It was only a matter of time, really

Frankly, I'm surprised it took them this long.

What?

Pop rocker Pink was blown away after giving a speech to 700 girls at Toronto's Humberside Collegiate Institute while promoting her album 'I'm Not Dead', after a group of Paris Hilton wannabes slammed her words...

Pink enjoyed screams and applause from the majority of the girls, except for a group of 15-year-old miss prisses who threw insults at her, such as, "Maybe you put down girls like Paris because you are soooo fat and UGLY!"

The singer remained confident in her views, and told them to avoid the "stupid girl epidemic".

The Hilton wannabes snapped back, "You're just jealous because Paris has talent!"

Paris Hilton has fans?

Paris Hilton has talent?

Source: Tittle-Tattle, via Dlisted, where Michael K. sez:

I've seen Paris act, sing, dance and even suck dick...she can't do any of those things right.

Killer

Now, I don't think much one way or other about Tom Petty. Like some of the singles, that's about it. Similarly, Jeff Lynne. ELO was just a little before my time. Although...(looks one way, then the other, then decides oh, the heck with it and admits) Xanadu is something of a guilty pleasure. I've always said Prince was a musical genius, though.

...but that doesn't explain why this clip of Petty, Lynne and Prince performing George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is so killer. BTW, I'm pretty sure that kid strumming away on an acoustic behind Petty is Dhani Harrison, George's son.

Reasons to save us, and keep it all painless.

On the one hand, we invented what we laughably call the democratic political system. On the other, one of us can do things like this. Hey St. Peter, would you call that even?

I know it's true, oh so true, cause I saw it on TV

The enemy cannot defeat us on the battlefield, but what they
can do is put horrible images on our TV screens.

--George Bush, Philadelphia Congressional Dinner, May 24, 2006

Source.

Okay, I'll do the obvious joke: You can call him Al

If you can take another Al Gore post, Nora Ephron has a good one at the Huffington.

Excerpt:

What sets the Gore movie apart is not the way it's made, or even the power of its material about global warming, but the reaction of the audience. The audience -- which is to say, us, us liberals, us on the left -- is mortified. Deeply mortified. Icecaps melt, lakes dry up, there are hurricanes and heatwaves, but as you watch, what really goes through your head are the number of Americans and Iraqis who are dead because Gore isn't President, and the realization that we're in some way to blame.

Al Gore doesn't make it to the top three reasons on my list of Who's To Blame -- Bill Clinton, Ralph Nader and Karl Rove are way ahead of him. But Gore's on the list, he and Bob Schrum and the rest of his advisors. There was triangulation. There was caution. There was the third debate. There was bad makeup. We cared about those things, we said so aloud, we were disappointed in his candidacy, we stood by and watched the Republicans steal the Presidency from him and on some level we behaved as if it somehow proved that the system worked.

I think Ephron is somewhat overrated as a director/screenwriter (and her sister, Amy, once threatened me), but I give her props for this.

I'm always up for a little beauty

Sparked by PZ Myers' list of beautiful things...

The ocean.

The synthesizer. That's a Prophet V. sequencer, BTW, since I know you were wondering. As used by Thompson Twins.



Terry Gilliam movies, which for some reason I've chosen to represent with this vidcap of Uma Thurman as Venus in The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.

Frank Sinatra singing a Moonlight Serenade.

Starflyer 59's Leave Here a Stranger.

Annabel & Keitha, of course.

Dr. Seuss books.



Elisabeth Shue. There's a moment on the LLV soundtrack CD where she says "Don't you like me, Ben?" I could die every time...



A Renoir oil titled In the Meadow.

And Ryuichi Sakamoto's BTTB.

Alex Toth

A comics and animation artist named Alex Toth passed away a day or so ago. If you don't know who that was, Mark Evanier has a quick obit here. Or, to put it another way:

Jennifer Aniston has sexy legs

For those of you that hadn't heard.

Everyone's favorite asshole

I want to say a special shout-out to Paul Gleason, an actor who died today. He was best known for playing...well, see the headline...in a streak of films in the '80s:

• He was the asshole FBI man in Die Hard.
• He was the asshole principal in The Breakfast Club (spoofing himself over 15 years later in Not Another Teen Movie).
• He was the asshole bad guy in Trading Places who meets King (Kong) fate.
• He was even...wait for it...an asshole in a guilty pleasure of mine, Morgan Stewart's Coming Home (my favorite Alan Smithee film!)

So what I'm saying is I, like you, have spent a bunch of hours watching Paul Gleason being taught lessons he richly deserved, and he always made it fun. All kidding aside, I wish him a respectful farewell.

Noah's wife?

Also on Roger Ebert's site today, the following piece of information from a reader:

One of the great ironies of Dan Brown's book is that it assaults you with its greatest piece of idiocy before you've even picked it up. The man's name is Leonardo, please. "da Vinci" (note the lower-case "d"), is NOT his family name, it's his hometown. He was born in Vinci, Italy, in 1452, in a time before Europeans had started surnaming themselves. Brown's error is on par with writing a book on the life of Christ called The Of Nazareth Code, or assuming St. Joan was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. "Of Arc." It's amazing that anyone could take seriously the historical claims of a work whose title screams out, "penned by an historical ignoramus!"

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove reading things like that.

Gore film

And I don't mean "Halloween X: When In Doubt, Blame The Druids," either. Roger Ebert has an article here on Al Gore and his new "Inconvenient Truth" movie. Now, as you know, I don't think Gore is the savior that some in the Democratic blogsphere have convinced themselves he is.

I think a lot of them, on some level, believe that if we can just get Gore in the oval office where he should have been all along, we can magically make it like the past years have never happened.

And it ain't that easy. The list of names responsible for what's happened to this country is long and yes, Republicans make up most of it, with Bush at the top of the tree. But Democrats haven't exactly been covering themselves in glory either and Al Gore is among them.

That said, Ebert makes the film sound better than it looked to me in the trailer.

