Little did I know that when I lost everything last year, I was doing research. At the time I thought it was just stupidity or bad luck or both. But now that the economy’s crashing, it turns out I’ve been out there gathering valuable tips for millions of new paupers.

And let me clarify, I’m talking real poverty.

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Most people had never heard of Sarah Palin when she was named Republican VP nominee. But I’d been hearing her name all too often, because I belong to a group called Defenders of Wildlife–and in her time as governor of Alaska, Palin has used her position as governor of Alaska to ruin the Alaskan wilderness in every way she could.

Her most recent “victory” came on August 26 when Alaska’s voters defeated Measure 2, an initiative that would have banned hunting wolves from airplanes for sport.

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I saw a jet trail in the sky this morning and wondered why there aren’t so many of them any more. And instantly started grinding through the useless, absorbing little inquisitions that keep the mind from wasting its time on lesser matters like making a living. I’ve learned to be wary of the first, natural hypothesis of any 53-year old mammal’s brain, which is simply that the world is going to Hell, damn it. I’ve learned to squint around that little mental cataract and formulate slightly more rigorous options, little lists of possible responses like the heads-up display that leads the Terminator to choose “Fuck you, asshole.” Standing at the top of the alley, the dog sniffing the weeds beside me, I came up with three quick possibilities for the scarcity of jet trails:

1. Jet trails must be some sort of condensation of hot exhaust in cold air; so, because of global warming, the outer air isn’t as cold so condensation doesn’t form.

2. Better engines and jet fuel mixes mean less exhaust; hence, fewer jet trails.

3. There are as many jet trails as ever, idiot. You’re just getting old and whiney: “When I was a boy, there were jet trails so thick the woolly mammoths used to trip over them….” Shut up and keep walking. (more…)

Hezbollah explains ‘Arab Spring’ to residents of West Beirut

Now that the Beijing games have wound up, we can get on to a sporting event with real significance: a Neocon Olympics to decide the most grossly wrong, stupid prediction by a Neocon pundit post-Iraq. Of course, it’s a very rich field. Being totally wrong about absolutely everything is the Neocons’ job, and they’ve been working overtime on it. Their proudest moment had to be in the lead-up to the Iraq war when Kenneth Adelman assured America that democratizing Iraq would be “a cakewalk.” Indeed, early Neocons like Adelman and Richard Perle (who predicted that Iraq would settle down “at the first whiff of gunpowder”) set the bar for disastrously wrong predictions so high that some have suggested that the trophy be retired in their honor. (more…)

Man discovered by apes

When I think of the 1990s, it’s the Ice Man I remember. He was found in 1991, in an Austrian glacier melting from global warming. At first the authorities took him for a murder victim (it was Silence of the Lambs time). They hacked his body out of the slush with a jackhammer, eager for their CSI moment, then started to realize he didn’t fit the profile of a Hannibal Lecter scorecard. His shoes were made of bearskin and deerskin and stuffed with dry grass; his cloak was woven of grass; he carried a flint knife that looks like a folded, dented can lid tied to a stick with twine. It began to dawn on the investigators that this guy was old, (more…)

It is clear by now that Bruce Ivins did indeed send those anthrax spores. The most damning evidence, in the view of the bovine chorus, is the fact that he wrote poetry. A sample of the poetical works of the late Doctor Ivins has now made its way onto the internet. Let us consider it carefully—gloves and full NBC suit recommended but not required. (more…)

If you want to see a pure American evil puked up unrehearsed and uncensored, check out these Free Republic comments on the news that two people were killed and several more injured when a gunman started shooting in a Tennessee church. One wise Freeper says that “something tells [me]” the shooter “had a Quran in his back pocket.” Another just knows that the shooter’s identity is being protected because he’s a “minority.” The rest take the opportunity to make Unitarian jokes. (more…)