In Which Tuesday Links Taste Like Caramel

When A Man Is Wrapped Up In Himself, He Makes a Pretty Small Package & Links

by Alex Carnevale

Drudge was on the front page of the Times yesterday, in the Times’ continuing effort to be six years too late on everything.

As you might imagine, Drudge has always been one of our favorites. He loves gossip, we love gossip. He likes to link to people talking about him, we like to hit on Julia Allison. He is a libertarian who hates politicians, we feel exactly the same way.

Clinton Finds Way to Play Along With Drudge

Mrs. Clinton’s aides declined to discuss how the Drudge Report got access to her latest fund-raising figures nearly 20 minutes before the official announcement went to supporters. But it was a prime example of a development that has surprised much of the political world: Mrs. Clinton is learning to play nice with the Drudge Report and the powerful, elusive and conservative-leaning man behind it.

[snip]

At the same time, Democrats said they noticed an occasional Clinton-friendly tone from Mr. Drudge, whom New York magazine quoted as saying on his program: “I need Hillary Clinton. You don’t get it. I need to be part of her world. That’s my bank.”

Awesome. There is nothing more disgusting than the arrogance of the mainstream media. When I worked at ABC, everyone checked Drudge constantly, and we were ourselves a news organization. Amazing.

Hitch and his wife, Carol Blue

Hitchens sends a kid to war and feels conflicted about it. I read Hitchens pretty carefully in the run-up to the war, and “I want to fight!” was not one of the reactions I had.

Colbert polling ahead of people.

The end of the news.

What happens when girls pee standing up. (Jezebel)

Gilbert Arenas is hilarious:

In six months the hibachi grill hasn’t been heated up. It takes a while for the grill to get back cooking again. It’s like riding a bike. Once you start riding again, it’s all good, but right now I’m rusty. I’m trying to get the rust off my bike chain.

Truthfully, I’m playing like terrible trash right now. I don’t want to make an excuse, but the rims are broken in every arena I’m playing in.

That’s why you call it preseason.

K. Lo with a sweet poster.

Julia Allison is single again, although we are not surprised she won’t go on a date with us after we accidentally accused of something she didn’t do. If she knew how much time I spent browsing her Flickr she most definitely wouldn’t agree to go out with me.

For example, her Super Bowl week photoset takes it to another level:

We have sort of been working on an e-mail to Julia. We were going to attach this mp3 to it.

“Good Woman (live on KCRW)” — Cat Power (mp3)

Here’s the draft I’m working with…see what you think:

Julia,

I heard you broke up with your boyfriend. Allow me to express my condolences, even though as I have told you before, he seemed like Mark Zuckerberg-lite with worse ideas and no sense of humor.

You deserve someone who treats you better, like Jesus, I always felt that he would make a good partner. You need someone who will get jealous of you being with other men, but not of your considerable successes.

Allow me to illustrate with a brief anecdote that I believe will leave you with considerable respect for the kind of person that I am.

When I was in sixth grade, I started dating a girl named Virginia. She cheated on me with this dude named Ontario (no wonder I hate Canada), and I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and cried a lot about how April O’Neil was the perfect woman.

Ontario came up to me at lunch one day and asked me if I had a problem. I told him, No, but during the next class period, I trashed his locker and peed in the bottle of his ADD medication. Even though I was jealous of Ontario, I really don’t see myself getting jealous about the grip that Michael Wilbon has on you.

In fact, being happy for other people’s success is practically what is going to be on my gravestone. “He was really happy about other’s people successes, seriously, he wasn’t just pretending.” This is important as you are the finest new media ingenue of your generation.

Do you feel like you’re getting to know the real me? No? OK, let me put this another way–I’m probably the nicest person ever. Once I raised a young chess prodigy practically by myself. It was adapted into the film Finding Forrester, maybe you’ve seen it?

I think what I’m saying is, if you give me a chance, I promise not to blog about it, unless you want me to. I would like to, I’m just saying that I won’t if you don’t want me to.

OK good talk I’ll see you out there.

Alex

P.S. If you want to use me to make your ex mad, I’m pretty much OK with that.

What do you think? Am I coming on too strong?

Kissinger is an international war criminal, a blogger like me doesn’t stand a chance.

“Bird of Cuzco” — Nina Nastasia (mp3)

“Beautiful Day (Peel Session)” — Nina Nastasia (mp3)

Nina’s myspace

The transition over at Commentary.

Christian Lorentzen at Harper’s. Only Harper’s could take a fine writer like Lorentzen and make him blog news stories for no discernible reason. What a fucking rag.

Encounter between polar bear and sled dogs.

The ultimate good news bad news:

Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.

Mr. Clean erasers get banned from stores.

I’m gonna rename Slate Hate.

Pets are a pain in the ass.

Awesome nonlethal mousetrap:

I want to buy a castle so much.

The other Molly’s little brother is a synesthete.

All the covers you could ever want of “When Doves Cry.”

I love this photo of Kerouac:

Morgan informs you of his experiences in Second Life, although we feel they are best summarized by this picture. It’s really too bad we have a friend working for the magazine Good, it would be a lot more convenient if we had a friend on Bad, then I could write the cover story for every issue.

Changing the campaign.

Oink got shutdown, but LimeWire has employees. Someone want to explain this to me?

finding myself used to be hard but now I see the light if love is a drug then i don’t need it

So NME is featuring new Verve tracks. I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but since they make you register, and compulsory registration is pretty much my least favorite thing ever, enjoy:

“Thaw Session” — The Verve (mp3)

“The Sun On My Right” — The Rosie Taylor Project (mp3)

hey it’s the sun, looking good

People hating on The Office is the most boring thing imaginable.

School limits access to birth control. Great idea, morons.

Math and Physics Club releases an EP. (The Yellow Stereo)

‘Mystery Bag’ is a sweet game for parties.

I’m just going to tell my kids not to bother with college, the cost is already well past dumb and into insane.

Sigh:

Yes, except: Why couldn’t he tell us himself? The Potter books add up to more than 800,000 words before Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and yet Rowling couldn’t spare two of those words—”I’m gay”—to help define a central character’s emotional identity? We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful and inappropriate to mention among his colleagues and students. His silence suggests a lack of personal integrity that is completely out of character.

My mom basically echoed this opinion on the phone last night. My response was, “Coming out to children is usually frowned upon, especially when you’re walking around with a big wand.”

We will do a review of the new Janet Malcolm-Gertrude Stein book soon.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

BLOGS WE COULD STAND TO SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES WITH

Plenty’s Extinction Blog.

Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands.

Failbetter.com

Recidivism

Muruch

Just Press Play with tracks from Bauhaus and Battles.

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

We ruminated on the savage terms of others.

We liked what HBO had to offer.

With all the fires going on in California, let’s revisit Molly’s classic wildfires post.