Image consultant to history's greatest monsters

You know what actually would have made Saddam Hussein pretty cool? If, when the US put out that deck of cards featuring all the top Iraqi government figures, he had totally embraced it and made the ace of spades his new gimmick. He could have started using Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" as his personal theme music, either making elaborate Triple H-style entrances to the classic heavy metal anthem, or just having Paul Shaffer and the band play him out to an instrumental version whenever he appeared on Letterman (being a frequent Letterman guest would have made him cooler too, naturally). The lyrics would have even fit him, expressing bad-ass defiance in the face of his eventual defeat by American forces:

You know I'm born to lose
and gamblin's made for fools
But that's the way I like it baby
I don't want to live forever

Also, if he had to keep killing people, he could have left an ace of spades turned up on top of the body, as a personal calling card. Then he would have been like a Batman villain.

Invasion: Degrassi

From good old Tyler comes this link to a very special exploit of the cat-burglar cats at Infiltration.org -- the exposure of the most secret nooks and crannies of Degrassi High (aka Centennial College's Centre for Creative Communications in the borough of East York, Ontario) -- that I appreciate on about four levels:

1. It's Degrassi freakin' High!

2. Infiltration is cool!

3. I used to go to school in this building!

4. I still live around the corner and, knowing full well how lax the security is, could go check all this stuff out myself! It'd be just like when Joey, Snake, Lucy, and the twins sneaked into the school to watch The Savages shoot their new video!

But what if I do run into the security guards (or, god forbid, Mr. Raditch), should I choose to snoop around for myself? That's where this link comes in. It details how to make a stun gun out of a disposable camera. Say cheese, rent-a-cop!

From Degrassi to MacGyver ... I always thought real life should be just like my favorite 1980s TV shows, and now it is.

I love the sound of breaking glass

When I was about to get on the subway on my way home from work, I accidentally kicked a discarded bottle. It rolled along the crack between the decelerating train and the platform and then burst into shards as the doors opened, creating a loud shattering ruckus. (It was actually kind of cool.) Everyone in the train eyed me as I got in, some in shock, some in suspicion. I just shrugged their stares off, and before long, fell into the usual train of thought about how many subway riders are careless, selfish jerks who stand in the doorways and block other careless, selfless jerks from getting on and off, and about how if I applied a firm thrusting kick at just the right time, I could probably knock a certain deserving pre-teen right off the train at the next stop just before the doors closed again.

But I got to wondering: How did a bottle get on the platform's edge, anyway? Did someone put it there? Or did it just roll out of another train? I'm actually lucky I didn't slip on it and fall off the platform under the train.

Moral: Littering is murder.

What's new, KHAAAAAAAAN!?

Oh, dear god -- this mash-up almost killed me with sheer awesomeness!

(This one ain't bad either.)

Abu Ghraib -- the Yale of the Middle East

Are kegstands and funneling against the Geneva convention? Of course not -- they're not mentioned anywhere in that august document. So surely you'll agree with Rush Limbaugh that the torture and humilation of Iraqi prisoners of war by American soldiers is no big deal either. When a caller mentioned that the stack of naked men depicted in the notorious series of photos currently being blown all over the media was like a "college fraternity prank," Rush rushed to agree:

Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?

Boys will be boys ... I guess. If it's really no worse than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, John Kerry and George W. Bush -- both being members of that Yale secret society -- will surely agree there's nothing wrong with abusing and sexually humiliating prisoners of war. In fact, those poor Iraqis should be grateful to the American military for giving them the Yale university experience without the exorbitant tuition costs.

"It takes more than a bullet to kill a Bull Moose."

From a Salon interview with historian James Chace about the 1912 election comes ironclad proof that Teddy Roosevelt, who campaigned as the nominee of the Progressive (aka Bull Moose) party that year, earned his place on Mount Rushmore as one of the greatest US presidents of all time:

One of the most noteworthy things that happened in that campaign occurred in the late stages in October, when Roosevelt was campaigning in the Middle West. He came out of his hotel and went to get in his car and a man tried to assassinate him. A man picked up a pistol and shot at him, and Roosevelt's life was saved only because he had a 50-page speech in the pocket of his coat. He was bleeding and the bullet went through the speech into his chest. Nonetheless, he insisted on going on to make his speech, against the advice of the doctors. No one could stop Roosevelt: He got up and walked onto the platform in front of about 5,000 to 10,000 people, opened his coat where he was still bleeding and said, "It takes more than a bullet to kill a Bull Moose." And he spoke for another 45 minutes with a bullet in his chest. It was one of the most extraordinary performances in American electoral history. He then went to a hospital, where he spent the next couple of weeks. All the other candidates stopped campaigning until he was able to recover.

Beatallica rulz!

I'm not sure who they are exactly, as they prefer to remain anonymous, but Beatallica perform Beatles songs in the style of Metallica, which you might have guessed from their name. They pull it off really well; the singer does an uncanny James Hetfield impersonation (you know, like, "I wanna hold your hay-yay-yand!"), each song is given a mash-up-like title combining the names of songs from the two bands, and the lyrics are hilariously altered in places to better reflect a meatheaded metal mentality.

Best of all, all their tracks are made available for download, completely free of charge, at their website, beatallica.com. Check it out.