I'm not the biggest fan of the GOP's current incarnation (really, since the advent of morality politics), but they really need to buy some smarter spokespeople with all the oil, war, and inheritance cash they have floating around. An article [ LINK ] in today's Washington Post has them blocking Eric Holder's nomination to the attorney general spot. I don't doubt that they actually have some decent political reason behind this (even the Dems are voicing some questions about Holder); however, their spokesfolks apparently trip over their tongues when asked why, claiming that they can't confirm an attorney general who might prosecute people for illegal, unconstitutional activities. From the article:

Republicans put new obstacles in the path of Eric H. Holder Jr.'s quest to become attorney general, raising concerns that he would prosecute intelligence agents who engaged in potentially illegal interrogation techniques and postponing consideration of his nomination.

I can understand their perhaps claiming that they want him to clarify his position on the Military Commissions Act, which, if you recall, allows our military to violate the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution, and the New Testament that these people seem so enamored of; however, they need to find a better way to say so.

"Internet Disease" is a pop culture phenomenon with myriad hazy meanings that mostly seem to be defined by examples of whatever it is that bothers the speaker at the moment. The gang of adolescents & college students who populate 4-chan [LINK - NSFW] (the concatenation of image boards that -- along with Something Awful [LINK - SFW] serves as the source for most internet-based memes such as the lolcat), for instance, define Internet Disease as

displaying old, faded, blurred or otherwise non-descript photographs of oneself, taken with bad lighting and at awkward angles, on the Internets in order to make you appear more attractive to people online than you are IRL. ... An Internet Diseased photo is taken with the subject standing at an angle, thereby hiding his or her obesity. Also the contrast of the photo is increased dramatically in order to obscure unattractive facial features, like acne and the chin. By using such techniques, which are dealt with in greater detail below, individuals afflicted with the Internet disease are able to conceal the fact that they are an unattractive person, and instead become a figure envied by others. In a desperate attempt to look like the victims of Internet disease, admirers use the very same techniques as the admiree(s), thus further propagating the disease. [EncyclopediaDramatica - NSFW]

Others define it as the time-sucking vortex of hyperlink clicking when one starts out at 8 a.m. with a Google search for "powerpoint templates" and snaps-to in a daze nearly sixteen hours later with eight browser tabs open to sites with information ranging from an article about the Sino-Soviet communist split to lolcat-inspired humorous photos depicting our national economic meltdown [LOL-FED - SFW].

VIEW SCREENSHOT :: Internet Disease at Amazon.com :: IMAGE POPS UP I've got my own peeve that, I suppose, qualifies as being of "Internet Disease" proportion: the lazy spelling, grammar, and overuse of abbreviations (such as "pwnt") that never had any basis in language. One of the most frequent offenders is "definate" (instead of definite), which I actually saw used in the titlebar AND in the page content on Amazon.com (see picture). Most disturbing about this is that software developers, realizing the scope of the stupidity that the internet has unleashed, have begun incorporating check-as-you-type spellcheck into their software for any text entry. The text box into which I'm typing right now, for instance, has a bright red line beneath the misspelled version of "definite."

VIEW SCREENSHOT :: ID3 tags for the purchased mp3 :: IMAGE POPS UP Even worse, the villainous misspeller continues his misdeeds in the ID3 tags used by computers to display the file in various music applications/players. In this picture, you can see it again in the ID3 tags for a file I purchased. Bad news, Amazon: your employees are too lazy to check the spelling of their entries.

Yes, I'm sure that Amazon could tell us that they didn't make the mistake, oh my goodness, NO! They pull the information from a database! It's someone else's problem! Sorry, but no. The Gracenote CD Database has the title entered correctly, which you can see for yourself by clicking here. Internet disease is, by my definition I suppose, a combination of laziness, ignorance, and illiteracy that can infect anyone, anywhere, even a company whose initial purpose was to sell books.

Anyone who thinks they can learn "life" from a book -- read this review of The Secret from Amazon...

-- taken by yours truly, will appear on the cover of the upcoming issue of Free Verse: A Journal of Poetry and Contemporary Poetics... More info & links to come.

...and I suck, apparently. I'm (on average) a full mark lower than the departmental average, and this is outside the standard deviation. Good thing I'm looking into work outside the academy. In fact, despite the fact that I just got an article accepted for publication, I'm strongly considering the benefits of staying out of the academic world.

This is my last semester of teaching as a graduate student. Next semester, I'll be acting as a research assistant, so really, when I apply for jobs, I have to submit these course evals as evidence of my teaching. Never mind that during my observations I performed quite well, or that in my 101 sections I typically got excellent evaluations. Juniors and seniors hate me for the same reasons that my freshman students liked me as an instructor: I am unsympathetic to those who refuse to try to learn the material for themselves. I will not give you a "study guide." Come to class and take notes. Do the portfolio entries I asked you to do. It is interesting that students in my classes who come, take notes, and do the work generally tend to perform far better than those who ask for study guides.

Freshmen tend to be a little more accepting of the fact that this is college and they are adults. They're new at this, and expect different things when they get to school. Juniors and seniors don't like not being able to coast like they have for two years already. Why is this? You might think that juniors and seniors are more open to being challenged as adults who need to be responsible for learning and understanding the material before them. That is, after all, what college is all about, right? Apparently not. They want a formula they can use to make an easy A, one that allows them to keep a great GPA for that grad school application, not realizing that they'll fail utterly once they get to grad school if they haven't taken the time to build that foundation of understanding.

Anyway... forget it. I've got decent evaluations from past courses, just not when I've taught upperclassmen.

Finally, the bantam rooster attitude of our Unilateral Invader-in-Chief is cut to size by world leaders. Our lamented president apparently thinks that not only is it good policy to ignore or belittle the rest of the world, but that they'll love him for it! No longer all that important in the scheme of things (evidently they don't think that even he can cause much damage in the little time left to him), Mr. Bush received a very cold welcome at the G20 summit. The President of the United States, walking onstage to take a photo with other leaders, was ignored. Hands were shaken all around, and Mr. Bush, in the middle of the crowd, was ignored.

Watch:

Attention, "Joe Everyday Sixpack."

Despite what you may have heard, Barack Obama is not a socialist, despite what the Right tells you. Nor is he a terrorist, although that myth was dispelled quite some time ago for all but the most hard-line stupid of you. Indeed, what some might find ironic is that Our Republican Heroes are much closer to socialism than any of us. "Why's that?" you muse, failing for the third time to button your shirt in the proper alignment. "After all," you drool, "it's the liberals who want to give out free healthcare, pay for a public education system, and basically be bad people who tax me to death." [Oh, and news on that? Unless you make $250,000, you're not being taxed to death by anyone on the left]

Because, friends and neighbors: they're addicted to government handouts. That's right, the Right Wing is a gigantic collective welfare queen. Not possible... really? Now I know you're making it all up. No - it's the truth, in fact, you'll see right-wingers collecting more government handouts than all the truly poor people in America put together. It's how they make their money. Our government bleeds money into corporate coffers like a stuck pig.

Examples: The oil industry is still subsidized by the government. Sorry, no matter how you slice it, your tax dollars are going to Standard Oil (did you hear? the three broken pieces of the old monopoly have magically grown back together - Esso, Mobil, and Exxon). If they stopped subsidizing oil, you'd get that tax money back. I suspect, however, that Texas's 34 electoral votes will keep that money locked away where it belongs: right in the pockets of rich people. It is... [drumroll please] a government handout!!!!! So-called corporate welfare.

You see, fellow poor people, we don't understand about the magical free market. If we let corporations do what they want, we'll all be flush with cash. I don't know exactly how it works. Evidently they have feelings, and if you buy their crap (even though it sucks and might kill you, since it hasn't been subject to scrutiny and they can take all the shortcuts they want to), we all get rich. Still don't get it? Well, you just don't understand how money works... you see, these bankers on Wall Street will subsidize your crap, keeping money here, and then, when we profit... umm... the banks will fail... or...

See, you still don't understand. That $700 BILLION wasn't a handout. It wasn't welfare. It was a stimulus package. This means free money for us, but you have to pay for it with your tax dollars. I know, but it isn't welfare. Shut up! We still know what we're doing. Those banks didn't fail. By the way, why don't you give us your Social Security and Retirement? We've done so well!

ENOUGH! What's good for the goose is good for the gander. "Incentives" for one cannot be labeled "welfare" for another. It is the selfsame concept: tax dollars handed out to some entity with no reasonable expectation of return. Even more interesting for all you future investment bankers? The particular brand of socialism associated with governmental Corporatism or syndicalism (where we give all the money to corporations and put them in charge) is called "Fascism."

Have you hugged your favorite Republican socialist yet? Give him a hug for me, and thank him for the wonderful socialist economy he voted for. Then mug him. Someone oughtta profit.

One of the nation's leading Republican figures has publicly endorsed Barack Obama on Meet The Press. This is a thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion of why Obama is the better candidate for our nation, why he has the potential to be "not just a good president, but an exceptional president," and how the Republican party is continuing to try to lead us down the wrong path.