GOD BLESS WINDOWS VISTA. NO--GOD DAMN WINDOWS VISTA: For resetting the power settings or the presentation settings or whatever else it does I haven't noticed yet every time Windows Update does its thing. Well--probably not every time. Annoying, though.

Whatever. Via Amanda Marcotte's Twitter here is an article about fundamentalists attacking a woman for having the temerity to not have her father give her away at her wedding.

Since the complaints are typically accompanied by references to how much the father must have sacrificed and paid over the woman's life, it's hard to escape the economic interpretations of the practice of giving away the bride: the father has essentially bought and paid for the woman and now it's his prerogative to hand her over to the next man who will take economic responsibility for her. Walking herself down the aisle sends the message that she is independent of her father, selfishly taking credit for his work and money and disrespecting his role as head of the household.

Ummm...Happy Memorial Day!

LAKERS VS CELTICS? AGAIN?: Jeez--as a writer David Stern is clearly out of ideas. He's like Geoff Johns in his fetishization of the NBA version of the Silver Age.

Meanwhile Roy Halladay threw a perfect game yesterday. Too bad the city was too Flyered up to notice!

The debut of Eri Yoshida--the first woman in American pro baseball since the 90s--yielded mixed results. Gave up four runs in three innings. But she had an RBI single!

FARE THEE WELL, DENNIS HOPPER: Suspect most people my age remember him as a really great scenery-chewing villain. The moments where Waterworld was watchable were all his doing. And of course he did That Scene in True Romance with Christopher Walken.

(He also directed The Hot Spot, which my late-teenage self remembers for featuring a naked Jennifer Connelly. And my contemporary self too, come to think of it.)

AND OTHER STATEMENTS, TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, YOU COULD APPLY TO BSG: This:

"They were making that mess up as they went along," Hosein says. "They didn't realise the human-computer interface (HCI) really matters."

--was said in reference to...Facebook! Well, definitely that first sentence you could apply to BSG. And I'm sure there are many ways the second sentence applies as well.

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA HAS THRUST UPON US: Interview with one of the people behind Mitochondrial Eve.

THE MOST RETWEETED, REFACEBOOKED, RELINKED MOVIE REVIEW OF THE MOMENT: Lindy West crushes that Sex and the City sequel. Justly number one on the list of the Top Nine Sex and the City hate-filled critical reactions. Of all time.

DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THIS MEANS: But it sounds worrisome:

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history.

The M3 figures - which include broad range of bank accounts and are tracked by British and European monetarists for warning signals about the direction of the US economy a year or so in advance - began shrinking last summer. The pace has since quickened.

The stock of money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6pc. The assets of insitutional money market funds fell at a 37pc rate, the sharpest drop ever.

"It’s frightening," said Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research. "The plunge in M3 has no precedent since the Great Depression. The dominant reason for this is that regulators across the world are pressing banks to raise capital asset ratios and to shrink their risk assets. This is why the US is not recovering properly," he said.  

Anytime somebody invokes the phrase "since the Great Depression" I start to worry. And that phrase has been in play quite a bit the past year or two.

TOP KILL POSSIBLY WORKING: Do check in on The Oil Drum for all your spill-related needs.

HEY, LET'S CHECK IN WITH YVES SMITH: BP and Executive Arrogance. "This is simply stunning. First, the BP chairman essentially puts his company on an equal footing as the United States, implying their relation is not merely reciprocal, but equal. BP doesn’t even approach the importance of Microsoft in its heyday, a-not-very-tamed provider of a near monopoly service. And his posture “this is just one problem like others, no biggie” is an offense to common sense and decency." Yeah.

DEPARTMENT OF FANTASTIC NFL NEWS: New Jersey gets the 2014 Super Bowl. Please, please can we hold off global warming until then? A cold weather NFL championship is just the greatest thing.

