Wednesday night, post-Zizek-lecture links.

* President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday. Probably the best of a bad set of options.

* How Food Preferences Vary by Political Ideology. I have to confess they have my number on Chinese/Japanese/Thai, not eating fast food, and delicious, delicious Samoas—but my love of pizza and PB&J proves that beneath my leftist facade beats a deeply reactionary heart.

* Already linked everywhere: Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer.

* Ezra Klein: Four ways to end the filibuster. Related: Steve Benen, Harold Meyerson, Kevin Drum.

* GOP Death Spiral Watch: Lindsay Graham censured by the South Carolina GOP for acknowledging the existence of climate change.

* Salon: Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl is possibly the best movie about family, community and poultry thievery ever made.

Closing a few tabs.

* Scientific American considers the cognitive advantages of depression.

* Marginal Revolution has a nature/nuture post on educational outcomes in adoptees.

* Dark Stores of the American recession. More at MeFi, including the British counterpart.

* The Beatles, remastered in mono. Reviews are positive.

* ...last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, did not assign “Mockingbird” — or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.

Among their choices: James Patterson‘s adrenaline-fueled “Maximum Ride” books, plenty of young-adult chick-lit novels and even the “Captain Underpants” series of comic-book-style novels. You had me until "Captain Underpants." (via Vu)

* Smells of New York.

A day in the life of the Abbey Road crosswalk. Via Kottke. Don't miss the man who randomly drops his pants.

Sweet merciful crap, I have a lot of tabs open. Well, I'd better get started.

* Up first: Colbert's "Better Know a Beatle" interview with Sir Paul McCartney from last week, definitely one of his funniest in a while.

* George Saunders remembers John Updike. Saunders also had a typically good story in the New Yorker last week.

* The piece on Caroline Kennedy was pretty good too. I remain persuaded that she would have been a very good Senator but also that she shouldn't have been appointed on anti-dynastic grounds.

* Nor can you lose with a New Yorker story titled "The Invasion from Outer Space" that is actually about an invasion from outer space...

Saturday links: links for a Saturday.

* MetaFilter's apparently been hacked. If you're using a PC and especially if you're using Internet Explorer, don't go there. Maybe don't get there no matter what.

* The New York Times proclaims "the collapse of the clean coal myth." About time, considering there was never any such thing.

* Ranking Beatles songs, #1 to #185. Via Kottke. The White Album takes some early hits.

* Is Wikipedia eating the world? Via Kevin Drum.

* Go play some Scriball.

* And a new blog is devoted entirely to Matt Yglesias's spelling mistakes.

Science-religion-politics Sunday!

* The Vatican has officially forgiven the late John Lennon for a off-the-cuff joke he made forty-two years ago. Let no one doubt the magnanimity of the Catholic Church.

* The "broken windows" theory has apparently been experimentally verified. Giuliani '12? Via MeFi.

* Science confirms the Livia Soprano Theory of the Universe: it's all just a big nothing. Also via MeFi.

* Science confirms that religion strongly correlates with unhappy lives.

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

* Science confirms that America miraculously became "a center-right nation" the day after Barack Obama won the presidency.

* The Cato Institute confirms "Blocking Obama’s health plan is key to the GOP’s survival." Not because it won't work, of course, but because it'll work so well as to discredit their kneejerk anti-governmentism forever. More at DKos.

* Who will pray to Bush for clemency? And how many corrupt presidencies do we need in a row before we abolish the damn pardon power?

* Finally, prepare yourself to go deep inside the ant hivemind.

Thursday links:

* If you thought last night's ABC debate was a travesty, you're not alone. The worst thing I've heard about the debate thus far—and that's saying a lot—is that Stephanopolous let Hannity write some of his questions.

* 'No truth to claims that 13-year-old found NASA error.' NASA stands by its calculation that Asteroid Apophis has only a 1 in 450,000 chance of striking Earth.

* The perfect length for a song has been proven to be 2 minutes and 52 seconds.

You need more proof? Jerk. Let’s look at Sgt. Pepper. “Lovely Rita” is two minutes, 42 seconds. It delivers that psychedelic vibe and a coda but then gets the hell out of your life.

Compare that to “With a Little Help from My Friends.” It’s a mere two seconds longer but feels like it drags on for hours. Maybe it’s Ringo, maybe it’s the tedious melody—or maybe it’s the two goddamn seconds.

Then over here we have “Good Morning Good Morning,” rightfully discarded by the masses as a throwaway. Why? Two minutes, 41 seconds. Hey, Beatles, maybe next time think about tacking on an extra second to give a song the grandeur and majesty it deserves.

* The best films that didn't win the Best Picture Oscar.

* When Nixon Met Elvis.

How McCartney wrote 'Paperback Writer.'

By the time McCartney arrived in Weybridge he had the song's structure in his head. McCartney: “I told John I had this idea of trying to write off to a publishers to become a paperback writer, and I said I think it should be written like a letter. I took a bit of paper out and I said it should be something like ‘Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be...' and I proceeded to write it just like a letter in front of him, occasionally rhyming it. And John, as I recall, just sat there and said: ‘Oh that's it', ‘Uhuh', ‘Yeah'. I remember him, his amused smile, saying ‘Yes, that's it, yes.' You know, if it ain't broke don't fix it. ‘That'll do'. Quite a nice moment. ‘Hmm, I've done right! I've done well!' And then we went upstairs and put the melody to it.

Here's the "Playlist for Change" that will be rocking our apartment tonight as the Super Tuesday results come in. (Close readers of my Sopranos and Kinks mixes may discover some overlap.)

1. Yes We Can (Various Celebrities)



2. Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)

3. Revolution (The Beatles)

4. Gimme Some Truth (John Lennon)

5. The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan)

6. This Time Tomorrow (The Kinks)

7. Imagine (John Lennon). Jaimee is under strict orders to play this song at my funeral, though she says she won't do it. It would bring the house down.

8. Think (Aretha Franklin)

9. Try (Just a Little Bit Harder) (Janis Joplin)

10. You Keep Me Hangin' On (Vanilla Fudge). Set me free, why dontcha you, babe? Get out my life, why don't you, babe? Cuz you don't really love me—you just leave me hangin' on.

11. Understanding Marx (Red Shadow). Because I have to keep my cred with the ultra-left somehow.

12. Livin' in the Future (Bruce Springsteen)

13. I Saved the World Today (Eurythmics)

14. I'm Not Like Everybody Else (The Kinks). Because my earnest support for Obama, while fervent, doesn't put me beyond irony or critical self-reflection.

15. Glad Tidings (Van Morrison)

16. Freedom (George Michael)



17. The Promised Land (Bruce Springsteen)

18. I Love You, Awesome (The Phoenix Foundation, from the Eagle vs. Shark soundtrack)

19. 1999 (Prince)

20. Rockin' in the Free World (Neil Young)

Leonard David at LiveScience has a short post about songs that have been intentionally beamed out into space by SETI researchers. The Beatles' "Across the Universe" was sent out earlier tonight, but Bob Marley's "One Love" has it beat by almost a decade. Which will the aliens prefer? We have a few decades to speculate. Via Gravity Lens.

"A Hard Day's Night" in the style of Richard III, performed by Peter Sellers on a Beatles special in 1964. Via Cynical-C, who is not shap'd for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking-glass.

Sixty years ago today (okay, yesterday) Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.



Click through to YouTube for the rest of the songs, if you don't already own the album...