Re: Headlines Please

1

If guilty: "He's bad"

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2

If innocent: "Jackson 'Thrilled'"

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3

"He's Still One Serious Fucking Weirdo"

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4

"Morgan Stanley Chief, Battered by Opponents, Says He'll Resign"

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5

If you weren't such a snob, Ben, you'd know that the correct answer is "Katie Holmes embracing Scientology."

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6

You people turn everything into a joke. Sadly, I got nothing. I was hoping for something along the lines of "It's as easy as 10-20" but no stroke of genius yet.

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7

flesh-eating-rat ballad author found not guilty of pederasty.

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8

If you weren't such a snob, Ben, you'd know that the correct answer is "Katie Holmes embracing Scientology."

Hands up if you think its love?

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9

And in fact... he moonwalks!

(yeah, it's weak.)

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10

Jackson Goes Down!

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11

So, has anyone told Katie about what my friend from Pocatello says the Mormons call "Date 'em, dunk 'em, dump 'em"?

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12

Sorry, should have been quotation marks. And, it's not actually funny. But I was working against the clock.

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13

Also missionary dating.

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14

not guilty

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15

"Jackson cleared on all counts"

Boring. Wait for the Post tomorrow.

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16

It might be easier to figure out how different sources are going to play it:

Washington Times will read, "Liberal Activist jury obstructs punishment of Jackson, approves of pederasty."

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17

Hey, I know of a guy who converted to Mormonism because he was engaged. She wound up marrying someone else, and he was so pissed he made it a mission to bring as many girls back to the Mormon compound where he lived as he could, though he'd have to strip the walls of all the religious paraphernalia first. Sadly, guilt kept him from allowing anything oral to occur (much less intercourse). One night this girl kept trying to go down on him and he woudn't let her. Finally, he decided the next time he wouldn't protest, but by then she was fed up.

I wonder if he knows is ex-fiance is part of a whole strategy.

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18

So, why did he not just, uh, convert back out of Mormonism? They must put some awesome mind-control drugs in the Jello.

(One thing is that I've been told that the only people who go to Hell (Outer Darkness?) in LDS cosmology are people who take the vows and abandon them. Ordinary heathens like me and, I suspect, you wind up in the Earthly Paradise, which is pretty damn good. From a Pascalian point of view this seems unwise but it don't seem to be keeping the converts away.)

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19

Paris Hilton Plans to Give Up Public Life

Michael Jackson Aquitted of All Charges

Professional Wrestling Revealed to be Legitimate Sport

Better living through chemistry.

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20

I "called" that he was going to be found not guilty. I wish that I had "called" it publicly on a blog somewhere, so that I could have my prognosticatory powers officially documented.

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21

>So, why did he not just, uh, convert back out of Mormonism?

He's a friend of a friend, so I'm not sure. Maybe his bringing girls back to his room consituted some kind of renunciation. Also, his financial situation might not have permitted him to leave the Mormons right after his fiance left him.

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22

Matt,

That remined me of the Annie Dillard quote.

> Eskimo: "If I did not know about God or sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

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23

#20: Kotsko casts another vote against timestamps...

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24

I guess I should have tipped that from the part about living in a Mormon compound. Still, yeesh.

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25

Gothamist's Jackson Headline. It's sort of like Newton and Leibniz.

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26

So, I feel like starting a nice big flame war on this thread. w/d, you're mother's older than you.

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27

That's not what she said last night.

After I had sex with her.

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28

God, if I want to start a blizzard of comments I sure picked the right way. I've got to stop commenting sober.

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29

b-wo! not picking up the LHF?

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30

I think we were all a little embarrassed for you, Matt.

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31

It was all a ploy! A ploy, I tell you!

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32

LHF is actually not 'picked up' but 'plucked'. (Three more comments to clear the sidebar.)

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33

I was just going to try to patch things up by agreeing that I am self-identical with whatever is referred to in the words after "you're."

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34

"Matt, I am my mother..."

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35

I was about to reply with a link to contact my mother, but I didn't see that leading anywhere good.

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36

What, you're saying we wouldn't enjoy her?

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37

"Matt, I am my mother..."

Some time ago on metafilter languagehat posted a link to a short scifi story in which that was the case. It was a pretty clever story.

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38

w/d's mother (a hair dreyer) is a lousy lay.

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39

"All You Zombies," by Robert Heinlein?

Er, spoiler.

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40

re: 38

There's a story I like to tell about my father's first day in German class that's quite similar to that.

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41

Yeah, that's it.

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42

Not the lousy lay part, of which I have no knowledge, having never asked my mother and now being very disturbed.

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43

While I'm spoiling it, the character is his own father too.

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44

See, Herr Dreyer sounds like...

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45

This flame war kinda blows.

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46

In which respect it's wholly unlike Matt Weiner's mom.

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47

That wasn't actually an insult, b-wo.

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48

I was thinking that your mom blows vigorously, or very well, in contrast to this flame war's middling blowingness. Not that she doesn't blow at all.

