Identifying Marks Even Your Mother Didn't Even Know You Had

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575646704100959546.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

It might seem that one computer is pretty much like any other. Far from it: Each has a different clock setting, different fonts, different software and many other characteristics that make it unique.  Every time a typical computer goes online, it broadcasts hundreds of such details as a calling card to other computers it communicates with. Tracking companies can use this data to uniquely identify computers, cellphones and other devices, and then build profiles of the people who use them.

In its examination of 70 million website visits, 41st Parameter found it could generate a fingerprint about 89% of the time. By comparison, Steel House was able to use cookies for tracking on only about 78% of visits, because some people blocked or deleted cookies.

The Electonic Frontier Foundation has been aware of this problem for awhile. Here's a browser test they built which will tell you how unique (i.e. identifiably traceable) you are online, never mind your IP address.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Here's a screencap of the Panopticlick results for a current Firefox set-up running on Windows XP on a standard Atom netbook:

Unique among 1,277,238 browsers tested so far! That's a fingerprint, all right.

This is why you need to be using the Torbutton extension in Firefox, even if you're not using Tor. (If you're not using Tor, under "Torbutton Preferences," just click "Use Custom Proxy Settings," and change all the port numbers to "0". Careful, though-- if you want to use Tor after changing this setting, you'll have to go back to Preferences and switch the setting back to "Use Polipo," or you'll be browsing straight from your own IP.)

Torbutton spoofs your User Agent and Browser, blocks plug-in content, Flash and Flash cookies, etc. It cleans up a lot of sites in some ways, but also makes using the Internet much more of a chore (and makes some sites unusable). 

Let's see what Panopticlick has to say about things now:

Some better, at 1 in 85,149-- not quite a fingerprint, but still giving a high level of probability as to identity. If you look at the results, it's that screen size and color depth information leaking out that's the problem.

So, go ahead and install the NoScript JavaScript blocking/rewriting Firefox extension, which makes using your browser even more inconvenient by hassling you to allow or disallow scripting permissions for every site you visit.

And there it is: now you're 1 out of 693-- the bland and indistinguishable blob of unformed matter you always knew yourself to be.

Of course, if you're not deleting cookies and using other privacy extensions like BetterPrivacy and HTTPSeverywhere you're still going to be identifiable by cookies and vulnerable to login breaches. So you might as well just give up and put all your information on Facebook, to save everyone the trouble of tracking your disgusting, time-wasting browsing habits.

Hiatt's Committee Writing Tomorrow's Washington Post Editorials...

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/daskrapital/2010/11/30/why-was-the-washington-post-shut-out-of-wikileaks-story-well%E2%80%A6/

Moe Tkacik gets mentioned a second time today, for some enterprising "amateur statistics" which offer a pretty clear picture as to why the Washington Post wasn't offered the Wikileaks documents:

 ...before the latest document dump it appeared that a grand total of three stories, comprising 4108 words of the 35,662 words of 2010 Post stories about which Wikileaks was the primary focus, actually required anything approaching a close read of any of the Wikileaked documents...

...Here's how the rest of the Post's pre-November coverage of Wikileaks breaks down:

• 20.5% or 7,323 words on… miscellaneous thumbsucker type stories on the political and policy consequences, at home and abroad, of the leaks which can probably be summarized in the words of one July 27 headline, "After war leak, anger but no calls for change."
• 16% or 5,702 words on… Wikileaker Pvt. Bradley Manning, e.g. how he was being "celebrated as a folk hero" by some despite the fact that his "mental health" had been "doubted" and one profile that began with the lede "Bradley Manning, 22, had just gone through a breakup."
• 15.8% or 5649 words on what might generally be called sundry leakology e.g. neutral and relatively banal discussion of the basic mechanics and history of leaks, liberal on the references to/quotes from/historical comparisons with Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg
• 14.2% or 5,064 words… "reporting" on and/or voicing the Pentagon's strong condemnation of the Wikileaks for jeopardizing national security and countless lives by disclosing such a vast trove of damning top-secret, highly sensitive and "explosive" etc. etc. information.
• 12.9% or 4,607 words on… host of op-ed commentary pieces employing a host of different ways of saying there's nothing in the Wikileaks that everyone in Washington did not know already and no it did not actually require "reading" the leaks themselves to arrive at this conclusion. Richard Cohen, Michael Gerson and Gene Robinson all produced relatively identical variations on the unbylined editorial "Wikileaks 'Truth': Secret History of the Iraq War Turns Out To Be Pretty Familiar" although Anne Applebaum probably deserves some credit for pointing that the reason they all felt this way was mainly that no one really had enough of an attention span to read them, duh. And…
• 9% or 3,209 words on… Wikileaks internal "affairs" e.g. Julian Assange's rape charge, Hussein comparisons, etc.

