things to read!

So, blah blah, you know the drill... essentially, I'm super tired from a great long weekend and my first-ever post-kickball debauch, but not too tired to share a few gems from the webs:

"Despite a threat from Islamists, two Pakistani brothers stealthily manufacture fetish and bondage wear"... I honestly don't even know where to begin dissecting the brilliance of this piece, but please please PLEASE watch the video, as it's just transcendent in its (I'm assuming unintentional) hilarity. Much deserved shoutout to resident Paki-nerd cmhogle for the link...

...TrueSlant is pretty baller lately (and I'm not just saying that because some ladies I know are launching a blog there soon)... my favorite pieces to come out of there of late are Matt Taibbi justifiably hating on Tom Friedman for bad metaphors and Ryan Sager letting us know that birds are smarter in groups. (Actually though, between links to Jeopardy, beer goggles and some nice speculation on Arlen Specter's really old brain, Sager's Neuroworld blog is kinda awesome overall for all the geekazoids comme moi out there...)

...Ryan Lizza never disappoints the D.C. policy wonk in all of us, as proven by this week's read into Orszag, Summers, and the whole budget clusterf*ck. Maybe I'm just a sucker, but on the eve of the 100th day into the administration, talk like this (from an OMB deputy director) still makes me feel pretty warm and fuzzy: "“One of the things that was really surprising to me is the amount of value that was put into analytics and academics, and thinking constructively about a project. I’m not saying that people completely ignored the Hill reaction or the public reaction, but we began with: ‘This is what smart people are saying about this, and this is why.’ ”"

...Just when I thought I was the only one noticing that Marc Thiessen is borderline batshit crazy, Slate adds some fuel to the anti-former-Bush-speechwriter fire...

...This is kinda old-school, but I must have missed it when it came out a few months ago... basically, OMG I kind of want to write an Indiana Jones spinoff about this crazy awful scary Nazi scientist who may or may not have single-handedly created an entire community of Aryan twins in Brazil...

...And last but CERTAINLY not least: the Washington Capitals are FREAKING AMAZING and they only had to bash (Brash?) one head to prove it. And thanks to Carolina, we're going to get the chance to eat Crosby for dinner even sooner than I had imagined. Can't wait. Meanwhile, the Redskins managed to actually not eff up the draft, although I'm going to thank the Jets for that before I deign to believe that it had anything to do with Dan Snyder having a single rational/thoughtful bone in his body... whatever though, the draft is ridiculous anyway and I'm over it and hopefully so is JC because it's time to get started. The Skins D is so money I can't even wait to watch it destroy (is it too early to say No. 1 in the league?) and in the meantime I'm looking forward to hearing my favorite Kings of Leon fan issue dispatches from things like minicamp, the first of which is this Friday!!