“[The Iliad] was a bitch to write, by the way. But it seemed to catch on.”

The Onion spills the beans on history’s greatest cultural fraud: ancient Greek “civilization.” Because these days, if it’s in the Onion, it’s got to be true, right?

Got a female friend about to turn 50? Is she Southern?

Then, boy, have I got a gift for you to give her: The Official Southern Woman of a Certain Age Certificate:

Customizable, printable on a variety of papers or skins, and suitable for framing. You’re welcome.

Today’s grammar lesson

… spelling version:

(h/t: Mom, who knows a little about grammar and spelling herself)

Morgan Freeman on Morgan Freeman

A little spring-break fun:

Now, in a few minutes, I’m going to sit down and, I hope, watch Davidson win the Southern Conference tournament. After that, I am taking down the Christmas tree. I only wish I were kidding.

(h/t: Mom)

Still a few bugs in the system

A number of local folks, including the editor of the N&R himself, have written lately about the problems the N&R is having with its new website.

Well, just moments ago, I found, and got a screen shot of, evidence that bad things can happen to anyone:

The outage, if such it was, lasted only a couple of minutes, but it was quite real. I hope this makes everyone feel better.

Today’s forecast

Stay safe.

(image h/t Balloon Juice)

Good idea, Mayan edition

ABL at Balloon Juice, back before the last time the world ended:

Why don’t we send all the right-wing, gay-hating, forced birthing, family values hypocrites—you know, the people who don’t deserve it—right on up with Jesus.  Then for the genuinely Rapturable, can’t we have them stay here, but, like, give them extra bacon on their sandwiches and free HBO?

I’d be good with that.

Happy birthday, Ludwig

Beethoven is (probably) 242 years old today.

Oh, and this, kids, is how you do a flash mob.

Christmas has “A Christmas Story” and Thanksgiving has “WKRP” …

… and I might be going to hell for saying this, but this scene is funnier than anything that Andy Griffith and Don Knotts EVER did.

I don’t usually gloat …

… but sometimes the levels of Stoopid demonstrated by people who REALLY OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER are just so off the charts that mockery is the only sane response.

Exhibit A: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you former “Saturday Night Live” cast member and current irrelevance Victoria Jackson, whose behavior in recent years has been so off the charts that I even briefly suspected that it was the most sophisticated satire in history …

… joined by another fictional irrelevance, Star Wars’ Emperor Palpatine:

But wait! You say that’s not enough Republican butthurt? You say you want MORE?? Well, let Salon.com oblige you with “The 20 Biggest Sore Losers” from last night. And if you’re a real glutton for conservative punishment, you can always don hazmat gear and go wading through the miasma of FreeRepublic.com. (No, I ain’t linking there.)

One other thing: I’m seeing some cautionary communications from conservatives suggesting that Obama has no mandate to do anything. Hmm, well, let’s see. George Bush electoral votes, 2000: 271. George Bush electoral votes 2004: 286. Obama, 2012: 332.

I’d say that at the very least, Obama has a mandate to ignore the wingnut right’s bullshit, press an agenda of jobs, infrastructure investment (including global warming and related environmental issues) and health-care reform, and unleash hell on the obstructionists. That doesn’t come anywhere near the “shred the Constitution” mandate upon which Bush the Lesser embarked in his first term, but, gosh, Obama only got 16% more electoral votes. Inasmuch as he’s black and all, he’d've needed at least 600 electoral votes to claim that kind of mandate.

Buyer’s remorse, Zombie Election edition

To probably no one’s surprise, I voted for Obama. But this ad from film director Joss Whedon makes me think maybe that wasn’t such a hot idea.

Respect mah authoritay, Technorati edition

Don’t ask me how, but this blog is, at least at the moment, the 27th most authoritative on matters related to science out of 12,200 or so blogs registered on Technorati that actually deal with matters related to science.

Well played, Mayans. Well played.

