Iced Borscht

AMOROUS EPHEMERA

• A dog named Sex
• Emotional Pornography
• I came, I saw, I brought pictures of Brett Favre’s diddle-stick (Bonus Favre-penis coverage is available from the one and only Ricky Sprague here)
• Muhammad: Sex Life of the Prophet
• Pornistan
• The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana

AURAL LIFE

• Frank Zappa’s congressional testimony re: the PMRC — now on CD
• Microtonal music is “”music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave…“
• Satan’s Violin Lesson
• Spectral Music “is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer based sound spectrum analysis using a Fast Fourier transform is one of the more common methods used in generating descriptive data. Using FFT analysis, features of a particular sound spectrum can be visualized using a spectrogram. Spectral composition focuses, then, on bringing out these features, interconnecting them, and transforming them.”
• Tipper Gore and the danger of anal vapors

BACK HOME ON THE FARM

• Strange crack forms in the Upper Peninsula
• The Humongous Fungus
• The Saint Ignace Mystery Spot

BIG MONEY

• The New York Times knows nothing about “the rule of law”
• Gail Collins in the New  York Times back in April: “Paying a lot of taxes should be a badge of honor. It proves you made it into the league of big money-makers, not to mention the fact that you’re supporting the upkeep of the Grand Canyon. If the I.R.S. had been doing its marketing properly, little kids would dream of growing up to become really big taxpayers.” Umm…is Gail retarded, or simply another journalist with horrible observational skills? Her last sentence reeks of out-of-touch, imbecilic clod. (Gail — please come visit Portland, Oregon. EVERY person under 40 here acts as though being governed and paying an exorbitant amount of taxes is awesome.)

COSMONAUTICA

• Daniel Kalder on Yuri Luzhkov: Better a Thief Than a Drinker of Blood
• New Russian crime groups playing by dangerous rules
• Odessa Twister shenanigans
• The Death Star of Minsk

DEEP-FRIED DYSTOPIA

• Black Tea Party activist states his case
• Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart are after the same rainbow’s end, my huckleberry friend
• “Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes….”
• Solving the Mystery of the Benevolent Autocrat
• The extreme politicians of South Carolina
• The Left’s Unlikely Alliance with Islam
• The new al-Qaeda mission statement: tone down all the apocalyptic cha cha cha and focus on street fights
• Which Central Asian “Stan” will blow up next? (Very sensitive headline by the Guardian, no?)

DIVINE ILLUMINATION ON DEMAND

• 36 Arguments for the Existence of God
• Is God dead, or simply bored with us?
• John of God — FAITH HEALER!
• Lithuania’s Hill of Crosses
• Natalie Angier: My God Problem
• Neurosurgical Patients Get Closer to God
• Sam Harris: There is No God, and You Know It

DWELLING ON THE THRESHOLD

• David Icke: The Sleeper Must Awaken!
• Machine Elves 101: Why Terence McKenna Matters
• Reservoir Drugs

GURGITATE TO EMANCIPATE

• Food — the Silent Tsunami
• Jackie B talks about forming a relationship with your food (speaking personally, I’ve gotten quite intimate — on a spiritual level — with loaves and hams)
• Rats as food: the pinnacle of culinary achievement
• The 30 Saltiest Foods in America

LOVE: A MANY-LAYERED QUILT

• Fractal Love
• Japanese Love Machines
• Love bugs and the hubris of genetic research!
• The Mathematics of Love
• The Museum of Broken Relationships “grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins. Unlike ‘destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery from failed loves, the Museum offers a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation: by contributing to the Museum’s collection.”

MOVING PICTURES

• Is it just me, or does Karin Longworth’s Village Voice review of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood come off as snooty, ignorant and arrogant? An excerpt (BTW, I implore you to imagine Longworth’s words as spoken in an upper crust, Cape Cod/equestrian debutante voice): “…this Robin Hood preaches about ‘liberty’ and the rights of the individual as he wanders a countryside populated chiefly by Englishpersons bled dry by government greed.” Ha ha, indeed Ms. Longworth, indeed! How primitive and unsophisticated for one to value individual liberty. The untamed, teeming and savage middle class requires taxation and governance, ASAP. Any lunkhead can see that! Pip ho, equestriettes!
• Sly Stallone’s porn film

OREGONIAN PERMUTATIONS

• Has Oregon caught California’s disease?
• The ghouls who terrified a young girl in Troutdale in May received fluffy, light bullshit sentences on Friday (BONUS BITTERNESS: I posit that these felons are the same pieces of dog-shit that burglarized my own home 30 minutes earlier that same May day, though the Troutdale and Portland police don’t really seem to give a shit). And a quick note to the incarcerated cum-stains — in the future, I’ll be watching your “careers” with much interest.  I’ve got my Google alerts readied for all three of you. Got that, Mr. Colindres-Munoz — ye of the Fake Door-to-Door Salesman bit? I remember your rodent face quite well — satellite dishes, wasn’t that your shtick?)

TRANSGRESSIVE GRAMMAR & UNMITIGATED VERBOSITY

• Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
• Don’t confuse grammar with meaning
• Stock British phrases

VOID WANDERING

• A LIST OF SECRET-POWER SITES IN THE UNITED STATES
• Island of the Dolls: Mexico’s Creepiest Tourist Attraction
• Swirling Vortex of Doom
• The Nine Hells of Beppu