Guh?

Hey, sorry I've been away. I parked my 1993 Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square and it seems to have gone missing. Been looking for it the past few days. Anyone seen it?

Oh.... Whoops.

Anyway, with all that behind us and a terrorist attack averted, now comes the most important part of any post-attack period: attacking the President for purely political reasons over a perceived lack of manliness and commitment to making America feel it's enemies have been sufficiently brutalized in the name of freedom. Obama's crime this time? He read the suspect his Miranda rights again and the suspect started freely giving up information again. When will he learn? That stuff might work in the real world, but in the fantasies of the right wing politicians of our country it doesn't and we would be better served by waterboarding these people 10 or 170 times. So let's listen to them bitch about it.

In a steady stream of indictments, top-ranking officials in the GOP said it didn't matter that the Obama Department of Justice was getting information from Faisal Shahzad, the now-detained the Pakistani-born American. The fact that the administration chose to read Miranda rights to the suspect shows a national security policy steeped in naivety and potentially dangerous.

"That is a stroke of good luck," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said of the news that Shahzad was cooperating even after getting his Miranda rights read to him. "What if he had not waived them and just quit talking, said 'I want my lawyer'?"

"Maybe we got lucky and [Shahzad] said I will go ahead and talk to you anyway," said Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "But you didn't know that when you read [him] the rights. So I stand by what I said -- it is better in these kinds of cases to get the intelligence first and then, if you decide you want to proceed with an Article 3 prosecution, then read the Miranda rights."

Peter King and John McCain joined the din shrieking against Mirandizing and having a terrorism policy that made sense, but had to be rebuked by Glenn Beck.

"He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens… If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. He has all the rights under the Constitution… We don't shred the Constitution when it is popular. We do the right thing."

Yes, that Glenn Beck.

Dizzy. World spinning. Must... find couch... to... faint on. What kind of world do we live in where Glenn Beck is making sense on terrorism policies and actions taken by the Obama Administration? Wasn't it more likely that Obama would grow a Lenin style goatee, unleash robot death panels, goose step down Pennsylvania Avenue with his Obama Youth squads, and turn into the fascist parody Beck had been painting him as, rather than Beck deciding to make actual sense on terrorism and the Constitution?

This is too much for my brain to process. I heroically overcome a bout of SuperAIDS and have to deal with this mindfuck? Still, score one for Beck doubling his meds and joining the fight to see our counter-intel and interrogation strategies get based on strategies that work instead of something you half remember as being completely awesome when Jack Bauer did them in Season 3 of 24 and would assuredly result in the man not getting convicted. Some other Fox commentator will have to worry about the stiffness of America's war boner, Glenn Beck is dabbling in rationality today. I'm sure we'll have to rescind this literally seconds from now, but... good job... Glenn Beck.

/tepidly golf claps
//belts scotch from a flask

Broken News: Horrible creature plans to shit out romantic comedy into movie theaters

HOLLYWOOD—In what can only be considered a terroristic threat against decency and quality, screenwriter/director David Holkins has announced that he has recently completed the script for a new romantic comedy that he fully intends to film and then distribute at theaters nationwide. The project, tentatively titled Love Can Happen, threatens to shake the foundations of countless couples, decimating naive male suitors and over-expectant females across the nation, courtesy of a "can't miss" mass-marketing campaign.

“I think this is going to be my best one yet,” gushed the human wasteland, oblivious to the mental hell he will thrust upon an unsuspecting populace.

“I spent a lot of time trying to find the right mix of romance and comedy, heart and humour,” lied the twisted creature, pretending he didn't just spend two eight-hour days trafficking in 'men like boobies and sports, women like shopping and fashion' stereotypes.

The brain vandal seemed unaware that he simply plugs these tropes into the same basic six-decade-old outline designed to ensure that the main points anyone takes away from his films are that you either have to subsume your own interests and identity in order to get married, or you have to break the spirit of the other person in order to build them back into someone you can actually love.

