Sarah Palin Got Her First Passport in 2006.

To further highlight the ongoing exaggeration of her foreign affairs background and inappropriateness of her status as McCain's VP, Sarah Palin got her first passport in 2006, reports the Boston Globe. Read that again. 2006. And has visited exactly 4 countries, Canada, Iraq, Kuwait, and Germany. Earlier the Alaska governor's spokesperson included Ireland in that list, a claim that was retracted yesterday by McCain's campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella who admitted that Ireland was just a refueling stop last July. What no Russia? Even though it's so close?

Same article underscores the thinness of her somehow special role as the head of the Alaska National Guard. While Alaska has a formidable military and staff presence those are under the direct command of the president, not the governor or any other state official, and "while the Alaska National Guard operates a launch site for a US anti-missile system at Fort Greely, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the Alaskan governor is not in the site's chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members."

"The notion that she is experienced because she is commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard is not going to get you very far," said John Pike, a military specialist at GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan think tank in Alexandria, Virginia. "It's awfully thin."

Again, she got her FIRST passport just two years ago in 2006.

Read more here.

Interview with Genius Japanese Animator Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki--creator of Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle which are two of my favorite animated films--in a recent interview about his new hit Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea explains why he favors the traditional pencil over computers:

I think animation is something that needs the pencil, needs man's drawing hand, and that is why I decided to do this work in this way. Currently computer graphics are of course used a great deal and, as I've said before, this use can at times be excessive. I will continue to use my pencil as long as I can.

Not to argue with a master, but Pixar has demonstrably proven that animation doesn't need the pencil, but Miyazaki's drawings are unquestionably infused with something magical that no computer could produce on its own. Tools aside, Pixar and Miyazaki share a commonality in that what makes their films so successful is ultimately great and compelling stories for all ages.

[Thanks Moye!]

Creation Myth: The World Rests on a Spider that Rests on a Frog that Rests on a Turtle

If we're going to advocate teaching Creationism like VP nominee Sarah Palin in our science and history classes as a viable "theory" thatreceives "equal representation with other theories of the origin of life" then that curriculum better damn well include the one about our planet resting on the back of a spider which rests on the back of a frog that rests on the back of a turtle. It's just as valid. And I don't know about you, and no disrespect, but I think this earth-spider-frog-turtle explanation is a better look than a vengeful and wrathful Old Testament God.

[Thanks Kate!]

16-Course Lunch Tasting Menu at Momofuku Ko

This blogger fortunate enough to experience the 16-course lunch tasting at David Cheng's much discussed restaurant Momofuku Ko breaks down the feast. This hot spot will begin serving prix fixe lunch ($150) Friday through Sunday starting this month. Reservations are only available online, but despite its seemingly transparent egalitarian reservation system, be prepared to be denied, denied, and denied. Even Kanye would have difficult time grabbing a coveted seat here.

Amuse - Pomme souffle with creme fraiche and hackleback caviar - Corn tuile with tomato jam, pork rillette, and grilled corn

Course #1 Island Creek Oyster (Duxbury, MA) with lime segment and hackleback caviar

#2 Kampachi (raw) with grapefruit miso sauce and daikon radish sprouts

#3 Long Island fluke (raw) with gochujang (Korean fermented chili paste)

#4 Diver scallops (raw, cut in strips) tossed with various citrus juices, shiso, watermelon radish, roasted white peppers, and kaffir lime zest

(Courses 1-4 will be served in a custom-designed bamboo box filled with shaved ice; haven't arrived yet)

#5 Lobster salad with mini melon balls, tomato water, basil oil, and pickled cucumbers (and mildly sweet gelee of some sorts which I missed)

#6 Painted Hills beef carpaccio with grilled baby leek, horseradish creme fraiche, grated horseradish, and baby sorrel served with a "Butter Bomb," a mini roll stuffed then baked with butter

#7 Fresh yuba with heirloom cherry tomato salad (one tomato was frozen) and toasted black rice

#8 Bacon dashi with bacon fat poached shrimp, fava, raw chanterelles, and tonburi

#9 Deep fried egg with cherry gastrique, cherry peppers, and baby kale

#10 Steamed striped bass atop an egg drop soup dumpling with raw, shaved lobster mushrooms, bok choy, and toasted kasha

