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Apparently not content with calling for the genocide of gay people, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (Bush pal, car dealer for Kim Jong-Il, also owner of the right-wing Washington Times, United Press International, and a host of business interests including the New Yorker Hotel and the Hammerstein Ballroom) went to the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington the other day, spoke to Congressmen, and proclaimed himself to be the Messiah. (More on Moon here.)

Here's the salient bit from his speech (the emphasis is mine):

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.

Here's the Washington Times writeup of the event. (Easy to get coverage of your actions if you own the paper.) Here's the list of the "Host Committee" members...which includes Congressmen of both parties and "Bush insider" Charles Black. (Black also happens to be the PR guy for Ahmed Chalabi, interestingly.)

(Mad props to John Gorenfeld's reporting for all of this.)

I know I'm late to the ballgame, but Amanda Hesser seems to be writing restaurant reviews for the Times now. WTF? She had a fine, innocuous, interesting food column in the Sunday magazine, but something's changed. Back in the day, her engaging style made her attempts to hook Mr. Latte through his stomach into should-reads. (Nope, not quite must-reads. But certainly worth your while.) She conveyed determination, savviness, and an unwillingness to take herself too seriously -- all traits that I often find and admire in New Yorkers. (e.g. Julie, of the Julie/Julia Project. Read her archives.) I dunno if it's marriage to Mr. Latte (aka Tad Friend of the New Yorker...so the change certainly isn't his influence on her writing), but she's gotten pretentious, smug, and breezy without a hint of self-awareness -- this collection of traits is also a very New York quality, and it's one that happens to annoy the living bejesus out of me.) And what's with all the passive voice? Can we get an editor over here?

(All this is really just an excuse to link to Eurotrash's gleeful skewering of one of Hesser's reviews. It's a roundly deserved evisceration. (Felix Salmon also has some interesting comments worth reading.))

Can we get critics who really know how to write? Roger Ebert and Anthony Lane can't be the only ones. Heck, at this point I'd settle for good clear writing in the Times' food section, like Grimes', Asimov's, David Edelstein's, et cetera. Can't they put Johnny Apple on the case? Or am I forced to rely (the horror!) on my Zagat, turning to M.F.K. Fisher for literary sustenance?

Why will Bush and Cheney testify together?

Damn. A company that cares about communicating honestly with its customers. This is just one of the reasons I love Six Apart.

Bush's economic speech, boiled down:

"I will state the obvious and wait for applause. Watch this: I will protect America."

If no baseball team or ska band adopts the moniker "The Killer Fishsticks", they may want to try the Icebox Rolls of Death.

(via twinkle twinkle blah blah blah etc.).

From 60 Minutes:

ED BRADLEY:
The secretary of state, defense, the director of the CIA, have all testified in public under oath before the commission. If - if you can talk to us and other news programs, why can't you talk to the commission in public and under oath?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify. I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle here ... it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.

Memo to Dr. Rice: I call "bullshit." What about Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1980 and Samuel Berger (twice) in 1997? They testified -- under oath -- and so can you. What have you got to hide? The 9/11 investigation is arguably the most important government investigation since Watergate. The White House is behaving the same way now as it did (under Nixon's leadership) back then.

As Josh Marshall says:

In any case, there's a high bar for testimony from a National Security Advisor. But it's happened before. And more than once. If they wanted her to testify, she could testify. What they want is for her to be able to lacerate her critics, discuss whichever parts of her advice to the president would be helpful to her politically at the moment, and freely declassify documents which she or the White House believes will hurt her enemies.

Josh Marshall also weighed in this weekend on the White House's character assassination campaign against Richard Clarke:

What this is about isn't Condi Rice or Richard Clarke or even George W. Bush. It's about what happened -- finding out what happened.

One side wants to find out; the other doesn't. This whole story turns on that simple fact. Why else try to destroy Clark unless what he has to say is profoundly damaging? Liars are usually easily discredited; it's the truth-tellers who need to be destroyed.

This administration has used and continues to use literally unprecedented means to maintain secrecy in order to keep this information -- what happened -- bottled up in the White House and in other parts of the executive branch. . .

. . .This is Plame all over again, just with the lights on -- a kind of behavior -- a mix of pervasive secrecy and the use of state power to punish political enemies -- that is literally a danger to the republic.

(Make sure you read Josh Marshall's entire post; it's worth it.)

As I said regarding AWOLGate, release all the information. Selective declassification and release of documents makes me wonder just what this Administration (which has, if you'll recall, repeatedly shown that it's decidedly lacking in the truth-telling department) is trying to cover up.

Bring the light.

I don't mean to follow Gawker's weekend recommendations quite so slavishly (heck, maybe this means I'm finally getting hip, perish the thought), but I did have a delightful weekend.

B. came down from Connecticut, even though she had to dodge exploding oil trucks to make it. We hung out at home, cooked Korean food, and watched an old movie.

Then Saturday, we headed to Enid's (where we first met, incidentally) for a fine brunch. We followed that up with a walk around scenic Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where we stopped in at a dollar store to marvel at the Engrish on display. That night we joined Jon & Lisa and went to see the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. The TFSP are a family band -- dad Jason plays piano and guitar, mom Tina designs the groovy stage outfits and runs the slide projector, ten-year-old daughter Rachel plays drums -- who sing off-kilter songs based on vintage slides they've acquired at estate sales and thrift stores. Odd? Yes. Hilarious? Frequently. Entertaining? Most definitely.