Marina Abramovic Is Hard to Break Up With

Jesus! Do they realize that leaving that thing on all the time is like leaving a treadmill going non-stop? Worse, probably-- those are CRTs from the 1990s. Have they been checked to see if they are at least EnergyStar compliant?

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=abramovic&page=1&f=quicksearch&cr=2

Here, read this:

The tensions between abandonment and control lay at the heart of her series of performances known as Rhythms (1973–74). In Rhythm 5, Abramovic lay down inside the blazing frame of a wooden star. With her oxygen supply depleted by the fire, she lost consciousness and had to be rescued by concerned onlookers. In Rhythm 10, she plunged a knife between the spread fingers of one hand, stopping only after she had cut herself 20 times. Having made an audio recording of the action, she then played back the sound while repeating the movements—this time trying to coordinate the new gashes with the old. Using her dialogue with an audience as a source of energy, Abramovic created ritualistic performance pieces that were cathartic and liberating. In Rhythm O, she invited her audience to do whatever they wanted to her using any of the 72 items she provided: pen, scissors, chains, axe, loaded pistol, and others. This essay in submission was played out to chilling conclusions—the performance ceased when audience members grew too aggressive.

People sometimes do surprisingly aggressive things when they're stupid, bored and someone's egging them on. It's like an episode of Jackass, but then you have to read an essay afterward.

And then there's this scene right out of a Hippie Twilight:

From the early to mid-1980s, [Ulay and Abramovic] presented their Nightsea Crossing works, in which they sat silently and motionless for anywhere from several hours to sixteen days. After two years traveling in China, in 1988 Abramovic and Ulay spent almost three months walking toward each other from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China. Upon meeting, they formally ended their relationship.

Well, no. Hippies probably couldn't stay silent that long. A junkie on the nod could, though.

Make Way for Another "Painter of Light," Alexis Rockman

Oh my.

http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2010/rockman/

Rockman achieves his vision through a synthesis of fantasy and empirical fact, using sources as varied as natural history, botanical illustrations, museum dioramas, science fiction films, realist art traditions dating back to the Renaissance, and firsthand field study.

Oddly, the description fails to mention the Native American with a single tear falling down his cheek.

Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow

3rd floor North, American Art Museum

November 19, 2010 – May 8, 2011

A Most Unwelcome Set of Facts

http://www.slate.com/id/2275789/

On average, a treadmill uses between 600 and 700 watts of energy. That's the equivalent of watching three or four 46-inch LCD televisions or leaving 50 compact fluorescent light bulbs burning, for the duration of your workout. If you ran for two-and-a-half hours per week—the government's recommendation for ordinary adults—generating electricity for the treadmill would emit about 110 tons of carbon dioxide annually. (That's about 1 percent of the annual CO₂ emissions of the average car.)

As though Laziness, Boredom, and a Silk Duvet were not already Barriers Enough-- Now a Moral Argument.

Art History Majors Step to the Left to Collect Your Brooms and Dustpans...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0fe6c2c6-f8b5-11df-b550-00144feab49a.html#axzz16mpQcwhc

What do you think of writing like this?

As if burning its way through a golden halo, the deep vermilion orb throbs above a plain of palpitating ochre flecked with a sinister patch of blood-red froth. In one corner, two bands of citrus orange and yellow are shrill exclamations in the deliquescent surface.

How long do you suppose author Rachel Spence labored in writing that purple paragraph? It feels like days, at least.

