February 2012
1 post
December 2011
1 post
November 2011
4 posts
“The Clash selected two guitarists, Nick Sheppard and Greg White, with the latter...”
– It seems like Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer’s head may not have been on quite straight during the recording of Cut the Crap.
Clive Crook is an idiot
I subscribe to The Economist. I feel it’s worthwhile and I get a lot out of it. However, occasionally there are bizarre little free-market axioms. For example, they can publish a piece on how Singapore has a incredibly efficient bureaucracy and credit the bureaucrats’ unusually high salaries for that efficiency in one breath and later on damn American teachers’ unions for keeping...
Pitchfork, Trying to Make Fetch Happen. →
October 2011
8 posts
Torsten Frings has taken some time off from being the lead singer of a Creed tribute band to talk about playing CONCACAF Champions League games in Nicaragua.
Barack Obama: History's Greatest Monster? →
“The new order comes just in time for the Department of Homeland Security’s...”
– - Abby Olheiser, Slate. It appears the Obama administration is finally beginning to realize that the best way to combat future leaks is to not break Bradley Manning as a human being or try to extradite Assange on trumped up charges. Perhaps it might be better to (just spitballin’ here), not...
2 tags
September 2011
12 posts
Fun fact of the day, and something to ponder as Roland Emmerich prepares to unleash his latest go-boom cinematic act of terror, Anonymous:
The origin of the bizarre theory that someone other than William Shakespeare authored the plays and poems generally attributed to that name comes from a nineteenth-century work with the fantastic (yet grammatically questionable) title The Romance of Yachting:...
Fox News and Google are hosting a Republican presidential debate tonight. They’re letting people submit questions, and because they’re making the submissions public and letting the American public rally behind this, that or the other one, it has become a literal treasure trove of batshittery. I cannot recommend spending some serious time on that site enough. They range from demands...
Seriously, what the hell?
Apologies, and then some other things.
Could you believe I have the audacity to start Part One of a five-part extravaganza and then disappear for several days? I’ll finish it eventually, just as soon as I manage to adjust for overloading on credits for my last quarter here in graduate school. Essentially, this means an indefinite hiatus on everything except for quotes, videos and reblogging. All you’ll get for right now is...
“I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I...”
– Brendan Behan
DAY ONE
It is highly inadvisable to begin a bike tour on Labor Day. This is doubly so if you happen to live up in the Rocky Mountains, where the hordes of gray-haired vacationers driving mammoth RVs cannot be avoided due to the dearth of roads the United States government has seen fit to pave over high mountain passes.
Basically, the realities of Labor Day are entirely at odds with what one...
“You have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your...”
– - Kingsley Amis on hangovers. It’s Friday, so why don’t you go ahead and read a mid-length New Yorker piece on drinking to prepare yourself for the coming weekend?
Another nugget: “In keeping with the saying about the Eskimos’ nine words for snow, the Ukrainians have several words...
Here’s your “why the fuck not?” Thursday link: an American University professor has apparently successfully called the last seven presidential elections, via Slate:
Lichtman says that based on the 13 criteria he has used to correctly forecast every presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s re-election victory in 1984, Team Obama can rest easy. “Even if I am being...
August 2011
25 posts
That's Right - THE Bruce Dickinson →
He’s got a FEVER - and the only prescription …
Clarence Thomas, the Universe, And Everything
I’ve been working on a post on the constitution for the last hour or so, only to have it eaten by the tumblr monster. Whenever this happens to me, I’m usually too despondent to actually try to recreate it in all its several-thousand-word glory, so instead you’ll get the truncated version. ( Ed note: This is a highly misleading opening paragraph)
Several months ago, Time editor Fareed Zakaria...
Dave Weigel at Slate has compiled the list of organizations that are forbidden from getting their filthy liberal hands on FEMA money. One of these things is not like the other ones, and so you don’t have to read the whole thing I’ll go ahead an put it in bold for you:
None of the funds made available by this Act shall be made available to the Association of Community Organizations...
“The only fart [pedo] is the borders. Otherwise you could go all the way south to...”
– Guatemalan artisan on international travel (via 7leagueboots). If all Latin American countries could open their borders to “artisans”and therefore increase competition between them, I’d be all for it. We definitely need less of these guys/gals, if for no other reason than to make...
1 tag
Two People Discussing Jane Jacobs, Because it's...
Interlocutor A: Gentrification and Its Discontents … This is a pretty good article. Kinda blames Jane Jacobs and her ilk for being the first of the gentrifiers by preventing big housing projects from knocking down the village. The result being it stayed so quaint and nice that yuppies and trust-fund hipsters priced people like Jane Jacobs right the hell out. Agree with Jane that modern...
“There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this...”
– Jane Jacobs, The Life and Death of Great American Cities
Sixty Completely Unusable Stock Photos →
To pick one out as an example would be unfair to the rest.
“Right now, I’m homeless and couch surfing and I don’t have a label....”
– Did you know Devendra Banhart is broke and homeless right now? I sure didn’t. Kind of makes me feel pretty shitty about not paying for What Will We Be. On a slightly more positive note, we now have the answer to the question, “How can I profit from Pitchfork’s masturbatory 15th...
“Such prayer strikes me as unseemly. Your religion is a matter between you and...”
– Roger Ebert on Rick Perry’s “prayer rally.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m really going to miss this guy when he’s gone.
“In “Christianity and the Constitution,” the book she worked on with Eidsmoe, her...”
– Ryan Lizza on Michele Bachmann in the New Yorker. I’d also like to contrast this piece with a glance at the latest Gallup poll because they include name recognition data.
To wit:
One out of four responders don’t recognize the name Michele Bachmann. Before we go further, I’d like...
Why is the meme that an undergraduate degree isn’t worth the money so goddamn durable? For example, the Boston Herald seems to think that a young lady who decided to take out over $200k in loans for a degree from sociology from a rather average American university is “a great representation of a huge issue in America.”
As someone who will soon leave...
New Beirut on the NPR →
It’s called The Rip Tide, and while it has less songs than a song convention, the possibility of Beirut’s love being bigger than your love is still an open question.
Sing it!
“It is an embarrassment to carry tomatoes in your hand.”
– Shopkeeper in Nebaj, as he hands Dan & I a plastic bag to carry our produce.
One of the weirder statements I have heard here to date.
(via 7leagueboots)
“We will never take any Zambians again.”
– Finland? Zambia? Corruption in world soccer? A Singaporean mobster who “goes by” Wilson Raj Perumal? Sign us up.