Saturday, April 30, 2005

I Believe that Would Slow Them Up Nicely

There was an old New Yorker cartoon my mother still refers to from time to time, and although I don't remember the picture the text was "Death ray? It doesn't even slow them up." That's how old it was, they used up instead of down. Mama has a wacky sense of humor.

Well this guy has built a lovely, simple death ray and even shows his results. I like his warning page:

The sun is bright. Don’t look at the sun or you will damage your eyes. Anything that focuses the sun will only make it more dangerous. The Solar Death Ray is dangerous. Don’t build one. I’m surprised I haven’t burnt or blinded myself yet. The fumes from molten plastic can’t be good either. Don't play with fire.


From the dentally traumatized Varifrank.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Is It Weird That I Want One of These?

Not for the reason stated here, but because they're useful. I swear. From Beautiful Atrocities, aptly named if only for linking to such things.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Hated It

American Idol last night, that is. All of it. Every stinking second. I desperately wanted to like it, and I still root for Carrie, Vonzell, Bo and Constantine, and even Scott a little. But I despise Anthony, he makes me want to vomit upward and have it land on my own face. He's that disgusting. I fast forwarded through all of Randy and Paula's comments, and much of the singing. I hate Paula even more than Anthony, and I laughed my ass off when my buddy Dan from Rock Hill, SC emailed me this link about her sex scandal with former kicked-off contestant Corey Clark. Delicious; I can totally hear her saying "Don't screw me or you'll be sorry" after screwing him. Especially after seeing him bed some bar hag in the tryouts. Gross.

And what's with all the crap songs? Vonzell's song is good in the original, but she can't pull it off. She's just not that good. And I can't stand her fake smiles, and who gives a crap about her doing karate? Enough with the karate already.

Bo mangled a Gavin Degraw song, and wore an icky outfit and dorky sunglasses. His band looked about as inbred as they come in the little movie about his life. He's a nice guy, though, and he's done well in the past. Maybe he'll recover next week.

Carrie sang something from Deliverance, or God knows where. It was hillbilly crap. I had to replay her rendition of Heart's "Alone" from a past episode after the show to remind myself she can really sing. To her credit, she let out a cough that sounded tubercular after the song, so maybe she's sick.

Constantine couldn't pull off the Nickelback song, and barely saved it with theatrics. I love the guy, but stick with easier vocals or raise your game. I did like his brother, who looks like a mortician who just embalmed himself. He needs a cheeseburger or something.

And Scott, your father's ALIVE. You can dance all you want with him. What was the point of singing that song, other than you're convinced you're the second coming of Luther Vandross? Which you aren't.

I sure hope this show improves. I can't stand another four weeks like this.

Remember Him? I'm Ashamed to Admit I Didn't

Dr. Rusty of the Jawa Report reminds us that there's still an American hostage in Iraq, and links to a site where you can donate to help bring him back. Scroll down in the first link for an interview with Roy Hallums' daughter. She's right: it's a crime that we get neverending coverage of Michael Jackson but not a word about this. I fully expect the Hillary Clinton fundraising scandal to be ignored by the mainstream press, because they're biased and they don't care who knows it. But there's no reason to ignore Roy Hallums.

Loves it

I think this is just lovely. They're both good men, and it's nice to see a positive story in the news once in a while.

From Ace, who appears to be coming out of his funk.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

What Could Possibly Be the Reason for This?

Seriously, what the hell is this for? Good God the Japanese are nutty.

Where Was This Eight Months Ago?


Satankerry
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.
On the Decadent West, of course. The real question is, where was I? Giving a crap about a bunch of political crap when I could have been reading unbelievably offensive stuff on DW. More fool me.

Hey, That is Good

From Klepshimi, via the Decadent West, a video of one of the Danger Mouse Grey Album songs, which are a mashup of the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album. Pretty damn cool.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Hours of Entertainment for Nimrods (Like Me)

This is quite old, but I get a kick out of dumb old stuff. It's a link to several of those sound boards where you can select phrases from actors in movies or TV shows, like Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter or Al Pacino from Glengarry Glen Ross, so you can crank call people and have conversations with them using the phrases. Dumb, yes, but I love it. I just called my sister Patsy and addressed her with the word "Pazzi" and "You're a Pazzi, from the Pazzi family" from the movie Hannibal.

