perfidy

Rudy Giuliani, sawing through his own treelimb on The Today Show:

"No matter how you try to blame [allegedly misplacing 370 tons of 'splosives] on the President, the actual responsibility for it should be on the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?"

Shorter Rudy: "Our troops are clowns." Way to energize the base!!

Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, now an Intelligence bigwig at the Department of We Can See What You're Doing, speaking at Haahvahd last yearon the topic of civil rights, safety and terrorism:

"Set aside what the mass of people think. Some things are so bad for them that you cannot allow them to have them. One of them is war in the context of terrorism in the United States... [t]herefore, we have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a judicial finding of probable cause.

Let me guess. We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. You have more responsibility than I could possibly fathom. I weep for civil liberties. I have that luxury. I have the luxury of not knowing what you know. That what you do saves lives. And your existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to me, saves lives. I don't want the truth. because deep down, in places I don't talk about at parties, I want you on that wall, I need you on that wall!

Something like that, then? Assclown?

[wik] ... and a Bonus Round from the Department of Homeland Security And Frivolous Prosecution of Stated Duties (this and the last via Reason):

So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.

So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia River town just north of Portland.

When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.

He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival toy's trademark.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications," she said.

Seriously, DHS agents could take a stroll down Canal Street in Manhattan every day of the week and meet their yearly quota for copyright infrigement busts. It's not that I object to them doing their job (much) but I do object to spending money on a toy store outside Portland and for busting Tommy Chong for selling impractical and unusable artistically-designed handblown glass intoxicant delivery devices. C'mon guys! Real bootleggers sell off tarpaulins, and real stoners can make a bong out of an apple. Why not go bust up a crystal meth lab somewheres?

NDR has voted, and he (plus brdgt in the comments) makes an eleoquent case for the virtues of thoughtful political involvement. Says brdgt: "I will never mistake carefully crafted apathy as actual political participation again."

Earlier this week I found myself on the phone to my parents pleading with them about the upcoming election. They live at Ground Zero (formerly known as "Ohio"), and between the Presidential race, a few ludicrious Congressional races including the one in their district, and the outrageous baby/bathwater Let's Ban Gay Marriage And Everything That Reminds Us Of It Act that's up for ratification, the stakes are pretty high. Although I changed no minds (and found that in important ways minds didn't need changing), I found myself, almost for the first time in the past eighteen months, discarding my "carefully crafted apathy" (which is actually more like "finely modulated disgust," but a spade's a spade) in favor of unavoidable facts and solid positions. As for what that means, and who I'm voting for-- not telling, and your guess is probably wrong.

See also farther down NDR's main page for perceptive comments on the ways that regional ties (homeland-ness) hinder the democratic process.

...this would be big news. But today, in light of the horrifying developments in the Robot War Against Nature we at the Ministry say ho-hum. A teacup-sized flying spy robot. Whoopeedoo. Wake us when they build a Veritech.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than bionic rat brains and disembodied monkey waldos, it does. The benighted fools at the University of West England have built a robot that recharges itself by eating.

Scientists at the University of the West of England have designed a potentially autonomous robot which feeds on flies attracted by human excrement and uses them to generate electricity, the New Scientist reports.

EcoBot II is reckoned to be a real step towards "release and forget" autonomous robots - albeit it a small one. At present, EcoBot II has to be fed bluebottles manually by its creators and can generate enough juice to travel at about 10 centimetres an hour.

The device uses the chitin in the fly's exoskeleton for fuel. The six-legged snacks are digested by bacteria in eight "microbial fuel cells" (anaerobic chambers filled with raw sewage slurry). The bacteria produce enzymes which break down the fly chitin, releasing sugars which the bacteria then absorb and metabolise. This latter process produces electrons which EcoBot II captures to generate electricity.

Oh, fabulous. Way to break the tether, gentlemen! The yoke of external power is the single most potent weapon in humankind's fight against the encroaching robot menace. As long as they are resigned to periodically recharge themselves in some way, they can be fought and beaten. But what now? Imagine a titanium-framed wheeled machine (large or small) equipped with 'nonlethal' "pain ray" technology that can roam indefinitely, sustaining itself on biomass as it rounds up humans to labor in the tungsten mines. "Scientists"-- or should I say, species-traitors-- like this are only hurting the cause of humanity.

If we're lucky-- if we're lucky-- perhaps the robots will condescend to program themselves with taste, preserving our human traditions of "palatable food" and "good cooking" so as to make the coming Age of Machines less utterly miserable.

Minister GeekLethal has notified me of a deeply disturbing new twist in humankind's relentless march to self-enslavement: monkey-controlled robot arms.

US scientists have taught a monkey to operate a robotic arm to feed itself using only the power of its thoughts.

The experiment was revealed Tuesday at a meeting of neuroscientists in San Diego, The Guardian reports, and involves interception of signals from the brain by electrode probes. The signals are interpreted through an algorithm and transmitted to a robotic arm. The robotic arm consists of a mobile shoulder, elbow and gripping device.

...snip...>

Four years ago a team from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, used electrode brain implants to link a monkey to the internet to allow it to move a lever 600 miles away in Massachusetts.

In the last several weeks we at the Ministry have collected a number of alarming stories. To name a few, we have seen: robotic house servants to do our chores and prepare us for a life of slavish lassitude; disembodied rat neurons flying jet planes; and the advent of 'nonlethal' "pain ray" technology ostensibly for crowd control but doubtless destined for infamy as our robot overlords' weapon of choice against uprising, free-thinking, and food riots. Pain rays aren't much good against robots, are they?

(Has anyone contemplated the horror that will befall mankind when the robots take over? I mean, really thought about it? I'm a bit of a gourmand and am looking forward tonight to dining with my wife on a nice piece of Alsatian cheese, a Cotes du Rhone, and a loaf of pain Levain. Do you think the robots will give two shits for how or what we eat? Soylent Green for some, and nutritous Vitamin Gruel for all! No more aged Angus steaks. No more new potatoes steamed and served with butter and thyme. No more artisan cheese. No more slatey, herbal Australian Sav Blancs. No more pizza. The horror!)

