Miscellaneous Heathen : Archives for September 2008

The Reason Guide to Legal Immigration

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:23:00 -0500

...is fucking excellent.

WANT

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:22:00 -0500

German Supertuner RUF Building an Electric Porsche. It'll be Cayman-based, but still.

Well, that settles that, then, doesn't it?

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:20:00 -0500

Who controls the world?

And now everyone can please shut up about Georgia, too.

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:27:00 -0500

What is there to say but Roll Tide?

Alabama is now ranked 2nd in the AP, behind only Oklahoma, who will doubtless fall to #5 Texas before too long. (USC, bless their overrated little hearts, is down at 9 -- still ahead of Georgia, though, which seems unfair; I'd swap 'em and put USC down at 11.) The top five is now: OU, UA, LSU, Mizz, Texas. LSU is also the only game Alabama can lose and not cause grumbling (i.e., based on the fact that Saban's only in year 2). If they take the Tigers, though, they could run the table IF Saban can keep their intensity up.

By the way, the AP poll features SIX SEC squads: Alabama, LSU, #11 Georgia, #12 Florida, #13 Auburn, and #19 Vandy (who are still undefeated after 4 games, including conference foes the Gamecocks and the same Ole Miss squad who beat Florida this week). That's half the conference (left out are the two usually-helpless Mississippi teams, Arkansas, Spurrier's Cocks, Kentucky, and Tennessee; of those, in any given year the Vols and the Razorbacks are typically rankable at some point).

Creampuff Watch: Who the hell really believes Penn State deserves to be #6? They've played 4 creampuffs and allowed 3 TDs and a field goal against Illinois. WTF?

Now will everyone please shut up about USC?

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:26:00 -0500

The unranked Oregon Beavers popped the Trojans' bubble on Thursday night, 27 to 21. Oregon improves to 2-2; USC is sure to fall significantly on the loss.

Now please also shut up about the PAC-10, too. The real game is today, when we find out whether Saban's delivering ahead of schedule, or Georgia is as tough as Athens wants us to believe.

Just the thing to make us stop worrying about WaMu

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:40:00 -0500

Live vid of the Cowboy Junkies doing "Sweet Jane" with Ryan Adams, from their Trinity Revisited album (2007):

Or, if you prefer, the original CJ version. While you're at it, why not also re-absorb Lou?

Mmmm, smackdown

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:27:00 -0500

Letterman was supposed to have McCain on last night, but McCain ditched him to "save the country" as part of his campaign-suspension gimmick. Dave was not pleased. Delicious.

CNN grows balls

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:52:00 -0500

After Palin refused to allow actual reporters to a series of meetings with world leaders, they pulled their camera crew.

NEW YORK (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, on Tuesday banned reporters from her first meetings with world leaders, allowing access only to photographers and a television crew.

CNN, which was providing the television coverage for news organizations, decided to pull its TV crew, effectively denying Palin the high visibility she had sought.

Heathen Reminder: Pyrex isn't Pyrex anymore

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:58:00 -0500

In 1998, Corning sold the Pyrex brand to World Kitchen, and it appears that around then Pyrex sold in the US stopped being made out of borosilicate glass; instead, now it's conventional soda lime glass. Borosilicate composition is the sine qua non of Pyrex; Pyrex was Pyrex -- which is to say, able to go from oven to cooktop to freezer with no danger of breakage -- because it was borosilicate, not normal tempered glass. Pyrex made form conventional glass just isn't the Pyrex we all came to know in the years prior to 1998.

It's a worse problem, actually, than the obvious, i.e. a sudden drop in quality. People buy Pyrex pan with the expectation that they can bake a chicken in it, but the new Pyrex pans just might spontaneously shatter (with some force!) under such heating. Needless to say, both Corning and World Kitchen would very much like everyone to shut up about this, but thankfully Consumer Affairs hasn't, and won't.

Bottom line: Do not buy Pyrex. Find a supplier who actually make borosilicate glass if you want what Pyrex used to be.

Hard to argue with

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:10:00 -0500

Krugman: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance."

One reason we still have a Drug War

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:03:00 -0500

It enriches law enforcement. You see, law-enforcement organizations are able to seize and use assets from drug raids -- even in the absence of charges being filed, let alone convictions. Happen to like to keep cash around? Better hope nobody calls in a false report on you, because the cops will take it and you'll have to sue them to recover it.

The Birmingham News, of all places, points out why this is a terrible idea.

God, apparently, hates Chase

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:59:00 -0500

Check out this shot of Downtown Houston's Chase Tower, which sustained bizarrely heavy damage during Ike; from the linked post:

This view is from the south, showing the southwest and southeast sides of the building. The topmost missing window is on the 47th floor. From about the 30th floor down, all of the windows on the southeast side are missing.

