"Dewey, You Fool! Your Decimal System Has Played Right Into My Hands! Ha Ha Ha Ha!"

Courtesy of Shakespeare's Sister, we're proud to reveal our own entry in the grand filing system of the blogosphere.

Make your own here.

Smackdown

Over at Crooks & Liars, you'll have the pleasure of watching Sen. Chuck Hagel -- the last sane Republican, apparently -- smack the sanctimonius taste right out of Joe Lieberman's mouth.

After a week in which Holy Joe emerged as the poster boy for escalation in Iraq *and* backtracked away from the investigation of Bush's bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina, it was nice to see him given a much deserved wedgie on national television.

In light of the clear difference of opinion between these two senators, I'd like to propose a hostage exchange with our Republican counterparts. We'll give you Lieberman in exchange for Hagel. Clearly, the insane one belongs on your circle, and the clear-eyed guy has a seat waiting here in the Reality Based Community. Deal?

At least I ain't a chicken

The video Kung Fu Monkey put up under the title "George Bush is Leeroy Jenkins" gets my five-star must-see rating.

"There's a New Sheriff in Town ..."

... and his name is Representative Barney Frank.

Check out the video at Crooks & Liars linked above to watch him kick Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Kindergarten) up and down the aisles of the House chamber.

If you're not familiar with McHenry, you should first check out this appearance on CNN where he accuses Democrats of engineering the whole Mark Foley scandal as an electoral gambit. Also, Tom DeLay has anointed him "the next Tom DeLay." That should tell you all you need to know.

This smackdown couldn't have happened to a bigger douchebag.

The Onion

I keep thinking the Bush administration is so far gone they're beyond satire, but the brave souls at the Onion keep proving me wrong.

WASHINGTON, DC—The recent departure of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary Of Defense has reportedly left his former staff noticeably tense and preoccupied in anticipation of the sweeping changes his successor is likely to bring. "At first I didn't care what the new guy [Robert Gates] had in mind, just so long as punch-in was still noon, shoes remained optional, and we were given plenty of time to keep up with our multiplayer online gaming," said Assistant To The Secretary Of Defense For Nuclear And Chemical & Biological Defense Programs Dale Klein, adding that he hoped Gates would not break the May 12-to-Oct. 1-summer-vacation tradition. "First thing today, though, I walk in and someone hands me a briefing on joint-transformational delivery-system initiatives that they just absolutely need me to read right away. Not a good sign." Several staffers also expressed concern that a recent memo urging them to construct a viable exit strategy for American military personnel in Iraq could affect their regular Margarita Mondays.

Well played, folks. Well played.

"Homer, Would You Like to Present Your Rebuttal?"

Courtesy of TBogg, I'm happy to bring you Homer J. Simpson's rebuttal to the Decider's recent speech. Enjoy.

Friday Random Ten

This week's album cover ... uh ... This week ....

Yeah, I've got nothing.

In any case, I'm pretty sure the deep sadness of this album cover speaks for itself, like one of those tacky oil paintings of a depressed clown or an extended commentary by retarded manchild John Madden. It's just wrong.

Maybe the Friday Random Ten can help ease the pain. You all should know the drill by now -- set your computerized, electronic music box to random and give us the first ten songs that show up. If you damn well feel like it, conduct a Coolness Self-Audit as well, rating the songs on a scale from a craptacular Welkian zero to a perfect Funkadelician ten.

Here's mine:

1. Lush, "Sweetness and Light" -- If there were ever a perfectly apt band name and song title, this is it. Lush stood at the forefront of the shoegazer movement, and this is a strummy, fuzzy little number. A little too ethereal at times, but it certainly gets the job done. 7/10

2. Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy, "Daniel" -- Yes, the Elton John song. Covered here by Tortoise and one of the many alter egos of alternafolk hero Will Oldham. I never really cared for the original, but this is just edgy and dark enough to make it work beautifully. 9/10

3. Ramasutra, "Marder" -- Who doesn't love South Asian electronica? Me, apparently. 5/10

4. Tapes 'n' Tapes, "Insistor" -- T'n'T is one of those music blog favorites that I've never really understood. (See also, "The National," "Of Montreal," and "The Arctic Monkeys.") Actually, T'n'T doesn't really belong on that list, as I merely think they're good -- and this song is good -- just not as mindblowingly, pantsshittingly great as the hip bloggers all tell me. Those other bands I mentioned can burn in hell. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Of Montreal. 6/10