But back to the monkeys. We at the Ministry take our position as quislings very seriously, and when the robots come we intend to do all we can to extend the Ministry's dominance and by implication see to the well-being of mankind-- something the robots will surely neglect. (We expect all to remember this kindness when the dark day comes, and to not hinder the Ministry in the unfortunate tasks set before us.) Unfortunately some things are beyond the pale, and remote-controlled mechanical monkey strangling arms are it. I for one do not welcome our screeching, feces-flinging, publicly autoerotic, bionically enhanced fleabag overlords and hereby put them on notice: KOKO BAD MONKEY. BAD PAIN. SHINY ARM BAD. MAKE KOKO PAIN. Got that, monkeyboy?

I hope I have made myself clear to simian and hominid alike. That is all.

It just is. Hot dogs are bad enough without being shaped like intelligent sea life.

Thanks to Loyal Reader #0017, EDog, who now has a website all his own. Says EDog, "Please visit it so my counter goes above ten."

You don't have to be an Arab trader, a thrifty Yankee, or a corporate titan to value a good deal.

Who among us has not wished for a lower car payment, or a more cost-effective set of wheels? For the stump-jumping set, how long have you pined to take your H2 off-road for real, without needing the resources of a corporate sponsor to pay for the damage? Can any one of you reading this now honestly say you have no need at all for a tracked vehicle? Of course not.

For alot less cost and effort than you might think, you can drive away in an old US 2 1/2 ton truck (the venerable and ubiquitous "deuce-and-a-half"), various Germanic surplus trucks ("Pinzgauers"- these things kick viele Arsch), an old tracked tank destroyer (only driven to church and back-promise!), and even like-new Austrian assault bicycles. Dealers' prices too much for you? Put in your own bid for everything from aircraft parts to semi-trailers.

The Pinzes especially are super cheap.  Even the refurbished ones are quite reasonable, both in terms of price and therefore in terms of not being afraid to really beat the shit out of them the way these things should be. Don't be surprised to see one someday around my house with a snowplow on it.

Eminem's new video/single, Mosh is really, really good. In an election season marked by singularly idiotic statements by artists (I'm talking to you, Bruce Springsteen. "We've been misled?" What the hell is misling?), Eminem has succeeded in making protest music that neither sucks nor panders.

Instead of recycling all the usual Bush Lied/Halliburton crap bit by bit, Eminem distances himself from pat criticisms of the President by putting those words in the mouths of characters and ties up all the criticisms of the President into one mass, putting the focus more on dissatisfaction in general rather than any one charge. A 9/11 reference opens the video, and takes us through vignettes of regular folks dealing with hard facts of life-- overly vigorous police, not making ends meet, and coming home from Iraq to your wife and kids to find you're being shipped right back. For himself, Eminem reserves a more unfocused disgust with the way things are going (yes, getting with some pretty weak "F**k Bush" stuff) and by the end of the video he is leading a grim and angry mob into the street to... go vote.

I can't believe I am writing this. It's a sign of how bad things have gotten. But Eminem-- Slim Shady-- has put together the single best populist critique of the post-9/11 Bush Administration, not that that's saying much. No doubt at least two of my cobloggers will disagree with me about the quality of the critiques of the administration (and hey, Eminem is not exactly the most nuanced guy on the planet... Bush is a "weapon of mass destruction" my ass), but damn. In one shot Eminem succeeds in reducing hyperbole to something that almost resembles argument (or at least a call to arms), and makes voting into a revolutionary, fist-in-the-air act. It's not that idiotic, pandering "Vote or Die" campaign P-Diddy's on. It's not that milkylicking limo-liberal "Vote for Change" thing. It's just "Vote," and for all the cliche and lack of nuance, it just works.

Loyal reader and former mullet-bearer Phil has noted, in responding to the most recent edition of TWiEHB, that despite their publicized buffoonery university students do have ideas. He was being sarcastic, and I think he and I are of one mind concerning students generally. I remembered that Phil has commented in the past about higher ed, which had caused me to think big thoughts about higher ed, which in turn snuffed any single, simple response I composed concerning higher ed. His questions were too good and defied bloggish, simplistic responses. So I ignored them, because addressing them proved too much like work.

This time, Phil has reminded me that despite my snarkiness over rampaging overgrown children, many students DO have ideas. And he is right. They DO have intellectual talent, and healthy imaginations. They DO have the mental equipment to build a framework of understanding, a framework that, with a decent education and nurturing of caring faculty, can ultimately lead to the highest offices of leadership in our nation, and in our world.

And until they really really need to function in adult society, like when there's a paycheck riding on their productivity, they will use those skills to get over, cheat, whine, and weasel out of exams.

Here are 2 excuses I can recall, just off the top of my head, from when I was a TA, concerning missing an exam (or some other deadline):

"My roommate was freaking out because it turned out she was on crack and I had to take her to the emergency room," and yadda yadda yadda, "couldn't make the exam". Roughly 12 hours later.

"My roommate's ex-boyfriend, who's been stalking her, was lurking about and we had to go into hiding all night" and yadda yadda yadda, "couldn't take the exam". Again, 12 hours after the fact.

What is the lamest excuse you ever heard for someone missing an exam? What is the lamest excuse you personally ever had the nuts to give to get out of an exam?

The Red Sox' postseason run is shaping up an awful lot like Greek tragedy, and not your usual one, either. The Greeks sort of went in for that tacit "he's f**ked" vibe in their morality plays without ever spelling it out. The Red Sox are more likely living out a fate similar to Ionesco's retelling of Oedipus Rex where you are told right at the beginning by narrators how Oedipus will spend the next three hours being f**ked, in precisely what ways, and how his anguish matches perfectly in method and measure with some capricious twist of fate he had an accidental hand in long ago.

I mention this because every Red Sox fan in the world knows that everying teeters on a knife's edge now. The Red Sox are one game away from winning the World Series, and indeed have gone 3-0 against their opponents to get to this point.

But wait. Just last week the Red Sox dispatched their oldest and most hated rivals by losing three and winning four. I am convinced that by this weekend, the hands of what cruel gods rule baseball will be visible in the heavens as the Red Sox slide inexorably to their horrible, crushing, and perfectly greek-tragic-symmetrical fate, losing the next four games to fall in seven to the same franchise that has beaten them twice before-- but this time losing the World Series in the exact same way they won to get there. Along the way, they will find that, having killed their enemy, they have become him.

