Erstwhile respected journalist annoying gadfly and attention addict Elinor Burkett did herself no favors on Oscar night when she barreled into “Music By Prudence” director and co-producer Roger Ross Williams and bogarted the mike, but she did assure that a documentary acceptance speech garnered attention, so perhaps she performed a purple-encased act of altruism after all.
Below-the-fold bonus: music from Liyana, the Zimbabwean musicians profiled in the film, verified to be 100% marimbalicious.
For me, the Oscar Ceremonies are right up there with really crappy Eastern European trance bands who have an obsession for robot art and overwrought typefaces. But just because I have no soul doesn’t mean the rest of you can’t have a party!
Consider this your swag-filled VIP Roastatorium for winner picks, gossip, Red Carpet cattiness and Oscar Awards live-snarking.
UPDATE: Here’s the official list of nominees by searchable category. Here’s a potentially-lethal drinking game. Don’t thank me—I live to serve.
Pardon me for enjoying this all a little too much. But since Sarah Palin couldn’t manage pre-screened, canned questions from the friendliest audience since Edger Bergen was in vaudeville, without studying whatever was written on her palm, I am declaring that from now on, hands shall be known as “Wingnut Teleprompters.”
Palinophiles should just be grateful; I could have titled this post something else.
(h/t jeffinfremont)
~~UPDATE * UPDATE~~EXCLUSIVE FROM THE RUMPNEWSROOM
Citing “just being sick and tired of dealing with Mo—you’re not recording this, are you?”, an anonymous source within the Palin campaign slipped us this photo from the Opryland greenroom of what was on Sarah’s hand BEFORE she wiped some of it off!
X-posted at newly revived and thriving Snarkopolitan. Thanks to all the busy bees who helped me!
~~~UPDATE VIDEO BELOW THE FOLD~~~
Notice how the judge at Limbaugh’s right firmly puts her hand on his shoulder and pushes him down into his seat. I guess she was trying to protect innocent bystanders from being thwacked by his jiggling moobs. I think I just threw up in my mouth. A lot.
“Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”
I don’t watch American Idol, but its odious influence permeates every facet of American life:
I guarantee you I could walk into any third-rate karaoke bar in any piss-ant town and find someone with a better voice and superior stage presence. That guy sucks.
Yowsa, I didn’t have high hopes for Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller but even I didn’t expect it to be the pile of dated, uninspired mush that was unveiled this morning. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, so I don’t have time for a substantial critique of the content, but there are some immediately glaring issues with it that require little comment, so here goes…
First of all, the design of the site is absolutely dreadful. It’s so very awful that it actually made me mad when I first saw it. That dreadful. Did Tucker get a niece or nephew to come up with the design? I was going to write “wake up and smell the decade,” but I didn’t want people to think I meant the 00’s because I’m referring to the nineties. The drop-shadowed logos and icons, the beveled red header and navigation backgrounds, the gray-gradient news scroll at the top that looks like it was torn off of an old GeoCities page ... The Daily Caller is without a doubt one of the biggest design disasters in the history of “pro” web sites.
And their two current top featured pieces gives you a very clear indication of how groundbreaking and fresh The Daily Caller plans to be when it comes to content:
Breitbart and Huffington? Really? That’s what you roll out of the starting gate with? Why not just make your tagline “More of the Same Old Shit”? Can Roger L. Magoo be far behind?
Finally, getting back to the graphics, seriously, $3 million dollars and this is the best header graphic they could come up with for Jim Treacher’s new whatever-the-fuck-it-is?
Who designed/illustrated that header, No Quarter’s dismally untalented in-house illustrator Pat Racimora or did they hold a competition at local DC-area elementary schools (“Win school supplies for a year courtesy of Foster Friess!!!”)? What an embarrassment.
That’s all I’ve got for them moment. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.
More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly. This image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the evolution of galaxies.
The final image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light, and into the near-infrared. Such a detailed multi-color view of the universe has never before been assembled in such a combination of color, clarity, accuracy, and depth
Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, may it be all you wish it to be.
Barring instant global warming, it looks like we’ll have a bit of snow on the ground here to add to the enjoyment/horror. The above’s a shot from just up the hill from YAFB Towers about ten minutes ago, looking down the River Clyde towards Arran.
If you’ve any seasonal shots of your own you want to share, link them in the comments and I or one of my co-bloggers’ll add them to this post.
Have fun, take care, and be good.
[Updated below the fold]
For the uninitiated a cookie exchange is a holiday party where everybody brings a large batch of their favorite holiday cookies. The cookies are all set out on a table and when the gathering is over each guest takes home some of each kind so you end up with a nice assortment of different cookies.
Obviously we can’t reach into our computers and take cookies home (much as we’d like to!) but Dewberry and I thought this would be a great way to share recipes and give people a chance to try some new ones.
Our family favorite, by far, is iced sugar cookies. No, ours don’t look quite as good as the ones pictured above but they taste great! Any sugar cookie dough works but we’ve used Alton Brown’s the last few years with good results:
Sugar Cookies
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
Serves:
about 3 dozen-2 1/2 inch
Ingredients
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1 tablespoon milk
* Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
Directions
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.
Now this is me speaking. Be sure to use powdered sugar and not flour for rolling out the dough - you’ll end up with heavy, not very sweet cookies otherwise. And re-roll the scraps until there’s only enough dough left to eat by itself. ;-)
For icing either make your favorite white icing recipe or do what we do which is buy the pre-made stuff in the store. Divide into several small bowls and tint with food coloring. You can mix the basic colors to make all kinds of great shades. Have plenty of sprinkles, colored sugar and small candies on hand for decorating. Admire and devour.
Full disclosure: I haven’t had time to think this through, agenda-wise, but graphically we’re already way ahead of every other Lefty Blog that wants to cede the 2010/2012 elections to a bunch of unemployed snake-handling xenoglots in tri-cornered hats.
Quick notes on Why This Is The Coolest Third Party Concept Ever:
1. Prometheus selectively stole fire from the gods, and redistributed it to people who were fire-challenged. (Social Justice; General Badassitry)
2. Prometheus holds an upraised torch. (Apolitical, Hate-Fueled Snark; Zero-Comment Music Videos; Intermittent Food Prøn)
3. Prometheus obviously possesses a pretty titanic wad, which he has wisely girded with a steel nutsack. (Fiscal Prudence; Commitment to Retaining America’s Status as Sole Global Superpower)
4. Prometheus stands triumphant over some reclining (boring? drunk? dead?) guy, who doesn’t look like he’s going to be trolling the comment threads any time soon. (Medicare-for-All with a Robust Private Option)
There. I’ve done all the hard work. Now, it’s up to the rest of you to formulate the part where we raise scads of money, recruit and cultivate viable opposition candidates in every congressional district, and totally hijack the national media narrative. Have at it!
