NYT editorial supporting congestion pricing suspiciously runs April 1st. (Its whiny “public health” angle, so famously effective in banning cigs, is one I have to hold my nose to support.)

All hail the demise of DRM.

Yet another NYT article about dogs that may as well have been written by one. Yeah, we get it: animal articles get clicks. But once you’ve endorsed every indulgent dog trend possible, where will you go, oh paper of record?

Minitel reborn as the Easy Neuf device, whose cost is included in your abonnement. “Nearly 80 percent of all current customer calls relate to problems with Microsoft Windows. We decided it was easier to build our own platform.” I want one for my parents! [Via b.b.]

Gawker weighs in on the Kathy Sierra blogulation. “What doesn’t make much sense is that everyone’s treating this like a condition attached to the internet. Have they gone outside recently, in the real world, where most men are threatened by any sign of assertiveness or influence of women?”

Outcries against gaming’s culture of misogyny (Shrub, Amber, Amber again) foreshadowed Sierra’s fire-starting post that went up two weeks later. Plus, they made the case without whining about their kids.

France’s V150 train is so fast it brought us tomorrow’s Times today! (“Published: April 4, 2007”)

Robert Wright, whose string of articles at Slate a few years back drew me to read his book Nonzero, is a guest columnist for the paper this month. His essay today about the good of the army makes me feel less weird about my secret TV crush, The Unit. (New ep. tonight, or so I’ve heard.)

Times: “It’s sobering to learn that … the one element of American culture that Iraqis took to heart was a television reality show [called Star Academy].” Bullshit, it’s a continental show. We’re no more innovators in reality crap than Iraqis are.

Seth Stevenson disses Crispin for being to fratty. I’m sure that if we watched TV ads theirs would really piss us off.

Ask MeFi: Tell me what NYC symbol to tattoo on myself. A mesh-backed hat! They’re on the same trend curve as tattoos, so you can be a loser in many ways at once.

Iran: “We are sorry of this event.” Yay, even non-native English speakers can play the so sorry—that you are at fault! game (if awkwardly).

This diagram of a “blog” is kind of fun, once you realize that by “blog” The Times means “blog post,” and what they’re really talking about are discussions in a post’s comments. Really, NYT, we’ve told you about this before. You even responded. And by the way, your “blog” diagram applies just as well to blessed articles when you’re talking about a paper that allows comments.

Wouldn’t walled subway stations pay for themselves by reducing lawsuits faster than you can dial 1-800-MARGARITA? Says former MTA prez Reuter, “I definitely discouraged it because it’s a cost item and it’s a maintenance item.” Well then! We’re thankful he’s moved on from ruining our lives with his indolence.

Rep. Rahall (D, W.Va.) on carbon tax: ”I’m not an advocate … That’s going to be passed on; the consumer would end up paying for that.” As opposed the cap-and-trade system, where the Easter Bunny foots the efficiency bill and wonderful consumers are never affected!

Video at Salon (what?) satirizing brain-dead “first” comments. Aren’t familiar? Here’s an atrocious example to peruse during playback to make it funny.
[via Wonkette]

Times holds fashion hostage: “captives [wore] civilian outfits issued by the Iranian government—ill-fitting grey three-piece suits and white shirts.” Ill-fitting? Really? Elsen and Lyall must not have seen regular dudes wearing suits lately if they think that’s ill-fitting. White shirts, also, they have interesting idea of.

Zeitgeist Checklist: no quips jumping off the screen this week, but damn, did you guys watch this video of Newt Gingrich speaking Spanish? It burns. Larry David, please spoof to make this more awkward. Never mind, that’s not possible. Oh, and Zeit—you can take Wonkette’s address out of your YouTube link and it will still work.

A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs. Wherein the paper reports on rules that would make all weblogs as boring as the paper’s own. And parody weblogs are made to sound really scary. On the bright side, this Times piece unlike many before it reads as if edited by a familiar of the Internet. No terms are botched, and regular Web forums are at least alluded to while covering this important blogity-blog-blog news.

Isn’t Miranda July just the cutest thing ever?

