Oooo! Those homophobes make me so MAD!

In short: A high school kid wears a shirt saying he's gay and he's proud. School officials send him home because the shirt might "offend somebody." Student points to all the anti-gay stickers and t-shirts on display at the school. It makes no difference. The shirt might "cause controversy."

The ACLU has stepped in to bitch-slap the morons in charge. What the fuck were they thinking? Here's the press release:
ACLU Scolds Missouri High School for Censoring Gay Student

Additionally, You can click here to donate money to the ACLU, who have been overworked and underpaid even more than usual during this catastrophic Bush presidency.

This is a snippet from The Onion, shortly after we invaded Iraq:

---------------
Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- Baghdad resident Taha Sabri, killed Monday in a U.S. air strike on his city, would have loved the eventual liberation of Iraq and establishment of democracy, had he lived to see it, his grieving widow said.
---------------

Now, John Hopkins University has concluded that 100,000 civilians have been killed as a result of our invasion. That's 97,000 more paople than were killed in the 9/11 attacks, with which Iraq had nothing to do.

It's ironic that the only WMDs ever found there were the ones that we attacked them with.

More irony: The Bloomberg story linked to here notes, without comment, that "the majority of the casualties occured after the end of major hostilities," which, by definition, simply cannot be true.

Fortunately, Americans still have a chance to begin fixing this mind-warping clusterfuck by voting for the Kerry/Edwards ticket this coming Tuesday.
Bloomberg.com:U.S.

The man who wrote the iconic 1970's hit "Still The One" has complained because the Bush campaign has been using it without his permission, and without paying royalties. In true Republican fashion, they promised to stop using it, only to continue using it just hours later.

We look forward to the RIAA prosecuting the president for stealing music.
CNN.com - Bush camp drops theme song

Also on our radar gaydar is an interesting site that asks the question "Is Bush gay?" The answer may surprise you.

Or not.

If you use a Mac running OS X, you'll be pleased to know that there's an application that generates random country music lyrics. Stupid? Yes. But addictive. My favorite thus far:

I met her at a truck stop in September
I can still recall that burlap bra she wore
She was smellin' kind of funny near Poughkeepsie,
And I knew I'd have to scrape her off the floor;
The judge declared I'd swear off booze forever;
She said to me man wasn't meant to fly;
But who'd have thought she'd black out with no clothes on;
She sent a hired thug to say goodbye.

VersionTracker.com

This just in from boingboing.net:

Person 1: Knock Knock.
Person 2: Who's there?
Person 1: Control freak.
Person 1: Now you say, "Control freak who?"

Hernia-inducing guffaws ensue.

You've GOT to be kidding me.

Below, you'll see an actual absentee ballot being used in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Let's say you wanted to vote for George Bush (god forbid!). Which box would you check? Probably the one highlighted here in green, yes?



Wrong. To vote for George Bush, you'd need to check the box highlighted in RED. (box 4, like the arrow says). The John Kerry box is in blue.

Have we, as a nation, lost our fucking minds? How did the world's greatest democracy forget the recipe for holding an election? Does anybody remember the clusterfuck in Florida 4 years ago? We're not just quibbling here about nuances of design taste; we're talking about the legitimacy of a presidential election!

Here's a picture of the recent Afghani presidential ballot:



Notice how it's designed so that even people who can't read can still be confident that they're voting for the person they want? It lists the candidate's name, a photo of that candidate, the name of the political party they represent, and the symbol of that political party. And there, perfectly aligned with all that information, is an oversized white box into which one can put a big fact "X." Those white boxes aren't all jumbled up at the bottom of the page like some brain-teaser on the back of a cereal box. They aren't on some separate piece of paper somewhere else.

And these people have never held an election before! Ever! Not even once! They were run by the Taliban, and before that, the Soviets, and before that, they had a fucking KING!

Designing a ballot doesn't require the assistance of Edward Tufte, it just requires one rational person to design it, and a small group comprised of other rational people should be able to critique it and sign off on the design. The procedure is essentially the same one employed when the folks down in Human Resources write a memo amending the office dress code. Isn't that an attainable goal? Isn't that bar low enough even for the stupidest of election officials?

Alright, alright. I know. I'm blowing my top. I'll be quiet now. Just one more thing. Different topic: The election's about a week away. Keep your eyes peeled for Republican Dirty Tricks. As election day approaches and Rove starts to panic...

Thanks to H8ful favorite electoral-vote.com for the assist on this one.

