Is there a word that means pre-deja vu, the feeling that you're experiencing something that you're going to be experiencing again sometime? That's what I've had while reading the hype for The Day After Tomorrow (sorry, I don't have it together to dig up any links, but you'll recognize what I'm talking about). All this stuff about how of course the science isn't exactly accurate, but it's such an important issue, and maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if, while audiences are having fun, they also think about the facts behind the adventure...

Now imagine the write-ups for director Roland Emmerich's next film. Will people remember, when explaining the liberties THAT film takes with its source material, that the source material itself was just a wee bit sketchy?

5:15 PM :: Comments (2)

Not young. Not a Manhattanite. Not good at interviews. No wonder someone thought I'd be a perfect subject for the Gothamist Young Manhattanite Interview.

11:29 AM :: Comments (0)

Quote of the day:"This baby monkey lives with the bitch only. Though we had tried many times to take him to our place, he is just not ready to leave the bitch." --a resident of Meerut, India.

[Via Heaneyland]

2:17 PM :: Comments (0)

"What would [nominating John McCain for vice president] say about the Democratic Party? Have we run out of steam? Have we stopped producing leaders like Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Mondale, Ferraro, Clinton, Gore, and Lieberman? The answer, clearly, is no." --Donna Brazile in Roll Call, 5/18

4:24 PM :: Comments (4)

Lohanboobies update. We know what you're here for.

Update: A tipster chastises, "If you don't read Defamer every day, you run the risk of being hopelessly behind the Lohanboobies curve." OK, it was Defamer himself. The odd thing is, I did read his post last week but when I saw the item again today, I completely forgot. Is it possible that Miss Lohan's breasts have the power to cloud the mind?

12:47 PM :: Comments (1)

I expect some of my favorite bloggers are in turmoil this morning after seeing themselves name-checked in my article on agent-to-the-interweb Kate Lee in this week's New Yorker -- their excitement at being mentioned in the magazine in conflict with their (perhaps understandable) instinct to flay alive anyone with the temerity to write about blogs for ye olde media. I imagine this guy will be particularly chagrined at my use of the word "karaoke," which he has, after all, made clear that he hates even as he forwards invitations.

Those who avoided mention in the story have no reason not to do their worst to me, which is the main reason I regret that a line about Choire got cut ( "'no interest in having an agent,' sighed Lee. 'Or if he does, he’s being very secretive about it.') More disappointing, however, is that an early reference to Uncle Grambo had to go. It contained a callback an old joke in the form of the phrase, "addictively obscurantist lingo."

FAQ
Q. Is she your agent?
A. Like they'd let me get away with that. The full-disclosure moment the editors decided was unnecessary: Lee did e-mail me, but I wanted to write this story more than I wanted representation.

Q. Is this your first article for them?
A. No, I write a Talk of the Town item like clockwork every three years.
Why American Kids Don't Consider Harry Potter an Insufferable Prig
A Reluctant Poster Girl

9:27 AM :: Comments (8)

I am not Asian. But if I was, I think I'd be mortified that i-am-asian.com is an ad for McDonalds. A really lame ad.

"Whether we're sipping green tea or enjoying a Big Mac® sandwich, we're helping make the magic mix called America become even richer."

And check out the slang-word background art on the left. Are these what the hip Asian kids are saying? "Awesome" "Right on" "Who love ya, baby"? OK, they do have "howzit brah," which I said for months after returning from a trip to Hawaii.

[Thanks to Steve]

12:06 PM :: Comments (1)

Teen Sent Home From School Ceremony For 'Revealing' Dress

Says mom: "There's cleavage, but when you're as big as Dannielle, there's going to be cleavage."

[Via Obscure Store]

10:21 AM :: Comments (3)

Things will be slow here for the next week while I guest blog over at Protocols. Drop by this fine site as I break it down Jew-style today through May 26.

10:15 AM :: Comments (1)

For the past week and a half, I've been getting boffo traffic from Defamer readers apparently hoping to find themselves some Lohanboobies. Even if you do manage to find the original post, I expect you'll be somewhat disappointed. Blah, indeed. So here's an actual Lindsay Lohan breast-themed post for you: incontrovertible evidence that our girl has gotten implants in the form of revealing before and after pictures!