It's only a short step from Calvinistic predestination to talk of modern-day Greek Gods. It doesn't help that Kevin Youkilis, the God of Walks, actually plays for the Sox. It's over folks. Remember, you read it here first.

[wik]...... OR NOT.

*WHEW.* Now maybe I can get some sleep.

Conservatives, please...unite. Join hands with me now, as we pray to the Lord Almighty for deliverance. Or deliveries, as it were. Let the good works, the fine brown trucks of UPS continue to flourish across this glorious land which you have given us. Spare us from the distasteful inconveniences of the sciences, whose conclusions embrace the fallen.

Our brethren, who art in Amman, honoured are thy contracts. Lord provide unto them captured sunlight, the guise of dead life. Give us our texas tea, and forgive those whom we crush, as we forgive them for our trespasses. Lead us not, and deliver us from reason.

Dear Biblical Scholars: Did the bible ever cover the fiscal signs of the apocalypse?

CNN makes with the dirty funnies: Clinton pumps base from the stump.

Yeah, I tried that once. Hurt like hell and I had to pee sitting down for a week.

[wik] In case anyone was wondering, the appearance of knock-knock and dick jokes from me in this forum indicates that I've had enough of this whole 'lection thing. Soooo tired. Soooo sick of it.

Of the dozens of weblogs I no longer read thanks to election fatigue, I deign to single out for particular abuse: Kevin Drum, Balloon Juice, Mark Kleiman, RedState, Tacitus, and those assholes at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy. Just kidding about that last one. The rest can go pound salt.

The world's oldest man is a lifelong Red Sox fan.

Loyal Reader #0017 (EDog) writes,

The Washington Post's “Style Invitational” once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners;

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating

Heh. Indeed.

For the Week Ending 25Oct04:

Spotlight Iraq: Since this feature began, Iraq has been a bottomless well of exemplary human behavior. This week is no different. Savages kidnapped Margaret Hassan, head of CARE International's Iraq operations. Hassan is part Iraqi herself, and has spent much of the last 30 years working in the country to help (according to the CARE homepage) "the world's poorest communities solve their most threatening problems." But Hassan is only the highest-profile prisoner this week. Three Macedonian contractors captured in August were beheaded. Perhaps the head chopping, self-imagined footsoldiers for Allah might be counted among the most threatening problems in Iraq?

Spotlight South Carolina: A Rock Hill, SC policeman used his taser to subdue a 75 year old woman who...ahem..."assaulted" him. The woman refused to leave a nursing home after visiting hours and became argumentative when told to leave. The cop claims the woman swung at him, despite her having "arthritis and six broken ribs". Tasering ensued, although why he couldn't have just picked her up and tucked her under his arm I'm not sure about.

I might have wished for a taser once or twice when I foolishly put myself between an elderly phalanx of walkers, canes, and Rascals and the 3-for-a-dollar cucumber bin at my grocery store. Warm cookie and macrame cozy grandma disappears; coldly shrewd and implacable ancient evil takes her place. But I manage to get myself out of their way without actually having to, you know, electrocute anyone. Sheesh.

Spotlight Pennsylvania: A man shooting at a mouse in his home shot his girlfriend instead.

One more time: A man shooting at a mouse...in his home...shot his girlfriend instead.

So. His first instinct wasn't to buy some traps, or get a fucking cat, but to take out his .22 and start shooting. As far as I'm concerned, she got what she deserved by being so stupid as to hang around someone so improbably stupid. Too bad the mouse didn't skitter across his forehead when he was shooting. We would've owed him and all mousekind a great debt by helping eradicate this contamination of the human genepool.

Spotlight Massachussesss: Boston is aswarm with historical places. The city is aware of its history and that history's greater relationship to the national imagination. Boston and environs have pioneered living responsibly within important historical spaces in the evolving cityscape. And most importantly, Boston has mastered marketing history to make money from tourists. So it was just true to form that after a historic win in a historic game, the Land of Bean and Cod had itself a good, olde tyme riot.

Lots of property damage, your basic flipped and burned cars, busted windows aplenty. Not a few busted noses. And one death: an undergraduate killed by a policeman firing a munition marketed as "non-lethal". Since the victim is non-alive, and will ever remain so, I urge Boston PD to reconsider non-lethal ammunition's place in the force and treat it henceforward as lethal. Because it quite obviously can be.

Meanwhile, at the University of Massachuessesss-Amherst, local police had their own riots to contend with. There were at least 29 arrests immediately following the game, relating primarily to destruction of property, assault, and....oh yes, hurling beer cans of flaming liquid at cops. Several thousand dollars will be spent to repair windows and replace furniture.

The leaders of tomorrow. Today.

Ministry safety tip: Kids, rioting can be a blast. You can break stuff and steal things, maybe even bust a head or two, all in good fun. You even get plausible deniability to the cops by being a nameless face in a crowd. For precisely the same reason, you get to sound like a big man because you can say you were wherever you need to say you were to sound interesting to chicks. And best of all, you don't even have to be a malefactor- just being there is enough to claim anything for any audience. But when you see a line of riot police with shields, faceplates, and mounted cavalry on the march, go home. Come down off the telephone pole and go the hell home.

What happens when you run the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" through babelfish into Italian and back again?

(Many thanks to boing boing just for being them)

The gang at Crooked Timber have cooked up a filthy little scheme designed to sap me of my will to live. In a matter of days I will be a slackjawed raster-tanned homunculus unable to rouse myself from my chair for long enough to excrete, eat, or socialize, eventually dooming me to a short and joyless death as I ponder continually upon this question:

For your tireless service on behalf of good, you have been given the power to replace the weak link in any band, past or present.

You need not be bound by practical considerations; you’re free to ignore the fact that (say) Peter Criss was the only one who could properly apply the KISS makeup. For example, you can replace Liz Phair (the singer) while keeping Liz Phair (the songwriter). How do you use this power, and why?

Oooooooh.

1) Replace talentless yet good-natured goofball Kirk Hammett of Metallica with someone who can actually play a lead guitar line. Really, any sixteen-year-old bedroom guitarist would constitute an improvement, but I'm inclined to throw a bone to Marty Friedman. He's a phenomenal guitarist and his unceremonious booting from Megadeth and subsequent hiring by Metallica would close the Great Mustaine Circle for all time.

