We were so busy with other things here (Hi, Osama bin Laden!) that we missed the biggest news from the last couple of days: The Kajimoto Lab in Tokyo has invented a robotic kissing machine: The Kiss Transmission device is a pair of boxes with plastic tubes sticking out the front that are powered by […]
Paul Constant
Posted inElection 2012
Santorum Gurgles on Obama’s Foreign Policy
Politico: PELLA, Iowa — Rick Santorum said Monday that the killing of Osama bin Laden won’t serve as a deterrent to other enemies because they don’t fear President Barack Obama. Asked if bin Laden’s death would make it more difficult to argue that Obama is weak on defense or national security, Santorum said this simply […]
Posted inPolitics
“Can you imagine what’s on Osama bin Laden’s hard drive?”
Politico says: The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called “the mother lode of intelligence.” The special operations forces grabbed personal computers, thumb drives and electronic equipment during the lightning raid that killed bin […]
Posted inPolitics
Bin Laden Reportedly Used His Own Wife as a Human Shield
TPM, from a White House briefing with John Brennan, a chief counterterrorism adviser to President Obama: Bin Laden engaged in the firefight, but it was unclear if he picked up a firearm or shot any rounds. Brennan also identified bin Laden as the combatant who had used a woman as a human shield. She was […]
Posted inPolitics
George W. Bush Was Not Concerned About Catching Osama bin Laden
This is a press conference from March 13th, 2002: Why are Republicans so fucking weak on national security?
Posted inPolitics
Osama bin Laden Killed: Republican Presidential Hopefuls Congratulate the President
Osama bin Laden has been killed by special forces—here’s what President Obama’s GOP competitors are saying: Mitt Romney: This is a great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere. Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president. My thoughts are with the families of Osama bin Laden’s many thousands of victims, and […]
Posted inPolitics
Teabaggers Are About to Get Furious at DC Comics
SPOILER WARNING! If you are one of the three people left who regularly reads Superman comics on a monthly basis, you should stop reading immediately. Seriously: This is your last warning. Okay. According to Comics Alliance, Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship in a short story in today’s Action Comics #900. Here’s the relevant panel: If […]
Posted inVideo Games
Another Day, Another “Hackers Steal Customer Information” Story
This time, it’s Sony: Sony has admitted that hackers have stolen the personal information of customers who use the company’s online PlayStation Network…Some 77 million people have accounts with the PlayStation Network and Qriocity service, which allows gamers to play games online together as well as purchase and play movies and music. Sony does not […]
Posted inBooks
The Internet Would Not Kill Shakespeare, If Shakespeare Were Living Today
The ever-delightful Colson Whitehead wrote an essay for Publishers Weekly about why he’s on Twitter: I can only speak on my own use of Twitter, which is: I had a cat, the cat died, and now the stuff I used to say to the cat all day, I tweet. That’s my Twitter origin tale: it’s […]
Posted inElection 2012
The Trump Brand Is Innovative and Dynamic
The Christian Science Monitor has the best analysis of what’s going on with Donald Trump’s potential presidential run. Short version: It’s all business, with a tiny bit of wait-and-see on the political front. “It’s a win-win situation,” says Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, a University of Southern California expert on celebrities in US society. At best, the door […]
Posted inHorrors
The Easter Bunny Is Frightening as Hell
I worked as a mall Easter Bunny about fifteen years ago—I wrote a little bit about it here—and I can assure you that children do not like the Easter Bunny. Children are terrified of the Easter Bunny. They wail and screech and claw and try to flee. This makes sense, of course: either they believe […]
Posted inMedia
Gawker Keeps Losing Readers
In a story titled “Gawker’s Traffic Numbers Are Worse Than Anyone Anticipated,” The Atlantic looks into the Gawker redesign and discovers, well… Now that the complaints have, for the most part, slowed to a trickle and the tech blogs have stopped looking into Gawker’s traffic numbers, we decided to dig in a bit. What does […]