Sentential Links #147

Before we get to the actual Sentential Links, let me first draw attention to this post by SamuraiFrog, which I couldn't figure out how to quote in my usual fashion for this series, but which I most definitely wanted to draw attention to. Titled "21st Century Political Discourse", here's a taste:

BARACK OBAMA: The surge has not worked. Everyone knows it has not worked. I intend to end the occupation of Iraq and have troops withdrawn within 16 months of assuming the presidency.

JOHN McCAIN: The surge is working! You'd know that if you went there for yourself and saw what was going on, you traitor! I dare you to go! This is not politically motivated!

LIBERAL BLOGGER: Bliss, bliss, attend Barack Obama and step into the light!

UNAFFILIATED BLOGGER: Inflation is the worst it's been in 27 years! The Euro is stronger than the dollar! GM is having another wholesale downsizing! Experts say more banks will fail in the coming year!

CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER: George W. Bush saved this country! Let me lie with statistics to show you how no one is poorer than they were 30 years ago without adjusting for inflation!

SUPPOSEDLY LIBERAL MEDIA: Hey, look how much money The Dark Knight has made!

Heh indeed, read the whole thing, etc. (Only I must not be reading the right liberal blogs, because while the ones I read most definitely support Obama, they don't believe he's the second coming of Klaatu, come to rescue us from Darkness or something.)

Anyway, the rest of the links await! Away we go....

:: I had to run up to Fargo the other night.

:: I saw WALL-E tonight. If you're hooked on dialogue, madly in love with the consume/dispose/pollute cycle, and vehemently angry at the [choice ignorant slur directed at robots] for taking jobs away from humans, then this movie is not for you. Otherwise, it's probably worth seeing. I don't mean to give anything away, but it has a Thomas Newman soundtrack and a Peter Gabriel song at the end. (I'm sold!)

:: That's the problem with satire. People for centuries have failed to "get it" - as Pitts points out when he mentions that people in 1729 took Jonathan Swift seriously when he suggested that starving people should eat babies - but these days, with the proliferation of media outlets and voices from the fringe being taken seriously, it's harder for people to see when someone is poking fun at the conceits. (I, personally, thought the New Yorker cover was really funny. I really did; it made me laugh. I particularly liked the "Heh heh heh" expression on Michelle Obama's face, and the way they have Barack Obama glancing backward, over his shoulder, at us, as if to say, "Suckers!")

:: And what drug was John Cougar Mellencamp on when he named his son Spec Wildhorse?

:: You can like both Chicago and NY pizza, just like you can like the Beatles and the Stones. (Not from the post itself, but from the comments thread, where lots of people sing the praises of Chicago deep dish pizza, only one or two people claim to prefer New York pizza, and neither of those try to argue to goofy notion that New York's pizza is what God intended when he said "Let there be pizza!", and not a single crack about the fatally erroneous notion that a Chicago deep dish pizza is a "casserole" -- and all this on one of the more heavily trafficked blogs out there. Wow!)

:: To the older gentleman three rows in front of us: dude, when your back hair is lush enough to have a part in it, you really shouldn't wear tanktops to public events. Especially ones that may involve the consumption of food. That's just wrong.

:: Think of this another way: if we don't help people understand how to protect themselves from spammers and phishers, how can we expect them to understand the importance of network neutrality?

:: So, what's a girl to do with a few hundred grams of hastenlingly overripe strawberries and a banana that needs to go to a better place? (What a great blog title, by the way! New blog to me.)

:: I recognized than either way I went I could be happy. Either way I went I could make a positive contribution. Both jobs had some very definite advantages. Both jobs had some not-so-shiny aspects to them. I could spend the next two days agonizing over the relative merits and then forever second guess myself over whether I had made the right decision. Or not. So I decided to just leave it up to the universe to choose which path for me to take. (Wow. See, I'd go the other way: I'd turn the whole thing into an episode of soul-searching existential crisis.)

:: When Indians' designated cutup Trot Nixon first channeled the ghost of Moe Howard and smooshed a plate of whip cream into the mug of a fellow Tribesman, he couldn't have known the cholesterol-rich history of pie tossing. (This one's for you, Belladonna! BTW, who cares how much cholesterol is in the things? Do you absorb cholesterol through your skin?)

All for this week....