Books! Actual books!
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"Pulls you in like a good sports story"
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"
-- New York Newsday
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Snappy and informative"
-- Associated Press
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."
-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life
"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."
-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game
"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"
-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All
"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."
-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history
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“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
— Boston Globe
"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."
— New York Observer
"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”
— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”
— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."
— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review
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Main
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Science
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Saturday, 23 October 2004 |
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Missed this until today, but the Audubon Society this week released a study showing that almost a third of all bird populations in North America are facing significant decline. In grassland areas, the number is over two-thirds. Bush supporters would call this the "Healthy Bird Initiative." |
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Polls
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Friday, 22 October 2004 |
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| Texas oil men, Russian exiles, and "George Bush of the CIA" | | | Castro acted alone | | | A covert CIA/mafia alliance | | | E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, and a third tramp | |
| Number of Voters | : 770 | | First Vote | : Thursday, 21 October 2004 22:23 | | Last Vote | : Friday, 22 October 2004 21:24 |
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Just testing your collective JFK weirdness quotient. Turns out it's pretty high. New poll on the left -- enjoy. |
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Pudu
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Friday, 22 October 2004 |
Since everybody else uses Friday to show pictures of their favorite animals...
This is a pudu (genus name Pudu pudu),
the world's smallest deer. This little fellow, who grew up in the Los
Angeles Zoo, was roughly ankle-height when this picture was taken, and
eventually grew to about shin-height.
That's as big as they get. Eighteen inches at the shoulder, tops.
With a bit of effort, a particularly tall pudu could perhaps lick your
knee.
But pudus know better than to lick people's knees.
(Actually, no they don't.)
Pudus are terribly endangered. For obvious reasons -- I mean, no claws, no horns to speak of (although the related Pudu Mephistopheles
gets a pair of goofy little satan-stubs), and their only real defense
in the wild is to trot like hell, which at their size is roughly the
pace of a slow stroll.
So say hello to the cutest animal on Earth, the pudu. While you still can.
(PS -- I know all the arguments against zoos. But they're also about the only
place on Earth making an effort to keep the species alive. So deal
with it.)
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Bush
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 |
John Kerry last night, in open air, surrounded by Americans, in -- if we're willing to keep it -- a free country:
 And these three Oregon school teachers who were kicked out of a Bush rally last week for simply wearing T-shirts that said -- hold on, this is the subversive part -- "Protect Our Civil Liberties": And yes, really, that's all these women did. They expressed support for their own freedom... to express support for their own freedom. And for that they were hauled away. This was too dangerous to allow near the president, who's important because he's busy protecting our freedom. AAAAAGGHHHH! Irony overload! AAAAAGGHHHH! So... which country would you rather live in? (Thanks to reader Chris for the tip. Also, thanks to Kevin at the Washington Monthly for pointing me to Digby's blog, which had a shorter, earlier post. Digby, in turn, points to Common Dreams, who point to KGW, which is... yes, the original source of the link I got from Chris. Escher would have loved the 'net.) |
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Polls
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 |
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Needs advice on how to blame the mess in Baghdad on gays and lesbians |
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Only Pat can keep those pesky hurricanes out of Iraq |
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VA hospitals are woefully short on faith healers |
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Troops still hoping someone will donate kevlar plates as a prayer gift |
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Number of Voters
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882
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First Vote
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 00:42
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Last Vote
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 22:18 |
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Polls
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 |
Some of you have apparently noticed that there's absolutely nothing to keep you from voting in the polls as many times as you like.
And I'm flattered you'd be shocked -- shocked! -- at any factor which could violate the integrity of our surveys concerning public perceptions of such urgent topics as Condi Rice's knife-fighting skills or just how far Sean Hannity's head actually extends into his own ass. Clearly, this information must be kept sacrosanct.
Which is precisely why we employ the Modified Florida Rules of online voting, which is to say... no rules whatsoever. (This is modified from Florida's version simply by admitting the lack of rules, instead of maintaining the pretense.)
If you vote twice, we just figure you're twice as passionate as the next person. Or, then again, twice as unemployed. In either case, you clearly deserve twice the voice.
The above, incidentally, was a lie. (Am I Republican yet?) In truth, you are prevented from voting more than once in any ten minute period. If you're still on the site after ten minutes, then hell, you deserve to vote twice.
Thanks for your passion.
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Iraq
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Thursday, 21 October 2004 |
Tomorrow's NYT [names inserted for clarity]:
A Democratic U.S. Senator [Carl Levin, D-MI] on Thursday accused a senior Pentagon official [Doug Feith] of distorting intelligence information to back claims of links between Iraq and al Qaeda in the run-up to last year's U.S.-led invasion...
The 46-page report argued that Pentagon assertions of a link between al Qaeda and Iraq's President Saddam Hussein were not supported by intelligence reports on which they were purportedly based.
To refresh your memory, Doug Feith ran the Rumsfeld pet invention (not a traditional Pentagon agency, but a new office, imposed on the existing intelligence structure), the "Office of Special Plans." This is the dishonest rationalize-the-invasion lie factory that Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski sacrificed her whole career to blow the whistle on.
It looks like now they've documented Feith saying his bullshit had been vetted by the CIA, when it wasn't.
Naturally, the Republicans on the committee have done their best to cover up and spin the report.
The record is clearer every day. The Bushies didn't misunderstand. They weren't misinformed. They lied. And all the claims saying anything else... are just more lies.
The IHT has a longer, more-detailed story on the same material (credited to the NYT but oddly not on their site) here.
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Whom do you think was really responsible for Castro's sudden fall? 
What the hell is Bush doing discussing foreign policy with Pat Robertson, anyway?
