OUTRAGEOUS QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass
destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense

That seems to be the quote of the week, and it keeps coming back to haunt me -- I emailed Mr. Langdon and he over-attributed me, as though I had posted on my own raggedy-ass "blog" (as the kids say). I mean, all I did was send him a couple of links, from Eschaton and Plastic (an older QuickLink) Honest, that's all!

The first casualty of the 2004 race -- John Cusack.

Uzbekistan seems to have started on the pathway to a US invasion. (There's a pretty standard timeline: first, the US-supported regime's repression and torture, then the revolution, then the Islamic republic, then the trumped-up charges of imminent danger to the US, and then around about 2018 we can go in and kick ass...)

You are "Complicated"


What Avril Song are you
brought to you by Quizilla

The Japanese never disappoint.

My first sighting of the "Wha' hoppen?" meme. Damn you, Mike LaFontaine!

Here's a little controversy for you, Mr & Mrs America -- Ari Fleischer is a poopyhead, and I'm glad he's retiring. Hah!

Thank god for the Nuge -- still fightin' the good fight against "liberal hippies in the media" (oh, yeah, and Japs and niggers, too.)

Rockstar Games has Grand Theft Auto (the original) available for free download, for all you avid auto, uh, thefters.

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard Scissors cuts Paper. Paper covers Rock. Rock crushes Lizard. Lizard poisons Spock. Spock smashes Scissors. Scissors decapitates Lizard. Lizard eats Paper. Paper disproves Spock. Spock vaporizes Rock. Rock crushes Scissors.

Teen Lingo, straight from "The Source".

Fo' shizzle.

Chris Matthews is an idiot.

The Mighty Wurlitzer is cranking itself up, and the So-Called Liberal Media is uniting to suppress the furor over Bush's Top Gun lite visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln. Of course low-rated basic cable commentator and former Republican congressman Scarborough is spewing the party line over this, but even alleged news network CNN is digging up anyone and everyone who is willing to give the impression that this outrage is merely a case of sour grapes for the Democrats. (Scarborough, predictably, smeared Senator Robert Byrd as "former KKK member", although he didn't, as far as I was willing to keep watching, refer to Bush as "former alcoholic and deserter". Go figure.)

The American Prospect's TAPPED has a fine, although almost certainly doomed look behind the curtain at Mr. Bush's recent visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln. Although it had already been out for ten months, the longest ever for a nuclear-powered carrier, "[t]he ship was slowed so Bush could spend the night on board before it docked on Friday, officials said."

And Clinton got a shitstorm for a fucking haircut.

Screw this taco stand -- I'm looking at the prospect of making a lot of money real soon:

Subject: TOP OF THE DAY
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 17:35:54 -0400 (EDT)

ATTN:THE PRESIDENT/C.E.O.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am DR. Yetunde Bassey. Bank Manager of Diamond Bank of Nigeria, Lagos Branch. I have urgent and very confidential business proposition for you.

On June 6, 1999, a FOREIGN Oil consultant/contractor with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Barry Kelly made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at US$25,000,000.00 (Twenty- five Million Dollars) in my branch.

Upon maturity, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that Mr. Barry Kelly died from an automobile accident.

On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr. Barry Kelly did not declare any kin or relations in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$25,000,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to claim it.

According to Nigerian Law, at the expiration of 5 (five) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the Nigerian Government if
nobody applies to claim the fund.

Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as an Foreigner to stand in as the next of kin to Mr. Barry Kelly so that the fruits of this old man’s labor will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials.

This is simple, I will like you to provide immediately your full names and address so that the Attorney will prepare the necessary documents and affidavits, which will put you in place as the next of kin. We shall employ the service of an Attorney for drafting and notarization of the WILL and to obtain the necessary documents and letter of probate/administration in your favor for the transfer. A bank account in any part of the world, which you will provide, will then facilitate the transfer of this money to you as the beneficiary/next of kin. The money will be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio of 65% for me and 30% for you.5% Will be for settling expences on my part and yours,also for tax when the funds arrive yourcountry.

There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the Attorney and my position as the Branch Manager guarantees the successful execution of this transaction. If you are interested, please reply immediately via the private email address below.

Upon your response, I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction.
Please observe utmost confidentiality, and rest assured that this transaction would be most profitable for both of us because I shall require your assistance to invest my share in your country.

