Ground Zero mosque? Tell it to this guy. Or this one. Frank Rich has more on how this latest fake controversy on the part of conservatives to flog Democrats ultimately does more harm than good.

Here is a good piece on the shredding of the social contract in the name of lower taxes. The ever-awesome Slacktivist has another good piece on the politics of resentment. I like the suggestion that when someone says the poor or prisoners or whoever are lucky, ask if they're saying they'd like to switch places with that particular group.

Germany's workers have higher productivity, shorter hours and greater quality of life. But thanks to the power of VIGOROUS ASSERTION, the U.S. is still the greatest country in the world.

I heart Snopes, but it's depressing to read their discussion of how people believe what they want to believe, even in the face of contrary evidence. Can't say as I'm surprised, though.

Graphical breakdown of the student loan machine.

I know fast food vs. reality is too easy, but it's so damn entertaining. I also know I posted Hungover Owls to Facebook already, but it's worth repeating.

Lastly, worlds collide, though I don't know if the suggestion about the Phanatic and Foofa is funny or just gross.

Blah blah blah deficits and taxes, right? Argh. As noted previously, the same people magically did not care about deficits when George Bush was in office. But most frustratingly, some local jurisdictions are now drastically cutting back on services because they have no money, and everyone is scared to death of raising taxes. The loud and proud among us are fond of declaring America to be the Greatest Country in the World. But if we are that great, we should be able to have Nice Things, like libraries and schools and paved freakin' roads. And Nice Things cost money. But no, we'd rather let that stuff go to pot in order to save a couple hundred bucks on our taxes.

On a somewhat related note, the economic downturn has everyone assuming that American workers are desperate. The punditocracy seems reluctant to point out that American corporate exploitation of the workforce has its limits.

Counter-protests to the Westboro Baptist Church have become something of a creative outlet. This one is quite awesome.

Neat set of photos adding past photos of DC landmarks to their current locations.

News Flash: Wii Fit better than no exercise at all, but only just. Well, duh.

Sports: Best ballpark foods from around the majors.

• An Ariel doll that really swims by herself, and really dives, and can talk, and has sisters in the same package, and has her own land that does not float, and has a water slide that Ariel and her sisters can use and that shoots water down it. She has a pet dolphin that comes with a starfish and a turtle.


• A wishing machine. It lets you wish anything that you wish.


• Video diary: So I can make videos and watch them again and again.


• A sewing kit, just like Elizabeth has.


• A doll that goes to the bathroom if you feed her real food.


• Walkie-talkies that work from far places that you can give to other people in the mail.

Reason #1,047 why Canadians are awesome: mammoth beer cup stack at CFL game.

Meet Abd el-Kader. A long read, but worth it, especially if you think Christians and Muslims are long-standing, wholly unresolvable enemies.

Another long read, but well-annotated, is Tim Wise's breakdown of the Tea Party counter-racism accusations. Painful to read, but should be required for anyone who thinks racism is dead in this country.

Still another long piece, but more light-hearted, is the Esquire story on the first and only perfect Showcase bid on The Price is Right.

If it's all too much for you, fine, here's a funny cat video.

Seems like we can't visit the same beach too often. Last week we went to Virginia Beach, where we hadn't been since 2005. A friend rented us her beach condo, which put us two blocks from the beach, and quite contrary to previous trips, right in the middle of the action, so to speak. VB has its "boardwalk," facing the ocean, that is largely devoid of shops--it's all hotels. The shops are a block over on Atlantic. We were on the NEXT block, so not only could we walk to the beach, we could walk to stores and restaurants. VB may be a little too hectic for our tastes; we're still trying to find the right balance between stuff to do and non-crowded beaches (I still think Sea Isle City, NJ is the best for that). But we enjoyed exploring the local offerings. A couple times we took the local bus up 15 blocks or so, then walked home, stopping off as necessary along the way.

The girls still love them some beach. Catherine will tell you she doesn't, but once she actually gets there, she's in the sand and the surf just like her sister. They still have a healthy enough fear of the surf, which is probably just as well for now. It was mostly calm all week, until Friday, when the waves were rather punishing.

I believe this was the first time we've actually been at the beach on the 4th of July. The city put on a real nice fireworks display on the water, which we viewed from the beach.

We spent an afternoon at the Virginia Aquarium, which is well worth the price of admission. Turtles! Komodo dragon! Great horned owl! However, Liz managed to stick the top of her head in the stingray "touch pool," as it was too deep for her to actually touch one of them.

We also took a day trip to Colonial Williamsburg. A major piece of the girls' obsession with the American Girl franchise is the Felicity Merriman character, who "lived" in Williamsburg in 1774, so this was a must-do. Sadly the girls did not get to churn butter, meaning I could not bellow "CHURN THAT BUTTER!" at them. The highlight, of course, was putting in the stocks and otherwise pretending to lock them up.