2) Not that I care at all, but if the Godchauxes had never joined the Grateful Dead and Mama Cass and Keith Manzarek had done so in their place, the world would be a better place. Maybe Cass would have lived, the Dead would have sucked noticeably less, and best of all the Doors would be a stillborn memory instead of a lasting pants-crap embarrassment to the entire idea of rock music.

3) Replace Leonard Cohen's prostate with a golf ball. Perhaps then he will quit with the "hot backup singers doing all the work on my latest shitty album" thing he's been on.

4) Replace Elvis Costello (after 1993) with Elvis Costello (before 1993).

5) Replace Natalie Maines' hair with Laurie Anderson's. Girl needs a haircut!

6) Replace David Byrne's ego with Lou Reed's. The Talking Heads would still have broken up, but maybe Tina and David wouldn't hate each other quite so much.

7) Replace The Strokes with The Hives. Or was that the Vines? The Shins? Fuck it. Replace all of them with the Dolls like everybody knows they should.

8) Replace Franz Ferdinand with Gang of Four.

9) I see I'm veering off into pat ad hominem attacks here, so I'll bring it back home. Replace Robert Plant with Rod Stewart. I mean, GOD. The emperor has no clothes! I cannot believe that generations of rock critics and fans defend his off-key yelping and nasal whines as being influenced by Middle Eastern music. No, gentlemen, he just couldn't find the key. Extra points off for execrable lyrics that beat all the humor and fun out of the blues, leaving just "suck it baby, suck it! Suck! Suck! Ahhhhhhhhaaaaaa, SUCK!"

10) Replace Jimmy Page with Eric Clapton. See 9 above. Let Jimmy play rhythm.

Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in the future.

In a stunning development, Xinhua accidently captures a story perfectly in its headline. Thanks to the ever-watchful loyal reader #0009 Mapgirl for the tip.

Q: How many George Bushes does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: There's nothing wrong with the lightbulb, and the- and the American people agree with me on that. Why would it need changing?

Q: How many John Kerreys does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Five. Three! Three. Five. Vietnam?

Q: How many Bush diehards does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: You heard the man. Why do you hate our freedom?

Q: How many Kerry diehards does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Halliburton.

Reader EDog, he of the Wildebeets, emails,

PS: Are you and the other evil geniuses at perfidy.org going to do NaNoWriMo this year? If you don't know what it is, visit www.nanowrimo.org. You all ought to do it, because there are novelists inside each of you screaming and clawing to get out. I dare you!

Yeesh, I dunno... Last time I took a dare I found myself running down Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh clad only in my skivvies, fleeing for my life from an enraged mob of Steelers fans. Kinda makes me bearish on the whole dare thingy. But still.

Hey Buckethead, here's one 'specially for young Sir John The Distressingly Photogenic... a slideshow of escaped Wildebeests in Cincinnatti (!) in a faux children's book format, complete with jarringly disturbing ending!

Perfect!

Thanks to Loyal Reader #0017, EDog.

A Missouri man has been charged with selling his vote. He put his presidential vote up for sale on eBay, with a minimum bid of $25. When the men in black showed up at his door, he offered the excuse, "Hey, I didn't know it was illegal!" This guy will go far. If someone purchases his vote, it will pay for five minutes of his defense lawyer's time.

In an effort to stave off the combined effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (which hits me every autumn like a slaughterhouse mattock to the brainstem), Red Sox doomsaying, and sheer fatigue, I have taken up t'ai chi. Soon, I will be able to kick ass v e r y s l o w l y, which is cool, and it has the ancillary effect (some would argue this is the true benefit of the basic for-public-consumption art) of helping me achieve balance, serenity, and poise. After a cool five hours of sleep last night, my second lesson ever in is 25 minutes.

So I'll let you all know how that goes with the serenity and stuff.

[wik] Turns out it goes great. Right now I'm so mel-low. So mel-low. Mel-low, oh oh.
(a prize to whomever pegs the foregoing obscure indie-rock lyrical reference. It's a toughie, kids!)

Until now, the unblinking perfidious eye has remained focused on the threat of armed, military robots. But now it turns to a new threat, the insidious and deceptively helpful commercial robots. A new report projects that the numbers of household robots will surge sevenfold in the next three years. We will be seven times closer to our doom as these robots invade our homes and lull us into complacency by performing such "useful" tasks as washing windows, cleaning pools and mowing lawns. Aside from the obvious danger - that we will be weakened as a species by losing essential skills and independence of thought - there is nothing that will stand in the way of a robot with cutting blades rotating at thousands of rpm once it decides to stop mowing lawns. And the report claims that lawn mowing robots will be a majority of all household robots! The traitors to humanity designing these instruments of autonomous destruction must be stopped, quickly and violently.

By the end of the decade, the study said, robots will "not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs."

These are the capabilities that will enable their takeover. "Entertainment" robots like the Aibo will be the eyes of the robot underground, recording our movements and cataloguing our weaknesses. Then, the lawn mowing and vaccuuming robots will kill the weak and the slow while home security and cowmilking robots hunt the rest of us. Those who fight back will fall victim to the huge array of giant fighting robots that we have described on these pages. It's not to late to stop armageddon. But it soon will be.

Last night in the top of the 8th inning, just after Pedro Martinez had coughed up two runs only to suddenly transform himself into 1999 Pedro throwing unhittable heat for two crucial outs, and just before the Red Sox' lead edged over from "oshitoshitoshitoshit" to "omigodomigodomigod," I had a horrible thought. Right at that moment, somewhere on the Cross Bronx Expressway, angry men were plotting horrible things in a van and fantasizing about postmortem virgins. I was SURE-- POSITIVE-- that some horrible incident-- terrorists-- plane crash-- asteroid-- rough beasts slouching toward Bethlehem moving their slow thighs in agony-- the effing Rapture* (and I'm soooo not a millennial Christian)-- was seconds away. It's the greedy narcissism of the true believing sports fan, yet even knowing that I could not shake the feeling that something was going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

But guess what? I was wrong! It's only a game!

