http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10800046&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Someone-okay, it was Cho-passed this along to me this morning and suggested I post it, but I scoffed at him. “I scoff at you,” I said. Well, I am a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong, and having watched the whole thing, I’ve got to say this 8-bit attack video is pretty goddamn cool. Cho, I stand corrected. [Via]

“More than half of Americans think media bias is a bigger problem in politics today than the money that flows into campaigns,” says a new poll, with 55% finding the biased media to blame against 32% who finger the giant campaign contributions. No breakdown on how many of those 55% think the problem is the media’s bias against doing extensive reporting on how those gigantic campaign contributions affect the political process, but I’m sure it’s a bunch, right?

by Simon Dumenco

The Awl’s Morning Market Report:

•The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped again this morning after yesterday’s disappointing close (at 10945, down 26 points for the day) as investors expressed reservations about Nike’s puzzling new Tiger Woods commercial, which features Tiger’s dead father Earl in a vaguely judgmental voiceover while the embattled golfer sits silently in the passenger seat of a car driven by Toonces the Driving Cat, who swerves to avoid a reanimated Orville Redenbacher, before hitting a tree in front of Woods’ home.
• The Nasdaq is flat this morning as investors debated the look Woods has on his face in the Nike spot. Some analysts maintain that it conveys something along the lines of “Hold you down while I choke you,” while others read it as “TOONCES, LOOK OUT!!!!!!”

Here’s a little sentence that requires no real explanation: “At the age of eight months, Presley’s parents started calling her Summer.” Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? “It took six visits to civil court but now the government calls her that too,” explains the Times, in this little bit on regretting the wacko name you gave your baby. What did you ever expect? But this at least is an interesting age, in which nearly all always-popular names are less popular than ever, due to diversity in naming choice-due to our love of fun! And our worship of individuality, etc. This points us, of course, to the extreme rise and serious downfall of “Paris.” Just like “Ashley” and “Gingerly,” now Paris is totally a whorey name-and you don’t want your kindergarten teacher to think you’re raising an adorable little stripper.

The first thing they teach you in Internet School is “babies or boobies,” i.e., showing either one of those is a surefire way to manipulate traffic. (The second thing they teach you is “8 Ways To Write A Headline”). Because I am a rebel who plays by his own rules and won’t be bound by the strictures that force others to serve the cruel master that is SEO, I don’t really care that much about either of those lessons, but I will say this: Babies are freaking adorable, and some days you just want to share images of them, even if putting them in a post does seem like a tawdry way to maximize pageviews. So here’s a “Today Show” thing about two sisters in Nebraska who make a living by taking pictures of newborns. It is pretty much porn for your ovaries. (Or at least the first 2:10 is, after that it gets all interviewy.) Babies! So cute!

The Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti, who wrote a book with the no-joke title The Persecution of Sarah Palin, offers a chilling vision of the future: “If you think Palin and Bachmann drive liberals crazy now, just wait until the 112th Congress convenes in January 2011, when there will be dozens of Palins and Bachmanns. The reaction will be like a David Lynch movie. Heads will explode.” I have to figure that pretty much everything will explode, but heads are probably a safe bet to start with.

Remember how an out-of-state non-profit entity (one with some California members, to be sure, but still) bankrolled a political movement against gay marriage in California? Well now the great corporations of Texas are going to try to bankroll a state proposition to repeal a California state law. The oil companies’ talking points are that curbing emissions and the like reduce the number of jobs, and make it hard to do business, and so their outfit is called the California Jobs Initiative. Are you against jobs? Are you against people earning money? Fortunately, the people who oppose the Texas oil firms are calling themselves Californians for Clean Energy & Jobs. So they are also for jobs. And, also, from California. If I weren’t a proud American I’d be against our system of deciding things by way of cash and lobbyists.

Endlessly boat-floating scandal gov Eliot Spitzer, who one could say is responsible (if even inadvertently so) for much of New York’s state-level drama and crisis over the last year, sure likes to keep that periscope up above the water line. Now we’re up to: “I’ve never said I would never consider running for office again.” That’s true. He didn’t ever say that! He’s GOT US OVER A BARREL with his WORD TRICKS.

Francesco de Molfetta’s “New Idols,” currently on view at Don Gallery in Milan, is a series of sculptures “about the icons of the 80’s, from JFK, ET to Batman and King Kong.” (There is also a rather disturbing Barbie.) I guess this is fine, but in my imagination I always thought Batman would get fat by gorging himself on pies (pecan pies, to be specific). Like, there would be a supervillain called The Pâtissier who would bring Batman down with his master baking skills. Or something, I’m not much of a comics guy. Anyway, here we are.

“Virginia has been making big leaps lately in the category of general craziness. We all remember the Legislature’s heroic work in passing a bill to protect Virginia citizens from having microchips planted in their bodies against their will. And that the sponsor said he was concerned the chips could be a ‘mark of the beast’ that would be used by the Antichrist at the end of days.”
–Gail Collins today, on how Governor Bob McDonnell’s institution of April as Confederate History Month is embarrassing his state. Considering this in light of the sad essay Denise Giardina wrote yesterday about the recent mining disaster in West Virginia, maybe the two states should switch? Let West Virginia be known for lovers, and presidents and excellent public education. And Virginia can be “either ignored by the rest of the nation or the butt of jokes about ignorant hillbillies.”