If that doesn't quite convince you, check out this week's Star, which has a slightly more recent before pic.

C'mon, what more do you want?

4:22 PM :: Comments (3)

1. Update: Earlier I posted a link to a fabulous 80s Tarot deck that someone created along with images of two sample cards. The artist, who is apparently unfamiliar with the nature of the Internet, has requested that I remove these images, noting that they are copyrighted. While I'm clearly protected by fair use doctrine here (which she ought to know as every one of her cards incorporates a copyrighted image), she did say please, and, frankly, if she doesn't want people knowing about her site, I guess that's up to her.

2. The figures were already outdated by the time the cops took down the signs.

3. Playboy's lament: "We can't even get Tara Reid to pose!"

4. If I say me too to this does that defeat the purpose?

12:20 PM :: Comments (0)

I'm not inclined toward conspiracy theories, much to the chagrin of some of my bush-hating friends. I tend to think that the simplest explanation for something is usually the right one.

But until today I had yet to hear any explanation for why Nick Berg was held in prison for 13 days. Even if you believe that American officials had nothing to do with this (and let's be honest...) the idea that an American civilian couldn't clear up a simple matter of documentation for two weeks strains credibility.

So isn't it just plausible enough that Berg ran afoul of someone who kept tabs on a Free Republic enemies list? Update 5/14: A better explanation emerged today: "During the questioning, Berg volunteered that he had been questioned by the FBI once before in connection with the Moussaoui investigation, after his computer password turned up in Moussaoui's belongings." Yeah, that'll tamp down the conspiracy theories.

Continue reading "Flirting with the deep end" »

1:54 PM :: Comments (5)

"When you mix young people who grew up on a steady diet of MTV and pornography with a prison environment, you get the abuse at Abu Ghraib." —Official explanation of the Family Research Council.

Meanwhile, PETA noted the similarties between photos from Abu Ghraib and the treatment of farm animals and pets and determined that a steady diet of meat was to blame.

8:38 PM :: Comments (1)

"The military, not the media, discovered these abuses. The military reported the abuses, not the media." —Donald Rumsfeld, May 11.

"Bush said he learned the graphic details of the abuse case only when they were broadcast last Wednesday on the CBS News program 60 Minutes II.... As recently as Monday, Pentagon officials said that Rumsfeld had not read a report written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba that detailed the abuse." —The New York Times, May 6

Still, he's technically right that the military discovered this before the media discovered that the military had discovered it and let the rest of us in on the secret.

On the other hand, the military technically didn't discover anything until after The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others had spent a year waving it in front of their faces.

4:42 PM :: Comments (0)

I happened to notice in a Boston Herald article a reference to "the combat phase of the war."

Considering that more Americans were killed last month than during any other period in Iraq, you have to wonder what the fuck phase we're in now.

A quick Google News search finds that the preferred wording is "the major combat phase of the war," with at least a couple of publications having enough shame to put scare quotes around "major combat." (AFP goes so far as to say "the so-called major combat phase.")

Most outlets refer to the current situation as the occupation phase, which makes a kind of sense, but not if it implies post-combat. So kudos to those papers that drop the administration-approved wording for the early stages of the war altogether, and call it what it was, the invasion phase.

2:36 PM :: Comments (0)

"The term 'blog' is a shortened version of 'weblog.' They've been around for years, but just recently thousands of people have used those sites to catalog the details of their lives on webpages created for them, by them."

Blogging! The Latest Cyber Craze! A Fox News exclusive.

[via Heaneyland]

1:56 PM :: Comments (0)

A Radosh.net agent writes, "Isn't it striking to look at a week's worth of front pages from the New York Post and notice what story that most people thought was sorta important was not headlined by them. You know, something about prisoners."

Don't worry, I'm sure people whose only newspaper is the Post got the full story from Fox News. Also, are you saying that Dr. Zizmor news isn't front page material?

[original link, likely outdated]

1:27 PM :: Comments (1)

After encouraging users to upload their own playlists — excuse me, "iMixes" — Apple's iTunes music store rejected the fairly obvious entry, One to Tango: Songs with a masturbation theme. "Obscene, objectionable or in poor taste," said the form letter.

