We are the angry mob

We are the angry mob
we read the papers everyday
we like who we like, we hate who we hate
but we're oh so easily swayed

The demented Spartan child

It's been a horrible season for Barcelona. They broke down and humiliated themselves, particularly as Real Madrid found themselves hoisting the hardware.

There has been one bright spot, however, the emerging greatness of Lionel Messi. Here is Phil Ball, the best English-language writer covering La Liga today (I know, I know), eloquently telling us why he named Messi to his Best XI:

Left midfield: Leo Messi (Barcelona)
He was picked for this spot last season, and although it's not strictly his position it's difficult to say exactly what Messi is - a phrase often used to describe the greats. Well - we know he's the best player in the world, with apologies to Ronaldo lovers, but he's not here for that reason. What has been most impressive about Messi this season has been his sheer will to win, his never-say-die attitude and the silent example he has provided to all around him, many of whom have seemed less than committed to the cause. At times he has run down cul-de-sacs, it's true, but only because there has been a lack of intelligent support. He's hardly had a bad game, and even when he came back from a serious injury, he was immediately running at players again like some sort of demented Spartan child, unacquainted with fear. Sorry to mix the metaphors, but he's also worked like a Trojan. Nice little bloke too, modest and without pretensions. You get the impression that he appreciates the privilege of being a professional footballer, particularly after what he went though as a child. He deserved better this season.

Middlebrow horseshit

I've been seriously digging Matt Taibbi's writing lately. Here's his bananas book review of "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.

Things happen when you wear Eleganza

Eleganza has to be the greatest name for a clothing line I've ever heard. Check out these 1970s fashion ads from Ebony Magazine. It's pimpalicious.

The ghetto formerly known as the suburbs

I'm going keep blogging about this until I'm blue in the fingers... people no longer want to live in the suburbs. The truth is that, due to longer and longer commuting times, higher gas prices and less of a desire for whites to get away from minority neighbors, all the demand growth for housing is currently in cities.

And lo and behold, look at today's U.S. home construction report:

The U.S. Commerce Department is reporting construction rose by 8.2 percent in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. However, the growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken.

Photoshopping gone horribly wrong

Check out this little Photoshop fuck-up, courtesy of The Problem With Caring, a nifty little blog.

We're falling behind yet again

If I told you that some country was building a "carbon-neutral" city where people rode in solar-powered personal rapid-transit vehicles, turned waste into energy and recycle its water, where would you think this was?

No, not the U.S., silly. We're way behind! How about, of all places, Abu Dhabi.

Get your Democratic Convention Credentials

This is the most awesome thing ever.

(Courtesy of this blogger.)

From the Dept. of Get a Brain Morans

Wright and Obama

I know, I know. You're probably sick of the Rev. Wright fiasco, but my former co-worker Don has a nice little post about it here. (You have to scroll down a bit. For some reason his adsense is in an odd spot, at least on my firefox.)

Die Newspaper. Die Die!!!

Everyone point and laugh at newspapers! Ha ha.

Our cat only kills time (napping)

My wife's family used to have a few outdoor cats when she was growing up. According to her, at least one of them felt he was particularly gifted at killing things and dragging them home to show off to his owners.

Apparently, Jeff has a similar talent, which is why there's a whole blog devoted to What Jeff Killed.

The leader they deserve

The Onion once described American politicians as "The leaders American deserve" -- meaning most voters are about half a chromosome away from bonobos. We claim to hate politicians, but we've seen the enemy... and it is us.

We're a hodgepodge of crackpots, liars, inveterate racists and wide-eyed cultists. We disdain science and foreigners. In short, we're a nation of people like Brenda Spreitzer, 42, of Indiana. Here's what Brenda told Newsweek when asked why she wouldn't vote for Obama:

"I think Barack's viewpoints and his past is too flamboyant. It's more radical than I want to go … I'm just not comfortable," she said, adding that she is concerned about Obama's practice of generally not wearing an American flag pin. (None of the candidates wear flag pins.) She has been researching Obama on the Internet and discovered that he wants to tear out the bowling alley in the White House (Obama has kiddingly said he wants to replace it with a basketball court). "That freaked me out because no matter if he bowls or not, it's a historic thing that should never be changed."