5. Jurassic 5, "If You Only Knew" -- I love this group, but this is definitely the weak link on Power in Numbers. Eh. 5/10

6. Willie Eason, "Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Poor Man's Friend" -- A six-minute blues tribute to the death and legacy of FDR. It's a little plodding at times, especially the blow-by-blow description of his passing, but the general sentiment is nice. Sort of a "George W. Bush Doesn't Like Black People" of an earlier generation. Except it's, you know, favorable. 4/10

7. Modest Mouse, "Gravity Rides Everything" -- One of my all-time favorites. This song just doesn't get old. Not even the Volkswagen ad took the shine of this one. 10/10

8. Silversun Pickups, "Lazy Eye" -- I stumbled across this band only recently, thanks to multiple recommendations -- including a TBogg post that features the video for this very song. If you miss the heyday of the Smashing Pumpkins, you should definitely check this one out. The album version is better than the single used at TBogg's, because it has a nicely warped synthesizer interlude. 8/10

9. Gloria Jones, "Tainted Love" -- This is the original, '60s soul version of a song that Soft Cell would turn into their one-hit wonder in the '80s. It blows that nancy-boy, synthesized piece of shit right out of the water. 9/10

10. Neil Young, "One of These Days" -- I picked this song up after watching the imminently enjoyable DVD of Heart of Gold. Young's entering the last years of his career, but he's doing it with a lot of style and class. This is a nice, sweet, reflective ballad. If you like that kind of crap. 7/10

I stumbled pretty badly there in the middle, but a nice string of songs at the end helped bring me back up to a 7.0 average. I did it by a whisker, but I finally passed Coolness 101! Goodbye, G.E.D.!

Feel free to drop your own snark about my choices in the comments below or, better yet, give us your own FRT.

Go West

Courtesy of Kos, I'm pleased to hear that the Democrats will hold their 2008 convention in Denver.

Hotline has the scoop:

Colorado is a marquee states for Democrats, who have, in the past two years, gobbled up the governor's mansion, control of the state legislature, and two congressional seats.

But Denver's bid was shot through with holes from the start. The first technical submission was greeted with dismay by party regulars; revised bids were better. Labor unions threatened to balk unless Denver began to unionize its hotels; others wanted to extract compromises from the DNC and the state about union participation. The DNC worried about whether Denver could raise the $50 million necessary to stage the marquee event for the '08 Dem nominee. Promises by out of state governors to raise millions were greeted skeptically.

Kos details the ways in which the problems were addressed, but the upshot is that the Democrats under Dean have made a smart choice. The West and Southwest are and will continue to be the major growth region for the party, and anything we can do to make ourselves better known there is a good move.

Plus, as someone who's dreading the prospect of Hillary Clinton as the nominee -- not just because she's a DLC centrist, but because I'd love to break the Bush-Clinton-Bush dynastic cycle -- holding the convention in someplace other than New York City will diminish her campaign at least a little bit.

Caption Contest

With the Decider getting ready to sell an unconvinced nation on his plans for Operation: Double Down, I thought this image I stole from Norbizness would be fitting for a caption contest.

If you need inspiration, check out the latest over at TCR. Apparently, a key motivation for the bold, stupid direction of President Take My Ball and Go Home is ... spite.

Christ, I wish I were kidding.

Have at him!

Meme! I'm Gonna Live Forever!

I regret to inform our three regular readers that I have been targeted by the latest meme flowing through these here internet tubes. It's hard to believe that anything can get through these days, what with all the porn and pornlike men's aerobic championship videos, but here we are.

This latest meme is actually an interesting one, focused on questions about art and culture and all that shit. Here we go:

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies: Personally, I think this question is a little flawed. I don't really go around giving away copies of books, and if I did, I'd make a career out of it by working for those Gideon people, sneaking into hotel rooms and planting Bibles in nightstands.

But there are books I've loaned out to a few friends. (Take that, you stupid library!) Chief among these would be David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, which is probably the funniest thing I've ever read, and Dan Savage's Skipping Toward Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America, which is the funniest socially-critical thing I've ever read.

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music: This is an interesting one and I could probably answer it a million ways.

As the regular contestants on our Friday Random Ten will attest, I have a serious soft spot for lesser-known R&B, funk, and soul songs that have gained greater fame as sampled beats in hiphop songs. It's hard to pinpoint where this obsession came from, but one of the earliest finds was a terrific scorching bit of organ-driven jazz called "Mystic Brew" by Ronnie Foster. It's a great song on its own, but what really sold me was that finding it finally answered the question of where the backing music for Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation" came from. Ever since, I've developed a subconscious habit of keeping an ear out for where rhythms and beats have surfaced in later songs, and vice versa.

3. Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue: This is another hard one, seeing how I'm a film junkie. I could go with any of a number of classic films that I can, and have, watched over and over. They're mostly comedies, like Raising Arizona, Blazing Saddles, The Big Lebowski, and Stripes, with a couple epic westerns in the mix, like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and The Magnificent Seven.

But based on empirical studies, I'd have to give the nod to GoodFellas. It seems I am physically incapable of turning this movie off whenever I stumble upon it on cable. Doesn't matter what part of the movie I come in on, I generally toss the remote across the couch and let it roll. Scorcese is a genius, regardless of what the Oscar clowns may say, and this is his masterpiece. I still can't believe that Kevin Crapner's Dances with Cliches won Best Picture that year instead of this. Boooooo!

4. Name a performer for whom you suspend of all disbelief: This one's easy. Philip Seymour Hoffman.

No matter what he plays -- whether it be an uptight nerd (Big Lebowski, 25th Hour) or a comatosely cool slacker (Almost Famous, Along Came Polly); a pompous asshole (Scent of a Woman, The Talented Mr. Ripley) or a meek loser (Boogie Nights) -- I tend to buy it completely. (In fact, looking over those titles, I'm struck by the fact that I only really liked a few of those films, but loved his acting in every one.) My God, he's a man who's been known for playing big, loud, bearish men and the second I saw him in Capote as a diminutive, dainty socialite, I was gone.

The lovely and talented Malibu Stacy and I once saw him play the loser brother in a production of Sam Shepherd's "True West," where he and John C. Reilly (another potential answer here) were trading the leading roles each night. He nailed it perfectly. My only regret was that we couldn't get tickets to see them switch the tables and see him work the uptight brother for a while.

5. Name a work of art you'd like to live with: Another easy one, as there's a single print that appears in both my home and office: Jasper Johns' "Map" (1961).

I'm a sucker for Pop Art in general and Johns' work in particular. I couldn't tell you why this one is my favorite, but at some subconscious level, it's always seemed to sum up a vibrant, liberal vision of American patriotism to me. It has energy, chaos, diversity and passion. And it's my country, dammit, no matter how many miniature American flags the Republican Party spews out for the dittoheads.

Plus, it's got all them pretty colors in it what I like.

6. Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life: As an ex-pat Southerner living in the North, I've always had a soft spot for Southern fiction. It always seems to breathe life into a past that's half-forgotten even when you live in the region. I'll go with Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, as it never lets me forget the good and bad of the South, all rolled into one.

7. Name a punch line that always makes you laugh: I'll follow Mike's lead here and go with a classic bit of Woody Allen -- when Annie Hall parks her car a full yard off the street, and Allen's character says reassuringly, "No, no. It's OK. We can walk to the curb from here." Never fails to make me laugh.

Alright, now for the hardest part -- passing this along. I always hate doing this, because it feels vaguely like sending along a chain letter. A chain letter that requires homework. But these are some interesting questions and I'm genuinely curious how a pack of cultured sophisticates like Norbizness, Travis G., and Mr. Furious answer them.

Tag, fuckers. You're it.

"I Like My Beer Cold, My TV Loud, and My Homosexuals Faa-laaaaaming"

Over at the With Leather, best sports blog named after a Chris Berman pickup line, I stumbled across a YouTube video so surreal, so hilarious, and so disturbing that I've decided I can't even steal it for our place. You'll just have to go there yourself and check it out.

With Leather titles it "The Gayest Thing You'll See All Day," but I bet this one holds the title all year long.

Least. President. Ever.

In a famous zinger, author and biographer Irving Stone once noted, "'Calvin Coolidge believed the least government was the best government; he aspired to become the least president the country had ever had; he attained that desire."

Well, look out, Zombie Coolidge, because George W. Bush is giving you a run for the money. More and more, it's looking like Dubya might wind up winning not just the title of Worst President Ever, but Least President Ever too. Craig Crawford at Congressional Quarterly makes the case:

With a new Congress that’s run by Democrats, a restive public that’s pining for change and a government in Iraq that’s descending into chaos, the way forward in Washington might not include George W. Bush.

