Category: Politics

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TV Turnoff Week

The original version of Godzilla, stripped of political context, for its initial release in the United States. Forgetting political context, conservatives learn to love South Park?

This is the sad fate of the bastard machine: to be blamed for everything. “Oh, my television casts such a spell over me that I’m unable to do anything about it. I’m a helpless victim! For God’s sake, will someone come to my house and unplug it?” Where’s the responsibility here? Why can’t people own up to their faults, their shortcomings? It’s the smoking-gave-me-cancer or McDonald’s-made-me-fat argument.
Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle offers another take on TV Turnoff Week

Is America slipping back into the Dark Ages? Yes, says a famous atheist.

A most literal and self-explanatory animation of the day.

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Action Philosophers!

Senator Al Franken? Personally, I think he’s better suited to radio than to politics, and much more powerful that way.

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS!

Steve Jobs pulls a publisher’s books from Apple Store shelves after the release of iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business.

Does your auto make and model determine your political standing? Yes, says this article from the New York Times.

Perhaps the humanitarian gift Iraqi women weren’t expecting.

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Al Franken

Al Franken comes to Seattle May 9th for a live radio broadcast!

He also knew, even as a mere lad of 14, that this never would be just any romance, because the object of that rapturous gaze happened to be his cousin Eleanor. And not a distant cousin, located somewhere in the far branches of the family tree. Their mothers were sisters.
Sometimes in order to marry your first cousin, you have to travel to a state that allows that

Gas prices are prompting more mass transit use. Meanwhile, reports that thieves are syphoning tanks from park cars.

Neat. Simulated patients.

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Adobemedia

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger used to be in the Hitler Youth? He was a long-shot, too, on the CBS Sports Line Pope-a-palooza. Mark Morford from the San Francisco Chronicle has 14 thoughts for the new Pope, Benedict XVI.

You’d think that this cautionary tale would be enough to deter even the most desperate mobe-lifter, but they obviously don’t read Jamaica’s Western Mirror in Romania, because light-fingered Ruxandra Gardian has been snared by the same “let’s dial the number and see where she’s stashed it” ploy.
The Register ponders a place where women shouldn’t put a stolen mobile phone.

How to translate the press release for Adobe’s Macromedia acquisition.

Don’t complain if you’re sleepy during jury duty.

The CDC says if you’re overweight (but not obese), you have a better chance of survival than a normal weight person.

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The Men Who Stare at Goats

Sometimes the headlines write themselves: Viagra is kosher for Passover! Even Viagra can’t solve the problem of lagging American auto sales, as buyers pass them up for the better design and longevity of their foreign counterparts.

FROM: Airforce One – TO: The Twins – RE: Lunch
Hi girls mom is fine and v.busy with her apple pie bakerizing and stuff. Sorry, can’t make lunch 6 June cos little Donny R. says we are going to give it to the Eyeranians. The first wave will go in at 6am EST – subject to CNN approval. Don’t tell anyone, though, cos we’re hoping to catch the Ayatollahs on the hop. Love Pop.
The Register brings forth a possible example why George W Bush fears a privacy breach with email.

[The US Army] believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren’t joking. What’s more, they’re back and fighting the War on Terror.
Excerpt from The Men Who Stare at Goats.

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The Long Emergency

One way to raise money for green causes: eco-porn!

Most of all, the Long Emergency will require us to make other arrangements for the way we live in the United States. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.
Excerpt from The Long Emergency, appearing in Rolling Stone.

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The Vice Fund

Do you celebrate vice? Invest in the Vice Fund. This commercial would keep me from investing in tobacco. Investments in disorderly conduct are not in the fund, but can be found on the police record of Apprentice contestant Chris.

Buster, the Bluth family’s simpering youngest son, had his hand bitten off by a crazed seal; he’s spent most of the season with a hook. His older brother, Gob, had two fingers lopped off in an errant magic trick. In the same episode, Michael Bluth, the show’s main character, had his calf muscles shortened by an incompetent surgeon.
The brilliant Arrested Development, eroding bits-at-a-time, via loss of limbs.

Behold the robot jockey, set to replace humans in horseraces.

Fantastic article about Gene Wilder and his autobiography, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, in the Washington Post.

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Talking Points

Republicans leading an anti-war movement? Check the date of this article.

The unsigned memo — which initially misspells Schiavo’s first name and gives the wrong number for the pending bill — includes eight talking points in support of the legislation and calls the controversy “a great political issue.”
It asserts that the case would appeal to the party’s core supporters, saying: “This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.”
Senator Mel Martinez (R, Fla) legal counsel admits to writing the Terry Schiavo talking points memo.

Take a journey through BOB’s CUBE.

Some Star Wars fans have lined up outside the wrong movie theater for the premiere of Episode III — for seven weeks.

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Left of the Dial

Mark Morford wonders: where are all the cool cars?

The first cartoon I’ve ever seen about Ballard tavern gentrification.

Air America documentary “Left of the Dial” premieres on HBO.

Bill Kristol gets a pie in the face — literally.

And most controversially, is the “Bönö” – a titanium object in the shape of a crucifix which emits a high pitched whine when approached.
What happens when Steve Jobs joins Ikea?

The world’s ugliest car is restored.