Zooey Deschanel Appreciation Day
Whilst watching the European Grand Prix on FOX this past Sunday I learned of a new television show to debut in the fall: New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel in the titular rôle. The interwebs inform me that also appearing in the cast is Max Greenfield, best known to your humble narrator as Deputy Leo on Veronica Mars. Bonus!



Max Greenfield is seated second from the right. If you cannot pick out Zooey Deschanel from the above photograph then you have my pity.

The intrepid Miss Deschanel's elder sister, Emily Deschanel, plays the titular character on the FOX drama Bones. With both Deschanel sisters to headline shows on FOX I am reminded of that period in the '00s when FOX seemed to own the Masterson bros.: the elder Danny played Hyde on That '70s Show while the younger Christopher played Francis on Malcolm in the Middle. (Delightfully, the Masterson bros. recently portrayed feuding brothers on White Collar. Verisimilitude!)

If New Girl is paired with the returning & much-beloved Raising Hope—the only show besides Jeopardy! that my mother & I enjoy together—that should make for a jolly hour of entertainment, the perfect dose of escapism for a Tuesday night.

The Savage Wars of Peace | Obamboozled
In deriding the threat that al-Qaeda continues poses to American lives & U.S. interests even after the well-deserved execution of Osama bin Laden John Brennan, President Obama's paramount adviser on counterterrorism, makes painfully clear why neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Brennan should ever have been entrusted with our nation's security: poppycocklink. The odd ducks in Wired's "Danger Room" remain skeptical, bless them. All & sundry suppose that economic issues will dominate the 2012 presidential race, but one cannot help but suspect that the Obama Administration wishes to play down national security issues—in this instance by minimizing al-Qaeda & its affiliates—because even in an economic election that will still be perceived as a secondary or tertiary strength of the eventual Republican nominee. (Mayhap I've grown overly cynical; if so, I blame the corrosive influence of British espionage fiction, especially endlessly cynical old television series like Callan & The Sandbaggers.) If Mr. Brennan truly believes that the threat of transnational jihadist (he prefers "extremist") terrorism has passed, let me refer him to the scores Ugandans murdered by the the A.Q.-affiliated al-Shabaab network just over a year ago in Kampala, well outside al-Shabaab's dominions in Somalia.

Science! | The Stars My Destination
President Obama's stated rationale for axing Project Constellation—thereby ending American manned spaceflight upon the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, after which we will be beholden to our Russian comrades for lifts to & from the International Space Station—was to free up greater resources of both manpower & treasure to robotic explorers, planetary rovers such as Opportunity (& the late, lamented Spirit) & the forthcoming ExoMars (which became a joint N.A.S.A./E.S.A. mission once N.A.S.A. cancelled the M.A.X.-C. rover) & deep space probes such as ME.S.S.EN.GE.R. & Cassini. Of course, now it appears that N.A.S.A. is trying to pull the financial rug out from under ExoMars: let's do neitherlink. I disagree with the decision to end manned spaceflight in favor of more unmanned probes, but it is at least a coherent policy; what exactly is the reasoning behind having neither astronauts nor robots exploring the solar system? If we are not to have robots in lieu of men, what exactly is our space policy, Mr. President?

I should have known from the first that our charlatan president's ambition was not limited to ending American leadership in manned spaceflight, but to ending America's involvement in outer space entirely. I suspected him of perfidy, but I should have assumed the worst instead of taking that inveterate liar at his worthless word. A pox on each of you who voted for then-Senator Obama; you did this, you fiends.

Science!

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Pete Seeger & Bill McAdoo, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Get ready for the jubilee,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give the hero three times three,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The laurel wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow,
And we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home."

Dienstag, 28 Juni
Ivy, "Edge of the Ocean" from Long Distance (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The following bit of trivia is not the reason that "Edge of the Ocean" was selected as yesterday's R.B.D.S.O.T.D., but I adore the word ocean. I love "sea," but I adore "ocean."