And on Sunday, B. went back to Connecticut, I helped Tony move to Astoria (hello, neighbor!), and Jon and I went to see the Zambonis play at Northsix in Williamsburg. The Zambonis, as I've mentioned before, are America's foremost hockey band -- all their songs are about hockey. And the Hockey Monkey even made an appearance!

HTJFB SEDQW VKPHY SPZSX ZTMZG EKLMS TFTKA DZDQL ECVYP LLVKA DCNKZ EQBQO KPNPQ
WOROZ XZA

(Confused? Try the key.)

There are teams? That’s weird. You don’t usually see that in competitive pie-eating.

How to explain the rules of cricket, via Coudal.

Yup, hardee har har. Really fuckin' funny.

And things get worse and worse: lederhosen subsidies end in Bavaria.

Beware of the San Antonio Killer Fishsticks!

(Wouldn't "the San Antonio Killer Fishsticks" be a great name for a minor-league baseball team?)

Ladies and gentlemen, the Niles Backyard Monorail. (via Coudal.)

Looks like my favorite songwriter is taking up litterachur. Should be interesting.

B.'s birthday was last week, and so I headed off to Bath & Body Works for all manner of aromatherapeutic unguents for a gift. ("How romantic! Aromatherapeutic unguents! You shouldn't have!")

I think they must have some sort of automatic testosterone detector installed in the doorjambs of their Lexington Avenue store -- at least, when I walked in, no less than four (4), count 'em, four floral-scented harpies "helpful" store clerks descended upon me. (I pictured flashing red lights in the back room. An alarm going whoop whoop whoop. "WARNING! CLUELESS MALE ALERT! DEER-IN-HEADLIGHTS LOOK IMMINENT IN PROXIMITY OF MAIN PORTAL! SCRAMBLE LAVENDER-SCENTED ASSISTANCE SQUAD, STAT!")

I was being quadruple-teamed: "Can we help you?" "Is there anything we can help you find?" "Looking for a gift for someone?" "Follow me over to the back wall--we have prepackaged gifts ready to go!"

(me, tremulously) "Um, can I just look around the store?"

"Certainly." At which point two of the harpies helpful shop assistants disappeared and the other two, no joke, fell back to about 8-10 feet away, and proceeded to follow me around the store. They were behind me so as not to lurk in my field of vision, but if I turned my head they were right there, suddenly fiddling with the candle packaging on a nearby table. I was wondering at first if they really meant to follow me, but my impressions were confirmed when I led the Bubble Bath Gestapo on a full lap of the store without their man-to-man coverage lapsing once. ["Man-to-man coverage?" Seems like a misnomer to me. --Ed.] It's a metaphor. Deal with it.

Have you ever been a really good restaurant, the kind with incredible service? Where the waitstaff can read minds, but in a good way? Where you just start to think about asking your waitperson for something and they appear at your elbow? Well, this was somewhat like that. I had a question about one of the baskets of nice-smelling creamy stuff (honestly, it's all the same to me, troglodyte male that I am), and all I had to do was pause for a moment, look up, and one of the fragrant harpies of doom helpful shop assistants was right there, assuming a steely look of feigned rapt supplication.

"CanIhelpyousir?"

"Um, can I substitute something in the gift basket for something else that's the same price--"

"Nein. Substitutions are not allowed." ("And you will address me as 'uber-Fraulein' in the future!", she unaccountably failed to add.)

Finally, after another half lap around the store, my selections were complete, and I stood in line for the cashier while bearing the kicky handbag (full of aforementioned nice-smelling creamy stuff) that was soon to be mine. O bliss!

"Is this a gift?" the cashier asked. Um, yes, I think so. Let's see. I'm the only male in the store, I'm decidedly non-metrosexual (heck, every morning I pick the T-shirt on top of the pile, as long as it isn't moving), and I'm awkwardly holding this aromatic handbag away from my body. Let's see -- did you really think this shea-butter lemon-verbena essential-oil peppermint-flavored foot cream was for me? Hmph.

But they quite nicely took my credit card and giftwrapped the whole shebang, leaving me to sashay grimly to work, toting a Bath & Body Works shopping bag. This shopping bag is the universal symbol of something, though I'm not quite sure what. All I know is that the lobby security guard at work gave me a look that said "Poor sap" while I swiped my ID card. I recognized him for the first time as a fellow veteran of the Redolence Wars. "I'm with you, brother," I thought as I headed for the elevators.

(P.S.: B. was thrilled.)

"You brute, you brute, you horrible brute!"

Knit your own low-carb accessories. (via BoingBoing.)

A fascinating essay (well, if you're a geek like me, at least) on the origins of the various airport identifier codes. Wonder how MCO (Orlando), ORD (Chicago/O'Hare), BNA (Nashville), OGG (Kahului, Maui) or PHF (Newport News) got their codes? Look no further. (via BoingBoing.)

A couple political cartoons for your perusal:

Attack, Attack!

and

Stop attacking the Guard!

(Both via TPM.)

ADDENDUM: Isn't "almost" good enough?

Isn't it fun when spammers try to get around Bayesian filtering?

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Truly, poetry for our time.

For the next week or so, you'll have a rare opportunity to simultaneously see five planets with the naked eye. (The next good chance will be in 2036.) Here's a detailed viewing guide. (via MeFi.)

The lovely and hella talented Elizabeth Spiers writes her bio.

Food Porn. (Work-safe, but you may want to use headphones instead of your speakers.)

An online quiz with astonishing results.