Friday's Overdue Random 10
Posted by Ross

Lauren needs her love for inventing the Random 10, so, Lauren, we loves ya!

And now for the main event:

1) Sparks - The Who, from "Tommy"
2) (She Was a) Hotel Detective - They Might Be Giants, from their compilation double album "Dial-a-Song"
3) Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon, from "The John Lennon Collection"
4) Catch Me Daddy - Janis Joplin, from the "Janis" box set
5) Sunken Treasure - Wilco, from "Being There"
6) Never Get Old - David Bowie, the kick-ass track from his newest, "Reality"
7) You Got It - Roy Orbison, from "Mystery Girl"
8) A Place in the Sun - Stevie Wonder, from his box set "At the Close of a Century"
9) My Generation - The Who, from "My Generation"
10) Death of a Clown - The Kinks, from "Something Else"

Whew, that kicked some serious ASS!

Alaska, Wolfowitz, Dean and Tyler Durden
Posted by Ross

I just find it so amazing that those greedy bastards are still doing everything they can to get their paws on the great Alaskan wilderness. Jesus, aren't the rivers and streams and skies of our part of the continent good enough? We don't even live there!

And I just love how they keep asserting how they're certain the wilderness won't be harmed in the least once they start drilling for fucking oil. Not in the least. I mean, certainly, in the past, the oil industry has used only the most painstaking scalpel-like care when it would come into contact with the delicate Alaskan wilderness. And let's not forget the stabilizing hand big oil plays elsewhere around the globe. You know what, I trust them.

I'm a guy, right, and because of that, when I watch TV, I'm constantly opening and closing the battery case of the remote control. Now, your average remote only has so many openings and closings - we'll say 170,000 - before it opens and closes no more and the plastic finally breaks off. And we know when we're getting close to that point, because, all of a sudden, when we turn the remote right-side-up, the battery case no longer stays in place and you need to tape it up to keep it from getting lost between the couch cushions.

Anyway, that's a metaphor, or something, to what seems to be happening to the environment. We let big industry rape it within an inch of its life and then we put on the bandaid.

It's funny, because just a couple weeks ago, I was actually, tentatively, thinking, maybe our president has come to his senses, you know with signs pointing to trends that there may be a movement in a direction other than negative in the middle east, and then I wake up one day and say to myself, so that's what they meant about 'starving the beast.'

All of a sudden, I find myself wondering, will Paul Wolfowitz (Paul-fucking-Wolfowitz!) actually do a good job at the world bank?

We live in such a moralistic, crime-and-punishment society, where a person must be crucified for his sins. You know, on one end of the spectrum, you might have an ex-con finding it next-to-impossible to earn an honest living even if he's completely rehabilitated or whatever.

And it works in the other direction too. Like Wolfowitz, right, a neo-con fuckbag, yes, but he also happens to be a pretty brilliant dude. Maybe the World Bank is a place in this world where a brilliant neo-con fuckbag can actually do something positive. I mean, at least you gotta reserve some hope, right?

I was saying, right before the election, I'm changing my party affiliation from Democrat to Independent, no matter who wins. Of course, I was hoping Kerry would win. Anyway, he didn't, and so far, I haven't changed my party affiliation.

So many of those pundits, even the sensible ones on NPR, continue to bash Howard Dean, that he's some, I don't know, cancer or something, because he's so extreme or something. No need to get into that ridiculous assertion. The point is, right before the primaries last year, when I started paying attention to the candidates, and listening to debates, I liked Dean. And I still haven't had any convincing evidence to make me dislike him now. And so I guess I'll remain an impatient Democrat a while longer.

Because the Democrats really try their best, you know, to push progressive social agendas, and they're not as huge of pussies when it comes to the foreign policy as they're painted to be. But then you always have these slimy, oozy, dirty, filthy, disgusting discrepencies, like Joseph Biden's stern support of the credit card company BASTARDS just because he's from Deleware. Remember that last scene in "Fight Club," with the Pixies and exploding buildings? That was beautiful on so many levels.