Awaiting your urgent reply. Via the following email addresses: bayet@hknetmail.com, bayet1@hknetmail.com, bayett1@mail.com.

Thanks and regards.
DR. YETUNDE BASSEY.

Somebody appreciates the value of the MRJEFF3000 brand...

Reviewer/blogstar/payroll expert Matt Langdon takes a detour into Joe Bob Briggs country with his latest DVD review, for the box set French Erotic Collection. See? I told you he wasn't just a film snob!

I'm surprised it's taken him this long to stake out an online presence: Rough Point -- Geraldo Speaks Up.

ABCNEWS.com's Notepad is an oddly compelling assortment of 200-words-or-less statements from each of the Democratic candidates' campaigns ("When there is a Bush campaign, we will welcome their Notepad contributions. Candidates of other parties will also be considered.")

Just in case you were wondering if this country had gone completely nuts or not, here you go: two American Legion posts and two other veterans groups in Pleasanton, CA, recently sponsored classes in dowsing as a way of looking for domestic terrorists. Well, terrorists are made mostly of water...

As a pretty-well satisfied XM customer, the only thing I'm waiting for is a Walkman-style portable version. Well, wait no longer.

(sigh)...maybe you should wait a little longer.

I feel an obligation to post at least once a week, so here's something (and some links): Sunday I went to the LA Times Festival of Books, on the UCLA campus. I saw George Plimpton at the Paris Review booth, and somebody who looked like MTV-and-Premiere-Magazine-somebody Chris Connelly walking around.

As usual, the Autry Museum's booth was one of the best (I picked up the hardcover companion book to LACMA's "Made in California" exhibition of a couple years back for twelve bucks).

You can't always depend on the kindness of strangers. (Sorry, Blanche. Not in America.)

The Israeli Supreme Court has, despicably, denied women the right to pray out loud at the Western Wall, citing the danger that women's voices could provoke ultra-Orthodox men to riot. (Don't forget, of course, the prayer, Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, shelo asani ishah; "Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman.")

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- religious law, be it sharia, or halakha, or whatever else, is bullshit inherently incompatible with pluralistic societies. (Via Alas, a blog)

It is the easiest thing in the world to do a blog entry about someone saying how great The Daily Show is. I like to do things that are easy. So here.

"The Care Bears are out of hibernation… and sizzling!" American Greetings ("Greeting the Future!") has jumped on the 80's-retro bandwagon. Mike Brown, Vice President of Licensing for American Greetings, obviously has the Care Bear ethos at the core of his being: "The Care Bears helped revolutionize the licensing industry in the '80s....Earlier this year, we commissioned a brand recognition study, and we were astounded to learn that the Care Bears have an 88 percent recognition level among women ages 18 to 49." (Yeah -- Marketing Asshole Bear was always my favorite too, Mike.)

He is a citizen temporarily serving us, living in our house, drawing our pay, spending our money and acting in our name. We have the right and, yes, the duty, to expect him to perform at a high standard. If we don’t do this, we’re performing below the standard that should be expected of us.

NPR's Bob Edwards, on the president (among other things), in the Louisville Courier-Journal

It would seem that what some ladies really find sexy is a lying sack of shit suave, well-dressed, charismatic gentleman.

I urge all Americans, and members of both parties, to join me in condemning Sen. Santorum’s remarks. They are unacceptable, and silence is an unacceptable response. By standing up against such divisive rhetoric—whether one is gay, lesbian, or straight—we can begin to achieve the American ideal of equal rights for all people.

Howard Dean rocks.

GIs get into the spirit of things, try to steal $1 million of the $700M cash recently found in Baghdad.

Too bad they didn't get away with it -- I loved Kelly's Heroes.

Two-parent families, says Santorum, are good. Requiring people to work is good. So is banning late-term abortions and giving religion a greater role in government. Traditional welfare, on the other hand, hurts the family. Homosexuality, feminism, liberalism all undermine the family. Even parts of the Constitution can harm the family.

"Won't somebody think of the children???" Lucky us -- Rick Santorum will.

Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right (Hooray for Ariana Huffington!)

"I don't have a problem with [government surveillance]. I don't have anything to hide," Turner said. "I wish there was more government monitoring. I want to know if somebody on my block is reading a book on how to build a bomb or if there is anyone reading 'Catcher in the Rye.' They say there's a link between that book and many serial killers.

via WWDN

What the hell is "contempt of flag"?!? I have pretty much had it with fools who value a rectangle of colored cloth more than they do the First Amendment.

