McSweeney's: Alternate Xmas poems

Here

Randomness

Just a few quick notes. I haven’t posted in a while (not that the one viewer per week has noticed), but a few things have been on my mind over the last few days:

Item: Go to New Orleans. I was there a week ago and the place is empty and people are leaving. It’s too much a part of this country’s history and heritage to allow it to die.

Item: Martin Luther King, Jr. deserves a memorial, but I think the $100 million that will be spent on the one in DC would be better spent on predominantly (and in many cases exclusively) black schools in the inner cities and rural South, or as seed money for a foundation to continue the work that he was doing when he died. His family sure isn’t doing much of anything except trying to make a buck off of his name and good deeds.

Item: Governor Mark Sanford (Libertarian-SC) latches onto every possible handhold that comes up (the latest is an audit of the state’s DOT saying they waste money—welcome to government) to argue for his pet project, reorganizing state government to make constitutional, elected positions part of a cabinet. I think instead the governor should be calling for a constitutional convention to get rid of the racist legacy of the sorry “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, whose 1895 constitution was drawn up to disfranchise black voters as much as for anything else.

Item: James Carville needs some strange, because fucking Mary Matalin has addled his brain. Either that, or he should just sit back and raise the kids while the Mrs. runs the Republican party. If I were a Democratic leader, I wouldn’t tell him a damn thing about strategy or tactics, because Mary’ll just go down on him and he’ll ejaculate everything, literally and figuratively, right there on the living room carpet.

Visualizing Meaning � About the project

Faculty at Cornell were asked: "Of the many charts (graph, map, diagram, table and ‘other’) you have seen in your life, which has been the most important, remarkable, meaningful or valuable?" This site answers that question. Very cool.

www.dontclick.it

www.dontclick.it Don't click it. Seriously. Don't.

UP - United Professionals - Professionals deserve to earn a good living.

UP - United Professionals - Professionals deserve to earn a good living.
This new group founded by Barbara Ehrenriech looks to improve the lives of white-collar workers through attention to health care, debt, and displacement issues.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Last Outpost - TV Squad

Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has a wonderful blog (temporarily here), and occasionally reviews old TNG episodes, such as this one. Hilariously, I hasten to add.

The Blog | Jane Smiley: CEO President | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Jane Smiley: CEO President | The Huffington Post

Haven't posted in a while and will explain later, but this essay is astoundingly good.

del.icio.us

I've been using my del.icio.us site to organize my bookmarks online so I'll always (at least as long as del.icio.us operates) have access to them if I don't have my computer or my thumb drive. Now that you can upload and import your bookmarks file into del.icio.us, it's really easy. The other advantage is that I can share them with other folks with the same interests. I didn't share them all at first, so I'm going to have to go through them and decide which ones to share (probably the vast majority). If any del.icio.us users happen upon this entry, check my site out, and be patient. If you don't use del.icio.us, check out my site anyway: you might decide to become a user.

TruthVendor.com

The Truth about "John F. Kennedy."

James Wolcott: Hellmouth Sets out the Welcome Mat

James Wolcott has some excerpts from various sources that put the Lebanon issue in deeper context.

Puritans to Prohibition

Puritans to Prohibition

Alcohol in the Colonial Era.

Daily Kos: SC-Gov: The national implications

A good take on South Carolina's gubernatorial politics from a correspondent on the DailyKos site.

Mike Whitney: Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?

Mike Whitney: Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?

information

This is the coolest site I've seen in a while. You can get further into the pictures forever. It's an infinite mosaic.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Thirteen Writing Prompts.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Thirteen Writing Prompts.

Dear NSA

Dear NSA

Does hating rock make you a music critic? By Jody Rosen

Does hating rock make you a music critic? By Jody Rosen

An interesting rock v. pop analysis.

This Modern World � Blog Archive � Bush & Nixon photo finish

This Modern World � Blog Archive � Bush & Nixon photo finish

Interesting.

Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner-- President Not Amused?

Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner-- President Not Amused?: "Turning to the war, he declared, 'I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.'"

Elvis, the world's smartest cow. By Jon Katz

Elvis, the world's smartest cow. By Jon Katz

I used to love the cows that inhabited the pasture behind my grandparents' house and trailer. I would stare at them, and they at me, for long minutes at a time. I've always wanted a cow of my own (and enough room and money to keep it), and Elvis seems like the kind of cow anyone would love to have around.