Rogers on the Tube, Doing God's Work

I mentioned my old school chum Rogers Cadenhead and his quest to acquire the new pope's name as a domain name, which he has done with benedictxvi.com, and noticed he had appeared on a couple of news talk shows. I asked and he sent me links to both of his appearances, on Today and Keith Olbermann's Countdown. Very good stuff, funny and perfect proof that he was the right guy to get this domain. Maybe the hand of God had something to do with it . . . ?

With Environmental Issues, Richer is Cleaner

Steven Hayward has a reputation for responsible analysis, and continues that here in a National Review interview about the environment with Kathryn Jean Lopez. Good stuff.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Two Guys Sitting around Talking about the New Pope

Here's a great transcribed radio interview of Mark Steyn by Hugh Hewitt about silly media reaction to Benedict XVI's ascension to the pontiff's throne, or whatever you call that big chair he sits in:

HH: We're going to come back and talk about the U.S. Senate in a moment. I want to start with Benedict XVI. Rarely have I seen mainstream media turn and bare their teeth as quickly as they have towards Benedict, Mark Steyn. Why? And what does it tell us about media?

MS: Well, I think they were rooting for Ellen Degeneres or Rupert Everett. And the fact that the new Pope is, in fact, a Catholic, seems to have come as a great surprise to them. And, you know, each to their own. But if, for example, social conservatives were to complain that the new editor of the New York Times wasn't Rush Limbaugh or you or William F. Buckley, that would sound equally ridiculous. The fact is, institutions are allowed to act in what they see is their own interest. And this, in fact, is just rather childish, this reaction to the Pope. They're sort of, they seem genuinely bewildered that the Cardinals of the Catholic Church think differently on these issues, from Andrew Sullivan and the New York Times.

HH: It is remarkable. Here's a tremendous intellect. The man speaks ten languages, authored forty books, is generally regarded as a very gentle, though very serious thinker, and the world's media is aflame with discontent, probably because he's not for turning.

MS: No. And I think interestingly as well, the difference between him and most western politicians, for example, is that he has given some thought as to how he wants what he believes in to survive, in a very difficult century which we face. For example, he's concluded in Europe, there's no point listening to the New York Times and Andrew Sullivan, because secularism is weak. And that even though he is 78, you know, if he lives to 90-95, by the end of his life, it will be clear to all but the most obtuse, Belgian, Dutch, French, German and Italian politicians, that secularism as it's practiced in Europe, has been a disaster. It's left them with this birthrate that's made them almost extinct, and which will be presenting tremendous conflicts. And he thinks the real challenge is to make Christianity resonate with the people who are going to be in the majority in Asia and Africa and other parts of the world, and not to listen to this sort of pathetic, feeble, parochial minority represented in the western media.

HH: I reviewed all of the elite newspaper's editorials today, and every one of them brought up the fact that he had opposed Turkey's admission to the EU as a reason for grave concern. Is it a reason for grave concern, Mark Steyn?

MS: No, I don't think so. I think he understands, for example, that Islam is the fastest growing religion in Canada, America, Britain and Europe because it's not like the Frank Griswold Episcopal Church. It doesn't say hey, man, whatever your bag is, we're cool with that. If you want a gay church, you want a lesbian church, you want an abortionist church, we'll go along with that. It's precisely because Islam is a demanding religion that it has an appeal. And no one needs a religion that merely licenses your appetites. And this is what the guys like Frank Griswold and the Episcopal Church don't seem to realize. You know, the churches that are complaining about this fellow, are the churches that the New York Times want the Catholic Churches to be like. These are the churches in decline, and frankly, I think a lot of these critics have made themselves look actually rather ridiculous in being unable to see it like this. If you want a gay, abortionist church, found one of your own. There's nothing in Catholic theology of the last 2,000 years to suggest that they'd be cool with that.


