I go on and on about Brad DeLong but he’s great. He ruminates on things that he doesn’t know, reviews his past mispredictions, constantly reviews models. And I agree with a lot of what he has to say. Plus he intersperses his economics lectures with cute stories about his kids.
Chris Lydon has a blog. I’m looking for a transcript or audio encoding of his talk with Krugman at the First United Church this past Friday. He’s pretty neat too.
In the grant history of stupid brand names, this mistake is pretty bad. The Honda Jazz is the name in the UK and Canada; in the US it’s known as the Metropolitan.
And speaking of stupid, people are angry about fashionable gay men doing nice things for straight men. OK then, boycott the show. Boycotts are a legitimate way of expressing your distaste for a show. On the other hand, you’re a bunch of fucking nitwits.
Lileks is usually a reliable source of hilarity. So I was all set to giggle when I was pointed to JL’s excellent article on thermonuclear armaggeddon. Which isn’t funny. Not at all.
Ogged, from unfogged.com, has asked what I meant by terrifying and hilarious. I meant that it covers issues which are profoundly serious, and yet also laughably strange or absurd. For example, this post on baseball commissioner Bud Selig which points out how stupid leaders could actually be useful when seeking transparency in government.
Ogged is also exploring the gay marriage thing, trying to figure out if there is some sort of legitimate argument against it. I’m curious to find out where that leads us– perhaps to some sort of intelligent debate on the subject?
Newsskim and Ironic Times are both funny news sites. Have I linked Ironic Times before? It’s more sarcastic than ironic, to be honest, although a lot of news these days does seem to be ironic, even without any commentary. UnfOgged for example, is alternately… well, terrifying and hilarious. Like these SCARY RABBITS.
I admit it. I agree with Dubya on something. He’s done something right: signed a bill proclaiming that prison rape is bad and should be stopped. Just goes to show you, he feels your pain, as he brutally sodomizes our economy and our futures.
Disney Freaks. Cory Doctorow defends them, and he has a good point that they’re not any worse than any other sorts of fans, obsessives or generalized otaku– ski bums, say, or baseball-card collectors. They enjoy it, they’re independent adults, and why the hell not? On the other hand, it’s just a little bit icky for reasons I’m not very good at articulating.
This entry is dedicated to Licketysplit at Vomitola, in the hope that she has a classy-ass wedding.
I was recently sent a George W. Bush resume… Reading it, I’m reminded of the Dorothy Parker poem “Resume.” See the extended entry for the actual resume…
These are the kinds of unbalanced accusations that I like to see, despite recent discussion of the harmful effects of that trend. Let’s see the lefties quit pulling punches. I don’t mean to get untruthful– there may be a few errors in that resume, and I corrected at least one myself. I mean, let’s start talking about corruption, mistakes, class war, self-interest, ethics committees, felony records. Let’s drag the kids into this, let’s drag the cousins into it.
Oh wait, we did, and nobody cares because he looks good in a flight suit. Shitbird.
Continue reading “Resume”
Do not call me “buudeee” or “brotha.”
It gets more and more irksome every time you say it, you slimy motherfucker.
Tuesday night I saw the Bravo lineup of gayness: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, then Boy Meets Boy, then more Queer Eye.
Boy Meets Boy, the most frivolous of them all, is perhaps the one with the most redeeming social value. Sure, it’s a mean-twist dating show, but on the other hand, it really forced me to examine my preconceptions. I kept expecting the suitors to be having rampant casual sex, or for the ‘leading man’ to sleep with each of them to see which he preferred in bed. But he spent a lot of time talking about values and relationships and emotions. Then there was one boy who actually said, honestly, “well, you know, you’re a great guy, but I’m not feeling the kind of electric connection I had hoped for. I’d love to be friends but I don’t think we should date.” He basically kicked himself off the show– I was thinking, dude, how could you NOT LIE! There’s fame and money at stake here! But they were all quite honorable and friendly. Although two of the suitors are definitely starting a romance of their own. Still, I couldn’t help but note the serious reinforcement of heteronormative values: one guy got tossed for having a sometime-boyfriend back in NYC. And of course there’s no real talk about maybe picking two of the suitors or any of that.
Queer Eye is also real reinforcement of heteronormative values (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you). All the straight slobs are trying to learn how to shape up for their girlfriends and wives. But for the most part, it’s frivolous and doesn’t examine stereotypes: just some fairies come and make the house neat and trim your nose hair. Half of it is pimping for West Elm and DWR and the value of back-waxing.
What I’d like to see is “Butch Eye for the Straight Girl” in which five sensible-shoe-wearing lesbians arrive in a Volvo station wagon to the Bridget-Jones apartment of some ditzy fashion-victim girl, educate her about dioxins in bleached tampons and the medical establishment’s sexism, teach her how to play folk songs on the guitar, and help her dress for comfort rather than to please others, and show her how not to care about body image, and learn to love herself as she is. Then she’d go out for coffee with her female friends and not talk to any of the boys or care about them, and just be self-sufficient for once.
There’s yet another psychology study claiming Bush is a nutter. But most of us knew that already. He’s as crazy as … well, significant portions of the political fringe, and probably significant portions of the world as well.
This isn’t the first study looking at Bush’s actions for hints of pyschological frailty, mining the rich territory of alcoholism, manichean fundamentalism and warmongering, the insistence on loyalty and uniformity. And of course he’s not the first leader of the world to go nuts, either. Look at Rome.
In seventh grade, my history teacher Mr. Dupree told us how the US was a lot like the Roman Empire– how we were living in the glory days and it would all go downhill from here. The first Gulf War was beginning and the enemies of our Nation-State were gathering strength. Probably not the best thing to teach seventh graders, to be honest. I spent weeks having trouble sleeping, thinking the world really was going to end, that we were going to lose a war and that I would personally suffer for it in some inexplicable and awful way.
Secretly Ironic 