| The Rat | |
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Thursday, October 31, 2002
( 4:01 PM ) The Rat GOOD TO KNOW Greenpeace can spell. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:01 PM ( 11:54 AM ) The Rat CAT BOWLING, via (who else?) Shamed. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:54 AM Wednesday, October 30, 2002 ( 3:38 PM ) The Rat INTERESTING (AND DEPRESSING) BYRON YORK PIECE on a lawsuit being filed by Democrats in the Minnesota Senate race. Beyond their objections to the ballot itself, the Democrats' attempt to stop absentee voting also raises questions about the timing of the party's candidate selection process. Mondale emerged as the leading choice to replace Wellstone in the hours after Wellstone's death last Friday. Yet Democrats chose to wait until Wednesday to make Mondale their official candidate. 'That makes it extremely tight,' says Vogel. 'By waiting, and then complaining about absentee ballots, they've really pushed this thing to the brink.' The tactic seems guaranteed to produce confusion on Election Day. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:38 PM ( 11:35 AM ) The Rat HISTORY OF PUMPKIN CARVING. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:35 AM ( 11:33 AM ) The Rat YAHOO really needs to rethink its policy of identifying links with titles like "Deadly Fire in Ho Chi Minh City Slideshow." # Posted by The Rat @ 11:33 AM ( 11:21 AM ) The Rat MORE SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE. City considers changing its name to "Got Milk?" Can't wait till we get a town called "Aren't You Glad You Use Dial?" # Posted by The Rat @ 11:21 AM ( 11:14 AM ) The Rat "EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT"—and there'll be a lab. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:14 AM ( 11:09 AM ) The Rat From the various memoirs by relatives and friends, we can imagine a man who always seemed a little older than himself, and older than anyone he met, as if he were living more than one life. —James Wood on Chekhov # Posted by The Rat @ 11:09 AM Tuesday, October 29, 2002 ( 2:45 PM ) The Rat VOILÀ! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the finalists for the 2002 Turner prize. Last year I suggested that the Turner prize be awarded to itself, but alas, it's not even on the shortlist. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:45 PM ( 11:43 AM ) The Rat If you wish women to love you, be original; I knew a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him. —Chekhov, from the notebooks # Posted by The Rat @ 11:43 AM Monday, October 28, 2002 ( 1:03 PM ) The Rat PHOTO OF A DOG BODY-SURFING. Because it's Monday, and you need it. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:03 PM ( 12:34 PM ) The Rat NEWS OF THE WEIRD ITEM EERILY REMINISCENT OF MY LIFE: From the Alta, Utah, police blotter, via the Salt Lake Tribune: "July 14: At 12 p.m., the deputy on duty responded to a report of a man chasing a moose in Albion Basin. It is suspected that this is related to a subsequent report of a moose chasing a man." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:34 PM ( 12:24 PM ) The Rat THE WONDERS OF SCIENCE, CTD. Dairy shows are now using ultrasound to scan for chemically enhanced cow udders. "'We think we could clean up the Miss America contest with the same technology,' said UW veterinarian Robert O'Brien." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:24 PM ( 11:36 AM ) The Rat "Paul!" cried the Countess from behind the screen. "Bring along a new novel with you some time, will you, only please not one of those modern ones." "What do you mean, grand'maman?" "I mean not the sort of novel in which the hero strangles either of his parents or in which someone is drowned. I have a great horror of drowned people." —Pushkin, "The Queen of Spades" # Posted by The Rat @ 11:36 AM Friday, October 25, 2002 ( 5:32 PM ) The Rat WORLD'S BIGGEST TEDDY BEAR. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:32 PM ( 4:26 PM ) The Rat FURNITUREPORN.COM! "Hot gay teen lawn chair sluts" is probably the funniest. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:26 PM ( 3:24 PM ) The Rat CHOCOLATE MUSEUMS OF EUROPE. And Eve called me weird for wanting to go back to Paris. Philistine! # Posted by The Rat @ 3:24 PM ( 3:16 PM ) The Rat WHAT THOROUGHLY DERACINATED YOUTHS REVELING IN THE CULTURE OF DEATH, READ. Quoting Mikhail Bakhtin: B. M. Engelgardt proceeds from the sociological and cultural-historical definition of Dostoevsky's hero. Dostoevsky's hero is the intellectual—raznochinec, cut off from the cultural tradition, the soil and the land—the representative of an "accidental tribe" (sluchajnoe plemja). Such a man enters into a special relationship with the idea: he is defenseless before it and its power, for he is not firmly rooted in life and has been robbed of his cultural tradition. He becomes the "man of an idea," a man possessed by an idea. The idea becomes in him an "idea-force" which omnipotently defines and distorts his consciousness and his life. The idea leads an independent life in the hero's consciousness: it is in fact not he who lives, but the idea, and the novelist describes not the hero's life, but the life of the idea in him... Therefore, in place of the biographical dominant of the usual type (as in Tolstoy or Turgenev, for example), the dominant of the hero's representation is the idea which possesses him. Hence originates the definition of Dostoevsky's novel as an "ideological novel." # Posted by The Rat @ 3:16 PM ( 3:14 PM ) The Rat I FIND IT EASY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS. Stay tuned for more breaking news. (Link to this quiz via Zorak.) # Posted by The Rat @ 3:14 PM ( 3:14 PM ) The Rat LONDON CONSIDERS "HOOLIGAN TAX." # Posted by The Rat @ 3:14 PM ( 11:52 AM ) The Rat IRAQ EXPELS FOREIGN JOURNALISTS. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:52 AM ( 11:32 AM ) The Rat "You want me to go?" "Hardly. You're near tears again today." "I do feel a bit teary, yes. Can I have something to eat?" "Well, there are some strawberries, and some melons, and there's some bread, and there's wine, and there's marijuana." "Can I have a little of each, please?" —Deception # Posted by The Rat @ 11:32 AM Wednesday, October 23, 2002 ( 1:54 PM ) The Rat THE ULTIMATE DRINKING GAME HOME PAGE. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:54 PM ( 1:47 PM ) The Rat NEW FINDINGS on the Twin Towers' collapse. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:47 PM ( 1:28 PM ) The Rat "THE SUPERIORITY OF RABBITS." # Posted by The Rat @ 1:28 PM ( 12:18 PM ) The Rat A NON-LAME ONLINE PERSONALITY QUIZ, link via Eve. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:18 PM ( 12:04 PM ) The Rat THE LAMAR ALEXANDER HANDSHAKE CONTROVERSY. Later yesterday, Hunton told us that "my finger has probably made close to a full recovery" and that he has decided not to press charges. "It's just an incident where the former governor lost his cool and just kinda went crazy there," he said. "He grabbed my finger, twisted it and tightened down, and didn't let go until two policemen pulled him off of me." Alexander, the front-runner in the Senate race, laughed off the incident as "just a media stunt." He told us: "He gave me a firm handshake and I gave him a firm handshake, and I've just shaken 2,000 more hands at a barbecue in Knoxville. I feel fine. I think I may go home tonight and play a little Chopin." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:04 PM ( 12:01 PM ) The Rat Sending out sociobiology to solve the mysteries of human existence is like protecting yourself against a hurricane with a bus ticket. —Anthony Daniels # Posted by The Rat @ 12:01 PM Tuesday, October 22, 2002 ( 10:57 PM ) The Rat It's true that the aura of purity that once surrounded Miss Americas has been fading of late. But your crusade to distribute condoms to students has knocked Miss America off her pedestal for good. Maybe I'm being too hard on you. But I think the honor of all Miss Americas is at stake. Of course, I come from an era when condoms were rubbers, marijuana smokes were reefers, no one had AIDS, and those things were not discussed... I also come from an era when we had a name for girls who hand out condoms, and it wasn't Miss America. —letter to Miss America 1998 Kate Shindle from Miss America 1944 Venus Ramey, New York Post, Dec. 21, 1997 # Posted by The Rat @ 10:57 PM ( 10:35 PM ) The Rat HAPPY BIRTHDAY to überbabe Catherine Deneuve. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:35 PM ( 9:37 PM ) The Rat GREAT PHOTO. This is pretty good too. # Posted by The Rat @ 9:37 PM Monday, October 21, 2002 ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat DON'T TRY AND TELL ME YOU DON'T NEED Viking kittens. Link via Shamed. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM ( 12:21 PM ) The Rat Unfortunately, the original efforts of the Reverend Henry Brunton, transferred by the inscrutable ways of Providence from Sierra Leone to the Caucasus in the early 1800s, had not met with all the success they deserved. His fine Tartar-Turkish New Testament, printed in his own press in three thousand copies, and painstakingly translated by him, was used by Tartars and Kabardins merely as a binding for their own Korans, its sacred inside text being carelessly thrown away. Children, ransomed at great expense from their wretched Moslem parents to be brought up in the ways of the Lord, ran back to their parents. And the Mullahs and chiefs of the Tartars used the sophisticated argument that God gave each people their own way of communicating with Him and that that of the Koran suited them admirably. Poor Mr Brunton had died of melancholy, so it was reported, despite the 'relief of liberal potations.' But the food was good there, the German Fraüleins were pretty, a relief from savage-eyed Moslem girls, and it was a novelty. —Laurence Kelly, Lermontov: Tragedy in the Caucasus # Posted by The Rat @ 12:21 PM Friday, October 18, 2002 ( 2:02 PM ) The Rat BIKE WHILE YOU WORK. I bet more of us would if it would get us anywhere. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:02 PM ( 1:59 PM ) The Rat CLINTON TO BE INDUCTED into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. And Monica has a new boyfriend. Who says there's no such things as happy endings? # Posted by The Rat @ 1:59 PM ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat LIKE YOU NEEDED A REASON. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM ( 11:38 AM ) The Rat AUTISM ON THE RISE in California. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:38 AM ( 10:54 AM ) The Rat A LIST of companies that support Planned Parenthood. More info on pro-life boycotts here. Links via Eve. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:54 AM Thursday, October 17, 2002 ( 6:23 PM ) The Rat THE FIFTH ANNUAL FALCONRY EXTRAVAGANZA will be held this Saturday at 1 p.m. on the Great Lawn (Central Park at 80th St.). "Witness a dozen species of preying birds responding to their handler's commands—along with a detailed discussion of the ecology and biology behind the practice." Plus, it's free! Info: (800) 201-PARK. # Posted by The Rat @ 6:23 PM ( 1:08 PM ) The Rat SAN DIEGO STATE RESEARCHERS believe they may have found a source of teenage angst. Also, read about the physics of stone-skipping. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:08 PM ( 12:48 PM ) The Rat A NEW WALLACE AND GROMIT FILM! # Posted by The Rat @ 12:48 PM ( 12:05 PM ) The Rat PORN-FLICK TITLE SPOTTED BY THE NEW YORK PRESS: "Weapons of Ass Destruction." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:05 PM ( 12:04 PM ) The Rat First he fell in love with her face, then with her hands, then with her arms, which he saw bared in a classical role, and one day he loved her through and through. —"Fallen," Thos. Mann # Posted by The Rat @ 12:04 PM Wednesday, October 16, 2002 ( 5:49 PM ) The Rat DON'T MISS this week's horoscopes. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:49 PM ( 5:13 PM ) The Rat SHAMED, on my observing that this reads like an Onion article: "Yeah, especially the photo." # Posted by The Rat @ 5:13 PM ( 12:31 PM ) The Rat "HIGH ON BETEL NUTS..." For the gentleman who last night complained about my failure to link to any photographs of Taiwan's "betel-nut girls"*: click here, here, here (caption: "Male drivers are often so distracted by the betel nut vendors they lose control of their vehicles"), here, or here. Then click here for a marvelous headline. *I don't recall ever seeing betel-nut vendors—jailbait or otherwise—but according to that last link the phenomenon has only been widespread since 1996. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:31 PM ( 12:04 PM ) The Rat Only [when he died] did they find out, with regret, that the Public Prosecutor had had a soul, although out of modesty he had never flaunted it. —Gogol # Posted by The Rat @ 12:04 PM Tuesday, October 15, 2002 ( 4:57 PM ) The Rat MALE FERTILITY DECLINES AFTER 35. Not entirely a surprise—older fathers were last year found to sire children with higher rates of schizophrenia—but still worth a browse. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:57 PM ( 4:15 PM ) The Rat "WHEN CARY WALKED INTO A ROOM, NOT ONLY DID THE WOMEN PRIMP, THE MEN STRAIGHTENED THEIR TIES." Straighten your tie—Cary Grant now has his own postage stamp. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:15 PM ( 3:51 PM ) The Rat LASSIE: EMBLEM OF WESTERN DECADENCE. Iranian cleric Hojatolislam Hassani in the Etemad newspaper: "I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs—together with their long-legged owners... In our country there is freedom of speech, but not freedom for corruption." # Posted by The Rat @ 3:51 PM ( 1:47 PM ) The Rat HEADLINE OF THE DAY, WINNER. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:47 PM ( 1:41 PM ) The Rat TODAY MARKS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of the first James Bond film, Dr. No. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:41 PM Friday, October 11, 2002 ( 3:56 PM ) The Rat WORLD'S LARGEST ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:56 PM ( 3:20 PM ) The Rat DISSENSION in the Nobel committee ranks. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:20 PM ( 3:15 PM ) The Rat PHOTOS of Taiwan. I should have linked to this yesterday, but I'd have had to be organized to have thought of that. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:15 PM ( 2:27 PM ) The Rat AN EVIL PETTING ZOO? # Posted by The Rat @ 2:27 PM ( 2:24 PM ) The Rat TAPIR-RIFIC! # Posted by The Rat @ 2:24 PM ( 1:51 PM ) The Rat IF BY "DIVORCE PATTERNS" YOU MEAN, "DUMPING THE MIDDLE-AGED HAG FOR A YOUNGER WOMAN." In the United States, two-thirds of men aged 70 or older have a companion who is a potential sex partner, while less than one-third of women do because of women's longer life spans and divorce patterns. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:51 PM ( 12:32 PM ) The Rat MEANWHILE, A NEW ZEALAND COURT puzzles over whether there should be an age requirement for individuals appearing in pornographic films—being out of gestation, for instance. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:32 PM ( 12:26 PM ) The Rat "If he gets some clothes he'll go away, and he's the only man I've ever loved!" —Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby # Posted by The Rat @ 12:26 PM Thursday, October 10, 2002 ( 5:07 PM ) The Rat THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT THAT DOESN'T HAVE A GULAG celebrates its 91st birthday today. The one that does, turned 53 on October 1. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:07 PM ( 12:40 PM ) The Rat BOO, HISS! Imre Kertesz, and not my hero Philip Roth, has won the 2002 Nobel in literature. Oh well, there's hope for the world yet. Consider the sport of extreme ironing. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:40 PM ( 12:21 PM ) The Rat GO AHEAD. Write your own caption. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:21 PM ( 12:19 PM ) The Rat ONLY 49 DAYS TILL THANKSGIVING! Mmm, cranberries. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:19 PM ( 12:12 PM ) The Rat ASSUMING AN HONORABLE PLACE beside bats, Ayn Rand, and Malcolm X, Audrey Hepburn now has her own postage stamp. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:12 PM ( 11:36 AM ) The Rat STATE DEPARTMENT SUCKITUDE. "At his daily press briefing yesterday, [Richard] Boucher dismissed [Joel Mowbray's] investigative report—which is National Review's October 28 issue's cover story (on newsstands Friday)—as 'Monday morning quarterback[ing].' He didn't dispute any of the facts unearthed—including that terrorists had not even completely filled out their application forms." # Posted by The Rat @ 11:36 AM ( 11:29 AM ) The Rat AWESOME. Burglar uses mower as getaway car. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:29 AM ( 11:25 AM ) The Rat So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found; Now proud as an enjoyer and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure, Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure; Sometime all full with feasting on your sight And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. —Sonnet LXXV # Posted by The Rat @ 11:25 AM Wednesday, October 09, 2002 ( 6:08 PM ) The Rat WIPE YOUR HEINE-Y. German company introduces toilet paper printed with out-of-copyright novels and stories. "A new form of literary criticism," our Literary Ed. commented absent-mindedly when I told him about it. # Posted by The Rat @ 6:08 PM ( 5:56 PM ) The Rat HOORAY! # Posted by The Rat @ 5:56 PM ( 5:28 PM ) The Rat "ONE TERRORIST LISTED HIS U.S. DESTINATION AS SIMPLY 'NO.'" Don't miss Joel Mowbray's exposé of how at least 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers should have been denied visas under then-existing law. This is an abridged version of a piece that will be on newsstands Monday (National Review, issue date Oct. 28, 2002). # Posted by The Rat @ 5:28 PM ( 4:42 PM ) The Rat WHATSBETTER for grown-ups. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:42 PM ( 1:29 PM ) The Rat PAGE O' NORMISMS. Via Shamed, who's too busy to blog these days. (Lame!) Among them: "What's new, Normie?" "Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach and they're demanding beer." "How's life treating you, Norm?" "Like it caught me sleeping with its wife." "Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson?" "No, I'd like a dead cat in a glass." "What's the story, Norm?" "Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy meets another beer." And of course: "Women. Can't live with 'em... pass the beer nuts." # Posted by The Rat @ 1:29 PM Tuesday, October 08, 2002 ( 1:54 PM ) The Rat SHAKESPEAREAN INSULT GENERATOR. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:54 PM ( 1:54 PM ) The Rat I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine. —As You Like It # Posted by The Rat @ 1:54 PM Monday, October 07, 2002 ( 6:08 PM ) The Rat I HEREBY PLEDGE to remain drunk for an entire week* if my favorite living writer** really wins this year's Nobel prize. Not that the prize itself means anything—I mean, give me a break—but they have picked a few real talents over the years, for instance, this guy, and this guy, and this guy. *not to imply that I wouldn't have anyway **The Human Stain (mentioned in the shuf.com link above) sucked, don't read it. If you have to read one of the "American trilogy" books, go for this one. Better yet, skip that too and read this, this, or this. # Posted by The Rat @ 6:08 PM ( 9:29 AM ) The Rat MEANWHILE, IN JAPAN. # Posted by The Rat @ 9:29 AM Thursday, October 03, 2002 ( 11:58 AM ) The Rat A PHOTO to make you proud to be an American. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:58 AM ( 11:57 AM ) The Rat NEARLY AS MANY PEOPLE die by their own hand as are killed by war and homicide combined, according to a WHO report released yesterday. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:57 AM ( 11:24 AM ) The Rat FIND YOUR SPOT. An interesting site, via Eve, that purports to match you with the parts of the country that best suit your tastes and requirements. Answering the questions is likely to make you feel irrationally loyal to/defensive about wherever you're living now, so caveat emptor. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:24 AM Wednesday, October 02, 2002 ( 6:54 PM ) The Rat GOGOL'S "NOSE" MISSING, again, in St. Petersburg. This is beyond cool. Click here for the text of Gogol's story. "After all, bread is something baked, and a nose is something altogether different. I can’t make it out at all...” # Posted by The Rat @ 6:54 PM ( 6:49 PM ) The Rat LOOKING FOR "THE PERFECT WOMAN" in New Zealand. Gotta love that last requirement. # Posted by The Rat @ 6:49 PM ( 2:43 PM ) The Rat ACTUALLY, this one is even funnier. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:43 PM ( 1:36 PM ) The Rat OKAY, SO MCSWEENEY'S ISN'T ALWAYS LAME. Click here for "Local TV Weatherman or Porn Actor?" Link via Eve. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:36 PM ( 10:41 AM ) The Rat THE SMART-ASS GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY. They could have put more effort into Little Italy, but several of the others are dead on. Courtesy of a friend in Chicago, who's just jealous. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:41 AM Tuesday, October 01, 2002 ( 1:19 PM ) The Rat THE LEONARD NIMOY SHOULD EAT MORE SALSA FOUNDATION. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:19 PM ( 10:52 AM ) The Rat "It turns out she's Lutheran Church of America and I'm Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod. What if we had children? We'd have half-breeds!" —Cheers # Posted by The Rat @ 10:52 AM |
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