What he wants you to know is that he has not made a political film. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" tries to move outside politics and focus on the facts of global warming. Gore says those facts are established, the returns are in, there is almost unanimous scientific agreement about them, and we may have about 10 years before the earth reaches a tipping point from which it cannot recover.

Now that's the kind of talk I like to hear. I like the idea of simply presenting the facts, for which there is overwhelming evidence, and saying This Is The Case. I only wish Democrats would do it about more things.

I've been thinking lately that another of the reasons this blog is not as political as it used to be is for similar reasons: As far as I'm concerned, the facts are in, and in any even reasonably rational universe, virtually the entire Bush administration would be thrown out of the White House.

But I don't have the power to make that happen, and the people who do are extraordinarily unlikely to be listening to me, let alone reading this blog. So I can do lots of posts about what a closed-minded twit George W. Bush is, or I can run pictures of Anne Hathaway.

What would you do?

Ebert further goes on to say of Gore,

He has been traveling the world for six years making speeches in which this message has evolved. But all of those speeches put together have not had the impact of this new documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, which is horrifying, enthralling and has the potential, I believe, to actually change public policy and begin a process which could save the earth.

But then, Gore turns around and reminds me of another reason I don't quite trust him.

"...the energy industry has paralyzed America for 20 years with disinformation...They're using exactly the same strategy the tobacco industry used. They're saying there is a 'controversy,' and they refer to a 'debate' when in fact the scientific consensus on global warming is definitive."

Unfortunately, whenever Gore mentions tobacco, I remember things like this:

Six years after Vice President Al Gore's older sister died of lung cancer in 1984, he was still accepting campaign contributions from tobacco interests.

Four years after she died, while campaigning for president in North Carolina, he boasted of his experiences in the tobacco fields and curing barns of his native Tennessee. And it took several years after Nancy Gore Hunger's death for Gore and his parents to stop growing tobacco on their own farms in Carthage, Tenn.

So from where exactly does he get the moral authority to point a finger and say "shame, shame, shame?"

Again-
That said-

I believe he's right about this, and I hope the movie fulfills the potential Ebert believes it has; that would obviously be its greatest success.

But some people think the film is some sort of a shadowy stalking horse for a Gore '08 campaign...and I gotta say, I still hope not.

Tag: The Assassination Game

I got hit by Jen.

I AM: posessed of a silver tongue.
I WANT: to be good, is that not enough?.
I HATE: the Bush administration. For everything they've ever done, basically, but if I had to pick two extremes I'd say:

Squandering an incredible chance to really unify the world and make the losses of 9/11 mean something

And the things they do to the English language.

I MISS: late nights at Lyons or Denny's with George and Turner.
I FEAR: what we've done to our country and our world with this war.
I HEAR: the applause and I hear the bells ...
I WONDER: if I'll ever get my comic romance published.
I REGRET:
I'M NOT: in love.
I DANCE: to Disco, and I don't like rock.
I SING: the Body Electric.
I SEE: a world that no one else can see.
I CRY: for help.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: Anything.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: pretty girls go to heaven.
I WRITE: about friendships that endure, in a world in which people who are supposed to be together find each other. I'm a fantasist.
I CONFUSE: More than a few people, I've been told.
I NEED: more joy.
I SHOULD: be so lucky, lucky lucky lucky.
I START: with pictures of people.
I FINISH: with this image of Anne Hathaway

...as it's been almost 120 days since I ran one...

I'm tossing this towards Julia, Amee, Bob, Bill, and Tom, in hopes it strikes their fancy.

Good cartoon

You'll find more good cartoons here. Democrats.com publishes a selection every Saturday; that's where I usually get the ones I run.

He said what?

On Media Matters:

On MSNBC's Scarborough Country, Time columnist Joe Klein asserted that former President Bill Clinton will be "a tremendous millstone around [the] neck" of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) if she runs for president in 2008, adding, "Not because of tomcatting, but because of the fact that he's been president for eight years."

How can eight years of peace and prosperity be a millstone?

Joe Scarborough then observed that a Hillary Clinton presidency would mean "a Bush or Clinton as president or vice president from 1980 to -- I guess it would be 2016," to which Klein replied: "Gag me with a spoon."

Y'know...no one, as witness my post below referencing Mary Stuart Masterson, is a bigger '80s fan than I am. But...even I know it is laughable when discussing presidents or vice-presidents (okay, maybe Quayle), to use "valley girl talk."

Also on Media Matters: Okay, the Enron thing.

In their reporting on the conviction of former Enron Corp. executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling on fraud and conspiracy charges, the network news programs all failed to mention the ties between the fallen corporation and President Bush. Further, the Los Angeles Times ran six separate articles on the Enron verdicts on May 26, but not a single one noted Bush's connection to Enron and, in particular, his close personal and political ties to Lay.

Full story here. You won't want to miss the excerpt from one of then-governor Bush's letters to Kenny-Boy Lay:

One of the sad things about old friends is that they seem to be getting older -- just like you! 55 years old. Wow! That is really old. Thank goodness you have such a young, beautiful wife.

As a certain Mr. Jones' father said on a similar occasion,

if a man cannot manage his native language, how can he manage his native land?

Random Observations Of The '80s Man

This is a woman named Carrie Underwood. I know little about her; a quick Yahoo! search tells me she's an American Idol-winning country singer. But what I wanted to say is: Is she not, at least in the picture above, a dead ringer for Mary Stuart Masterson (below), of Benny & Joon fame?

Say...I haven't run a picture of a pretty girl yet today

That's Sarah Michelle Gellar, who's been looking really good lately, but whose luck in choosing non-Buffy roles does not appear to be getting any better. If reviews of her new movie, "Southland Tales" are anything to go by...

"Southland Tales" is the second film by Richard Kelly, whose "Donnie Darko" made the eyes of film student types roll back in near-orgasm. I have not seen it for precisely that reason.

After working with a bunch of FS types for a year or two, I came to the conclusion that by and large, what they like in their films is not usually what I like in my films.

