Garfield without Garfield

For a while now, I've been enjoying Garfield without Garfield, which cleverly removes all characters and words from existing Garfield strips except for those of Jon, turning the strip into a disturbing portrayal of "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life."

Enjoy this cup of cheer:

New Feature!

I've just added a new feature:
Check out what I'm currently reading to the right. As I finish a book (note: this might take two days, or it might take two months), I'll post something about it, whether it's a review, my impressions, or a larger discussion of topics the book addresses.

That's it for now!

The Paparazzing of Politics

Lindsay and I were talking just yesterday about how frustrating, infuriating and sad it is that people demand to be entertained rather than informed by the news. This morning, I read Glenn Greenwald's column at Salon [via C&L] about just that... And he had the numbers to back it up. It ain't pretty, friends:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” - 102

“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73

“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16

“Obama and bowling” — 1,043

“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607

“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

Sigh... I can't even comment further on this.

He's Dick-to-the-Dawk-to-the-PhD

This has already made the rounds on literally all of the atheist blogs(you can find lyrics here, comment #51), but I have to post it here anyway. For, where else can you see Richard Dawkins with a giant anti-creationist robot, Eugenie Scott in a bikini, Sam Harris with a tricked-out grill, Christopher Hitchens with a big old blunt.

Anyway, no one seems to know where it came from. Was it made by a creationist to make fun of "Darwinians"? (Probably not.) Was it made by the pro-science people to make fun of the whole debate? (Probably.) In any event, it's great.

another music post

Ida Maria is a Swedish singer who for some reason, and it's hard to put my finger on that reason, I just can't get enough of. Her latest song is called "Oh my God." It's delightfully manic and wonderfully weird and I can't help but love it.