Gawker took NYT to task over the weekend for reporting on the paper’s “Own Blog Posts.” Welcome to our party, Crosby kids! Together, as a hugely lopsided Voltron, we can end this pathetic tactic.

NYT: ”The auto industry says more fuel efficient cars could be dangerous, because they will be cheaper to drive and lead people to drive more and potentially have more accidents.” Be careful what you insincerely wring your hands over, auto industry. Carbon tax, ahoy!

Black colleges in Virginia not so welcoming to the gay. Shit, don’t tell Ta-Nehisi Coates or she’ll put you on a Bunsen burner. “Gay students have enjoyed far greater visibility at Virginia’s large, majority white institutions.” Not me, I was invisible. “Virginia Tech’s gay alliance group [blah gay blah].” I stayed safely closeted from that gay-murdering dude named Gay. Virginia sucks, by the way.

This week’s Robert Wright column looks back at the tragedy of America skirting the U.N. to defiantly invade Iraq: “A sacred duty of bodies that authorize things—the Security Council, Congress, zoning boards—is to sometimes not authorize things. (Imagine a world where everything was authorized!)”

You can blame the tech boy for City Slicking’s service outages of the past forty-eight hours. Be nice though, he’s exhausted.

Potential plastic bag ban inspired, naturally, by a treasured pet choking on one and requiring surgery. Let’s cut to the chase let rich toy dogs vote in place of the human poor, too.

Urban Outfitters’ cheap irony (sold at a healthy markup!) has always felt kind of nasty. We aren’t surprised to learn that many of their designs are rip-offs.

Some peak oil dude talking (forever!) about our future without cars says, “I refer to [the fiasco of suburbia] as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.” Drama queen. But, yes! [via Streetsblog]

Praise God, we’ve finally beaten Gawker to a story. And we didn’t use “precious” in the way that instantly became that which it decries!

The paper offers the most perplexing charge of homophobia yet: “But to some people, such stereotyping [of which cars gays prefer] is homophobia, pure and simple.” Some people are idiots, truth be told. “Stereotyping” is a perfectly good, not-loaded word for stereotyping.

Security vs. obesity gets a well-written narrative: “At a PTA meeting … I asked what we could do to encourage families to walk or bike to school. Other parents looked at me as if I’d suggested we stuff the children into barrels and roll them into the nearest active volcano.” (Yes it takes two weeks to get from the L.A. Times to City Slicking.)

The sad state of “feminist” as a word, an idea, and a person gets a full appraisal at Gawker (as much in the comments as the post). It’s good to know we’re not the only ones hating the ”I’m not a feminist, but…” quagmire.

However you feel about religious headgear (it’s dumb!), this story of an Illinois police officer pepper-spraying a Sikh for looking Arab while having an inoperable van with expired registration is pretty shocking. What is this, 2001? And what’s the mysterious “criminal case” against the man? Anwsers, dammit!

Just as I was reading about cat murdering, the office’s newest, smallest, poorly-domesticated dog lifted its leg to piss on the wall. Not a good idea, little guy.

Feel the Terror of FRIDAY the 13th!!!: “A lot of horrible things are happening to people who forgot to remember not to go outside or walk under cats or whatever.”

The wisdom of time-limited commenter registration was borne out by Gould’s recent, botched TV appearance. (Media training is a good investment, Gawker.) The legions of TV-watchers eager to post misspelled rants to the WEB SITE they got so riled about were funneled into a holding pen and now appear in labeled jars of formaldehyde for our detached study.

The church youth group set has always been so gay. Once they find out they can be, like, Christian and gay at the same time, it’s going to be a permanent circuit party in those boxy pre-fab structures that Jesus is praised in nowadays.

Wright’s column today nominates Coulter for an Imus-style firing—otherwise, she’ll set off the apocalypse. In that case we’d better duct tape our doors, because the scattered local rags running her column are never going to dump her on CAIR’s orders, no matter how un-terroristy the org becomes.

Finally, the truth is out about violent video games.

Slate should probably turn off that squiggly red misspelled word feature in PowerPoint before they take screenshots for their retarded American Idol survey. (Although, we tend to agree that “Jordin” is misspelled.) What is Slate thinking in trying to determine the “real” best singers? Deconstruction has occurred; “reality” can not be rebuilt.

