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As a devoted football fan, you are undoubtedly aware of the phrase “not in my house,” a defiant cri de coeur that is generally shouted by a swaggering defensive end who’s just sunk a running back for a loss on third-and-short. Well, imagine for a moment that the Almighty is a 265-pound linebacker with meaty arms, a penchant for smashmouthiness, and one of those scary dark visors on His helmet. –“The Texanist: Is it wrong to wear your football team’s jersey to church?” by David Courtney, Texas Monthly (via)
Chart of who pays taxes;
Marines’ PowerPoint explains how to love, respect Afghan population (via);
“going postal” vs. “going Muslim”;
more analysis of “Black People Twitter”
While it was previously unclear just what food was on the table, we now see that it is neither Paschal lamb nor, as some had supposed, bread alone. There are three large serving platters in the picture, and although the one in front of Christ is empty, the two before Andrew and Matthew—the fourth figures to his right and left—are heaped with food. The plate to our left appears to contain about half a dozen whole fish, while the one on the right is damaged to the point of being all but illegible. Fortunately, the preservation of the three small serving dishes on the right side of the composition is sufficiently good to suggest that we are looking at, in fact, sections of grilled eel garnished with orange slices. Other pieces of fruit—pomegranates perhaps, some still with their leaves attached—complete the menu along with plenty of bread and wine, the only sacramental necessities in any depiction of the Last Supper. –“History’s Table: At Supper with Leonardo,” John Varriano (PDF), in Gastronomica (via)
Review of reviews of Nabokov’s The Original of Laura;
advice needed: “I masturbate while I sleep. Is this normal?” (SFW, but includes traumatizing photo of barefoot dude crashed on couch);
recent excruciating literary sex scenes (“First Pegeen stepped into the contraption.”)
And then there’s the sad fact of the “dancing” [in the big wheelchair number in Glee]; the choreography sucks. The one potentially interesting move that McHale supposedly “does” is a cut– he wheelies on one rear wheel. The rest is notable only for the way that it shows that able-bodied, non-wheelchair-using folk really do think of chairs as bicycles you move with your arms. There’s absolutely no body-chair integration at all. They think of sitting in a chair as being only about not being able to move their legs (and in Artie’s case as being about having his hips and legs twisted to one side). That mistaken understanding leads to some very weird-looking people in chairs. On chairs would be a better phrase for it. The fake paralysis of their legs somehow wends its way up their bodies so that they are really only able to push with their elbows (no wonder they have sore arms!). –“Glee,” Wheelchair Dancer
Lady Gaga’s stylist on making a prop wheelchair (the post’s author: “A Chanel Wheelchair with Swarovski crystals?!? Cripple me now!!!”);
Sarah Palin’s stylist on making a prop candidate: “size 4 or 6 and very attractive, with beautiful skin, if a bit dowdy”;
why Bad Cripple hates going to Catholic churches and health-food stores;
and a church as master’s thesis (via, via)


Years of consideration preceding the inclusion of the word “phat” in Random House’s 1996 Compact Unabridged Dictionary:

Scientists created crash helmets that stink when cracked and fruit flies to whom blue light smells delicious.

In Belize, a construction company bulldozed a 2,300-year-old Mayan temple to make road fill.
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”