More photos on Flickr. Restaurant reviews and other random thoughts after the jump.

One negative about Virginia Beach: they have those anti-profanity signs on Atlantic Avenue for a reason. And they don't seem to work. In other beach communities, the drunken twenty-somethings and high school kids tend to be clustered (Dewey Beach in Delaware, OCMD, Wildwood), while other locales are the "family beaches" (Bethany, OCNJ), but in Virginia Beach we're all lumped in there together. And young people today seem to have no reservations about shouting "FUCK THIS SHIT!" while walking past little kids. It gave the town a bit of a crass tone, at times. Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

In an effort to make evenings more family-friendly and not just about going to bars, the city has brought in a variety of entertainers to perform on street corners and stages on the middle stretch of Atlantic Avenue. Some of these were great. Some of them made us say "Man, they'll let ANYBODY play here. We particularly liked Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy.

Lastly, we had a bit of an adventure going home. Everyone who's passed through Hampton Roads has horror stories about the bridge-tunnel, right? We sat in slow-moving traffic for a few miles, then got on the first part of the bridge and stopped. And sat. For half an hour, at least. Word on the traffic report was "Disabled vehicle blocking both lanes." Who does that?! People were turning off their cars and getting out. I turned off the car too, but stupidly allowed the girls to keep watching a movie on the DVD player. Just as I was thinking "I should probably turn this back on, make sure we don't run down the battery," some lights I've never seen before came up on the dashboard, and Liz said "What happened to our movie?" Nice going, jackass! Fortunately (?), the traffic jam lasted long enough that we were able to get a jump start from a neighboring car before things got moving again.

Baseball: a potential solution to the shattered-bat problem.

Mascot item: Tackle the taco, 18 years later.

Have I mentioned Roger Ebert is a great writer? Here he is on our energy issues, soemething everyone really knows but hardly anyone is willing to confront.

The economy: sucks and will suck more if conservatives get their way. Deficits matter! Unless a Republican is in the White House!

Why the hell do people play Farmville, really?

I do not wish to smell like Old Spice, but their ads are at least amusing. Here's an interview with The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, and they walk though the making of one of the commercials.

Lastly: Muppet video! Staring contest!

"You can't call yourself a 'deficit hawk' if the only programs you want to cut are the ones you don't like anyway."

Good article on how the Internets apparently make us scatter-brained.

I have long thought that the notion of "team chemistry" is bunk. People on winning teams love to point out what great chemistry they have in the clubhouse. News flash: you have great chemistry because you're winning, not the other way around. Jim Leyland agrees with me, in wonderfully profane fashion.

Elsewhere in sports: Second time in a few years that an inactive DC United player has taken in a match in the stands. Pure awesomeness. Mascot story: the Yankees had one, back in the day. Why isn't there a wiffle ball bar in every town in America?

My kids love Silly Bandz, these rubber-band bracelet things that hold different shapes when you take them off. So I knew it was inevitable that school districts would start banning them as a "distraction." In my day, it was Chinese Jacks.

Anyone who wants to get all riled up claiming that the Bible is massively opposed to homosexuality needs to go read this.

The always-entertaining Anthony Bourdain checks in with Slate's series on being wrong.

I have been using this method to knock out tasks at work and at home for a while now.

With the excitement of Strasmas nearly upon us, Barry Svrluga looks back at the 2005 Nats and their great early-season run. I saw a comment to the effect of "The fact that Nats fans are nostalgic for a team that ended the season at .500 just shows how crappy the team has been." Maybe so. But I have to say, I don't think I've ever enjoyed my time at the ballpark more than the first few months of that season.

Other sports: World Cup fever! Are you a confused American? Get your World Cup primer here. And lastly, Youppi! sighting (indeed, I am disappointed my picture was not used).

This letter to homophobes has been making the rounds, and it is awesome.

Also making the rounds and awesome, this uphill-ball-rolling doo-hickey.

I was not previously familiar with the work of Linda Stone, but I like the cut of her jib. "Continuous Partial Attention" describes my state of operation far more than I'd like.

Lastly, I'm going to put on Ritual de lo Habitual and feel old tonight.

First up, Ernie Harwell. When I saw Joe Posnanski had a post on Harwell, I bookmarked it before I even started reading it. That turned out to be a repeat; here's the new one. King Kaufman had a great tribute as well, and Ernie's HOF induction speech is required reading.

Political: The suggestion to imagine if the Tea Party was a bunch of angry black people has been making the rounds for a couple weeks. Astonishingly, some people refuse to get it. Also, this Congressman's retirement announcement is at once inspiring and sad.

Foodstuffs: I found this piece on a fried-chicken recipe cookoff to be enlightening. Yeah, fancy dishes have their place and time, but for everyday life, often simpler is better. Good news for fruits and vegetables: bees seem to be making a comeback.