Ha. Ha ha. Ha hahaha. Ha, ha ha ha haha, Ha ha ha!

Best line: Matt Lauer on live (national?) feed with the Boston NBC affiliate, yakking about the game. Matt accepts Yankee defeat, Boston anchors accept victory. Just before feed is cut, female anchor holds up a "Boston Red Sox 2004 American League Champions" tee and says, "Hey Matt, we're sending you a shirt!"

Haw!

[wik] *All Red Sox fans know the number of the beast, if you believe in that kind of thing, is actually 3.

The Boston Red Sox just pulled off the greatest comeback in baseball history, defeating the Yankees to win the American League pennant. Just ignore the first three games, and you have a four game sweep. Not so unusual, right? I hope my prediction is wrong. I hope that fate has, for once, something happy in store for the Sox. In the meantime, savor the moment, and treasure the images of sad, sad Yankees.

Plagiarizing senator Joe Biden, (D-Deleware) today said that President Bush is "brain dead." While discussing prescription drug policy quite often sets my blood to boiling, and I have nearly come to blows with those who disagree with my estimate of the damage that socialist health care policy is causing to working class Americans; I have rarely had cause to call my opponents brain dead. I would likely be even more careful about casting such aspersions had I, like the good senator, a long history of passing the ideas of others off as my own.

The Ministry is pleased, nearly to the point of emotional trauma, to announce the first quadrennial "Guess the end of the Election Contest." Unlike previous Ministry contests, which really weren't contests at all, this rainbow actually has a pot of gold at the end. A very small pot, to be sure, but more on that later.

Enter your best guess as to the date that the election will be resolved in the comment section - any date, past or future - and the Ministry's dedicated staff of underpaid Moldavian migrant child laborers will record your entry in a great book, which will be consulted as soon as we are informed that the election has been decided. The person or entity whose guess is closest to the actual date will win a prize. In the event of a tie, each contestant will have to answer an election related trivia question from each participating minister. The person or entity answering the most questions correctly will be deemed the winner. In the event of a further tie, the entrant who submits the most humorous or sexy picture of him/her/themselves will be made winner. All judgments are purely subjective, and the Ministry makes no pretense of objectivity, fairness or even sanity. Any smartass who picks Dec 13, just because that's the date that the Electoral College votes, will be summarily disqualified and subject to ridicule.

As for the prize: the Ministry, at great risk to its personal integrity and reputation, will offer the winner posting rights on the Ministry interweb site for a period of one (1) week. If the winner is a Minister, they will get a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Minister Buckethead's loyal but somewhat dim animal companion Bodhi.

The Ministry demands, for the first time, that you link to this post far and wide, so that the contest will have sufficient participants so as to make it interesting. It is your moral duty, as well as in your own self interest to comply. And the Ministry knows where you live. 

Maureen runs a nifty little interweb doodad that places bloggers in the DC area in their proper location on a map of the DC metro system. Since half of the Ministry team lives here, she was kind enough to add us to her most excellent map. 

Minister Johno's wife might be interested to know that Teresa Heinz doesn't think being a librarian is a real job. I know my stepmom, aunt, and several good friends will also be pleased to hear that all that schooling was for nothing. Perhaps if they had had the foresight to obtain really, really, wealthy parents, they needn't have bothered.

My last Red Sox post (until tomorrow). I promise.

Contains profanity: below the fold (I don't know why I bother).

If you want to know everything you need to know about this year's Red Sox, and why they are still alive to play Game 7, look at this picture of Curt Schilling from last night's game:

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That red stuff on his right sock in front of the stirrup? That's not dye.

This is not the '26-taxis' teams of the Dan Duquette Era. Our pitching squad does not consist of Pedro and Player To Be Named Later. No, this is the team with the funny hair that makes Manny Ramirez grin, that makes a hero out of a washed-up first baseman, and that seem to be playing because it's a damn fun game.

No matter what happens tonight, it's been a helluva ride. Thanks, guys.

[wik] Special bonus footage for those who never been to Beantown.

Storrow Drive runs along the banks of the Charles River, a tortuously winding six lane nightmare with nearly invisible lane markers. On the westbound side of Storrow headed out of town, there is a particularly nasty reverse (or "S") curve with unmarked lanes that winds under a pedestrian overpass. Some brave soul, in defiance of the repeated efforts of the Mass. Highway Goons, has defaced the sign warning drivers of said curve, repeating his effort whenever the Goons replace the sign, such as was done around the time of the Democratic Invasion (God forbid delegates soak in a little local color!). Alert drivers passing under the overpass who can devote some brainshare which would otherwise be occupied with trying not to die in a mess of twisted metal on Storrow Motor Speedway to taking in scenery, are presented with this cri du coeur from Boston's long-suffering yet waggish soul:

[alsø wik] So check this out... the reason Curt Schilling's ankle was bleeding all last night was because-- no shit-- he had the skin of his ankle sewn to the bone to keep his injured tendon in place. And get this... he's offered to do it again if we make the Series.

I believe the upcoming election will be litigated. Litigated, lawyered, and justicized until we're all half mad. We are going to learn about the election laws of Dullard County, Ohio and Shitheel Township, Florida in ridiculous sleepy detail. Insomniacs might pray for wakefulness again before it's all done.

But when will it all be done?

I'm asking for guesses. Will the election be sufficiently settled by Thanksgiving, say?

The only possible explanation for the Red Sox victory today - making them the only team in Baseball history to come back from a three game deficit to force a game seven playoff - is that fate has decided to visit some truly horrific punishment on long suffering Sox fans. After a wild ride, with two calls falling their way, and protection offered by the NYPD, the curse seems to be threatened. But much as I hate and despise the Yankees I also believe that Boston has been singled out for special attention by cruel fortune. They are the anti-chosen people. They will win the next game with the Yankees and advance to the World Series

And then they will lose.

And the dead walk still.

Wherever your sympathies may lie, no one can deny that the Red Sox and the Yankees are incapable of playing a boring series. Even though post-season baseball is by nature exciting even when it's boring, like the fairly snoozerific 1997 Indians-Marlins world series. Though I was (and sort of am) an Indians fan at the time, being from Ohio and all (state motto: "Power of Attorney: Totally Gay"), and though I spent most of that series either on the edge of my seat or powerfully medicated with Old English Malt Liquor and 591.471ml intravenous injections of Budweiser, even I can't deny that most of that seven-game-plus-extras series was, incontrovertably, sucky.

