Per aspera

1.  “Parade,” Joe Henry
2.  “Delicious,” Catherine Wheel
3.  “Obstacle 1,” Interpol
4.  “Try Not To Breathe,” REM
4.5  “I Found a New Friend,” They Might Be Giants
5.  “Method Man,” Wu-Tang Clan
6.  “Lady Pilot,” Neko Case
7.  “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” Wilco
8.  “Ohio Air Show Plane Crash,” Joe Henry
9.  “They Are Night Zombies!!  They Are Neighbors!!  [Etc.!!]” Sufjan […]

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
There is literally no good reason to ban marriage between people of the same sex.  As we know, however, there’s an election coming up, and the Republicans once again feel the inexplicable need to pander to their Nazi wing, and so have resurrected the disgusting campaign to write bigotry into […]

This makes me happy, though it falls apart under the slightest scrutiny (Hobbes was always more reasonable than Calvin - he was the one who would’ve sold out G.R.O.S.S. in a heartbeat, if it meant smooches).
Also, I take vehement exception to the idea that Calvin’s father was some sort of repressive force in his life.  […]

It seems that Gridskipper, one of those Calcanis/Denton niche-empire hydra-blogs (in this case, the niche subject is urban tourism) asked its readers if they knew of any Yankees-friendly bars in Boston.  Here’s Part 2, and, finally, Part 3.  The consensus, of course, is summed up in the first published response:
None. Are you kidding? They would […]

We turn once again to Oliver Willis‘ blog for a sound clip that made me cackle so loud I snorted at the end.
I do not claim that I’m not a child.

…asks The Advocate.
Answer: not half as gay as Batman.
Honestly, though, it’s not a bad article, especially since the guy who wrote it was a total Marvel Zombie when he was a kid, and thus one of my people.
The LA Times meta-article about it, though, is crap.  It’s all about how everyone has to be nervous […]

Boing Boing: Bacteria eats chocolate and shits electricity
I imagine vats of these little bastards, metabolizing away underneath the local Shell station:
Microbiologist Lynne Mackaskie and her colleagues at the University of Birmingham in the UK have powered a fuel cell by feeding sugar-loving bacteria chocolate-factory waste. “We wanted to see if we tipped chocolate into one […]

Fred Clark, Slacktivist:
If there is a God, then God must be, by definition, bigger and more merciful than Townes Van Zandt.

I’d love to hear a charitable interpretation of this:
New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. (Click here for the actual document.) That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent–from […]