Localstuffs: Where to get a good view of DC.

Wackyness: My favorite part of any new product commercial is when someone displays complete ineptitude with the "old" product or way of doing things. I am not the only one who enjoys this, apparently.

More sports: MLB cracks down on player Twitter accounts, because they don't like fun things. One not-fun thing was the Caps' playoff crash and burn, but I hope Caps' management doesn't listen to those who say they should dismantle the team. Will Leitch's new book sounds pretty good. Lastly, I am officially done defending Philly sports fans.

Our home laptop is on the fritz, and the next step is replacing the hard drive. I wanted to make sure I bought the right thing, so I connected to Dell's customer support chat and told the agent "internal hard drive for an Inspiron B120." Before he could come back with anything, I got disconnected (thanks Cox and your crapful internet service). It was late and I didn't feel like going through that again, so I figured I'd try again later.

Next day, I had an e-mail from Dell with a quote for a 120GB hard drive. How nice, the agent went ahead and found what I needed! So I followed their instructions to go on their web site and complete the order (this was two days ago). I got an "Order acknowledgement" e-mail, with an Order ID number, and both my billing and shipping addresses.

Fast-forward to today. I got an e-mail saying there was a problem with my order. Could I please reply with my billing and shipping addresses.

Who does that, in this day and age of phishing? Granted, they had the right order ID on it, and they didn't ask for a credit card number or anything, so it was probably legit. But still... how about no.

I found the Dell customer service number and dialed in. I gave the order number to five different people. The first four couldn't find the order, and transferred me somewhere else. The fifth guy found the order, but couldn't fix it, and when he attempted to transfer me, the call got dropped.

I replied to this morning's e-mail with "How about you just go ahead and cancel this." Yay, technology.

It's no secret that I loathe the New York Yankees. (I freely admit that my hatred is largely driven by jealousy.) With my friend Bruce coming back to the States after a two-year absence, I decided to make this year's ballpark trip to see the Yanks' new digs, loathing notwithstanding. I went into the place expecting to hate it.

Surprisingly, that didn't happen. Yeah, it's expensive as all get out; let's get that out of the way. Our seats near the left-field foul pole were $90 a pop. The same seats at Nats Park: $24. Near as I can tell, the cheapest walk-up ticket is $23. The team store is enormous and was doing a very brisk business. Food was pricey, and I paid $11 for a Stella (though it was a big beer, and as such probably the same value as the $8 beers at Nats Park). It's the Yankee Machine: they shell out the money to get the best players, which leads to winning teams. People therefore come out in droves, buy lots of merchandise, and watch on TV in tremendous numbers, which refills the team's coffers, allowing them to shell out for the best players. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, and a great model for success in MLB if you can pull it off.

The park was chock full of happy Yankee fans willing to pay these prices, so who am I to complain? Those fans paid close attention to the game and didn't need much prodding from the scoreboard to cheer for their team at appropriate moments. I didn't see any road-team gear all day. The Yankees have succeeded in boxing up a lot of that history and tradition that was seemingly discarded at the old ballpark, and bringing it into the new place. It feels older than it is, in some ways. I like the facades at the top, the recognition of retired numbers and championship seasons, and that you can still see subway trains going by outside. We didn't make it in to see the monuments, which should probably be a bit more visible, but still have their place in center field. Good sight lines all around; while the areas directly behind the lower-level sections were actually cordoned off into ticketed "seats," you could still hang around behind those and see the field. (Don't even try crossing The Moat, though.)

I did enjoy my pricey ballpark chow. Based on reviews found around the interwebs, steak sandwiches were a good idea, and the Lobel's stand turned out to be right behind our section. This was not a Philly-style steak sandwich, but rather a prime rib sandwich on a round roll. No cheese, but I opted for the horseradish sauce. Delicious, and almost worth $15. I also had a Johnny Rockets milkshake, which was not freshly made but out of a machine like a McDonald's shake. Tasty nonetheless. A decent selection of good beer, along with the usual Miller and Bud products. Others in our party got Nathan's hot dogs and a more traditional Philly-style cheese steak, and were quite pleased with them.

As for the game itself: Yankees 12, White Sox 3, and it wasn't even that close. The Yanks hit three home runs (including Cano's 9th, and Gardner's 4th... of his career), and had runners on nearly every inning. The White Sox didn't score until the 9th, and up to that point tended to go out meekly every inning. 7 strong innings for Phil Hughes; Mark Buerhle did not pitch well, and the Chicago bullpen was even worse. No A-Rod in the line-up yesterday (just a day off). I guess they didn't need him. Jeter came out a couple innings early, once it had devolved into a laugher. So I saw first-hand why those Yankee fans are so happy. I don't know that I'd put the new Yankee Stadium in baseball's top ten parks, but it's a fine place to watch a game.

