Do You Know It's Halloween?

Monday randomness

First, some good stuff from the New York Times opinion page:

• Maureen Dowd turns her column over to Stephen Colbert
• Paul Krugman offers an explanation for the right-wing anti-Gore hysteria
• Thomas Friedman writes on how George W. Bush wasted his presidency

Came across this item in a Washington Times blog (via Pitchfork)—it looks like there's at least one Radiohead fan in the White House: deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, who said he plans to buy the new album. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe and deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel are at least aware the band exists (Stanzel called himself an "appreciator" of their music, while Johndroe is "90 percent sure" he has some Radiohead songs on his iPod...but definitely none from Hail to the Thief).

Then, there's press secretary Dana Perino: "I don't even know what that is . . . Is that a band?"

Seriously? The woman is 35 years old, which would've made her 21 when Pablo Honey came out in 1993. Meanwhile, I was an uncool 10-year-old whose limited exposure to music involved my parents' Beatles, Carpenters, and Beach Boys records, and even I had heard of Radiohead.

There's a new study out that says it's your fault if your kid's a picky eater. According to the NYT article, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent is environmental.

Worst among the horror stories: parents who changed their vacation plans because they were afraid their 11-year old wouldn't like the food in Prague.

An editor at Bon Appétit magazine mentioned how his 3-year-old son will eat only "brown food," while his 6-year-old daughter is an "omnivore's dream child." It's interesting how it works that way. As a child, my favorite food was broccoli and I ate pretty much everything my parents put on my plate (although there was a month-long streak in first grade when I insisted on tuna salad sandwiches for lunch). My brother Daniel was the same way. And then came Timothy, who used to be the 3-year-old who would only eat brown food (and carbs and sugar) and is now the 15-year-old who will only eat brown food (and carbs and sugar) with the occasional lettuce leaf.

Finally—it seems like there have been a lot of pumpkin-related stories in the news (pumpkin chucking, growing giant pumpkins, 1,524-pound contest-winning pumpkin). Mmm, pumpkins. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread...I'm like the Bubba Gump of pumpkins. Can't forget pumpkin carving, either. When I was in college, I carved Conan O'Brien's face on a pumpkin...only to get it stolen right off our front porch. How dirty is that?

Take that, Oprah.

It was announced today that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and my hero, Al Gore, were jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Gore said that he would donate his half of $1.5 million prize to the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection.

Read the full citation here.

Blah blah blah blah

The Republicans debate. Read the transcript here—if you dare. In a nutshell: these guys are toast. Fred Thompson continued to sound like he has no idea what he's talking about. (Although to be fair, I suppose that's also true for the rest of the Republican field.)

I was just waiting for Romney to say something stupid so I could have an excuse to post this picture. And boy, did he deliver:

"We're also going to have to do a better job keeping our taxes down. [Michigan governor] Jennifer Granholm has made a big mistake by raising taxes. I was, frankly, a little nervous to—by being here tonight. I figured that she was going to put a tax on the debate before we got finished."

Ho, ho, ho. Romney, you card.

While Romney likes to claim that he didn't raise taxes when he was Massachusetts governor, he did help make up for it by raising fees and fines by $500 million. What's a governor to do when he's facing a $3 billion deficit and trying to preserve his anti-tax image for a possible future campaign for the Republican presidential nomination? Maybe try to slap new fees on services for the blind and the mentally disabled? Brilliant.

My favorite part is when Chris Matthews asked Romney if he would go to Congress to get authorization to take military action against Iran.

Romney says: You sit down with your attorneys and [have them] tell you what you have to do.

Yeah, and if you don't like what they tell you, go to the ICU and try to intimidate another one who's bedridden and semi-conscious.

So, anybody else having problems downloading the new Radiohead album?