Penguin Modern Classics Obsession Part Six:

For your possible edification: The low-fi, necessarily incomplete, increasingly outdated thumbnail gallery that I use for browsing through the UK/Canada Modern Classics covers. Much easier than combing endlessly through Amazons .co.uk and .ca. (Created earlier this year via a few minutes of grepping the text of a Penguin catalog PDF of Modern Classics ISBNs and plugging them into Amazon image URLs.)

Out of those 377 covers, here are 147 more-or-less favorites.

While we’re at it, because they were included at the end of the PDF, the typographically excellent covers for Penguin’s Great Ideas series.

Right Wing Watch: Soy Makes You Gay:

Soy Makes You GaySometimes you just have to marvel at the things published by WorldNetDaily – things such as this column by James Rutz of Megashift Ministries:

tinky-soy-med.jpg

There’s a slow poison out there that’s severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture ….

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

…

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

It is difficult to imagine just what WorldNetDaily’s standard is for rejecting a column or article – but whatever it is, it is apparently set so low that “soy makes you gay” manages to exceed the criteria.

Posted by Kyle at 11:08 AM

MyDD :: John Hinderaker unhinged
Jerome Armstrong wrote:
John Hinderaker,  who writes for Time magazine’s “Blog of the Year”, dived into calling Jimmy Carter treasonous (“Jimmy Carter isn’t just misguided or ill-informed. He’s on the other side.”) This week, Hinderaker has become unhinged:

You dumb shit, he didn’t get access using a fake name, he used his real name. You lefties’ concern for White House security is really touching, but you know what, you stupid asshole, I think the Secret Service has it covered. Go crawl back into your hole, you stupid left-wing shithead. And don’t bother us anymore. You have to have an IQ over 50 to correspond with us. You don’t qualify, you stupid shit.
……………………………………………..John Hinderaker via email
So I fired off an email:
Hindrocket, you need to take your meds, your sounding and reading LGF now, roflmao.
Waiting for a response…

Mike M.:

YY. Why did you switch from choo-choos?

I will not be railroaded into a response.

Foreign Policy: The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006:

United States Funds the Taliban

The Taliban’s resurgence brought the ongoing war in Afghanistan back onto the front pages in 2006. From record opium production to suicide bombings, the outlook has only grown dimmer in the past 12 months. What you probably didn’t hear is that some of the money the United States is spending to combat theresurgence of the Taliban is winding up in the hands of . . . the Taliban.

As recently as November, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting revealed that villagers in Afghanistan’s war-torn south were handing over U.S. cash meant for reconstruction projects to Taliban fighters, who then use the money to purchase weapons, cell phones, and explosives. As part of an effort to stimulate economic development in the country, the United States had committed $43.5 million for reconstruction as of September. One Canadian officer charged with helping to distribute cash said that “millions” has already gone missing in the five years since coalition troops arrived. Why? According to the report, local mullahs have urged residents to fight the foreign occupation and hand over the money in the hopes of gaining back the security they’ve lost. Others say it’s simple extortion from Taliban thugs. Either way, the United States may inadvertently be aiding the enemy in a fight that will almost certainly become more costly in the year ahead.

Crooks and Liars »

This is absolutely ridiculous.

 Flynt Leverett — former CIA analyst, NSC member and established foreign policy expert — has written an op-ed for the NYT bashing the Bush admin. for it’s failed policies towards Iran. The WH, in typical ruthless and authoritarian form, has pressured the CIA to heavily redact his draft on the grounds that it would reveal national security secrets — something the CIA disagrees with — and have even threatened him with criminal prosecution. Leverett, visibly distraught at his press conference today, has countered that this claim is a “fraudulent” and deliberate attempt to silence a respected critic by politicizing the CIA review process.

Video WMP | Video MOV

“It is fraudulent. It is an abuse of the pre-publication review process to silence an established critic of their policies at a time when they are under maximum political pressure to change those disastrous policies.”

Leverett’s full report can be found here (.pdf). The Washington Note has more, including an official statment from Leverett. I wonder when the swiftboating will begin? Tony Snow was asked about it at todays briefing and, like usual, he played dumb.

Technorati Tags: bush, 

powered by performancing firefox

Poynter Online – Romenesko:

LAT started describing Iraq situation as “civil war” last month
Los Angeles Times
NBC is the first television network to officially adopt the term “civil war,” while the Los Angeles Times was the first major news outlet to formally adopt the description when it began to refer to the hostilities as a civil war in October — “without public fanfare,” the paper notes. Times foreign editor Marjorie Miller says: “For some time now we believe it has been a fairly simple call: Inside one country you have different armed groups fighting with each other. That is the definition of a civil war.”
/> NYT will use “civil war,” but “sparingly and carefully,” says Keller (BG)
/> J-prof: NBC move “a defining and negative moment” in Iraq war (USAT)
/> Washington Post doesn’t have a policy on “civil war,” says Downie (E&P)
Posted at 8:25:00 AM

Why McDonald’s Isn’t Free of Trans Fat:

Why McDonald’s Isn’t Free of Trans Fat
Public opinion is swinging against the use of the artery-clogging fat. But it’s hard for some companies to give up the habit

by Pallavi Gogoi

On Dec. 5, New York City’s Board of Health voted to ban the use of artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants, a major victory for health activists who have been fighting for healthier foods. Restaurants will have to stop using frying oils with trans fats by July, 2007, and eliminate trans fats from all foods by July, 2008. “New Yorkers overwhelmingly favor action to get artificial trans fat out of their restaurants,” says Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden.

Companies such as McDonald’s (MCD) are expected to comply with the city’s vote by converting their restaurants in New York. The fast-food giant already has demonstrated that it can eliminate trans fats when required. In Denmark, the company switched the oil it uses to make French fries to one that doesn’t have any trans fat. And just last month, the food giant vowed to use the healthier oil in 6,300 other restaurants in Europe.

Crooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 14:

The cowardice of Michael Crichton
By: John Amato>Everyday I hear something that amazes me. This is one of them. Crichton fictionalizes TNR’s Michael Crowley as a child rapist in his new novel.

The battle between anti-global warming activists and their critics is frequently uncivil. Name calling, put downs, you name it, they fling them.

But this marks a new threshold, I think…read on

Improv Everywhere Mission: McDonald’s Bathroom Attendant:

McDonald’s Bathroom Attendant

Featuring: Simmons, Todd, Kula, Balaban, Krafft, Skillman

Digital Photography: Agents Kula & Todd
DV Cam (hidden): Agent Kula

About a month ago, I was brainstorming a mission idea with a few friends called “Five Star Fast Food”. The idea was to deck out a fast food joint with all the trappings of a five star restaurant. There would be a Maitre D’ standing behind a podium asking for your reservation, a hostess to seat you, a waiter to take your order, and an attendant in the bathroom. The obvious problem with this idea is that it would very likely be shut down as soon as it begins. I decided to focus on the bathroom attendant aspect, figuring that we could last much longer in a secluded men’s room.