Twitterpated

• 00:21 Video: This is pretty much O’Reilly’s MO: Have people on who tell the truth about something said on Fox News,... tumblr.com/xpy8reuz5 #
• 03:19 Photo: Link has a sweet new ride. hellyeahyoshi: tumblr.com/xpy8rm1hi #
• 12:47 I love when the papers in the checkout line have stories about Satan appearing in clouds, always accompanied by really crappy pictures. #
• 14:31 Photo: I’ve discussed end-times prophecy before, but here’s something about it taken in historical context. tumblr.com/xpy8s8yu8 #
• 14:40
  @TheRealTavie Where are you taking a taxi to? #
• 14:43 @ziggafoss Because there's nothing on Earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified six-car monorail! #
• 14:44 @ziggafoss But I only have two of those! (There are two others in that list for which I have other albums by the same bands, though.) #
• 14:46 @JaredofMo I guess Patrick Stewart being British makes it close enough. Even though Picard is French. #
• 14:47 @renlong Stupid Green Monster, taking your umb
  rella! #
• 14:50 Why do people insist on using stupid euphemisms when talking to their dogs? "Pee-pee" is not a part of standard dog language. #
• 15:20 TV, stop talking about erectile dysfunction! #
• 16:12 @TheRealTavie I probably would have just walked. Takes forever to get a cab there. #
• 17:38 10 Beasts That Used To Be Mythical - samuraifrog: tumblr.com/xpy8sh8d2 #
• 17:52 Glenn Beck's Twitter appears to be mostly retweets of people with poor grammar. #
• 19:42 How can you brush your teeth with a bottle of jack? It wouldn't stay on the toothbrush, would it? #

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Eye on Zion

I don't have much to say about tonight's Simpsons and American Dad episodes, but they were decent enough. The friendship that developed between Homer and Chief Wiggum was interesting, but nothing really came of the subplot. The Battleballs themselves were an amusing concept, but the mistakes that led the school and Marge to think Bart was dealing drugs were rather predictable and not all that funny. I thought at first they were going to do something related to schools banning Pokémon cards, although I guess that's really old news at this point.

Also tonight, we watched a documentary called Protocols of Zion, which I believe I added to our Netflix queue a few years ago when revme mentioned it. I don't think he'd seen it at the time, and I'm not sure if he has since. As might be expected from the title, it dealt with the continuing popularity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous late nineteenth century forgery (and plagiarism, for that matter) detailing how Jews secretly rule the world. Apparently there was a bit of a spike in interest in the Protocols after September 11th, tied in with bizarre conspiracy theories about how no Jews died in the attacks, and how the Zionists were secretly responsible. Yeah, that makes sense, considering the rampant antisemitism in Al Qaeda strongholds. But since when do the beliefs of hate groups and conspiracy theorists have to be consistent? The film mentioned how the Protocols really just confirmed existing prejudice, and that a significant amount of antisemitic thought dates back to the beginning of Christianity. There was a clip of Mel Gibson insisting that people who have problems with The Passion of the Christ actually have problems with the Gospels. Hey, I have a problem with both, although at least the Gospels contain some good stuff to augment the cringe-worthy parts. But there's definitely a tradition of blaming "the Jews" for the death of Jesus, which only became worse as Christianity grew apart from its parent religion. While it seems that modern churches are trying to distance themselves from this idea, there's still a significant lunatic fringe that still holds on to it.

Book Reviews: Fantasy Meets Mystery

Brewster Bunny and the Case of the Purloined Pachyderm of Oz, by Marin Xiques and Chris Dulabone - Another tale of Brewster Bunny, the rabbit detective who previously appeared in several other books published by Buckethead/Tails of the Cowardly Lion. He's a well-realized character, with his starring adventures usually written in sort of a comic noir style. This time, it's told in first person. Brewster teams up with a lagomorphic jester-in-training named Martin Hopwell; as well as Kabumpo, one of my favorite Oz characters. It's a fun story, although it becomes a bit overloaded with characters toward the end. The authors find a clever way to get around the standard problem of Ozma and Glinda being able to magic away just about any threat to Oz, by having them totally unable to read books of Gansheri magic. I do think the modern references and slang, while funny at times, were a bit overdone on occasion. Overall, though, I enjoyed it.


The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde - The first book of the Nursery Crime series involves the investigation of the murder of Humpty Dumpty. Kind of a familiar scenario, not just because the story was sort of previewed in Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots, but because Robert Rankin's The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse also involves the murder of the famous egg. Both books also go on to involve many other nursery rhyme characters, but they're really not all that similar for all that. While Rankin's story is pretty wacky all the way through, Fforde takes a comical scenario and plays it pretty straight. Not only are nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters real in this world (many of them living in Reading, England), but police work has reached the point where people care more about stories that will sell than actual justice being done. While Jack Spratt (yes, the guy who eats no fat) is a good detective, his work lacks the flair of his rival and former partner Friedland Chymes, a famous and egotistical Holmes-style investigator. The satire on the media is pretty similar to that in the Thursday Next series, and while I don't like the characters as much (not yet, at least), I get more of the references. There are some hints that the two series take place on the same alternate world, due to the references to former actress Lola Vavoom and some of the same media outlets, but the series is treated as fiction-within-fiction in Well.