Breaking! People shooting people at my dumb old school, Virginia Tech. Again. Blacksburg must have a damn high shooting rate per capita over the past fifteen years.

Broke! “The first reported shooting occurred at West Ambler Johnston Hall.” West AJ? Hell yeah we lived in West mutherfuckin’ AJ 1995–1997, fifth floor whoo hoo! We had us some scuffles with the RAs, made a legendary defiant line of Milwaukee’s Best (the Beast!) cans running the entire length of the hall… no homicides tho.

Holy shit, at least twenty people killed?

Unrelated to all other news this morning, quick watch this latest SNL digital short that spoofs the last cool moment in The O.C. (Like, two seasons before it was cancelled or whevs.) It involes guns, and young people, so expect it to go away soon.

Insta-poo-poo says, if only Virginia Tech students and teachers could have borne arms, they might have protected themselves. Sounds plausible! But our ex-VT take is, maybe if Virginia weren’t such a gun-happy place that actually tries to pass laws preventing colleges from banning guns, there wouldn’t be so many insane, pistol-toting Virginians wandering around Blacksburg (and all five gay bars outside the D.C. area) killing people every few years, and now making southwest VA gruesomely world famous. Sic semper tyrannis—you tell ’em crazy Virginia!

“Sorry” spectacles: “In the contemporary theater of contrition, the point of ritualistic public apologies isn’t to demonstrate that an offender is really, truly sorry, but only that public opinion has the power to exact the expression of self-abnegation … that’s inherent in a formal apology.”

It does feel strange reacquainting myself with VT through a campus map indicating where people were murdered. It’s such a sprawling complex; there are many buildings I never entered. I thought I hadn’t had any classes in Norris, but seeing where it is I did have Computer Engineering there. Most of my classes were through these intensely familiar doors of McBryde.

NYT already filed its first cynical item on the Virginia Tech story, taking TV news people to task for doing their dramatizing jobs. This quote from a school violence think tank is pretty genius: “I can’t believe another one of these has happened.”

If we needed another reason to recoil in horror at the idea that more guns might have made the Virginia Tech massacre less bad, a witness reported that the “gunman … proceeds to go classroom by classroom wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding 2 9-MM pistols.” Any cowboys packing heat in their backpacks would not have stood a chance against this fellow. Don’t NRA-types ever watch The Wire? Or news of real life gun-saturated neighborhoods? Shooters are not put off by the threat of their opponents (or the “good guys”) having guns; they just invest in body armor and more guns.

Should America build a moat? “It’s a well-known fact that Mexicans are not buoyant.”

Holy Boing Boing! Being a Virginia Tech “alum” got this pro-gun response linked-up in a Boing Boing VT shooting summary, along with a shockingly unshocked treatment by Xeni Jardin. As a VT grad, and alumnus if you must say it in Latin, I’m just glad I got out of that crazy state alive!

For some people the whole fairytale (ergo, Disney!) wedding thing is literal: “The Gown, The Slipper, The Kiss and The Prince. Under it all, every girl believes in the dream.” Vom, is all we can say. But they’ve forgotten the greatest Disney girl ever, as Gawker points out, “Has Ariel’s original message been lost? Bright young women, sick of swimming, ready to stand….” (Emily G, we now pronounce you as good as Jess C.)

What, you don’t have a zooming, 3D rendering of your freshman year dorm in The New York Times? (Nice job, but it’s missing a front door!) My first home away from parents was on that closest mini-wing, left side, fifth floor.

Boing Boing re-pubs a satire of using tragedy to advance politics, the day after running a loose cannon political analysis of the Virginia Tech shooting. City Slicking is all for loose cannon political analyses of recent tragic events in the hopes of fixing the damn problems while people are paying attention—and we don’t regret it the morning after.

The paper answered our copy editing question and we didn’t even notice! Who knew their Q & A went on for thirteen web pages? Or that the paper would include the e-mail without replying to it? Whatever, the answer makes our belated day! “First, let me thank you for allowing me to reiterate that WE CHANGED THAT RULE about apostrophes!” Continued, just search the enormous all-in-one page for that line. You can also find someone’s real name in there, which is causing “us” to take the sheepish, awkward “we” into terrified overdrive.