Despite the power he has to ramp up his use of the veto, and his tenacious hold on his powers as commander in chief, Bush faces a tough challenge to remain relevant in the waning 24 months of his presidency. Indeed, if not for his war-making clout, this president might be the lamest lame duck ever.

There was something almost sad about Bush putting his own name on an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal that laid out his legislative agenda on the eve of the formal Democratic takeover of Capitol Hill. Clearly gone are the days when Vice President Dick Cheney could use a private meeting with Republican lawmakers to set the congressional priorities list. Now, it seems, the president is positioning himself as just another spectator on the outskirts of power — firing off letters to the editor. Perhaps he should start his own blog.

Daaaaaaamn.

While I'm wary about writing off the president just yet -- as many did with Clinton after the 1994 midterms, only to eat crow later on -- I am looking forward to many months of The Decider stamping his feet like a spoiled yuppie kid and demanding that everyone do as he says.

(Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the link.)

Friday Random Ten

I know, I know. It's the first week of January, so what am I doing posting yet another Christmas album cover?

Well, to be honest, I don't have much of a justification. Sure, I could chalk it up to post-traumatic stress disorder from the long and bloody War on Christmas, or the fact that our tree will likely remain up until mid-March. But I think I'll just let the awesomeness of this album cover make the case for me.

First of all, there's the simple fact that it's a Six Million Dollar Man Christmas album. (I guess we now know how Santa knows when you've been sleeping, etc. -- bionic vision, my friends.) But get a load of the titles of his four adventures. "Christmas Lights" sounds pretty boring, but the other three have real potential. "The Toymaker" could be a showdown with Batman's old nemesis, while "The Kris Kringle Caper" sounds like a precursor to Bad Santa. But the real winner here is "The Elves' Revolt." I have an image of Herbie the Would-Be Dentist seizing power in the workshop, only to be removed in a reindeer commando raid. Chilling, chilling stuff.

Anyway, the lingering presence of Steve Austin, Secret Santa, can only mean that it's time once again for the Friday Random Ten. You know the drill -- set the iPod to random and forthrightly admit the first ten songs that show up. Here's mine:

1. The Chemical Brothers, "Galvanize" -- Whether you know it or not, you've already heard this song a trillion times. It's a catchy song that's being used in the Budweiser ads currently airing on network TV every three minutes. (That's none other than Mos Def instructing you that there's a party over here, so you might as well be here, where the people care ... so ... don't .. hold ... back!) Even though it's been beaten to death by our corporate overlords, it's still a solid tune. 7/10

2. The Beatnuts, "Who You're Fuckin' With" -- It's only 50 seconds long, but this tune has a hook that's catchy as hell. I just wished they'd developed it into a full-length song. 6/10

3. RJD2, "Through the Walls" -- I really, really like the Since We Last Spoke album, but this song is the rare exception. Its guitar riffs and breathy vocals always remind me of Rick Springfield singing "Jesse's Girl." Sad, but true. 5/10

4. Spider Harrison, "Beautiful Day" -- This is an incredibly funky R&B number, with some nice guitar and organ hooks and soulful vocals. I came across this tune through a great collection, The Funky 16 Corners. If you're looking for lesser-known soul strutters, this is the place. 7/10

5. The Church, "Under the Milky Way" -- Hey, remember high school? 6/10

6. The O'Jays, "Love Train" -- Well, this makes for two separate beer commerical anthems in a single FRT. (Assuming we can count Coors Light as "beer." I tend to lump that weak brand in with all the other mildly minerally-enhanced water products, like Vitamin Water or Fresca.) Unlike the Budweiser ad, this one's so annoying I'm going to hold it against the O'Jays. Sorry, boys, but that's the price you pay for hitching your wagon to the Coors Empire. 5/10

7. Band of Horses, "The Great Salt Lake" -- I didn't have the time or sobriety to do one of those "Best of 2006" lists that make up most of the non-porn traffic on the internets these days, but if I had been so inclined, Band of Horses would've made it there. It's solid, if occasionally listless, indie rock along the lines of the Shins and their ilk. 7/10

8. Dr. Octagon, "Trees" -- Dr. Octagon is one of the 38 personae of schizophrenic hiphop genius Kool Keith. This is a funky little number that seems to be channelling the musical sensibilities of electrofunk bands like Zapp or Laid Back for environmental ends. How many times have we seen that before? 8/10

9. Hank Williams, "Cold, Cold Heart" -- A classic tune from a country superstar. It's hard to believe that a genius like Hank Sr. was in any way related to a mouthbreathing sellout like Hank Jr., but apparently that's the case. So sad. 6/10

10. Danger Doom & Talib Kweli, "Old School" -- If you haven't discovered The Mouse and the Mask, the join collaboration of Danger Mouse and MF Doom, you've missed out on one of the most entertaining hiphop CDs of the past couple years. The songs aren't simply catchy, but they're liberally sprinkled with dialogue stolen from the shows on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Beautiful all around. 9/10

Alright, that gives me a 6.6 rating. While some people might relent in the face of consistently mediocre showings like I've had in the past few months here, I'm hoping that my musical lethargy is in its last throes. Hey, that attitude's working for the president, right?