And now a happier note
Posted by Raznor

If you clicked the link to Amanda in that last post, you'll notice that instead of linking to Mouse Words, the link was to Pandagon. This is because Amanda is now the official coblogger at Pandagon. Read her introduction here.

I'm pleased with this. Amanda is one of my favorite bloggers, and Pandagon one of my favorite blogs. Plus Amanda and Jesse are perhaps the two greatest fiskers the internet has to offer, and now they're at one convenient location. As the kids say, wOOt.

Good news for rapists!
Posted by Raznor

Via Amanda who got it from Lauren, this is just infuriating:

A 16 year old girl was drunk at a party and gang raped while she was unconscious. This was all on videotape, yet a man who participated in it was acquitted by a jury.

But what's really horrible is how the man got off, as Lauren put it:

“Criminal sexual assault is when it occurs against your will,” he [the defense attorney] said. I also saw on a TV news segment that this attorney asked the young woman if she “consented to going to the party and if she consented to getting drunk.” Where the fuck does the fury start? What the hell does it matter if she consented to attending a party? Did the front door have a sign on it like at an amusement park: All who enter cannot sue for personal injury. What the fuck?

Now, I know that defense attorney's jobs is to use anything they can within the law to help their clients get off. But asking the girl if she consented to going to the party is really beneath contempt. It's a defense that works only if the victim is a raped woman. If someone lets a friend in their home, and the friend stabs them, you wouldn't say, "Did you consent to letting your friend into your house," and expect it to exonerate the stabber.

I mean really. There almost seems like there's some snarky joke I could make there, but right now, I'm just far too pissed off.

The Perfect Plan
Posted by Raznor

Quiddity has developed an ingenious compromise on the whole Evolution vs Creationism debate. Check it out.

Left and Center
Posted by Raznor

No- this isn't a post about baseball . . .

Jesse Taylor writes a great dialogue between Centrists and Liberals. My favorite is the Center's view on compromise:

Centrist: We go out and bitch uncontrollably about the left, then propose something that looks a lot like watered-down conservatism. We then walk into a room with Republicans, lay our plan on the table, and assume they're laughing with us rather than at us. If worse comes to worse, we just start insulting you again.

Read the rest.

A Couple of Thoughts From the Prodigal Blogger
Posted by Ross

So it's been a while since last I posted. Both grandmas died last month, which was hard and just pretty much sucked. And then I was up in Flagstaff participating in this Authors in School thing that was set up by my high school creative writing teacher, you know, because I'm a writer and all. I'm looking forward to getting back into my routine and hoping all the seniors still in my life stick around for a little while longer.

Anyway, so in light of anything topical to say, here's a couple of thoughts I had recently that I wrote in my journal:

- Our parents soothe us and make us feel safe when we're children. But what soothes us and makes us feel safe when we're adults? God, government and goods.

- The reason the quality of entertainment is so bad is because of the vast sampling of our population that's emotionally crippled.

Friday is Europe Picture Day
Posted by Raznor




On our second day in Paris, Ross, the Bekka, and I took a walk to the Louvre. On the way there, I saw the Eiffel Tower against the overcast sky and knew it had to be a picture. This is currently my desktop wallpaper.

Friday Random Ten
Posted by Raznor

Well, you know the rules, and it's all maintained by Lauren, so here we go.

1.) "Trogdor" - Strong Bad
2.) "Bob Barker" - Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Jack Black
3.) "Alphabet Town" - Elliott Smith
4.) "After Midnight" - Eric Clapton
5.) A song with an untranslatable title from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack (now that's something, isn't it?)
6.) "Grey Street" - Dave Matthews Band (aka the most depressing Dave Matthews song ever)
7.) "The Part You Throw Away" - Tom Waits (seriously, what random 10 would be complete without some Tom Waits? None I tells you)
8.) "Plug In Baby" - Muse
9.) "Mojo Pin" - Jeff Buckley
10.) "Old Girlfriends" - John Wesley Harding (A singer I heard of thanks to the High Fidelity soundtrack)

And there you go. Another successful week, I'll say. I especially like how the first two turned out to be comedy pieces.