Good stuff, all of it. Check it out.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Blankety Blank Blank, you Blanky Blank

Dave at Garfield Ridge has found a lovely site that takes NWA songs and extracts all the clean parts, leaving what can only be described as catchy motivational tunes for all ages, as long as you don't mind hearing uninterupted filth. Which I don't.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Oh, the Irony

Instapundit posts about "Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner and observes that logic doesn't always drive job choice, for example in the case of crack dealers:

I don't know Levitt's answer here, but one explanation (besides the obvious "they're idiots") for why people become drug dealers when the economic returns are poor is that being a drug dealer offers -- and, especially during the crack boom, offered -- nonmonetary returns, by having much more status than working minimum wage . . .

My historian-brother often says that one of the most interesting phenomena that he's observed is the cross-cultural willingness of people to trade away economic benefits for status. I suspect that this is one example of that. So, in a surprisingly similar way, is being a politician. That's an obviously poor economic move for most folks. But one of the drug dealers in Price's book talks about how he likes the way he becomes the center of attention when he enters a room full of junkies. Politicians, I think, get the same thing, especially in the bubble-environments of Washington, or state capitals. I suspect, in fact, that people are, to varying degrees, hardwired to get an endorphin rush from that sort of attention, just as they're hardwired in varying degrees to respond to drugs.


I've noticed the same thing in the music industry; rarely are the rank and file paid according to their effort. I emailed Insty this:

Enjoyed your "Freakonomics" review, and as someone who has a number of friends in concert production, I can assure you that a large proportion of them aren't doing it for the money. You'd be appalled, or maybe you wouldn't, at what some of the hardest-working people around settle for monetarily when they can get and give free tickets/backstage passes to concerts, and hang around with rock stars. I understand the film industry has the same weird pull. As someone who briefly dallied in concerts, the ironic part is that after a year of being required to attend all of the shows my company produced in a job setting, I had pretty much lost interest in live music altogether.


Sad but true. Until I was out of the scene for a while, I enjoyed the access and "status" more than the music itself. You don't really get to enjoy shows much when you're running around stressing and working, and that's even more of a reason not to trade money for access and status. Plus it's no fun finding out your musical heroes are short, mean, or bad live musicians (or all three).

Damn He's Good

My homeboy (or whatever you call someone you attended school with, not "schoolboy" I guess because that sounds weird) Rogers Cadenhead nailed the new pontiff's pope name weeks early and even registered it (benedictxvi.com) as a domain. Whatever will he link it to? Nothing terribly naughty or disprespectful, if I know Rogers. Others aren't so sure.

I knew Rogers Cadenhead. I worked with Rogers Cadenhead. You, sir or madam, are no Rogers Cadenhead. And as a raised, baptized, once-a-year-attendance Catholic myself, I know that domain is in good and respectful hands. Besides, if he says his grandmother will go Kung Fu Hustle on his arse with crucifix nunchaku if he does something naughty with it, I believe him.

Good work my man.

Monday, April 18, 2005

News this Good and Unqualified is Rare

I'm not quite as ecstatic as Pejman is about this, but it's unbelievably cool:

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance."


What a great time to be working in the Classics department at some university. I can't wait to see this stuff.

Surely that's a Misunderestimation

I can't believe there are only 1.84 "f@ck"s per minute in the current season of Deadwood. And what about "c#%ksucker"s? That number has to be at least 1 per minute.

I'm less and less interested in Deadwood with each episode this season, kind of like I've been about the Sopranos. It seems more pointless every week, just violence, depravity and foul language for no real reason. We get it, people were ruthless freaks who wore odd clothes and didn't bathe often enough. I'm almost dreading the new series about Rome, it's bound to be worse in almost every area of ickyness.

Friday, April 15, 2005

I'm Definitely Going to Hell for This

I should be ashamed of myself, and kind of am, but this stuff is too damn funny to not be posted here. Sorry, God and everyone else, but I can't help myself.

Warning: you might piss yourself laughing or hate me forever if you see this, this or this.