Anyway, there's an Adolph Gottlieb retrospective at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Do send a postcard.

Someone Please Tell Sean Penn About the Health Care in Cuba

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/homeopathy_in_cuba.php

Leptospirosis is a disease caused by the spirochete Leptospira (a bacteria similar to the kind that causes syphilis) that is carried by rats and other rodents. The disease resulting from infection by this bacteria can result in complications that include meningitis, extreme fatigue, hearing loss, respiratory distress, azotemia, renal failure, and often liver failure. In general the spirochete is transmitted in the urine of infected animals, most commonly rats, mice, and moles...

Cuba has Leptospirosis. And they spent money trying to protect against it using Homeopathy:

...it would have cost $3 million to produce enough real vaccines to immunize the population, which, it occurs to me, would be pretty damned cheap--only around $1 per person! The homeopathic "nosodes" cost a mere $200,000, which should not be surprising, given that it's nothing but water. In any case, it sounds to me as though the Cuban government cheaped out, pulled a Mao, so to speak. Yo[u] may remember that in the 1960s, Mao, seeing that he didn't have the resources to provide science-based medical care to his people, unleashed his "barefoot doctor" campaign, providing cheap traditional Chines[e] medicine to the masses, rather than science-based medicine. It looks to me as though Cuba just did the same thing with homeopathy.

Dear Somali Pirates, Please Don't Read This...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/qatar/67166/

The only Middle Eastern country with a U.S. military base is also weak on terrorism:

But U.S. officials may have reason to be suspicious of Qatar. Members of the royal family reportedly hosted Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, in the late '90s and may have helped him evade U.S. capture. In 2005, officials discovered another link between Qatar and al Qaeda: Qatar paid al Qaeda (and some speculate it may still be paying) millions of dollars each year so al Qaeda wouldn't attack it. Qatar struck the deal before the 2003 Iraq invasion and renewed it in March of 2005, when an Egyptian suicide bomber attacked a theater in Doha. Many believed the bomber was part of al Qaeda. "We're not sure that the attack was carried out by al Qaeda, but we ratified our agreement just to be on the safe side," a Qatari official said at the time. "We are a soft target and prefer to pay to secure our national and economical interests. We are not the only ones doing so."

And, oh.. wasn't this supposed to have been fixed a long time ago?

Beyond Qatar's alleged funding of al Qaeda and its ties to Hamas and Iran, it has also tried to bolster its reputation by allowing money to flow freely through the country, no questions asked. Implementing more scrutiny would likely anger terrorist groups and put Qatar at greater risk.

Aw, America... What Did You Do Now?

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security/wikileaks-doc-us-tried-stop-accountability-abroad

We’re still reviewing the most recent mass of Wikileaks documents, but already they reveal improper government conduct: Bush administration officials pressured Germany not to prosecute CIA officers responsible for the kidnapping, extraordinary rendition and torture of German national Khaled El-Masri, an ACLU client. Mr. El-Masri was kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, taken to a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan where he was held for several months and tortured before being released on a hillside in Albania.

 

 

Could Thomas S. Monson Take Uncle Dirty? Doubtful.

Slate's "80 Over 80" claims that:

For the second year in a row, Mormon President Thomas S. Monson stands atop the list. As the divine prophet, seer, and revelator for 5.5 million Americans and more than 12 million people around the world, he's the most powerful 83-year-old we could find.

If the authors were looking for power in an old man, they obviously didn't try very hard: http://web.archive.org/web/20080115214502/http://lovebryan.com/features/uncle...

(The original post was long ago pulled from http://www.lovebryan.com/features/uncledirty.php due to pressure from Uncle Dirty's family, so think about the ethics of dredging up the web archive-- of a man who is nothing if not an exhibitionist-- before clicking on the link.)

More Infectious than Cee-Lo Green

The version in the video may actually be taken right from the record-- there's some hiss. The version in the jukebox at the Studio Dilaceratus canteen is from Zulu Rock: South Africa 1950-1962, and seems to have been mastered at a slightly faster RPM.

