Shhh... Twilight Coffee

Don't tell Yamaraashi-chan, who's recently mentioned than on a trip to her uncle's place she developed a taste for coffee (she's in middle school, for Set's sake, kids shouldn't be drinking coffee like that), but while I was at Whole Foods this morning I spotted a line of Twilight series coffees, taglined "Stay awake with the Vampires." Uh-huh. The sparklie vampyres, as Geoffrey Chaucer put it.

I mentioned this to the guy running the checkout, and he said, "I know. It's awful, isn't it? And we have People and Us on the stands now. What's happening to us?"

I dunno, but man that's sad. Roasted in Forks, Washington, the bags say, although it's produced by the Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie, which is more famous for its $375/lb "heirloom" blends than these silly (I can't call them cheap at more than a dollar an ounce) knockoffs.

Beck's always telling us to read history books. Maybe he should take his own advice

I was listening to Glen Beck this morning (I know, I'm a sucker for pain, but I had just come from the dentist and the lidocaine hadn't quite worn off yet) and Beck was ranting about how some woman in Obama's administration, Anita Dunn, admitted that she admired some of the writings of Mao Tse Tung. As he began to work himself up into that froth he borrowed from Mark Levin, the one he uses before he goes into the crying jag he borrowed from Jimmy Swaggart, he shouted, "Can you imagine if someone on the right had said they admired Adolph Hitler's spirit, how he 'got things done'?"

I don't have to imagine it. Pat Buchanan has openly admired the way Hitler kicked the German economy into shape. Dominionist pastor Rick Warren exhorts his followers to use the Hitler youth as a model for taking over the world. And Vox Day has stated that the United States could handle its illegal immigrant problem by taking pointers from Hitler and his round-up of the Jews. (To be fair, less-crazy right wing pundit (but Intelligent Design proponent and Bigfoot hunter) Michael Medved took Day behind the woodshed, but Day emerged and remains unapologetic.)

As for the Mao Tse Tung thing, I'm reminded of the way a couple of political science students got their actor student friends to read from The Declaration of Independence and Mao's Little Red Book on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. As people listened, they walked through the crowd with clipboards and asked people what they thought of what was being recited. Few recognized Mao's work, but less than a quarter recognized Jefferson's. Worse yet, among those unfamiliar with either, more people approved of Mao's material than Jefferson's.

Somewhat shorter David Broder

Somewhat shorter David Broder: "After eight years of an abusive relationship, in which the brief and intermittent highs so powerfully contrasted all the lows that we became addicted to them, conservatives have become bipolar addicts to their own political dopamine. We have no idea how to deal with the systemic, objective, data-driven behavior exhibited by the current White House, so we resort to tantrums in an attempt to re-create the conditions that led to our rewarding highs, but it's just not working.

"Return Republicans to power in 2010. The make-up sex will be fantastic."

Web archeology

Twelve years ago, I was the official (ahem) keeper of the alt.sex FAQ. I found a copy on-line the other day and decided to take a look at it. You know something? For when it was built, circa 1997, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all. Oh, sure, there were font problems and bad anchors and links, and it wasn't at all what we'd expect to see now, but for 1997 it was not only state of the art, it was forward-looking in terms of accessibility.

With one exception. I used tables for layout.

I'm so ashamed.