As always, feel free to lambast me for my ratings above, or else drop your own Friday Random Ten in the comments below. May the power of Steve Austin be with you!

"Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Quit Sniffing Glue"

Some things never change. Like conservatives and their legal use of hard core, mind altering drugs. How about conservative judges who put in prison, the poor who sell drugs to support themselves? Surely, a Supreme Court Justice would stand firm against such a weak personality trait. Opps! AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI's file on former Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- made public more than a year after his death -- offers insight into hallucinations and other symptoms of withdrawal that Rehnquist suffered when he was taken off a prescription painkiller in 1981.

When Rehnquist checked into a hospital in 1981 for a week long stay, doctors stopped administering the drug, causing what a hospital spokesman at the time said was a "disturbance in mental clarity."

The FBI file, citing one of his physicians, said Rehnquist experienced withdrawal symptoms that included trying to escape the facility and discerning changes in the patterns on the hospital curtains. The justice also thought he heard voices outside his room discussing various plots against him.

The doctor said Placidyl is a highly toxic drug and that she could not understand why anyone would prescribe it, especially for long periods.

Prior to his hospitalization, Rehnquist occasionally slurred his speech in his questions to lawyers at Supreme Court arguments. Those problems ceased when he changed medications, the doctor said.

And by the way, the story also indicated that "an additional 207 pages were withheld under the federal disclosure law, and the FBI said an entire section of his file could not be found." I believe that is held under the "What Happens in Tijuana Stays in Tijuana Statute of 1953"

Fun Fact of the Day : During their hayday, on the street Pacidyl were known as "jelly-bellies".

The Spider Menace

Courtesy of TCR, I see that the Bush administration will have to contend with yet another terrorist-sympathizing, al-Qaeda-enabling, freedom-hugging civil liberties lover. His name? Spiderman.

It's only a matter of time before J. Jonah Jameson orders his Fox News minions to denounce him right away.

Justice Sunday

January is all about football gab. Who will win the Super Bowl? Will there be any good commercials this year? How drunk will I be by half time?

And then there's the predictions. Most people base it either on who they like or who they think has the best football team, as if either of these things matter. The real question is, who does God want to win? The winner always thanks him afterwards, so obviously God is calling the shots.

It's pretty hard to tell who God wants to win; I can't even tell if he meant for me to enjoy the wardrobe malfunction so much. Let's go by something obvious: the coachs' religion. From what I can tell from their bios, 11 coaches are Christian and one is Jewish. The Jewish one, Marty Schottenheimer, has been dubbed "the coach who can't win in the playoffs," which tells you all you need to know about God's views of Jewish football coaches. Of the Christians, we've got Catholics (Parcells, Mangini, Edwards, Belichick, and I think Coughlin), evangelicals (Holmgren, Dungy), Mormons (Billick, Reid), and Indeterminate (Payton, Smith).

Last year the two evangelicals lost in the playoffs to Bill Cowher, who is essentially godless (i.e., Protestant). In fact, 2006 was a pretty lousy year for evangelicals across the board, what with the elections taking a decidedly moderate turn and those Colorado preachers gaying it up with their meth buddies. I'm thinking God will throw the evangelicals a bone.

So, here's my call: the Colts beat the Seahawks for Super Bowl XXXetc.

You got a better system? Let's hear it.

Log Cabin Republicans

A commenter over at Dependable Renegade noted that President Dress-Up is well on his way to becoming a one-man version of the Village People. I think he's right.

So far, we've already had Bush the Cowboy, Bush the Construction Worker, Bush the Biker, Bush the Cop, and of course, Bush the Military Man.

The Decider has almost finished running the table, and only needs to work on a Bush the Indian costume. Be patient. It's only a matter of time.

Nostradumbass

Over at Glenn Greenwald's place, Anonymous Liberal has an amazing collection of incredibly wrong predictions from Bill Kristol over the past few years.

