Nancy Reagan has rejected the creation of a "Ronald Reagan University" in Colorado. Terry Walker, the founding president of the university, had already begun raising money to establish the institution near Denver. Nancy Reagan was quoted as saying "We do not support the creation of a separate university," and that supporters should focus their efforts on the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. When asked why she was against the university, the former first lady responded that the Reagan Family could not possibly support any educational institution that did not include in its framework Affirmative Action programs for light-radiating extraterrestrials.

Nancy vetoes 'Ronald Reagan University' [CNN]

Standard Deviance received another email today from Concerts for Kerry regarding their fundraiser today. Let me remind you of the first email that C4K sent out to the New York Bloggers:

You --> you're a blogger.
Us --> we're Concerts for Kerry; we create fantastic music shows that are fundraisers for John Kerry.

We want you to blog us! We have an upcoming show in Brooklyn this Friday, April 30 (details below...)

Atrios blogged us... So did Gawker... Now we want you. Please help today!

thanks in advance,
the Concerts for Kerry Team

Here is the text of the second email:

hey there,

We are having a fundraising concert for John Kerry tomorrow (details below). If you think it might be of interest to your readers, you might suggest that they check out our website. We invite you to come to the
concert -- it should be a good time.

thanks for your time,

c4k

ps -if you don't want email from us again, just reply to this email subject line: "remove"

While I certain appreciate their attempt at making amends, they really should have acknowledged the first email. Spam that bad can't be forgotten. Anyhoo, the concert is tonight and I still do encourage you all to go. Details for the concert are here. And if you're looking for somewhere nearby to get some drinks or eats, let me recommend Superfine. I checked it out during Brooklyn restaurant week and it's a pretty cool hangout with cheap drinks during happy hour ($2 Yuengling I think). Marty Markowitz would be so proud of me for all this Brooklyn love.

Related Posts:
A Cry Out from the Darkness

Hello Readers! Having emerged from my Excel prison relatively unscathed and just one phonecall away from having a new apartment, I am ready to return to blogging with a vengance. Hilarity will resume shortly.

The lack of posts (especially good ones) I'm afraid will most definitely continue through tomorrow. All non-work hours are being spent with that evasive species known as "Real Estate Brokers" and all work hours (and some non-work hours) are being spent with Excel. However I've still managed to find some time to check up on the interblogospherenet, and thus I have some links for your enjoyment.

• The Blueprint has a very witty roundup of the panelists for the New York Bloggers event happening this Monday. Standard Deviance will be in attendance, and thus all my many many fans will finally be able to meet me in person. However I may be distracted by the inevitable blog drama confrontation of that two-timing Jake Dobkin being in the same room with both Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis. I see broken laptops and crushed Pumas in the future.
• In even more blogga hotness, my Uncle Grahmbo has a fabulous rundown of the blog incest that occurred last weekend in our fair city. Some say best blogalicious post evs. Obvs.
  
• The overly-eager kids at Concerts for Kerry spammed all the New York Bloggers, including yours truly. While Standard Deviance was excited to be included in blogger email spam, Gothamist and Tien Mao were wicked pissed. The email definitely could have been written with more finesse and the name dropping was particularly annoying. However, I am a long time Kerry Supporter so I do encourage all your New Yorkers out there to attend the concert this Friday and help this poor man get some money. He needs it. Details here.
  
• Elton John's an idiot.
• Given that Thom Yorke's ability to perform at this weekend's Coachella festival in Sunny California is questionable, I am SO happy I did not shell out that money for a trans-continental flight and festival ticket just to see my favorite band that I have never seen in concert (snif snif).
• So let me get this straight: Worst month for deaths in the Iraq war, scandalous first book comes out that indicates the administration disregarded the threat of terrorism pre-9/11, second book comes out that paints dissention and disagreement in the Bush Administration in the lead up to war, and how does the country respond? Bush's approval ratings climb? What?!?

Guess what everybody? I found an apartment! I have no time to blog today because I am busy moving. The place is great, lots of windows, eat in kitchen, the best location, all the amenities. Check out the floorplan!

Dumbasses. You're fired. Down to the street.

