taxes. Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and unto God what belongs to God. [Lk 20:25]

Amendment 17 provides for popular election of Senators, which is just a pain when you are trying to artificially assemble create a ruling majority.

In other words, these folks, as our born-again President would call them, want the exact opposite of everything Christ taught them. Bless them.

Holy Shit!

Dear Harriet,

Thank you for the card and a happy 52nd to you. I appreciate your friendship and candor- never hold back your sage advice-

All my best
George W.

P.S. No more public scatology

Life Inside a Water Bottle

On the whole, bottled water is pretty stupid: A dollar a quart for something that normally sells for a fraction of a penny a gallon. What's more, the number one reason your grandparents wear dentures and you don't is that your teeth grew in with the benefit of fluorinated municipal water; rear up your children on bottled water, and they'll end up smiling like your grandparents.

All that aside, this guy shot VR-style film of his house from "inside" a water bottle, which is, we have to admit, pretty fkn cool.

A Brief History of Cronyism

TNR has excerpts of the illustrious history of presidential suck-ups. Most are more subtle than Harriet Miers's assertions that G W Bush is "cool" and "the greatest," but that leaves a lot of room to practice the art of ass-kissing. (Via Shandy.)

More on the Cruise-Holmes Shotgun Wedding

Rat-faced bastard Tom Cruise and talentless fiance Katie Holmes, who recently got knocked up out of wedlock, were taken down a notch by Katie's Dad. Martin Holmes, a devout Catholic (that would be a real religion, Tom), stated the obvious to Cruise: "You're no good."

Cruise has pledged to marry Holmes in time to make an honest woman of her before she becomes a mother, but her family says "Katie is being controlled by the Scientologists." Can somebody rent her a copy of Rosemary's Baby?