At least that's what George Saunders says. Who or what is responsible? Watch the video below...


Braindead Megaphone: The Movie from Book Videos on Vimeo.

A long time ago, one of our favorite authors indulged our "creativity" and agreed to answer 120 nonsensical questions. George Saunders is a man among men, and he's having a hell of run. He's been named a genius by the MacArthur Foundation and now he's on Letterman. Enjoy the funny story and treat yourself to one of his books.

It's likely not a reason to panic, but don't stories -- animals with extra appendages -- seem to be popping up more frequently? Couple this trend with the animal-on-human violence trend and we may have a problem.

Read about the nine-legged frog here. (Wouldn't this guy be popular in France?)

Read more about what experts think caused the mutation here.

Check out the photos below for more stories like this... it's like nature's freak show.

In a homage to lolpresident.com (one of the best sites of all-time), we give you lolhamas. The photos were just too good to resist. (Also, this does not mock accents -- it's stupid Friday internet speak.) Here's the news story.

In Abbas's own Gaza office, a masked man, clutching his AK-47 assault rifle, eased into the president's chair while he and with his fellow gunmen took pictures of each other.

"Hello, Condoleezza Rice ?" one masked man joked into the president's telephone. "You have me to deal with now."

Many celebrities and media elite have their wishes fulfilled as the universe's most powerful source for gossip, Page Six, goes down in flames today...






(It's actually a sponsorship for Rescue Me, which resumes tonight).

Whenever you're caught in a long line, please remember this video. Here's the post from the poor lad:

This is the most ridiculous queue that I have ever had the misfortune to be a part of...it took me 3 and a half hours to get to the front. It is a line in Heathrow airport that is simply a transit line to get to Terminal 4...My original flight had landed at...Terminal 4. So naturally I had to go out and then go back in again. Does this make sense? No it does not. And when I asked why there was such a long delay for such a simple procedure as going between flights I was told "It's always like this before Christmas." Do you think they had extra staff on? No, they did not. And to top it all off, they, of course, lost my luggage. I shouldn't complain too much though, on that day a further 8999 people had their luggage lost as well.

Hat tip to BoingBoing.net

An interesting piece from Australia:

A gay bar in Melbourne has won the right to turn away straight patrons, so it can provide an environment in which gay men can express their sexuality without feeling threatened.

The Peel Hotel applied for an exemption to equal opportunities legislation, saying its gay male clientele felt uncomfortable about the increasing numbers of straight people using the venue over the past year.

A commentator has a beef with the contestants on 'American Idol' -- they're obese, and that may hurt the kids of American.

The observation that some of the contestants were over weight on is not absurd: some obviously were. But, is her alarm, well, alarmist? Or does she have a point?

The official caption for the photo is: U.S. President George W. Bush (R) looks up at graduating cadet Robert Ryan Burgess (L) during the commencement ceremony for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, May 23, 2007.

You can do better, right?

This is an incredible video. Lions attack a baby buffalo and bring it down. Then the crocs try to take the buffalo away from the lions. And then, the buffaloes return en masse to reclaim the baby buffalo.

A Brawl In The Safari - Watch more free videos

SNL is having a good year... which one of these (fictional) revelations comes the closest to being true?

Commuters in Buenos Aires, enraged by perpetually late trains, rioted in and looted the station.

In no way is this presented as support for violence and rioting... (but, I'll be willing to bet commuters who have to deal with late trains, poor service etc. have envisioned such a scene.)

One of the most outspoken antitheists opines on one of the most outspoken Christians...



And, lo, Mr. Hitchens has put his words to paper (internet paper!). You can read his column here. Some choice excerpts follow:

The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled "credulous idiot."

Like many fanatical preachers, Falwell was especially disgusting in exuding an almost sexless personality while railing from dawn to dusk about the sex lives of others. His obsession with homosexuality was on a par with his lip-smacking evocations of hellfire.

It's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to, and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based."

From today's New York Observer:

It's the free agent's curse: No matter what else may be wrong with the franchise, the new arrival's talent is supposed to overcome it. That's why they put you in the heart of the lineup, or on those bus billboards. If there are problems that still need fixing, that means the savior is a failure. An ongoing set of adjustments means that the savior is an ongoing failure.

So each new strategy that CBS or the Yankees might try, hoping to win more viewers or more games, gets evaluated as an act of publicity long before the results come in. Ms. Couric and the CBS Evening News are going through the kind of scrutiny usually presented on WFAN: Are they sunk? Are they crazy? What were they thinking in the first place? And how long can they keep making excuses for that overpriced bum?

Currently, the Yankees are looking up in the standings at a team, the Red Sox, who are playing the Yankees' game better than the Yankees-i.e., winning ballgames with the finest team money can buy. CBS, having hired the most celebrated anchor in the modern history of morning television, now finds itself looking up in the ratings at a news team helmed by former morning-news anchor Charles Gibson.

These two mega-watt media personalities bare the burden -- and reap the benefits -- of working in New York. I have to think the same "curse" can be applied to the business world as well -- bringing in a hot shot CEO to be a savior only to see the stock tank. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

You can read the rest of the Observer article here.

In case you missed it, Imus' producer, Bernard McGuirk, debated Al Sharpton on Hannity & Colmes... You can read a summary here.