Here's David Letterman's Top 10 List from Thursday night, as presented by Red Sox ace Curt Schilling.
Boston.com / Sports / Baseball / Red Sox / Stage presence

In 1986, Dan Rather was assaulted on a Manhattan street, knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked while his assailant demanded to know "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" Pretty bizarre crap.

This gave us, among other things, the R.E.M. hit of the same name.

Now, though, the mystery is solved, and the culprit has been identified! You'll be shocked to learn that it was a mental defective who thought the media were beaming signals into his head.
Rather Knows The Frequency

Sure, it's not like they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with an alligator, but giving CPR to a dog still makes these firefighters quality boyfriend material.
Firefighters revive dog with mouth-to-snout CPR

UPDATE: An observant HT reader points us to a similar story involving a parrot. Go figure!

Here's another reason to boot George Bush on November 2:

"Oct. 20, 2004 -- TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.

'We haven't seen anything good from Democrats,' Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another."

Surprise! Democrats are wetting their collective pants with glee:

"'It is telling that this president has received the endorsement of a member of the axis of evil,' Kerry campaign spokeswoman Allison Dobson said. 'But Americans deserve a president who will have a comprehensive strategy to address the potential threat of Iran's growing nuclear program.'"

Here's the link. You may need to sit through a brief advertisement to access the full story...
Salon.com News | Bush receives endorsement from Iran

UPDATE: Here's another bizarre endorsement. Jesse Ventura {apparently) endorsed John Kerry at a press conference Thursday, although he refused to speak a single word. Instead, former Maine governor Angus King served as Ventura's Senor Wences. When asked questions directly, Ventura would only motion to King for the response.
They don't call him Jesse "The Mouth," do they?

GO SOX!

As part of our occasional series on hideous freaks of nature (e.g., link, link and link.), we now present you with a monstrous sunfish that recently washed ashore in New Zealand. As usual, it's an unholy affront against decency and an ill portent for mankind's future.


Smells like fish: a tasty dish?

I've been muttering about this for months now. The Republicans are dusting off their formidable playbook of dirty tricks, in preparation for the wholesale theft of the coming election.

I may be cynical, paranoid and bitter. I may be completely delusional. I hope I am. But it's a lot more likely that the Republicans really ARE trying to steal the tatters of our democracy for the personal profit of themselves and their friends.

Don't act crazy, folks. Vote Kerry!
Boston.com -- The art of stealing elections

Hello again, fair readers. Here's what I did this weekend: SLS 2004. The Society for Literature and Science, hosted by Duke University this year, had its annual conference in Durham, NC. It may be hard to believe, but it's true: an academic conference CAN be strange, surreal, and subversive. Our keynote address was given by Donna Haraway, subject of this interview in Wired, and she's definitely subversive. The surreality enters when you walk into the "dance party" at this conference, and you see respected professors and authors of serious intellectual works attempting to boogie. The four-foot ice sculpture in the shape of a dog (with same professors taking photos of Haraway patting it) = both surreal and just plain strange.
I heard some wonderful papers (and a couple that left me entirely cold and/or slightly ill) including one from Bernadette Wegenstein from SUNY Buffalo about (in part) a Marina De Van film called Dans Ma Peau (In My Skin). It was fascinating (in the psychoanalytic sense) and at the same time so abjectly grotesque that I could barely hold down my Marriott food service bagel-with-grape-jelly. Lordy.
How have you been?

Here's a Boston Globe editorial detailing just a few of the reasons that our current president SUCKS, and urgently needs replacing.
The case for change

Zoe Heller, a former dancer with the New York City Ballet (under Ballanchine!), has written books before, mainly about dance. Her most recent book, though, is a departure from all that. It's called "The Beauty of Submission," and it's sole subject matter is the joy of... well, getting fucked in the ass.

Bizarre enough, yes, but who'd have thought to find it reviewed in no less august a journal than the New York Times? The surreality of it is not to be missed.

"[N]o woman before Bentley has felt quite zealous enough about what she calls ''emancipation through the back door'' to write an entire book in its praise. Bentley credits sodomy with having resolved the lifelong psychosexual problems that resulted from not being loved enough by her father. (In one luridly Freudian episode of this book, [her father] is described punishing his 4-year-old daughter for some minor infraction by angrily smearing a banana on her face and in her hair.) By giving herself up to ''this forbidden pathway,'' Bentley writes, she has not only found her self, she has discovered ''Paradise,'' she has experienced ''eternity in a moment of real time,'' and she has gotten to know God ''experientially.'' That's not all. She is also pretty sure that anal sex is responsible for piercing her yang, forcing her yin to the surface and releasing decades of anger stored in her lower intestine."
The New York Times: Premium Archive :

Part The First
DId you know that you can read Doonesbury online, for free, every day? It's a laudable public service provided by the good folks at Salon.com. Check it out!