I suppose that's their right, but what's funny is that iTunes is happy to sell all the songs on this mix individually, so the songs themselves are apparently not inherently obscene, objectionable or in poor taste. Perhaps the only thing this guy did wrong was alerting unsuspecting listeners to the meaning of these songs, because I'm sure lots of people never really figured out what "I Touch Myself" is about. Would his iMix would have been OK without the subtitle? Or do the songs only become O/O/PT when they are grouped together? Perhaps if he'd made 15 separate single-song playlists, Apple would have accepted it? If anyone wants to try submitting variations on this theme to see what gets past the censors, keep me posted.

[via Fleshbot]

1:15 PM :: Comments (0)

Recently, Fair Use Press attempted to bait Arnold Schwarzenegger into a lawsuit by publishing a book whose cover is an authentic nude photo of the governor, that has been photoshopped to make his penis look smaller.

Well fine. But if you want to humiliate a guy using Photoshop, why not really drive your point home?

5:55 PM :: Comments (1)

Apparently there are ones of him simulating gay sex with his Skull & Bones brothers — maybe even John Kerry.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but that was my second reaction to Rush Limbaugh's take on the photos from Abu Ghraib. The first being, Oh my god, this guy is some kind of big, fat idiot or something.

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You've heard of need to blow some steam off?

[Via Wonkette]

9:39 AM :: Comments (1)

Blah, blah, Defamer, blah, blah, blah, Denton, blah, blah, anonymous, blah, blah — ooh, Lohanboobies!

12:38 PM :: Comments (1)

Ooh, I hope it's Tom Baker!

11:19 AM :: Comments (0)

Fair Use Press has a new book of letters from Arnold Schwarzenegger's lawyer about some unauthorized bobblehead doll. The cover illustration will be familiar (very familiar) to Radosh.net readers... but wait.

The ad copy for the book overflows with references to the diminutive nature of the governor's, shall we say, cock. "Help expose Arnold Schwarzenegger for what he really is: A big bully with a tiny, little penis," for example.

That's maybe funny. And definitely mean. But while there's some debate over whether it's true or not, they've stacked the deck by photoshopping the picture to make the penis in question look smaller than it really is.

We know, we know. Sue them, asshole.

[via Wonkette.]

Update: For nearly nine months now I had believed (with an excedingly lame amount of pride) that I was the first person to blog that photo of Arnold's wang. Today I learned that Girlygirl beat me to it by a full 14 hours and 10 minutes. What's more, her thoughts about the Spy article it accompanied were remarkably similar to my own. If somebody else broke the Peter Landesman story, I don't wanna hear about it.

Update: La! LA! LA! I'm not listening!

7:50 PM :: Comments (1)

"Julie ran for victim Gunter Thielen, CEO of Bertelsmann AG... Gunter, like many other industry executives, literally made a little bit less money this year than last year."

The second annual Run for RIAA.

5:06 PM :: Comments (0)

While her entire report from the WHCD Bloomberg after-party is pretty amusing, the line that made me laugh out loud was a typo.

"Giant screen broadcasts Bloomberg. Are people checking their quotes? Worst produce placement ever."

Obviously she's never been to the Park Slope Food Co-op. Organic artichoke next to conventional red-leaf lettuce? Puh-leeze!

4:57 PM :: Comments (0)

A List a Day has been subsumed into Throwing Things (along with Live From Five Minutes Ago).

Alex promises to continue deconstructing lists from his new perch. Let's hold him to it. Hey, bud, start with this one.

4:30 PM :: Comments (0)

Out of context quote of the day: "We were trippin'. Like, 'Mary-Kate and Ashley want some more bottom?'"

4:16 PM :: Comments (0)

The Times ran an Op-Ed by one Jonathan A. Knee yesterday arguing that pornography can be simply and easily banned by treating it as a form of prostitution.

If that sounds like one of those why-hasn't-anyone-thought-of-that-before ideas, it's probably because somebody has thought of it — specifically law enforcement agencies, which routinely (and futilely) used anti-prostitution laws to bust up the adult film biz until 1988, when the California Supreme Court reversed the pandering conviction of an adult film producer, noting that, "the self-evident purpose of the prosecuting authority in bringing ... charges was to prevent profiteering in pornography without the necessity of proving obscenity."

Continue reading "Why not cut to the chase and just make sex itself illegal?" »

3:50 PM :: Comments (1)