Florida six year old arrested for throwing tantrum. “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’ve arrested?” [via Schneier]

Language Log’s poignant snowclone of the week: “Today, we are all Hokies.” Previously, when I would tell people that my college mascot was a turkey / not-a-turkey / the “Hokie Bird” and that we the fans were “the Hokies,” the response was something like, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Now, hooray, everyone is a Hokie!

Heterophobic humor—tee hee hee! How “good” is everyone’s sense of humor when the jokes are inverted?

Just collided with a woman who was going, trancelike, for a free Jamba Juice sample tray on Houston’s narrow, contruction-ridden sidewalk. I guess she figured I would stop for the carpetbagging fancy slurpie queens from California on my sidewalk. Not really, thanks!

The paper reports: “And in the talk on Sunday—Earth Day—the mayor … is expected to advocate … charging drivers to enter the busiest sections of Manhattan.” Should this happen, City Slicking will be sorry for not supporting his reelection. Please make us eat crow.

In only two years, Shoup’s High Cost of Free Parking has made it all the way from loony liberal land to wonky economist land. We’re that much closer to businesses not being required by law to build enormous unused parking lots.

Kansas sets out to remind us that it is the craziest state by sending “protestors” to Virginia Tech. What are they protesting? Who knows! Fags or something.

Robert Wright on love as evolution’s secret weapon: “A love-impelled grandparent sacrifices her life to save a child’s life. Too bad for the grandparent, but mission accomplished for the love genes!” (Exclamation point ours—we couldn’t resist.)

Bloomberg announced his plan for congestion pricing today: “The question is not whether or not we want to pay, but how do we want to pay. With an increased asthema rate? With more greenhouse gasses? Wasted time? Lost business and higher prices? Or, do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit? [applause]” He just might sell this thing!

Slate explains how to attack a psycho gunman: “Then, punch him in the face or the throat as hard as you can. Hit him on the nose, jab your fingers into his eyes, or strike him with the heel of your open palm.” Noted.

Today’s paper: “Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday, a move that would propel New York to the forefront of one of the most contentious issues in politics.” Finally, news we can use.

Pandering Democratic opposition to congestion pricing: “Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, a U.S. congressman who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, is running to be elected mayor in 2009, opposes congestion pricing and said it amounts to a ‘tax on working families.’” I actually voted for that guy in the mayoral primary—oops!

Many people write weblogs in proud defiance of their limited writing abilities. They chug along, making sure to use metaphors and stuff! David Maynor tosses this gem: “I can hear John Gruber tapping away and silent sobbing in the distance…” Hearing something silent? And that silent something is a noise? And the heard silent noise is disjointed from Gruber tapping? Lo, ’tis paradoxes within paradoxes! [via the tapper himself]

NYT is rightly cynical about consuming our way out of eco-disaster with happy-fun “green” products: “Trend-sensitives as finely attuned to a cause as they are to the charms of Hermès paddock boots, Ms. Barnett’s guests seemed to share her conviction that in this day of fervent eco-consciousness, one can never be too green.” [via Gawker]

The paper’s movie critic pokes at imaginary links between the VT massacre and cinema. We are going to steal this line sometime: “It is hard to say what all this proves, other than that Mr. Hunter has no peer when it comes to wielding the conditional tense on deadline.”

Wright files today on our curious attempts to spread democracy globally in a way (war!) that makes the world’s common people hate us, more. (A theme of Nonzero.) And we missed this earlier one about the mixed social messages of e-mail.

The paper’s first editorial on congestion pricing after its announcement comes out mostly for it (because of someone called Hillel the Elder—we didn’t really get that part).

Onion News Network: “A coup today in Haiti, of course.” (Video)

Exquisite use of corporate jargon: “At yesterday’s brief meeting, Wolfowitz said he appreciated senior managers’ ‘brainstorming’ about ways to improve bank management and said he is considering a ‘coach’ to assist him in changing his leadership style.” My boss spells it “BrainStorming.” [via Wonkette]