Leave it to the Wonder Chicken to put his gouda where his mouth is: not only does he compare unfettered life away from the wife to “gnawing on a block of cheese the size of a car battery,” but he offers photographic evidence to back up his claim.

More on the Iraqi death count from Greg Mitchell: “The AP report by Malcolm Ritter called the study ‘controversial’ right in its first sentence, then went on to cite Cordesman as the only critic. Ritter also noted that the invaluable Web site, Iraq Body Count, which has tried to keep a running tally, places the number of dead at 50,000. At least he admitted that base their count strictly on confirmed media reports. But, as I said at the top, media reports have been scattered, partly due to disinterest (in the beginning) and the dangers of investigating (later on).”

Web 2.0. Cinema 2.0. The Novel 2.0.

Since so many people are interested in things that are “2.0,” I have decided to take the plunge and declare Return of the Reluctant, a “litblog 2.0 in tenebrous standing.”

What does 2.0 mean? Ostensibly nothing, outside of a second grade arithmetic lesson on decimals. But every concept needs a buzz marketing term. And I’m looking for any edge I can get. No matter how dubious.

So why should litblogs be any different? This is an exciting time where people must stand atop a numerical dais of self-importance.

So I’ve laid down the gauntlet. This is a Litblog 2.0.

If I’ve learned anything from watching the blade wars in disposable razors, it’s this: If another litblog goes “Litblog 2.1,” then I’ll go “Litblog 2.2” or even “Litblog 3.0” if I have to. We’ll keep on upping the ante until we get into ridiculous four-digit territory (Litblog 1526.0? If that’s what it takes, baby.).

Of course, like a childhood game, I expect this all to dissolve once one litblogger declares, “Infinity!”

But for the moment, I am Litblog 2.0. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of Chris Anderson. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, vernacular-wise.

10/11/06 is 9/11/01 upside down! Contact the Department of Homeland Security! Head to the hills!

Get Human: an invaluable site for getting a human being on the phone.

“Music is My Hot Hot Sex” (via Splinters)

Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels (via Books, Words, and Writing)

DCist: “Well, if Mark Halperin, the man behind ABC News’ The Note, really knows The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008, then it’s a safe bet that whoever wins the White House in 2008 is going to write like a self-obsessed, obtuse dick.”

Kiran Desai.

Tom Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future) sings a song answering the most common questions.

CJR Daily: “‘Do you know how many interviews I turned down today?’ Moulitsas tells Cox at one point. ‘ABC, NBC, Charlie Rose, McLaughlin Group, not to mention a bunch of radio. If I were into self-promotion, I would have said yes to all of them.’ All of which left us wondering: Would it really have been too much to ask to say no to one more?”

Those pining for that 1985 Cold War feeling of fear and paranoia will be happy to learn that North Korea has tested its first nuke. I trust that our sane and capable world leaders will resolve this dispute in a calm and rational manner. What this will do for West Coast shoreline real estate is anyone’s guess.

My review of Stephen Elliott’s My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up is now up at the Philly Inquirer.

Crazy workload, both online and off, a birthday party to attend and more, ain’t blogging no more ’till it’s all done. But I do hope to get the next two podcasts up over the weekend sometime.

Who are the guests? Well, I’ll give you a few hints: one podcast involves marijuana, the other involves zombies and serial killers.

Have yourselves a frakkin’ great weekend, if you know what I mean.

David Plotz lays down some rules on how to get a MacArthur genius grant. (via Rarely Likable)

…by Tod Goldberg. Poor MZD.

New York Times: “A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas. Such a ‘sentiment analysis’ is intended to identify potential threats to the nation, security officials said.”

This is not the United States of America I know. The America I’m familiar with is a place where the actions of our leaders, whether Republican or Democrat, are regularly questioned, both by trustworthy patriots and those who observe our follies from abroad. It is a place where one can utter, “President Bush sodomizes goats in the Rose Garden during the winter,” without fear of imprisonment. It is a place where one is not labeled a terrorist threat because one expresses a view that differs from what the majority answers in the latest Gallup poll.

What good can come from “sentiment analysis?” Will this sentiment analysis understand that a person often writes strongly when they are pissed off or when they have feelings to express? Will this sentiment analysis detect subtext, nuances, and hyperbole? Will it have a head for satire? Will we bomb another nation or imprison a few writers because this “sentiment analysis” says so? Because someone misunderstood this decade’s answer to Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal?”

Here is the DHS’s m.o.: “to identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation.”

Let us consider that bold objective. Potential threats from mere words.

Words are unarmed components assembled together with care (and sometimes not) by a writer to articulate a series of ideas and emotions. The series of ideas and emotions, expressed through articles and books, is then examined by a reader. It is the reader who decides whether to feel happiness, despair, fear, anger, resentment, and the like. It is the reader who interprets this series, using the thoughts and knowledge at his disposal, and who may or may not change his mind as a result.

