Showtime presents: The Screwfly Solution, based on the short story by Racoona Sheldon, aka Alice B. Sheldon:

a deadly virus infects the nation, transforming men into psychotic killers who attack every woman that crosses their paths. A suburban housewife and her teenage daughter embark on a treacherous journey to survive, but how can they protect themselves from an entire gender gone mad? JASON PRIESTLY and ELLIOT GOULD star.

And in case you find this to be an implausible premise, consider the following from The Return of the Puppet Masters, by way of Just say no to mind controlling parasites:

Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.

Dear Mr. President,

Did Gunner let you stay up late to watch Saddam's execution on TV? Did Laura let you fondle Saddam's pistol while you watched him die? Did you call up Poppy to ask him who's got the bigger cojones now?

And don't worry about ending up at the end of a rope yourself -- when you're convicted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, I'll ask them to spare your life and let you rot in the kind of cell where you've been keeping Jose Padilla.

Death of the Internet Postponed for 24 Months! It happened to TV; it can happen to you. You know the drill: watch the video, spam your congressdroids.

Foreign Policy magazine: the top 10 under-reported stories of 2006

Psilocybin appears to relieve symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): BBC news, Arizona Star. The original proposal for the study is here.

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection:

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002. Can we impeach them NOW?

A 1978 interview with composer Gyorgy Ligeti about his opera "Le Grand Macabre".

Nerd humor: pi and e on a blind date...

Everybody treadmill dance, now!

Oopsie! Ehud lets the genie out of the bottle: Olmert: Iran seeking to develop nuclear bomb, 'like America, France and Israel':

"we have never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

I'm sure he meant "North Korea". Slip of the tongue. Right.

Avenue Q + Fiddler on the Roof = Avenue Jew! Follow along in the libretto!

Wedge politics illustrated:

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle, named Cuddles, along for the company. One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that he's lost. Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!" Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here?" Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew!", says the leopard, "That was close! That old poodle nearly had me!"

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"

Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?", but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says. "Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Arianna Huffington: Hillary's Too 'Vane' to Be President: "All at once, a surge of enthusiasm and support for Obama is threatening to ruin all of Clinton's perfect plans. She thought she had the momentum, but it's Obama who has the wind at his back.

If there is a lesson for my daughters and for politically minded girls and women everywhere, it's that you might as well speak your mind and do what is in your heart because you never know what unforeseen forces are headed your way. "

Student sues over 10-day suspension for refusing to become a narc:

a student-athlete at Sissonville High School was given Smarties candy as a reward for good academic performance. In front of his teacher and fellow classmates, the student pretended to put one of the small candy discs up his nose. Another student used his cell phone to record video of the incident.

Principal Calvin McKinney, who is named as a defendant along with the Kanawha County school board, allegedly called the plaintiff into his office and confronted him about the incident.

“The plaintiff informed ... McKinney ... that at no time did he possess any drug or did he claim to possess any drug,” according to the suit.

Still, McKinney then threatened to suspend the student — identified in the lawsuit only by his initials — unless he joined McKinney’s “Narc Program” and went undercover to find real drug users at the school, according to the suit.

“The [student] was told that he was to ‘hang around the bathroom’ and the school parking lot,” the suit states.

We Are All Torturers Now. Send this video to your congress droids and ask them what they are going to do about it.

Livin' La Vida Pharmacopia!

The Supremes take Bong Hits 4 Jesus! In case you're wondering what Ken "Mystery Stain" Starr has been up to lately, check out his finely-honed PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI in the case of JUNEAU SCHOOL BOARD; DEBORAH MORSE v. JOSEPH FREDERICK. He's asking the court to overturn a US appeals court ruling that "A school cannot censor or punish students' speech merely because the students advocate a position contrary to government policy".