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The winning entry in this year's Bulwer-Lytton contest (in which contestants make up the worst possible opening sentence to an imaginary novel):

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

(Check out the runners-up, too.)

By the way, if it isn't too hazy tonight, it's a Manhattan equinox today.

I'm not a big fan of McDonald's, but this ad is cool.

Someone hasn't heard of the Onion...

Wow.  A 715-megapixel image of Sydney by night.

*boggle*

By John Spates - Seurat in the Park on the Rock, originally uploaded by OldOnliner.

What a grand (Jatte) idea -- recreating Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" for a contemporary version. They came pretty close, too. (Here's a news article from the Beloit Daily News describing the project.)

Kneel before our next leader!

Everybody's favorite right-wing, insanity-purveying, hate-spouting, terrorism-fomenting harpy Ann Coulter's response to being labeled a plagiarist?

Why, none other than to go on the attack.  Writing in her latest column, she goes after the NY Post, which exposed her plagiarism.

(Ann Coulter on a crusade against the New York Post?  Let me take time out just to say the following:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thank you.)

She writes:  "Once considered a legitimate daily, the Post has been reduced to tabloid status best known for Page Six's breathless accounts of Paris Hilton's latest ruttings, and headlines like 'Vampire Teen -- H.S. Girl Is Out for Blood.' How crappy a newspaper is the Post? Let me put it this way: It's New York's second-crappiest paper."

Aside from the rich ironies involved in Ann Coulter schooling anyone in journalism, I have just one quick observation, Ann -- how do you reduce the Post to "tabloid status"...when it already is a tabloid?

Also, as Justin Rood noted at TPMMuckraker, "Careful readers will note that within the venom, a denial is nowhere to be found."

I guess it's all just a lying liberal left-wing conspiracy, right, Ann?  Care to address the discrepancies?

Coulter goes on to fume:  "This week I plan to reveal my own top secret information: an interview I did with the New York Post the week my current No. 1 best seller, "Godless," was released. On account of an important breaking story on Angelina Jolie's new tattoo, the Post never found room to run the long interview I wasted my time answering for the Post's Larry Getlen."

So...if you hate the Post so much, Ann, then why did you sit for a "long interview" with them? 

After all, even Paris Hilton probably believes she's in love.  There's a different word for what Ann Coulter's doing.

What do "unibrow", "soul patch", "drama queen", "big-box" and "polyamory" have in common?

Check out the incredible DJ QBert, doing an amazing scratch routine....with only one turntable!

Every World Cup stats page should be like this.

Happy Independence Day Fourth of July.

(oh, by the way:  illegal wiretapping wasn't in response to 9/11, after all, as the Bush Administration claimed.  It was set up the month after Bush took office.)

And, oh, apropos of nothing:

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. . .

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws . . .

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences . . .

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. . .

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:  Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Ann Coulter, plagiarist.

You gonna feed me or what?, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

You may have noticed the relative brevity of the posts over the past few days -- that's what you get when you auto-load them in advance.

Last week, a stressful, busy few days gave way to a blissful few days at the rivah (my parents' wonderfully quiet and peaceful getaway on the Rappahannock River in Virginia). Chico, B., and I headed out from Manhattan around noon Thursday, and arrived in time for a crab cake dinner. (The River Market in White Stone, VA has, I think, some of the very best crab cakes around, second only to the late lamented Captain's Galley in Crisfield, MD.)

On Friday, we headed out to the Westmoreland Berry Farm, where we fed the goats (see above, and here, and here, and here), and picked blackberries (12 cups of the best, biggest, sweetest ones I've ever had), blueberries, and raspberries.

Then it was on to the Good Eats Cafe in Kinsale for a very nice birthday dinner for yours truly (more crab!) , before heading back to the cottage and bed.

Saturday morning was marked by sleeping really late, bumming around, sitting on the screened-in porch, and catching up on reading. (Come to think of it, Saturday afternoon was much the same.) But we had an exciting Saturday night, down the road at the local dirt track, which was a lot of fun and a really good time. (They even had fireworks!)

After hanging out with my stepfather's family on Sunday afternoon, it was time to head up the scorching-hot highway back to Noo Yawk. (Can you tell I miss the rivah when I'm not there?)

Good to be back, but it was great to be able to get away for a few days. It was back to work today for both B. and me, .but at least I was able to abduct her from work for a little bit today so we could have a mighty fine lunch at Bouchon Bakery -- B. and I split some superb chilled borscht, then I got an open-faced pork loin sandwich, while B. hit the jackpot with an incredible Roquefort-and-leek quiche.

We both work on the Fourth as well, but we brought some crab cakes back -- the vacation lasts as long as we have fresh seafood in the house.

Poor Attorney General -- don'tcha hate it when the laws and the courts get in the way of untrammeled power?

Great Photographers On The Internet

(if you don't get it, start hanging out with the Delete me! sociopaths...)

Because we're all about public service journalism here at telescreen.org:

How to speed up PDF loading with Adobe Acrobat.

Why "The Big Lebowski" is about our empty modern world.