before I forget...

my favorite excerpt from the Moyers book I was talking about 10 minutes ago, and the reason I checked it out of the library:

Benjamin Franklin made a grand entrance to the convention today. He arrived swaying in a sedan chair carried on poles by four husky convicts from the Walnut Street Jail. It's a dramatic vehicle, the first one ever seen in America, and Dr. Franklin uses it to cushion his body. It keeps the cobbled streets from stirring up his gout. But the shrewd old politician knows the value of commanding some public attention as well.

- Bill Moyers, Report From Philadelphia

 What.The.Fuck?

I MUST verify that this is true. This is too good to be true, right? Is it possible that one of our founding fathers was hedonismbot?  I'm freaking out over this information.

Umm.....

From my National Geographic picture of the day: Ultraviolet Bath, Russia

Rare Megamouth Shark Caught, Eaten

Gregg Yan said the fish was tagged "Megamouth 41" — the 41st megamouth recorded in the world... Yan urged fishermen who encounter the rare shark to immediately report to authorities or the WWF.

and, you know, not to eat them.

Pennsylvania: Where flipping off a cop is your constitutionally protected right

Dems pressuring Arlen Specter to switch sides

Rendell, Specter, and Biden, anyway.

Though I can't really imagine why. He's gonna have a hell of a time getting reelected, as far as I can tell, and no matter what side of the aisle he's running for, he's got a questionable last few years under his belt.

I actually like Specter, for what it's worth. Not on everything (not on all that much, to be honest), but I respect him for sticking to his convictions, especially when it's in the face of party mandate, which it's prone to do quite often. Which probably wouldn't make him the most ideal candidate for the Dems in the senate, right?

In any case, I'm glad he recognizes the desperate need for moderate Republicans at this point, and good for him for doing so.

Anyway, I put the odds at 50 to 1.

Forgotten exchange from the other night:

This occurred over the course of about 20 minutes late on Saturday night, while I was with a group in an outdoor area of a bar/bbq place in the midst of a pretty busy night. The streets were pretty crowded with arty people and seemingly drunk teens. I'm not making any of this up.

Man in his late 30s runs up to the fence, clearly under the influence of drugs, probably meth, and looking pretty destitute. His clothes are filthy, his beard looks like he poured motor oil into it, and he's got lots of missing teeth. He doesn't really appear to have anything else to do, so he's shouting at passerby, a longstanding meth tradition. My group and I are about 15 yards away, on the other side of a fence and having an animated discussion about South American parasites.
Man (to nobody in particular): "The West coast is the beeeeest!"
(everyone within earshot ignores him)
Man (still, to nobody): "Fuck that East coast shit!"
(at this point I sort of turn around, smiling. Apparently not patronizing enough, since he takes this as an invitation to continue, which I try to ignore. 5 minutes of him yelling shit ensues).
Man: "Yeeaaaaah, man!"
(after awhile, he comes up to the fence and starts yelling "hey!" until someone turns around. Again, I'm the sucker).
Man (pointing across a crowded intersection to a line of people waiting to get into a club or a bar or something): "Do you know what's going on over there?"
Me: "Um, not quite sure"
(then, being the idiot that I am, I add to it)
Me: "Probably some of those East Coast assholes!"
Man (suddenly excited): "Hey buddy, where are you from?"
Me: "Um, Outside Philadelphia"
Man: "Let me ask you a question. How come in Bufa- Buffalo, New York, there are methamphetamines, but in Philadelphia, there is none?"
(I pause at the question, not sure if there's a punchline he's going to spring on me).
I should remind you that this conversation is literally being shouted on a very busy intersection, with cops all over the place.
Me: "Um... Philly's more of a crack town?"
Man: "It's bullshit..."
(man trails off, eventually seeing something else to shout at and walking out of my plane of vision and raising his voice)
Things kind of devolved from there, but I just had to write it down, I'm still not sure why. It wasn't that funny, or interesting, or even that strange, sadly enough. It was just...something that happened.

Utah's assault on the concept of alcohol continues unabated.

CNN is not even trying anymore

Today's headline: Wrongly jailed man wifeless, jobless, bitter

Waitasecond...

The Harlem Globetrotters are playing a game on the ROOF of the Spectrum?

This sounds like the most interesting recipe for disaster EVER. How will people even know it's happening? I wonder if I can sneak onto the roof of the big house and watch it from there. Either way, I'm not missing it.

Also from PWD, another middle finger found its way to the Daily News.

Just in time for the passing of Dock Ellis

Better, but NSFW pic for this post

“I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”
-George Hunter White, fucking nut job.

There are few chapters in American history as dark or reprehensible as Operation: Midnight Climax. While I was as inclined as you to assume that this was some B-skin flick from the late 70s, turns out it was an actual CIA project involving a devious bastard named George Hunter White, a hard-drinking, kinky-sex addicted sociopath who was given tens of thousands of hits of LSD by the American government to drop on unsuspecting prostitutes, artists, writers and friends. Including one who had her infant daughter with her.
There are some great stories about White, and I can only imagine what we'd have learned if the bulk of his notes and reports hadn't been destroyed years ago. One can only imagine what they made of the drug, dosing co-workers as practical jokes or political opponents before they speak in front of a crowd*. that said, though, I'm sure it was an interesting sociology experiment, to say the least.
Anyway, there's a great article here (there are several pages, click "continue of you want to keep reading them) about the the whole thing, which took place in 3 cities and was under the umbrella of the infamous MKULTRA** designation. Also, I liked this article from the SF Sentinel that contained this nugget of a quote about White from one of his former lieutenants:

“White was a son of a bitch, but he was a great cop. He made that fruitcake Hoover look like Nancy Drew. The LSD, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Write this down. Espionage. Assassinations. Dirty tricks. Drug experiments. Sexual encounters and the study of prostitutes for clandestine use. That’s what I was doing when I worked for George White and the CIA.”

My favorite part? "Write this down". Of course.

*I can't even imagine seeing someone running for office give a speech on acid. The very thought chills my bones.
**The project, not the Vanderslice band. Or the several other bands of that name.

Not sure if you all saw this the other day or not, but last week the Wall Street Journal featured an article about a Russian academic and analyst that predicted the downfall of the United States in 2010 and the eventual sectioning off of different sections to various world powers.
It's a pretty terrifying idea, not to mention a pretty unlikely one, but think of the fan fiction* if could produce...
or the bad movies.

*Can reality -even proposed reality- have fan fiction? or even fans?

For fuck's sake... (pt. 2)

Baz Lurmann is set to direct remake of The Great Gatsby.

Another one the greatest books ever written will be turned to shit.

Not that the 1974 version was any good either, but that's gonna look like goddamned Dr. Zhivago compared to what this guy does to it.

I was going to make a comment about why don't people just option the shit out of every great novel ever, but then saw that Pale Fire apparently has been in development or awhile. The end is extremely fucking nigh.

(wow. I'm cursing a whole bunch today. My apologies. I'm trying to get over that).

Oh, for fuck's sake...

The FCC reports it received 26 complaints from the public about Utley's language, which was heard live, in the late afternoon, on at least five television stations and one radio station.

Chess world rocked by doping scandal.

(seriously)