Thanks, or whatever, to Allah.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

The Slow Pull of Evil

Belmont Club has posted an excellent essay on the kind of everyday evil we all experience regularly, and how some of us court it willingly. Read:

Human beings experience it in many forms; the shameful and surreptitious attraction to pornography, drink, cruelty or plain laziness: the subconscious knowledge that you are going to do something bad; and though you try to deceive yourself into imagining you will not succumb just yet, you let yourself approach the edge just near enough so that in a moment of weakness you will fall over as planned. Except, as Dalrymple argues in the City Journal, the human recognition of evil normally allows us to resist so it never has us wholly in its grasp. Looking back on 14 years of service in hospitals and prisons, Dalrymple realized he was witnessing the inexorable incapacitation of human discernment; the deadening of the ability to distinguish between good and evil which is so essential to survival.


Wretchard references a fascinating piece by Theodore Dalrymple:

In nearly every case the one thing the perpetrators and victims of evil were never allowed to do was to judge their own acts. That was absolutely forbidden. The universal course of treatment prescribed by all the organs of the Welfare State was to find ways to make them 'feel better about it'.


I never bought the idea that shame is a universally harmful thing, that feeling bad about one's behavior was an impediment to healthy change. Many people recognize in their own lives that an excess of negativity can be a problem, and they believe that if everyone were freed from those thoughts we'd all be happier and more functional. But in the same way that a searing pain in your hand will tell you to take your hand off a stove burner, and remind you to avoid hot burners in the future, the shame of doing wrong will tell you to stop and avoid doing so in the future. And reacting to that shame is more than just morally right:

Dalrymple makes a strong case for the utility of morality as a survival skill. It is a craft, which like hunting and gathering, was once passed on to keep people from perishing in the wilderness. Now it is disparaged; the modern welfare state has no need of it.


And that welfare state is doing more harm than good by ignoring the moral instincts that have been passed down through generations:

By a strange process of summation the politicians of the welfare state become afflicted with the same blindness they wrongly believed confined to low-income housing estates. Suicidal public policies are pursued -- even when everyone knows they are suicidal -- because no one can remember how to behave differently.


Both links are definitely worth your time, check them out.

That's Kind of Handy

From Belgravia Dispatch, a guide to gas prices in all 50 states, broken down into cities. In Austin today, there's a 25-cent swing between high and low, although being on the edge of town seems to be an advantage over being in close. Not surprising . . .

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Amaryllis in the Back Yard


Amaryllis in Austin
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.
Normally these flowers would be bright red with white stripes, but my soil is rich with limestone, and I don't do the serious kind of amendment where you mix in a lot of good stuff and wait a month or so before planting. Plants and bulbs are lucky to get some good dirt put under them at all, much less long before.

It's a lovely plant even without the right colors, though.

Revisiting Predictions of Doom

Beautiful Atrocities has a lovely post tracking the accuracy of predictions printed in The Nation, which are predictably kooky and, at this point, hilarious. Check some of these out:

"A military strike against the Taliban is full of perils that are far greater than the dangers we already face. Escalation is unthinkable. It must be avoided at all costs." Jonathan Schell, September 2001

"I don't think you have to love Saddam Hussein to be skeptical about the rosy scenarios being put forward on behalf of 'regime change'. Even Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi dissident who strongly favors invasion, admitted that there is only a 5% chance that the aftermath will be a democratic, peaceful Iraq that respects human rights." Katha Pollitt, Nov 2002

"Blue-collar [Dennis] Kucinich is the only one who can win back the blue-collar Reagan Democrats. Imagine him in a debate with Dubya. It would be a knockout in the first round, & we'd have an honest-to-God working-class President. Kucinich is the man to light the fire." Studs Turkel April 2002


That last one kills me. There are more, equally nutty. Check 'em out.

Friday, April 08, 2005

I Guess That Door's Open for Good

Another woman is being starved and dehydrated to death whether she wishes it or not, this one a grandmother in Georgia named Mae Magouirk:

85 year-old Mae Magouirk of LaGrange, Georgia, is currently being deprived of nutrition and hydration at the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy. Mrs. Magouirk suffered an aortic dissection 2 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Though her doctors have said that she is not terminally ill, Ms. Gaddy declared that she held medical power of attorney for Mae, and had her transferred to the LaGrange Hospice. Later investigation revealed that Ms. Gaddy did not in fact have such power of attorney. Furthermore, Mae's Living Will provides that nutrition and hydration are to be withheld only if she is comatose or vegetative. Mae is in neither condition. Neither is her condition terminal.