Free Admission Means Open Clearance

Bill Griffith Book-Signing in Brooklyn Dec. 4th: Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. He'll be at the "Desert Island Bookstore" table, from 2 to 4PM. Free admission to the public.The Festival is held at Mt. Carmel Church, 11 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn NY

There's always the chance that Randy Quaid will show up.

What in the...? Did You Get Wet Paint on Me?

Election in Egypt: Inside Cairo's Women-Only Voting Stations

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/election-in-egypt-inside-cairos-women-only-voting-stations/67182/

Lalala, We're Not Listening...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11877604

 

The UK was complicit in the torture of the first al-Qaeda member to be convicted in the country of directing terrorism, a court has heard.

 

 

Rangzieb Ahmed, 34, was unlawfully held in Pakistan, beaten and had fingernails removed, a QC told the Court of Appeal.

 

This is probably Wikileaks fault.

Mr Bennathan told the court his client was held unlawfully for more than a year, during which time he was beaten with sticks and cables and had three fingernails pulled out with pliers.

The court heard how the CIA was present at his arrest and how British intelligence officials questioned Ahmed, formerly of Rochdale, during the period of his alleged mistreatment. 

Luckily, this will never be a problem in the United States, since, a.) we don't torture, and, b.) we don't have trials.

 

 

 

Not Even a Whole Penny for the Top One Percent

 

Obama says freezing pay for all federal workers will save $2 billion over the rest of this fiscal year.

 

Two BILLION dollars…I wonder how much you would have to raise taxes on the wealthiest one percent to raise two BILLION DOLLARS over the course of the fiscal year? Crap, this can't be right…

 A whole  0.072 percentage points!*

Crap that is like totally nothing! No wonder they are raising such a fucking shitstorm about keeping their Bush tax cuts! Obama would have to freeze the pay of his "money people" back to the Ice Ages to make as much money as you could just skimming it all from them.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/daskrapital/2010/11/30/the-definition-of-money-is-a-bit-different-in-swampland%E2%80%A6/

 

A Modest Proposal

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/29/news-corp-open-to-options-for-myspace/

News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said the media conglomerate is open to all options for Myspace pending an overhaul of the struggling social-networking website.

Why don't they do like the city of Detroit has done and raze all the abandoned profiles, so as to let the deer and other wildlife take over? As it is, the MySpace ghost town seems like a fire hazard.

A Stamp of a Tiny Foot in Protest

Must you be continually reminded that the Dilaceratus Rainbow of Flavors comes at no cost to the home consumer? This is because it is for Entertainment purposes only, and offers no consumer warranty of fitness for other uses.

Oh, What a Piece of Man-Meat You Are, Senator Inhofe

http://www.creators.com/opinion/phyllis-schlafly.html

...The Senate's environmentalism expert, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. ...

This is why Satirists end up living in trailer homes and drinking "Poor Man's Corona."

O, Ye of Little Faith

http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=32202#

Yet knowing that we are not blessed with many bodies of water or rainfall, we should be more actively involved in long-term plans to address the problem. Besides praying for rain, we should all start thinking long and hard what to do until our prayers are answered.

Surely just the prayer will be enough.

The Silence in the Middle East

http://www.7iber.com/2010/11/wikileaks-silence-jordanian-media-cablegate/

What is interesting is that the Jordanian response seems to have provided local media with the “opportunity” to actually tackle the story, even in the online world where the headlines of the sole wikileaks article typically reads “Jordan denies…” quoting the unnamed government official. Only Ammon seems to have tackled the subject head on, going so far as to translate the quoted Jordanian officials mentioned in the cables, including Zaid Rifai. Yet, for the most part, this opportunity seems to be lost on most.

Jordan’s traditional media appears somewhat aloof, and missing, perhaps intentionally, the biggest news cycle of the year. The Jordan Times editorial today, for example, focuses on the lack of rain lately. Ad Dastour’s headline read “Jordan confirms its stance against any military action on Iran” in which it provides the same state-produced information.Al Rai has a similar headline reading “Jordanian Official: Wikileaks documents reflect perceptions of US officials” reproducing a near photo copy of the Ad Dastour article.

 

Back on the Chain Gang

Excellent work, Posterous.com, in performing as advertised. Accounts are being shifted, and the shadow network of supporting sites will soon be bolstering the bony carcass of Empire Dilaceratus. 