"There was a time when the Arabs said that their books were written in Cairo, printed in Beirut and read in Baghdad. Now they burn libraries in Baghdad." Robert Fisk, in The Independent

The kook parade.

Damn that Michael Moore backlash! (Dare I hope that some politician can follow his lead and get backlashed right into the White House?)

Sound recordings (oh, so many!) from the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. There's something very Jetsons about listening to seventy-year-old recordings, made on an early reel-to-reel recorder, as mp3s downloaded from the internet. And these bits of the past aren't Buddhas the Taliban can destroy, nor looters steal.

The Lunacy of Misguided Patriotism (from the Detroit Free Press)

You know, occasionally I wonder things. Things like, what if famed poet William Butler Yeats had written for the TV show Laverne & Shirley?

INT - LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY'S LIVING ROOM

          LAVERNE:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

THE DOOR BURSTS OPEN.

          LENNY AND SQUIGGY:
Hello!

I'm so sorry...I'm so very sorry...

Now that the Two Towers fake uproar has settled down, one wonders what new outrage might be on the horizon. What, indeed.

It's Picnic Day again, and I'm not there. (Of course, it's just not the same without Lawsuit playing.) Get downtown early enough to stake out some curbside space to watch the parade (one year I actually got to be in it, riding in the anchor seat of a bicycle built for four). Try not to get rained on. Walk around campus afterwards -- see the nematode exhibit, the fistulated cow, listen to the astounding UC Davis/Sac State/Humboldt State/Stanford Battle of the Bands down by Putah Creek, eat an It's-It or two, and then, tired but happy, bike home and have a barbecue.

Good times.

I'm famous! The MRJEFF3000! blog is now the number one Google result for the search term "mrjeff3000"! Quite an accomplishment, doncha think?

If only they'd turned their powers toward playing the stock market, they'd be billionaires by now.

Everybody loves 20th century American classical music (although I am told that a few poor souls are still unwilling to admit it). Minnesota Public Radio brings us American Mavericks, a 13-part radio series, and more importantly, website with two streaming music channels and hours of works performed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Worried about someone else making money off your photo of Elvis working at the gas station down the street? The US Copyright Office to the rescue!

You think Doctors Without Borders would let kids ride around on a fuckin' decapitated rusty statue head without a helmet?

Get Your War On: V.I. Day!

Dr. Saleh had begun to weep, and I could hear him catching his breath. He tried to compose himself, and we said goodbye to Ali. Neither of us spoke as we walked down the hall to the sterile room, where the orderlies took off our smocks and masks. Dr. Saleh rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat several times. We went back to his office, and he washed his face in a sink. "So it's untrue what they say about doctors being able to suspend their emotions," I said.

He looked at me. His eyes were pink. "We are human beings," he replied. He explained that Ali knew that he had lost his arms, but that he had not acknowledged it yet: "He is conscious. He can see the stumps." Ali would likely die within three weeks.

Many of us have heard of the plight of Ali Ismail Abbas, whose family was killed and who was himself horribly wounded after a missile hit his home. Although a fund has been set up, his prognosis is, well, not good.

Today I said goodbye to an old friend, who’s supported me and been around me for the past 31 years. He never did get me into the Welsh football squad but even so I hadn’t planned for our parting to be so sudden. Sometimes, though, life takes an unexpected course.

Stuart Hughes doesn't have a lot of snarky links about pop culture in his blog, Northern Iraq Weblog.. The BBC producer, who was injured by a landmine explosion in northern Iraq which killed cameraman Kaveh Golestan, writes instead about the dangers of reporting from the Kurdish front, other reporters who have been killed, and about losing his foot.

"Those who deface a Hummer in words or deed, deface the American flag and what it stands for."

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

I missed the PBS episode of Independent Lens about the song Strange Fruit last night. I hope they show it again. (If you haven't heard it, here's an mp3 of Billie Holliday, who made the song famous. )

Twin Peaks came along a decade too soon: The Secret Blog of Laura Palmer.

Lowry Mays is the Big Daddy of radio. The founder and CEO of Clear Channel, Mays oversees 1,233 radio stations with some 100 million listeners across all 50 states, and runs a company with $8 billion in revenues and a $23 billion market cap. But ask Mays about what he does for a living and you won't hear much about musicians or how to bring up ratings or who's the best DJ. Those things don't interest him much. Truth is, Mays isn't that passionate about what goes out over the airwaves. As long as his broadcasts sell ads, he's happy. "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company," says Mays, 67. "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products."