As loyal readers may remember, Standard Deviance has been thrust back into the rental market thanks to the shrew who lives downstairs. As a prospective tenant, I have been scouring newspapers and websites for apartment listings and neighborhood guides. As misdirected as it may be, I saw the Habitats feature today in the New York Times and decided to read it, even though it was profiling the Upper East Side. Luckily I did not let my preconceptions (pompous rich old ladies with poofy white dogs mixed with anorexic sorority girls lining down the block for Tasti D-Lite) stop me from reading this groundbreaking article. I was greeted with the mellifluous phrasings of one Ms. Penelope Green. What follows are some of the truly sagacious insights of this considerable piece:

The action in "The Right Address," Jill Kargman's new novel about rich people behaving very badly indeed, caroms around a fictional address, 741 Park Avenue. The setting is modeled on the Rosario Candela confection on Park at East 71st Street known simply by its numerals, 740 - Nehru, Mao or Madonna of addresses -and its pedigree. (Don't even think about looking there, said one broker familiar with the property, unless you're laying down cash for its $20 million-plus apartments, and have at least $100 million in liquid assets.)

While the mischievously voluble Ms. Kargman, who co-wrote the novel for Broadway Books with her writing partner and Spence school chum Carrie Karasyov, has been limning her Upper East Side milieu for its comic potential since she was a child, according to Arie L. Kopelman - president of Chanel Inc. and Ms. Kargman's dad - she is living just outside its white hot center [Emphasis Mine].

Forsooth, this duo of Kargman and Kargman have constructed their own small oasis in the high class wilderness that is 10021. Oh, what jocose encounters ensued following the couple's move into their fourth floor walk up. Imagine, the heir of a Chanel fortune and novelist having to deal with the likes of drug dealers, rats of unusual size, and raucous fraternity brothers! The tales are truly enrapturing. Bravo, New York Times, for bringing to us the story of the Kargmans, and Bravo, Ms. Green, for relaying this tale so eloquently. Indeed, if only the Times had featured such an article when I originally moved to our fair city, I might have realized that one need not move to a very wrong address in Brooklyn for the high life, all one needs is a husband, a book deal, and an exterminator to live with the beautiful people of the Upper East Side.

In a White-Glove ZIP, a Walkup Perspective [NYT]

Standard Deviance would like to thank Ms. Trash for inspiring bloggers everywhere to further peruse the wonder that is the New York Times.

Standard Deviance is always looking out for the needs of our readers, and as we were perusing the Bush Cheney '04 site, we realized that the pictures really could use some more descriptive captions. Thus we present you with Bush Captions.



I didn't know President Bush is a panelist on Best Week Ever! I can't wait to hear what he has to say about Jennifer Hudson getting voted off American Idol this week.




Welcome to Earth. Your Spaceship is very shiny. Y'all want some BBQ ribs?




Please, Rummy, please can I push the button? Pretty please!




I think you all know the caption here. You've seen this hand motion before.

What? You thought I meant the Nazi salute? I was talking about the presidential wave. You people make me sick, throwing around derogatory terms like that.


Related Posts
President Bush Answers My Questions
A Service for Your President
Republicans Have Cooties!

Blue Jake has an innocuous little post about an elite blogger gathering at Waikiki Wally's. The post (minus the photos) is as follows:

I had a bad experience at Lucky Cheng's back in 2000 ("When Drag Queens Attack!"), so I've never felt all that comfortable hanging out at Waikiki Wally's. I mean, it's not that I expect my East Village bars to keep it real, but the faux Hawaiian decoration is just a little too much for me to process- especially after three or four Pina Coladas. Of course, the place is not all bad. In particular, I like the tuna tartare appetizer, the scantily clad waitstaff, and the bathroom tiles.

Sounds like a nice spur-of-the-moment night out in famous bloggerville. You can imagine my surprise when I read on Jason Calacanis' blog that this fete was actually a Weblogs, Inc dinner. Why hide the true meaning of the outing, Jake? If we travel back in time, we can see that all the Denton party photos were clearly labeled as such on Blue Jake. Why not label this outing as a WIN activity? Are you afraid that if you are seen at official WIN dinners you will no longer be invited to the infamous Denton bashes (where is that damn invitation!)?

Tune in next week for another episode of The Blog and the Beautiful

Related Posts I am obviously a stalker given there are so many of these.
Morning Buzz Roundup
Last Post About Kinja, I Promise
Memo to Calacanis: It's Not All About You
What's the Big Deal about Kinja?
Blog Drama: Episode 3a
Blog Drama: Episode 3
Blog Drama Gets Even More Funnier
Ooh, Ooh, Blog Drama! Fun!