A subsidiary updating account will be transferred back to HelloTxt to handle the micro-services. Ping.fm is actually more stable, but has fewer features.

Now that another Tool has disappointed us, there will be a Pause in the Multi-Tiered Parade of Dilaceratus, as a new system is Cobbled.

Another ridiculous attempt to find some combination of factors that will actually work.

With increasing frustration, turning back to the parts that were actually working, a while ago.

More failures, this time in attempting to post via email from Google Reader.
Let us try a picture posting, of Rage.

What on Earth? Emails sent from iOS Mail client don't show up, but emails
sent from a computer browser do? This isn't how email is alleged to work.

Giving this email posting one more shot, from a browser, and with the
address copy-and-pasted to eliminate any error.

Bollocks. Once again email updates don't seem to be occurring. It seems strange this is a technical hurdle.

Dear Fruity Pebbles-- Let us make a small, timid foray into the Ping mobile application. (It is not, sadly, a Pretty one.)

Excitingly, most of the services seem to be responding well to their new Master, and we may perhaps finally see a Brow Unfurrowed, in Relief

Utilizing Wit and Iron Fortitude, this represents the transition from HelloTxt to Ping.fm. The future beckons with whispered promises.

Your Kind Lack of Attention, if you will. As has been the case for the past few days, some Testing is going on, so as to streamline The Author's life. Your indulgence is appreciated.

(Justify My Thug.) h

(Justify My Thug.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks ... Simon Jenkins: "Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment."

(Only 26 Shopping Da

(Only 26 Shopping Days Left until War with Iran) http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/wikileaks-expose-barak-warned-strike-on-iran-was-viable-until-end-of-2010-1.327453

(New Museums.) http:

(New Museums.) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/27/arts/design/museums.html?ref=design#nouvel ... A long NYT article on huge new museums being built in Doha and Abu Dhabi. There's also some video of architects Pei, Gehry, Foster, and Nouvel and their projects. The link is to video of the most interesting of the projects, Jean Nouvel's Abu Dhabi Louvre and Doha National Museum... Whether either of these two designs will even marginally perform well as places to actually display art is highly questionable, but it's thinking about light and movement on a grand scale, which is exciting.

(Milchig.) http://en

(Milchig.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You ... Studio Dilaceratus, much like the real Science laboratory shown here, also has a number of Pencils, and scrupulous Labeling. This is because of Professionalism.

(Vegetarian Feasting

(Vegetarian Feasting.) Black bean paste, salsa, Kalamata olives, chopped spinach, diced onion, sharp cheddar. Cook in a little olive oil in a heavy pan at a medium-high heat, and they will brown deliciously... Alternately, drop by the Taco Bell and ask them whether they'll shit in a bag for you in you pay them eighty-nine cents.

(Pocket Projectiles.

(Pocket Projectiles.) Returning again to the Topic which has Consumed these pages of late. Whilst lacking the Mass or Uniform Shape of the Tinkertoy Spool, Hay-Corns are in season easily available, and when propelled via SlingShot at exposed skin, will sting your Enemy angrily... In less extreme instances (small packs of children) they may be casually flung in handfuls so as to Deter, without Maiming. C+.

(Slim Harpo - Rainin

(Slim Harpo - Rainin' in My Heart) http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/slim-harpo.html for a nice précis, some excellent files, and two great photos.

(Long Lost Brothers.

(Long Lost Brothers.) It turns out that searching out the clip was within The Author's purview.

(Horse Painting is B

(Horse Painting is Boring.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11846789 ... The Queen is no doubt unable to keep from thinking of Peter Capaldi's epic Malcolm Tucker "In the Loop" rant.

(NYC Horrors.) https

(NYC Horrors.) https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28kristof.html ... What does this mean, though: "I can’t be sure of elements of Yumi’s story, but it mostly rings true to me and to the social workers who have worked with her." Because it "mostly" rings true, is close to home, and helps illustrate the dehumanizing barbarity of sexual slavery, Kristof's going to run with it anyway? Shouldn't there be some difference between a newspaper and a morality play?