Holkins, twisted wretch that he is, first came to prominence as the writer of 2001's hit Made for You, in which a work-a-holic advertising rep for a Madison Avenue firm was wooed by a carefree slacker-type dolphin trainer after a chance encounter at a novelty knitting shop. The detestable cretin followed this abomination with back-to-back favorites, Didn't Plan for This and Dancing Fools. Both centered on wedding planners so immersed in their careers that they never found time for love, but were shaken out of their complacency by carefree rogues who taught them the true meaning of love and, in the case of Dancing Fools, the Tango.

"We couldn't be more excited to begin production," said Frank Gaston, executive producer on all of Holkins' films, who if not an active force for evil is at the very least willingly complicit in the unsolicited anal rape of the human soul. "Casting has already started and we hope to land Matthew McConaughey for the main male character of Matthew McConaughey. We're also in talks with Jennifer Aniston's people to see if she's interested in playing the part of Jennifer Aniston. We believe that these are the parts each was born to play, mostly because these are the parts they've been playing for the last decade."

After primary casting has concluded, Gaston will move to fill the supporting roles of "dead inside, unlikeable shrew best friend", "irrepressible, foul-mouthed poonhound best brah", "gay-as-Christmas boss", "slapstick ethnic neighbor", and "implausibly evil rival male and/or female romantic interest." Hopes are high that the project will attract hot new character actors who not only need the money, but are able to convince themselves that because they don't star in the film, not appear on any posters, they aren't actually contributing to all that is wrong with the world while irrevocable damaging their careers.

The attention of these soulless intellectual SARS infections will then turn to finding the improbably nice neighborhoods, houses, jobsites, offices, cars, housewares, electronics, and clothes that will invariably and inexplicably populate the lives of people with seemingly middle-class jobs and resumes.

"Just think, if we can land Matthew and Jennifer... BOOM... there's our Grant and Hepburn," gushed the witless wonder, showing a complete lack of regard for film history, romantic chemistry, or acting while in the same breath denigrating the memories and careers of long-dead stars who must now be perpetually spinning in their earthen tombs.

While the film has yet to even begin production, executives plan to make it a centerpiece of their Fall 2010 schedule.

"Oh, we're going big with this. You'll be seeing the fucking ads on the backs of your eyelids," said Gerald Eastman, VP of Marketing at Columbia Pictures, avowed hellspawn, and mortal enemy of quality. "Some thought we couldn't sink any lower than we did with that Ugly Truth brain rape, but that magnificent bastard Holkins gave us another chance to inflict permanent damage on actual relationships while crippling the basic concept of what a relationship should even be. The beauty is, killing relationships and ruining lives only increases the size of our key demographic!"

Columbia has already shuffled its fall 2010 release schedule to make Love Can Happen the seasonal centerpiece, along with Untitled Unfunny Jack Black Comedy, Untitled Non-Pixar-Related CG Animal Movie, Untitled Unnecessary Remake, and Untitled Piece-of-Shit Adaptation of 80's Toy Line. In fact, to free up funding for Holkins' cinematic stillbirth, Columbia has canceled pre-production on projects by P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, and Darren Aronofsky.

"I'm just happy that I was given this gift, this ability to delight, entertain and truly touch so many people with my work," said the cretin in perhaps some new form of cruel satire or, more likely, delusional ramblings from an intellectually and creatively bankrupt monster who is ignorant of his crimes against art. "I just can't wait for everyone to see what I've been pouring my heart into. I want to show them that, well, Love Can Happen!"

Read this now

If you need to find something to occupy your time with during this whole section of the day where the news and the world were kind enough to go on hold for the MJ Memorial, or you just need a mental rejuvenation after hours of having your brain molested by coverage of the MJ Memorial read this:

The Man Who Crashed the World

Almost a year after A.I.G.’s collapse, despite a tidal wave of outrage, there still has been no clear explanation of what toppled the insurance giant. The author decides to ask the people involved—the silent, shell-shocked traders of the A.I.G. Financial Products unit—and finds that the story may have a villain, whose reign of terror over 400 employees brought the company, the U.S. economy, and the global financial system to their knees.

Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair about AIG, the global financial apocalypse, how it happened, the bailout, and how it affects Michael Jackson. Probably the best article on the economic hellstorm of fury that has come out in a loooong while.

Thanks for the breaking news, science

Ladies, I'm sorry to tell you that science has gone out a proven something you probably already knew: men like boobies. Not only that, but a glimpse of them causes the part of our brain that is usually reserved for tool use and first-person action verbs. Action verbs! In an even creepier finding of the study, people who are classified as "hostile sexists" don't even register scantily clad women as humans with thoughts or intentions.

Bikinis Make Men See Women as Objects, Scans Confirm

Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.

Men were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as "I push, I grasp, I handle," said lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University.

And in a "shocking" finding, Fiske noted, some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another's intentions.

This means that these men see women "as sexually inviting, but they are not thinking about their minds," Fiske said. "The lack of activation in this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens."

Yeah...uh...about that...uh.....sorry. Yeah, on behalf of men as a gender, sorry. In fairness, it's only some men....and Sean, not all or even most. Our brains make us do it...or the patriarchy, I'm not totally sure on this one. Or, judging by the NG headline, the bikinis themselves make us do it, because clothing is self-aware and has power over thought now. It has something to do with patterns, fabric material, particles, tachyons, and mind control. Bikinis are evidently Skynet.

Again, sorry, and if you...IT'S ALL SEAN'S FAULT!!! I TOLD HIM NOT TO OBJECTIFY WOMEN IN THE MEDIA AND SOCIETY BUT HE DID ANYWAY!!! *sound of running, frantic opening of car door, car engine starting, and screeching tires*

Gone fishin'

Steelers won, feel awful, MLK holiday. See you for Barrypalooza 2 tomorrow.

Broken In Brief: Local man forgets names of vague acquaintances at social gathering

PORTLAND, ME--Local resident James Farston expressed regret today at being unable to recall the names of three people he met briefly at a party two nights ago. Farston, 31, a clerk at Scooby's Deli in south Portland, grew increasingly distraught as repeated attempts to conjure names proved futile.

"God, this is so frustrating," Farston sighed while cleaning the meat slicer after his evening shift. "I mean, I can tell you plenty about each of them. The one dude had tape on his glasses and smelled kind of like furniture polish. And the couple -- at least I think they were a couple -- didn't really hold hands or anything the entire night. That was kind of encouraging, since the chick was pretty hot and was wearing this tight t-shirt that kept riding up on her. Man it’s going to be so awkward if I run into any of them ever again. I probably won’t because I don’t even run in that circle, but what if I do? They’ll think I’m some sort of asshole."

Despite his hangover and sour mood, Farston remained slightly optimistic. "Maybe this is like one of those things where if I just stop thinking about it, it'll come to me, you know? Christ, there was that one guy with the hat. I know him from the thing. The...thing. Doesn’t anyone understand? Help me out here...the thing, with the light up stuff. He was standing right next to me when it happened! With the hat! J...somethingorother." As he continued the two patrons in line replaced the items they had intended to purchase and left the store in mild irritation.

My Olympics illness

I've been sitting around today watching the Olympics. Every two years a switch is flipped in my brain and I become obsessive about watching as much as I can. I can't even get excited about anything in the NBA or most of the MLB, but I will sit down and watch Canada vs China in women's soccer or Italy/Russia in women's volleyball and stay riveted. I'm not even watching the good women's teams. I am going to watch archery later.

I was transfixed by the beginning of men's cycling where they were all pedaling at half speed and the announcers were openly talking about how they take it easy for the first hour or so. I still wouldn't turn it off.

I think I'm a legitimate fan of badminton now. I think I would watch it weekly.

GIVE ME MY BRAIN BACK NBC!!! This is going to get rough when track and field starts.