NEW BOOTIE TOP TEN: Or Top 25 since they had a few months off. Stuff I'm really liking this time:

Clivester's "Heartbreaking Maps," which uses Karen O's vocals from "Maps" to great effect.

Clockwork set Lil Wayne's "Hustler Musik" to the theme from The Office and it is just compulsively listenable. One thing mashups have proven is that the range of background beats you can successfully use with hip-hop is far greater than what actually gets used.

DJs From Mars did a rockin' more-a-remix-than-a-mashup of "Tik Tok" and some Queen beats.

Go Home Productions' somewhat unlikely pairing of "Like A Virgin" and "Baba O'Riley" is the most tremendous thing ever. I listen to it repeatedly when I'm in the mood and think Madonna singing over Pete Townshend and company is the most natural thing in the world (and I don't miss Daltrey at all--sort of makes me think he's the least essential Who member, which is no doubt unfair, and also a sign of my unseriousness as a musicologist.)

Mighty Mike's two contributions are wonderful. The Lily Allen vs Robert Palmer one manages to out-ironize and out-funny the original Allen song, "Not Fair." And "Under Pressure" vs MGMT is a classic A vs B mashup.

And Victor Menegaux provides necessary musical recycling by wrapping the lyrics of Limp Bizkit's "Nookie"--which might be the worst radio hit of all time--around Owl City's "Fireflies." Irony is back in 2010!

NOW I DON'T WATCH A LOT OF LOST BUT: Is it a problem that the afterlife universe has nothing to do with the island? Other than it was created by the people who were on the island together. I guess if you want to claim "Lost was always a character piece!" then it's fine, but I always had the impression that people watched Lost (even more than Battlestar Galactica) to try and figure out the various mysteries of the island, at least as much as they watched for Jack and Kate or whoever.

Speaking of BSG--this makes me appreciate that disliked-by-me finale a little more. At least they tried to do something a little different. And they had sentiment but they didn't spread it on thick as peanut butter like Lost did at the end. I mean the BSG afterlife is still a total mystery, you know? In Lost we spent a whole season being dead.

BUT OMG WEIGEL'S A GLIBERTARIAN!!!1!: Yet he can still explain the non-equivalence between old-timey Democrat and old-timey Republican racism.

LIFE IMITATING THE EVIL, FACELESS CORPORATION IN EVERY TERRIBLE ACTION MOVIE: "Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers." Via Mr Cole.

VIA DORETTA LAU ON TWITTER: An exceedingly great Lady Gaga interview/article.

IN A WORLD WHERE EVERY FRANCHISE IS THE GREEN BAY PACKERS: (Exaggerated for effect.) I give you English soccer:

As Blackpool prepared to challenge Cardiff City for access to the stardom and riches of the Premier League this week, the town turned tangerine. Streets, shops and roundabouts were decked out in club colours, and a flag flew from Blackpool Tower. Almost all the 37,500 ticket allocation is sold, which means a third of Blackpool's population will be inside Wembley today, willing Ian Holloway's team to victory.

And the Pool goes up to the top flight beating Cardiff 3-2. English soccer is most exciting at the promotion/relegation margins, I think. I mean I really don't care about the billionaires paying the millionaires at the top of the standings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE 80S: Pac-Man and The Empire Strikes Back turn thirty today? I mean in general dividing our cultural history into 10-year segments is artificial and not particularly useful, but goddamn, that is a whole lot of 1980s-specific iconography getting started on one day. How many other decades have that specific a dividing line? Where we can point to it and say. "yes, things became different right here."

BEN FRANKLIN, OUR CITY TURNS IT'S LONELY, TASERED EYES TO YOU: Even French soccer players won't come to Philly. On aesthetic grounds, if the translation is to be believed. How hoomiliatin'.

LIBERTARIAN FACEPALM: This "I wouldn't support the Civil Rights Act due to my devotion to freedom" stuff is precisely where libertarianism becomes too silly for words. Rand "not named for Ayn" Paul even got a post out of Jim Henley, who notes he is essentially Ron Paul without the charm.

