Three more.

* Big media hype for the new show from The State alums, Michael and Michael Have Issues.

* 'Smoke Monster From Lost Given Own Primetime Spin-Off Series.'

* Train v. tornado. Place your bets.

Tuesday links.

* Today, we are all already losers: Ed McMahon has died.

* TPM is reporting that Waxman-Markey may go to vote in the House this week after all.

* Beautiful demolished train stations.

* The dizzying fall of MySpace.

* Graphical Overview of Same Sex Marriage Debate, v. 1.3.

* What was once the most secret British government document is released to the public on Tuesday. The Government War Book, used during the Cold War, set out in great detail exactly what would happen in the days before nuclear weapons were fired. Much more here. Via MeFi.

Ron Paul says Amtrak is fascist. It doesn't even run on time!

Monday night.

* This American Life has another of their must-listen episodes this week on the decades of governmental and private-sector regulatory corruption that made last year's financial collapse possible.

* Infrastructurist debunks the story I linked earlier claiming that trains can be less green than planes when the entire production process is taken into account.

After all, in the realm of pure possibilities, of course planes can be greener than trains. So can an SUV with 7 passengers. The real question is not about exceptional cases, but about averages.

...

What the headline writers did was cherry pick the trains with the highest calculated c02 emissions–the Green Line in Boston–were a bit higher than the emissions for some aircraft. And therefore planes can be greener.

* Swedish Pirate Party enters European Parliament.

The party advocates shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing noncommercial file-sharing.

Engstrom said the court verdict in April against four men behind the popular Pirate Bay file-sharing site had boosted the party's support.

"Our membership tripled within a week of the Pirate Bay verdict," added Engstrom, "I think it just made people think that it had gone too far both in Sweden and the rest of Europe."

* Yikes. An Israeli couple are preparing to divorce after the man summoned a prostitute to his hotel room only to discover she was his daughter. In his email, Neil calls this "bad luck." I'd say that's putting it mildly.

Paging Matt Yglesias: A new study that has examined all greenhouse gas emissions created by different modes of transportation concludes that supposedly green methods of travel, such as trains, may actually produce as many or more emissions as flying. Via e360.

A second test of my new camera (in outdoor conditions!) from the Durham train station this morning. You'll note Jaimee's level of contempt for the camera has now reached "2."

All right, that's it, we're about to leave. We're traveling to DC by way of the 19th century, so there will be no more Internets until tonight. In the meantime, Denise of NewPages sent in some "digital poetry games" for your amusement and frustration: I Made This, You Play This, We Are Enemies, the sequel to 2007's brutally bizarre Game, Game, Game, and Again Game.

I know I said I was going to cut back on link dumps, but in my defense I have been busy. I'm likely remain fairly busy (and therefore link dumping) until I get back from the inauguration, at which time I'll be able to devote more time and energy to blogging. In theory, anyway.

Anyway, the link dump.

* Bastard Tetris: the version of Tetris that does openly what all the others just do secretly. (Thanks Jacob!)

* Things to say during sex.

* Another call for a Bush administration truth and reconciliation commission. Via Yglesias, who has more on the subject, as does Steve Benen.

* Big ups to Will Wheaton, who Twittered yesterday: Best thing I've heard all day: "We're in the final 100 hours of the Bush administration."

* Douglas Wolk has Watchmen for dummies.

* The stimulus package needs more trains. More from Yglesias.

* What's in the stimulus for higher education? I could use a second yacht.

* Republicans continue to have trouble with the fact that 24 is not based on a true story.

* Name your child "Adolf Hitler" and you're labeled a prat, and that's the game.

* How many AAAAAs in KHAAAAAAAN? In honor of the late great Ricardo Montelban, Boing Boing reports. Via Bill.

* Is the world a giant hologram?

* And they're going to make a movie out of Jericho. (Failed-)TV-show-to-movie is officially the latest trend—things used to run the other way.

Found on the Internet: The election in train form.

We're leaving (leaving!) on that midday train to Jersey tomorrow morning, so I'll be mostly off-Internet until the evening. Have fun without me. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Salon looks at the environmental and social costs of parking lots, while James Howard Kunstler has an idea to save energy and improve the quality of air travel that is so simple it will never even be considered.