Archive for the 'Misc. Miscellany' Category
Cue the jokes about how Times Square already is a mall, I suppose, but Mayor Bloomberg has a plan to shut down Broadway, between 42nd and 47th, to car traffic. Making it a pedestrian mall. (Though, cross-street traffic will continue to cut through Times Square, making it kind of a… car-y pedestrian mall.)
I, for one, am against it. It was bad enough when they took down the Cup Noodles sign. Now they want less traffic? This ain’t Europe. Times Square is about the meeting and mixing of car, pedestrian, and party bike — Goddamnit.
And, it’s about change, I suppose someone will tell me. Alas, it is. Alas, it is…
Is the “Arrested Development” movie a go? Or is everyone involved still too… chicken?
“Is there such thing as insanity among penguins?” Thus begins this unbelievably awesome Werner Herzog clip, from his new-ish, Academy Award-losing documentary, Encounters at the End of the World:
Why does one penguin separate from the others and head out on a journey toward certain death toward the Antarctic Interior? Herzog doesn’t know, but he has some tremendously grim, German-accented things to say about it.
A sure crowd-pleaser to those of us who enjoyed Herzog’s speech about the indifference of nature in Grizzly Man.
[HT: Yglesias]
VA GOP Twitter FAIL.
House explained.
James Dobson: “[Ted] Bundy Was Right”
Published by January 22nd, 2009 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsPresident Bush’s Farewell Address (as seen in my head)
Published by January 16th, 2009 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 Comments
Vote on the New Definition of ‘Saddlebacking’
Published by January 14th, 2009 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsHappy New Year from the staff of Miscellaneous Objections.
Now, people, let’s all try a little harder this year.
Support ‘Christmas-negligent and -offensive’ retailers
Published by December 10th, 2008 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsOver at Focus on the Family, this holiday season, you can sign the “I Stand for Christmas” petition, which states:
I am troubled by the growing trend among retailers to secularize the Christmas season by marginalizing or refusing to use the word “Christmas” in marketing and promotional materials. Christmas is fundamentally a Christian holiday, and efforts to secularize Christmas are offensive.
I am joining Focus on the Family Action’s “I Stand for Christmas” campaign to call on retailers to stop purging “Christmas.” I stand for Christmas, and I urge you to stand for Christmas as well by highlighting “Christmas” in your stores, catalogs and Web sites. Further, I plan to consult Focus on the Family Action’s Shopping Guide, which categorizes retailers by their treatment of “Christmas,” while making my Christmas purchases this year.
I always like to run Christian-extremist activism through the WWJD lens. What would Jesus do here? Definitely threaten retailers who try to be inclusive of non- and different-believers.
And, of course, he’d keep a naughty-and-nice list of retailers to target, broken down by “Christmas-friendly,” “Christmas-negligent,” and “Christmas-offensive.”
Feel free to use this in exactly the opposite way from what was intended…
Christmas-friendly [boycott]:
| Bass Pro Shops Bed, Bath & Beyond Best Buy Cabela’s Circuit City Crate&Barrel Dillard’s Eddie Bauer |
JCPenney Kohl’s L.L.Bean Lands’ End Linens ‘n Things Lowe’s Macy’s Neiman Marcus |
Nordstrom Pier 1 Imports Sears The Home Depot Target Toys “R” Us Wal-Mart |
Christmas-negligent [buy stuff from]:
Barnes & Noble
Borders
Dick’s Sporting Goods
GAP
KB Toys
Kmart
Christmas-offensive [buy lots of stuff from]:
American Eagle
Banana Republic
Bloomingdale’s
Lane Bryant
Old Navy
I recently got back from roughly 10 days in Sicily with the wife. I’ll pick a common-yet-arbitrary number, and give you 10 things I learned on my trip:
1) Sicily is unbelievably beautiful: I suspected this before planning the trip — hence, the decision to plan the trip. And, as you can see above, I was right.