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49

I think you can't use "in which respect it's wholly unlike" when the specific respect you're talking about was modified by 'kinda'. At most my mom can be 1 - kinda unlike this flame war in that respect.

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50

My headline says it all: "Michael Jackson Gets Off On Child Molestation".

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51

Well, I think I can, and I think that being wholly unlike being kinda something is being vigorously that something. The opposite of wishy-washy shilly-shallying is firm resolution!

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52

Brutal Hugs, that is brilliant.

b-wo, I think we've agreed that I pwn you on the subject of opposites. At least, I so asserted, and you didn't demur.

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53

Crapo (D-ID). I don't pwn you on links. This is what I meant.

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54

And yes, Crapo is a Republican. I'm going home.

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55

I'm reserving further discussion of the opposite of hats for tomorrow.

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56

On my part, that is; others are more than welcome to prove Weiner wrong.

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57

the opposite of hats is not-hats.

done.

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58

Many many years ago when I was twenty three,

I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown-up daughter

Who had hair of red.

My father fell in love with her,

And soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law

And changed my very life.

My daughter was my mother,

For she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse,

Although it brought me joy,

I soon became the father

Of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became

A brother-in-law to dad.

And so became my uncle,

Though it made me mad.

For if he was my uncle,

Then that also made him brother

To the widow's grown-up daughter

Who, of course, was my step-mother.

Father's wife then had a son,

Who kept them on the run.

And he became my grandson,

For he was my daughter's son.

My wife is now my mother's mother

And it makes me blue.

Because, although she is my wife,

She's my grandmother too.

If my wife is my grandmother,

Then I am her grandchild.

And every time I think of it,

It simply drives me wild.

For now I have become

The strangest case you ever saw.

As the husband of my grandmother,

I am my own grandpa.


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59

Yeah, brutal, that's perfect.

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60

So, you marry and have a kid. One day while mowing the lawn, you're kidnapped and frozen for an eccentric scientist's experiments. The eccentric scientist's schemes are discovered and he is apprehended. You, however, remain undiscovered in your secreted-away, cryogenically frozen state. Fortunately, your freeze-unit is self-contained and has terrific battery life. Some centuries later, you are discovered, and thawed out, and you're A-OK, albeit temporally displaced. You find a new woman and marry. Tracing the genealogy of your descendents (takes some time) you discover you've married your great(x10)-grandaughter. Do you: a)keep the info to yourself, b) share with your wife/descendent and make a kinky sex fetish out of it, or c) divorce.

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61

Dude, get outta my head!

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62

I like that the harsher condemnation you level at your kidnapper/carbonite entomber is "eccentric."

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63

w/d, yes, well, i'm not a moralist.


(though i'm not consistent about that)

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64

Paleo-incest gets a bum rap.

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65

You don't sleep, do you?

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66

I could tell the "all you zombies" tale.

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67

Michael,

Genetically she'd be like my seventeenth cousin or so, and I figure for all I know I am married to my seventeenth cousin. So I wouldn't tell, and it wouldn't be a big deal to me.

Much worse, to me, is the Woody Allen case where he had the relationship of Stepfather/daughter and married her. Even though genetically it would be fine it still feels like incest to me.

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68

Tracing the genealogy of your descendents (takes some time) you discover you've married your great(x10)-grandaughter.

This is actually another Heinlein book -- I can't quite get to the title, but it might be something like Time for the Stars. Scientists discover that some twins can communicate telepathically and instantaneously over arbitrarily long distances. A fleet of slower-than-light spaceships head off to a couple of nearby planets, staffed with one twin on each ship and the other twin back on Earth for communications. Time dilation effects mean that the trip takes a year or so for the ship-twin, and eighty or so years for the Earth-twin, who marries and has, eventually, a great-granddaughter. who for some reason can also communicate telepathically with the ship-twin. Ship-twin returns to Earth, and marries his great-grand-niece.

Heinlein had kind of an incest theme running in a fair amount of his stuff.

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69

it still feels like incest to me

What does incest feel like, Tripp?

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70

Well, the sun took the suggestion to part:

Article here

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71

The RedEye (aka My First Tabloid) also took the suggestion to heart.

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72

There is an even better Heinlein short story, All You Zombies, in which, through the marvels of time travel and sex reassignment surgery, the protagonist is his own father and mother. Unsurprisingly, this protagonist's ring is the Omphalos, the snake eating its own tail.

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73

Kent, check out comment 39.

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74

Weiner, can you believe that Atrios hadn't heard of Sen. Crapo until today? That's worse than not knowing about Representative Flake. Also, wikipedia does not cover the relationship between Rep. Flake and the Arizona State Senator who introduced the bill giving a right of action to sue your Professor over curricular disagreement.

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75

That's pretty amazing, though I often have trouble keeping track of the mountain state Senators myself (Mike Craig and Craig Thomas are the ones I conflate).

You probably know this, but that relationship is discussed here, where it is also explained how there came to be a town in Arizona called "Snowflake."

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76

Actually according to the link Jake Flake didn't introduce and may not support the bill.

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77

That's what I get for not reading carefully.

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78

It turns out he is a sponsor, though I had no way to know that.

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