Hello to our faithful Readers. We have to apologize again for the dearth of posts. Standard Deviance had an unfortunate altercation with her landlady this morning and thus is now looking for a new apartment. Therefore all non-essential blog-reading and news-following has been replaced with realtor-searching and craigslist-browsing. Give SD a few weeks and she will be able to give you an accurate first-hand report of the housing situation in Brooklyn (and, gasp, perhaps Queens). Lets just pray she doesn't end up in Hoboken - we're not sure if there's internet out there yet. If any of you know of a lovely 1 bedroom apartment with a garden or a roof terrace for about $1000, drop us a line. Similarly, please IM us if you have managed to find a cure cancer or life on Mars.

As loyal readers may remember, SD reported a few months ago that oral sex may cause oral cancer. Now it appears that drinking can increase your chances for colon cancer. What next, will eating fatty foods bring on some sort of heart disease or will having sex with multiple partners expose you to diseases of the immune system? Shit, I'm stressed out. I need a drink.

Drinking Alcohol May Raise Colon Cancer Risk [Reuters]

Related Posts:
Divine Retribution?

3M, the company behind the Post It Note, reported an earning increase of 44% for the first quarter of 2004. The AP reported that the earning gains were due to "swings in foreign currency and increased sales in its display business." However, I have another theory:



Post-It pranksters are artificially inflating 3M's earnings. Once the pranks stop, so will the profit gains. This could be the next Enron.

3M Earnings Rise Nearly 44 Percent [AP]
Damon's New Office [interactivetools.com]

"Cell phone maker Sony Ericsson posted a first-quarter profit more than double what analysts expected and said strong sales of new camera phones boosted its market share as consumers flocked to its low and mid-range phones that feature bright colors, clamshell cases and entertainment options. "

Sony Ericsson Posts First-Quarter Profit [AP]

Related Posts:
Chicken or the Egg?

WalMart and KMart are introducing new DVD players in their stores that edit offensive content out of movies. These players use Clearplay technology, which offers viewers different filters with which they can remove sex, violence, foul language, or any combination of the three from movies. Hollywood is objecting to the use of this technology as it alters the artistic design of their films.

In related news, another DVD filter has been released by a company called Openview. This filter leaves all explicit scenes intact and actually adds sex and gratuitous violence to your movie of choice. Viewers can now experience Mona Lisa Smile complete with a bloody knife-fight on Hungar Meadow and the Sound of Music with scenes of Fraeulein Maria and Captain von Trapp copulating in the Austrian hills. Although Hollywood executives have again voiced their disapproval for this filter, 16 year-old boys throughout the nation are campaigning fervently for the distribution of this technology.

New DVD Players Can Filter Movie Content [AP]

Standard Deviance has been experiencing some problems loading today. While I would love to tell you I'm hard at work to get the site back up-and-running, in reality I have nothing to do with the site operations. Somehow even a blog of Standard Deviance's importance and influence can still manage to be wholly hosted for free. Thus the fate of the site is at the whim of the people of Blogger. Hopefully, everything will be up and running soon. In the meantime you could email me or IM me, and I will continue to entertain you with funny knock-knock jokes. Either that or I will ignore you. Whichever.

A Mobile Phone That Goes Off with a Bang [Reuters] When Chan Tin-hon's mobile phone went off, it went off with a bang. "I was lining up in a bank," the 22-year-old from Hong Kong told local Cable TV. "When I hung up the phone, it exploded. It was very loud." The station showed Chan's phone, a Nokia 3310, in tatters and a spokeswoman for the manufacturer said they would investigate.

Nokia Posts Lower First-Quarter Earnings [AP]

You could call this news. You'd probably be wrong, though.

• A male porn star contracted HIV while in Brazil, causing the porn industry to halt all filmings until all of his recent partners have been tested. Many doctors have argued that the lesson learned here is to always be protected, but I beg to differ: the lesson here is Brazilians are dirty. Never mind that whole safe sex garbage and you-can't-see-HIV b.s. Obviously, the key to a STD free existence is to stay away from South Americans. Men out there planning their bachelor parties in Rio, I suggest you relocate. [AP]
• Courtney Love appeared in a Los Angeles court yesterday to face drug possession charges. After the judge told her when she was next required in court, she said "We'll see if I can make it. 'Bye Judge Fox. Have a good day." She then commented that it would be very difficult to pencil the judge in, but she might be able to appear in court between her pedicure and her meeting with her dealer.* [AP]
• According to PlayerAppreciate.com, my pimp name is Reverend Doctor Ellen Sneed. I suppose that would explain the throngs of people around me simultaneously collapsing after "Seeing Jesus" and then requiring immediate medical care.[via The Blueprint]

*That last sentence is a joke. I understand given Ms. Love's erratic behavior, you might be confused.

