Unidentified fruit, which we tasted.

It was sweet. Until it was bitter. Then we spit it out. And still we live.

An inside look at sex.

MRI video.

Via Dave Barry, who says: "Do not click on the link unless you are prepared to view explicit images in which you can't really tell what the hell is going on..." And commenter insomniac nails it: "ahhh, sweet m.r.i. of life at last i've found you..."

Sorry. I don't believe it was *ever* cool/hip to call something/someone "Obama" to mean it/he was cool/hip.

But the NYT nevertheless has this style piece:

LAST week, if you wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have called him “Obama,” as in: “Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so Obama.”

This week? Best not to risk it.

Yeesh. If you risked it before, go ahead: risk it! You seem pretty un-risk-averse. Chez Althouse, we've been thinking it's amusing to say, whenever anything's not quite right: Why did Obama let that happen? Or just — with a tone of sad disappointment: Obama.

But anyway, "Obama" as an adjective for cool/hip? The point is that it didn't last:

The life of slang is now shorter than ever, say linguists, and what was once a reliable code for identifying members of an in-group or subculture is losing some of its magic.

The Internet “is robbing slang of a lot of its sociolinguistic exclusionary power,” said Robert A. Leonard, a linguistics professor at Hofstra in Hempstead, N.Y., whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na, formed in the late 1960s. “If you are in a real inside group, you are manufacturing slang so that you can exclude the wannabes.”

And that becomes harder, he added, as the whole world has access to your language.

... whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na... Ha ha. I like to think his linguistics scholarship focuses on the meaning of nonsense syllables in doo wop songs. (Because, really, WHO put the bomp?)

Nowadays, everyone can check Urban Dictionary. The exclusionary game is up.

And what's the #1 entry over at Urban Dictionary for "Obama"? With 7468 up votes and 2099 down:

No real definition for this word is possible at this time. Check back in 4 years by then a consensus by have formed. Each person projects his personal beliefs and values onto this word, and a standard meaning isn't possible at this time.

Hey, did it suddenly become hip and cool to be all clear-headed and rational?!

"Bringing up the subject of the current first lady's shorts — indeed even admitting to noticing them — already has people booting up their laptops..."

"... and taking big, gulping swigs of self-righteousness before firing off e-mails and tweets declaring the whole discussion pointless."

Robin Givhan wants to talk about Michelle Obama's shorts. She's a fashion writer, okay? Deal with it!

And fashion is important. ("[C]lothes are part of our broader aesthetic obligation to each other.")

By the way, did you watch the first episode of the new season of "Project Runway"? On — ugh! — Lifetime now, instead of Bravo.

The argument that Congress doesn't have the power to force citizens to buy health insurance.

First, I wonder how many of the uninsured realize that the health care plan is going to require them to buy insurance. Anyway, the issue here is about the scope of Congress's commerce power. Lawyers David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey point out that the uninsured are not currently doing anything in the commercial/economic sphere. They are basically doing nothing — failing to provide for themselves. How can Congress regulate this nonaction?

The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there. Significantly, in two key cases, United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the proposition that the commerce clause allowed Congress to regulate noneconomic activities merely because, through a chain of causal effects, they might have an economic impact....

"Barack Obama’s Big Bang is beginning to backfire..."

"... as his plans for rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care are running into stiff resistance, both in Washington and around the country. The Obama theory was simple, though always freighted with risk: Use a season of economic anxiety to enact sweeping changes the public likely wouldn’t stomach in ordinary times. But the abrupt swing in the public’s mood, from optimism about Obama’s possibility to concern he may overreaching, has thrown the White House off its strategy and forced the president to curtail his ambitions."

"Big Bang." I call it "Shock and Awe":

Liberals out-organized conservatives in blogging, but conservatives are doing better with Twitter.

Or so the liberal bloggers say.

“Conservatives are always good at pushing that one concise message. The death panels are easy to tweet. The explanation for why there are no death panels and making that explanation takes much more explanation. You can’t do that on Twitter.”

So their ideas are sophisticated and fact-based, while their opponents throw around ideology and the fantasy that supports it. That's the politico's delusion, in a nutshell. But I've got to laugh at the way blogging now represents the in-depth development of ideas. I'm just too deep for Twitter. I'm a blogger. LOL.

***

That politico's delusion reminds me of Skeptoid's explanation for why he won't debate pseudoscientists anymore:

The pseudoscientist ... can say whatever he wants. If compelling rhetoric would benefit from any given argument, he can always make that argument. Pseudosciences have typically been designed around compelling rhetorical arguments. The facts of science, on the other hand, rarely happen to coincide with the best possible logic argument. Having the facts on your side is not an advantage, it's a limitation; and it's a limitation that's very dangerous to the cause of science should you throw it onto the debate floor.