For example, I like actual human beings.

However, "Darko" was well received by the critics.

This cannot be said for "Southland Tales." Jim Emerson, of Scanners, has put together a rather devastating assortment of reviews, including one by Dave McCoy of MSN Movies which gives this summary of the film:

"Southland Tales" is a broad satire that features The Rock as its lead (he's not bad, actually), Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn-star idealist (she is bad), folks like Jon Lovitz and Kevin Smith as goofy character actors and Seann William Scott as twins. Oh, and Justin Timberlake narrates the whole thing, and takes time out to do a musical number.

Emerson, who identifies himself as

a big fan of the original version of "Donnie Darko,"

offers this in conclusion:

I do hope he can cut a good movie out of "Southland Tales," and that the film can get an American distributor, but things don't look promising. Most discouraging: On the "Director's Cut" DVD and in "Southland Tales," Kelly keeps company with Kevin Smith, which pretty much marks certain death for any aspirations toward cinematic integrity or ambition (or comedy). And I am never wrong about that.

So, like I say. Haven't seen it. Don't know. But there is part of me that is happy any time a heralded "visionary" crashes and burns.

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

One. Via Crooks and Liars, Mike Farrell (yes, the fella who played B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H) on the war in Iraq:

I loathe the people who have created this monstrosity. I want the criminals who lied and cheated and pretended and twisted and perverted reality - and those who rationalized their crimes - so they could send over 2400 servicemen and woman to their death, nearly 18,000 to come home torn - some never to be whole again - thousands more to suffer mental damage, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians to be swept into the garbage can of "collateral damage," to pay. These bastards and their apologists should be stripped naked and forced to walk the main streets of America, allowing every city and town that has lost a loved one to injury or death in this shameful catastrophe to heap on them the scorn they deserve.

John F. Kennedy said America would never start a war. Well, it has now, and its architects have damaged our character, poisoned our standing in the world and soiled the soul of what was once the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Two. Glenn Greenwald on the now-confirmed Haditha massacre:

...what incidents of this type do underscore is that wars are not something that are to be routine or casual tools in foreign policy. The outright eagerness and excitement for more and more wars that we see so frequently from some circles is not only unseemly and ugly unto itself -- although it is that -- but it is also so reckless and unfathomably foolish. Every war spawns countless enemies, entails incidents which severely undermine a nation's credibility and moral standing, ensures that the ugliest and most violent actions will be undertaken in the country's name, and, even in the best of cases, wreaks unimaginable human suffering and destruction.

Three. Say it again!

You know, this is actually remarkably soothing

Enjoy.








Link via the Friday Funnies at TalkLeft, where it says that

...this is the most popular screen-saver in the U.S. (If he gets stuck, just move him with your cursor or right-click and press play.)

Okay, now, I suppose I can live with Qui-Gon Jinn...

Even if he was in one of the bad movies, he was a pretty good character...although y'know, that whole "we have to leave your mother in slavery, Anakin" thing didn't do much for his hero status.

And my top match from one of the good films is Han Solo, so who's gonna complain about that?

But Jar Jar Binks really hurts.

Your results:You are Qui-Gon Jinn

Overall, you're a pretty well balanced person. But maybe you focus a little too much on the here and now. Think about the future before it's too late.

Qui-Gon Jinn 64%
Han Solo 62%
Jar Jar Binks 62%
C-3PO 60%
Luke Skywalker 59%
Darth Maul 59%
Lando Calrissian 56%
Yoda 55%
Jabba the Hutt 54%
Obi-Wan Kenobi 53%

This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)

Click here to take the "Which Star Wars character are you?" quiz...

More good news for any "Star Wars" fans left who still believed George Lucas cared about them

You know how you shelled out good money to buy the "special edition" DVDs of the classic trilogy, and then he announced he was gonna release the originals? Well, it gets better. They're not even gonna be letter-boxed.

You know what what that means; it means he'll still have yet another version to release and take your money at least one more time.

I gotta say, part of me is really enjoying the fact that Lucas is basically peeing on the floor and smashing the fans faces into it at this point. It's not often you see a filmmaker who so many hero-worship so openly disdain the people who made him his money.

But then, I wouldn't respect most anyone who thought episode III didn't suck either.

How true!

Robertson: Islam is a "Christian heresy," Jews are "very thrifty, extraordinarily good business people"
On The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson said "Islam is essentially a Christian heresy" that "picked up snippets of the gospels," and other Biblical texts and is now taking "everything that Jesus said" and "transport[ing it] into this fictional Mahdi." Robertson also perpetuated Jewish stereotypes in a discussion about the need for Israeli soup kitchens, stating that "When you think of Jewish people, you think of successful businessmen" who are "very wise in finance and who are prosperous." Robertson later added that "[i]t shocks people" to find out "there's poverty in Israel," because "Jewish people" are "very thrifty" and "extraordinarily good business people."

2006, ladies and gentlemen. We're living in the year 2006.

...well, you and I are. Mr. Robertson is apparently living in the 1950s.

Happy birthday, baby

Or, "Self-indulgent, yes, but it's my blog." When I was writing the last revision of My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, I finally nailed down something I'd been wanting to for a while: When exactly is Keitha's birthday?

Those of you who have read it know that one or two things in the storyline center on that date, and although I didn't think I was going to state it in the text (and I still don't), I wanted to pin it to a specific one, just in my own mind.

The date I picked-as if you're all not already way ahead of me-is today, May 25th.

Why May? I wanted a day around this time of year because of some other things that happen in the plot that are tied to real time (like when the gay parade is in San Francisco, for example). Why the 25th? Well, not because of any astrological signifigance that I am aware of (and I wouldn't have changed it for that either one way or another if it did).

I chose it because today is also

Towel Day...celebrated every May 25 as a tribute by fans of the late author Douglas Adams.

If it's good enough to tribute Douglas Adams, it's good enough for Keitha. So if you know any spiky, playful girls (as Corey recently dubbed her), buy them a drink today and tell them Keitha says hi.

