I give you what is objectively the worst song ever to gain commercial release. I’d rather listen to white noise at 110 decibels than ever hear this song again.

If the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t destroy the universe first, this might:

þ Timothy Sandefur.

In the real world, via two consecutive days at the movie theater, Three Doors Down + Cinematography = National Guard Recruiting. It has a surprisingly powerful effect on my patriotism gene, maybe just because it’s a pretty good song in its own right. (Heck, I grew up with the national anthem playing before every movie, so maybe it just filled that gap in my life.)

In the fictional world, via Shawn Zehnder Lea: the How to Spot a Cylon poster and the Battlestar Galactica Propaganda Poster Set, the latter of which I think would be fun to hang on the walls of my office.

Via Julian Sanchez: Alanis Morrissette remakes “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas, radically improving the song in the process (not that that would be hard).

Update: Dan Drezner dissents.

BigJim has the poster, which I assume originates from the other side of the pond.

I am truly speechless.

þ: EDSBS.

Britney and Kevin are no more. The line forms at the Dairy Queen on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge.

EDSBS has dug up a song about Ed Orgeron. If only football coaches got entrance music like professional wrestlers do…

Joy notes that Death Cab is on tour again this fall, including a stop in St. Louis. Très cool.

BigJim alerts me to evidence that the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ latest hit “Dani California” is a rip-off of Tom Petty’s “Last Dance for Mary Jane.” I thought “Dani California” sounded pretty familiar when I heard it the first time, but I just chalked it up to RHCP imitating themselves à la Nickelback.

Things are clearly topsy-turvy when Michelle Branch has gone country while the Dixie Chicks have gone rock-and-roll. Not that the two genres are all that distinct these days, mind you (or, for that matter, historically).

I leave it to my readers to guess which album I purchased.

These two posts from Dirk on a couple of recent jazz concerts reminded me that I never posted about seeing Milcho Leviev and the Pulsar Triyo at Duke last week in a performance sponsored by the Bulgarian student association; while the attendance was disappointing (owing in part to the weather), both performances were great.

Wherein I post about things that have nothing to do with current events:

• The boss gave me tix to see the Durham Bulls in action against the Charlotte Knights Saturday evening at DBAP; here are some photos. The game was rained out in the top of the 7th, but it was pretty fun nonetheless.
• In what has to be one of the most thoroughly bad ideas in human history, my Southern Politics students browbeat me into joining Facebook. Next you know I’ll be streaking all over Durham like Will Farrell in Old School.
• I picked up this Plain White T’s album at Best Buy today; it’s surprisingly good, especially for a band I’d never heard of.
• Most of the remainder of the weekend (other than the time I spent sleeping), I looked over around 20 draft papers for my quantitative political analysis class. Although having a huge stack of papers to grade at the end of the semester isn’t the most fun experience in the world, it’s still cool to see some of the questions—and answers—that students come up with as part of the paper process. Particularly fun is seeing the students who go after underexplored questions and find fascinating stuff.

Thanks to Silflay Hraka and John in Carolina for their kind words and links; both have interesting posts of their own on the Duke lacrosse rape allegations (which I linked earlier this sentence) that are worth reading.

Steven Taylor and Bryan S. take different sides on the issue of leaks; I think Bryan has the better argument:

“Unnamed Sources” damage the credibility of journalists, who often use such sources on stories that have absolutely no real need for such anonymous sourcing. From a political perspective, leaking is not so problematic. From the journalism perspective, it is a cancer on the Washington press corps, which has shown itself craven by not refusing such charades.

On the lighter side, Joy went to see Death Cab and Franz Ferdinand on Saturday night and has reactions to the evening. Now if I can just get tickets for Jimmy Eat World’s next tour my belated transformation into an emo kid will be complete.

