Q: You know what's an even better way to subvert "American Idol"?

A: BY NOT WATCHING AMERICAN IDOL. And especially by not blogging about American Idol. Oy fucking vey, people. Please avert your eyes, I need to go on a

CRAZY OLD MAN RANT: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, AMERICA? IS YOUR BRAIN ON FIRE!?! WHY ARE WE ALL STILL WATCHING TERRIBLE SHOWS ABOUT ANNOYING PEOPLE SINGING TERRIBLE MUSIC TERRIBLY!?!? WHEN IS THIS PHASE OF AMERICAN CULTURE GOING TO BE OVER?!?! PLEASE? ANYONE?

WHY THE TERRORISTS HATE US: Arrested Development = cancelled. Freaks & Geeks and Mr. Show = cancelled (a million years ago, but still the pain lingers). Stella = cancelled. But American Dad? Inexplicably not cancelled. Two & a Half Men = America's #1 comedy. Everybody Loves Raymond = in syndication for the next 300 years. Mind of Mencia = get ready for an exciting new season!!! Becker = existed. CBS = still a network. American Idol = WATCHED BY 40 BILLION PEOPLE.


(It's also possible that I'm just annoyed Andrew Sullivan somehow has time to watch American Idol, in between posting to his blog 400 times daily, reading all known newspapers, magazines, insane Conservative bloggers and books, making frequent radio and television appearances, keeping in touch with surreal European sports, smoking tons of weed, and performing his actual job as Senior Editor of the Atlantic. I am now 100% positive that he is repeatedly cloning himself. And that the cloning turns out to be exactly as portrayed in Multiplicity, with each clone a tiny bit dumber than the previous one, and that it's the 700th clone who watches American Idol.)

EARLIER: Are Americans total idiots?

Q: Where else could I have found this amazin' dancin' horse than via Andrew Sullivan?

A: I can't believe I watched the whole thing — but you have to admit, this is mighty impressive.



Posted on the Daily Dish as Sunday's YouTube of the Day, this dancing Danish horse (for the record, it's Andreas Helgstrand's blue hors matine WEG2006 Freestyle Dressage Final performance, not that I have any fricking clue what that means) is possibly the most fantastically Andrew Sullivanesque clip of all time. I can barely count all the Sullivanisms!

1. Bizarre sporting event that only Europeans could consider entertaining? Check.
2. Cheesy 80s power ballads? Check.
3. Dry British humor? It's got British commentators and a sashaying horse, so I'm going with Check.
4. Infinitely better if you're stoned out of your gourd? Double check.
5. Gayness? It's got British commentators and a sashaying horse, so I'm going with Quintiple check.
6. [insert horse cock joke]? Check.

If you were playing the Daily Dish drinking game, you'd be dead by now.

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RELATED: Sully isn't the only modern genius smoking the ganja. The late Carl Sagan loved him some loco weed. Money quote:

I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs.

LEGALIZE IT, BIOTECHS!

EARLIER: I love me some Andrew Sullivan.

Q: Prithee, tell me, how goes the blogosphere? (Also: Why RSS previews suck)

A: The blogosphere, I am delighted to report, is well and good and fair; for Andrew Sullivan, my very favorite gay conservative blogger (possibly my favorite blogger of any sexual orientation/political mindset) has moved from time.com to theatlantic.com, where he becomes Senior Editor.

Who gives a shit? I'm glad I asked! Those of you familiar with the exciting world of RSS know that, when setting up feeds, bloggers have the option of offering full posts or just previews of those posts. Almost all top blogs offer the first option (sometimes ad-supported, as with the Gawker Media empire's feeds¹). But Time Magazine switched to previews a few months ago, possibly because they believed it might prop up their failing business model to force subscribers to visit the site².

RSS previews are fine, I suppose, for stuff like the Comic Curmudgeon or the Perry Bible Fellowship, feeds that are only updated once daily or weekly. But with Sullivan's Daily Dish, which updates something like once every seven minutes³, it completely eliminates the concept of what's supposed to be Really Simple Syndication. Why do through the trouble of opening a new tab every time a Sullivan item came through my Google Reader, when I can view all the day's items just by visiting his site? And so I'd canceled my Sullivan subscription; and then invariably neglected to visit his site, on account of laziness.

Thankfully, the Atlantic Monthly is smart enough to realize that, in the democracy that is Web 2.0, you'll always be better off in the long run by keeping the users' best interests in mind. And so Sullivan is back to full RSS posts (good news for me), back on my reading list (good news for those of you who like to check in with my Recommended Reading), and back in my heart (GREAT news for Andrew Sullivan).

Some notable recent items from A.S.' D.D.:

• Hugh Hewitt is starting to address the fact that the U.S. condones and practices torture — and only a few years late.
• The prospect of "President Giuliani" excites Republicans, disgusts New Yorkers.
  
• Showcased by Sullivan "for Valentine's Day" without commentary (or advance warning), this prize-winning wedding portrait of a Marine recently returned from Iraq confronts viewers with the grotesque realities of war.
• No, Sullivan's posts aren't always pretty, but he's not milking the horror for shock value. The Daily Dish simply presents the world as it is: sometimes funny, but often just awful.

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¹ Ad-supported RSS feeds will probably become much more prevalent, once AdSense finally makes available its feed-based code (which has been in private beta for nearly two years). And as goes Google, so goes everybody trying to compete with Google. The good news is, I hope, that the uptick in RSS advertising might help to eliminate the use of previews-only feeds altogether.
² Time Magazine is not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to technology; just look at their hideous favicon (and yes, I am a huge nerd — as if I hadn't already made that clear).
³ Speaking of which: Has Andrew Sullivan cloned himself? How does a man hold down a Senior Editor position while simultaneously being the most prolific blogger on Earth?

Q: Remember that would-be "dirty bomber," Jose Padilla?

A: If you're like most of our nation's capital, writes Andrew Sullivan, you've probably forgotten him.

Sullivan's essay in the Sunday Times will surely jog your memory -- and his account of what's happened to Jose Padilla in the four years since Bush dubbed him an "enemy combatant" will leave you with some disturbing new ones.

• Jose, Victim of a Sinister New America [Sunday Times] [via the Daily Dish]

"Pucho" Padilla: Not such a "dirty" bird after all?

Note that the media hysteria from 2002 about Padilla's ominous plans to detonate a dirty bomb was probably bullshit; the crimes for which he was finally charged don't even mention it. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors seek to block Padilla's attorneys from asking questions the Pentagon doesn't care to answer.

Of course, Americans only have time to be outraged about one Padilla, and they prefer to focus on the one who can throw a baseball. Not that paying Vincente Padilla $11.25 million per year isn't outrageous -- it totally is. Dude's not even that good.