Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:38 PM

A reader posted in comments this link to a Reuters article about how Wal-Mart was pressured to modify a description of the anti-Semitic tract Protocols of the Elders of Zion which implied that the tract was true.Interestingly Reason's Jesse Walker wrote about the same article, noting that a simple Google search would have answered the unanswered-by-Wal-Mart question of whether the description was Wal-Mart's or the publisher's (Hint: the same description appears on Amazon's page for the book).

Walker also notes that the article mentions that Amazon has a disclaimer but that the author apparently couldn't be bothered to scroll down past the disclaimer to see that Amazon is still using the controversial description. I suggested in comments that the only reason the author knew of the disclaimer was that it was in the press release he copied the article from.

Update: I stumbled upon this page which links to a PDF and an HTML transcript of the 1921 article by Philip Graves who first demonstrated that the Protocols were plagirized from a couple of novels.


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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:25 PM

Speaking as we were below of otherwise timeless entertainment containing dated jokes, an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show had Laura Petrie accidentally overfilling a coffee cup, so shocked was she by something Rob had said. Rob then says "Honey, I don't want a cup-and-a-half. That only works on television."

Thanks to Google I learned this was an allusion to a Maxwell House campaign that its instant coffee had "a cup-and-a-half of flavor." Apparently also "a cup-and-a-half of flavor" is a techie expression for a meaningless metric.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:09 PM

From the What the Hell? Dept.: In the Charley Chase short "Mighty Like a Moose" (where Chase and his wife both get plastic surgery and then proceed to have an illicit rendez-vous with each other), the big-nosed wife is described thusly:

If Mussolini had a nose like hers, his wound would have been fatal.

I don't get it.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:11 PM

Kim Thompson of Fantagraphics reports that the second volume of the Complete Peanuts has arrived at the Fantagraphics warehouse and will be shipped to those who pre-ordered from Fantagraphics on Friday.

Ahem..cough...cough...Woo hoo! Everybody!


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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:32 PM

The comments to this post refer to a $49 per month Platinum Subscriber option. If I collect enough of them, I might be able to afford one of these. If you buy me one, you will be a lifetime Kryptonite Subscriber!

My brother in the comments to this post says

Dammit, we expected Emmy-blogging

. Choose your favorite humorous retort!

1. I have to have some exclusive content for the Platinum Subscribers.
2. I tried to live-blog but the Showtime Emmy party didn't have Wi-Fi.
3. And I expected you to complain about not getting it so we're even.
4. THIS ONE LEFT BLANK FOR THE READER TO FILL OUT

Feel free to liberally add the phrase "You clod" to get the full Al Jaffee effect.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:22 PM

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is being hyped as "Harry Potter for adults". The site for the book includes a letter to The Times from Mr. Norrell and other stuff.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:16 AM

Given that he's been linked by Best of the Web and Kaus and Mark Steyn, I think I now know who leaked the forged memos.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:29 PM

For reasons it's best not to go into, I was trying to find out some info on the Great Gazoo (Is he from another planet, the future, another dimension, what?). I learned he had a comic book, one which lasted at least 20 issues.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:05 PM

Nikki Finke, author of two articles accusing Jay Leno of rightward drift which I discuss here and here, interviews Leno here. Some thoughts:

1. Notice that when Jay talks of the two times he gave Bush a pass (just after 9/11 and just after the Iraq war started), he talks of doing jokes about Bush again when people were ready. This is entirely consistent with Johnny Carson's monologues. Like I said before on this matter, the reason politicians were in trouble when Carson made fun of them was because Carson was a good barometer of the public's attitude. He wouldn't make fun of something if people weren't going to laugh at it.
2. Note that contrary to stereotype and the leading question Finke asks, Jay's experience is that Republicans are more willing to make fun of themselves than Democrats
3. Maybe this isn't the best week for Finke to say "The media seems to only present the Republican spin and to not present the other side of what’s going on." Timing is once again the key to both comedy and articles about comedy.
4. Cathy Seipp provides some proof of why Finke's complaint of Leno's rightward swing should be taken with a shaker of salt. In this blog post, she notes that Finke complains of a right-wing takeover of the LA Press Club which seems to consist of Seipp's membership.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:15 PM

The Library of Congress presents 19th Century Periodicals online. Finally I can fill in the holes of my American Whig Review collection.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:59 AM

In other news, 60 Minutes has announced that they found new chapters of the Hitler diaries where Hitler sez that George Bush is just like him.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:47 AM

Terry Gilliam Barbeque Plagued by Production Delays. Heh.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:07 PM

On Labor Day, I caught a portion of SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Two sequences illustrate all that is wrong with the movie. The first is, as I should have suspected, a guest appearance by Whoopi Goldberg, destroyer of all that is comedic. The second is this scene, a flashback of a meeting at the Berlin Wall between our Baby Hero and the Villain which I paraphrase:

HERO: Before you kill me, can I have one last word?
VILLAIN: Yes, say your last vord.
HERO: Duck!
VILLAIN: Duck? Vhat kind of crazy, nutsy, koo-koo, meshugennah last vord is "Duck"? You're not right in ze head, sonny. I mean...[Gets knocked on the ass by go-cart-sized car]

What's wrong with this scene (besides the fact that a movie aimed at five-year-olds has a scene set at the Berlin Wall) is that the car is not a flying car but a regular on-the-ground car. So even if the villain had listened to the hero and ducked, it would have done him absolutely no good! For the rest of the picture (or the rest we watched), anytime the villain would show up, I'd say "Vhy did he say "Duck"? Zat makes no sense."
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:05 PM

The Komediant, an excellent documentary I saw a couple of years back, is now available on DVD. My review when I first saw it can be found here.
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