Again, these thoughts and emotions come not from the words themselves, but from the readers who parse the work, which, as any English lit major knows, will have millions of interpretations. A reader might be inspired enough or give a damn enough to actually do something astonishing, but perhaps the kick was there all along and reading simply jump-started the inner drive.

The threat then resides with a population capable of being subverted or motivated by whatever criteria the “sentiment analysis” determines is bad. But is this really fair? Was A Catcher in the Rye the thing that caused John Hinckley, Jr. to attempt an assassination on Reagan? Or was Hinckley a looneytune to begin with?

Is it really the words or the people that the DHS is afraid of? What happens next? Books and websites banned? The ability to read, write, and express banned?

It must not. Civilization has advanced too long and hard for a bunch of authoritarian pricks to take away human ambition with the stroke of a pen. What they don’t know is that we have the power to use that pen too.

MSNBC: “The star — who publicly sought help for his alcoholism less than two months ago — was spotted drinking beer in Austin, Texas, according to the upcoming issue of the National Enquirer.”

Editor & Publisher: “Former Miami Herald Publisher Jesus Diaz Jr., who announced his resignation Tuesday in the wake of the recent uproar over reporters accepting payments from government-sponsored broadcasts outlet, actually quit two weeks ago, the paper reported Wednesday. His earlier departure plan stemmed from a ‘blow-up’ over a related column by Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.”

The question now is whether any of Hiaasen’s satirical novels will cause any fiction publishers to resign.

Why is Lars Ulrich at Litquake? Yeah, I know it’s for a gala of musicians inspired by literature. But this is Lars Ulrich we’re talking about. Perhaps he’s the only member of Metallica who still bothers to read.

BBC: “Pop star Madonna is in the African country of Malawi on a mission to try to help orphaned children living with HIV and AIDS. The singer plans to launch six projects to help underprivileged children.”

Here are four of the six projects:

1. Madonna will hire out three of her 280 personal assistants for exactly one hour to offer services to one underprivileged child, including carrying suitcases, providing foot massages, driving out to the nearest Whole Foods to purchase a snack (is there a Whole Foods in Malawi?), and reading the Kabbalah out loud.

2. To brighten up a few lives, Madonna will allow three children to star in the roles of Little Foot Soldier #1, Little Foot Soldier #2, and Little Foot Soldier #3 for an upcoming music video representing a sexual allegory of the Battle of the Bulge. The Little Foot Soldiers will get the opportunity to fire off several squibs, thus providing these cute and cuddly malnourished tots with a small thrill to brighten their hungry days.

3. Madonna will allow one carefully selected malnourished child to touch the hem of her khakis, showing great grace in enduring the child’s dirty and squalid hand. The khakis will be immediately laundered after the encounter. The child will be allowed to walk within ten feet of Madonna for twenty heartfelt minutes of joy — perhaps the greatest moment in the child’s life, better even than a rare day with three meals.

4. Madonna will give ten children copies of her complete discography for their listening pleasure. It is Madonna’s hope that her music will provide the children with great inspiration to conquer their grumbling stomachs. If the children do not possess a CD player, she will demand that the Malawai governemnt provide them. If they do not possess electricity, she will have one of her dancers beat somebody up — perhaps another starving child, if nobody else can be found.

Graham’s back.

New York Times Corrections: “Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts on Saturday about the use of the Los Angeles Times building in movies and television shows misstated the surname of the building’s manager of administrative services at one point. As the article noted, he is Cletus Page, and in a subsequent reference he should have been identified as Mr. Page, not Mr. Cletus.”

I wish the best possible thoughts for Mr. Michael Schaub and his brother. For understandable reasons, Mr. Schaub not been blogging of late over at Bookslut. Do send the Schaubs some positive juju. I wish his brother the best possible recovery.

If you have emailed me in the past two weeks (and, in particular, while I was in Wisconsin), the inbox has been whittled down to under 100 messages. I will get to you soon.

At PASCAL, well, I’m number one / Do vector calculus just for fun / I ain’t got a gat but I got a soldering gun / “Happy Days” is my favorite theme song / I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong / I’ll ace any trivia quiz you bring on / I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon

(Video)

(Original Chamillionaire video for full appreciation.)

David Milofsky recently interviewed me for this Denver Post article about the role of literary blogs. To clarify, the fruit basket was set to Lev Grossman as a gesture of good will and the fruit itself was not intended to be injurious. (See here.)

The Courier: “A Caney Creek High School dad is fired up because the Conroe Independent School District uses the book ‘Fahrenheit 451′ as classroom reading material. Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book. His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language….’It’s just all kinds of filth,’ said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read ‘Fahrenheit 451.’” (Emphasis added.)