Why is this important? For this unprecedented track record of wrongness, Kristol is being rewarded with the plum position of a featured column in Time Magazine.

I guess all the Presidential Medals of Freedom had already been doled out to Tenet, Bremer and the other true American heroes.

Oversight

To help ring in the new year, the fine people at The Poor Man have posted a list of the top ten congressional investigations they're hoping to see from the new Democratic Congress.

The whole list is solid, though I could probably live without an in-depth investigation into their #9 choice. Probably.

Auld Lang Syne

The year that was, courtesy (okay, shamelessly plagiarized) by Harper's:

Thousands of people died in the Iraqi civil war, which was costing the United States $100,000 a minute. U.S. forces began to negotiate with Sunni insurgents, and the Pentagon, short of buglers who can play taps at military funerals, ordered 700 automated digital bugles. Oil companies announced record profits; President George W. Bush said that America is “addicted to oil” and also asked Congress to pass laws outlawing human/animal hybrids. Scientists in Taiwan bred three glowing pigs. Samuel Alito was confirmed to the Supreme Court, and a study found that Antonin Scalia is the funniest of the Supreme Court justices. Robert Grenier, director of the CIA counter-terrorism center, was fired for opposing “excessive” interrogation techniques like waterboarding, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot and severely injured a fellow hunter while aiming at quail. Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he warned of new attacks on the United States; he also called on his followers to travel to Sudan and fight against the U.N. forces in Darfur. Al Qaeda members were communicating via social networking website MySpace.com, and the Taliban established a “mini-state” in Peshawar. Iran announced that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched uranium; to celebrate, men in traditional dress danced with uranium samples. U.S. senators insisted that attacking Iran must remain an option. “I can drink beer out of my leg,” said Matthew Braddock, a 25-year-old National Guardsman who lost his left foot and nine inches of his left leg to a mine in northern Iraq. “How many people can do that?”

Ariel Sharon was still alive, and war erupted between Hezbollah and Israel. Authorities in the United Kingdom announced the discovery of a terrorist plot to blow up as many as ten passenger planes in the air. Riots over blasphemous cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad broke out in India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Thailand, the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, and Afghanistan. Yanni was arrested for allegedly hitting his girlfriend, and Keith Richards fell out of a coconut tree. Coretta Scott King, Gordon Parks, Octavia Butler, Stanislaw Lem, James Brown, Don Knotts, Syd Barrett, Betty Friedan, Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Slobodan Milosevic, Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, Kenneth Lay, Gerald Ford, and “Grandpa” Al Lewis died. The Massachusetts legislature voted to make health insurance mandatory for all state residents by July 2007, and a whistleblower accused AT&T of providing the National Security Agency with full access to customer phone calls and Internet usage records. Polls found that while only 36 percent of Americans worry a great deal about global warming, 90 percent were prepared to fight its effects by caulking. Twenty percent of U.S. teenagers admitted to huffing household products in order to get high. SAT scores in the United States showed the largest decline in 31 years, and after 15,000 tries a California scientist was able to teach starlings some grammar. At least 2.5 million American children were taking antipsychotic drugs; the same number of Kenyans were close to starvation. The United Nations said that 1,200 people were dying in Congo each day, and Zimbabwe faced an acute tampon shortage. At a zoo in the Netherlands three bears ate a monkey.

Even though Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death two days before the U.S. midterm elections, the Republican Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Hussein was later hanged. The Pentagon classified homosexuality as a mental defect akin to retardation, and Russian President Vladimir Putin kissed a young boy on the stomach. Kansas raised its minimum marriage age to 15. NASA said that there might be water on Saturn's moon Enceladus, as well as on Mars, and researchers discovered that the buried lakes of Antarctica are connected to one another by secret rivers. Dick Cheney was retaining fluids. Starbucks announced plans to add 28,000 new locations to its extant 12,000, and Chinese Wal-Mart workers unionized. Americans had nearly $800 billion in credit-card debt. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned. Researchers in Chicago verified that a quantum computer does not have to perform any calculations in order to arrive at results. In New York City a corpse flower bloomed, and construction began at Ground Zero. The human population reached 6.5 billion, and scientists found that new infectious diseases were emerging at a faster rate than they had in the past. “These are good times,” said a scientist, “for pathogens.”

So I don't come off as a complete pathogen, let me say all y'all should subscribe to this magazine. It's cheap -- $15 a year, and the Harper's Index alone is worth it.