Chill out and stop frothing Al, kick back with a cold one and enjoy the ride, it ain't stopping anytime soon.

...This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:33 PM | Comments (111)
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Why thank you, Harry.

As the $820 billion stimulus package heads to the upper chamber, Senate Democratic leaders are launching a pre-emptive strike.

In a Thursday afternoon news conference, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Senate Republicans not to line up against the bill, and says Republicans will be blamed for any delay in the landmark economic legislation.

“If we don’t [pass the bill], it’s not our fault, we’re trying,” Reid said. “The president has done a remarkable job covering all the bases on Capitol Hill.”

And Senate Vice Chairman Charles Schumer said that any GOP effort to lay the blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to win was “very unfair.”

Republican Senators are meanwhile pushing tax cuts and mortgage rate cuts for credit-worthy borrowers. From 5% to 4% federally-guaranteed 30-year-mortgages.

Which seems to address the problem more directly than spending $50,000 for two dog parks in Lewiston, Maine. And $500,000 for one dog park in Chula Vista, CA.

Other dogcrap spending can be found at StimulusWatch.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (100)
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First, a reminder: don’t forget to set your calenders to the new standard: This is now the year 1 A.O. (Anno Obamani. Which, when translated from Latin means “In The Year of Our Heavenly Unicorn.”) Now we can finally rid ourselves of this meaningless piece of shit. Please also remember to “Leap Forward” every 4 years, on January 20th, at least once we get rid of that pesky 22nd Ammendment.

But back to our headline. From Japan comes an admonishment: ”Japan to Tourists: Please Don’t Lick the Tuna.” Story from a group of Press, who are Associated:

”TOKYO — Tourists are known for acting silly, but licking the tuna?”

“Overwhelmed by a growing number of misbehaving tourists, Tokyo fishmongers banned all visitors from one of the city's most popular tourist destinations — the pre-dawn tuna auctions at the world's largest seafood market.”

“The ban, imposed during the peak New Year buying season, was front-page news before it was lifted last week. Now, the tourists are back, but the debate goes on: Can tourists be trusted around the tuna?”

Apparently not. But thereÂ’s more, disturbingly enough:

"Tuna is a very expensive fish," Takagi said. "One tuna can easily cost more than 1 million yen ($11,000). But some tourists touch them and even try to hug them."

But who are these Japanese fishmongers to deny tuna-lovers their lifestyle? After all, isn’t this the country that introduced tentacles as a marital aid to the rest of the world? This reeks of discrimination and tunaphobia! And what about the tuna themselves? Have they no say in this? AP did interview the spokestuna from the group “Committee to UNite Tuna in Solidarity.” Here’s what he had to say regarding his right to be licked:

Posted by: Open Blog at 03:14 PM | Comments (55)
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Awesome.

Posted by: Ace at 03:01 PM | Comments (28)
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It's actually Magnum Force.

Magnum Force, the 1973 sequel to the Clint Eastwood thriller Dirty Harry, is getting a musical makeover and may even be Broadway bound, according to The Guardian. English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, an admitted Magnum Force obsessive, will compose the score and intends to produce the show with MTV executive Bill Flanagan....

And finally we'll get that sequel to The Thing. Sorta. It's a prequel focusing on the Swedes Norwegians who were attacked just prior to the discovery of the Thing by the Americans and MacReady.

Which is kinda not a good idea, for the same reason the Star Wars prequels weren't a good idea: We already know pretty much what happened, don't we. The end of The Thing was a bit unexpected, with the implication that both surviving heroes actually die. (Actually, not quite so clear, as many speculate at least one is a Thing, and further wonder if they did die after all.)

On the other hand, we know (sorta) that the entirety of the Norwegian base is destroyed and all hands killed. While it's possible a couple of Norgies got away on a dog-sled, they didn't make it to the nearest base over the following days, so even if they "escaped," they die in the snow. Just like MacReady and Childs. The unexpected ending of the first movie is the utterly-expected (well-nigh required) ending of the sequel.

Plus... who cares if some fucking Scandis die? Where is the drama? Plus, wouldn't all the Scandis being killed be too upbeat and life-affirming an ending for the Thing franchise?

Anyway... this should set some geek hearts a-pumpin':

Studio has set "Battlestar Galactica" exec producer Ron Moore to write the script and commercials director Matthijs Van Heijningen to direct the re-imagining.

Thanks to Ray Midge for the last.

I'll Say It: I want MacReady back. Just like in Aliens, paid to advise a squad hunting what they think might be another Thing outbreak.

