The Amazing Water-Powered Jet Pack

Tom Cruise if he wasn't a fighter pilot and didn't believe in aliens:

Something Someone Else Said

"America's drug war insanity deepens. What I love about the harrumphing is its total incoherence. The argument, so far as I can tell, is: a) marijuana destroys people, renders them incapable of productive and worthwhile lives; b) yes, the new president and the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time have smoked pot; c) but that means we have to punish them all the more!

Because they disprove the lies required to sustain the Prohibition. The more the myths of the anti-cannabis brigade are exposed, the more they have to be enforced." -Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, on the news that Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps may now be prosecuted for alleged cannabis use after the above picture was published in a British tabloid.

G. I. Joe Trailer From Super Bowl

I was going to see this anyway but it's also looking pretty sweet:

Quote For The Day

"I would rather someone be wrapped in the Constitution burning the flag than wrapped in the flag burning the Constitution." -quote in the banner of Handsome B. Wonderful's blog, The Political Junkie

One Billion Dollars As Art

The image above is from an artist's site called ArtMarcovici. It depicts what one billion dollars in one hundred dollar bills of United States currency would look like stacked on twelve standard size pallets. I post it for two reasons: 1) long time readers may want to compare it to this post from the first few weeks of this blog when I relayed the following information:

one billion dollars in one hundred dollar bills weighs about 11 tons (22,000 pounds), as much as 3 adult elephants and stacks up about 4/5 of a mile high.

And 2) whenever you watch a movie like Heat where several villains are hauling around large sums of cash, pay attention to how much they say they are carrying because they almost always overestimate. It's a lot easier to appreciate the sheer mass and volume of money when you see it stacked in front of you.

Tyler Durden Interrupts Super Bowl

This probably won't go down in history as famously as the Heidi Game but it's still damn funny:

Tucson, Arizona was probably not the best place to watch the game last night. Partly because of the disappointing result, but mostly because of the huge, flapping penis.

With under three minutes left and just after Larry Fitzgerald's heroic comeback(ish) touchdown for the Cardinals, the video feed abruptly switched to a scene from stablemate channel Club Jenna, treating viewers to the sight of seemingly omnipresent porn guy Evan Stone swinging his junk around like a maniac. This interlude lasted about 30 seconds.

Comcast told the Arizona Daily Star that engineers have been "working throughout the night" to figure out what happened, but haven't yet come up with an explanation. It could have been a simple case of human error, but given just how wrong it all went, I'd put my money on a disgruntled outgoing employee.

You can watch the video of the incident at the link. To be honest, it's a fairly benign section of a porno but there is a lot of shlong swinging so it's obvious that it would offend a significant portion of uptight America. Sad, really. But this quote in the sixth comment at the site is what really made me love this story (and if you've never watched Fight Club go out and rent it before you read this):

Edward Norton Narrating: So when the snooty cat, and the courageous dog, with the celebrity voices meet for the first time in reel three, that's when you'll catch a flash of Tyler's contribution to the Superbowl

Tyler Durden: A nice, big cock...

But the coup de grâce for the day, and I swear that this is actually true: the wife of one of my buddies who came over to watch the game asked if she could borrow my Fight Club DVD when they were leaving. Prescient much, Cindy Lou?

[Update: When I wrote this post last night I hadn't checked my email since morning but it seems that one of my sisters had already sent me the info. So:

(retroactive hat tip: Shannon)]

The Right Wants To Get Righter

Eric Kleefeld at Talking Points Memo sees a flaw in what could be the GOP's next strategy:

A new Rasmussen poll further demonstrates that the GOP could be in for a long stretch in the wilderness: A majority of GOP voters now say that the party should be more like Sarah Palin.

The numbers: 55% of Republicans say the party should be like Palin, compared to 24% who say they should be like John McCain.

As I've previously noted, poll data like this could indicate that the Republican Party is getting ready to relive the classic cycle of ruling parties who get turned out of power in a landslide: With the party base itself shrunk down, the people who are still around are the most hard-line members, and are really the least fit people to fix the situation.

I find it hard to believe how many on the right are still blaming their loss in the last election on not being right enough, as if being more and more conservative is going to bring you closer to the norm in America. This is a center-left country and being able to recognize and understand that from the right is the difference between a savvy politician and an unthinking ideologue.

Scenario: DogvCat VII

And on we go:

Point: cat. You can watch the first six here, here, here, here, here, and here.

House-Steeler Dopplegangers

I follow college football much more than the NFL so I haven't seen much of the Steeler's head coach Mike Tomlin so far but I couldn't help noticing his resemblance to Omar Epps. Eerie, huh?

Super Bowl XLIII

No blogging today: I'll be at my church. If you're in the area, party's at my place. Go Steelers. Yeah, I said it.