Those wacky Swedes. Just when you're convinced of their complete skull-buggery, they toss the award to a Science Fiction writer. Well, that's bad according to Harold Bloom, who apparently complained, "Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction." (And what rate was The Flight of Lucifer, Harold?) Bloom called the award "pure political correctness", which when referring to the Nobel committee is like pointing out that fire is hot. But this time at least the winner has the courtesy to be, as Michael C. Moynihan in Reason points out, "embarrassed by her Red past, unlike previous prize winners Dario Fo, Elfriede Jelinek, Harold Pinter, Gunter Grass, Jose Saramago, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, and Jean-Paul Sartre."

Those wacky Swedes. Just when you're convinced they may not be completely guilty of skull-buggery, they toss the award to a complete douchebag. Ever since finally shutting up about hanging chads, Gore has been self-importantly douching all over everyone within douche-range about how much we all suck. Gore remarked, in typical douchebag style, that "climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity". Thank you, Climate-Jesus, thank you! Gore then let a fart slip by, and spent the next forty-two minutes locked inside a closet whipping himself for unauthorized methane release (or at least pretending to). "Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades," said a Nobel-giving-out douche, "the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming." Which is very nice for them, and yet the Flat Earth Society, which has conclusively proved that there is no globe at all, remains ignored. What justice is this, Swedish Academy of Douches, what justice for the rest of us?

What, you paid something for it? Weird! Like you, I'm curious what everybody else decided to pay, and so are these guys. A few lunatics paid £40.00 ($81.73 USD) for the so-called discbox set, but I'm guessing the eventual average for the download will thud at around 50p ($1.02 USD). This is partly because many listeners will get the material in their usual way (P2P) regardless, and partly because many customers intending to buy the future retail CD are fairly paying nothing for the download. This obviously skews the results of the whole enterprise when taken as an experiment in record label-free neo-marketing or whatever, but it's still an interesting experiment.

Incidentally, since everyone's so damned curious, I'm not a huge Radiohead fan; I like most of Kid A and the first few tracks on OK Computer, and that's about it. But I do like a few tracks from this one as well, especially All I Need, which sort of reminds me of a Blue Nile song, and Reckoner despite Thom Yorke's girlish wailing.

This here's an entertaining article in Wired about a maniac determined to drive from New York to LA in less than 32 Hours, 7 Minutes. Also check out the short film that first inspired his lunacy; it's one of the most reckless things I've ever seen.

Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, those drooling, screenwriting numbskulls who shat out that big hairy turd of a weepy Superman, an annoying Superkid, and a slack-jawed Luthor (smell that? it's Superman Returns... eeegh), will not be returning for the franchise's next sequel. Which is to say, Whooo Hoooo! Unfortunately the same isn't true for Kevin Dopey-Lex Spacey or Brandon Weepy-Supes Routh. Blech on them both. Blech.