DEPARTMENT OF UNDERREPORTED ELECTION RESULTS: Mary Beth Buchanan lost! Fuck with Tommy Chong, you get the horns. Or something.

ANOTHER SPECIAL ELECTION, ANOTHER GOP FAILURE: Larison explains it all. Here's a hint: the Republicans' habit of making local elections about national issues does not win local voters over.

NOTHING I WANT TO TALK ABOUT TODAY: The prospect of Miss USA losing her crown due to pole dancing pictures where she's more clothed than she was in the contest is too silly to talk about. Everything else--I have nothing to add. Here, have a cat picture:

My caption would be some version of Mr Burns' old line about resisting something, but he's paralyzed with rage. Perhaps something about being nonplussed into immobility. Or, "I'd do something, but a slow burn is the only possible reaction here." Or something. Via here.

NICE LADY FROM DEARBORN WINS MISS USA: Results predictable.

THE SIX-PARTY TALKS ARE NOT TALKING: None of the regional powers around North Korea have a common plan to prepare for the DPRK's eventual collapse. And that collapse is coming. One of the commenters points out that the ROK almost certainly has a plan--probably involving an occupation of the North, with limited labor mobility so they don't drown their shiny new economy in unemployed people--and that's the most important thing.

HERE'S A SUMMER PROJECT FOR YOU: Recipezaar's Top 25 Burger Recipes.

POSTS INSPIRED BY COMMENTS ON OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS: Aaron, here:

Not that I think the US used their earthquake laser on Haiti (we used it on Iran, obvi), but “boots on the ground” is a particularly bad way to determine whether or not “imperialism” is happening. The best imperialists always find ways to get what they want while using their expensive soldiers as little as possible (see for example, “gunboat diplomacy” in “British imperialism in Latin America in the 19th century” and “American imperialism in Latin America in the 20th century”). If you’re occupying a country, ur doing it wrong. The US controlled Cuba via the Platt amendment, after all, not permanent occupation by the rough riders.

By that standard China is shaping up to be a fantastic imperialist power--I mean they rule us just by buying us free and clear! More seriously, they seem really adept at getting other people to do what they want without, you know, any boots on the ground whatsoever. Dudes with money and infrastructure on the ground, sure!

(And I know I should just reply on LGM instead of creating a post over here, but I got nuthin' else today. I could talk about the oil spill getting worse by the day, but you know that.)

SOUNDS LIKE A POSSIBLE INSTANT CHEESE CLASSIC: Kozo watches Ip Man 2:

Ip Man's conflicts with Hung and his followers continue, but of course, the biggest enemies are the evil foreigners who look down upon the Chinese people and are willing to spit and scream in order to let EVERYONE know. This storyline is also nothing new (see Fearless or True Legend for other takes), but Wilson Yip and company do away with any subtlety, creating what could be the most obnoxious, racist and hilarious white people in a Hong Kong film ever. The police superintendent (Charlie Mayer) is so slimy that he probably bleeds oil, but the cake-taker is Darren Shahlavi as Mr. Twister, the Brits' number one boxer and also the loudest man on the planet. Mr. Twister hates Chinese and loves to scream about it. Not one line the character utters is anything less than a shout, and Shahlavi's bursting veins are so visible during his screaming binges that they should have received their own screen credit.

If you can set aside serious objections to producers foisting xenophobic claptrap on the Chinese audience, it sounds like we might have a new possibility for the trash cinema canon.

Speaking of alternate cinema (this is about "bad" cinema, not trash cinema, and I swear there's a difference): enjoy Sam Adams on the unironic cult of Troll 2. He also has some Troll 2 clips on his blog. I never thought to watch Troll 2--I knew it was bad, but thought it was bad bad, not strange and wonderful bad. Turns out it's the latter! So I'm going to have to check it out.

BIG TEN EXPANSION ENTERING THE INEVITABLE "VERY SILLY" PHASE: God bless Justin Slotman for quoting some Rivals writer's twitter. No--god damn Justin Slotman:

Latest Big Ten expansion buzz I hear has the league looking at Texas, Maryland and Vandy while also focusing on Texas A&M and Virginia.

You see? Now we're just getting ridiculous.

 The other silly rumor I heard--just to keep the silliness in one post--is that if the Big Ten goes megaconference the SEC responds by taking TX, A&M, OK and OK State. You heard it fifth-hand here first!

ODDLY ENOUGH, HIRING QUALIFIED PEOPLE FOR GOVERNMENT POSITIONS MAKES FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT: Call me crazy, but I think it's nice to have an actual physicist in charge of the DOE.

YOU KNOW WHAT DC NEEDS, THOUGH?: Some sort of rogue, mind-controlled Batman storyline. I mean hasn't the current version of Bats, with all the files on everyone else, the paranoia, the ability to find a way to defeat anyone, the goddamned Batman-ness, proven himself to be the most dangerous person on Earth? So let's have everybody team up and try to stop him! I would read that.

IN HAPPIER DC COMICS NEWS (THAT COULD ALSO BE CONSIDERED THEM GOING BACKWARDS--BUT IN A GOOD WAY, TRUST ME): Giffen and DeMatteis interview on their new stint on Booster Gold. Where they address the one thing that could trouble me about them writing Booster at this moment in time: taking him completely backwards to the bwah-ha-ha era, which is my favorite Justice League era ever, of course, but which would erase a lot of the personal development Booster's had over the years. They assure us they will not take him backwards! Okay then.

AND AS IF TO EXPLICITLY SAY "YES, WE IN DC ARE MOVING BACKWARDS": They kill Ryan Choi.

GOT NOTHING TODAY: So enjoy this story of Uniqlo's New York branch. Marvel at their straaaange Japanese managerial techniques! Ooga booga! Via Put This On.

DC'S MOVING BACKWARDS: Interesting article on legacy non-white superheroes being replaced by their white progenitors (i.e., Ryan Choi being replaced by Ray Palmer.)

MEANWHILE IN REASONABLE ANTI-KAGAN POINTS: One factor that cemented my Wood love (heh) was that she's--gasp!--a state school product. And it would be nice to get us out of the Harvard-Yale death spiral we're in. The Dem talking points for Kagan involve mentioning "she's outside the judicial monastery!" but being outside the Ivy clique seems much more salient, and novel. Plus Stevens, I believe, is the lone non-Ivy grad left. When Ginsburg goes there'll be nobody left without a Harvard or Yale diploma.

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE A WOMAN IS BEING DISHONEST ABOUT HER SEXUAL HISTORY!: Get Andrew Sullivan on the line! (Back to disapproving Sully linkage. Or just cheerfully ignoring Sully.)

WHEREIN POSSIBLY FOR THE FIRST TIME I APPROVINGLY LINK TO SULLY APPROVINGLY LINKING TO BOBO: But man-o-man I am convinced by anti-Kagan arguments. For me it's as simple as--if you have two equally confirmable candidates--Wood and Kagan--and one has a demonstrable history of liberalness, and the other basically knows all the right people (who may or may not be liberal, but are definitely Democratic machine mechanics)--why are you picking the latter? Why are people supporting the latter? Just because Barry and Larry Summers said do? I mean come on. And I can sort of appreciate having an open mind before the hearings begin, but I'm not sure why anybody thinks we're going to learn any more about Kagan from them. She's spent decades avoiding taking stands--she's not going to give up the game when she's this close to SCOTUS.

ANOTHER DAY: Another wonderful LGM Kagan quote:

Personally I think we should try to draw as sharp a distinction as possible between the Supreme Court nomination process and a sorority rush, but obviously a lot of Very Important People disagree.