Furthermore, under Georgia law, if there is no power of attorney specifying a health care decisionmaker, such authority is given to the closest living relatives. Mae's brother, A. B. McLeod, and sister, Lonnie Ruth Mullinax, are both still alive and capable of making such decisions. They opposed Mae's transfer to hospice, and are fighting to save her life. But in spite of the lack of a power of attorney, and the fact that there are closer living relatives who should be given precedence by Georgia law, Ms. Gaddy sought an emergency appointment as guardian from the local probate court. The probate judge, Donald Boyd (who, I am told, is not an attorney and does not have a law degree), granted Gaddy's request, thereby giving her the power to starve and dehydrate Magouirk to death, though such an action is contrary to the provisions of the living will.

I have spoken to Kenneth Mullinax, Mae's nephew, and he has confirmed all the above. He also tells me that he believes that Ms. Gaddy has no bad motives, but is simply misguided and mistaken. Mullinax said that Ms. Gaddy has testified in court that she has "prayed over" Mae, and is convinced that it is "time for her to go". Whether the fact is relevant or not remains to be seen, but apparently Ms. Gaddy is also the sole beneficiary of Mae's will.


I don't think that's the last time we're going to hear this kind of story.

Link from the indispensable Lileks, who is easing back on blogging this month, sort of.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Owwww, Sexy Sexy


killer robot
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.
Man I love this stuff. Too bad Ace is retiring, I'll have to find it on my own from now on unless Hoke keeps filling in over there.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

I Take It Back: Alicublog, While Wickedly Funny at Times, Is No Better than Oliver Willis

I'm thoroughly ashamed that my enjoyment of one of the posts on Alicublog led me to write that it was my new favorite blog. Apparently no amount of education and wit can defeat the liberal tendency to ignore reality when it suits one's argument.

Today's posts are particularly nauseating (the "usual boilerplate on how the Schiavo poll numbers were fixed" happens to be the truth, for one, which an intellectually honest person would concede), and I take it all back. Never mind.

Idol on Broadway

American Idol was pretty good last night, which is a huge relief after last Tuesday's debacle. Constantine made my wife fall even more in love with him, not to mention the increasingly deranged Paula Abdul, who declared her love publicly. She is really ruining the show, and embodies exactly what I hate about people who seem to want everything to be happy and positive; they get violently pissed when people disagree with them. How can they not see the contradiction? It is a show about who's the best singer, after all. They're going to have to learn to take criticism pretty soon if they want to be stars.

Scott Savol did OK, Anwar kicked ass, and Vonzell was so-so, as was Nadia. Carrie was good but boring, Anthony sucked, and Nikko did very nicely with a song from West Side Story. I sure hope tracheotomy boy (Anthony) gets booted tonight, he is killing me with the white pants. Ann Althouse wrote that he sang "Climb Every Rainbow," which is pretty accurate if you ask me.

Blog Lag

I haven't been posting much lately because a) I'm plugging back in to real estate and instead of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring I'm out and about most of the day and b) my wife is having some health issues and has been making doctor visits pretty regularly, or rather I've been taking her to doctors' offices. But there's another reason: I'm kind of worn out with the whole blogging thing. It does not turn me on as it has in the past.

And I'm not the only one. Ace is retiring, supposedly, and Allah is still mostly retired. Gerard at American Digest is taking a short (I hope) break, and Instapundit, while going strong, doesn't really entertain so much as educate, and there's a point at which you've absorbed as much news as you can take, or at least care about.

Blogging at a moderate to high rate takes time, effort and emotional input, or at least the kind of blogging I've ever wanted to do does. If I don't care about the topic, I don't bother with it, and if I do, that topic either resolves itself or remains stuck in my craw until I don't want to pay attention to it any more. Blogging seems like a simple thing to do until you have to actually do it, and doing it well and responsibly takes a dedication I can't afford at this point.

