Raw Meat is a quoteblog by Aaron Swartz.

A new school had been named after General Vang Pao, in order to represent the local Hmong community. Unfortunately, this was immediately before he was sought for trying to overthrow the government of Laos; it looks possible that, whatever the Hmong think about him, he is a less than savoury character. After meetings devoted to deciding whether to rename the school after someone who was not a war criminal, further meetings were devoted to deciding what rule to adopt about naming schools that would avoid future embarrassment (my suggestion, which was to name schools only after characters in AA Milne’s books, on the grounds that it is highly unlikely that any of them will turn out to be a war criminal, rapist, murderer, military coup-leader, or slave-owner (well, Christopher Robin should probably be excluded just in case) was not taken seriously for some reason).

[Aimee Mann] has no patience for either twiddly hippie-girl poetry or temporary-tattoo aggression

The public may have misgivings about a silent and invisible weapon that would boil the body’s fluids before tearing it apart in a burst of vapour.

Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “obama” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’

But McCain promptly told reporters that he disagreed with Hazelbaker [his spokesperson] and that he would speak to her about it. … Hazelbaker was so upset that she did not come to work the next day and refused to take McCain’s apologetic phone calls. Schmidt told the candidate in no uncertain terms that he had to change. McCain, for once, seemed to get the message.