Quiz
Posted by Raznor

Your Brain is 53.33% Female, 46.67% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Via feministe.

What else would I do?
Posted by the Bekka

From an actual pre-recorded phone menu:

"To end this call at any time, please hang up."

I'll beg your question
Posted by Raznor

As a mathematician, I am often annoyed by common misconceptions of mathematical concepts. For example, in recent comments over at Alas Darly told me:

Also, to get from generation 1 to generation 1000 you have to go through generation 456.
If you cannot understand that you could not have understood Cauchy Mean Value theorem in Mathematics either. Shame on you, a grad student in Mathematics.

Besides the fact that his (her?) amazing grasp of mathematical biology extends to Freshmen year calculus, this is a complete misuse of the Mean Value Theorem (or as we math-dudes are wont to call it, the MVT) as the MVT deals with continuous functions over compact sets, generational indexing is discrete (we don't have generation 9.235 for example).

My point in all this is that I can fully understand why philosophers or students of philosophy are annoyed by technical misuse of the phrase "begging the question". But as John Holbo explains, this is really just your standard case of technical usage not meshing well with colloquial usage.

here's a language nit: "The denser linking pattern of conservatives begged the question of whether the conservative bloggers had a more uniform voice than the liberal ones did." Philosophers are always bothered by this usage. We prefer to reserve 'beg the question' for venerable 'presuppose your conclusion'. But there is considerable pressure in favor of the shift. Not only is it clear how the phrase could mean what these authors mean by it, but 'x demands that we ask y' is just plain something you often want to say. And 'begs the question' is really better than 'x demands that we ask y'. "The denser linking pattern of conservatives demands that we ask whether the conservative bloggers had a more uniform voice than the liberal ones did." That makes it sound like I'm too worked up, like our little puzzle has just gotta vault to the front of the line. But why doesn't 'begging' sound irrelevantly fawning? Probably because logicians have pawed all the connotations off it. Now that it's worn smooth and servicable, all these folks want to take it from us, damnit. Should I give in? Worry about something important? What do you think?

I think this is a time where logicians need to suck it up and let the layperson use this phrase as he or she sees fit. I personally never use the term "begs the question" to mean "presupposes the condition". Why? Because we already have an entirely valid expression that means just that, which most people recognizing as meaning just that - circular logic! We say "that argument is circular" or "you're assuming what you seek to prove." If you say "You're begging the question" the common lay-response would be "which question?" In the meanwhile, saying "begging the question" to mean "x demands we ask y" just sounds awesome in a debate.

It's just like how the term "facet" doesn't mean "(n-1)-dimensional face of an n-dimensional polytope" except to mathematicians.

New E-mail
Posted by Raznor

The amount of spam at my old address was getting too much (thank you trolls), so now my e-mail changed. It's teh_raznor, instead of the_raznor. Take note.

TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT
Posted by the Bekka

An actual conversation exchange from my life.

FRIEND: "We musicians can usually smell each other out."

ME: "True, but I wear these other hats here, so I smell different."

Someone at the National Prostate Cancer Coalition is having way too much fun
Posted by Raznor

I mean, seriously.

Link via August Pollak.

Truth is stranger than percentages
Posted by the Bekka

Spotted on an actual sign in Culver City:

"Futuro Car Detailing: 110% Hand Wash"

Absolutely baffling, but I'd love to know how they manage it.

Friday is Europe Picture day- why not?
Posted by Raznor


Our new coblogger bears a striking resemblance to this display at the Louvre.