I've found someone in the city who also enjoys my great pleasure:

A heartless Brooklyn bike messenger has been busted on charges of horribly torturing and beating his girlfriend's pet tabby cat to death.

Oh happy day!

PUSS AND BEATS [NYP via Gothamist]

The father of the world wide web was awarded the first Millenium Technology Prize by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. The BBC reports: "In 1991, he came up with a system to organise, link and browse net pages which revolutionised the internet." The honoree was described as a modest man who invented the web for the advancement of society, not for his own personal gain.

Wait, that doesn't sound right. Oh, I misread the article. The award is for Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the internet while studying in Geneva. Imagine. Al Gore. Modest. Ha ha!

New honour for the web's inventor [BBC]

I've been having a lot of questions lately about politics and life in general. Luckily, it appears I can find most of the answers to my questions in the transcript to President Bush's press conference last night:

I'm confused by what the you meant when he told journalist Bob Woodward "I didn't feel that sense of urgency" before September 11th. Could you clarify that for me, Mr. President?

Let me put that quote to Woodward in context. He had asked me if I was -- something about killing bin Laden. That's what the question was. And I said, compared to how I felt at the time, after the attack, I didn't have that -- I also went on to say, my blood wasn't boiling, I think is what the quote said. I didn't see -- I mean, I didn't have that great sense of outrage that I felt on September the 11th. I was -- on that day I was angry and sad: angry that al Qaeda had -- well, at the time, thought al Qaeda, found out shortly thereafter it was al Qaeda -- had unleashed this attack; sad for those who lost their life.

I heard there's something going on in Iraq with the army or something. Can someone explain it to me?

We're at war. Iraq is a part of the war on terror. It is not the war on terror; it is a theater in the war on terror. And it's essential we win this battle in the war on terror. By winning this battle, it will make other victories more certain in the war against the terrorists.

What's a noun for people who kill themselves in an attempt to kill others?

Saddam Hussein was a threat. He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. He was a threat because he coddled terrorists. He was a threat because he funded suiciders.

What's that saying about hindsight?

There are some things I wish we'd have done when I look back. I mean, hindsight is easy.

President Addresses the Nation in Prime Time Press Conference [White House Transcript]

Jamiel Terry, the adopted son of Randall Terry, anti-abortion leader and same-sex marriage protester, has come out of the closet in OUT magazine. Randall Terry responded to this admission in an Op-Ed piece for The Washington Times. Here are some excerpts:

I love my son. He is incredibly gifted and articulate. He sings like an angel and plays the piano. He's a great cook and a great debater. I've poured 16 years of my life into him.

By age 8 had learned a lifestyle of deceit and been a victim of treacheries that would mar him for life.

The story states, "My father seems to believe that the fact that I'm an adopted child may help explain why I'm gay - not because of the adoption process itself but perhaps because of things that may have occurred before I was adopted at the age of 5." To gloss over the tragic events of his youth is deceit. Many homosexuals want to ignore the causes of their sexual behavior; they want us to believe it is genetic, not behavioral.

The story stated, "My father is still trying to get me to go to a three-month retreat to be 'delivered' from homosexuality." Not true. Jamiel has repeatedly asked me to pay for him to go to "Love in Action" (an in-patient program with great success with homosexuals). I'm happy to pay that tab.

Out magazine is despicable for exploiting my son for their political agenda. If my son is their latest "hero," I wonder how many of their leaders and trophies they portray as "model citizens" have lives that are this unraveled.

So, is the son unraveled because of his early youth and his homosexuality, or is he unraveled because his father believes his condition is behavioral (i.e. he's acting out) and that if he were sent to a retreat, the condition could be cured? I feel bad for Randall Terry that his son sold him out, but the fact is that his gay son had to grow up with a homophobe for a father. This is just a sad story for both of them. But I did enjoy Wonkette's take on it: "I Love My Son. I Love My Pre-Dead Gay Son."