Even if they sleep with boys.

Keitha: What's all this "baby" business?
Annabel: Sweetie, it's a nice gesture...

I kinda like this. I don't know why.

Oh look. Rocks.

Another one of them there Meme type things

I intercepted this from someone named Alison, whose blog I stumbled over via a Technorati search.

10 Favorites
Favorite Season: Huff, season one. But surely that's not what you meant. Probably winter.
Favorite Color: Green. Fieldy green
Favorite Time: Heavenly shades of night are...
Favorite Food: Special K.

Favorite Drink: Well, lately, I've been enjoying the filtered water. Also Gatorade.
Favorite Ice Cream: Ben & Jerry's vanilla-carmel.
Favorite Place: Someplace I'm safe and warm and can see a beautiful vista.
Favorite Sport: That's funny.
Favorite Actor: Geez, do I have one? The entire male half of the original West Wing ensemble. Or Hank Azaria.
Favorite Actress: Again, hard to name one, but you're not gonna go too far wrong with anyone who was employed on an Aaron Sorkin series. If by "favorite" you're going for cheer likablity, though, it might have to be Alyson Hannigan, who has an unbelivable ability to get an audience on her side.

9 Currents
Current Feeling: My leg is stiff and it's hot in here.
Current Drink: none.
Current Time: 8:31 PM
Current Show on TV: None.
Current Mobile used: None.
Current Windows Open: Bathroom window.
Current Underwear: White, Jockey
Current Clothes: Green plaid shirt, jeans, socks
Current Thought: What am I currently thinking?

8 Firsts
First Nickname: Benjy
First Kiss: Jennifer.
First Crush: A girl named Heather on an old PBS show titled Zoom.
First Best Friend: I don't remember, sadly.
First Vehicle I Drove: Tan Camry LE.
First Job: Video store clerk, Tower Video
First Date: I can't remember.
First Pet: a black cat named Frisky.

7 Lasts
Last Drink: milk
Last Kiss: a goodbye kiss to a crazy but fun girl before she drove away
Last Meal: Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich
Last Web Site Visited: Yahoo! Seatch
Last Movie Watched: The Beatles, "Help!"
Last Phone Call: My mother, who had her car stolen yesterday and found today.
Last TV show Watched: If we're counting on DVD, Sports Night. If we're not, a Married...with Children rereun on F/X. Meaningless observation: Both shows featured Ted McGinley.

6 Have You Ever...
Have You Ever Broken the Law: yes
Have You Ever Been Drunk: yes
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: yes
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire: no
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: no
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: Probably, but I didn't know I was doing it at the time.

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: The hum of my computer, cars passing.
Things On Your Bed: too much-and my fuzzy gray cat, Siousxie.
Things You Ate Today: Special K, aforemenentioned sandwich, fruit snacks, cheese balls.
Things You Do When You Are Bored: Read, watch tv, or something else

4 Places You Have Been Today
Scarecrow video
My apartment
My mother's apartment
In this chair

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
An old Mac I keep just for the eccentricity
A laser printer
My fuzzy orange cat, Donovan

2 Choices
Salt or Pepper: salt
Hot or Cold: Cool

1 Place You Want To Visit
Ireland

More Dixie Chicks, or I don't know about you, but I like the sound of the truth coming from their mouths

Atrios has video of the Letterman appearance I mentioned earlier this afternoon. It's worth watching even if you've already heard the studio version of their new "Not Ready To Make Nice" song; superior in some ways.

Blue Sky

You Are Sky Blue

Dreamy and creative, you the potential in everyone ... and everything! And while you strive to have an ideal life, you are pretty mellow about it. You know your time will come.

What Color Blue Are You?

Wow...a heh heh...a heh heh heh heh heh...

So! Tom Delay. You remember him, he's the indicted republican...one of them. Former House Majority Leader. Classy guy, Godly fellow who tried to change the rules to benefit himself and his friends. Especially himself.

Well...

This morning, DeLay’s legal defense fund sent out a mass email criticizing the movie “The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress,” by “Outfoxed” creator Robert Greenwald.

The email features a “one-pager on the truth behind Liberal Hollywood’s the Big Buy,”

Before I tell you what the lead item is in that "one-pager" (no peeking, now!), I'd like to remind you of something I wondered about back when we were all talking about Stephen Colbert's performance at the dinner.

I said:

What interests me more than the question of Colbert's goal is what was the expectation of whoever offered him the job? I can hardly believe this is true, but...do you suppose someone saw a few episodes of his show and...didn't realize he was being ironic?

Well, Ben of last month...believe it. The lead item in that defense of Delay ...

...is Colbert’s interview with Greenwald on Comedy Central (where Colbert plays a faux-conservative, O’Reilly-esque character).

DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

Amazing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again

I'm not voting for a Democrat in 2006 or 2008 unless one shows up. Let me explain what I mean by "a Democrat."

Unfortunately, Glenn Greenwald reminds me, such Democrats don't exist unless embodied by Martin Sheen.

The same paralyzing, stagnating, fatally passive Democratic voices who always counsel against standing up to the administration aren't going anywhere. It is not hard to imagine what they will be saying:

President Bush is a lame duck who is out in 2008, and so it doesn't matter what he got away with or what he did. Conducting investigations into these intelligence and ”anti-terrorist” scandals will be depicted as obstructionist and weak on national security, and will jeopardize our chances to re-take the White House and will cost us House and Senate seats. It is best to look forward, not to the past, and not be seen as conducting vendettas against the lame duck President. What matters is taking the White House in 2008 and so there is no reason to attack the President on these matters of the past.

Is there any doubt that the likes of Senators Feinstein, Rockefeller, Levin, etc. are going to follow that thinking, as they always do? I don't see how that can be doubted. I think Congressional Democrats will be more cautious and passive, not less so, if they take over one of the Congressional houses in 2006. People who operate from a place of fear and excess caution become even more timid and fearful when they have something to lose. [Emphasis mine-BV] The Democratic Congressional Chairs are going to be desperate not to lose that newfound power, and they will be very, very vulnerable to the whiny whispers of the consultant class that they should not spend their time and energy investigating this administration or vigorously opposing them on national security matters.

