Saturday Pearls
Weird Sex
- Last Sunday the British tabloid News of the World posted video footage on its website of [international motor-racing chief Max] Mosley and five prostitutes in what it frothily described as “a depraved Nazi-style orgy in a torture dungeon.” In the secretly filmed video, the paper reports, Mosley “barks orders in German as he whips two hookers dressed in striped uniforms reminiscent of Auschwitz garb while girls in Nazi uniforms look on.” [CNN]
- “I don’t mind getting punched in the face, and I like punching other people in the face,” Burish said. What’s so enjoyable about getting punched in the face? “Nothing,” he said. “The exchange part of it is what I enjoy about it.” Sounds like covert, displaced fucking to me. [G Bitch Spot]
Shrinking Book
- About 56 percent of adults bought books last year, down from 61 percent in 2002. [WaPo]
Awkward Moment
- The Prime Minister, whose future is looking uncertain after he staked his reputation on the stalled military offensive, also asked gunmen to return the 50 government cars and armoured vehicles they captured from his forces during a week of fighting that left close to 500 people dead. [Times Online]
Wrong Foot
- Nobody had expected luxury at Saddam Hussein’s old prison, but morale was low to begin with—the M.P.s just wanted to know when they were going home—and there was something about living in cells at Abu Ghraib that never felt right. “We had some kind of incinerator at the end of our building,” Specialist Megan Ambuhl said. “It was this huge circular thing. We just didn’t know what was incinerated in there. It could have been people, for all we knew—bodies.” Sergeant Davis was not in doubt. “It had bones in it,” he said, and he called it the crematorium. “But hey, you’re at war,” he said. “Suck it up or drive on.” [Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris/New Yorker]
- Jake Tapper claims his “unusually keen sense of smell” once detected “cigarette smoke on Obama.” Amorphous Funk smells something else.
Fast Forward
- Michael Homan on the “fattest skeleton” in his closet.
