What happens when Venus and Mars are improperly aligned?

Damien Thompson at The Telegraph tells the heartwarming Christmas tale of how BBC 4 decided to invite Mr. Ahmadinejad to deliver a Christmas address. I’m kind of hoping that this will be a variety show. What kind of acts would you suppose might be most appropriate?

Reader Simon emailed this to Jeff, who passed it along to me, with reference to this post: Jeff, Your update to this post may have apologized to Sullivan too soon. Although the site provided a disclaimer that “foreign nationals are prohibited from making contributions to this campaign,” and although Sullivan is not a citizen, that isn’t the end of the story. The term “foreign national” means, for purposes of federal

Chicago Sun-Times: In addition to talking with Gov. Blagojevich about who would fill President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat, Obama’s newly minted chief of staff had something else on his mind: his own congressional seat. Just after accepting the top post with Obama, Rahm Emanuel discussed with Blagojevich the possibility of keeping his congressional seat “warm” for him for a couple of years, the Sun-Times has learned. Emanuel expressed interest in

No attribution. Russ from Winterset at Ace’s: Iowahawk (AKA Dave Burge) is one of the funniest men on the interwebthingy, and even though he’s a filthy Iowa Hawkeye fan, he’s still a fellow native Iowan who’s made good. Those of us in Iowa who have web access are just as proud of Mr. Burge as we are of other native Iowans who’ve made good, like John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, Herbert

and now I’ve got three kids! DAMN YOU, KATY PERRY!!! Speaking of music, I can’t ever hear Tommy James’ “Draggin’ a Line” without superimposing the lyric, “Bangers and mash, mash, mash” over the baseline. Sociopath.

I wonder, wonder who, who-oo-ooh, who (Who screwed the Bag Of Douche?) Tell me, tell me, tell me Oh, who screwed the Bag Of Douche I’ve got to know the answer When he hung around looking louche (Oh, I wonder, wonder who, mmbadoo-ooh, who) (Who screwed the Bag Of Douche?) I love you darlin’ Baby, you know I do But I laugh to see this Bag of Douche The one

Some folks like to wrap holiday gifts using pages from the Sunday funnies. Me, I’m more a “thousands of jobs lost in December as economy collapses” / “town’s Christmas tree felled by lightning killing 9 orphans”-type guy. — You know, lend some emotional balance to the season and problematize that rampantly artificial good cheer with a healthy dose of thoughtfully juxtaposed irony. Happy holidays, everyone. Try not to cut off

Former FBI mole Larry Grathwohl responds–at PJM, because the NYT won’t publish it: I must conclude by acknowledging that in one respect Bill is probably being absolutely truthful. When he says that “I never killed or injured anyone,” he is most likely being totally honest. Bill, like Charles Manson, never exposed himself to any kind of danger. He always gave orders and then left it to his then-girlfriend, Diane Oughton,

On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics). Dr Blackmore said the “fundamental problem” facing the planet today is that “there are too many people”. Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: “For the planet’s sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that