Digby joins in the discussion here:

Glenn goes on to speculate about the future and sees that there is not likely to be a whole lot of action on these matters going forward, even if we win. And that is my great fear, too. The Democrats have the GOP snake by the neck but I'm pretty sure they don't have the nerve to kill it. And that is a huge mistake as has been demonstrated over and over again for the last 30 years.

He further links to an article by Robert Parry:

My book, Secrecy & Privilege, opens with a scene in spring 1994 when a guest at a White House social event asks Bill Clinton why his administration didn’t pursue unresolved scandals from the Reagan-Bush era, such as the Iraqgate secret support for Saddam Hussein’s government and clandestine arms shipments to Iran.

Clinton responds to the questions from the guest, documentary filmmaker Stuart Sender, by saying, in effect, that those historical questions had to take a back seat to Clinton’s domestic agenda and his desire for greater bipartisanship with the Republicans.

Clinton’s generosity to George H.W. Bush and the Republicans, of course, didn’t turn out as he had hoped. Instead of bipartisanship and reciprocity, he was confronted with eight years of unrelenting GOP hostility, attacks on both his programs and his personal reputation.

Clinton’s failure to expose that real history also led indirectly to the restoration of Bush Family control of the White House in 2001. Despite George W. Bush’s inexperience as a national leader, he drew support from many Americans who remembered his father’s presidency fondly.

Not only did Clinton inadvertently clear the way for the Bush restoration, but the Right’s political ascendancy wiped away much of the Clinton legacy, including a balanced federal budget and progress on income inequality. A poorly informed American public also was easily misled on what to do about U.S. relations with Iraq and Iran.

Only a fool keeps feeding the mad dog that bit his hand.

I am not voting for a single Democrat in 2006 or 2008 unless one shows up.

Another reason to like John McCain, the "good" republican

He's a master of subtle nuance. Via Ezra Klein:

Brendan Nyhan reports on John McCain's bold plan to end the violence in Iraq:

"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit,'" said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

Woo! That's bracing stuff! And then, after the hasty consultations with translators to make sure he actually said that, the participants would stare at him quizzically, wondering what the straight-talk solution to oil sharing, political representation, entrenched hatreds, and varying conceptions of secularism will be. So what is it? McCain demands that they "stop the bullshit." What are his next ten words?

Cover me

BagNewsNotes has an entry analysing Time's cover story on The Dixie Chicks (who, BTW, gave a very powerful performance on Letterman the other night). I've read the story, I think it does at least as much to make country music fans look bad as the Chicks. It concedes-though it's buried fairly deep-that the Chicks have long-since been proved right, but says they still look bad to country music fans.

Why? Well, see if you can follow this (I can't). It's not because Natalie remarked that she wished the Pres. was from another state than hers. It's because (it says) she did it from a stage in the U.K., the old "foreign soil" attack that's never made much sense to me.

If you don't like your President critisized, that's one thing. I don't agree, but it's one thing. But I've never understood why where he's critisized should matter. I didn't understand it when George Bush, Sr. was trying to smear Clinton by saying he led anti-Vietnam war demonstrations while a student...in England (the horror) and I don't understand it now.

As Maines says in the story, she said it in the U.K. because that's where they were the week the war started (I'm envious-I was in Knoxville). I'm left with the conclusion that frankly, where Maines made her statement doesn't really matter.

On some level, country music fans must know that. It's just that, put simply, country music fans don't like strong women. I have no patience for people like that. Apparently, neither do the Chicks, which may explain why they've gassed up their car and headed out of town.



Excuse me-my ride is here...

A declaration of cease-fire

Good afternoon. In the past, this blogger has had some unkind things to say about Madonna. I have implied, in so many words, that she was a bit pathetic, and emotionally disengaged as a musician to boot. And not even that attractive anymore.

However. A fella named Glen Beck, of CNN, recently went on his show and had these things to say:

"Gee Madonna why would you think theres too much filth on TV? (he plays her
videos for like a virgin and American pie) Look at this I'm not even sure but I think I'm getting crabs just from watching this, really in fact if youre at home grab some penicillin, swallow
it otherwise youre gonna be peeing cookie dough tomorrow."

"Do you remember when Madonna made out with Britney spears at the vmas apparently that confused her daughter Lordes, which is a stupid name, she asked her mom she said "mom are you gay?" Madonna's response in that fake British accent "I am the mummy pop star and
she is the baby pop star and I am kissing her to pass my energy on to her." By energy, Madonna if you mean cold sours then yeah youre probably right."

Here are a few other things Beck has had to say recently, which should explain why I don't even want to be in the neighborhood of agreeing with him. He's a war-mongering, Democratic progressive-left bashing, sexist racist.

So: This blog is now a Madonna-bashing-free zone.

I will do my best to think of her, not as the...frankly kind of pathetic, emotionally disengaged musically, not even all-that-attractive person that she has become. Rather, as the comical sprite of action, overflowing with emotion, charm and beauty she must once have been.



I will take the position from here on out that if I cannot say something nice, I will not say anything at all.

About Madonna, that is. Bill O'Reilly, George Bush and Rush Limbaugh are all still fair game, although much less likely to have me run pictures of them naked.

Thank you for your attention; go about your day.

I don't have much to add, but it should be noted

...that former Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen died today. I'm sure you all remember him for the same thing I do; one of the great sound-bites of the '80s.

Can't...resist...must make...cheap shot...

Mariah Carey explains, in pantomine, a part of the secret of her success.



Via Dlisted.

I have these things to say about tonight's season finale of "24" (no spoilers)

1. YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!

2. Called it!

3. Oh, shit...but Corey, you'll be happy.

Uh-oh.

