It's too much to hope for that all wingnuts are as dumb as Glenn Beck, isn't it? Here he is interviewing Hagee.

Why is America not in the Bible?

But: Henley defends Beck.

First, from the white South Carolina.

according to a pair of widely circulated anonymous e-mails, [Obama] is a Muslim.

"Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background," warns an e-mail titled "Who Is Barack Obama," that was circulating in South Carolina political circles this summer and sent to Politico by a South Carolina Democrat.

"The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?"

"Please forward to everyone you know," it ended.

The other widely forwarded e-mail is titled "Can a good Muslim become a good American" and answers that question in the negative, before concluding: "And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!"

And from the black South Carolina, a very interesting article about women who are trying to decide between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. Definitely worth reading.

You know how when you're really drunk you'll have stupid thoughts that seem profound, and you remember how, when you were young, you'd sometimes write them down and wake up to something like "pudding is rounder than love"?

Well, last night I went to bed completely sober, but I must have woken up drunk in the middle of the night, because I was completely convinced that what the world needs is a game modeled on Twister that would let people re-enact famous movie sex scenes.

Don't pretend this hasn't happened to you.

In the last week, both my hairdresser and spinning instructor have pimped their blogs to me.

What is wrong with the world that the bouncing boobies thread turns to talk of baseball? As befits our neutered state, here's a rather amusing video of people reacting to something gross, with no grossness depicted.

I know bra stuff would be handled more knowledgeably and less sophomorically by some of the other bloggers here, and I'm overlooking the egregious misspelling of "exercise" in the intro. Nonetheless, I find myself nearly hypnotized by the not quite work-safe Bounce-ometer.

Via The Modulator.

Not just a tool, but a whole tool set. Both links at that post are highly recommended.

From the resume files.

First email message from Candidate X.

Hi, I am interested in this job and would like to be responded to about it.

Second email message from Candidate X.

MY PHONE NUMBER IS [REDACTED] SO ANYONE CAN CALL ME THERE.

The end.

As-salaam alaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.

Josh says a lot of what I think. One of the saddest aspects of our current predicament is that we were so close to being so much better off.

Apparently Cully and his friends were fooling around doing pro wrestling moves. He slammed a dude who landed wrong and died. The DA charged him as an adult, so now it's all over Google. Poor kid.

So Ann Coulter quickly backs down when she insults people of the Jewish faith? Seriously, has she ever backed down or apologized before?

I'm not sure what I think about the Iranian-born, German-raised, German-team player refusing to play in Israel, but I am kind of fascinated by the fact that he looks kind of German, just like Iranians raised in Sweden look kind of Swedish, etc. I know there are exceptions and the effects are subtle, but have y'all noticed this? (Not just with Iranians, obviously.)

Doctor Anal resurfaces in Denmark.

By request.

Would-be Malkin interlocutor Ezra got me started on the recent discussion of multi-razor technologies in the manosphere. I'll say only this: I scoffed at the Fusion when it was introduced, but Gillette's brilliant "mail him one anyway" strategy paid off in a big way-- low on blades, I decided to take a chance with the five-speed and since then I've been hooked. Replacement blades are expensive as hell, but they take care of the tough beard while respecting my manly yet youthful skin.

I hate it when I'm getting dressed in the morning and put on a skirt only I can't remember if the button goes on the side or in the back and so I try it both ways and figure the button must go in the back and then later when I'm at work realize it's not quite hanging right and really the button should have gone to the side but now the back part that I've been sitting on all day is wrinkly so I can't twist the skirt around or else I'll have weird creases on my side.

Knock yourselves out, you mavens of mastication, you connoisseurs of cuisine.

Having solved all of the rest of their problems, several Florida cities are now focusing their attention on making it illegal to feed the homeless.

The stories in the thread about class below have raised this question for me: how many of you are immigrants? (Which we'll define as having settled in a country in which either your or your parents weren't born.)

It's important to me that everyone realizes that impressive deadlifter Benedikt Magnusson has appropriated my pre-blogging rituals for his weightlifting routine. I hope, for his sake, that we don't have to throw down over this.

It's bad enough that teachers assign their kids projects that can't realistically be done without the assistance of a parent but actually assigning parents homework? And threatening to dock the kid's grade if the parent doesn't comply? I'd be tempted to give my kid's teacher a beatdown.

Alif Sikkiin writes,

This Unfogged thread about engagement and permission and marriage is weird. That's because every Unfogged thread about middle-class American social norms are weird to me. One Fat Englishman was the only commenter I could identify with; don't know if it's class or culture or what, but I sometimes think that Canada is in some ways more like England than it is like the US.

I can explain that. In most of the rest of the world, things are about themselves. In America, things are about themselves and about the city upon a hill. Everything is fraught and overwrought.

Jay Van Buren, portraitist of Furries.

A few thoughts on the Graeme Frost issue.

1. Jim Henley is completely right.

2. I do wish people wouldn't use children to make political points.

3. Again we see that when people say someone is "fair game" they reveal that they think the game is personal destruction, not argumentative engagement.

