Cobra's Shadow

Something tells me this website may not be up for much longer, so take a look while you can.

Radovan Karadžić: Homeopathic Pitch

A NY Times article with some background, in case you missed the story.

He was arrested on a bus near Belgrade. Oddly enough, the day before he was caught, I was talking to a friend who'd just been to the Balkans on business. He rattled off a couple of the (many) morbid jokes circulating in the region. Among them was this one:

Moyl gets on the bus in Belgrade. As the bus winds through town, he looks up and realizes that the bus driver looks mighty familiar.

He mulls it over for a bit, and then it suddenly dawns on him. The driver looks exactly like Radovan Karadžić.

"No way," he thinks to himself. "He couldn't possibly be out here in the open."

But the longer he stares at the driver, the more convinced he is that it must be Karadžić. So he walks up to the front of the bus.

"Excuse me," Moyl says to the driver, "but... are you Radovan Karadžić?"

"Yes, I am," replies the driver.

"And yet here you are," exclaims Moyl, shaking his head from side to side in astonishment. "Unbelievable. Just... unbelievable."

"And who are you?" Karadžić asks.

"My name's Moyl. I'm from Srebrenica....."

"Yet here you are," mutters Karadžić. "Unbelievable."

My parents, knowing I'm always on the lookout for my next journal, just sent me this notebook. Snazzy, right?



Then I saw this.



Right. I'm pretty sure they're waiting by the phone right now for me to call them and say that I've scrubbed my hands raw.

I do like the smell, though. It's kind of a homey fermented-feces-and-plantain-leaves scent, pungent, with just a hint of cloves.

All right, so Matt voted that I write Bogdanov a campaign song, but it pretty quickly morphed into a lounge number. I sang myself hoarse rehearsing to get the balance right, then thought, "screw it, this is time sensitive!" I don't have a convenient excuse for the piano.

In honor of today's Russian presidential election, I give you: "Bogdanov (Government Chooses You!)"



The lyrics:

(1)
You're a mystery man, Bogdanov;
All we know is, you like fishin'
Rumor says the Kremlin's backing you
To split the opposition
Though we'd like to think Dimitri
Has a more refined M.O.
The present culture needs no Petri Dish
For discontent to grow

(Chorus)
You can't circumvent this simple truth,
No matter what you do:
In Vladimir's Russia,
Government Chooses You!

( More verses )

On a more serious note....

Nicholas Kristof's latest column, "When We Torture," about the U.S. government's appalling treatment of journalist Sami Al-Hajj over the past 6 years.

"All this is inhumane, but also boneheaded. Guantánamo itself does far more damage to American interests than Mr. Hajj could ever do." To put it lightly.

And then there are responses like #3 here. And #13, who seems to think that torture is irrelevant to Arab public opinion of the U.S.

And that's the readership of the Times.

With thanks to moonchain.



Happy Valentine's Day, all.

Stolen from threepunchstuff.

Enjoy?

The Obama website used to have a graphic that read, "Grow the Movement."
A canvasser I spoke with last week wanted to "grow awareness" or "grow support," I can't recall which.
A recent Comcast mailing promises to help me to grow my small business.

This use of "grow" as a transitive verb in conjunction with an abstract object sounds really weird and foreign to me. I first noticed it a few months ago and now seem to run into it every few weeks. I had a bit of fun with the British National Corpus trying to see how common it was. Conclusion: not very, but not unheard of either. I wonder whether it's becoming more prevalent or whether I've simply been oblivious until recently.

Out of 101 random instances of the word "grow":

Intransitive: ( Read more... )
Transitive: ( Read more... )

Apologies... my technoidiocy accidentally led me to publish the results a minute after posting the poll. I think I fixed another glitch, too. Reposting now....


Poll #1135039 Super Tuesday redux
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Friends

Electability aside, which of the current or past 2008 candidates would you most like to see as president?

Of these three?

Push poll #1! On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = "mildly concerned", 10 = "terrified"), how disturbed are you by the sharpnesss and length of Missus Clinton's canine teeth?

Push Poll #2! If you were to learn that the name of the Republican front-runner meant "Son of Cain," how troubled would you be? (1 = "not at all," 10 = "my name is Abel")

Push Poll #3! Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, draws a lot of support from young white women. How likely do you think it is that these impressionable innocents will be brainwashed into wearing the hijab? (1 = "not at all," 10 = "certain")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ZnPE3G_YY

( Read more... )