Fuck you, ClearChannel (Part XVIII)

Six years later, the Jonbenet Ramsey murder case still occasionally burbles to the surface. Well...we don't have Osama yet, either. Here's to another half-decade of accusations and recriminations!

Thin Ice (a parable). Remember -- anyone who's against war in Iraq really wants American soldiers to die.

Vertigo...Then and Now compares screenshots from Hitchcock's 1958 movie with photographs of the same locations taken in 2003. Really cool stuff.

The Hartford Advocate has a wonderful editorial, "I Miss America".

I miss Richard Nixon. What I mean is, I miss the days of Richard Nixon when, even while the Trickster and Spiro Agnew were abusing power, a loyal opposition resided in Washington, D.C. I miss the days when a loyal opposition was bipartisan, well-spoken and independent-minded, when it included people like Daniel Moynihan, who died this week, and Lowell Weicker, then a Republican Senator from this great state. I miss the time when the Republican Party had smart people in it, even if you disagreed with them, people like Mark Hatfield, Barry Goldwater, John Chaffee. I miss the time when even so-called "doves" like William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, George McGovern and Morris Udall were admired by those who voted differently from them. I miss the checks and balances that were built into our Constitution and worked so well for this nation up until November 2000.

The gates of summer open tonight. Daylight Saving returns!

Today's Question of the Day from Wolf Blitzer is particularly idiotic: "How long do you think it will take coalition forces to take control of Baghdad?"

One, this is a website "poll". Not a scientific poll, where a genuine cross-section of the population is asked the question, and the outcome is a fairly accurate picture of where things stand. But a fucking uncontrolled hey-go-ahead-and-tell-all-your-friends-to-come-over-and-skew-the-results website question which, if we are very lucky, actually requires you to delete the cookie before you go and vote again. Sure, it's been amusing to watch FARK take over some of the Forbes online polls, but I'm still naive enough to think that a purported news organization would have more integrity than this.

Two, if the political and military geniuses who planned this war don't know how long it'll take (and it has become obvious that they don't), then nobody does. And there's no point in asking. There is nothing useful that can be learned from this "poll", except for which faction does a better job of marshalling its forces to click the 'vote' button. Our future: the illusion of participation.

I was nosing around the web looking for confirmation of that old "fact" that primitive cultures can count up to three, and after that everything is just "many". (Why? Never you mind.) Is it true? Mostly.

It's nice to see that CNN has a new website devoted solely to reporting on Iraq. If it has the CNN name on it, it's got to be accurate, right? (Well, it's still less rabid than FOX News.)

A chronology of the Jaime Hernandez Love & Rockets characters and stories.

Skateboards? Totally over. Rollerblades? Yawn. Scooters? Get a clue, grandpa.

Today's youth are taking it to the extreme -- wheelbarrow style.

You can keep your Howard Dean, your Joe Lieberman, your John Kerry -- none of them have that certain something.

Not like Randy Crow.

Think social awareness and leftist political activism is just hippy-dippy bullshit? Wrong, man -- it's totally punk.

I only wish it were a joke.

"There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy." Paul Krugman, in the NYT.

Saddam Hussein's horoscope for today (he was born 4/28/37, which makes him a Taurus), from astrology.com:

You find yourself on the way to your next great adventure. Don't forget to make a comfort stop during your great quest. You may be getting out of touch with the people whose efforts have made this journey possible. Dropping a letter or postcard in the mailbox doesn't take up a lot of your time, and it means a lot to the recipient. Tonight, keep in mind that different cultures have different rules. Collect your wits and remember your manners in public.

The Iraqi dictator might want to get out his aromatherapy candles and healing crystals, too, because his biorhythms are not in a happy place right now.

Everybody is aware of the existence of peppermint Altoids. And I daresay that many know of the cinnamon, spearmint and wintergreen varieties. But ginger?

We're through the looking glass here, people...

Say what you will about Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech^*, you have to admit that a plurality of the Academy voted for him knowing full well that's the way he'd use his 45 seconds. (I wouldn't be surprised if a sizeable percentage of his votes came from people for precisely that reason.)