Do you understand the massive destruction the government is paying for?

The destruction of perfectly operable cars?

Here, look, this is a Corvette, being destroyed pursuant to government policy. I'm skipping ahead to the really destructive part:



The government, which took over General Motors, wants us to hate Corvettes?

Look at all that smoke! Does anyone care about actual pollution anymore? (As opposed to carbon dioxide.)

And look at all the waste! What about all the energy was used producing the car? That is being squandered now, on the theory that a new car will use less gas (assuming it's driven the same number of miles). And energy was used to manufacture the new car. Using old things longer — preserving things — is a way to decrease the consumption of fossil fuels that are used in production. I don't see how Cash for Clunkers factored in all the energy use that is involved in destroying one car and making another.

And it really pains me to see the destruction of something beautiful and good.

Did CIA interrogators stage mock executions and brandish a gun and a drill to frighten detainees into giving up information?

WaPo:

The tactics -- which one official described Friday as a threatened execution -- were used on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the CIA's inspector general's report on the agency's interrogation program....

Three months before Nashiri's capture, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- Jay S. Bybee, now a federal judge -- advised the CIA in an August 2002 memo that threats of "imminent death" were not illegal unless they deliberately produced prolonged mental harm. Independent legal experts have called that interpretation too hedged and thus too lax....

A ... former U.S. official who has read the full, classified report said that it contained an entire section listing ways in which the CIA and contracted interrogators had "gone beyond what they were authorized to do -- a whole variety of deviations." The official said that what struck him most strongly was that the report suggested these techniques were "really not effective."

He said he concluded that "there has to be a better way to do this" but that the CIA resisted suggestions then that it should back away from the program. Asked why, the official said he could not say for sure, but he added that "maybe it was that if you change, then it means you were wrong" in pursuing the harsh interrogation methods in the first place.

"We’re not in the postracial period," says NY governor David Paterson.

"My feeling is it’s being orchestrated, it’s a game, and people who pay attention know that."

"It" = the opposition to his running for (can't call it re-)election as NY governor. Why, if he was never chosen for governor in the first place, does he assume he should be more popular? And, of course, he can't possibly think that this complaint will increase his popularit. Is he giving up?

At Queen Anne's Alehouse...

... you can talk long into the wee (wee) hours.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen won't defend the domestic partnership law.

''When the people have spoken by amending our Constitution, I will abide by their command. When policy makers have ignored their words, I will not.''

The new statutory scheme is being challenged by the Wisconsin Family Council on the ground that it violates the anti-same-sex marriage amendment that was added to the state constitution in 2006. Here is an earlier blog post on the case.

Governor Doyle — who just announced that he won't run for re-election — is predictably displeased.

Is Van Hollen launching a run?

ADDED: Here's the memo written by (my UW Law School colleague) David Schwartz on the legal issue in the case: PDF. Doyle released the memo yesterday as a response to Van Hollen's decision. I have not read the memo yet.

Hey, ain't it good to know that you've got...

... a muffin... and a friend?

"Supporters of the [Obama family's] getaway include Hugh Taylor, owner of the Vineyard's The Outermost Inn."

"Says Taylor, brother of singer James Taylor: 'They should just take a walk on the beach, get squirted in the face by a clam, watch an osprey. What I would like to see (Obama) do is just enjoy this place with his children.'"

***

You just call on a clam,
And you know wherever I am
I will squirt you, oh yeah baby
Right in the face.
Just take a walk on the beach,
I will you a lesson teach.
I will squirt you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've got a clam.

Hey, ain't it good to know that you've got a clam?
People can be so cold.
They'll hurt you and desert you.
They'll take your soul if you let them.
Oh, but don't you let them...

"Hip, cool and heathy" — it's Feline Wellness magazine.

And, no, it is not a satire:



We really are meant to take "The healing power of CATNIP" and "Feng Shui and Felines" seriously. And just ask your cat what title he'd like for an article about how he is shitting all over the house. I think it would be: "Outside the box."

ADDED: As you may notice — at the very bottom — this was at Whole Foods. It was, once again, teeming with people — all Republicans? In Madison? Well, I didn't see any Obama bumper stickers. I saw one "IMPEACH" sticker. So, I guess it's here. The Impeach Obama movement. But why? What grounds? Ineffectiveness isn't grounds. Claiming to be — or inadequate performance as — "God's partner"? Posing as a natural-born citizen? Who knows? I didn't get a chance to chat with the sticker sticker.

"Everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up."

What the President meant was that everybody's ... peeing.