#11 Buckwheat tortellini stuffed with eggplant puree, grilled baby eggplant, Korean black garlic, long beans, house made pork and miso sausage

#12 Shaved foie with pine nut brittle and lychee-Riesling gelee

#13 Elysian Fields Farm rack of lamb with watermelon, feta cheese puree, and black olive

#14 Cheese Course: Blackberry Farm's Singing Brook sheep's milk cheese with sweet and sour shallots and Humboldt Fog with smoked cantaloupe, served with pork fat brioche

#15 White Peach ice cream with milk crumbs and cinnamon streusel

#16 Corn parfait with chocolate, sour cream ice cream, and dehydrated corn kernels

Oh, in case you were wondering: My buffalo chicken pizza was AMAZING tonight. I had to like, TOTALLY, wait for 2 minutes while a couple people were ahead of me, but it was SO worth it.

HOT PHOTO OP!

This is just an absurd photo to me, and I was initially thinking what would compel someone to want a photo like this?

And then upon furthering pondering, how many of us can say we've seen a building completely engulfed in flames (No, do not leave a comment invoking the numbers 9 and 11) in person? I haven't. And if I did see something like that take place then being the jackass that I am, the first thing I'd do is hand my camera to a busy firefighter and ask her (see what I did there?) to snap a photo of me and my friends in front of the flame engulfed structure.

How do I know I'd do this? When I was visiting Korea some years ago, our tour bus got into a small car accident. I immediately hopped off the bus and posed in front of the bus's dented bumper. Stupid = Me.

[Via]

PSA ADVERTISMENT

I like this clever public service announcement reminding people to donate their warm threads this winter to help those in need.

[Via]

Palin = McCain's Bridge to Nowhere

I like this clever political cartoon by Jim Borgman:

O, in case you're wondering about Palin's connection to the infamous Alaskan bridge to nowhere fiasco (A projected $398m federally funded bridge aimed at connecting the town of Ketchikan, pop. 7,368, to the Ketchikan International Airport on Gravina Island, pop. 50.), she was for it during her gubernatorial campaign stating that the "bridge was essential for the town's prosperity," before flip-flopping against it after she won the election.

Read more here.

[Via]

French Sports Minister Wears Crocs After Losing Olympic Bet

If her athletes returned from the Beijing Olympics with at least 40 medals the French Health, Youth, and Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot promised to wear pink Crocs. Well, France ended the 2008 Summer Olympics with just that (7 gold, 16 silver, and 17 bronze medals), so on August 27th, she attended a cabinet meeting sporting a pair of pink Crocs.

Rockstars and now the French are wearing them?

You know what that means don't you? Crocs are IN FASHION! And just in time for Fall Fashion Week here in New York too boot croc!

Welcome to Palindrome

Poplicks has been running an insightful and articulate ongoing analysis about McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin. Their latest entry takes a look at how in the current election the two presidential candidates "have been subject to considerable narrativizing," which are distilled for the public into something quickly digestible:

Obama = the history-making, biracial next JFK. McCain = former P.O.W. turned straight-shooting maverick.

And against this landscape, the problem with Palin is that she doesn't have a narrative. Sure, she has a narrative as the "hockey mom of five who likes to hunt and eat moose burgers" that establishes her character, but that is distinct from a narrative about her qualifications. And it this "qualificative" (I know, I made up that word-Just pretend I'm Thomas Friedman...or not.) narrative that she lacks which is the larger issue driving the media scrum, argues Poplicks.

So back to Palin: the problem with her narrative isn't that it's not a good one on paper...it's that she's such a blank slate for everyone (Republicans included) that it was unreasonable (if not deluded) to think her story would stick once anyone bothered to start digging. In other words, it's one thing to offer a script but it takes a lot more than just repeating bullet points to make it believable for people.

The blank slate has made it easy for Dems to create a competing counter-narrative about Palin to fill the vacuum. However what is also occurring for McCain is that his own tightly controlled "simple one-line pitch" narrative is being altered by forces out of his control, as a byproduct and an unintended consequence of the Palin nomination, which is "creating a really viable, new storyline: what was McCain thinking?"

Read more here.

The Joker Tries to Understand the Words that are Coming Out of Batman's Mouth

This clip of the Joker trying to understand the words that are coming out of Batman's mouth in the interrogation scene should be funny to those of you who have seen the recent Batman. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2yv8aT0UFc]

[Thanks Ashley!]

