clue free

Post-election links having (almost) nothing to do with politics:

• This Fucking Election captures all the catchphrases of these last two brutal years.
• Tim Schafer’s bizarro life presents him with a semi piled high with cement caskets, and he has the good sense to blog it.
• We Bleed Design: Very clever interplay between foreground and background imagery; scroll down for the win.
• Writer’s strike? No problem; Annie Hall with all dialogue stripped out is still a super-hilarious picture.  And while the study of any one Woody Allen credit roll would suffice, The Art of the Title Sequence appreciates a broader style.  Several are better than their films deserve.
• There’s an ultra delicious burger waiting for me at Hodad’s in Ocean Beach, CA. I must possess it…
• Chilling on-the-ground images of the town of Chernobyl, which still has a couple hundred residents. Slogging through page after page of empty-shell communist apartment buildings makes the last page of the gallery all the more poignant, as you see snapshots of the town before the disaster–full of happy children.  It’s like a Jerry Bruckheimer opening sequence in reverse!
• Japan continues to amaze as they deliver Kewpie Mayonnaise, which comes in a plastic bottle (okay) in a plastic bag (WTF?!?)  Frivolous packaging FTL.  And it has MSG.  BTW.  Also, please enjoy hilarious and inventive bento at Wackyfun Food Art Time.

The Obama/Biden win will be remembered as a great moment in history for one more reason: it kept Sarah Palin at bay for a few more years. As America’s international policy stumbled in the dark, and we looked for leadership that could right it, we almost elected someone who, until literally two months ago, didn’t know Africa was a continent.

Other people in the campaign knew about this, and, obviously, did nothing of consequence.  What the hell is inside someone’s mind at that point?  You’re clearly dealing with a moron–a power-hungry moron–and even so, you resolve to do whatever it takes to [potentially] put her in charge of everything.

It feels like we’re all at a drunken party and a lot of people need to have their car keys taken away.

Favorites from the List of eponymous laws:

• Poe’s Law — Without a blatant indicator such as a smiley, it is impossible to tell the difference between religious Fundamentalism and a parody thereof.
• Rothbard’s law — everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.
• Wirth’s law — Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
• Zawinski’s law — Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.  [jwz was one of the original Netscape employees. His blog comes highly recommended, because he complains a lot, and he has good musical taste. Mmmmm. Sweet, buttery music.]

Shall we propose Palin’s Law?  Behind every maverick who, only 8 years ago, most moderates were fairly supportive of, is a party of religious-nut Good Old Boys who’ll do their durndest to keep dragging him back to pander to people just like themselves, at the expense of, oh, the rest of the country. Yee haw, git-r-done.

Looks like McCain honestly had no idea. Also: 56 blinks in 28 seconds. Congratulations, President Obama.

Whatever you think of John McCain’s choice of running mate, I think we all agree: he has shown a consistency of thinking with his dick that Barack Obama has so far failed to demonstrate.