^* Still, I think it was a mistake for him to rant, in this circumstance. "Hollywood" is already under attack as it is from the intolerant jingo sharks. Moore just poured more blood into the water.

As we continue onward in this new war of the President's, with men and women killing, and being taken prisoner, and sometimes being wounded or dying, I am struck with one very important thought: thank God it is still illegal for homosexuals to serve in the US military.

Oh, shit -- what if some of the embedded reporters are gay?

I went down to the park today. Nobody was firing any missiles into buildings there. Nobody kept saying SHOCKANAWE over and over. No protesters giving the peace movement a bad name with their BU$H=HITLER signs.

Just the sun. And the grass. And the blue, blue sky.

I think I'll go again tomorrow.

""Well, actually," says the spokesman, "just today the central American presidents will make a declaration about the war." In it, will Panama come out in support of US and British action against Iraq. "How?" Any how. "We aren't sending anyone to the Gulf." Is Panama offering the coalition of the willing moral support? A short pause. "Not really," says the spokesman, thinking it over. "No. Not really."

Just what are the nations in the "Coalition of the Willing" doing to support the war? The Guardian asks around.

Two vomit-centric links have appeared lately, protesting a culture that induces bulimia, and the war, respectively.

Sorry about that. Have a mint.

Hooray for the Public Domain, part XXIII.

(insert obligatory "there's a new Get Your War On update" link here.)

Well, I'm off to Trader Joe's to pick up a case of really cheap wine, and some bottles of Vodka of the Gods. Why? The Gulf War (Two) Drinking Game, natch. Oh, yeah -- better reserve my new liver now.

Stop the war or the clown gets it!

"Salam Pax" is the author of the Where is Raed? weblog, which claims to be the blog of an Iraqi in Baghdad. Mindful of the New Yorker cartoon, "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog," and the infamous Kaycee Nicole hoax, some are skeptical that Salam Pax is who he says he is.

Is he? Actually, he probably is.

Not unilateral at all: a quick look at the list of the nations comprising the "Coalition of the Willing" shows that we have on our side powerhouses like Eritrea, Slovakia and Uzbekistan. I think their primary job is to contribute tasty ethnic recipes.

Today's Kausfiles suggests that last night's missile attack attempting to "decapitate" the Iraqi government might not have been in our best interests:

I suppose it would be good to kill Saddam Hussein with the opening shot of the war. But it's not hard to imagine circumstances in which it would not be good -- i.e. if a new strongman emerged who claimed to repudiate Saddam, offered up some prominent Baathists, and pledged to really open up Iraq to U.N. inspectors. Would we press an attack then? What if the new leader actually turned over a whole bunch of chemical and biological weapons Saddam had been hiding? It might be very difficult to justify continuing an invasion in those circumstances -- and yet the job would once again be left half-done, or three-quarters done. ... Could we trust the new government? ... We might end up with the opprobrium of the world, but no crowds cheering us as liberators, no "prosperous and free" Iraq and no guarantee of disarmament

Oh -- so that's what RED ALERT is.

"[Y]ou will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, [New Jersey's] anti-terror czar says."

The most succinct pro-war sentiment I've seen so far: sometimes, you've just got to shoot your own dog.

I still cry when I think of Old Yeller...

What with the war and all, I figure I better jump on the aid-and-comfort-to-the-enemy bandwagon early. Iraq Body Count.

Free Mumia Hetch Hetchy!

This will not be the California quarter design. It's too good.

A reply to my email to Charlie Daniels:

HOW DARE ME?YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT.WHY DO I HAVE LESS RITGHT TO ESPOUSE MY OPINION THAN YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE HAS,IS THAT NOT WHAT YOU'RE DOING?
AS FAR AS TAMARA IS CONCERNED I HAVE NOT READ HER EMAIL TO THIS DAY.
THE LATEST POLL SHOWS THAT 72% OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FAVOR REMOVING SADDAM .I WISH THAT YOU COULD SEE THE EMAILSS I GET FROM THE MILITARY AND THEIR FAMILIES TALKING ABOUT HOW BADLY THEY ARE HURT BY THE HIGH PROFILE PEOPLE WHO COMOARE THEIR COMMANDER AND CHEIF TO HITLER.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO KEEP FROM READING MY OPINIONS IS STAY AWAY FROM MY WEBSITE.
I RESPECT YOUR RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND WOULD SUGGEST THAT YOU DO THE SAME FOR ME.
CD.

