Devastating Douchebags & Heroic Jasper

Data overload.

"This could have been devastating,” Pete King, NY State Rep on yesterday's terrorist attempt.

Governments React After Terror Attempt on Airplane

What's really devastating to people right here & right now is a lack of access to healthcare.

Rep. King's homepage features a video of him speaking out against "Obamacare"

Here's a predictably insane Chart Of The Day - (via Andrew Sullivan) illustrating how little bang we get for our healthcare buck. While choking on data, have another slice.

Can't find the link to the Security Masterpiece Theatre where one response the TSA has taken is to keep passengers in their seats.

Uh, isn't the reason Jasper Schuringa & the passengers on Flight 253 were able to intercept "aspiring" terrorist & all around rich kid and douchebag Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was that they were able to jump out of their seats to pull his firecracker kit out of the DB's pants??!!

-thx NYT--“it may have been aspirational.” Terror Attempt Seen as Man Tries to Ignite Device on Jet

P.S. Best line on Sparklepants-Jeffery Goldberg at The Atlantic:

"Next item: 'Passengers must remain seated for the final hour before landing. During that time, they may not have access to their carry-on baggage or hold personal items on their laps.' But what about their underwear? Can they have access to their underwear, which is where our latest would-be Muslim martyr apparently hid his bomb?"

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb, Batman.

12/30/09 Update: "Great, just great. Weaponized emo-kid..." BoingBoing

Even Maureen Dowd is on this one:

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

Why? Why? WHY?

Random bike basket in my neighborhood:


Random public trashcan in my neighborhood (about 2 yards away):

I have used a folding basket on my own bikes to prevent this particular petty cruelty from being inflicted on my trusty steed. Should the city invest in a bike basket shaped trashcan design to encourage litterbugs to reform?

Cosmo Kramer Tutorial On Relationships

Newsflash: The Watchmen Movie Sucks Ass Bigtime

Holy Sacrilege Batman! What a turgid turd. The guys who play Rorschach & The Comedian do the best they can, but it's an almost unwatchable fuckup.

The best comparison I can think of is the bogus movie they make of Pee Wee's Big Adventure with James Brolin as "P.W" in that great film. They make a movie about the literal plot of the comic, but completely miss the structural elements and tone. And the point, oh yeah, they miss the point--the superheroics are not dry and almost quiet as in the original comic, but nutty wirework, f/x etc. etc. Whatever. Joel Schumaker looks like fucking Jean Luc Godard and Tim Burton like Fassbinder next to this steaming pile of mediocrity.

The plot points about the squid are not a big deal, interestingly. But Nixon with a ginormous Pinocchio nose talking about it? Oh man.

True to form, I rushed out to see it at the earliest possible moment. What the hell, Iron Man and Hellboy were fun, weren't they?

Get that crummy movie taste out of your mouth with this Saturday Morning Cartoon version.

Alan Moore gets the last word (from the interview in Wired which I linked to previously as well)

"My books are still the same books as they were before they were made into films. The books haven't changed. I'm reminded of the remark by, I think it was Raymond Chandler, where he was asked about what he felt about having his books "ruined" by Hollywood. And he led the questioner into his study and showed him all the books there on the bookshelf, and said, Look—there they all are. They're all fine. They're fine. They're not ruined. They're still there. And I think that's pretty much the attitude I take. If the books are as good as I think they are, then they are the things that will endure. And if the films are as bad as I think they are, then they are the things that will not endure. So, I suppose we'll see at the end of the day, whenever that is."