More photos at Flickr. Only twelve ballparks left to cover. San Diego and Minnesota are front-runners for next year's trip. Other random game thoughts and New York City stuff after the jump.

• Nice to finally meet long-time fantasy sports nemesis and e-migo Jason, who was four sections over from us with his kids.
  
• I shouted "ALEXEI!!", a la Stan Verrett, every time Alexei Ramirez made a play. Much to the annoyance of those around me.
  
• The loud-ass techno version of the Westminster Chimes that they play whenever the Yankees score really got on my nerves. Loud, just loud loud loud and jarring, and I don't understand the significance.
  
• We were treated to an Ozzie Guillen ejection in the bottom of the 7th. We thought it was just about his pitcher being squeezed, but apparently the home plate umpire thought Pierzynski was griefing him, and Ozzie came out to protect him and ended up getting run. Kind of tame by Ozzie standards, though.
  
• This being New York, it was a good food weekend. What I envy most about New York is the plethora of interesting, local-only restaurants, as opposed to the chain-restaurant hell that is Fairfax County. David and I went to Shopsin's General Store, with their small space and outrageous menu. Dave had cased the menu beforehand and knew what he wanted (corned beef hash, quite excellent), while I was overwhelmed by the thing and finally decided to JUST PICK SOMETHING (some folks think Shopsin's is part of the inspiration for the Seinfeld Soup Nazi, so I didn't want to get kicked out for indecision). I went with the "Pig Newton," which was a chopped pork and egg sandwich with gravy and figs, served over grits. Good but not great. Note to self: do not pick a menu item simply because it has an amusing name. Very good Vietnamese food for dinner Saturday. I wanted to go to Lombardi's Pizza before heading home Sunday night, but I ran out of time; ended up grabbing a couple slices a block over.
  
• It was also a good drinking weekend. Dave and I threw down a couple at McSorley's Old Ale House Saturday afternoon; I had last been there in 1991, I believe. We took a picture of Elizabeth's Flat Stanley there, but somehow I doubt that one will make it back to her first-grade classroom. I watched the Kentucky Derby on the roof at Sutton Place with Tor, Kel, and Josh, had a quick beer at Dive Bar, and played pool at Ryan's Daughter until a far later hour than I am accustomed to.
  
• Coming home, I took the Acela for the first time. It was nice and all, and a bit faster than the regular Amtrak trains (cancelled out by a half-hour delay in departing, though). The primary benefit appears to be free wi-fi, as nearly everyone around me had a laptop. I didn't bring one, though, so never mind.

Also, three episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. You can plow through a bunch of albums on a long-ass public transit commute.

Two words: gorilla suit.

Do the teabaggers actually understand what socialism is? For the most part, no.

Interesting article on the spirits manager at Ace Beverage in northwest DC. Sounds like a good guy to know.

Sad yet cute: Best buddy otters die less than an hour apart.

The sports: There's talk of expanding the NCAA tournament to 96 teams. Terrible idea, it would cheapen the whole thing. This Deadspin post tells you why.

Despite last night's loss, I still think the whole "Caps are overrated" thing is overrated. Also, mascot falls off dugout roof.

Lastly, remember the mid-week cookie break?

Heard much about health care lately? Let's just go through these in one big lump: These word clouds are telling. Just how unprecedented was this vote? Haven't linked to The Rude Pundit in a while; I like his take on the whole thing. And of course Krugman's. Here are ten things you should know about health care reform. And of course, beware of the unhinged.

On a more general note, this Open Letter to Conservatives is stunning in its thoroughness. The actual policy positions of modern Republican politicians bother me less than the outright intellectual dishonesty.

On the other hand, this proposed bill to prohibit the use of salt in restaurants is the most ridiculous thing ever. I hope it's a hoax. Way too nanny-state, not to mention whoever proposed this has apparently never eaten food before.

Sports: I like Will Leitch's post on the supposed unwritten rules of baseball. I agree with him that the Prince Fielder homer celebration last season was just some goofy fun, and when some writers suggested it was improper, I wished they would lighten the hell up.

Gil Arenas was sentenced to probationon his gun charges today. It marks a sad conclusion (presumably) to what looked, at one time, to be one of the all-time great careers in Washington sports, both on and off the court. The Post's Michael Lee reviews the history, and Steinberg runs down some of the pre-sentencing letters where people recount Gil's generosity.

Geek stuff: Is your computer so horribly ruined by a virus, you can't really do anything? You need the AVG boot CD. (Of course, if your computer is that messed up, you're probably not reading this, now are you.)

Music: Here is an interesting version of Phoenix's "Lisztomania", by what is apparently America's coolest middle-school glee club.