Ed Batista has a YouTube conversation with Tom Munnecke of Uplift Academy.  Tom notices the snake eating it’s tail thing of attention aggregators aggregating attention of other attention aggregators… I think I’ll see if I can install the aggregator on my Firefox browser.

U.S. President and modern day crusader George W. Bush dropped in on Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki unannounced today in blatant disregard of diplomatic courtesy and protocol. One billion muslims world-wide were offended by his cavalier bullshit. The paranoid leader of what was formerly known as the free world explained that if he made his movements known ahead of time he would have to deal with his deeply felt insecurities and an irrational fear that drove him to desert the military as a young man and begin a life of drunken dissolution and drug addiction that ended several years ago when he hit bottom and found Jesus. The president, who will turn sixty next month, claims not to have used drugs since his early forties. He claims to have been arrest free since his last arrest for drunken driving in 1976, almost thirty years ago. (His prior arrests for theft and for disorderly conduct occurred before then). The Voice of America reported today,

Prime Minister Maliki learned the president was in Baghdad just five minutes before they met in the U.S. diplomatic compound. He told Mr. Bush that Iraqis are determined to succeed.

Speaking in Arabic, the prime minister said Iraq will stay united and it will stay strong. He spoke of his appreciation for U.S. efforts in Iraq, and expressed the hope American troops will … go home soon. God willing, he said, all the suffering will be over and all the soldiers will … return to their countries.

We don’t know what else the Prime Minister said, because - face it - how many of us speak Arabic? But one assumes he addressed the secret service directly. One can almost hear him saying, “Somebody get this pathetic dry-drunk motherfucker a drink and get his ass back on the plane. None of us are safe with him around and he’s boring me silly.”

In other news today it was announced that Karl Rove, direct mail marketeer and the crusading President’s top political adviser, won’t face criminal charges in a three-year investigation into the leak of a CIA agent’s name. This explains why Bush had to “get out of Dodge,” since he is known for his inability to control that shit-eating grin when he has pulled a fast one.

Gillian writes about burn-out and points to a pay-for-view Scientific American Mind article.

Larry collapsed right outside the door to his apartment, with a terrible headache, a racing heart and vertigo. “At first I thought I had had a stroke,” he recalls now, a year later. But the doctor’s diagnosis was different: burnout syndrome. The consultant was sick from years of excessive toil.

In other, more upbeat, Gillianic News, the Thunder Panties - a team dedicated to racing in their scanties to raise money for cancer research - is in the top ten fund raisers so far. Gillian says,

I promise, should I meet my donation goal, that I will:

1. Run in underwear on the race day (God, I hope the weather’s nice), and

2. Post tasteful photo(s) of myself in said underwear on my blog.

How’s that for incentive? Thanks for whatever donation you can give.

Give early, give often. We’re looking forward to the pictures!