NBC Contemplates Schedule Shuffle

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly says he may make changes to his fall prime time schedule, with rumors swirling about the network moving Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to Monday at 9 or 10.

It's going to be opposite 24, I just know it.

Corey, shut up.

After ABC moved Grey's Anatomy to the Thursday 9 p.m. time slot that NBC had slated for its highly anticipated Studio 60, sources familiar with the situation say NBC is contemplating moving the Aaron Sorkin-penned show to Mondays at 9. However, those sources also say that show executives are pushing for a 10 p.m. time period.

Such a move would free up an hour for NBC on Thursdays. Options would include moving up shows previously slated for midseason, including The Apprentice or a block of comedies which could include Scrubs and rookie The Singles Table.

-- Broadcasting & Cable

And one more for the road: Words to live by

From How To Write A Damn Good Novel, by James N. Frey:

You can kill the spell of identification just as easily as you can create it-if you lose the reader's sympathy for the character. You can lose reader sympathy by having your character commit acts of cruelty to another character with whom the readers identify more strongly or for whom they have strong sympathy. You can lose reader sympathy by having the character make dumb choices-acting at less than maximum capacity. The idiot in the horror story who responds to creepy noises by going into the attic armed only with a candle is an example. You can lose reader sympathy when a character seems too ordinary, is stereotyped, or doesn't struggle hard enough. The reader wants to cheer a fighter, not witness a milquetoast wallowing in, say, self-pity.

South Carolina: We'd Like To Be Known As Even Stupider Than Tennessee

S.C. Girl Protests Confederate Apparel Ban

Great day in the morning

I hate to tell you this, miss, but we can see right through your dress.

Actress and model Phoebe Price arrives for the screening of 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley,' at the 59th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Thursday, May 18, 2006. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Via ONTD.

A quick word for the producers of "Huff," should they be looking in

Guys and gals...

You can't have a character listening to a tape recording of a conversation that took place in the previous episode...and then have the recording show noticable differences to what was shown in that episode!

You especially can't do it when you have a show that is re-run several times a week, and is also accessable On Demand. Unfortunately, this is what you have done by showing Huff listening to a recording of his Ecstasy-fueled therapy session, but eliminating several of the dramatic pauses Azaria took. Adding a few lines of dialogue that were not in the scene last week, to boot.

It don't work.

This show is still hanging on to my interest by its fingernails, mainly by virtue of the acting, particuarly Azaria's, and whatever residual caring I still have for the characters.

And to follow up on my comments about Beth's flirtation with The L Word last week...well, they're still going after that dollar, they just didn't use her for it this week.

Which is actually kind of why I was upset about it. It wasn't that I minded the scene or was offended by it. It was just that I knew, with absolute certainty based on the way they've been handling that character this year, that there would be no follow-up on it.

This year Beth is all about faddism. She shows an interest in prayer and church...for a few episodes. Suddenly she's doing heart-pounding, shallow-breathing kissing with another woman...and the next episode it's as if it never happened.

None of the questions are raised that might be. Not even the obvious ones, let alone those I might have expected from last season's writing.

Last season I lost count of the number of episodes that made me tear up by the end. No matter how many times I saw them. This season that's turned into a sad, resigned sigh...when it's not an annoyed grunt.

Here's irony for ya: Huff's expressions of discontent with his marriage...have begun to sound echoic of my dissatisfaction with this series.

As I say, that's irony for ya.

Dear Madonna: The '70s are over. The '70s revival...

...is over. Even That '70's Show is over. You might want to let your costume people know.

Oh, god

Just when you think you can't be hit hard by what's happening in Iraq anymore, two chilling words get added to the conversation.

"Ethnic cleansing."

The Independent (UK) is reporting:

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.

The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

What have we done? Why isn't anybody from the US government going to go to jail for it?

Report via TalkLeft, where we find in the comments a link to Laura Rozen, who posts,

This came out a couple days ago, but a friend in Sarajevo has now pointed me to its significance. Basically the US government is hiring contractors to move arms from Bosnia to Iraq. And credible sources say one of the dealers in the mix that the contractors have turned to is notorious blood diamonds arms dealer Viktor Bout. Here's the Guardian on a piece based on a new Amnesty report:

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Senior western officials in the Balkans fear that some of the guns may have fallen into the wrong hands.

What have we done?

We're through the looking glass here, people

Not only has Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, been accused of plagiarism, but now book reviewers and bloggers are accusing each other of the same crime. In a Language Log post, Mark Liberman points out what he calls "Some striking similarities" to criticism his colleague Geoff Pullum wrote to a new review by Mark Steyn.

He makes a reasonably convincing case. Steyn, by the way, is a Republican-friendly columnist from the UK.

Also by the way, the little glimpse I'm getting into Dan Brown's writing style by reading posts like this is decreasing the likelyhood of my ever reading him even further. And I didn't think that was possible.

Liberman (and Pullum, and Steyn) speak of:

Brown's habit of starting books with phrases like "renowned curator Jacques Saunière", "physicist Leonardo Vetra", and "geologist Charles Brophy".

Hmmmm. "Lesbian museum gift shop worker Annabel..." That's it, I'm a genius, I'll sell a million copies.

Lindsay Lohan loses mind

Lindsay Lohan: I'm Sexier Than Angelina Jolie!
Following Paris Hilton’s ex-boyfriend’s rant at her this week, Lindsay Lohan is taking solace in her top five placing in Maxim magazine’s recent poll.

The actress was branded a “firecrotch” by Brandon David earlier this week, but has been apparently annoying her pals by focusing on coming third in the magazine’s poll instead.

Although she finished behind Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria and Jessica Alba, Lohan was delighted to beat Hollywood sexbomb Angelina Jolie into fourth place.

A friend of Lohan tells More magazine, “It shouldn’t but the whole thing has gone to her head. She was raving how she’s now officially sexier than Angelina Jolie!”

