Gifts Wrap-Up

What did you get as gifts this year? 

•Diana Fleischman recently told me about the Bangladeshi government trying to get people to pay taxes out of the kindness of their hearts, hosting festivals to show off the things taxes can pay for, in a country where only about 1% of the population pay their income taxes.  That system doesn't sound half bad. 

•Paul Krugman got a new bra this year.

•On a related note, Diana also told me of Pink's video for "Raise Your Glass," in which lady tatas are treated like cow teats.  You may recall that I half-jokingly predicted a Lady Gaga lactation video before Gaga wore meat.  My prophecies continue to come semi-true. 

•And Gaga continues to be unimpressive, unless I just underestimate my own creative powers.  I think I could easily run the House of Gaga fashion ideas department (coming up with extra ideas just in time for the holiday shopping season): She'll have shoes -- but they'll look like foxtraps!  She'll have an octopus-themed tux -- with eight arms!  I could keep this up all day, people.  Apparently Gaga got Anderson Cooper drunk or something, by the way.

•A far cooler bit of innovative rock gadgetry is this van der Graaf generator-powered electric guitar and electrical-bolt-resisting guitar-playing suit, here used to perform not a Tesla song (nor a song by Van Der Graaf Generator) but "Iron Man."  Now that's rock n' roll [UPDATE: Dammit, video was taken down, but Black Sabbath performing the original is unstoppable].