"Any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious..."

There's a dispute in Malawi over whether that language, in a criminal statute, outlaws farting.

Hey, that remind me of an old story about George Bush:

What the President thinks of the use of weird words. Having just expounded on the use of strange words, I especially enjoyed this extract--in Slate's always appreciated we-read-this-so-you-don't-have-to series--from Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack":

Page 186: Bush aide Nick Calio declares his intention to vitiate a congressional filibuster. Bush says, "Nicky, what the f**k are you talking about, vitiate?"

More on the inadvisability of using the word "vitiate" here. As for farting in public, I've only written about it before in connection with Saul Alinsky and Chris Matthews. And here's that wonderful George Carlin routine.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg says "I am certainly not going to retire before I get my Albers back."

(Via CNS.)

At the Winter Sunset Café...

... tell us all your subtly dark thoughts and secrets.

"You know... some people get shocked about sex. I was shocked that everyone was so shocked."

What a fuss everyone made about "I Am Curious (Yellow)," back in the 1960s. The star, Lena Nyman, has died at the age of 66.

Just 2 days ago, we were talking about the death of Maria Schneider, another woman we knew through a movie that shocked us with sex long ago.

Where are all the other women, who shocked us with mere sexuality back then, when naked actors simulating sex got everyone's attention? They are all old now, almost 60 years or more. We notice their obituaries and we remember the olden days, when it was possible to shock people with nothing more than nudity and sexual intercourse.

The U.S. Supreme Court had to deal with the fuss over "I Am Curious (Yellow)."  There's an opinion by Justice Douglas where — it's hard now to understand why — he saw fit to quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

It is time to remember that the first thing we belong to is humanity. And humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free. If they are fettered, we go back to being animals. Publicity and openness, honest and complete - that is the prime condition for the health of every society, and ours too.

Justice Douglas said: "If 'obscenity' can be carved out of the First Amendment, what other like exceptions can be created?"

There seemed be be a lot at stake back then. It seems so creakily irrelevant today, as the once-naked, once-beautiful bodies are buried in the earth, but free speech is on the line today too. Do you notice? Do you care?

Humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free.

"So when a white person holds objectionable views — racism, for example — we rightly condemn them."

"But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them."

Prime Minister David Cameron, daring to say that his country has values.

"You were my heart throb"/"What am I now, chopped liver?... It must have been 'Barbarella', right?"/And he typed out "yes."

When Jane Fonda met Stephen Hawking.

Hosni Mubarak has resigned?

"Reuters is reporting, via Egyptian state television, that President Hosni Mubarak resigned as head of Egypt's ruling party on Saturday. Al Jazeera is reporting the same."

ADDED: Question mark added to the post title.

AND: From the NYT live-blog linked above:

While we are awaiting clarity on whether President Hosni Mubarak remains the head of the ruling National Democratic Party in Egypt-- he is definitely still president, in any case-- here is some news on one of Egypt's leading opposition bloggers.

"2 Detained Reporters Saw Secret Police’s Methods Firsthand."

Could you please read this NYT article very carefully and explain to me how we know it was the Egyptian government's secret police as opposed to an exercise by opponents of the government, done to induce reporters to write stories antagonistic to the government?

The reporters were kept in "a plain room," where they were not beaten but they could hear what sounded like beating. What did they actually see?

We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men....

A plainclothes officer who said his name was Marwan gestured to us. “Come to the door,” he said, “and look out.”

We saw more than 20 people, Westerners and Egyptians, blindfolded and handcuffed. The room had been empty when we arrived the evening before.

“We could be treating you a lot worse,” he said in a flat tone, the facts speaking for themselves. Marwan said Egyptians were being held in the thousands. During the night we heard them being beaten, screaming after every blow.

Isn't that odd? Lots of blindfolded people, and then alarming sounds coming from elsewhere? They were kept for a day and then released.

They put us in our car with orders to put our heads down. “Look down, and don’t talk. If you look up you will see something you don’t ever want to see.”

They left us that way for 10 minutes. The only sounds were of guns being loaded and checked and duct-tape ripping.

Again, the hearing without seeing. Isn't this a strange article? Seriously, I am not trying to make trouble. I just read this article and felt like the reporters could have been duped by people manufacturing disinformation.

"The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty."

Says the UK Telegraph, relying on Wikileaks:

A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal.

Oh, but don't be upset! The START treaty was Obama's chosen post-elections showdown with GOP last fall:

Just two weeks after an election that left him struggling to find his way forward, President Obama has decided to confront Senate Republicans in a make-or-break battle over arms control that could be an early test of his mettle heading into the final two years of his term.

Obama proved his mettle! What's more important? Our relationship with the UK or proof of Obama's mettle after the crushing 2010 elections?

"The question for many Republicans is whether Ms. Palin is rewriting the rules of what it takes to run for president in an age of Facebook and Twitter..."

"... a world where, perhaps, there are no early visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, no need for policy speeches or press interviews – or whether this is simply part of an effort to keep herself in the public eye and to influence the Republican primary."

"AT AMAZON, a Valentine’s Day sale on cookware," says Instapundit... but wait!

Cookware as a Valentine's Day gift? Isn't cookware a famously bad Valentine's Day gift? I say that out loud. And Meade says: "Don't you know? Everything has flipped. It's for women to give to their men — the proud men who do all the cooking now — the proud men of true Mandom, like me and Glenn. Men, who see cookware as their tools."

***

Whatever you buy, if you don't buy it through Instapundit, please start here:

"I bet that you, like me, reasonably assumed the the 'G' on the Green Bay Packers' helmets..."

"... stood for 'Green Bay.'"

"Imagine, if you can, the delight of the woman who steps into her 'ready made' house and finds the kitchen already equipped with..."

"... electric refrigerator, dishwasher, sink, electric or gas stove, built-in clock, abundant cupboard space--and even a two-day supply of groceries on the shelves. And she never will be bothered by cooking odors because an electric exhaust quickly removes smoke, dust and fumes from the kitchen. In addition to the windows, indirect lighting gives plenty of illumination for her work in the compactly designed room."

You had me at built-in clock.

"The Most Feminist Place in the World."

You know it's got to be Iceland.

[A]ctivists from Stigamot, the rape crisis center in Reykjavik, gave Knut Storberget, Norwegian justice minister, black boxer-briefs with the words I Am Responsible written down the crotch....

Feminism, or at least the notion of gender equality, has so infused politics that, a couple of years ago, women members of Parliament performed The Vagina Monologues....

There are also new feminine spaces in the economy. As the economy went into overdrive, Kristín Pétursdóttir and Halla Tomasdóttir, who had been warning of disaster from her position at the Chamber of Commerce, founded Auður Capital, a “financial service company emphasizing feminine values and social responsibility.”...

"The Fish Filet™ Commercial KFC Doesn’t Want You To See (Anymore)."

"'It is no longer airing and will not be re-aired,' said a flack for Yum! Brands, the perpetually thrilled conglomerate that owns KFC."

ADDED: That's an interesting YouTube portal into Chinese commercials. Check out this very weird Panda cheese thing, and this one made me feel like I needed to have a seizure.

New horoscopes by Anna...

... hmmm. It seems I'm Bag.