This

is disgusting

Oh, get over it

Tea baggers need to learn that their protests, name, and general demeanor are just silly.

And it's an effing comic book!

My favorite quote: "Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips told Yahoo! News that it "sounds less like a genuine 'we're sorry' than it does a 'we're sorry we got caught' statement."

Honestly, what does he expect them to do? I worry about the future of America (truly, I am not being hyperbolic) when this kind of crap goes on.

Fashion Report: Baghdad

So, the style this year is digital grey patterns.

Just kidding. Contractor fashion is a realm in and of itself, but civilian, so there are some personal touches which the soldiers here (obviously) can't reflect.

First - men's fashion hasn't really changed. Cargo pants or khakis and a polo shirt is the outfit of choice. Usually with brown combat boots or sometimes hiking boots (most seem to prefer the combat boot style to reflect their "authenticity"). Button up shirts are also acceptable, but much less common than the polo.

Women: although the khaki/polo combo can be seen, I have recently encountered a surge in khakis with a flannel button-up over a t-shirt of some sort. Originally I noticed this style predominantly on KBR employees, who form their own little subculture here on Victory Base, but recently the style has spread to the DOD contractors as well, so I have to assume it reflects some ethereal trend in the female subconscious here.

It is not surprising, of course, as we've had a few years of 80s fashion, so the resurgence of 90's fashion (read: grunge) is the next logical step. And everyone's already wearing the boots...

In looking up grunge, I found this awesome timeline for people who fell in the cracks between major music movements.

The Palin

So, I just read an interesting piece on Slate about Palin's... well, insanity and complete unfitness for office. (It's by Robert Kaplan, who I have always had tremendous respect for).

He compares Palin to Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes.

However, I think a more up-to-date analogy would be Bob Roberts...

I find it interesting how many "bad" pictures there have been of her at the recent tea Party event. And I'm waiting for the conservative outcry about it. However, of them all, I think I like this picture the best...

The Unit, part 2

get your head out of the gutter.

Well, I finished watching the series (it's amazing how fast something goes when you watch one episode a night before going to bed). Overall, I thought it was well done, aside from some weirdness in the middle which I think is what ended up getting the show cancelled in the long run. I get the feeling the writers were trying to capture some of the Lost/Alias weird metaphysical angle, but they failed utterly. First was the introduction of a psychic, which was actually kinda cool, since her character was greeted by "aren't you one of those people that studied people staring at goats?". Nice reference.

However, rather than play with that, somewhere the writers got even weirder, and had an episode centered around the Spear of Longinus, and the next episode was some weird acid trip by one of the main characters. Combined, I think it was these two episodes which just killed it. The show was already suffering from a poor attempt to move from an episodic to a story-arc season, and the clunkiness of that poor execution combined with the insanity of mystical monks and swordfighting was the deathblow. It was kind of a shame, I think there was one more season in it, if nothing else than just to resolve a few of the smaller things floating in the background (rich people conspiracy theories that overlaid most of the show I would have liked to have seen completed).

I think, like many things, one of the big problems was the inability of the founder to step away from the project. Again, I like Mamet, but he is absolutely not suited to directing or writing for television.

Mamet hanger on count for The Unit:

Rebecca Pidgeon
Ricki Jay
Max Martini (iffy, but he was in Redbelt)
William Macy
Bai Ling


A welcome recurring role from Summer Glau, though, didn't even know she was in the show (and in a bikini...)

Urban Dictionary

I swear people just sit around trying to invent words that refer to nasty things.

I don't know what's more distressing

about this article:

1) that they had to use 12 year olds to study teenager sexuality

2) or that the "successful" group of abstinence-only instructees (12 year olds) still had a 33% sexual activity rate.

3) or, of course, that somehow this is going to get twisted into some kind of "evidence" for religious abstinence only programs...