(4. Think Progress better have its facts right.)

But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind, and actions of another; arts used to elude the law, and the trust of prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good, not harm to the people) employed contrary to the end for which it was given: if the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured, or laid by, proportionably as they promote or oppose them: if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is readiest to introduce it; and the operators in it supported, as much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet aproved still, and liked the better, if a long train of actions shew the councils all tending that way; how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind, which way things are going; or from casting about how to save himself, than he could from believing the captain of the ship he was in, was carrying him, and the rest of the company, to Algiers, when he found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in his ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him to turn his course another way for some time, which he steadily returned to again, as soon as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let him?

Not Algiers!

Feministing is in a huff over a supposed resurgence of men asking a woman's father for "permission" before proposing. I've gotta say - this doesn't bother me. I know it's a relic of the patriarchy blah, blah, blah whatevers but marriage is a merging of families and I think reaching out to a woman's parents before proposing so the boy can answer any questions the in-laws have and allay any of their concerns can be a nice gesture to smooth the road for good relations down the line. It doesn't have to be all about the historical nature of treating women like property.

I'm kind of intrigued by Ezra's idea for multifamily living. While sharing one big house would get really hectic if you were factoring in spouses and kids and such, I think his Big Love-style arrangement idea could be really great.

So Tim Burke nearly got run off the road / beaten up over a John Kerry bumper sticker. Wow.

Ok, who's going to try this out and report back?

David Felder has a thoughtful response to people who didn't take kindly to the encomium to Whole Foods in the Chronicle.

as cost is never a concern to me, i shop at WF all the time. in washington, i shop at world market. if you can't afford to shop there, don't. maybe if those who whine about the cost (and can't stand the union politics) spent more time getting an education, they wouldn't have to worry about the cost and they wouldn't be "forced" to work there. America is the only country I have ever seen where the "poor" are overweight.

I give him major points for compressing so many wingnutty/schmibertarian qualities into so few sentences, but the last line reads more like a sig than a summary, so points off there. Nevertheless, a solid effort.

The birth of the cackle story. I am chastened; my apologies.

Cully Vale killed someone. Holy crap.

A lurker writes:

I'm wondering if perhaps the unfogged collective would help a lurker out and advise as to how one asks one's houseguest to not piss on one's mountain laurel.

I became acquainted with "M" (houseguest) as a patron at the library where I work. He's an electrician. He's done some small jobs for the library and he did some work on my house. My husband K. and I think he's a decent fellow, but he seemed to have a rough life. His back's been messed up for years and finally the doctor who's been working w/him told him he'll be in a wheelchair soon if he doesn't get at least some minimal surgery done. So he had it done. He doesn't have insurance but he worked out some sort of payment plan. Bc he has no insurance he has to pay out of pocket for pain meds (a couple of hundred per month). We felt bad for him and we do think he's a good sort, so we asked him if he wanted to stay with us for a while after the surgery so that he could rest up w/o worrying about paying $300/week rent in the motel where he'd been staying and he could devote his resources to paying for the surgery, the meds, child support (about one year left on that), everyday items, etc. He had borrowed money from us for meds (for pain plus high bp and cholesterol) a few times bc he just didn't have it. He took us up on the offer to stay a while.

The goal is for him to stay here rent-free so he can save some money, pay for his meds and other items, pay child support, etc.; basically, get back on his feet, with a little nest egg, stabilized and ready to move on to the next step. He's had a couple of snags along the way: bc he has no money, he went back to work too early and had to have something else done on his back; his (out of state) dad died; he had to go to the hospital bc his bp meds stopped working and he had some sort of chest pain and was switched onto a different med; etc.

Annnnyway, M is a little rough around the edges. E.g., he smokes a lot and sits outside on the back porch to do so. When K. cut back the plants in the flower garden for overwintering, he found a mess of cigarette butts in the flower bed. M happened to come home while K. was doing this and clearly saw that K. had picked out the butts. When K. was out doing other yardwork a week or so later, he found more butts there! Okay, I know some people flick their butts away, but I would never think to flick my butts into my host's flower garden (or anyone's private property). And certainly not after I saw that they'd picked out the butts. So K. gave him an old coffee can to use and he has been using that.

Now we come to the mountain laurel. The bush is right next to the house and to where we keep the garbage cans and also just a few feet away from patio table and chairs. It smells like piss. K. figures that M's pissing on it while he's out there smoking at night. The leaves on the plant by the ground where he pisses are turning yellow. And there's moss growing on the ground in the way moss grows in piss-rich environments. Plus, it stinks - inside and out. With the unusually warm weather here, the windows are often open and, even with my nose stuffed up from the flu, I can smell it. The mountain laurel is directly outside dining room windows. When he sits on the back porch, the bathroom window is literally 3-4 feet away from him. It would take him less than 10 steps to walk inside the house between cigarettes and use the toilet.