(But Praying for Rai

(But Praying for Rain Helps!) http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/11/the_bible_is_not_a_medical_tex.php ... "Could someone explain to me how dubious diagnoses based on vague descriptions of serially translated myths can actually advance our understanding of disease, other than by promoting the publication careers of scientists happy to pander to superstition?"

(Praying for Rain) h

(Praying for Rain) http://jordantimes.com/?news=32140 ... This is an awesome plan: "Jordan, which is considered the world’s fourth water poorest country, suffers an annual water deficit of 500 million cubic metres and per capita share of water does not exceed 150 cubic metres per year, well below the water poverty line of 500 cubic metres per year." Surely the people of a water-poor region like this have never, ever, tried Prayer before. But it'll work this time!

(Jordanian Cabinet.)

(Jordanian Cabinet.) http://www.black-iris.com/2010/11/23/yet-another-rifai-government-and-the-need-for-referendums/ "The process story is as predictable as that of the parliamentary elections two weeks ago. A new cabinet is formed without any public consultations or public debate, and, in this specific case, will be given a tremendous vote of confidence by the lower house of parliament in the complete absence of any significant political opposition and the presence of a largely pro-government legislative body that is said to be representative of the people. "

(Drought Theater, Se

(Drought Theater, Security Theater. Same Difference.) http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/our-new-safety-overlords/67079/ as submitted by Greenwald, Falllows, Tkacik already. You have to Believe... In kitsch, apparently. If not, you're "immature."

(Morons and Thugs.)

(Morons and Thugs.) http://www.mediaite.com/online/foxnation-com-repurposes-anti-obama-article-from-the-onion-forgets-to-mention-its-a-joke/ ... This travesty will perhaps serve as today's reminder that when you see content published under the Dilaceratus Coat of Many Colors, it has been put there for entertainment purposes only. That knaves and charlatans may use it otherwise is disgraceful, but not personally relevant.

(Utter Hypocrisy.) h

(Utter Hypocrisy.) http://htxt.it/IBuw ... Surely you want to "Like" Dilaceratus on Facebook, immediately following his posts complaining about Facebook censorship and PZ Myers and Ben Goldacre pandering? It's the sort of multiple-mind thinking only Geniuses and Cult Members manage to pull off successfuly, but you can do it!

(Abusive Relationshi

(Abusive Relationships.) http://htxt.it/H4vI ... Typical nearly incoherent TheNextWeb reporting on Facebook page censorship in Egypt before "Angry Friday." A little more at http://htxt.it/Xkok from whence the image was scabbed.

(Chastisements.) htt

(Chastisements.) http://htxt.it/4VSp ... And now PZ Myers posts the same dumb cartoon lamented earlier, when Goldacre linked to it... These two are, without question, the Good Guys (and, of course, the New Scientist cover the cartoon references was the work of dunderheads), but when you start giving tacit approval to ham-fisted sloganeering, it's pandering. Just because you know your audience will appreciate the sentiment (which is what that cartoon represents-- tired, clichéd sentiment) is no reason not to have some sort of artistic (or comedic) standards.

(Comedy Gold.) http:

(Comedy Gold.) http://htxt.it/RwMf ... More picking on Ben Goldacre's sense of humor (for some reason or another.) He writes: "am i the only person who "hilariously" pronounces "aubergine" to rhyme with 'vagina'?" ...In (also non-hilarious) reply, the OED gives the etymology of Aubergine as "Fr., dim. of auberge, variant of alberge ‘a kind of peach’" and of course Urban Dictionary will immediately give us http://htxt.it/WGIW so the connection is made... (Two point for Dilaceratus!)... What is perhaps hilarious, however, is the mental conflation of a fruit with the physical characteristics of the attached picture with those of the female genitalia. From a psychiatrist http://htxt.it/miLY no less!

(Not up to Scientolo

(Not up to Scientology's Birthing Standards.) Peep Show s07e01, part two. Peep Show... One quibble: If you had a plumbing problem and were worried about money, would you throw away a perfectly serviceable Bucket, even if it was made of waxed paper?

