YouTube Monday

My boy Nick, singing his greatest hit with some nerdy guy . . .

Brooks fu

Ezra Klein constructs a simile after my own heart:

Wandering through the nation's op-ed pages is like ambling through a dojo. Each writer has his own particular style, technique, finishing move. There's Tom Friedman, who rushes in with the Implausible Conversational Anecdote, links it to an Off-Topic Invocation Of World Travels, and finishes you with a Confusing Metaphor From Above. Or there's Maureen Dowd, who deploys Unfounded Personal Speculation mixed with Confusing Allegories till she's set up her killing blow: Insinuation of Character Defect. It's impressive stuff.

The deadliest op-ed columnist, however, is unquestionably David Brooks. He's the drunken boxer of the opinion page, luring you into a false sense of security with Banal Observations that comfort through Faux Bipartisanship until you're ready for the Illogical Conservative Conclusion.

The whole is a neat little piece of rhetorical analysis.

Dana rocks

Scary piece in this morning's WaPo, but at least Austin comes off well:

Dana DeBeauvoir, clerk of Travis County, Tex., home to Austin, is credited with implementing one of the most comprehensive plans for Election Day. She'll do no fewer than three tests on her voting machines to ensure they are giving accurate results.

"You're always looking for the latest threat. That's not paranoid," she said. "That's good scientific method. We're dealing with voting systems that are scientific instruments."

Thank you

Philip Gordon in the Washington Post:

"The issue is not whether Hezbollah is responsible for this crisis -- it is -- or whether Israel has the right to defend itself -- it does -- but whether this particular strategy will work. It will not."

Busy

Quiet, aren't I? However, Toad seems to be lurching back from the dead again, and hopefully this week's Christmas in July: The Horror feature will continue at Party Meatloaf, provided Blogger gets deigns to allow photo posting.

Update

Another year, another change to the masthead.

Get a load of the Ann Coulter ads in the adbar!

Sorry to neglect this blog, but I've been busy scanning stuff for Party Meatloaf. You don't need me to tell you everything's fucked up, do you? If we'd get a little rain maybe I could start gearing up for November.

WW III

Boy, I leave you people alone for a week and the whole world goes to hell.

Vacation

I'm off to get hit in the head for a few days. Try not to miss me too much.

Fun Monday web site

For a change. I thought Germans didn't have a sense of humor?

And did he stamp his wittle foot?

The AP headline writers must be feeling their Friday night oats:

Bush Expresses Frustration With Diplomacy

By TERENCE HUNT (AP White House Correspondent)

From Associated Press

Another conservative flunks freshman comp.

The NY Post's Philip Recchia, via James Wolcott, by way of Rude Pundit:

Conservative scribe Ann Coulter cribbed liberally in her latest book, "Godless," according to a plagiarism expert.

John Barrie, the creator of a leading plagiarism-recognition system, claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls "textbook plagiarism" in the leggy blond pundit's "Godless: the Church of Liberalism" after he ran the book's text through the company's digital iThenticate program.

He also says he discovered verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers, including the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel and Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

I've not heard of iThenticate, and I know rather a lot about plagiarism identification software. I know a lot less about copyright law, but I sure hope some of the folks Ann has been "borrowing" from find lawyers who know all about it.

Writing is hard, isn't it? It really bugs me when someone wants whatever status they think they get from being a writer, but they don't want to do the actual work.

Being president is hard too, I understand.

Oo, I wish I'd said that

Behind-the-firewall Kristof:

In retrospect, the real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked but the conservatives who believed it.

Atrios has more.