How does one bring this up? He'll be here until at least the new year, possibly until spring. I understand some people think nothing of pissing in the yard, but neither K. nor I count ourselves among their numbers. I don't want it to be uncomfortable for anyone while he's here. It should be as easy as saying, "Would you please be so kind as to not piss in the mountain laurel?" But it's not. I don't think that would be enough. I think it would have to be spelled out to please don't piss outside in our yard; or the neighbor's yard; please do come inside, piss in the toilet and flush it (at this point, I'm not going to push for handwashing). I think he needs it spelled out, but doing so comes off as asking if someone had been raised in a barn, thereby insulting the person.

Actually, I would appreciate a general form of approach for this kind of problem bc I foresee similar ones arising. E.g., the toilet seat in said bathroom is dirty in such a way that I can't figure out how he managed it. It's as if you were working in the garden or cleaning out an attic or the like, then washed your hands, thereby producing dirty, grey water spots in the sink. Thing is, these are dirty splotches on the toilet seat. Is he rinsing his boots off in the toilet? Rinsing himself off in the tank? But, whatever it is, to leave the dirty splotches there.... They're quite obvious; they're rather large splotches; they're not tiny dots or sprinkles; it's what you might expect if a muddy dog shook its coat in the vicinity. I'm not sure either K. or I will be able to bring that up, although perhaps I should bc I end up cleaning it bc it's the guest bath and I don't want anyone else to come upon it... but I would like to solve the outdoor pissing issue in such a way as to avoid insult, achieve the desired behavior and save the plant.

TEH SCIENCE! reveals why you paid too much at the strip club last week.

The researchers used ads and flyers to sign up 18 lap dancers from local clubs. Each woman was asked to log on to a Web site and report her work hours, tips, and when she was menstruating. Lap dancers generally work 5-hour shifts with 18 or so 3-minute performances per shift. They average about $14 per "dance"--all of which is called a "tip" because it is illegal to pay for sex in New Mexico.

Over a 60-day period, the researchers collected data from 5300 lap dances. They divided the answers according to whether the dancers were in the menstrual phase, the high-fertility estrous phase, or the luteal phase. The result, as they report online this week in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior: Of the 11 women with normal menstrual cycles, those in the estrous phase pulled in about $70 an hour--compared with $50 for those in the luteal phase, and only $35 an hour for those who were menstruating. The other seven women were on birth control pills. They earned less across the board, and there was no peaking at the estrous phase.

The numbers suggest that men can tell when a woman is most fertile, although the message seems to be conveyed by "subtle behavioral signals" that evade conscious detection, the authors say. They add that the study couldn't identify whether it is scent or other physical changes that cue the men in, but they don't think it's anything obvious such as type of dance moves or "conversational content."

Something something back on the veldt something.

This is already being linked all over, and I really wish there were video of it. Hillary Clinton was asked by an Iowan about her recent vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard corp a terrorist organization.

"Well, let me thank you for the question, but let me tell you that the premise of the question is wrong and I'll be happy to explain that to you," Clinton began.

She offered a detailed description of the resolution, which she said stressed robust diplomacy that could lead to imposing sanctions against Iran, and then pointedly said to Rolph that her view wasn't in "what you read to me, that somebody obviously sent to you."

"I take exception," Rolph interjected. "This is my own research."

"Well then, let me finish," Clinton responded.

Rolph, from nearby Nashua, fired back that no one had sent him the material.

"Well, then, I apologize. It's just that I've been asked the very same question in three other places," she said.

Most reactions are to beat up on Clinton for getting snippy and assuming that anyone asking her a pointed question is some kind of plant. And it is a little odd: people are asking you about a major foreign policy issue? What could possibly be behind that??? But it's also a fact that there are plants at these things, and if the wording of the questions was similar, she's not nuts for being suspicious.

But the commenters at the Post get it exactly right in noting that the reporter doesn't try to explain whether Clinton's substantive response, that the resolution she voted for was substantially different from the original resolution, is correct. Yes, we want to know if she gets snippy when challenged, but what we really want to know is what her vote meant and whether she's misrepresenting it. But that would require research, which would require time, which would mean that the Post would get scooped, so we don't get any of that. It is their campaign blog, so I guess I'll hold out for a story tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath while I hold out.

Wingnut Lifeguard has been thinking about applications for nitrous oxide, and, being a wingnut, he asked me what I thought first about a nitrous oxide bomb, because wouldn't it be better than blowing people up to make them laugh so that they wouldn't want to fight you, and second, why don't we use nitrous oxide during interrogations, because he'd rather "have someone dying laughing than screaming bloody murder because you put a nail in his sack." He almost sounds like a humanitarian. But when I suggested that using drugs during interrogations was probably even still illegal, he gave me a "those liberals will complain about anything" response. Ah well, at least he realized that the "gay bomb" they were talking about on his transistor radio wouldn't work because "gays can still fight."

An inspiring and depressing story of interrogations carried out by Americans during the second world war.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

Yglesias has the right response.

Obviously, they just didn't understand the stakes. Or perhaps lacked moral clarity.

Read the whole article; these are impressive human beings.