However, no one’s yet had the heart to tell Lohan the poll was not the traditional men’s magazine staple ‘most sexy’, but judged who was the ‘most successful’ women in the entertainment industry at the moment.

Source: ONTD.

Does it tell you more than you care to know about me if I say it took me three tries to figure out why "firecrotch" was supposed to be an insult? And I'm still not sure I understand it? I hear "firecrotch," the first two things I think of are good...

A couple of cartoons

Friday not-at-all-random "10"

Stealing an idea from Tom, who was inspired by Amanda, who asked:

What makes a great cover song? I don’t mean just the myriad of good cover songs out there, but the really stand-out cover songs.

These are a few of my favorite covers. First, a handful of "special categories," because I'm sneaky like that.

Special category one-Groups or singers who have made a habit of recording really great cover songs, while being not-at-all bad songwriters themselves:

Everything But The Girl-I Don't Want To Talk About It, Love Is Strange and The Only Living Boy In New York

Pet Shop Boys:-If Love Were All, Always On My Mind, Losing My Mind (w/Liza Minelli), Where the Streets Have No Name/I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You and Try It (I'm In Love With A Married Man)

Kirsty MacColl-A New England, Miss Otis Regrets, You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby, Days and Perfect Day

UB40-Red Red Wine, I Got You Babe and all the singles off Labour of Love II.

Paul Young-Love Will Tear Us Apart, Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home), Everytime You Go Away, I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down and Soldier's Things

Special Category two-the great cover albums:

Red Hot + Blue-Kirsty, U2, Salif Keita, and more singing Cole Porter.

Silicon Teens-Music For Parties. Synth cover versions of old '50s and '60s tunes.

Stay Awake: Various Interpretaions of Music from Vintage Disney Films

Twentieth Century Blues: The Songs of Noel Coward

Reggatta Mondatta: The Police Reggae Tribute

Special Category Three: It's long been a maxim of mine that covers have a moral obligation to piss off fans of the original, or at least to have that capacity.

Breakfast Club-Drive My Car and Expressway To Your Heart.

Laptop-It's Still Rock 'n' Roll To Me. It's so deadpan.

Fine Young Cannibals-Ever Fallen In Love. Maybe things have changed, but at the time I remember everybody hating this.

Special Category Four-Covers that made me like songs I previously wanted nothing to do with:

DJ Sammy & Yanou Feat Do-Heaven (Candlelight Mix). I don't have room here to go into my Bryan Adams rant...but I love this piano-based mix.

Shriekback-Get Down Tonight. Humanly impossible to disapprove, cos the Shriek keeps shrieking and the groove don't move...

Special category five: Guilty Pleasures.

Donny Osmond's Somewhere In Time CD. Shut up.

Pseudo Echo-Funkytown. Cheesy? So says you!

Now with them out of the way, The List:

Madonna-I Want You. I'll always believe in my soul that where Madonna went wrong (if you think she did) is in deciding she was a creative artist, instead of an interpretive one.

Sting-Angel Eyes. My favorite version of this classic song. From the Leaving Las Vegas soundtrack.

Thomas Dolby-I Scare Myself. This is just good. I don't know quite how else to say it.

Candy Flip-Strawberry Fields Forever. My favorite Beatles song, but I love this version too, especially the remixes.

Figures On A Beach-You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet. Using a sampler for the stutter effect. So obvious, and yet so brilliant.

Bananarama-Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. I've discussed this before-I want it played at my funeral.

Hue & Cry-Fixing A Hole. This recording of the Beatles song, done for a charity album, has always struck me as one of the best covers ever done, even outstripping the original. My tape has gone the way of all flesh and I'd love to have it replaced on CD.

Kon Kan-Puss N Boots/These Boots (Are Made For Walking) -- Classic favorite "mash-up" of Led Zeppelin with Nancy Sinatra.

Pop Will Eat Itself-Rock-A-Hula Baby. Leave it to the Poppies to turn Public Enemy's Elvis dis on its head.

Depeche Mode-Route 66. In retrospect, this was an early warning sign of the groups getting into dreary rock, which almost killed Dave and from which they've never recovered to my ears.

Sometimes I really wonder what in the hell the GOP thinks it's doing

...the United States Senate passed a bill yesterday that makes English the "national language" in America and amends title four of the United States Code, "…to declare English as the national language of the United States and to promote the patriotic integration of prospective US citizens."

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind, as it so often does in times like this, is a West Wing reference. In an episode of that fine series, someone responds to the notion of such a bill by saying:

...aside from it being bigoted and unconstitutional, it's ludicrous to think that laws need to be created to help protect the language of Shakespeare.

But thinking a little longer about it...sometimes I really wish my ex-Republican friend was still talking to me because maybe she could tell me what the hell they're even trying to do. With this combined with other recent actions, it's as if they're prepared to just write off the Latino vote, to say nothing of other minorities.

I don't think they should take the Democrats incompetence that much for granted. A little, sure, but...

Giving you the Dickens

My little early-morning expression of outrage that someone got away with naming a character "Sir Leigh Teabing" in a novel attracted a small handful of comments, including this from Jeopardygirl:

Dude, you can't seriously reject reading a book or watching a movie based on a character's NAME. If that were the case, no one would ever read Charles Dickens.

Putting aside for the moment that I rejected reading the book or watching the movie long before I read about this name: Names like David Copperfield, Pip, Oliver Twist, and Ebenezer Scrooge are fantastic.

They have color, they have rhythm. Try saying them aloud, you'll enjoy saying them. Then try saying "Sir Leigh Teabing." Like eating black licorice when your mouth is set for red...the man just shouldn't be able to do that with a name...

Ok...now, I have no plans to see "The Da Vinci Code"

Nor have I read the bestselling book. So I have no opinion on either, though it seems that the critics have a few problems with the movie, according to the Fresh Report from Rotten Tomatoes.

But...you're telling me that both the book and the movie contain a character named "Sir Leigh Teabing?"

"Sir Leigh Teabing?"

No come on, seriously.

"Sir Leigh Teabing?"