Last Night's Party: Movie Night

Saturday night was....so amazing! I ended up partying with Hugh Hefner and his bunnies, Steve Jobs, and LeBron James in the double secret VIP lounge at Marquee. Correction: That was my plan. But I just wasn't up for partying (Stevie can be an asshole sometimes), so I called LeBron and said "LeBro, I'm mad tired." So instead, I chilled at home with my roommate, who also skipped out on a party. We had a movie night, including PBR (me) and popcorn--using this ancient popcorn popper from days of yore:

Classy iPod Speaker

This is some real classy stuff by way of iPod speakers go. I feel like I would have to open up a jar of Grey Poupon while only piping Bach through these speakers of antiquity yore.

Beat that Bang & Olufsen! Take your sleek minimalist design, 3 year warranty, and shove it!

Canon Rewards Its Loyal Camera Customers

David Pogue shares an interesting unadvertised and vague customer loyalty program at Canon, which he discovered after the unfortunate death of his Canon SD700. The Canon Loyalty program is basically "designed to assist customers whose camera is unrepairable and out of warranty [and] lets them purchase a refurbished functional camera at a discount." Canon is a bit cagey about what sort of discounts and options are available, but if you have a broken SD or some other Canon program, it definitely doesn't hurt to give them a call! I just wished Apple would take care of their customers like this. Not that I'm doubting the Great Word of Steve Jobs of course. All Hail Steve. All Hail Steve.

Read more here.

Blogs to Riches: Perez Hilton Makes a Lot of Money

Wired has an interesting article about Mario Lavandeira aka Perez Hilton, the celebrity gadfly blogger who operates PerezHilton.com, which he started in 2004 as "a fame-obsessed loner who had just been fired from a reporting job at Star magazine." His site gets millions of hits a day and he's been able to parlay that into a legitimate brand with "four-episode TV special, What Perez Sez (which aired on VH1 to respectable ratings), followed by a nationally syndicated on-air gossip gig with ABC Radio." This is in addition to his upcoming book as well as his own line of Tween clothing. I can't hate on this dude--his core and peripheral material obviously doesn't appeal to me, but I admire his ability to get paid. And man, does he get paid from scribbling childish barely legible observations on paparazzi photos of various celebrities on his website.

Ads on his homepage fetch up to $54,000 a day, and his overhead is minimal—his only employee is his sister Barby, who fields emails and corrects typos. Which means he's pulling down millions a year. The site now averages 198 million pageviews a month, according to the Web ratings service Quantcast.

Don't you sort of hate your life right now?

Read more here.

[Via]

Mythbusters Paint Mona Lisa in Under One Second

Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters demonstrates their paintball machine on steroids that can recreate the Mona Lisa painting in less than a second. And what have you done lately? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKK933KK6Gg]

[Via]

Woman Interrupts Obama & Biden's Breakfast Club

Moye found this hysterical photo of a woman trying to get a photo with Obama and Biden as they eat breakfast with their wives at the Yankee Kitchen Family Restaurant in Boardman, Ohio. What I really think is funny about this photo aside from the obvious absurdity is that she's making the "Get a load of this guy" expression.

Funniest Photo from New Orleans

Thankfully New Orleans was left relatively unscathed in Hurricane Gustav's wake, save for some downed power lines and downed trees. But this photo apparently from a New Orleans bar prior to Gustav's arrival injected some humor into a seemingly dire situation.

If I was a resident I would have firmly been in the "Run like a bitch" camp.

Flow Chart: Good & Bad Things to Say During Sex

If you have trouble expressing yourself verbally adequately during boom boom time or you kill the mood by saying the wrong thing, then this extensive flow chart will be a handy cheat sheet for you the next time she wants you to talk to her. I don't need it though. I have a Ph.D. in this field. Hi-ho!

[Via]

Google Chrome Early Adopter

Download Google Chrome here.

Update: Chrome appears to be faster than Safari.

Happy Tuesday!

I know the first day back at work or in the classroom is tough after a vacation or holiday. So to help your post-Labor Day work week be slightly more manageable I'm posting the following affirmation. Go ahead, print it and post it in your cubicle.

And if you're STILL having a really tough time then print this one below: