The Truffle

I'm in the process of upgrading my iTunes software to the latest version. Watching software download...oh, joy.

In These Times reports on an increasing number of Republican politicians doing a switcheroo and running for office as Democrats. Mostly, these candidates are from "red" states, like Oklahoma, Idaho, and South Carolina. All have similar reasons: the party's extreme rightward shift, increasing intolerance, and refusal to acknowledge its moderates and pragmatists. For example “The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing,” Oklahoma state Senator Nancy Riley told the Associated Press in August, when she became a Democrat. Riley represents a district in suburban Tulsa and has served as minority whip in a chamber that her former party was looking to take over in the fall election. She announced her defection after years of what she described as “abhorrent” treatment by Republican leaders who suffer a “lack of compassion for people.” These days, the party most welcoming to centrists is the Democratic party, not the GOP. And the netroots are embra...

Too bad Fashion Week's come and gone...because some designer could've done something interesting with this. "There's a great need to de-stigmatize condoms around the world, especially in Africa," said Franck DeRose, executive director of The Condom Project, which aims to get people comfortable about condoms, especially those living in countries where the little piece of latex is considered taboo.... DeRose said that creating wearable art out of condoms attracts people who normally wouldn't wear the prophylactics, let alone touch them or even utter the word. Looks like Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was about 15 years ahead of her time with her manhood-covering-as-monocle fashion statement. But this sort of begs a question--what kinds of condoms are they using? Trojans, perhaps? Do the condoms have lubricants or no? And, finally, not use the condoms to make, say, loincloths or jock straps?

I'm now watching the series premiere of this new post-apocalyptic show called "Jericho." Will see if it's worth watching. Ten minutes into the show and already there's a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Tonight, Olbermann insisted that Bush apologize to America. Another must read. From Olbie. As usual.

You're in a war. Recruitment is down. You're having to call up fortysomethings who never saw this coming. So what do you do to address this? You make sure that, whatever happens, homos never make it past the door to the recruiting office. Even if the homo in question is the granddaughter of a Green Beret. Absolutely fucking outrageous.

I went to try to order the new album from Steve Turner (Mudhoney guitarist) but Amazon's been acting fucking weird all day. Are there any half-decent online music ordering sites out there? I need to look into this. I'm getting creeped out by Amazon.

I've been tagged by Deb at Debsweb, so I'm diving in here: Things I'd like to do before I die: 1. Visit Scandinavia 2. Learn to play guitar 3. Drive a car again (I have a license but haven't driven a car in years) Things I cannot do: 1. Wait on line for long periods of time 2. Write ampersands 3. Do the butterfly stroke Things I can do: 1. Ride a bike 2. Read things upside down 3. Take naps on craped airplanes (Le Sweetie can attest to that) Things that attracted me to my significant other: Too many to mention! Well to start with... 1. He presented me with flowers on our first date 2. He was cool and interesting 3. He had a great sense of humor 4. His taste in music rawked 5. He was just as attracted to me. Wow...shall I go on? :D Things I like to say: 1. Hi Sweetie! 2. Meow! 3. Well, y'know... Books I like best: SF/fantasy, mysteries, current events, history Movies I like to see: 1. Airplane! 2. Spirited Away 3. The Star Wars Trilogy Next on the tag list: Paren...

And now she's even the inspiration for Law and Order's season premiere. Plot details are as follows: In the show, the couple, J-Train (Wayne Wilcox) and Sky Sweet (Barbara King), bear several similarities to K-Fed and Spears, both in terms of storyline and physical appearance. Hopefully, that's where the parallels stop. In the episode titled "Fame," J-Train becomes the prime suspect in the murder of an NYPD detective and gets arrested when the killing is connected to incriminating photos of his paparazzi-hounded starlet wife (she's snapped dropping the baby in Central Park and then leaving the kid alone in a car while she runs into a coffee shop, per the New York Post), forcing the oversaturated couple even further into the media spotlight. The producers say it's fiction, and maybe it is. After all, Britney hasn't been photographed actually dropping her baby (though that skull fracture he sustained in April is suspicious, as is the fact that his pa...

Can you say "rubber stamp Republicans"? Of course you can!

Yeah, it's been linked to again and again--but it bears repeating, y'know.

I got a jury duty summons for state court on Monday. Thing is, I served in federal court in 2005. So I was able to send them my proof and explained I was ineligible. Please. Can't these idgits leave me alone for once? I have friends who've never been called. Let them get summoned. Sheeeeeeeeesh!

Via Effing the Ineffable, by way of Parenthetical Remarks, we have the Jackson Pollock Simulator!

The first one is retired Navy commander Jeff Huber, over at Pen and Sword. Huber is a former military dude and thus can handle even the scary spectacle of Darth Cheney on MTP, which he discusses here. Huber notes the following: Cheney has been called "Doctor Doom." He reminds me more of a few other comic book villains. Depending on his demeanor of the moment, he resembles The Penguin, The Thing or The Kingpin. And he showed all those sides of his personality on Meet the Press this morning. Whoa, dude. Just one clarification: The Thing is a hero, not a baddie. And under those rocks, the Thing is a big softie. Personally, Darthie reminds me more of a pissed off Humpty Dumpty. But the most priceless comments are reserved for Condi: Condi was never a real driver of the Bush administration's policy agenda. She was brought on board the team to be part of Dubya's office harem--a workout partner and a foreign affairs tutor. "Iraq is the country on the left of th...

For my birthday, my sweetie gave me something I had longed for for a long, long time... Pinky and the Brain on DVD! A couple of years ago, Entertainment Weekly was wondering when Warner Bros. would commit this glorious piece of clever animation and pop culture satire to DVD (omitting, of course, the episodes with Elmyra). Now the prayers of P&B's fans have been answered! Ah, 1990s animation. A reminder of a more innocent time, when the good-natured snark of pop culture had not yet been supplanted by a discourse based on smears, whining, and bitchiness. When being clever was a virtue. Looking back, we might have been better off with cartoon mice running the world than...well, the buffoons we've got now. You know which ones I'm talking about. They're Dubya and Dick Yes Dubya and Dick One is a fratboy, the other's a prick They're clueless neocons Their logic is wrong They're Dubya, they're Dubya and Dick Dick Dick Dick Dick! Bin Laden's still...

Dear Leader can't be happy about this.

Except not. Awwwwwwww, Dubya's best fwend is leaving.

Today's my birthday and I'm going out for Indian food with Le Sweetie.

Via The Republic of Dogs , we find the perfect gift for the little wannabe Crusader in your life... Armor of God Pajamas. It sounds like a joke. It is not. Our holy entrepeneurs explain: The whole Armor of God Pajama set will help your children to depend on God to protect them from their fears, doubts, and uncertainties at night so their sleep can be restful and peaceful. Gee, who needs stuffed animals, anymore? Although we are a new company, our desire is to grow into a well-known Christian Organization whose main goal is to reach as many children as possible by providing the Word of God, offering top quality products and excellent customer service along with offering parents the means and support to help their children grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. They even have Armor of God dolls. And soon they'll have Armor of God blankets. Top it off with Catholic Shopper's Jesus Inspirational Sport Statues, and you'll have a kid-friendly Christian bedroom.

From da Olber-Mann himself : It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present. These "loyal Americans" that Olbermann speaks of are, by now, about about two-thirds of the population. Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 -- without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.” Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.” Which has been par the cou...

Keith Olbermann on the "Bush critics = Nazi appeasers" schtick: "I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I think the radical right has issued some new talking points." Tonight's the night he ripped the Preznit a new one for his subtle little attack on the media and proclaimed Newt Gingrich the Worst Person in the World. I can't wait for the transcript to be online. Tonight, Olberman rocked.

Why I like Elayne Riggs: Her blog is a starting point for all kinds of weirdness on the Web. Like the Tarot Card Image Generator! Always fun fun fun!

Thanks to Pete Blackwell over at Parenthetical Remarks, I am the proud recipient of a Book Meme Tag. Being a book editor who has read a kazillion books in her lifetime (and gets paid to put them together, day in, day out), I am aware that this is going to take some brain thinkin'. Okay, I'll dive in: A book that changed my life: The dictionary, of course! Where would the English language be without dictionaries? A book I've read more than once: Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. And the Kate Bush song of the same name is really awesome, too. A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Boat Building. Uh, how about Sea Navigation for Dummies? Whaddya mean, those aren't real books? Oh, okay, I'll be serious. I'd take some really long George R.R. Martin novel, because they're ginormous and I've been meaning to check one of his books out for a long time. Maybe the first one, Game of Thrones . A...