The random blog button

When I first started using Blogger I messed around with the "next blog" button (which takes you to a random blog), but mostly found junk: unused pages, spam, totally unusable sites built by Japanese teenagers.

Today I hit the button and stumbled upon Art Inconnu, which is actually a very impressive blog about long forgotten painters. I would post a few favorites here, but they're too big for my layout.

Old Lady at the Club

My wife isn't even close to being an old lady. I don't know why she calls herself that. It might have to do with the fact that she was recently up in da club... despite being married. Now, I have no problem with it, but I guess that's why she feels that way.

Check out a picture or two at her blog here.

Words I Like

There a bunch of writers (mostly journalists, but a few fiction writers, too) whom I reguarly seek out. One of my recent favorites is Matt Taibbi, sort of new wave gonzo journalist who now writes for Rolling Stone. Check out this article, called "Jesus Made Me Puke," about how goes undercover at a cultish evangelical retreat in Texas. Each participant is required to tell the group about his or her awful childhood, so Taibbi makes up a story about how his father was an abusive circus clown. Genius!

Pennsylvania can go die in a ditch

The bitter, pasty gun-and-religion-clingers of rural Pennsyltucky couldn't be tricked into voting for Barry Hussein Obama last night. That's why we hate them. (Or at least 54.8 percent of their democratic voters.)

We have other reasons for ridiculing South Carolina, however.

Make your pet man again!

I think it's actually biologically impossible not laugh at this product.

Also... the best. endorsement. ever.

"My terrier, Ruckus, is soon to have his 9th birthday, and his Neuticles will have their anniversary shortly thereafter. We've never regretted the small additional expense of Neuticles when his original equipment was removed.

Thanks... nine years later."
Jack Anderson - Los Angeles, CA

Leave the New York Times aloooooooone

OK. I've seriously got to stop picking apart the NY Times before I go completely nuts and start muttering to myself in public about tin foil hats and conspiracies involving the Sulzberger family. Ahem. Then I read this article about googlegangers, the people you see on Google with the same name as you.

Di, my lovely wife, periodically updates me on the life progress of a certain other Di who happens to be some kind of chemistry professor in Germany(!) This sort of serendipitous story could have made for a ton 'o fun if the Times wasn't such a bastion of soul-killing rectitude. Instead of just having fun with the story, they weigh it down with a few tons of quotes from social psychologists and communications theorists about What It All Means.

Also, I'm quite possibly the only person on the planet with my name. Should that make me feel superior on account of specialness or jealous like an only child? I can't decide.

Why more financial aid isn't the answer

We talk about the rising cost of healthcare, but almost as serious an issue as that is the rising cost of college tuition. I believe the average tuition at a 4-year college is now $25,000 per year, which is a huge step up from even 10 years ago when I was in school. (I'm glad I'm not there now!)

Everyone seems to thin the answer to the problem is to increase the size and number of federal student loans. The problem is that such a policy just encourages state university systems to increase spending on "amenities" for students and pushing public universities into competition with private ones.

Just yesterday the NYT ran a ridiculous story about how colleges must now offer students gourmet dining options such as pho, lobster, mineral water and brick-oven pizza if they want to attract students. (The reality, of course, is that they'll still attract good students, but that free market competition between universities is forcing them to add on deluxe features like better food, huge new workout gyms with rock climbing walls and mega basketball arenas.)

Obama was asked about the tuition issue yesterday on the campaign trail:

Obama, a Democrat, said students today put more expectations on nonacademic features such as on-campus health clubs, state-of-the-art cafeterias and dazzling student social centers, features that drive up the cost of higher education.

"I have to tell you, when I went to school, we knew the food was going to be bad," Obama joked with a supportive crowd of about 2,000 people gathered at Great Valley High School. "We knew the gymnasium wasn't going to have all the state-of-the-art nautilus equipment. …

"The point is, you didn't expect first-rate facilities at college because you were there to learn."

He's almost competely right on this issue, but I would say that instead of blaming individual students, the blame lies with federal policy of subsidizing a competitive educational market that encourages universities to spend billions on extraneous facilities and services. And why are we even allowing private university systems to benefit from federal student loans? France, Britain and Canada all do just fine without substantial private systems. I can tell you first-hand that the French university system is much, much, much less plush than our own... but students don't mind because they pay no tuition!