(Evidently today I'm doing my best impression of David Eggers doing his best impression of George Will doing his best impression of Hunter Thompson. Wait until I link up the symmetry of the diamond with the demographic composition of the patrons of my local laundromat at lunchtime and filter both through a highball of Wild Turkey. Someone get me an editor! Stat!)

In the space of 27 hours, the Red Sox and Yankees played 26 innings or 10:51 hours of baseball. In the process, they set records for the longest game in ALCS history (five hours, two minutes) and in postseason history (five hours, 49 minutes), used every pitcher on both squads, and made a hero out of a chunky first-baseman who was let go by the Minnesota Twins. Moreover, both games were won by the Red Sox at opposite ends of the same Monday, all with the Yankees up 3 games to none on a series that after Saturday night's 19-8 bloodbath looked as finished as Fredo at the end of Godfather II when he steps into that rowboat.

I am reminded of Golden Age Marvel comics, with the Yankees (of course) in the part of the Ming-collared villain and the Red Sox (natch) as the muscular-yet-sensitive superhero type. According to formula, the good guy gets himself in a bad situation (such as strapped to a torture machine or down 3 games to none in a League Championship), with the bad guy intent on administering the coup de grace. Yadda yadda, evil cackle, and then the inevitable panel of our hero, face contorted in a rictus of pain and Mr. Bad screaming, "Why won't you DIE!?!?" at which time our hero breaks free and whups much ass.

Of course being the postmodernistic sort that I am and a connoiseur of latter-day graphic novel type kiddie entertainments, I am also reminded of that formula, in which our hero's face contorts in a rictus of pain! He breaks free of the machine! He leaps to his feat! The battle is joined!... and he takes a bullet in the chest and dies drowning in his own blood.

I know which scenario is more likely to happen, but I have been soaking in the New England Calvinism long enough to know that, regardless of our knowledge of our own inevitable damnation, hope must spring still that Red Sox Nation is finally among the chosen.

Just because it's part of the liturgy up here were God takes a back seat to David Ortiz, I'm going to say it. Knowing perfectly well that by saying it, I have just jinxed the whole damn enterprise and queered the deal for another season, and knowing perfectly well that tomorrow I'll be back here again contritely apologizing for being so foolish as to get my hopes up that the greatest rivalry in baseball might turn into the greatest story baseball ever told, I'm saying it. This is the year.

[wik] Michael Berube (imagine the accent marks yourself) has an outsider's opinion on the matter.

An Australian Journalist was released by terrorists after they confirmed his identity using Google. Apparently, what they found on the internet convinced his captors that he was not working for the CIA or an American contractor.

For the week ending 18Oct04

Spotlight Belarus: In keeping with recent refreshing changes in the public discourse of international diplomacy, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has determined the American Congress not only to be "stupid", but, "dumb-asses [who] don’t know what they’re doing". The remarks followed Congress' passage of economic sanctions against his "tyrannical" regime. As of this writing, Lukashenko has made no effort to distance himself from the outburst and has not blamed it on being taken out of context or on his Chernobyl-irradiated brainstem.

Spotlight Iraq: Two more men were beheaded in the cradle of civilization, this time two Iraqis. The victims confessed to being intelligence agents and warned their countrymen to eschew collaborating with the Americans. Personally, I would confess to being a whole lot of things if I thought it might keep me my head.

Spotlight Louisiana: A physics professor at the U of LA-Lafayette went buck-nutty on his class, exploding into obscenities, weird drawings on the board, screaming, and even slapping one student, all for no readily apparent reason. Students explained that when he's done this sort of thing before (!), they would just wait and it would pass. This time it didn't pass.

Note to prospective undergraduates: it is absolutely normal for faculty to rant and rave, particularly when denigrating Republicans, certain presidents, national agencies, capitalism, and combat leaders. Had this occurred in a humanities course, I'm not sure anyone would have noticed anything amiss.

Spotlight New York, yo: Former rapper and Boogie Down Productions founder KRS-One declared that he and other black Americans cheered when 9-11 happened. Mr. One tied his remarks to a sense of injustice associated with, as best I can understand his explanation, not being allowed into the Trade Center at some point, which also fed into being oppressed by RCA, BMG, and quite probably The Man himself. He went on to explain that "suicide" is the only answer to America's woes, although what that actually means is left to the reader to wrestle with. As is the question of why anyone would care what KRS-One has to say about much of anything.

Spotlight Massachusesss: Two 14-year-old girls invented a kidnapping story to cover their being out all night. The claim sparked an energetic search for the fabricated scoundrels, which nearly resulted in two arrests. The girls ultimately admitted to the lie and were charged for filing a false police report. Kids, if you're gonna sneak out, have a plan for sneaking back in. I'm thinking more along the lines of a copied key and being aware of the squeaky stair, not a plan that involves the local police, state police, and a regional manhunt.

In another life I spent alot of my time learning about crime and punishment.

Not firsthand, I hasten to add- I was never convicted, remember. So I didn't have to take Advanced Shiv, the Involuntary Skin Art sequence, or Race Wars I & II. Mine was a purely academic exercise, built around the historical differences between Anglo (-American) and Continental legal systems, and focusing on the English experience with crime. Part of this study included research on the non-care and non-feeding of certain of the Scepter'd Isle's imprisoned underclass.

And this site might have saved me alot of effort: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey is now online with 100,000 indexed, searchable trials dating from the late 17th century through 1834. Some of the original texts appear not to have survived the centuries well, to the point of illegibility, but you don't have to read them to use the site. The Proceedings have been around forever in some form or other, but I cannot overstate the utility of having them together, accessible from anywhere, and searchable.

But besides all that, the entertainment value is great- just as the ancient versions were. The difference though is that today we don't laugh at the condemned, at the horrible form that justice once took. What's amusing is the use of an archaic, flowery language, which moderns associate with humor, to describe actions that were quite serious at the time. Two examples follow:
"31 May 1693: Alice Randall was tried for keeping a disorderly House, and entertaining Evil-disposed Persons therein. The first Evidence Swore, that he went to the House one Evening, and being up Stairs, the Prisoner brought him a brisk young Girl, who presently had the Impudence to pull up her Coats, and laying her hand upon her Belly said, Here's that that will do you good, a Commodity for you, if you'll pay for it you shall have enough of it; with that he took his Cane, and gave her two or three good daubs (as he called them); she was found guilty of the Indictment."

