Unqualified Successes 2003 - It’s that time of year, as it has been twice before. Once again: new categories are asterisked; repeat categories will list previous winners in parentheses; the Unqualified Successes are not blog awards as such - while some awards go to blogs, others don’t, and you should assume I love you even […]

Unqualified Fanboy Successes 2003 - This blog’s split personalities fought over who got to go first, and the comics geek won. Here are my entirely idiosyncratic awards for achievements, dubious and indubitable, from the year in comics (broadly considered).
Least Dispensible Comics Weblog - Journalista
Rant of the Year - Sean Collins on Batman: Hush
Iron Pyrite Award […]

A Fanboy’s Imitation Tech Blog Item - Sony has Spider-man blog templates. That is way, way, way too cool.
The things you learn because Blogger.com is on the fritz.

Conan the Libertarian - No, not Ah-nold, silly - the real one!

“I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you - one who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the barons, and the people cried out under oppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble […]

back in the 1980s:

Cerebus . . . American Flagg!, Love & Rockets, Saga of the Swamp Thing, Scout, Those Annoying Post Brothers and Zot!

The Post Brothers books I’ve seen never did much for me, and I don’t think I’ve heard of Scout. But the others are on my all-time faves list. I’d add William Messner-Loebs’ […]

Happy Happy - Amygdala is two years old today. Avedon Carol (not her blog) is older. (I am not sure what the conversion rate between “Delany years” and calendar years is.)

Not Dead Yet - Mrs. Offering is something approaching chipper. Offering Boy’s fever has broken, though the pediatrician discovered an ear infection of such magnitude that he warned us it might “explode.” (The infection, not the ear.) The Littlest Offering is also fever-free, finally, and was well enough to play with her cousin and […]

Guilty Guilty Guilty! (Your Doonesbury nostalgia trip for today.) John Ashcroft’s decision to recuse himself from the Plame Game investigation sure is interesting. We should consider the outside possibility that the “evidence recently developed in the inquiry” is so favorable to Administration higher-ups that Ashcroft wants the coming exoneration to appear all the more definitive.
Okay, […]

Stuff I Can’t Get Worked Up About, the Continuing Series - The “Almanac Alert.” The idea that the police are supposed to be on the lookout for people carrying almanacs is funny, out of context. But the actual directive, apparently, provides explicit context:

The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, “the […]

Category Confusion - Eve Tushnet is still trying to to talk about Same Sex Marriage in terms of whether marriage is a “right.” But talk of rights as such is a red herring when it comes to gay marriage. The real issue is an equal protection argument, not an individual rights one.
There is no constitutional […]

Empty Calories Between Their Ears - I meant to link to the terrific article Kelly Jane Torrance wrote about her time among the food fascists on Sunday, but missed. So read it now.

My Only Mad Cow Item will be this link to Gallimaufry.

How Sick is Sick? - Last night in dreams compounded of equal parts fever and decongestants, I planned a series of children’s books starring “Cut Fuckwise, the Brain Counter” (tagline: “He Counts Brains!”). I’m sure we’re all dying to read those. I certainly won’t be subbing them in for the Rainbow Horse stories I am […]

Weekly Fitness Blog Item - 166 pounds, which means I have to lose one by next Sunday to meet my interim holiday goal (165 or less). Pfagh. Our whole house is laid up with colds, so exercise is not on.
Your Blogger Holiday Meal Menus Bonus Section. Bruce Baugh and Walter in Denver published their menus. […]

What Might Make Me Vote for Bush After All despite never having voted for a Republican Presidential candidate in my life? The juvenile “Googlebombing” trend among liberal bloggers. (Et tu, Matt?) Is that really more important than the Administration’s baleful record on fiscal and martial prudence? Don’t tempt me.

Happy Anniversary - Two years ago in Unqualified Offerings:

If the plan before September was to provoke a US response, bring down the Musharraf government and, if possible, make off with one or more Pakistani nukes in the confusion, the plan has not yet failed.

From “Thinking Like a Terrorist.”
Today, in The Dawn:

The minister was of the […]

Do the Math like Radley Balko did.

Here We Go A’Caroling - Eric of Off Wing Opinion has a list of his favorite “non-traditional” Christmas songs. (”Non-traditional?” What’s the Yuletide without at least one listen to the Waitresses’ “Christmas Rapping?”) In addition to his nominees, I’d plump for “The Saint Stephen’s Day Murders,” by Elvis Costello and the Chieftains, and, though they […]

its maiden viewing.
We’re ready.