Outing Out [WT via TMFTML]
A Rising Son [OUT via Wonkette]

• The difficulty of being funny these days: "With Clinton, you had the real-estate scam, the [vulgar term referring to the sex scandal]. He was a gift from the comedy gods. With Bush, the atmosphere is much more serious. And he's this clean-living guy. Some people love him and some hate him, but it's hard to get a comedic toehold on him, coming after the greatest comedy president in the last 100 years." Tim Long, The Simpsons Co-Excutive producer on why Dubya hasn't been featured on the show. [USN&WP via Wonkette]
• Gothamist is having some issues loading today. Maybe Sacramento is the new New York hacked into their system and crashed their server as retribution for blocking his links and stealing his crazy cat people story (by the way buddy, get some freaking permalinks). God knows we've seen this before. Developing...
• I'm sure, knowing my undying affection for Rocco DiSpirito, you all will understand how upset I was to learn that he and his girlfriend have parted ways. [NYP via Gawker]
• As a female, what does it say about your looks if you can convincingly play a drag queen? [AP]

Pioneer Press held a contest for the best design of a Marshmallow Peeps Diorama. They received about 40 entries, and while many veered to more religious themes ("Peeps Re-enact the Passion of Christ"), the diorama above was dedicated to the five men of Queer Eye. Hey, Archbishop O'Malley, maybe it's the Queer Peeps that are leading the faithful off the righteous path. Damn that Woodstock generation and their marshmallow heathenism!

UPDATE: This is so related: The Bible Codes [Low Culture]

Peep show [Pioneer Press via ReBlog]

Apparently, forbidding Catholics to eat Fenway franks on Opening Day is not the only way Archibishop O'Malley is failing the Boston faithful. Sean O'Malley was brought in to replace the much-maligned Cardinal Bernard Law in order to bring closure to the victims of the priest sexual abuse scandal. Within a year, O'Malley managed to reach settlements in most of the cases. Most people in Boston, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, were happy to have a new face on the archdiocese, hoping to turn over a new leaf.

It seems that in order to get an Archbishop who could take care of the sex abuse scandal, the church had to give up any semblance of being open of accepting of the largest minority in the world: Women. Check this lovely quote from our new Archbishop:

The boomers born between 1946 and 1966 are 76 million Americans, the most educated and affluent group in U.S. history. They are heirs to Woodstock, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, feminism, the breakdown of authority and divorce. Typically, they are religious illiterates, but they are interested. Not big on dogmas. My karma ran over my dogma could be their motto.

So feminism, along with drugs and rock and roll, have lead to divorce and the breakdown of [male] authority. Also, Archbishop O'Malley refused to include women in the ritual washing of the feet ceremony during holy week. He argued that the 12 apostles were men, so women should not be included in the ceremony.

Good Lord, what does it say about the Catholic Church that the Boston Archdiocese can't find a leader that has a reasonable idea of women's role in the church and will also not shield the priests from sexual abuse allegations? O'Malley claims the influence of the church is waning because Americans are "oppressed for time and they are addicted to entertainment" and because feminism and the sexual revolution have undermined the authority of the church. Perhaps the influence of the church is waning because it's impossible to find a priest who believes in equality for women and holding errant priests accountable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to return to the equally barbarous activities of dropping acid and asserting my opinion as a woman.

Archbishop Sean O'Malley's Chrism Mass Homily
Linking evil to feminism [Boston Globe]
Boston Archdiocese settles with four men who say they were abused [AP]

Related Posts:
Cardinal O'Malley is Most Certainly Not Wicked Pissah.

Get your link fix here:

-Gothamist publishes The Greatest Young Manhattanite Interview in the History of the World. Reading this interview gave me a Mary Tyler Moore moment.
-George Stienbrenner is such a crybaby. Waah Waah. I cannot wait until the Boston Globe writes something on this [via Gothamist].
-This is so gross.
-There's a blog about pizza called Slice, and they have outings around New York. Obviously the karmic forces are trying to make me gain 10 pounds.

Leading AIDS researchers in Britain have published important results in this month's British Medical Journal. According to the experts, in order to slow the spread of AIDS, people should not have sex with multiple people. "There would be no global Aids pandemic where it not for multiple sexual partnerships," the researchers said.

Researchers in other fields have also published amazing study results as of late, including articles entitled "The World is Actually Round" and "The Earth Revolves Around the Sun, Not the Other Way Around".

