I met a bunch of obnoxious drunks last night, and I really wanna check out their blogs, but Blogspot is down. Do not fret, the all important Link of the Century of the Week is coming.

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That would be me. Which means I’m taller than all the rest. You wanna read a Colorado blog, and you wanna read the one by a tall guy, you’ve come to the right place.

Steve Green — Just what you think he’s like. Friendly, witty, and shorter than me.

Jeff Goldstein — Doesn’t look at all like Serpico, but he’s ready and willing to arm wrestle Jesse Ventura. Oh, and I’m much taller than he is.

Ben Fischer — He’s 17. He spots Michael Moore’s spelling errors. And he’s pretty tall, but not tall enough.

Doug Dever — He’s short. And he’s an asshole. A really short asshole.

Matt Traylor — Melodic first name. He’ll let you sit in his LandRover and listen to crazy techno at two in the morning and then give you a pack of smokes for the drive home. But he’s still short.

I’ve missed linking a whole bunch of short people here, and I’ll remedy that soon.

TBOTCOTW: Tall.

Update: Earlier I tried to find Andy’s blog, World Wide Rant, but I thought the name was plural. I just assumed that it’s a blog, so no way he put up just one rant. And I was right, there are several good rants over there. He’s smart, funny, and angry. Short people usually are.

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I really do. Their coverage is slanted and their linking policy is idiotic. But I’m not stupid, I can spot bias when I hear it. It brings a smile to my face when they go wildly off the left-end. Today, for instance, they mentioned a poll that found that seventy percent of teenagers (a link to the poll will be provided when I find it) support stricter handgun laws. Exactly what ’stricter’ entails wasn’t mentioned. My own bias says this: teenagers are not allowed to own handguns. Therefore, all teenagers that own handguns are criminals. So of course teenagers are up in arms (errr, so to speak) about gun crimes… they’re affected more by gun crime than any other demographic group, yet they can’t enjoy the benefits of lawful gun ownership themselves.

Wow, that was one hell of an unsupportable tangent. Back to the subject. I love all the things that NPR uses to fill in the cracks. Neato little stories about guys that make fake street signs and call it art, biologists that play Barry White to sharks to get them in the mood, and Havrilesky on juicers and burritos. But I hate pledge drives (I do not, however, hate them as much as Eric Olsen). I especially hate last-minute surprise fund drives. Colorado Public Radio was evidently about to WorldBom so the last few days have seen an unprecedented wave of longform on-air begging. The tone of desperation was even more squealingly righteous than usual, making me think that some of the announcers thought they might lose their jobs.

Please stop berating me about my integrity, and stop whining about how I can’t get this quality programming elsewhere on the dial. I know all that. I’ve given you money already this year, and I have the CD of reach-around interviews between Ira Glass and Terry Gross to prove it.

Update: I should have said their linking policy was idiotic. They’ve responded quite admirably to the beating that blogdom gave them.

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What he said. Although, Mr. Austin, now that you’ve posted the whole phrase in one chunk on your blog, you’re Google number one.

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Bernie resigned two months ago, when WorldCom was in serious trouble, but long before anyone knew they’d have to recalculate their earnings to the tune of four Beeeellion dollars. But he didn’t know about it. No way. Neither did their auditor for 2001, Arthur Anderson (heard of them before?):

“Important information about line costs was withheld from Andersen auditors by the chief financial officer of WorldCom,” Andersen said in a statement.

Oh yea, I’m buying. So how is this awful problem to be fixed? Further federal regulation of auditing won’t work. Both the feds (collection of taxes and campaign contributions) and the auditor (collection of the auditee’s check) will always have a conflict of interest.

The markets can correct this themselves. Neither shareholders, the NYSE, or the NASDAQ look kindly upon a company that has an auditor with a reputation for cooking the books. And I don’t think that CEOs or CFOs enjoy seeing the company they built collapse, no matter how golden their parachute. It’s basically nuclear deterence applied to financial markets. Sure, Iraq or North Korea could try to wing a warhead our way, but since certain death would result, they probably won’t.

Because of the late hour that analogy was rather oblique, so here is a helpful equation: certain death = bankruptcy.

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As an atheist, I’d prefer that our money and our pledge didn’t reference any deity at all. But as a libertarian, I think that Bunnie Foo Foo makes a good point. Didja know that the Supremes banned the forced recital of the pledge in schools? In 1943. And not because they were non-believing scum; all the Godspeak wasn’t inserted until 1954, due to pressure from a Catholic (of course!) group. Does anyone think that this helped us defeat the Godless Communists?

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If anyone ever feels the urge to Googlebomb me, I think that deflowered me would make a fantastic (as well as fantastical) choice.

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Until now I held the record for the blogger with the least hits with an Up Yours interview. I now gladly relinquish that title to shell, writer of this widely praised comment:

In a post 9-11 world, I feel it’s my duty as a woman to wear clingier clothing, flirt more outrageously, have more orgasms, and get on top more often. In short, anything that’s taboo to the islamofascists.

Now that’s homeland security! [JSBX] I’m gonna let you get on top! Get on top! …Aww, shucks. You make me feel so unnecessary. [/JSBX]

Off to an incredible start, here’s shellshocking.

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Check this out. It’s busier than InstaPundit and VodkaPundit combined.

(Link via Pejman, who says he likes it.)

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Justin Sodano is a brave man. When AdBusters posted a column about the Zen Television Experiment most culturally inferior Western Imperialists turned tail and ran: “Hell, no, I’m not watching teevee with the sound off for thirty minutes! I paid good money for five matching speakers and a subwoofer!” But not Sodano. He took them at their word, followed their silly directions, and then astutely ragged on them. Why the hell don’t they hold a Zen Book Experiment? Or…

Zen Beer Experiment — Finish your beer. Now stare at the bottle (can, for those in trailerparks) for ten minutes. You want another, don’t you? I’m up, so I’ll get one for you.

Zen Nature Experiment — Find the nearest Grizzly country. Walk for miles out into those hills, then blindfold yourself and try not to get scared at every little sound.

Zen Driving Experiment — Go to your nearest performance car dealership. Ask to take a test drive, then just sit behind the wheel, humming tunelessly, until the salesman gets so creeped that he calls the manager.

Zen Blog Experiment — Click over to Blogger. Open up a new blog, and, without posting, hit publish and then view site. Write an angry email to yourself about the lack of posts of late. Then link Tony just to do your part.

Annoyed yet? Frustrated? Of course you are, because your puny mind has been drained of all awareness by camera moves, zooms, and cuts. So lets all turn off the teevee, learn to think clearly, and in a few short months we’ll all be able to immolate ourselves without flinching.

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