"11 July 1726: Margaret Clap was indicted for keeping a House in which she procur'd and encourag'd Persons to commit Sodomy, on the 10th of December last and before and after. Samuel Stevens thus depos'd. On Sunday Night the 14th of November. I went to the Prisoners House in Field-Lane, Holbourn. I found near Men Fifty there, making Love to one another as they call'd it. Sometimes they'd sit in one anothers Laps, use their Hands indecently Dance and make Curtsies and mimick the Language of Women - O Sir! - Pray Sir! - Dear Sir! Lord how can ye serve me so! - Ah ye little dear Toad! Then they'd go by Couples, into a Room on the same Floor to be marry'd as they call'd it. The Door at that Room was kept by - Ecclestone to prevent any body from balking their Diversions. - When they came out, they used to brag in plain Terms, of what they had been doing, and the Prisoner was present all the Time, except when she went out to fetch Liquors. There was - Griffin among them, who was since hang'd for Sodomy. - And Derwin who had been carried before Sir George Martins for Sodomitical Practices with a Link Boy, he brag'd how he had baffled the Link Boy's Evidence and the Prisoner boasted that what she had said before Sir George, in Derwin's Favour, was a great Means of bringing him off. - I went thither 2 or 3 Sundays following, and found much the same Practices as before. They talk'd all manner of the and most vile Obscenity in her Presence, and she appear'd wonderfully pleas'd with it.
Joseph Sellers depos'd to the same Purpose and added he believ'd there were above 40 Sodomies commited that Night.
The Prisoner in her Defence, said that Darwin was taken up only for a Quarrel and that it ought to be considered, that she was a Woman, and therefore it could not be thought that she would ever be concern'd in such abonsinable Practices. But the Evidence being full and positive, the Jury found her Guilty."

By Mordenkainen's beard, Dungeons and Dragons turns 30 this weekend!! Minister GeekLethal has let slip his true geekliness by notifying me of this fact, and submitted a link to a touching reminiscence from some National Review dude that sounds uncannily like my own teenage years.

Wow. When I got into the game, it was barely ten years old, and the "Advanced" game was still in its first edition. I think my grades in Ohio History suffered because of all the time I spent in class poring over the difference between a glaive and a bill hook in "Unearthed Arcana." (My wife just read that previous sentence as "eatoin shrdlu gibber flark Ohio History dang fang artango mash Arcana." But she knew she was marrying a geek and I love her for it.) From time to time D&D stats still bubble up from my unconscious at inopportune moments, like when I'm trying to concentrate on the real-world implications of changes in Social Security indexing. "The answer is GDP + inflation = a THAC0 of 17, Bob."

Now the game is up to Edition 3.5 (.5???), and is owned by big-time toymaker Hasbro, so I suspect it's neither as geeky or as weird as it used to be (not that geeky and weird are aspects of the old rules I necessarily treasure. Could someone please explain to me why becoming a millionaire made a character harder to kill?)

God help us. As NRO guy says, "I've long harbored a secret notion in the back of my mind: Wouldn't it be awesome to get a game going again?" Yes it would, NRO guy. If that asshole from Columbus hadn't stolen every single one of my manuals back in 1996, I'd do it tomorrow. The more I learn about history, geopolitics, economics, human behavior, war, physics, and, hell, everything, the cooler I find the idea of D&D. The older you get, the richer your imaginary worlds become and the less you have to rely on tired Monty Haul crapola to get your characters through a night of role-playing. I would give body parts to set a D&D campaign in a setting adapted from the France of Louis XIV and the thousand little postmedieval German dutchies, now that I have an idea what they were all about.

Of course, the only spaniard in the works is the time commitment. I suppose I could set aside a D&D night like hepper cats do poker night, but I don't think that would work so good what with the being married and all. I cherish my Friday nights with the spouse, even if we're just having a pizza at home, and Mrs. Johno, having never played D&D, is understandably cool to the notion.

I've got it! Here's my plan, and it's a good one and cunning too. A Dungeons and Dragons retirement community. I'll buy the land now and start a normal "retirement village," and when I get close to retirement age market it exclusively to ex-gamers. Think about it. People will live for decades after "retirement" 30 years from now. That means like 20 years to do nothing but sit around and putter with funny dice, drawing on the infinite knowledge and experience of a lifetime to create the greatest campaigns the world has ever known! And, when someone starts to go a little senile, it's cool. They're already living halfway in an imaginary world already! (Was that crass? I think that was crass.) Who here doesn't think my idea is the greatest idea in the history of ideas? Huh? Huh?

Also posted to blogcritics.org, which you will now go read and enjoy in full. That is not a suggestion.

Not like that fake Entemann's stuff you get on the end-rack in the bread aisle. Or that stuff they fed you from a sheet pan in grade school. The real, butter-egg-sugar stuff the French still know how to do, frosted with more butter and sugar and packed with knee-buckling flavor.

I'm talking about the Blogcritics Debate series, which wrapped up this week with a barnburner between Congressional candidate from the Ohio 16th Jeff Seeman and noted conservative pundit and bigmouth John Hawkins. Go see what it's like when atual issues, policy points, and world views are put to the test! In between sniping and snarking, a lot of great stuff got said.

Also well worth your time are the previous debates, between Green Natalie Davis and Libertarian Mike Kole (Melt guns to make composters! No! Melt composters to make guns!), and between blogger Michele Catalano and novelist/gadfly Neal Pollack. Read them all and feel your brain swell with extra smarts and other wholesome stuff. Like cake.

People are looking at whether Kerry might not have initially been honorably discharged. Kerry still hasn't signed his form 180, which would release the 100 pages of documents that the Naval Personnel Office says it still has and either dismiss or support these allegations.

Congratulations to Lynndie England, who has just given birth to a bouncing baby boy.