In honor of the great Bekka being named new coblogger, here's a picture of her from that trip. Ross took this picture when we spent a day at the Louvre. I, in the meanwhile, was busy in the French room, admiring the paintings of Napoleon.

Friday Random Ten
Posted by Raznor

Rules are rules, you know them by now. Obligatory link and props to Lauren and we're ready to start.

1.) "Fired" - Ben Folds
2.) "Venice Queen" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
3.) "Forever Broke" - The Seatbelts (this song is played at the end of the first episode of Cowboy Bebop)
4.) "Sail to the Moon (Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky)" - Radiohead (the parenthetical titles on Hail to the Thief are just awesome)
5.) "Finished with Lies" - They Might Be Giants
6.) "High School Dance" - Mighty Mighty BossToneS
7.) "Baby You're a Rich Man" - The Beatles
8.) "Dusty" - Kings of Leon (how appropriate - I heard of this band thanks to a post at Feministe)
9.) "Still in Love Song" - The Stills (besides Elliott Smith's "Say Yes" possibly the greatest love song of all time)
10.)"Catapult" - Phish

All right, that's it for this week. Have fun.

And then there were three
Posted by Raznor

Well, now there will be another blogger added to the pack - Rebekka! AKA my soon-to-be sister-in-law. She already has an excellent guest post here and you can see her picture here. I'm not sure how I'll rename the blog to account for it. Raznor's, Ross's and Rebekka's rants seems to long of a title. I'll probably just go back to calling it "Raznor's Rants" and have a subtitle that appropriately credits cobloggers and the fact that we're totally reality-based. I'll let Rebekka introduce herself when she wants.

Mmmmm, unintentional hilarity
Posted by Raznor

Via Oliver Willis, apparently John Hinderaker has taken a break from calling libruls out of touch to write this gem:

One "Chris Rock," the host, whom I've never otherwise heard of, led off with an idiotic anti-Bush tirade. $70 trillion? Interesting statistic. What was noteworthy was not the host, who obviously knows nothing, but the crowd--every single person there laughed and applauded.

I mean - wow. What do you say to that? Way to take Chris Rock to task for his exxagerations. Also, I'll add how offended I am by the positive portrayals of Hitler in The Producers.

Yeesh.

Rock on, August Pollak
Posted by Raznor

I just wanted to congratulate August Pollak, who, for the second year running is batting 1.000 with his Oscar picks.

2nd Pic of the Day
That Scummy Guy That Took a Bribe While Officially an Amateur
Posted by: Ross


Chris Webber took money while he was an amateur. Scandalous!

I don't even remember why I'm all passionate about this all of a sudden. I didn't even listen to the news today, so how did it pop into my head?

In any case, I want to make a plea on behalf of the future Chris Webbers of the world. Because like young Chris Webber, many budding NBA stars, and, I would gander, NFL, MLB, and NHL stars, in the ranks of the NCAA are going to be tempted into accepting "gifts", cashing in their future earning power a little early, if you catch my drift, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

It's such a sleazy, deplorable practice.

Heard this one before?

Universities pay their coaches multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts to build winning teams. Those elite teams from Duke to Arizona, from Oregon to Georgetown, are raking it in by the millions, while the athletes are getting a free education. They're selling their star athletes' likenesses on merchandise, on media guides, on TV ads, while the athletes get to eat for free in the cafeteria.

Hey, I love college. I love it so much, I paid, and am still paying for it. So there is definitely a part of me that says fuck you, you spoiled douchebag and pay your lumps before leaving me in your dust.

That said, think about this...

And so with dreams of millions of dollars and a stable full of ho's within arm's reach, these teenage future millionaires of America are expected to, in every circumstance, turn down free shit that they want. Uh, easier said than done, dude. Especially, like in Webber's case, if other family members are involved.

Personally, if I were a college student, which, at one point I was, I wouldn't have a problem if I knew, for instance, that there was a modest pay scale for student athletes above and beyond their free education. I'm not talking millions of dollars, but, man, for a college student, an extra ten grand would be pretty nice.