I guess that would be controversial, given that the ending of the first movie pretty much said he died. And that resurrecting him would kind of cheapen that.

Then again, one can escape from Antarctica. Shackleton did it. Why not MacReady?

Okay, okay. They're not going to bring MacReady back. Still, the movie should be a sequel set after the events of the first film, not a prequel.

Ah: Reading more about Shackleton's feat, I see he managed it before winter set on the already frigid continent. The Thing makes it clear that they are already in the winter (albeit "first week of fuckin' winter," I think).

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (91)
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If'n you want.

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (72)
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Pittsburgh and Arizona fans, don't answer. I know your answer-- it's a perfectly understandable answer.

This might be the first Super Bowl since age 7 I don't watch. Sure, my boys got eliminated this year in a particularly ignominious fashion, but they often get eliminated and I always watch the Super Bowl.

This year I just don't care. My interest in football has been declining a bit as I've gotten older -- exactly why I am rooting for millionaires knee-deep in supermodels to have even better lives? -- but now my interest has so declined I might just take a pass on the big game altogether.

Is this just me? Is there something about how goofy the playoffs were -- the weaker team almost always winning (except Pittsburgh) -- that somehow makes this a dubious clash of champions?

Or is it just that I hate NBC and Bruce Springsteen? Who, by the way, have gone a combined twenty-five years since their last legitimate hit.

UPDATE [DinT]: No. You're not the only one who doesn't give a shit about the Superbowl this year. Although, I didn't give a shit last year either, so there. Still, it was quite a game, so maybe tomorrow will be too.

HDTV deals should kick ass next week. I waited. Yes I did.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (178)
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She's not married and already had six kids. Wanting "just one more girl," she implanted eight fertilized embryos and all went to term.

So now she's got fourteen kids.

Incidentally, I notice that Feministing hasn't commented on this at all, and I went back through five dreary pages of posts. Their usual joke -- "It's a vagina, not a clown car" -- is MIA. They tend to do this: There is no male villain in the story they can yell at about this, so it's not a story as far as they're concerned. If she'd had a husband, they would have posted about this twenty five times by now.

Furthermore, this was this woman's choice, and women's choices can never be questioned.

So they just ignore it.

They did the same thing, as far as I can tell, with the alleged virgin selling her purported virginity in a confirmed whorehouse. I looked at the time, because I was curious which wildly-disproportionate response they would arbitrarily choose -- wildly praising her for sticking it to the patriarchy, or savaging her for allowing herself to be "programmed" by the patriarchy's heteronormative regime -- but they seem to have skipped that one, too.

Those are the feminists only two possible reactions -- wild praise and savaging -- and often it seems like the decide on the flip of a coin which to indulge in. An ad featuring breasts gets savaged; an ad making cheeky references to "beavers" get praised. What exactly is the criteria by which such disparate reactions are decided?

Almost none at all, it seems. But damnit, they're going to have an opinion on anything involving pooter or tits and either way it's going to be a hyperbolic one.

But in these two cases, I guess the coin refused to flip and simply stood on its edge. The Sisterhood of Solidarity, apparently unable to reach a Group Consensus as to whether Extreme Reaction A or Extreme Reaction B was called for, simply passed altogether.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (43)
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Of course.

“I have a crush on Jimmy Carter. I admit it. He has an extraordinary mind. He's an exceptional human being. And he writes poetry, for crying out loud. He's all good things.”

In a Friday “Life” section profile, “A low-key Renee Zellweger loves to hide in plain sight,” reporter Donna Freydkin relayed: “So wowed was Zellweger that she waited in the blistering Manhattan cold for 2 1/2 hours on Monday to have the 39th President sign her copy of his latest book, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work.”

This is why I don't mind Scientologists. (Note I said Scientologists, not Scientology. The "religion," of course, is a nasty, thuggish, insane fraud. The people themselves are kinda kooky but generally well behaved.)

A lot of these art-school flakes are going to believe in something -- anything, really -- including Barack Obama and, bizarrely, "The Monster" Jimmy Carter (as Len, I think, from The Simpsons dubbed him). Frankly, believing that Xenu imprisoned millions of bad souls in volcanoes is the least toxic insanity they're likely to believe in.

Well, except for the fact that Scientology will rape their bank accounts. But at least that harm is restricted to themselves.

All I know is that John Travolta isn't always nuttering on about his politics.

Fixed: Isn't always nuttering on about his politics, I meant.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (85)
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A glitch, as it turns out.

Viewing this site will only harm your spelling and harm your Obamabuzz.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (26)
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