How is it possible that there is no heavy metal band named after this phenomenon?

Every now and again, Matt Yglesias just blows my mind. As with this reflection on Martin Luther King.

Good move, Democrats! Every one of the convention speakers talked about how John McCain is both a war hero and a close personal friend. Now everyone at the Republican convention will feel obliged to mention the great esteem in which they hold Barack Obama, and will limit their criticisms to his policy positions!

The Democrats' inability to mount successful personal attacks on their opponents would be funny if, you know, something less than the fate of the world were at stake. How much do you think Robert Greenwald spent to make a film attacking John McCain for, um, owning a valuable parking lot? This is a guy who can't keep the names of foreign countries straight, even as he threatens to make war on them, and you're going after him for owning a parking lot? Can you imagine how loud they're laughing over at McCain HQ? Update: see comments.

Why we love xkcd: This. It seems like it's going to be a sex joke, but then it turns out to be a math joke. And then, while you think about it, it turns back into a sex joke, but one that's sophisticated and kind of wise rather than crude.

Awesome-sounding puzzle/platformer game, currently Xbox only but coming out soon for PC. Plus: two weeks till Spore!

Copy-editing the world: Is it kind of funny that Gavin Newsom and PG&E, trying to appear down with "Generation Obama," can't even get the name of the headlining band right? Update: It's fixed now. When I originally posted this, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! was referred to as "Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah!"

Department of OMG: Did you know that Stephen "Freakonomics" Dubner used to be in a band with Superchunk's Jon Wurster, one of my all-time top-five drummers? Did everybody except me know that?

'NATO enlargement has become the crack cocaine of White House politics': Daniel Benjamin maps the connection between the Bush administration's foreign policy and Russia's invasion of Georgia.

So John McCain recently named Dancing Queen by ABBA as his favorite song ever. When Walter Isaacson (who probably couldn't name an ABBA song but knows you're supposed to not like them) challenged him on this, McCain said:

“Now look, everybody says, ‘I hate ABBA. Oh ABBA, how terrible! Blah blah blah. How come everybody goes to ‘Mamma Mia?’ Huh? I mean really, seriously, huh? ‘I hate ABBA, they’re no good, you know.’ Well, everybody goes. They’ve been selling out for years.”

I'm not that surprised that John McCain would name an ABBA song as his favorite song, but I am surprised, frankly, by his full-throated, unequivocal, and refreshingly cogent defense of the Swedish pop quartet.

OK, I admit it's a bit weird to not post anything for like 6 months and then all of a sudden post something, and it's something positive about John McCain. But there you go.

Here's why that Obama New Yorker cover totally fails as satire.

Wow. Really, Wall Street Journal? Really? (This and just about all other content ever: via DF.)