Am I being naive? Is that not a lot of money, even for those whose yet unfulfilled dreams have seven zeroes in them?

Wouldn't it be a more effective deterrent to taking bribes, if it was okay for a university to say, "Look, you're still a college student, but since we raked in 500 grand on t-shirt sales with your face on 'em, here's an extra ten grand to have some fun with."?

AND because they're not hanging out with sleazy agents or boosters reps or whoever is dangling money in front of them, that means they'll be hanging out with their fellow students. And their parties would kick ass.

Friday's Random Ten
Posted by Ross

Rules are great. They might even be better than Jesus. For the Random 10, here are the rules:

1)Get an mp3 player or some software to play mp3s.
2)Put it on random play.
3)List the first ten songs.

And now for the moment we've all been waiting for, this Friday's Random Ten!

1) Isn't It a Pity - George Harrison. From "All Things Must Pass."
2) Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? - Prince. From "The Hits 1."
3) Red Dwarf Theme - Theme song from the BBC Star Trek-esque sitcom "Red Dwarf." Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun sun!
4) The Wind - Cat Stevens. From the "Almost Famous" soundtrack.
5) Raise Your Hand - Janis Joplin. From "Janis" a 3-CD box set.
6) Tell Mama - Janis Joplin. Also from "Janis."
7) How Could We Still Be Dancin' - Brian Wilson, with Elton John. From Wilson's newest album "Gettin' in Over My Head."
8) The W.S. Wolcott Medicine Show - The Band. From "The Last Waltz" box set.
9) Heroes and Villains - The Beach Boys. From "Classics: Selected by Brian Wilson."
10) Rael 2 - The Who. From "The Who Sell Out."

Hot damn, that was a sweet list!

Update (by Raznor): Just wanted to make sure that Lauren got her props here. That is all.

Today's Daily Pic of Day
Gettin' Down to Bidness
Posted by: Rebekka, special guest blogger


Can't wait to get yours? Click here.

This is an actual item that is for sale on Ebay. I love how it depicts W rolling up his sleeves, getting ready to get down to some serious business, with that stern, upward-looking face. Plus, you can never go wrong invoking the top two sacred Americana items du jour: the flag, and 9/11. It’s practically beatific. I’m so glad the artist stopped short of putting a ring of light around our blessed leader’s disturbing cranium. That would’ve just been too much. Here’s the actual text from the site:

“"The Reminder" - Created by renowned Historical Artist Ken Hendricksen of Kennebunkport, ME, this fine patriotic print is "hand signed" by the artist & mounted on a laminated wall plaque. Measures: 9.5" x 11.5". Also available 12" x 14.5" (email for quote). (Actual print does not list "The Reminder".)You'll be proud to display this in your home or office. Buy w/ confidence. Safe, courteous delivery. Deliveries to ALASKA , PUERTO RICO & HAWAII cost $25.00. No insurance or proof of delivery for APO addresses. WHY WAIT? BUY IT NOW!”

A few thoughts.

1. I’ve been to Kennebunkport, Maine, and somehow it doesn’t surprise me that someone from there would create something like this. It’s a little…how shall I say…quaint. And by quaint I mean podunk.

2. Wow. “Hand signed.” Not to be confused with regular old hand signed, without the quotation marks. Obviously they’ve never heard of the term “Autopen,” although granted, from a S&M (that’s Sales and Marketing, you sicko) standpoint, “Hand signed” sounds a lot better than “Artist’s signature reproduced on print just like the rest of the print.”

3. Whaddya mean the actual print does not list “The Reminder?” That’s my favorite part of this “fine patriotic print.” It emphasizes how important it is to remember…wait, what is it I was supposed to remember again? See? We DO need a reminder. They should be ashamed of themselves for such blatantly false advertising, which is obviously part of the left-wing-Yid-controlled Media. They want us to forget…uh…whatever it was we were supposed to remember.