 

 

 

Woofpack nation

It was a big day for Triangle ACC football yesterday. Carolina whomped Virginia Tech at home for the first time since 1938, Duke won in a blowout (how often so you hear THOSE words during football season), and, to top it off, my brothers’ alma mater, N.C. State, upset No. 3 Florida State 17-16. Naturally, all of Carter-Finley Stadium was rockin’, but there was one State fan who had become an Internet meme before midnight. Here he is, but I’ll warn you: You might want to keep eye bleach handy:

Ladies and gentlemen, Geoff Micks wins the Internet!

In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?

Micks walks president by president through our Commanders in Chief, assessing strengths and weaknesses. (He even gives FDR a motorized wheelchair to help make up for the disadvantage caused by polio.) And I suspect that his Final Three (he calls them the “Holy Trinity”) probably would be mine as well. Amusing aside, re the rather portly William Howard Taft: “Dead early, and his corpse might well be used as a low wall or some sort of artificial hill to lend advantage to his conquerors.”

Underdog has nothing on the Olympians

In the cartoon show “Underdog,” which I watched as a kid, the title character’s alter ego, Shoeshine Boy, would be given a quarter for a shine at the beginning of every episode — and would bite it to make sure it was real.

Apparently, in the ongoing London festivities, this has become a thing.

(h/t Nance).

Twenty years ago last night …

… when it was far from clear that the Braves would repeat as NL champs, let alone go on to their amazing record of success during the ’90s, Otis Nixon made what might have been the greatest catch in the long history of one of baseball’s oldest franchises.

(h/t: @tommytomlinson)

Somewhere tonight, a conservative blog intern is thanking FSM that Connie Schultz is a better human being than I.

Southern Beale at First Draft:

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. On her Facebook page she posted the following:

Email from conservative blogger, dated July 9, 2012:

Dear Ms. Shultz,

We are doing an expose on journalists in the elite media who socialize with elected officials they are assigned to cover. We have found numerous photos of you with Sen. Sherrod Brown. In one of them, you appear to be hugging him.

Care to comment?

———————–

Response, dated July 10, 2012:

Dear Mr. [Name Deleted]:

I am surprised you did not find a photo of me kissing U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown so hard he passes out from lack of oxygen. He’s really cute.

He’s also my husband.

You know that, right?

Connie Schultz

Schultz goes on to say in the comments on the Facebook post that she basically deleted the writer’s name and withheld the name of his publication because he’s an intern and she wants him to learn the right lessons from this without having his career prematurely ruined. Given the unprofessional tone of the correspondence, if it’d been me, I might not have been so forgiving.

Good news: life on other planets. Bad news: It’s hungry.

As the self-appointed keeper of news about large reptiles, I feel obliged to warn you that anthropophagic dinosaurs on other planets might actually be a thing:

New scientific research raises the possibility that advanced versions of T. rex and other dinosaurs — monstrous creatures with the intelligence and cunning of humans — may be the life forms that evolved on other planets in the universe. “We would be better off not meeting them,” concludes the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Chemicals. Um, yeah, some barley-flavored C2H5OH would go real good about now.

“I’ve just taken care of everything, except my husbands.”

The little old lady from Pasadena Orlando is finally parking her car:

After 576,000 miles — more than a trip to the moon and back — in the same 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente, Rachel Veitch is stepping on the brakes due to age-related macular degeneration in both eyes.

She realized her vision had completely failed her in early March after running a “bald-faced red light,” Veitch told FoxNews.com.

“I am legally blind, so I can no longer drive my lovely Chariot,” she said by phone. “They don’t have to take it away, I would not dream of driving that car again.” …

She credits her near-obsessive dedication to the car as the main reason why it’s spent nearly half a century in her care.

“When I buy gas, I write down the mileage, the date and how many miles per gallon I got,” she told FoxNews.com in 2009. “I’ve never been a destructive person and I’ve just taken care of everything, except my husbands.”

(h/t: Fred)

Why am I not surprised?

Death is on Twitter …

… but he hasn’t tweeted yet.

He will eventually, you know.

Lost in translation

With all the genuinely sad  news this week pertaining to race, at least we have some funny-sad news in that arena.

