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Whenever I watch The Colbert Report, I find my eyes drawn to Stephen’s hands and the way he moves them. He has extremely graceful hands, fascinating to watch; like two nervous birds attached way out there on the ends of his arms. He appears to know exactly where each one of his fingers is at all times, and exactly where it’s going to go next.

On the other hand, Nick Cave in the video down below has hands that often appear to be controlled by two entirely different brains. They’re like two people learning to dance together to this one song they both kind of know. And sometimes they’re like one person reading the newspaper and the other person eating a ham sandwich, in two different houses on opposite sides of the planet.

And this is also graceful.

“What the fuck is Vitter’s problem?” still googles empty, but it’s only been a week. It’s just a matter of time before people start using the correct verbiage.

“I can hear my mother wailing and a whole lot of scraping of chairs; I don’t know what it is but there’s definitely something going on upstairs.”

At Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror blog: Profitable Until Deemed Illegal

I’d never heard of this thing before. But it is amazing. Somebody called it a tax on people who are bad at math. Jeff Atwood says

In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I’ve ever seen…. It is almost brilliantly evil.

It really is amazing.

Just now I finally took the Obama-Biden sticker off my truck, because I’m hauling it down to Long Beach to give it a general enema. It may be paranoia–but I don’t think so–to think that it will be serviced inadequately (if not actually sabotaged) because of a bumper sticker. But that’s my feeling, living here. Frankly, I can’t afford the courage of my convictions just now.

Bellamy salute – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bellamy salute is the hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy 1855-1931 to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. The gesture was derived from the Roman salute.

This was originally what American kids did at school when pledging allegiance. They’d still be doing it if Hitler and Mussolini hadn’t happened. Here’s Bellamy’s directions for a proper pledge:

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute — right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.

In my heaven I get to ask Francis Bellamy and dicks of his ilk just exactly what did they think they were doing. Then it’s back to the beer and dancing girls.

114-year-old U.S. woman to be world’s oldest – CNN.com
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.

On the one hand I think it’s great that the governments of the world don’t keep any particular track of who is older than who. Apparently Global Overlord, Inc could not care less that a little old lady in the states has outlived all the other little old ladies and little old men from her time. On the other hand, who the hell gave Guinness Book the authority to say who’s ‘officially’ older than somebody else? “Sorry, ma’am, you’re not how old you are until we officially say so.”

This is one of the very few times where a registered trademark symbol thrown in there somewhere would make me happier. I mean, the woman already is the world’s oldest person; she’s just not The World’s Oldest Person®.