--Professor P. Campos, some nobody.

THE DEMOCRATS ARE LOSING IN HAWAII?: Seriously? And you thought Scott Brown was bad...(joke pilfered from Dave Weigel. It's a three way race in Hawaii and the less-popular Democratic candidate has refused to pull out, since she has the backing of Akaka and Inouye. If there's a state with a worse Senate contingent than those two, it isn't worse by much.)

FELIX SALMON TWEETED THIS: The people running the Euro just might not have any idea what they're doing. That's the Euro, the currency. Not the soccer tournament. Or whatever else it might mean.

AS LONG AS I'M LINKING TO LGM LATELY: Here's part of Scott Lemieux's initital reaction to the Kagan pick: "When you’re reduced to noting that a prospective nominee for the highest court in the land is a “brilliant conversationalist” and that other Harvardites think she’s good people, one has pretty much conceded that the pick is Ivy League nepotism of the worst sort. " Yep! Scott also notes that the Miers-Kagan comparisons are not about qualifications exactly--obviously Kagan is more qualified (though I still think she's underqualified, leaving aside that being a Larry Summers protege should render somebody unqualified for any national-level office) but about the Right having a freakout when Bush nominated somebody without a record of supporting right-wing principles. For some reason the Left is not going to have a unanimous freakout, even though Kagan is a careerist cipher with little public record to judge her bonafides. A shame, that.

SOME PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS CAN GO THEIR WHOLE CAREERS WITHOUT BEING INSULTED BY MARTY PERETZ: Paul Campos should consider himself fortunate!

THE CREEPING LIEBERMANISM OF BARRY O?: Obama bemoans 'diversions' of iPod, Xbox era.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

Doesn't he have a Blackberry? HYPOCRISY! Gadgets for me, but not for thee!

Seriously though, this isn't the first time he's gone after video games. I think he thinks its a safe soft target to throw into speeches sometimes, but he really isn't going to do anything contra gaming. I think.

QUICK KAGAN LINKING: From Scott Lemieux. I swear--this Kagan nom, if it goes through, is going to be a Voight-Kampff test to determine if you're an O-bot replicant or not. Because there's not a lot to get excited about here, much to be worried about, and if you're getting excited about this person, it's just because Tyrell's niece was excited about this person.

CODA TO THE HARVARD RACIST E-MAIL SAGA (HEY, THAT WAS LIKE A WEEK AGO): That utterly consumed the Internet and was accompanied by a flare-up of Bell Curveism in various comments sections that don't usually care about that sort of thing. Anyway, the Above The Law summary is probably the best I've seen. Note these two paragraphs:

During the dinnertime debate, Steph did not argue in favor of a genetic basis for racial disparities in intelligence. After the dinner, however, she sent an email — just to Yelena and Jen, not a wider group — clarifying her views. In that email, Steph wrote, “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.” (For the few of you who haven’t already seen it, you can read the complete email here (third blockquote).)
Note the wording of Steph’s email: “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility….” This suggests that, at dinner, Steph actually argued against racial disparities in intelligence. Upon further consideration, she decided to go agnostic on that question, sending out the clarifying email. For a layperson without expertise in the relevant scientific disciplines, agnosticism on this subject seems reasonable — and does not make someone a “racist” (not that Kash, in our initial post on this subject, called Steph a racist, even though Kash believes the email contains racist subtext).

This further supports Thoreau's plea for mercy, I think. And why you shouldn't create a mini-scandal based on somebody's private e-mail (the e-mail in question was shared between three people months ago, and was not unleashed until there was some sort of falling out between two of the three--this is all in the ATL post.)

CRIPES: Kagan worked for Government Squid? Just shoot me.

EDIT: And that's via this post, where even some guy on Volokh (sorry Jonathan Adler! I can't keep my Volokhers straight) recognizes that Diane Wood would have no problem getting nominated.