(Who Knew?) A reader

(Who Knew?) A reader notes that the Peep Show s07e01 referenced earlier is already on YouTube, so you needn't go spelunking after all... Notice, however, this episode is not necessarily the best media to be mixing with your Froot Loops and juice.

(Tremendous.) Mercy

(Tremendous.) Mercy Baby, Pleadin'. (Jimmy Mullins, with Frankie Lee Sims on guitar.) How many times can a desperate man say Please? More times than you think-- until he first screams, just a little more than a minute in. This is so good it hurts. (With apologies for the trite photo the video's poster has graced the video with.)

(Lesser Abortions.)

(Lesser Abortions.) http://htxt.it/Tntn ... Look! For only $119 you can get an (unstretched, unframed) reproduction of Dali's (okay) 1924 portrait of (the great) Luis Buñuel! Isn't this sort of uninspired, derivative hackwork (craft) at least making a gesture of respect toward the Artists they are ripping off? As opposed to someone like Cory Arcangel running off a few Inkjet copies of a Sign Off Signal and then heading off to the milliner's to have his hat's bill surgically enhanced?

(Whinging.) http://h

(Whinging.) http://htxt.it/iACl ... As proxy-less Americans can't see it on the Channel 4 website either, we will lack the warm feelings of gathering around the hearth (teevee) and singing old traditional songs (watching a sitcom)... That said, the episode (available in the wild for about a week already) is well worth watching. Super Hans discoursing on the Lego is great.

(Stern Looks.) Pleas

(Stern Looks.) Please gasp with Feigned Amazement as it is revealed to you that All Things Dilaceratus is more of a Joke Club than a Reference Library.

(Neverending Trouble

(Neverending Troubles.) http://htxt.it/h5ki ... If your notion of Evil is accidentally hitting the ess key twice, you are Not Alone. The post below contains this typographical error, for which The Author most humbly apologizes. Should further public lashings be felt warranted, they will be announced in this sspace.

(Hectoring.) http://

(Hectoring.) http://htxt.it/kpGc (black and white screen capture colorized by DSH) Is it even possible that a human person purposely placed a lime wedge into a bottle of Miller Light beer, calling it a "Poor Man's Corona"? As though Corona were some sort of elitist brew, and not a rather precise analogue to the gestating deer urine hunters purchase at sporting goods sstores?

(Gluttony.) http://h

(Gluttony.) http://htxt.it/rYKA ... It would hardly be a novelty were some Attendees to drink straight from a gravy boat, or toss back an aperitif of butter glaze, their faces shining like greasy moons.

(Poor Attitudes.) ht

(Poor Attitudes.) http://htxt.it/iE0k ... Although enjoyable, Mr Scorcese's HBO documentary on Ms Lebowitz failed to address her Central Cowardice; namely, smoking filtered cigarettes.

(Bogus Fears.) A par

(Bogus Fears.) A particularly over-concerned motherly-type has given voice to their speculation that a child carrying a pocketful of Tinkertoy wheels as hurling devices might absentmindedly place one into their mouth, thinking it a common British food item, due to the similarities between the two in shape, coloring, weight, and texture.

(Tactics and Strateg

(Tactics and Strategies.) Some furor has broken out in the Comments regarding Wooden Projectiles, and their relative merits. Having already Spoken, it would be fatuous for this Source to debate further a subject on which Your Composer is Manifestly Correct, other than to (superfluously) acknowledge that there are, of course, Others, and their Wrong Opinions.

(Revolting idiots.)

(Revolting idiots.) It is requested that The Artist present a Photograph of Himself at Computer; most likely as a masturbatory aide-mémoire, but allegedly so as to "set the scene." So be it. The careful investigator will notice that, like most technologically adept users, The Artist has built his own computer equipment, so as to maximize his workflow.

(Culture of Self-Har

(Culture of Self-Harm.) A few thoughts on Shabbiness at http://htxt.it/wt88

(Suicide Watch.) A r

(Suicide Watch.) A reader queries as to why there are multiple Richard Cohen photos gracing these pages. They are mistaken: This is only the second one. Is it possible they have mistaken an image of some other helpless mammal for their Dearest?