We Won't Have Sarah to Kick Around Anymore

Sarah Palin decides that governors in their second first (sorry!) terms who decide not to run for office again generally take the King Lear route, dividing their territories among their lieutenants and kicking back in the governor's mansion. And she decides that she's not going to do that. Rather oddly, she also says that lame-duck governors conduct overseas trade negotiations (??).

This is ... odd. Anyone care to bet how long the other shoe will take to drop?

Via practically everywhere, but I first saw it on Shakesville.

We Didn't Start the Flame War

Major language warning.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Hat tip to Cannonfire.

For your reference: We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel.

RIP: Ed McMahon

Paradise Clearinghouse: You may have already won!

Farah Fawcett

The next celebrity mortality on this grim trip through the mortuary which it seems is the whole of my blog lately is Farah Fawcett, who actually died close to a week ago of cancer.

It is human nature to ignore problems until they become personal; who in this world pays any attention to cancer until someone they know and care about is told their body is killing itself? Farah funneled a lot of attention and money into cancer research in her last years; call it enlightened self-interest, perhaps, but her refusal to go quiet into that good night has helped find a cure.

I also wanted to post a picture of her that wasn't that dumb swimsuit pose, which started to look painful to me after the fiftieth blog post. So here she is looking a lot more candid. Fifteen seconds on teh Google, it took me: bloggers, take note.

Billy Mays Dead At 50: Discovery Channel Devastated

Billy Mays, star of the best infomercials you always turned off, has been found dead in his Florida home, apparently after a rough jetliner landing that resulted in a bump to his head.

Authorities are careful to keep the noggin impact and the fact that Mays was found dead in bed separate.

Mays has most recently starred in the barrel-scraping reality TV show Pitchmen, on the Discovery Channel, in which he and partner Andrew Sullivan try to find new products to shill.

Discovery's going to have to find something to fill the first hour timeslot of the two-hour gap between the new episode of Mythbusters and the midnight rerun of the new episode of Mythbusters.

I do feel genuinely sorry for Mays' son, who's only 22.

RIP, Michael Jackson

MSNBC is reporting that Michael Jackson has died of undisclosed causes in Los Angeles.

He had a stellar career in the 80s, followed by a crash and burn so hard he was only now coming out of it. He was apparently rehearsing a comeback performance in London later this year.

Whatever he was searching for, whatever demons were riding him, I hope he has now found peace, at least.

It Cutened The World

It... it got Dr. Myers. He didn't even slow it down.

Maybe it won't see us here. Maybe it'll pass right by.

Oh god ... what are we going to do?

Wait, wait! Do you hear something?

Oh no it's here!



SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Shorter Elizabeth Wurtzel

Beauty Fades, Loneliness Is Forever
Prozac Nation's Elizabeth Wurtzel confronts her fear of aging and losing her good looks

I was a prom queen, but now I'm over 40 and I'm a horrible ugly hag and my One True Chance At Happiness threw a half-full bottle of liquor at my head and told me I'd never really be happy without him so it's like some kind of evil fairy godmother has cursed me to be unhappy because I feel guilty about cheating on him.

(Seriously, though, if society tells you the only reason you could possibly be worth anything is if you can win beauty contests, and you proceed to do so, then it must be awful to believe that once you find that one wrinkle or that sole grey hair the only option is a crash-and-burn. See this article at Pandagon for a fairly sympathetic reaction to this column.)

It Could Have Been Worse, I Suppose

Star Wars isn't the most cerebral or deep of movies. It relies far too much on hand-waving and armed conflict to move the plot along, it's got a Doomed Home Moisture Farm, not to mention a Doomed Pacifist Planet, and the editing is perhaps a smidge too ADHD; I think it held the record for the number of edits for a movie when it came out.

But at least Lucas didn't go with the early script where Leia gets lippy and "Annikin Starkiller" "has" to punch her out.

Thank goodness for small blessings, I suppose.

Shorter Sam Schulman

The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage
It isn't going to work.
by Sam Schulman
06/01/2009, Volume 014, Issue 35 [The Weekly Standard]

Nowadays gays get to marry for love. This is entirely unfair to the thousands of years of men and women who had to get married and produce heirs not for love, but for money or land or politics, regardless of their thoughts on the whole procedure. Incidentally, I'm not homophobic, I just don't like to have Them around me*.

*Something that was actually said in my actual earshot several years ago, regarding racism and black people. Oy vey.