I am so totally blowing up L.A., dude.

O.C.'s own terrorist wack job Adam Gadahn is the star of Al Qaeda's latest video, in which Melbourne and Los Angeles are threatened. You know, it would be appropriate if the next totally fucked-up terrorist attack was carried out by yet another freaky Californian who's been doing cults and subcultures for years and finally found the one that would piss off his parents the most.

I bet Al Qaeda is only going to show videos until they get an audience built, though. Then it will be game shows and comedy and drama series, and they'll start showing videos on AQ1...

"Diary of a Madman" b/w "Dead Souls"

Today's translation

"I just wondered what the status on this was" is office-buzzspeak for "I hereby preemptively blame you for not carrying out a task that I did not explicitly assign to you or anyone else."

Oops, someone unplugged Los Angeles.

...and Cal-ISO's website is only showing moderate demand. I wonder what they screwed up this time? Looks like a bigass outage, too. My office went down right away.

hang around the inkwell

1. Marines showed off their new Humvee tech in which they can communicate with satellites while moving. Wait, they had to stop and put up an antenna before? Who the hell is supplying our military, ACME?
   
   
2. The new Marie Celeste is the good ship Bongusto.
   
   
3. German newspaper finds gator in church in NOLA. Yikes.
   
   
4. An attempt to recreate a Bronze Age boat results in an authentic Bronze Age bad sailing day..

Today's copy editing lol: The National Ledger masthead

Because I hate freedom, bitter asswipe etc., I bring you this gem from the National Ledger's masthead:


Chris Adamo has edited and wrote for “The Wyoming Christian”, the state newsletter for Christian Coalition of Wyoming.

Well I suspect he has done wrote, but anymore we won't be using him as editor.

The rest of the masthead is a gallery of rogues, idiots, and the genuinely evil that includes Michelle "bring back Manzanar" Malkin and Paul Weyrich.

Also this guy:



who describes himself thus:

JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. A hard hitting columnist, attacking the socialist cancer plaguing America today. He has a pragmatic “common Joe” approach to even the toughest issues facing our nation. He has a degree in BS from the school of hard knocks, and a uniquely entertaining way of helping even the most liberal among us, to discover the obvious. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the globe, and is currently working on a book.

There sits JB, cellphone cradled on his shoulder, laboriously tapping out sentence fragments and malformed clauses. Type on, JB! Type on!

Good evening.

Tonight's moment of Cinema Bizarre on the patio:

Young Japanese man with very thick accent approaches each table in turn. He bows and introduces himself and then produces an incomprehensible spiel. Confronted with blank stares, he proffers that he is asking for donations to "Fight... Crime."

I decline, as does each person in turn around the patio. His response is a long quiet disturbing stare, followed shortly by effusive thanks and more bows.

Bonus points: he arrives at my table just as I am finishing Borges' retelling of the story of the 47 Ronin.