Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.12

A Dogged Taliban Chief Rebounds, Vexing U.S.
What the one thing you most wanted to hear about Afghanistan in the news? Was it the quote "he’s staged one of the most remarkable military comebacks in modern history" being made in reference to one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar's Afghan resistance? I guess we're learning the famous lesson of war in Afghanistan: don't start a war in Afghanistan. Or maybe it's more: once you start a war in Afghanistan, don't completely cripple it by immediately starting a war with Iraq and forgetting about it for eight years.

Head of NFL players union opposes Limbaugh’s bid: Sports are meant to reject ‘discrimination and hatred.’
Wait, so you're telling me that a league comprised of around 70% black guys isn't all that thrilled with the prospect of a man with a history of racially charged (to put it mildly) statements about blacks, the black community, black leaders, black athletes, and especially black football players buying an NFL football team? I understand your objections, but you might want to consider letting him buy the team. Reason 1: so we can finally take him off the list of "people who we are ashamed are big Steelers fans." Reason 2: he's trying to buy the Rams. No good can come of that for Rush. He'll leave beaten and battered in a few years muttering "they're terrible...oh so terrible, my God the horror." Don't you want to see that happen to him?

Nasa's LCROSS lunar mission uses Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Sure the LCROSS mission didn't actually achieve it's scientific goal. One: it kicked of Moon War with a bang. Two: it was able to quote the existence pondering sperm whale from Hitchhiker's Guide while doing so. Far as I'm concerned that's a couple million well spent. Now crash something into Mercury while quoting Life of Brian.

Fur flies on 'Mr. Fox'
Turns out that if you want to direct a stop motion adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel not only do you not have to know anything about stop motion, but you don't even have to show up to get the directing credit or communicate to the people doing it in any other way besides e-mail. At least that's what Wes Anderson thinks. The other people on the film weren't really big fans of the process. Doesn't exactly raise my hopes for the film. But the article does reveal that the film is going to be cool-looking, detail-saturated, retro-leaning, and have a 60's era rock soundtrack. That's a shocker.

Afghan quits election panel, claiming foreigners are making all decisions
Well this certainly looks promising for the UN panel set to investigate widespread Afghan election fraud: one of the Afghans quit, citing problems with the way things were being run and decisions being made. Apparently he didn't like to be told to "shuuuuut uuuuuup" when he expressed concerns that Hamid Karzai wasn't the duly elected leader of Afghanistan. Seems he didn't get the message that this is the good kind of election rigging. Hopefully the next guy they put on the panel does understand that.