4. How do you know I’d be “proud to display this in my home or office”? Don’t you tell me how to feel.

5. Are they absolutely sure that each and every delivery will be courteous? Do they have some sort of mind-control device that only works on mail delivery people? And where can I get one?

6. What self-respecting Puerto Rican would buy this?

7. True. Why should I wait? As a decent, God-fearing American, I owe it to the memories of the people killed on that tragic, fateful day to purchase as many copies of this soon-to-be-hallowed-masterpiece as possible as soon as possible and place one, no, better make that two, in every room of my house. I wonder if they make a bumper-sticker sized one. Plus I wouldn’t mind emblazoning this patriotic tableau on my toilet lid.

Poor Satchel
Posted by Raznor

Fine, Europe Pic 3
Posted by Raznor




So here's me and Ross, standing in front of a statue of that one guy, in East Berlin. It kind of looks like Lenin, but then all Commie statues look alike after a while. I'm, of course, to the left. Ross, to the right. The glorious leader of East Germany towers behind us.

Europe Pic 2
Posted by Raznor




I was meaning to do this for a while, but in honor of Ross being named co-blogger, here's a pic of him and his beautiful fiancee at La Grande Place in Brussels (shortly after we got our stuff stolen, for those who remember).

I was practically lying down on the disgusting, smelly, cigarette butt covered ground to take this picture. I hope you appreciate it.

Jerks.

Next will be a pic of me, Raznor.

Sit tight.

Today's Glorious Pic:
President Bush's Yale Dormroom Wall
Posted by: Ross

According to Chaswick, Freshman year, the 43rd president would toke up and then stare for hours at his eight-foot tall Marley poster, longing for the rivers of Babylon.

Since tapes recorded by Bush's "best bud" Doug Wead surfaced last week in which, among other things, the prez talked about why he would never admit to having smoked dope, I tracked down Vincent "Muddy" Chaswick, Georgie Bush's freshman roommate at Yale.

The year is 1964, and Muddy has just said goodbye to Mom and Dad. He slings his duffle bag over his shoulder and heads into the dormitory he'll be calling home freshman year. His RA gives him a key and sends him up to his dorm room. Muddy unlocks the door, just in time to see his new roomie taking the most massive hit from a spliff the size of a Snickers Bar.

This was little Georgie Bush, who had spent that previous summer with some friends in Jamaica. And when he came back, he was a "full-blown rastafarian," according to Chaswick, "or at least, that's what he believed.

"Yeah, he was always going on about how he wanted to return to Babylon and all that crazy shit. And also he grew his hair all long, you know, wearing it in these nappy dreds. You know, this was '64, before a lot of that hippie stuff had really caught on. Being born out of wealth and priviledge, it's not too surprising Georgie was ahead of the curve on that one. He was even farther ahead of the curve with his obsession with Reggae. When you think about it, he was probably the first college student ever to hang up a Bob Marley poster in his dorm."

At this point, Muddy gets a faraway look in his eye, laughs quietly, then adds, "Wonder why that never gets mentioned when people talk about the 'Bush Legacy'."

The AARP will blow up your kittens with nukes!
Posted by Raznor

Check out this post from Uggabugga.

The Grotesquely Inappropriately-named Pic of the Day is Back!
Hunter S. Thompson
Posted by: Ross

You're a whole different person when you're art. Hunter S. never forgave Trudeau for Duke.

"My concept of death for a long time was to come down that mountain road [halfway between Louisville and Eglin Air Force Bace in Florida] at a hundred and twenty and just keep going straight right there, burst out through the barrier and hang out above all that... and there I'd be sitting in the front seat, stark naked, with a case of whiskey next to me, and a case of dynamite in the trunk... honking the horn, and the lights on, and just sit there in space for an instant, a human bomb, and fall down into that mess of steel mills. It'd be a tremendous goddamn explosion. No pain. No one would get hurt. I'm pretty sure, unless they've changed the highway, that launching place is still there. As soon as I get home, I ought to take the drive just to check it out."
- Hunter S. Thompson, exerpted from today's Los Angeles Times.

