The Enchanted Porkfist

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January 27, 2009

The classics, now less boring.

Sayeth the publisher:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Via Slog.

Guns, god, and grammatical errors.

The president made a trip to the Capitol today to meet the Republican delegations of both the House and the Senate (a feat of bipartisanship that W's handlers never even considered). Afterward, super-duper conservative (and Republican Conference Chairman) Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana gave this thoughtful analysis:

The Democrat bill won’t stimulate anything but more government and more debt...The slow and wasteful spending in the House Democrat bill is a disservice to millions of Americans who want to see this Congress take immediate action to get this economy moving again.

Maybe it's reassuring that the Republicans' favorite linguistic fart is alive and well, even in a time of crisis—in fact it's perhaps more understandable now that they're so thoroughly ousted from power. Still, "Democrat bill"? In 2009? Are you fucking kidding me?

Hendrik Hertzberg wrote about this in 2006:

There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. “Democrat Party” is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but “Democrat Party” is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams “rat.” At a slightly higher level of sophistication, it’s an attempt to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation. During the Cold War, many people bridled at obvious misnomers like “German Democratic Republic,” and perhaps there are some members of the Republican Party (which, come to think of it, has been drifting toward monarchism of late) who genuinely regard the Democratic Party as undemocratic. Perhaps there are some who hope to induce it to go out of existence by refusing to call it by its name, à la terming Israel “the Zionist entity.” And no doubt there are plenty of others who say “Democrat Party” just to needle the other side while signalling solidarity with their own—the partisan equivalent of flashing a gang sign.

The history of “Democrat Party” is hard to pin down with any precision, though etymologists have traced its use to as far back as the Harding Administration. According to William Safire, it got a boost in 1940 from Harold Stassen, the Republican Convention keynoter that year, who used it to signify disapproval of such less than fully democratic Democratic machine bosses as Frank Hague of Jersey City and Tom Pendergast of Kansas City. Senator Joseph McCarthy made it a regular part of his arsenal of insults, which served to dampen its popularity for a while. There was another spike in 1976, when grumpy, growly Bob Dole denounced “Democrat wars” (those were the days!) in his Vice-Presidential debate with Walter Mondale. Growth has been steady for the last couple of decades, and today we find ourselves in a golden age of anti-“ic”-ism.

In the conservative media, the phenomenon feeds more voraciously the closer you get to the mucky, sludgy bottom. “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity.

But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.

I doubt the Mike Pences of the world engage the notion of ambiguity very often—it's just not their strong suit.

January 25, 2009

Meet your local flying reptiles.

Rick Lieder takes spectacular photos of the birds in his back yard.

Take a few minutes to gaze at the splendor.

Via Boing Boing.

January 22, 2009

Getting it started.

The very talented photographer Callie Shell had one of the best subjects possible during the seemingly endless presidential campaign.

Shell's access to Obama continues into the White House, and her shots of Inauguration Day keep the good stuff coming.

January 21, 2009

Run away from Benjamin Button, run.

Because not only is it:

1. Way too long;

2. A dramatic epic directed by a man who's just not very good at summoning human emotions other than dread and fear;

3. Saddled with a wall-to-wall score that hammers you over the head with the mood you are meant to be experiencing at any given moment;

but also because you've seen it already:

We are the swarms.

Inauguration Day, 2009:

Via Popular Science.

January 14, 2009

At the bees' front door.

The 3rd story went on the hive yesterday. These bees are kicking ass.

January 13, 2009

Things humans believe (first in a series).

Humans believe that certain translucent plastic sticks (marketed as Stirwands™) have the power to change the basic properties of water. Since humans do not understand these basic properties, and why these properties are unaffected by contact with translucent plastic sticks, they are unable to resist the allure of the following claims:

Our bodies are so toxic they can no longer chemically balance water and then absorb enough of it to provide therapeutic levels of hydration and oxygen. Yet water, restored to the natural chemical balance and energy it had years ago before we polluted and depleted it, has the ability to not only keep us alive but healthy and capable of optimal performance.

Stirred in your water for 20 seconds before you drink it, the Stirwand™ is clinically proven to naturally, without adding anything artificial, quickly restore any clean, potable water to near perfect balance and stability.

Beyond all it does for your drinking water, the Stirwand™ helps water do a better job in any way you use it. Drop a Stirwand™ in your washing machine and cut your detergent in half. Put one in fish tanks and ponds, pools & spas. Use stirred water for all your cleaning and bathing and for watering of livestock and plants. Just stir for 20 seconds (a glass to a gallon), or just drop it in and leave it. It won’t overcharge water nor affect the life of the wand. It’s so sturdy, you could drive a car over it.

Humans believe that water can be "chemically balanced", that it has a measurable quantity of "stability", and that it is somehow possible for it to be "overcharged".

Humans believe that the fact that you could drive a car over a piece of plastic in some way validates the claim that this plastic possesses supernatural powers.