Part The Second
Here's last Wednesday's Doonesbury strip:



Part The Third
Salon, God bless them, has waived its normal registration restrictions to allow everybody to read the article mentioned in the Doonesbury strip. It's called "Why conservatives must not vote for Bush" and it's very well-written. I encourage you to read it. (I think Bush is a cancer on our nation, so I don't need convincing, but I enjoyed the article nonetheless.) Check it out!


Part The Last
Here's one last plug for Salon.com. I read The Boston Globe online most every day at Boston.com. It isn't as satisfying or as complete as having the entire newspaper in your hands, but it's FREE, and I save a crapload of trees. Unfortunately, one of the things that's missing in the online edition is the comics page. And I miss it, by gum!

So let me recommend to you Salon's "My Comics Page." It offers a boatload of comics to choose from, as well as 32 years of Doonesbury comics(!) and a free Calvin and Hobbes book, for just $11.95 a year. That's one lousy buck a month!

Once again, for those who haven't been paying attention, here's the link to the Salon piece:
Salon.com | Why conservatives must not vote for Bush

Here's a collection of the year's most awesome crop circles. Amazing, that what were once evidence of alien visitations are now, essentially, graffiti. Beautiful, nonetheless.


c i r c l e m a k e r s

There are few things as sickening-sweet as a teddy bear. They're the most innocuous, and therefore the most sinister, of all stuffed toys. A teddy's spongy body seems to serve as a repository for a child's misdirected love. For Chrissake, kids, get a puppy or a goldfish, or -- Heaven forbid! -- learn to love a human.

So it is with a blackened but giddy heart that I welcome the arrival of Teddy Scares. They're evil, mutant, dead teddy bears. And you can't beat the tagline: "Once Soft and Cuddly, Now Dead and Bloody."



Thanks to The Fortean Times for the heads up on this.

Teddy Scares

I've been looking all over for a site like this one. It tracks the most current polling data, and continually updates a U.S. map showing how the presidential race is going, state-by-state. After all, it's the state-by-state races that decide the election, due to our unimaginally stupid and antiquated electoral college system.



What's more, when you mouse over a state, a box pops up showing you the latest poll numbers, along with the source of the poll, the results of the 2000 election,etc. Very nicely executed, people!

There are a bunch of other charts and graphs available here, too. Spreadsheet junkies will delight in the downloadable .csv and .xls files.

And here's a friendly reminder. VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY. Tell your friends to vote for Kerry. Tell perfect strangers to vote for Kerry. If Bush wins re-election, we're boned, folks. BONED!
Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

I can remember the 1970's, when computers were things you knew existed, but obviously had never seen outside of TV documentaries. Computers were room-filling monstrosities that scientists and huge corporations used. They were operated by feeding punch-cards into them, and I'm not sure why we even bothered. There were probably a dozen people in the world with an email address, and the most advanced video outputs displayed 80-character columns of text, so you couldn't display a pornographic jpeg even if jpegs existed! Christ, the phrase "modern conveniences" referred to things like transistor radios and flush toilets.

So it is with great clarity that I recall the day my father came home from work with a piece of computer-generated art.

What he presented to me, printed on an off-white, perforated, tractor-fed sheet of paper, was a crude likeness of Snoopy -- flying on his dog house, in pursuit of the Red Baron -- rendered entirely out of letters and numbers, and produced on a 9-pin dot-matrix printer. It was the first time I'd ever seen "ASCII Art," which ruled for years as the pinnacle of artistic expression in the digital realm.

In hindsight, of course, we can see that most ASCII Art was really, really bad. And the sorry bullshit that passed for porn makes me want to cry sometimes.

Thankfully, we now have full-color, high-resolution displays with which to view porn and play solitaire. ASCII Art is pretty much dead.

Or is it?

Here's a curious example of an attempt to drag ASCII Art into the 21st century. It's a collection of ASCII movies, which I must admit are very clever. I still think they're an evolutionary dead end in the big scheme of things, but I gotta give 'em their props for pushing the ASCII envelope.

ASCII Movies

Here's a collection of dead mermaids, along with a few other nonexistent creatures, in various states of decomposition. Ghastly, but fascinating.

Mercorpses