It's really striking, but more striking is the fact that no other building in downtown Houston sustained this kind of damage at all. I drove downtown on Monday after the storm, and was hard pressed to see more than a random window or two broken in buildings that weren't Chase. Weird.

Yet another Right-wing smear

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:38:00 -0500

No, Barack Obama is not an arab. Jesus.

LIMBAUGH'S LATEST SMEAR.... I don't want to alarm anyone, but it appears that Rush Limbaugh is blisteringly stupid when it comes to race and ethnicity.

Rush Limbaugh baselessly asserted of Sen. Barack Obama: "Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood?" Limbaugh continued: "He's Arab. You know, he's from Africa. He's from Arab parts of Africa.... [H]e's not African-American. The last thing that he is is African-American."

Limbaugh concluded his little rant by telling his audience, "Everything seems upside-down today in this country."

The irony was rich.

As Media Matters reported, this "Obama is actually Arab" line has been making the rounds in right-wing circles, and has been featured in a variety of conservative settings. It's also demonstrably ridiculous.

First, it's probably worth noting that Obama is not "Arab" "from Africa," he's American from Hawaii. (You know, the place Cokie Roberts mocks for being "exotic.") Second, his father is from Kenya, and Kenya isn't an Arab part of Africa. Third, "African American" generally refers to black people in the United States of African lineage. "The last thing that he is is African American"? Please.

But let's not overlook the point here -- far-right hacks aren't quite done with the smear. The efforts to label Obama "Arab" is just the latest twist in a larger effort launched by those motivated by fear and bigotry.

If the GOP thought they could beat Obama by getting surrogates like Limbaugh to call him "n----r" on-air, you know they'd fucking do it in a heartbeat.

(Hat tip to Frank.)

You'll forgive us if we're a bit overwhelmed.

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:27:00 -0500

I'm not feeling particularly moved by the Heathen spirit, for reasons that should be obvious. It's been a shitty fucking week. Even so, here are a few things I might've gone on longer about given the absence of Ike, or the continued presence of Cary:

Roll Tide and Fail Irish and USC is still overrated.
This is what Mrs Heathen thinks about riding in Chief Heathen's car
If and when one is proven to exist, we will promptly acquire a plush Higgs boson for all Heathen nieces.
This lightsaber is specifically for Sharon.
According to this, under different circumstances I might have been named "Torpedo Vindicator Palin."

For Cary

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:33:00 -0500

Cary died last night after a long battle with cancer. He was 38. He was my friend.

Mrs Heathen: "You've got to be kidding me."

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:08:00 -0500

It never rains, right? From the Chron: "Tiger reported loose on Bolivar Peninsula, judge says"

GALVESTON -- Texas authorities busy trying to clean up after Hurricane Ike have a new problem on their hands: There's a tiger loose.

A county official said today that the animal somehow left its enclosure at an exotic pets center in Crystal Beach. Animal experts are coming in to try and catch the tiger.

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough put it this way: ``Turns out there's a tiger, and I understand he's hungry ... so we're staying away from him.''

Crystal Beach is on the Bolivar Peninsula. The area is one of the hardest-hit by Ike.

The news follows reports of a lion holed up in a Baptist church with its owner on Bolivar Peninsula as well as livestock and other animals roaming amid Hurricane Ike's wreckage.

(Note for non-Texans: for reasons lost to time and known but to God, the chief executive at the county level is called the County Judge. Despite the implications of the title, they are executive, not judicial, positions.)

Who McCain was, and who he has become

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:14:00 -0500

Finally, it seems, the media is noticing the profound and craven about-face McCain has undertaken in his dogged pursuit of higher office:

John McCain's Journey From Maverick to Liar
Cousin John, where did you go?, from one of his own family
The Ugly New McCain, about his particularly vile new liar-based persona

From the latter:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

Wild, Wacky Stuff

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:10:00 -0500

Over the weekend, the most interesting SEC contest had to be Auburn and Mississippi State. Despite 300+ yards vs. State's 116, the final score was a bizarre and nearly unprecedented 3 to 2, with Auburn on top thanks to a second quarter field goal.

Dept. of Weddings

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:05:00 -0500

George Takei and Brad Altman, his partner of 21 years, married over the weekend in California:

Walter Koenig, who played navigator Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek cast, and Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed communications officer Lieutenant Uhura, served as "best man" and "best lady," Asianweek said.

Best Star Trek wedding EVAR.

Today's Ike Quote

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:07:00 -0500

"Why are YOU sucking up all the God love?" -- Joie Brun, in re: the testimony of some random Ike survivor and their conviction that "God's taking care of us."