"OH, BITCHIN'. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE DIFI ON THE SUPREME COURT": Probably my favorite comment on the latest Kagan rumors yet.

CODA TO BLACK THURSDAY (HEY, THAT WAS YESTERDAY!): Felix Salmon gives you a bunch of links and analysis. Fat fingers? As much as we would love a totally comedic Wall Street crash--no, it wasn't that. It was more the blacker comedy of an algorithm-dominated stock market.

HOW 'BOUT THEM FREE MARKETS: Mr Cole, on the news that the government's response to the BP spill is to raise the cap on damages they'll have to pay:

Here’s a revolutionary idea- why don’t we get rid of the limit altogether! If BP or Exxon cuts corners and makes a hash of things, and they cause 60 billion dollars worth of damage, they are on the hook for the whole 60 billion dollars! And if they can’t pay for the whole bill, the company is liquidated, the shareholders get wiped out, and the company ceases to exist.

How bout a little responsibility from our corporate persons? in other words. I am at pains to think of what's wrong with this line of thinking. The worst part will be actual not-hateful people with the misfortune of having the bulk of their savings in BP stock (and yes, you should not put all your investment eggs in one basket, and people should know that, but not everybody does.) Kind of like the people who lost all their money to Madoff--yes, they invested dumbly, but they are also in a sense innocent. Perhaps some sort of means-test to see which wiped-out shareholders will get paid out of the BP dissolution fund first? Maybe...

(Not that the US government could fairly dissolve a foreign corporation like BP. Could they just grab whatever the US corporate person's assets are? Would there be anything left, since they'll certainly get away with transferring lots of things to the British corporate parent?)

FUTENMA FOR DUMMIES: Why Hatoyama is failing hard explained in column form. And Obama too, though that's not actually in the column but it's a reasonable assumption. Hey, I thought he was going to be the first Asian president or something! (Via D.)

I KNOW I SHOULD JUST BE APPALLED: By the crime-statistics-manipulation and general poor professionalism of the NYPD noted in this article, but this is just funny:

The tapes also reveal the locker-room environment at the precinct. On a recording made in September, the subject being discussed at roll call is stationhouse graffiti (done by the cops themselves) and something called "cocking the memo book," a practical joke in which officers draw penises in each other's daily notebooks.

"As far as the defacing of department property—all right, the shit on the side of the building . . . and on people's lockers, and drawing penises in people's memo books, and whatever else is going on—just knock it off, all right?" a Sergeant A. can be heard saying. "If the wrong person sees this stuff coming in here, then IAB [the Internal Affairs Bureau] is going to be all over this place, all right? . . . You want to draw penises, draw them in your own memo book. . . And don't actually draw on the wall." He then adds that just before an inspection, a supervisor had to walk around the stationhouse and paint over all the graffiti.

I swear this used to happen in Hill Street Blues all the time. Via the Balloon Juice thread on the Columbia, Missouri SWAT team video that I cannot bring myself to watch since it's the latest example of  heavily bodily armored cops killing people's pets (and a freaking Corgi this time.)

THE DOUBLE DOWN AS A TRIUMPH OF MARKETING: I've mentioned this before but now I'm willing to embrace the idea that the Double Down is 1. not that bad for you and 2. it's success is playing off that you're doing something you're not supposed to--screw the health police! eat a bacon and cheese sandwich where chicken breasts are the "bread!"--but which isn't that bad. I mean, if I get a grilled double down with a side of green beans--is that that much different from some chicken parm and a nice salad? I don't think it is, aside from the bacon, and I have Bacos on my salads anyhow. It's just grilled chicken with cheese! With no opportunity to add extra mayo, or any starch carbs. But it's ALL MEAT! BE A MEAT EATER! says Yum! Brands. So don't fall for it. Enjoy the Double Down because it's tasty, and not as bad as a comparable chicken sandwich. That's what I do anyway.