Reading Thompson's prose is like eating a hunk of dark chocolate knockout cake with that whipped icing: delicious.
I read FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS on an overnight train from Paris to Madrid in the summer of '98. And for me, it's places like this where Hunter S. Thompson will remain.

Kevin Drum gets his ass handed to him
Posted by Raznor

When Kevin Drum recently asked the inane question of "where are the women bloggers," I didn't respond because (a) it doesn't personally affect me, and (b) half of my favorite blogs are by women. From Echidne, to Lauren, to Amanda, to Bean and many others.

But now, Drum notes that the question of where the women bloggers are has been answered, with a note of annoyance, by - that's right - women bloggers!

May that be a lesson to you.

Update: In the comments to the above post, Morgan offers a non-exhaustive list of female bloggers in alphabetical order, and - hooboy - it's a doozie. She doesn't add hyperlinks (alas) but considering the length of the post, I can't say I blame her.

Everything I need to know I learned from watching 24
Posted by Raznor

Kevin Drum notes that, although torture has been used a lot in 24 this season, in no case has it been effective (yet - there's still 14 episodes to go). He concludes that the writers of 24 are saying that torture doesn't work, a valuable lesson in these times. So it got me thinking, what other important life lessons have I taken from the first 4 seasons of 24? Here's a small list:

1) If a terrorist looks in anyway middle eastern, or what one would stereotypically think a terrorist looks like, he is not the top dog. This means that when we see Osama Bin Laden's tapes, there's some white American, or charming British guy behind the camera, telling him what to say. I suspect Tony Blair. For no reason in particular.

2) No matter how good security is, there will always be a mole. I mean, come on. Nina and Jackie in season 1 were one thing, but how half-assed are CTU's background checks anyway?

3) Any terrorist plot will be stopped in a few hours, only to have the much bigger plot initiated. This is my theory for the intelligence failure on 9/11. They actually stopped some minor terrorist threat only to find out the real plan involved airplanes. That part probably hasn't been declassified yet.

4) Never trust an ambitious black woman. Be she Sherri Palmer or Maryanne whatever her last name is. You know, the mole from this season, who slept with that one black agent who got captured by the white, American uber-terrorist? Condoleeza Rice, I'm looking at you. Also note that these treacherous black women always have had sexual histories with the noble black men. Colin Powell?

5) Democratic presidents are overly idealized in an imperfect political world. Republican presidents never get their asses off of Air Force 1 during a crisis. Or maybe it's not Democratic presidents, but black Democratic presidents. Obama '08?

6) Jack Bauer is the baddest ass motherfucker on the fucking planet! I mean you saw when Arad hit him with that car? He just walked that off like it was nothing! I'm not sure how this applies to the real world, but it had to be said.

Well, there you go. Any other lessons feel free to use comments.

If I had an operating blogroll, this would so be added to it
Posted by Raznor

(Yeah, I'll have to learn enough html to update the template here one of these days)

Those of you who are as avid readers of Alas, Blog as I am, will remember when Barry (aka Ampersand) turned his blog into a group blog with the introduction of Bean. So it was that Bean contributed some extremely brilliant and insightful posts of her own, but now, just as Ezra Klein has torn off the shackles of Pandagon, and Bob Harris took his independence from This Modern World, so has Bean ventured into the land of independent blogging with her new blog Cool Beans.

It's definitely worth a read. Go, check it out.

. . . will this tendency of underbloggers seeking independence from they're high quality and popular blog homes foreshadow a Ross breaking away from this fairquality and modestly popular blog? Time will tell.

Well, that sucks
Posted by Raznor

Hunter S Thompson shot himself.

I really have nothing more to say.