It's only going to get worse before it gets better

The BBC reports (it's ODDLY absent from American media):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7463034.stm

The bodies of four opposition activists have been found near the Zimbabwe capital, after being abducted, the Movement for Democratic Change says.
An MDC spokesman accused supporters of President Robert Mugabe of being behind the deaths, ahead of next week's poll.

The body of Harare's recently elected opposition mayor's wife has also reportedly been found, badly burnt.

Tanzania, current chair of the African Union, says there is every sign the election will not be free and fair.

Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said he and his counterparts from Angola and Swaziland would be appealing to their own presidents to take urgent action "so that they do something urgently so that we can save Zimbabwe".

Deep Thought

Girls can smell fear, and it does not turn them on.  Even if you have a foreign accent.

Summize

A bit of pure genius passed on to me by @laurennmcc:

I have to admit - I am enjoying the Twitter Battle of House Members: http://tinyurl.com/3lou5y

RED

Apparently someone has bought the rights to make a movie out of RED, an incredible book by Warren Ellis about a spook who's trying to leave the business, and trying to find some salvation after all that he's done.  It's rivetting and the artwork is incredible (just look at the cover at the link).  

Congratulations, Warren!

RED Sold To Summit

Excuse me.

Noice

Let's hear them values again, buddy.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries. [...]

But [diminutive crazy person] Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

via PMI. You'll notice that the article is from the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. You'll also notice that this won't be mentioned in the American press once this election season, I'll put money on it.

Withdrawal

Lawrence Korb in the American Conservative:

In 1967, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley told President Lyndon Johnson that he needed to remove the 500,000 U.S. troops then involved in Vietnam’s civil war. When Johnson responded by asking how he could do that, Daley replied, “Put them on a [expletive deleted] plane and bring them home.”

Aside from offering that great nugget, Korb makes a great case for withdrawal from Iraq and completely shuts down the usual three arguments against it, that "it cannot be done quickly; the situation will go to hell in a hand-basket when we leave; and our military commanders will oppose it."

Hits it right out of the park. Goes good with Sunday coffee.

Chris Lamb

On the Wii Fit:

Game designers always talk about wanting to create games that make the player cry, but only Nintendo could come up with one capable of being seriously depressing.

i has the answer, let me show you it

I think this is possibly what is wrong with our country:



Seriously? If you click that thing, I swear to fucking God, the terrorists will win.

After The Fact

Some after-the-facts:

1. Service at Enid's in Greenpoint is terrible. I'm always really polite to wait-staff, and my friends are polite, too. None of us was particularly difficult customers, we ordered some food and some drinks, and couldn't quite understand the snootiness. I think we didn't look cool enough to merit decent treatment. This was last Saturday eve, before our gig at Matchless. The food is mad over-priced to boot. I see no reason to ever go there again (although I do want their collared greens recipe).

2. Sounds of the City, the VillageVoice music blog, would be way more useful/interesting if they posted news about sweet concerts when they're announced, and not the day of when tickets are sold out.... I need to try a little harder, and keep my ear to the ground, but I don't ever write posts about things you can't go see. They do it all the time. "CHECK ME OUT, YO!"

And that's my complaining for the day. Go to themeltdowns.com for a more enriching blog post.

Florida and Michigan

I don't think they should count, for this reason. But apparently arbitrary decisions made out of appeasement and wrangling have won the day.

I'm ready for Hillary to step aside. Anybody else?