(Note: the preceding done without any nutritional research. It's a blog post! I'm going on "gut feel" or "common sense," which have been the essential tools in the blogger's bag of tricks (along with mixed metaphors) since time immemorial.)

ANOTHER GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST VIOLENT EXTREMISM QUOTE: But one wonderful in and of itself:

If we’ve gotten this disconnected from any rational cost/benefit analysis once the word “terrorism” is uttered, let’s just start building enormous mousetraps made of gold and bait them with South Park DVDs; maybe we’ll catch a few jihadis that way.

--Julian Sanchez.

SUMMING UP THE GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN ONE QUOTE: "I know he’s an American citizen but still." --Peter King. Not the Tom Brady slash fiction writer. No, the one who's actually close to the gears of power.

"RACIST E-MAILS THAT BECOME FAMOUS BECAUSE THEY WERE WRITTEN BY HARVARD KIDS" FOLLOWUP: More from Thoreau. Both halves of Pandagon. Nothing really to add here, other than general agreement that you don't have to dig too far beneath the surfaces of people intensely interested in racial intelligence gaps to find somebody who just wants science to confirm their own biases.

WALKING THAT RADLEY BALKO BEAT: Not every story of prosecutor or law enforcement overreach that Radley brings up is equally outrageous--not sure where I'd place this one, wherein some dude is arrested because he had some porn in his suitcase that looked like it involved an underage actress. And then he was held for months when it would have taken one phone call to the actress' representatives to prove she was of age. You know what? Picking up a phone is pretty easy. Keeping somebody incarcerated for months for want of a phone call--that's pretty bad. I'm placing this as "above average" relative to the various outrages Radley's brought to our attention over the years.

NON-ONION SOURCES OF INTERNET COMEDY: Massive air spill at wind farm. There's a HuffPo comedy section? Sure, why not.

IF YOU HAD TO PICK ONE PERSON TO TALK ABOUT BOB RUBIN'S ROMANCE SKILLZ: You could certainly do worse than picking Matt Taibbi.

THIS STUPID HARVARD RACIST E-MAILER THING: Isn't this just the left-wing equivalent of--say--noting that that bio professor who went postal in Alabama was Harvard-educated? If she's going to Rutgers-Camden, or even Rutgers-Newark, nobody cares. But since it's Harvard and this person is allegedly closer to the levers of power or something, I'm supposed to care extra? Well, sorry, sunshine, but I still don't care. This is just a big pile-on on an entitled kid, and I hate entitled kids as much as anyone else but come on. And it's just Harvard. Yale has inflicted far worse entities on the nation--couldn't you wait for one of them to go racial in an e-mail to get your righteous indignation undergarments in a twist?

And I rampantly dislike piling on some stupid kid's e-mail and outing her just because she's at Harvard (and that's what this all boils down to--she's at Harvard, so it's okay!) From the slugs at Gawker one expects this sort of shitheadery. But I wish more thoughtful commentators would at least address the issue that shaming some kid based on her private e-mails is, um, morally ambiguous.

Please do read Thoreau's plea for mercy for her, and then his analysis of her factual incorrectness.

WAY MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BOB RUBIN THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW: Yves Smith linked to this as her must read of the day, though I can't exactly recommend reading it myself. Some things--like wealthy, entitled economy-destroying political functionaries' "game" with the ladieeeeez--are best left to the imagination. But if you just cover your eyes during those parts, you will be able to appreciate the gist of this writer's point: that Rubin is incompetent, has little interest in the business he's worked in for years, and we are better off if he just goes fishing in the NBA On TNT sense. And if you just can't take any part of it, Rubin-nuzzling depictions or not, here's the gist:

Can this country really afford to appoint bratty teenagers to positions of power and influence when they have already demonstrated to us, over and over again, that they are no more capable of taking responsibility for their actions than bratty teenagers?

 I say, no! Of course not! But that's never stopped us before (either me saying no or there being a host of obvious reasons to say no.)