Promiscuity 'fuelling HIV spread' [BBC]

Hello Readers. I feel a need to explain the dearth of posts today. Standard Deviance had a very unfortunate accident this morning when she arrived at her workplace: Her contact lens tore in half. Thus poor SD has been sitting at her desk all day attempting to work with a splitting headache and a watering eye, both byproducts of an eye straining to see. People have been stopping by her desk all day asking if she's okay since she is covering her bad eye with her hand in an attempt to stop the straining/watering. Her coworkers have started to call her "One-Eyed Ellen". It's not pretty. She's in desperate need of a new contact lens a cool gel eyepack. So, terribly sorry for the state of the blog, but once SD's eyesight returns to normal, there will posts up the ying-yang.

President Bush (41) is criticizing John Kerry for using the same election tactics that Clinton used to get elected in 1992. With regards to the economy, he said "I was out telling people things were getting better, but the Clinton campaign ... portrayed me as being out of touch." Um, I think not knowing the price of milk pretty much made the "out of touch" argument by itself, without much help from the Clinton Campaign. Also, are you telling me that John Kerry is using an election strategy modeled after a successful campaign that resulted in a two term presidency? That bastard!

Ex-President Bush Likens Kerry, Clinton [AP]

Since I first learned of him last summer, I've had an intense dislike for Rocco DiSpirito. While watching The Resteraunt, it became apparent that Rocco is a total dick restaurant boss (and this comes from someone who formely worked at Friendly's). His restaurant is so bad that his partners sued him for mismanagement. Rocco reacted in the ultimately classy way by counter suing, arguing that his partners"failed and refused to pay any wages to Rocco's 79-year-old mother... fired the pasta makers and substituted frozen pasta in the restaurant's dishes..[and] changed the locks on the restaurant and refused to give a Rocco a key" among other things.

I thought it was impossible that I could think any less of Rocco DiSpirito. But I can. Turns out this celebrity chef, who can't even run his own restaurant, is somehow qualified to judge the Miss USA contest. Additionally, he was in some sort of hideous kilt fashion show. So here's my plan: lets band together to petition NBC not to air The Restaurant 2. I hate for my precious TV to be polluted with such filth. Who's with me?

Ronald Harwood, author of The Pianist screenplay and award winning playwright, has backed out of directing a play in Winnipeg. Why, you ask? Winnipeg has a city-wide ban on smoking in public places. To explain his choice, he said "I had no intention of allowing myself to be forced out into the street in winter to partake of one of my great pleasures."

You stand up for your great pleasures, Ronald! A few years ago I was offered a career advancing opportunity in London. However London has banned kitty-strangling, a great pleasure of mine, and so I said "No! I will not give up my great pleasure!" On further reflection, however, I realized that strangling kittens was a very pathetic thing to base my life around, the screeches of the dying kittens were upsetting those around me, and my arms were beginning to bleed from all the scratches. Thus I gave up kitty-strangling and I pursued the career-advancing opportunity in London. It's true that occasionally I will sneak into an alley and strangle another kitty, but I no longer let it run my life. But you stick by your principles, Ronald!

Director pulls out over smoking ban [Ananova]

Warning: I'm going to be serious for a minute here.

Kurt Cobain died. Very sad. When I was 13, wearing my flannel and thermal, I found that extremely upsetting. I still do, as I can very well understand how when you're in a chaotic situation it's often difficult to see clearly that everything will be okay in the end. But he killed himself. 10 years ago nearly 1 million people were massacred in Rwanda. If everyone is going to get all misty-eyed over the self-inflicted death of a rocker, I hope they would also remember the murders of innocent men, women, and children in Rwanda.

Learn From Rwanda [Bill Clinton for WP]
Rwanda Still Seeks Justice 10 Years After Genocide [Reuters]
The Rwanda Witness [NYT Magazine]
Amanpour: Looking back at Rwanda genocide [CNN]

Back to our regularly scheduled mocking.

One of President Clinton's boyhood homes burned down on Sunday, while part of the Rodham family lake house was damaged by fire on Friday.

Could it be a coincidence? Or could there be a former presidential candidate who is miffed that while he was pushed into the race by the Clintons, he did not receive their public support? Or perhaps a Little Rock businessman who is still angry about Bill taking the governorship away from him? Or maybe the lashing out of a certain devastated former vice president whose presidential campaign rejected the support of the Clinton Administration due to the President's philandering history, and it was this very detachment from the charismatic president that ultimately cost him the presidency (plus, the Supreme Court ruled against him)?

Sounds like a "vast right wing conspiracy" to me.

Clinton's boyhood home burns [CNN]

It appears Booby Brown will now have his own reality TV show, entitled "Being Bobby Brown". The show has already begun filming, as Bobby and Whitney Houston have been seen at several eating establishments being trailed by a group of cameramen. Standard Deviance is always eager to help our favorite stars, so we have compiled a list of possible episode titles.

Episode 1: Something in Common - Bobby and Whitney reunite after being released from jail and rehab, respectively.
Episode 2: I'm Every Woman - Whitney, in a drug-induced haze, declares that she has multiple people inhabiting her body.
Episode 3: My Prerogative - Bobby beats the crap out of Whitney but explains to cops that "It's my prerogative to beat my wife. Why don't you just let me live?"
Episode 4: Humpin Around - Bobby goes up to Boston for another court date and gets freaky with some girls at the Bahama Beach Club in Saugus. It's only later he realizes that it was under 18 night and the girl he got busy with in the bubble tank was 14. Hilarity ensues.
Episode 5: Exhale (Shoop Shoop) - Whitney ODs on crack and is put on a ventilator. When she comes to, the doctors tell her to exhale so that they can extract the tube from her throat. Bobby gets freaky with several nurses. More hilarity ensues.

The "Bobby and Whitney" Show? [E!]
Whitney The Greatest Hits
Bobby Brown - Greatest Hits

I was being all stalkerly over at BlueJake, checking out the Kinja party photos (my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail), and I noticed something: Choire Gawker always looks intense in pictures. Check it out : Kinja party, Gizmodo party (second from the bottom). What's up Choire? Are you mad? If I didn't know better I would be afraid to talk to him. I guess I should be since he's a "humorless, obnoxious prick" and all.

Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean, has been denied admission to an exclusive girls school. Ms. Love belives the rejection is because of her bad behavior and that her daughter has been "stigmatized". Says Love: "This is the first time she's been stigmatized because of me. And I just snapped. I'm ready to pop them."

Standard Deviance hates to poke her nose in, but given Courtney's trackrecord, it is highly unlikely that this is the first time that the child has been stigmatized, just perhaps the first time that the child has been discriminated against because of the stigma. Lets look at the list

-The early concerts where Courtney would flash panties (and other things) at her fans.
-The 1998 lawsuit by a columnist, claiming Courtney assaulted her at a fashion show in LA.
-The February 2003 arrest at Heathrow for being unruly and non-compliant.
-The October 2003 arrest for ODing on Oxycontin
-The October 2003 custody dispute over Frances Bean with Kurt Cobain's mother.
-The November 2003 rehab trip.
-The March 2004 court trip where she fired and rehired her attorney.
-The March 2004 boob flashing on "The Late Show with David Letterman"
-The March 2004 explicit photo of her and a random Wendy's customer.
-The March 2004 arrest for hitting an audience member with a microphone stand during her gig at Plaid.

Let's get real. The kid is scarred for life. Stick a giant scarlet letter on her.

COURTNEY PLAYS MUM [NME]
Hole Timeline [Rock on the Net]

Related Posts:
That Lady Sure is Crazy!

Politics
-Democrats say Republicans agree to Presidential debates. Turns out that's a joke. HOW FUNNY!
-The Republicans said that Kerry's French cousin had called Bush up to give him his support. You know politicians are not funny if the Republicans are the ones with the better jokes.
-Kerry came out with a zinger of a quote attributed to Bush:"Why should every kid born in America be stuck with $35,000 in debt, when we can just outsource it and stick it to every kid on the planet?" Okay, I give up. Bob Dole is the only funny politician out there.

Blogs
-Eurotrash came up with a hilarious spoof Gothamist interview of Amanda Hesser. I am starting to feel bad for this poor girl, but not bad enough to stop laughing.
-Low Culture spoofs Live Journal blogs, but it sounded a tiny little bit like NITBC. To be mocked is to be loved.
-MUG announces the newest addition to the Denton Media Empire (besides Kinja, of course): Gawker, Senior Edition. One of the best features of this new blog is Dead or Alive which investigates which aging socialites are dead and which are alive. The fact that I recognized no names in this spoof shows that I fall perfectly in Gawker Jrs. target audience.