2) When flying into Sicily, fly into Catania, and get a window seat on the left side of the plane: To fly to the island, you’ll most likely fly to Rome and then to one of the island’s major airports. You could fly into Palermo, but no one who’s ever been there says its worth spending too much time there. Fly into Sicily’s smaller airport city, Catania, which is quite lovely, if a bit industrialized. And, get a window seat. On the left side of the plane. The flight path takes you right next to Mt. Etna. If at all possible, take this flight around sunset. Truly amazing view. Just a color palette you won’t believe. I tried to take a cell-phone picture out the window, but the flight attendant freaked out, thinking I was trying to make a phone call (and, hence, crash the plane). My meager Italian was not enough to avoid this misunderstanding. So, you’ll have to take the flight yourself.
3) Get the GPS with your rental car: This probably applies to most trips these days. But Sicily’s road system is particularly tricky, especially inside the many hilltop towns, which are, essentially, mazes designed to trap and kill tourists. Even with our TomTom, we had our problems. Especially, say, getting to hotel parking lots. But we couldn’t have done half the exploring we did without it.
4) Be prepared to drive like a sociopath: Driving in Italy, at least Sicily, essentially requires you to be a bad person. Say there’s a four-way intersection with no traffic light or stop sign of any kind. And say there’s a lot of traffic coming from both directions on the street you’re crossing. What do you do, hot shot? What do you do? It turns out the answer is: barge into traffic with no regard for human life. If you hesitate to do so, you will be honked at. You’re not going to get anything on the road that you don’t just take, so take away.
5) Despite above, Sicilians are not honky drivers: Outside of a few limited city situations, Sicilians will not honk at you. They will simply pass you. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyhow. Passing is like soccer, there. And soccer is like… well, the most boring sport in the world. But, man, do they love it.
6) Drive inland: Most of what you’ll want to see, destination-wise, is on the coasts in Sicily. But the most fun you’ll have (or, at least that we had) was simply pointing the car inland and finding whatever towns are in front of you. Winding hillside roads, sweeping vistas, and amazing hilltop towns where history has simply stopped. That’s why you go to Sicily.
7) If you can, travel to Sicily in November: Or, some other off-season time. Cheap hotels. And temples all to yourself, with no one around for miles. And, yet, perfect 50s-60s-70s weather. Unless you’re a beach bum, it’s perfect.
8) If you’re going to try to experience Mt. Etna in even the most cursory way, bring a parka: We learned this the hard way. High-altitude = cold. Check.
9) Go to the temple at Segesta: It’s near Marsala and Palermo.
10) Don’t choose arbitrary numbers when you only learned 9 things
A “Rome” movie? Yes, please.
Don’t Forget His Hope-Inspiring Eyebrows
Published by November 29th, 2008 in Misc. Miscellany and Misc. Politics. 1 CommentI just got back from roughly three weeks abroad; I left right after the election.
Now, while I do wish our president-elect the best — and his cabinet looks pretty good, so far — I do wonder if things have gone a little batty while I was away. Witness this ad for an Obama commemorative plate:
His “confident smile” and “kind eyes”? Get a room, America. Get a room.
…George Will is still in some theoretical sense still a McCain backer — or at least not an Obama backer.
But, man, does he let McCain have it today.
This is not a man who will be shedding any tears for the end of the Maverick.
Reasonoids, and people in the Reason orbit, answer as to whom they’ll be voting for.
I count three (3) McCain votes in a large sample: Grover Norquist, Bob Poole, Roger Stone (!).
My answer:
Who are you voting for in November?
I am voting for Barack Obama, because I believe in hope and change and unicorns. Also, John McCain is dangerously mentally unfit to be president and has decided, with his choice of Sarah Palin, to complete the transformation of the GOP into a southern-centered party based on social division and cultural resentment.
The rest of my answer, and everyone else’s, at the link.
Over at Reason.com today, I take a look at how things have been shaping up with the future of libertarians in the GOP:
Back in 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s political savior, Karl Rove, was performing nothing short of an electoral resurrection, running around South Carolina calling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an unpatriotic, illegitimate-black-baby-fathering Manchurian Candidate.
Who could have guessed that eight years later, the senator from Arizona would be dedicating the remainder of his political life to finishing Karl Rove’s good works on Earth?
And yet, as McCain runs around the country this fall, calling Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) an unpatriotic, socialistic terrorist-paller-around-with, it seems he’s taken it upon himself to complete what should be called the Rove Realignment.
No, not the once-envisioned “rolling realignment,” under which the Republican Party would add to its base of white Evangelical Protestants, bringing in Hispanics, culturally conservative African Americans, and economically vulnerable whites—those who supported Medicare Part D and opposed gay marriage in equal measure—to create a “permanent” Republican majority that would last at least a generation.