And so I shall.

Britain's best paintings about weather are online, in a virtual exhibit. From nice and sunny to fire and brimstone, it's all there for you to click on. If you're the kind of museum-goer who likes to listen to the audio tour, well, that can be arranged.

Blogging has hit the big time! The rest of us can just go home right now.

First Charlie Daniels (see below). Then the Dixie Chicks. Now (indirectly) Lee Greenwood.

Them country fans is crazy. I'm gonna go listen to some nice, non-controversial gangsta rap...

Charlie Daniels is a mite annoyed with people exercising their First Amendment rights. He has an open letter. I responded:

Mr. Daniels:

How dare you? What makes you think that anybody wants to hear the rantings of an overpaid, brie-eating celebrity such as yourself? Do you think that just because your name is well-known that your opinion is worth anything at all?

...

I certainly hope you are able to locate the fallacies in the preceding paragraph. Of course, as an American, you have every right to shoot your damn fool mouth off. That's your right. As is it mine. As is it Sean Penn's, Bill O'Reilly's, Susan Sarandon's, Sean Hannity's, and even Tamara Saviano's. That's one of the many things that makes this country so great.

And shoot your damn fool mouth off you do, sir. I hope you have sources to back up your assertions, because I, for one, don't just believe everything some fool tells me, even if that fool has been in the movies, on television, or on country music radio.

Perhaps you ought to leave the small town and move to the big city, where you could be exposed to many different points of view, which might challenge your ways of thinking. There are millions of us (check the recent polls) who don't support a unilateral invasion of Iraq. We are sincere, we are informed, and we love America enough to tell our President we think he is wrong.

I hope you will take a step back, count to ten, and take a second to consider the notion that your rather frothy rant may be somewhat overblown. As one who is fully committed to peace, yet realistic enough to know that that is not always possible, I do (although you may not believe it) wish you well.

Yours,

J DeVries.

I hope I don't get fired for this.

It's poppy time in Lancaster again! The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve Visitors Center opened for the season today, although all the rain today may have thinned the crowds somewhat.

This year is extra special -- April 6 (also known to many schoolchildren as "California Poppy Day") will be the 100th anniversary of Eschscholzia californica as California's state flower.

The NYT is, interestingly, profiling Japanese erotic photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, famous for collections like Tokyo Lucky Hole, works which juxtapose hardcore sexual imagery, bondage, skies, and snapshots of Japanese streets. Can a Times portrait of Richard Kern be far behind? (This blogger certainly hopes so.)

As a good liberal, I am duty-bound to consider all points of view (much as all devoted conservatives are required to spew forth venom in all directions). Therefore, please find, for your consideration, Patrick Buchanan's paleocon POV regarding Israel's (and its Jewish) situation in the present unpleasantness. Like it or not, Israel (and its perceived Jewishness) is a central facet of the present situation facing secular/Christian (take your pick) America with regard to the fundamentalist Islamic Middle East...

Unfortunately, I'm not quite worldly enough to come up with an all-encompassing solution to the problem here. Anyone?

Now, I am no fan of right-wing Zionist Israeli factions. But I would a thousand times rather a right-wing Jewish state with real, truly democratic foundations than any radical Islamist state.

Everyone loves a good poster. Especially if it's an antiwar, copyright-free poster. Another poster for peace.

spread the love

David Segal doesn't understand just what Robert Christgau thinks he's writing about when he writes about the recent Pazz & Jop poll. Neither do I.

MediaOctopusWatch, part 37... Is Sinclair Broadcasting Group TV's answer to ClearChannel? With 62 television stations in 39 markets, Sinclair has made itself a force to be reckoned with. It has also cut way back on local news production, and added a definite right-wing slant.

All part of the FCC's glorious plan.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

Caring for Your Introvert (The Atlantic, March 2003)

I am never listening to rock music again.

Free at last! Thanks to two grandstanding courageous Congressmen, the House restaurants now serve Freedom, rather than French, fries.

The French Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment, except to say that french fries actually come from Belgium.

After watching George W. Bush’s press conference last Thursday night, I’m more convinced than ever: The entire White House press corps should be herded into a cargo plane, flown to an altitude of 30,000 feet, and pushed out, kicking and screaming, over the North Atlantic.

A delightfully forthright editorial from the New York Press, on the subject of Bush's recent "press conference".