I wonder if during family photo time, it ever crosses Lynndie's mom's mind to have her daughter "do the Lynndie?" Or does she just die a little more inside each time she thinks of what her daughter is famous for?

[wik] But hey-- look at the bright side... the kid will never be hard up for Show 'n' Tell material!

I like this Nobel Laureate a lot better than the wacko who thinks that AIDS is a CIA plot.

Somebodies a-scawad! This fine example of letting the terrorists win comes to you courtesy of Democratic Senator Mark Dayton.

For the week ending 11Oct04:

Spotlight Sinai: At least thirty are dead and well over 100 injured following three bombings at two resort hotels in the Egyptian Sinai near the Israeli border. Most of the victims were Israelis on vacation. A previously unknown group, Jama'a Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya (World Islamist Group) claimed responsibility, but our old pals Al Qaida are now the most likely suspects according to US, Israeli and Egyptian security forces, with possible connections to Palestinian groups or domestic Egyptian Islamic terrorists (the ones who did the Luxor hit back in the late nineties.) Names that have surfaced in the discussion include bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and Jordanian cum-Iraqi Al Qaida terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi.

It seems that the Islamic terrorist world is linking arms and standing shoulder to shoulder to fight both the Little Satan and the Great Satan. One could almost think this great coming together - this laying down of internal disputes to fight the common enemy - was a noble thing if it didn’t involve the surprise bombing of innocents. I think that the terrorists are going to continue to have a serious public relations problem. Maybe a little nonviolent resistance would get them sympathy from people outside the Chomskyite left.

Spotlight Iraq: Briton Kenneth Bigly was unsurprisingly beheaded by yet another group of Islamic funlovers. It seems as though Bigley made a last ditch effort to escape but didn’t make it out. Several Turks were also beheaded this week, showing that Islamic fundamentalism is essentially nihilistic, and will attack anything that looks at it funny.

Spotlight Spain: In what is described as a “fit of cannibalism” (as opposed to the chronic, continuing cannibalism) British ex-robber Paul Durant killed, dismembered and ate British tourist Karen Durrell. Said Durant,

"Before I killed Karen I told her I had come to Spain where I was going to kill and eat pedophiles. My mental stage was breaking down at this stage. I believed God had delivered her to me…"

As laudable as his desire to end paedophilia is, we can only conclude that his mission was tragically unsuccessful.

Spotlight Hanoi: Distressed that former colonial subjects the Vietnamese are no longer speaking French, French President Jacques Chirac has declared that the world’s cultures are in danger of being “choked” by the American cultural hegemony. Likening this to an ecological holocaust, Chirac warned that the loss of global cultural diversity would be a “catastrophe.” Therefore, he argued, the French are right to stand up to the brutish Americans, and continue to consume American movies, jeans, cigarettes, music, cars and TV in huge quantities. To counteract the threat of a French cultural resurgence, we should expand the successful EuroDisney program, and build a Disneyworld in every single fucking French City, town, hamlet and village.

[wik] All of this puts France below Singapore – which while only the size of a piece of snot, is worth significantly more than a heaping pile of shit.

Spotlight Egypt: Back to the surreal and twisted world of the Religion of Peace, an Egyptian Intellectual has accused former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of planning the 9/11 attacks. Sadly, these confused ravings are more common than many in the western media will ever admit.

Derrida is Derri-dead. But what does that mean?

Dead in the strict meaning of "without life" would seem to be a simple enough construct, but in actual fact the notion is so ramified, so resplendently qualified, as to render the word nearly meaningless. Is Derrida, in fact, truly Derri-dead, in this age where someone who ostensibly no longer exists in a current moment can still act upon the world through his detritus (e.g. images, video, writings)? (See Buckethead's just-prior post for a happily coincidental example of this very phenomenon. Christopher Reeve will live again and again, in a wheelchair and not, as himself and as not-himself, indefinitely. And yet you can't just call him up to chat.) The notion of physical death (thanatos), though in a very important sense concrete, is countered-- indeed one could argue has always been countered by-- the accidental or intentional memorials to one's existence which independently of (partially unbounded by) personal chronology signal the fact of that existence without having to prove its currency.

As Derrida wrote in another context,

historicity itself is tied to the possibility of writing; to the possibility of writing in general, beyond those particular forms of writing in the name of which we have long spoken of peoples without writing and without history. Before being the object of a history — of an historical science — writing opens the field of history — of historical becoming.

Is writing in itself a narcissistic bid for immortality, a process of tethering oneself to history, to attempt to endow oneself (or, at least, one's publicly imagined self) with historiocity? Indeed, Derrida wrote. Writing is inescapably an immediatist art, as each new reader encounters the author in their own now rather in the author's then. Therefore, beyond Derrida's own carefully nuanced probings of the deepest meanings of language (a construct that, though endowed irrefutuably with concrete meaning, threatens to dissolve into the purest solipsism under close scrutiny), can we detect a secret, naughty bid to build an edifice for himself out of the very medium he spent his life deconstructing? Or am I just shining you on?

For some reason known only to the now-deceased html gnomes charged with properly posting the text of this post, only the picture and the title survived. Which made my post seem rather cruel. Which was not my intent. Here, as best I can reconstruct it, is the original post:

Superman is dead. Christopher Reeve died Sunday at the age of fifty-two from complications arising from an infected bedsore. The superman movies seem dated, hokey and schmaltzy now - but that is not so much the fault of the movies but the penalty of viewing the past through our green-hued spectacles of jaded hindsight. We are unable to watch Superman without remembering what came after - the brilliant gothic epic that was Batman, the snazzy special effects of the X-Men movies, and the host of lesser superhero movies that would never have seen the dark of a movie theater but for Superman. Like its comic book forerunner, the movie superman paved the way for what came after. Other superhero movies might be more clever, better drawn, more whatever, but Superman is always first.

Christopher Reeve made that movie a success. Superman in the early eighties was a clean cut, muscular, cheerful, diffident and even (dare we say) a bit fey. Reeves gave us a Superman with no ironic overtones, no sarcastic asides, no incestuous self-referential humor, no gloomy cityscapes no five o'clock shadow; in short, none of the things that we now absolutely require in order to suspend our disbelief. We can't watch movies like this anymore. But we should.

Well, the first issue of Undecided Voter magazine has just hit the newstands.