Houston Weather Update

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:47:00 -0500

You know, things got pretty wild over the course of Ike, but I'm pretty sure it was never actually as bad as this screenshot from the Chron suggests.

Delayed, but Still Wonderful

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:46:00 -0500

Go read this short delightful anecdoate at Mr Bosch's site.

Ranking Wanking

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:03:00 -0500

The new polls are out, and (no surprise) have USC in the top spot again -- but Georgia has dropped to 3, behind Oklahoma, of all people. I find it impossible to even entertain the thought that OU could beat UG, but whatever; we'll see how it shakes out later in the season. USC, as we pointed out, made clear Ohio State remains a joke playing in a joke conference -- but the SEC has beaten the Buckeyes as soundly as USC just did in two championship games in a row. Further, USC is a game behind Georgia in play. If all three teams continue to win, and the powers that be put Okahoma into the title game, we'll be among those calling bullshit.

Actual rankings here; we are amused and pleased that fully half the AP top ten are SEC squads (#3 Georgia, #4 Florida, #6 LSU, #9 Alabama (!), #10 Auburn). No, I'm not entirely convinced Alabama should be that high, but it's nice people have confidence.

How To Tell If You Are, Without A Doubt, An Enormous Liar

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:54:00 -0500

Karl Rove thinks you've gone too far.

Alabama Shows Up

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:48:00 -0500

The Tide rolled Western Kentucky, 41 to 7. After an embarrassing game against Tulane last week, Saban's boys managed to remember how to play the game yesterday, even well enough to get some bench playing time. In fact, Saban's gripe about yesterday says volumes:

With a chance to get a look at young players and subs, Saban did find some fault in the offense's performance.

"I wish we wouldn't have kept the ball so long, because there were some defensive players we wanted to see a little more," he said. "But it didn't work out that way."

Oh, also, a tiny bit of vindication: the Tulane squad Saban had so much trouble with last week very nearly stole a game from East Carolina yesterday -- EC only pulled it out late in the 4th quarter. Maybe those smart fellers are actually playing football this year after all. They're still 0-2, but it's two very solid games they lost.

Memo to Pollsters

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:46:00 -0500

Can all you people shut the fuck up about Ohio State now?

Welcome to Camp Ike

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:00:00 -0500

Houston, as you may have heard, has recently had some Weather.

Heathen Central escaped fairly unscathed from an existential point of view, but with some fairly basic spiritual failures: namely, the unimpeded flow of electrons into the household has been, well, impeded. Further, attempts at the usage of electrons to communicate with the outside world, in any media whatsoever, fails utterly. Additionally, the lack of incoming electrons has prevented the communication with the satellite entertainment overlords, which completes a sort of trifecta of failure, and there we are.

In the face of these problems, we've decamped to Camp Ike, in the bizarre Heights area of Houston. Wild and untamed, the Heights are chockablock with Cottage Folk, Neovictorians, and snooty yuppies, but also turns out to be the home of longtime Heathen associates Joie Brun and Karl Ludwig, whose union is in some small way the fault of Heathen Central. (It's a long story we will no doubt someday relate to their charming pair of tykes.) Somehow, these fine folk have managed to find themselves among the tiny, tiny minority of Houstonians (sub 5%) for whom the free flow of electrons remains unimpeded. They, too, are unable to communicate with the satellite overlords, but the presence of incoming electrons means the conversion of heat to cold continues unabated, and the Intarwub remains accessible.

Consequently, not only have Mrs Heathen and I packed our bags for bizarre Heights environs, but also the Ear o'Corn clan, Rhymes-with-Schloachim, and the dynamic duo of Ultilopp and Mama Nia. Joined in our adventures by Papa Brun -- on loan from his usual clan in Florida -- we will empty freezers, make cocktails, play Rockband, and fight crime from this ersatz Hall of Justice until further notice.

It might be fun to build a table of length-of-acquaintance for this little party, but it's complex and wacky and I'm not gonna do it right now. I will note that multiple of these relationships date back to 1989 at least, and Ear O'Corn and I have been co-conspirators since 1986. Ultilopp and Mama Nia are relative newcomers, but they fit in like custom parts. Camp Ike may not be ideal, but goddamn I'm sure it's gonna be fun, and it's hard to conceive of a group of folks I'd rather be inconvenienced with (or that we'd rather inconvenience).

And all hail Joie and Karl for their generosity. Photo documentation is, we suspect, inevitable.

Inshallah.

Answering Important Questions

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:25:00 -0500

IsBarackObamaAMuslin?

Ike Report

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:21:00 -0500

We're fine. No damage, but no power either. We're at a friend's house; they are, unaccountably, among the 4% of Houston who still have power.

I love Houston SO much

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:13:00 -0500

Ike. A bearsuit. Yes.