If I was the writer of this story, "Thousands of Afghans protest cartoons, movie," there is one addition I would have made.

HERAT, Afghanistan (AP) — Thousands of Afghans demonstrated Saturday in western Afghanistan, shouting angry slogans against Denmark and the Netherlands for alleged insults against Islam.

[snip]

Demonstrators shouted "Death to Denmark for insulting our prophet" and "Death to the Netherlands for insulting our religion." They also shouted "Death to America."

That last paragraph would have had so much more kick if it had ended with the phrase "for good measure."

(Note to protesters: They’re cartoons. Get over it. There are a lot more important things to worry about; there are women out there driving for goodness’ sake. And showing their ankles. Some even have jobs.)

How low can you go? I’ll tell you. On USA Today’s home page is a box titled “In memory: Lives we lost this year.” Whose picture is in it?

Anna Frakking Nicole Smith.

Anna Nicole Smith? That’s who they choose to represent who died in 2007? Are they out of their minds? Of all the people who died this year, the site features a porn star?

ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

You know who was more important than a former Playboy bunny?

Boris Yeltsin, Lady Bird Johnson, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Marcel Marceau, Luciano Pavarotti, Mr. Wizard, Evel Knievel, Merv Griffin, Don Ho, Liz Claiborne, and Joey Bishop.

You know who else was more important than that (literally) self-inflated whore? Yvonne De Carlo (who played Lily Munster), Jerry Falwell (who preached hatred and intolerance to millions), Vincent DeDomenico (the inventor of Rice-A-Roni) and Mr. Frakking Whipple.

Someone over at USAT needs to gain just a teeny bit of godsdamn perspective. Sheesh.

* * *

Addendum: I held out a teeny bit of hope that the photo on the home page rotated through the list of those who died, but nope. It’s all Anna.

A messy day for ABC News. First there’s this on the home page:

It’s “four fewer,” guys, not “4 less.” It’s one thing for the idiots at Kroger to mix those up, but you’re supposed to be writers.

Then, from its “10 Worst Moments in Sports” we’re told that “Major League Baseball players also striked against a proposed salary cap….”

The past tense of strike is “struck.“

[sigh]

Blogging has been light lately because we decided to take our 1800-someodd square feet of stuff and move it from one perfectly good storage space to another.

In the meantime, thanks to the incomparable Eric Berlin, we have John Scalzi on the creationism museum:

Here’s how to understand the Creation Museum:

First, imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horsehit. An epic load of horseshit.

Read it all.