But wait, it gets better. Your payment of $89.95 buys you eight Stirwands™, each a different color, each with different properties:

STIRWAND™ - The Basic Wand; Blue Violet; For everyday use and stress relief. Hydrating and oxygenating. All hours.

OLYMPIAN STIRWAND™; Turquoise; For optimizing athletic performance. Hydrating and oxygenating. Day time.

ZEN MASTER STIRWAND™; Purple; For relaxation, meditation and the calming bath. Just drop in bath water when filling and leave in until the end of your bath. Hydrating and oxygenating. After hours.

Et cetera.

The manufacturer offers testimonials:

Our dog who is typically a FREAK at bath time was very calm during it yesterday. We first rubbed the Zen Master over his throat/heart and within 10 seconds, he just laid down and his breathing slowed...AMAZING!

We've been using the Gardener Stirwand to water parts of our vegetable garden as we've been experimenting with the wands. The results are amazing! You would not believe how much bigger and brighter my “stirred water” carrots and beets are versus those in the rows that just got regular water.

I cut my thumb, again, trimming a palm tree. That hurts, it bleeds, and is normally sore for several days. This time, I rinsed it quickly and grabbed my Olympian and held it on the puncture. The bleeding stopped immediately, as did the pain, and it wasn't the least bit sore. I jabbed the same thumb with a knife a week later, so did the same thing. Same results. Also burned that same abused thumb on a curling iron, immediately grabbing the Olympian and was pain free in minutes.

Humans believe these claims.

The manufacturer points to faux-scientific reports credited to "Fenestra Research Labs, The World Leader in Wellness Studies". An excerpt from one such report:

About 8 years ago, I began creating a cellular analyzer to take the guesswork out of the Wellness information being widely quoted within the health care field. I gathered all of the information modalities, which had become standard in the industry proven to indicate health concerns before they became health problems...

Most importantly, we must remember that no one has seen water molecules, so the theories about clusters, structures, water memory, and geometric shape are just that, theories.

Humans believe that this makes any kind of sense.

The forces of New Age bullshit marketing invite you to fritter away 26 minutes on this enthusiastic display of anti-intellectual, buzzword-riddled magical thinking:

A thing humans believe: Quantum Age Water Stirwands

Via The American Caliban.

January 12, 2009

The intellectual juggernaut of conservatism.

McCain/Palin campaign tool Samuel Wurzelbacher, reporting from Israel for (I shit you not) "Pajamas Media":

Here is the extemporaneous wisdom of not-licensed-as-a-plumber, tax-delinquent Mr. Wurzelbacher on display:

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.

Via Think Progress.

January 9, 2009

The intruder must be destroyed.

You will now surrender the next four minutes and five seconds of your life to watching a kitten smack the shit out of an electric toothbrush.

Bonus activity: count how many seconds elapse before the sound of this appliance makes you wonder where else it's been.

Via the B3tards.

From the cliché-disarming department.

Andrew O'Neill's not being racist, but...

Via B3ta.

January 7, 2009

Here's your living history.

Quite a photo opportunity at the White House today. It's a tribute to the orderly transition of power, and the rule of law that still mostly prevails in this great country.

But seriously, who is that dipshit in the middle?

Bust it out like you used to.

General Bonkers ran a clip of Stevie Wonder playing drums from back in the day, and that sent me over to the following, where he shows off his ridiculous level of talent at age 19. Unreal.

January 6, 2009

!!i can has rat frenz?!

But wait, there is speculation as well:

The parasite Toxoplasma infects many species (including an estimated 60 million people in the US), but it can only undergo sexual reproduction in cat digestive tracts. Evolutionarily speaking, this means toxo's survival depends 100% on its host being eaten by a cat...So toxo has evolved a complicated system for taking over its hosts' brains to increase the likelihood that they'll be eaten by cats (for example: it rewires rat brains so they're actually attracted to the smell of cat urine). Knowing this, I ask you: Is this rat just friends with this cat? Or is it actually in a toxo induced frenzy and trying to get eaten? If so, then this video is an example of a cat kicking toxo's ass.

Culture Dish (via Slog)

January 2, 2009

The GOP, just now setting out for the wilderness.

Paul Krugman today, on what many Republicans still haven't learned:

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.

If the Bush administration became a byword for policy bungles, for government by the unqualified, well, it was just following the advice of leading conservative think tanks: after the 2000 election the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new team to “make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.”

...and the racial element isn’t all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” — and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances...

The reality of this strategy’s collapse has not, I believe, fully sunk in with some observers. Thus, some commentators warning President-elect Barack Obama against bold action have held up Bill Clinton’s political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.

But America in 1993 was a very different country — not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes — and lost the rest of the country. It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the G.O.P. into a cul-de-sac.

Mr. Obama therefore has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they’ll learn two things: not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn’t play the way it used to.

"Bigger Than Bush" (Paul Krugman, NY Times)