McCain’s working on the other realignment: The one where eight years of fiscal recklessness and cultural warfare alienates swing voters and withers the Republican Party until the very base of the conservative movement cracks in half—splitting a coalition that has endured since the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964.
Further down, I’ve got what I believe are the only numbers showing how libertarians are lining up in this election (defined as fiscal conservatives / social liberals) — suffice it to say, it’s not particularly behind McCain.
Between this and my longtime crusade againt the Maverick, it’s probably pretty clear where I stand in this election. But I’ll have a little more to say on the topic later this week.
And he was never called on at a press conference ever again. The End.
Published by March 19th, 2008 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsWith David Paterson’s extra-curricular activities having taken over the news about his new administration in the past few days, I just wanted to highlight this video of Sun Albany correspondent, one-time M.O. guest-blogger, and all-around serial bigamist Jacob Gershman asking the incoming governor whether he had ever patronized a prostitute (while holding public office):
Nice timing on Paterson’s part with the quip (”Only the lobbyists.”). What a pause.
And balls of steel on Jacob’s part. That’s one to tell the grandkids. When they’re old enough.
First, there was terrifying, buzzing military robot dog:
Then, there was the literal robot master — a machine that will play fetch with your dog all day while you’re out:
The robot fetch machine actually looks a bit unsafe (floppy ears + rusty springs = bad combo). But I’d rather have the latter in the house than the former.
…it were the Democrats who’d been running up the national debt the last 10 years.
Then this ad would make sense.
On this, Eliot Spizer’s last day in office, I find myself thinking not so much of the fate of our great state — we’re screwed, get over it — as about the joy that is yearly pop-culture memes. One of the delights of the beginning of every year is the fact that we simply do not, cannot, know what phrases, images, etc. will be newly iconic in a year’s time.
At the start of 2007, who among us could have imagined that the phrase “wide stance” would take on such delightful connotations? Or that “Don’t Taze Me, Bro!” would not only be mixed, but re-mixed?
And so, I asked myself at the beginning of 2008: What’s next? As always, I was surprised.
So simple. So elegant.
And yet, I can’t help feel it’s a bit of a disappointment. While it’s fun to bat around (”You may know me as Client-9,” “David Paterson, aka, Client-10″), it’s not quite as malleable as “wide stance” or “don’t taze me.” It just doesn’t seem like it can be applied to as many situations, or mutated in as many ways.
I guess the cat’s out of the bag now, but I’d like to see more use made of: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”
Such as:
- After a disagreeable meal: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my stomach.”
- When drowsy: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my pillow.”
- Pulled over for speeding: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my speedometer.”
- When hurling a schoolyard insult: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of yo mama.”
- Caught cheating on your prostitute: “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my other prostitute.”
It’s a little harder to remember, so it’s probably doomed. But I thought I’d throw it out there.
You can also try, as I have repeatedly now, telling your spouse upon his or her arrival home: “Today, I want to briefly address a private matter.” Somehow, it makes the follow up “I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning” go down a lot smoother.
What other memes await us in 2008? I can’t wait ’till the future gets here.
David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’
A surprisingly sane view of politics, recognizing that the world is not a never-ending series of injustices crying out for revolution.
This is the best David Simon interview I’ve seen since the end of “The Wire” this Sunday.
Turns out Rawls really was gay — for those of us long puzzled by that throwaway reveal. But there was never any plan to do anything with that information.
* “Do not put a picture of a parrot on your flag!”
* “Features a hawk sitting on a toilet.”
* “Automatic weapons on a flag are especially bad.”
Also: Are Brazilians sensitive about that flag? It looks like it was designed by a first grader. So bad it’s kind of iconic, though.
I’m really glad to hear passenger jets are starting to roll out anti-missile tech. It’s well past time. I don’t mind saying it’s something I think about on many take-offs and landings. (A bigger threat in Israel, for sure, but not impossible in the U.S.)
My favorite line in the article, though:
Officials emphasize that no missiles will be test-fired at the planes.
Thanks for clarifying!
I’m still waiting for the whole-plane parachute.
After a Republican debate that made me want to cry (column coming in the morning), this reminds me why I love America.
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