Geek blogger Laura June bewails what we’ll call Documentation Syndrome:

Social networks like Twitter have nudged us in this direction — anyone who uses the service as much as I do has surely noticed the odd phenomenon of watching people at an event or watching an awards show, and feeling as if the people Tweeting as they experience are not experiencing in the traditional sense: they are sharing as they experience the experience, which in turn alters the experience.

Welcome to our childhood. And maybe yours.

Read more »

“You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society.” —Bay Minette, Alabama, Police Chief Mike Rowland, explaining the town’s new program allowing nonviolent misdemeanor offenders to go to jail or go to church. [TPM]

Our guest columnist is a Seattle-based online retailer that has been the subject of our recent violent fantasies.

As you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that forced us to terminate our California Associates.

We’re working to relaunch the Amazon.com Associates Program in California as soon as possible. In the next few days, we’ll reach out to all affected past Amazon.com Associates with information how to re-open their accounts.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Amazon to Relaunch California Associate Accounts [Mark’s Hangout, via Daring Fireball]

Previously: Greetings, Pawn! [Stinque]

[WorldNetDaily]

Herman Cain’s victory in the Florida Straw Poll is, in itself, meaningless. Like its Iowa counterpart, the Florida scheme is pay-to-play — it doesn’t tell you anything about a candidate’s electoral support. What it reveals, at most, is a candidate’s financial and organizational cojones.

Still, it’s not good for your Indomitability Narrative if you can’t even buy a fake election. Mitt Romney wasn’t even in town for the fake ballot — a clever dodge — and the fake vote is being read mainly as Rick Perry’s failure to triumph. Cain didn’t so much capture hearts and minds as provide safe harbor for a protest vote — aided on the sly by Mitt’s bucks, it’s being rumored.

But with so many also-rans to choose from, why Herman Cain? Dunno. And, for present purposes, we don’t care to overthink it.

Rather, let us observe that on this day of Our Lord, September Twenty-Six, Two Thousand Eleven, it was at least conceivable — not plausible, but conceivable — that of the two major-party candidates for Preznit of These United States, only one of their four parents would be Caucasian.

We’re not big on American Exceptionalism. But that would definitely be exceptional for America.

And that’s part of the problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R57okozd43M

Title: “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin”

Author: Joe McGinniss

Rank: 93

Blurb: “On Election Day 2008, McGinniss began his on-the-ground reporting that culminated, famously, in his moving next door to Sarah Palin in spring 2010. THE ROGUE is the eagerly awaited result of his research and writing: a startling study of the illusion and reality of Sarah Palin — and a probing look at the Alaska and the America that produced her. Sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, always provocative and illuminating, THE ROGUE answers the questions ‘Who is she, really?,’ ‘How did she happen?,’ and ‘Will she ever go away?’”

Review: “McGinniss does to Alaska with words what David Lynch did with film to our collective vision of America’s heartland.”

Customers Also Bought: “Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs”, by Levi Johnston

Footnote: Once you envision Wasilla as Twin Peaks, everything makes sense.

The Rogue [Fuck Amazon]