December 2007 Archive

The Big Doughy Hand of Al Franken

Sometimes the picture and the article just match up perfectly:

—Mark Elliot Cullen

China’s Valley of Tears

Slavoj Zizek writing for In These Times:

Last year, the Chinese government strengthened some of its oppressive apparatuses—including forming special units of riot police to crush popular unrest. These police are the actual social expression of what, in ideology, appears as a revival of Marxism. In 1905, Trotsky characterized tsarist Russia as “the vicious combination of the Asian knout [whip] and the European stock market.” Doesn’t this characterization still hold for modern-day China?

But what if the promised democratic second act that follows the authoritarian valley of tears never arrives? That is what is so unsettling about today’s China: Its authoritarian capitalism may not be merely a remainder of our past but a portent of our future.

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Sex! In Spaaaaaace!!

The Guardian:

US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday…

“The issue of sex in space is a serious one,” he says. “The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity.”

The title of my post could have been something like “T-minus 10 seconds to Re-Entry” or “Initiate Docking Procedurals”, but they felt too cheesy. Also, if the Missionary Position is impossible, then the end of Moonraker is a lie.

—Zach Cullen

Hugo Chávez: Stalinist Totalitarian Part I

The Weblog:

The New York Times reports that the totalitarian, neo-Stalinist dictator Hugo Chávez’s proposed constitutional changes were narrowly defeated and that the power-mad tyrant has conceded defeat.

The faces of evil!

—Bryan Klausmeyer 4 Comments

Joke’s on Jay Leno Staff

Richard Huff writing for the New York Daily News:

Staffers on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” might start calling the host Jay Cheapo. That’s because unlike his late-night talk brethren, Leno hasn’t stepped up to pay the staff of his late-night show who were laid off yesterday by NBC.

Is the Daily News writer making fun of the bad writing on The Tonight Show with that awful pun (is it even a pun?) in the Lede of this article? Or should we just call Richard Huff, Richard Badpun?

—Mark Elliot Cullen