British Media
-The Daily Mail had a doctored photo of the Queen heading into an Off Track Betting agency to bet on the horse races.
-The Guardian had a full page advertisement for BMW that claimed drivers could cook dinner while they drive using new "SHEF technology".
-The Sun reported that police will begin using hawks with camera's attached to their heads to catch speeding drivers.
-The Times had an article about how chicken powered nuclear bombs were considered during the Cold War. It turns out this story is true. Do you think they use the chicken for fuel or does the chicken run on a treadmill to create energy? Hmmm

The Bush Administration is hoping to clarify its foreign policy stances given their diplomatic problems the Iraq war. In this vein, several American performing artists will be sent abroad by the Bush administration to display the United State's sentiments for our foreign partners. Britney Spears will torture China with her terrible singing abilities and Michael Jackson plans to offend Africa with the I'm Black Too tour. In a similar diplomatic mission, the CIA will release ebola spores in select European distribution areas.

Seems to me that almost every blog entry I read from Jason Calacanis goes something like this:

"me me me me, Denton's out to get me, my blogs my blogs my blogs, I have inside information from some super secret blogger elite meeting, me me me."

So I was not at all surprised to see Mr. Calacanis throw a hissy when in the first 12 hours of Kinja's launch, his tech blog Engadget was not front and center in the compilations:

It seems Nick Denton's Kinja.com is blocking Engadget.com posts... nice. First Topix.net bans all Weblogs, Inc. sites and now Denton.

ugh....

Turns out that Kinja's crawler was having a problem and that explains the lack of Engadget posts (which is to be expected at the begining of a launch). You mean there's not huge conspiracy against WIN? Returning to the 90210 metaphor, Calacanis is definately the paranoid Dylan of this drama. Will Mark Cuban and Choire Sicha organize an intervention to end the madness a la Cindy and Jim Walsh? Developing...

Ridiculous Amount Of Related Posts:
Blog Drama: Episode 3
Blog Drama: Episode 3a
What's the Big Deal about Kinja?

As other bloggers probably know, Nick Denton and Meg Hourihan are launching Kinja today, which appears to be some sort of blog reader. The New York Times explains how Kinja works: "After signing up for a free account with Kinja, users can enter the addresses of their favorite blogs and generate a digest - a customized blog of blogs." The Times says that Kinja will be best for people who are not familiar with blogs and are not as technologically savvy as the users of other blog readers such as NewzCrawler and Bloglines.

I don't want to be a Negative Nellie but Bloglines does everything that Kinja is purported to do, and setting up Bloglines is about as difficult as signing up for a Yahoo email account. Even the innovation of publishing your subscriptions to the public is offered by Bloglines. Bloglines doesn't have the "best digest" contest yet but I am sure they could implement it easily. This reminds Standard Deviance of when Wonkette stormed onto the scene, compliments of the Denton PR machine, to fill the supposed void of DC gossip blogs, while Swamp City had been filling that void just fine (I love the Wonkster though, don't get me wrong). I'll definitely check out Kinja, as I am always interested in what the Denton Pod People are up to, but from what I've heard so far, it's unlikely I'd bother resubscribing to all my blogs for basically the same service as I already have.

Blog-Bleary? Try (What Else?) a Blog [NYT via Eyebeam via Bloglines]

Oh, silly readers. Do you really think I would do a post about the employment numbers or the NASDAQ? This post is about the "Money Honey", Maria Bartiromo. Ms. Bartiromo appeared on Squawk Box on Monday morning with her regular hair, layered and off her face. However, by the time Closing Bell aired, she was sporting new bangs. New quarter coming up, so a new hairstyle for Maria.



Many market watchers put aside the possibility of Steve Case reacquiring AOL or the impending cutback in production by OPEC and looked into a more pressing issue: What does the hair mean? Then new bangs give Ms. Bartiromo a punkish look. She can look business by day, CBGBs by night. Perhaps the bangs are a sign that the market is going to toughen up and make a comeback. However, did Maria want such short bangs? Standard Deviance has been the victim of many a bad set of bangs (one set were particularly traumatic, causing hairdresser phobias to this day) and unexpectedly short bangs can wreak havoc on a woman's emotions. SD loves the bangs, but if Maria was expecting something a bit longer, the bangs may be upsetting her. Her market commentary could become terse thus disappointing the legions of traders who lust after her every day and bringing upon the fall of the economy. Outlandish you say? You obviously have not had a bad haircut.

Whatever the hair means, we know one thing: Her lips are fabulous.

Bang-up job on Wall St. [NYDN]