Tonight’s concert featuring Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie was great, and well worth the 25 bucks, even if I think I was about the oldest person in my section—and I’m even not that old. It was particularly nice to see Duke undergraduates behaving like the vast, vast majority of Duke undergrads do when they’re not hitting the books—having a good time with their friends while behaving like responsible young men and women. Normally I wouldn’t comment on such things, but after the last few weeks it bears noting.

Over on UPN‘s Veronica Mars, creator Rob Thomas has put most of the pieces on the table for figuring out all of this season’s key mysteries (the identities of those who caused the bus crash and PCH‘er Felix’s killer), as well as side-mysteries like what the Casablancas are really up to. Now if I could just figure out the deal with Logan I’d be set.

Meanwhile, if your only problem with Avril Lavigne is that she’s a solo act, consider Australian sister act The Veronicas, who have smartly figured out that the real money in hit music is in songwriting and clever lyrics (see, e.g. Ludacris), although having good voices and a lot of artistic range helps too.

Only one of my students was apparently aware of Paul Simon’s song “You Can Call Me Al” from Graceland; it came up when we were trying to figure out what to call Al Gore’s dad. Some didn’t actually know who Paul Simon is—the ex-senator or the singer.

Of course, I couldn’t manage to pronounce the name of Al Senior’s fellow senator Estes Kefauver, so I guess we came out even on this score.

I am now the proud owner of two tickets to see Death Cab For Cutie (with Franz Ferdinand) on April 7th at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Would that finding a date for the second ticket was so easy as getting the ticket in the first place…

Michael Blowhard compares the experience of using his iPod Shuffle with taking Viagra. I guess you need the proper frame of reference to figure that one out…

þ: Amber Taylor.

If you spend a lot of time on planes, do yourself a favor and invest in a set of Koss Spark Plug earphones for your portable music player iPod nano; they work a heck of a lot better than any of the active noise-cancelling headphones I’ve seen and won’t set you back anywhere near as much as the upmarket Shure and Etymotic brands, the marginal benefits of which will be drowned out by the jet engine roaring a few dozen feet from your head anyway.

I just wish I hadn’t paid $19 at Best Buy on Sunday for my pair.

My new favorite song: “Baby Got Back” rearranged as a folk song. And, to increase the humor factor, iTunes just decided to play “Standing Still” by Jewel after it.

þ: Amber Taylor.

I guess there’s a “casual Fridays” rule in the blogosphere too (not one I respected today in class, mind you); to that end, my (short) list of albums I enjoy listening to all the way through:

• Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles
• Michelle Branch, The Spirit Room
• Evanescence, Fallen
• Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American (none of this PC renaming crap here)
• Jimmy Eat World, Futures
• Avril Lavigne, Let Go
• Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

I have deliberately excluded albums that I skip more than one song on.

Steven Taylor doesn’t understand the lyrics of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” a song by one-hit wonder band Deep Blue Something (the remainder of their album sucked, by the way).

Meanwhile, I’m trying to be on the cutting edge by deciphering the lyrics of Rihanna’s “Pon De Replay.” Apparently going for the bizarre lyrics trifecta, Rihanna incorporates incomprehensible lyrics from Christina Milian’s “Dip It Low” in addition to the hook:

Come Mr. DJ song pon de replay
Come Mr. DJ won’t you turn the music up
All the gyal pon the dancefloor wantin some more what
Come Mr. DJ won’t you turn the music up

Incidentally, I think I have officially become “old.”

A question that occurred to me listening to XM on the way back from Memphis today: Why would someone think it would be a good idea for the Backstreet Boys to have the first single off their comeback album sound exactly like an early-90s Bryan Adams power ballad?

I’m serious: listen to it, and you’ll be transported back to the era when we were force-fed a steady diet of Adams to help fill A&M Records’ Canadian content quota. (Mind you, not even this explanation is sufficient for Backstreet’s return.)

Shawn points to Joe, who in turn points to an OC Weekly piece by Greg Stacy that attempts to explain what the hell Gwen Stefani is talking about in her hit single “Hollaback Girl.” Mind you, I’m still confused…