Fans of the recently-cancelled The West Wing should read the obituary in American Prospect by Ezra Klein. He does a nice job comparing the "reality" of the show with the reality of reality.
MySpace: A Love Story
Much ink has been spilled about MySpace, and how it is replete with sexual predators. While that is a problem, the oft-cited statistic that one-in-five teens are subjected to "sexual solicitation" on MySpace is a lot of hype. On the other hand, this is pretty weird: A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan tricked her parents into getting her a passport … Read More
The $100 Hamburger
This resort restaurant in Florida now serves a $100 hamburger (pictured above). You can read about it here, but I’ll spare you the trouble. It’s $100 because it weighs 20 ounces, and is 5 1/2 inches across and 2 1/2 inches thick. It is made from the finest beef from three continents — American prime beef, Japanese Kobe and Argentine … Read More
New York Shakes Bad Rep
A friend recently took a visit to New York and commented on how polite people there were, contrary to stereotype. I’ve always found New Yorkers to be polite, and now there’s a study to back me up. 36 major cities in 35 countries were subjected to an "undercover" test. The most polite of the cities studied? The Big Apple: In … Read More
World Cup Death Count Watch
Someone’s keeping track. As of this writing, we’re up to 15, which is "sedate" by World Cup standards.
Did The Simpsons Disprove Fermat’s Theorum?
Back in 1995, The Simpsons aired its annual Halloween episode. This episode was particularly unique because it featured Homer leaving his two-dimensional animated world and venturing into a 3D world (the episode won an Emmy). As Hopmer crossed over the dimensional plane, he marvelled as a bunch of mathematical equations and geometric shapes floated by him. One of those equations … Read More
Better Than American Idol, Sort Of
The finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee are being broadcast live on network television tonight (ABC, 8 p.m. ET). The top finalists who will be competing tonight will be posted here at 4:00 p.m. today. If you’ve never seen this before (ESPN covers it every year) — trust me — it’s really fun to watch. You’ll be impressed with … Read More
Well, Why Not?
Batwoman is a lesbian now. No, really.
Conservative Songs, Part II
The same idiot who came up with the list of the 50 best conservative songs . . . has come up with 50 more best conservative songs. This list is even stupider than the first. It contains (a) songs that nobody heard of; (b) songs that clearly have no political content in it whatsover (e.g., "Yackety Yak"), and (c) songs … Read More
Though They May Have Won All The Battles, We Had All The Good Songs….
Speaking of political songs (as I did last night), the conservative National Review has posted what it touts as the "top 50 conservative rock songs". I’ve put the whole list, along with National Review’s reasoning, below the fold. What’s clear is that in order to compile this list, the editors of NR often had to ignore the politics of the … Read More
Ah, The Counterculture
It’s about fucking time we had some good protest songs —
American Idol: Last Show
I gotta admit, that was one fun final show to watch. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched the show for a couple of seasons, but I don’t recall it being that star-packed and full of music. I seem to remember a lot of wasted time-filler and remotes from "back home", and that’s about it. But if they keep doing it … Read More
George Bush Wins American Idol
No, sorry. I read the graph incorrectly. Taylor won. From Zebasearch:
The Death Of The Broadway Musical?
The New York Times takes a look at the Tony Award nominations and wonders allowed if the Broadway musical is on its last legs: True, bulletins on the musical’s failing health have been posted with weary regularity since at least the 1960’s. But in the Broadway season that just ended officially, this once lively art seemed finally to have crossed … Read More