the most annoying things on the web

# 1: Larry Hill

nice work if you can get it

Government ministers in scuba gear prepared Friday to hold an underwater meeting of the Maldives’ Cabinet to highlight the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

Well, whatever.  I guess the embarrassed switch from “global warming” to “climate change” in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence hasn’t made it to some of the more isolated environut outposts.

Seraglio.

As in:

Take Dahl’s most famous work, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: its boy protagonist’s family is immiserated, his carers are incapable of looking even after themselves – so salvation comes through luck, and the arbitrary beneficence of a deranged feudal-capitalist with a happily mancipated workforce. Of course, the spur that initially drives Charlie on is a lust for sweet things that, were it transferred to an adult plane, could only result in a work entitled something like “Charlie and the Huge Seraglio full of Compliant Nymphomaniacs”.

I don’t know about you but I’d still read that book.  Not seeing a problem.

My equation of sweets with sex is not facetious; in Dahl-world, oral gratification is pretty much the only thing that matters.

Still not seeing one.

As for the players, I wonder whether George Clooney (Mr Fox) and Meryl Streep (Mrs Fox) have ever generated more sexual chemistry than they do with these husky, sassy voiceovers.

Ok now I might have one.

from the comments:

Which is silly, because I thought we were the ones supposedly rounding people up and putting them in FEMA camps.

edit: text quote replaced with screen capture, ‘cause I know how these things have a tendency to disappear.

Another positive economic indicator:

“The Costume Industry today reported higher then expected earning for the Pre-Halloween season.”

~ * ~

HotAir

everyone can see your footprints

From Steyn’s email bag:

As I am sure you are aware, the fake Limbaugh quotes have been traced to the Rush Limbaugh Wikiquote page, dating from July of 2005 (see the following link to see when the quotes were added). The Jack Huberman book that most people source for these quotes did not come out until the following year.

The quotes were added by a user with the IP address of 69.64.213.146. This address has been used mostly to make changes to the article about Rush, but also Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Rush, James Dobson and Sara Palin from 2005 until earlier this year.

While others have noted this in various forums, no one seems to have made the connection that this IP address is used as a gateway by the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP (see here, for example) that all users from that IP address come from the pbwt.com domain.)

Given the likelihood that Limbaugh will sue over this, I find it interesting that the source of these bogus quotes is probably a lawyer...

SF whirlwind tour

“Lefty O’Doul’s Welcomes Obama, the 8th lefty president of the United States.”

And in another message unlikely the president will ever see, the banner also read “All left-handed presidents eat for free today. ”

People can, and undoubtedly will, argue for some time about whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, though, there’s a simpler and more immediate question: Does the Constitution allow him to accept the award?

Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”

~ * ~
Second, the president has indicated that he will give the prize money to charity, but that does not solve his legal problem. Giving that $1.4 million to a charity could give him a deduction that would reduce his income taxes by $500,000—not a nominal amount. Moreover, the money is not his to give away. It belongs to the United States: A federal statute provides that if the president accepts a “tangible or intangible present” for more than a minimal value from any foreign government, the gift “shall become the property of the United States.”

Apparently, the Obama White House believes in diplomacy with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not Glenn Beck.
Two days after the president won the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama’s communications director was on national television essentially declaring a message war on a major cable network that employs the abrasive commentator Beck, who recently called the president a racist.
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn accused Fox News of operating “as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
It’s hard to understand this as a calculated move for a White House that has far bigger things to worry about — Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions being just one — than drive-by rants on cable television....

...The episode tells us three things:

1. The Obama White House is still in campaign mode. It only has approximately 12 months and 15 days to be in governing mode before the next presidential election campaign starts. You can win elections by hardening your base of support by attacking the base of your opposition. But it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to govern that way. Attacks on Fox are, de facto, attacks on the people who watch it. Obama might need that base if he decides to accept the recommendation of his top general in Afghanistan and pour tens of thousands more American troops into that country — and his liberal anti-war wing turns on him. He may need Republican support to get a health care bill passed.

2. Attacking whole segments of the population belies Obama’s promise of bringing people together. Obama’s appearance on Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly’s show in September 2008 indicated a candidate’s willingness to be a different kind of president, to act on the stated desire of his predecessor, George W. Bush, to be a uniter not a divider. Obama got a fair shake in that interview.

3.There is still a thing called presidential decorum. Sending out a taxpayer-paid partisan to attack a network, and by extension, its viewers, is not presidential. If you want to get in the mud with Glenn Beck, do it on your own dime and time, not ours.

Two for the ... uh oh

Interview with Wolfie the Pedant here
kid-quote at 0:34
[at 0:44:  a duck or a Wolfie?!?]

On the Today Show he just barfed…

So… Bad people?
Attention whores?
Eccentrics in the grips of an unfortunate accident?

they really enjoyed their cruise

Speaking of Cuba - I spoke with a retired couple yesterday who just got back from a pleasant 5 week vacation in Cuba - they are Canadians (one from Australia and one from Ukraine). This is the 5th year they have gone - much less expensive than most other Caribbean vacation spots. They are really impressed - no poverty to speak of, and no VERY wealthy. Almost everyone is ‘middle class’ and comparable to the middle class of most any other nation in the area - though all the others have a VERY large, very poor group, a small middle class and a small very wealthy group.
When you get away from US politics it seems Cuba isn’t nearly so bad as it is painted up to be.