I know Ace and others have come to realize the crazy blog money they had hoped for isn't forthcoming, and that must be a disappointment. I never expected to be paid, and with the number of readers I've ever gotten, that's a damn good thing. But even at my level, it really does take something out of you, and when you're blogging your little heart out, you don't have much time for real life.

So I'll continue to post at this fairly low rate, and I still enjoy it. But the days of 10 or more posts with lots of links and even more analysis are over, at least until I win the lottery. If that happens, I can't decide if I'll blog more or give it up entirely, but let's hope I get to make that decision some day. Then again, I think you have to actually buy lottery tickets, and I don't really do that. Hmmmm.

Yes, One PERSON Can

Check out Varifrank's excellent post on the question, can one man make a difference? I'm quite sure he means one person, although the people he lists as examples are indeed men. He links to my pick for biggest contribution by a single person, Norman Borlaug, who you can (and should) read about here. Borlaug was brought to my attention by Penn and Teller's show Bullshit, which is one of the best uses for television I've ever seen.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Evidence of Massive Geekery

I just figured out I'm a hopeless Star Wars geek, because I really want to see this way more than I want to see the newest Star Wars film. Is that so wrong? Late '70s TV specials were just awesomely bad and cheesy, and seeing one now would bring back my groovy childhood.

Lifted shamelessly from Pejman's fine blog.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Possibly the Best Blog Ever

Harry Hutton of Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Cavalry directed me to this lovely post on Alicublog, which is now my favorite blog. I love nasty, literate and funny, and Alicublog has all of that in excess. Here's the quote that sucked me in:

As a professional writer I am of two minds about the galloping ignorance of young people today. On the one hand, it may mean more work for me, as a growing number of Americans, including even corporate executives, struggle to compose simple sentences. On the other hand, it may hasten our national descent into a pre-verbal state, whereby all communication is achieved by grunts, clicks, quotations from The Simpsons and Seinfeld, and blasts of machine-gun fire; in such a society I am unlikely to thrive.


Delicious.

UPDATE: Yeah, he's a lefty with a Ted Rall link, but he's still funny, and that's what matters. Maybe some of his funny will rub off on Rall.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

See You on the Other Side, JP2

The Pope was a good guy, and I expect he'll be missed more and more as time passes. Anyone who stood against Nazis and Communists is all right with me, and he was indeed part of the fall of Soviet communism, a moral good that can't be diminished by disagreements about sexual matters.

I don't get pissy with the Catholic Church about their often silly and counterproductive statements and actions, because I believe they are on balance a Good Thing. I just think more people get help and comfort from the Church than get molested, oppressed or offended. It's sillly to take every attempt to suppress harmful and/or offensive things as an attack on personal freedom; I don't believe Larry Flynt's right to sell porn trumps my mother's right to not see it in a 7-11, and I don't believe slippery slope arguments have the least shred of validity in this day and age, not since a majority of people in the world learned what a slippery slope is.

But back to the late pontiff - he was a fine fellow and I wish I had paid more attention to him while he was alive.

The Very Definiton of a Strong News Lead

"The hunt is on for a turd burglar." Yes, it's a real AP story, and you'll have to read it (the story is funnier than that first sentence, believe me) to figure out why it's such a perfect lead. I'm jealous I didn't write it . . .

From Wizbang.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Too Funny to Explain

Ace has so much good stuff today I can't begin to link it all. Just go check it out. Flame Wars is good, Dorks vs. Gaywads is even better, and top it all of with the audio of the woman who called 911 because some fast food place didn't make her burger right.

Why I Miss the Bay Area

Lileks posted a link to a photo essay on the Anarchist's Bookfair in San Francisco last weekend, complete with a pic of some old dude who had inflated his scrotum with saline in the name of world peace. Scroll down a ways if you want to see such a thing, which I confess I did just to see what it would look like. Apparently your dong disappears into the thing, or else that guy didn't really have one to speak of in the first place. Here you can buy the kit and do it to yourself, if you dare. Skinny Bean, this seems right up your alley, although I figure you'd do it for war, not peace. I dare you . . .