Andrew Breitbart is still dead. And still stupid. And yet, apparently, the brains of his outfit.

That’s apparently the only rational explanation for the Big Reveal: Obama hugging some guy more than 20 years ago in video that aired on PBS in 2008.

This was supposed to bring down a Presidency? Really?

Some stuff is so stupid that all one can rationally do is mock. I didn’t check, but I’m sure the Farkers were on the case. And before I went to bed, not only was Twitter joining in (@owillis, in particular, made a number of distinguished contributions), but a submeme also had arisen involving mashing up #HugGate with lines from movies. Forthwith, because Samuel L. Jackson is a badass, my humble contribution to the proceedings:

I’m honored that Angry Black Lady made this her Tweet of the Day.

A “Modest Proposal” for the new millennium

My friend David has figured out a way to get rich the Romney way. I am in awe:

Based on the two main things I have learned from Mitt Romney as a bishop in the Mormon church and CEO of Bain Capital, I have stumbled on a sure fire, high profit business model. A paradigm shift in investment grade financial instruments which can make us all filthy rich, but will NOT damage the environment, or break any existing laws.

My plan is simple:

We sell Mormon souls to the devil.

Hey, I know what your first question is going to be, “But David, you can’t sell someone else’s soul to the Prince of Darkness.” Silly commie liberal, you don’t understand the business concept of “leverage” or other modern investment strategies like those used by Bain Capital.

You NEVER invest your OWN money in a business venture, you invest OTHER PEOPLE’S money.

In this case, why sell our own souls, when we can sell other people’s souls?

Of course, anything that can be monetized also can be collateralized, and such financial instruments must be rated for investors. David’s way ahead of you: “Obviously souls of politicians and Mormon Elders would not be investment grade.”

If S&P or Moody’s were rating them, I bet they would be treated as investment grade, but I think the regulatory authorities in this field have many more teeth than does the SEC. Not to mention claws.

At least one Koch is a great American, and so is Jimmy Carter

So sayeth James Fallows, who praiseth the non-Earth-raping Koch and the ostensibly hapless former president, and so, at least in the context of beer, say I.

Because nobody leaves this place without singin’ the blues …*

Your president, ladies and gentlemen …

Not half bad. Oh, hell, who are we kidding? He hit maybe 50% of the right notes. But he still managed to sound pretty good with that band behind him. Of course, two alley cats copulating could sound good with that band behind them.

(*Line from this.)

“The Secret Service is not happy about this.”

h/t: Athenae, who comments, “Obama looks around like, ‘And I don’t have one with the presidential seal on it WHY, now?’”

I like the part where the kid says he tested it by shooting himself in the leg with it. That’s giving it up for science.

Silent Night

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

In which I get fan mail*

Got this today:

Dear MoveOn member**,

You should run for office.

No, really. You, Lex Alexander, should run for elective office: maybe city council or school board in Greensboro, or the state legislature in Raleigh.

Oh, dear.

I mean, really.

*Yes, I am aware this was spam.

**Just for the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of MoveOn.

Best. Troll. Repellent. EVAR.

Ken at Popehat responds to groundless legal threats by “Marc Stephens,” who apparently is posing as a lawyer. Just for the record, making legal threats against someone who has spent five years as a federal prosecutor and another dozen as a federal criminal defense attorney is an even stupider gambit than threatening a libel suit against someone who has been committing investigative journalism for a quarter-century. Which is saying something:

Marc, kindly take this post — the link to which I will email to you — as a formal, legally binding, 100% certified style invitation to snort my taint.

Commenter “bill quoted” speaks for all of us, I think, when he repurposes this snippet from “Bull Durham”:

Stephens: I want to bring the heater. Announce my presence with authority.

everyone: To announce your what?

Stephens: My presence with authority.

everyone: To announce your presence with authority?! This guy’s a first ball fastball hitter, he’s looking for the heat.

Stephens: So what? He ain’t seen my heat.

everyone: All right, Meat. Give him your heat.

[Stephens throws it and Ken hits a home run.]

everyone: Well, Ken really hit the [expletive] out of that one, didn’t he?