That's not a name, that's a degenerative illness.

"Sir Leigh Teabing," for god's sake...

"Sir Leigh Teabing."

I may not be able to get to sleep tonight...

This is her once a year day

Like Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington is a writer I don't like as much as some of my liberal brethren. I consider her to be at best, untrustworthy. At worst, a contemptible opportunist who cynically changed sides when it looked like there wasn't enough room in the spotlight as a conservative. And the liberals promptly forgot about everything she'd said about Clinton and/or done to try to get her empty suit of a husband elected.

All that said, much of this blog post on Hillary Clinton is dead-on.

As a result of the soul-sapping tyranny of trying to please and placate everybody, she's become more processed than Velveeta. You can almost see every word that comes out of her mouth first being marched through the different compartments of her brain -- analyzed, evaluated, and vetted by each of them. What will the consultants think of this? How will it poll? Will working women between 25-35 in eastern Ohio think it's okay? How about likely voters in northern Oklahoma?

Her fear has caused a complete disconnect from who she really is and what she really thinks (that is, if she even knows anymore).

Who came of age with youthful rage at...

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”

[...]

On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

[A] video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.

Via Amygdala.

As you might imagine, the republican blogs are covering this by putting the word massacre in quotes and otherwise implying this couldn't have happened.

PZ Myers reminds us of a little thing called My Lai.

I could just cry.

And yet, I still don't want to drink Pepsi

I hate myself for saying it, but Christina Aguilera does look pretty hot in these commercial images.

Via ONTD.

Adding insult to injury

From the Connecticut Post Online:

Paul McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney, said Wednesday that they are separating after nearly four years of marriage, blaming intrusion from the media

I have a hard time beliving that's the real reason; you'd think if anyone knew how to deal with intrusion from the media by now it'd be Paul McCartney. And although she may not have been accustomed to dealing with quite his level of fame, wasn't she a model before they even met?

That said, it can't be helpful to have your separation from your wife broadcasted around the world with headlines line "Love Me Don't" and "McCartney, Wife Can't 'Work It Out."

McCartney is about to turn 64, and this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me wish I could send a message to every newspaper editor or writer everywhere who will write about him in any context that year:

Don't do it. Just avoid the temptation. We all know it's there, it's too easy. Just be grown up about this thing.

For similar reasons I avoided listening to the radio for the entire year of 1999. I mean, I've always said Prince was a musical genius, but...

These are really, really, really cool

"You moved, didn't ya?"

Tex Avery statues. Gotta love it. Lord knows I don't have $300 lying around that I could drop on something like this. And even if I did, I'm not sure it's a prudent idea for me to own fragile statuary...I have cats, you know.

Nevertheless, this is really, really cool.

Via Cartoon Brew.

Fucking A

I missed the first half of the "Boston Legal" season finale tonight, because I either didn't know or had forgotten it was a special two-hour episode. Fortunately, the last half offered plenty of laugh-worthy moments, not the least of them the spectacle of Captain Kirk lusting after Seven of Nine (guest star Jeri Ryan).

I note with incipient geekdom this makes three representatives of three different "Star Trek" series who have appeared on "Legal;" besides Shatner and now Ryan, Rene Auberjonois of "Deep Space Nine" is a regular.

"Huff," "Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars" all got a bit dusty this season. "Boston Legal" may be one of the only favorite series that didn't disappoint me this year, "24" being the other. Meaningless observation: Both series feature a character named Bauer.

One could argue that I expected more from those other shows than I do from this one. I'm a fan because of the Shatner & Spader dynamic, the way they always seem to be running the risk of becoming cartoony.

Some would say they've crossed that line. But for me the witty scripts still kept it one of the most enjoyable hours on television. I'll miss it until next year...

Been there, Dunst that

Your Celebrity Style Twin is Kirsten Dunst

More hippie chic than hippie chick.

Who's Your Celebrity Style Twin?

Who knew?

One so rarely sees crime with a dash of style these days

The Goedeken food shop on Hamburg's Grosse Elb street is considered a mecca for the city's wealthy gourmets. It draws professional caterers, Tim Malzer -- Germany's equivalent of English TV chef Jamie Oliver -- and plenty of well-heeled hobby cooks decked out in full yuppie regalia.

But two weeks ago, some unusual guests showed up. A horde of young people, dressed up as strange comic book heroes, stormed the store and dragged away cartloads of delicacies -- without paying, that is. Instead of money, the baffled cashier was handled a bouquet of flowers. Then the unwanted visitors posed for a picture and rushed off. The police sent 14 patrol cars and a helicopter, but the culprits were long gone.

An experienced investigator can't help chuckling when he hears about such activities. "They're willing to take risks," he says respectfully.

All emphasis mine.

Cool poster

Who knows if the movie'll be good, though?

This is truly bizarre

And I'm not even sure what to say about it, but it needs to be brought up and talked about. In recent days, conservatives have actually been joining the debate on impeachment-and arguing in favor of it.

Not because Bush is a crook.
Not because he was completely wrong (if we are being very, very generous) about Iraq.
Not because he is to ethics what...actually, he bears no comparision to ethics.
Not because he's a liar.

No, they can't impeach him for any of those things, because they can't admit they were wrong (or that anyone else was right) about those things. But, they do see the need for the Republican party to rid themselves of this crooked, wrongheaded, anti-ethical liar if they are to gain any hope of retaining their snakebite hold on the branches of government.

So, you know what they need? They need an out. They need something that really only they care that much about. But that they care about so much that if Bush crosses them on it, they can throw him under a train without guilt. And without feeling like us godless commie liberals have "won."

Which is the other thing stopping them from impeaching him for the fistfuls of legitimate reasons he's given us-Tom's got a little list (he's got a little list).

But where would they find such an out?

Ladies and gentlemen: Illegal immigrants. How seriously does the rightwing take this issue? So seriously they're talking about stealing an idea from the Nazis. So...seriously, indeed.

ETA-Yes! He's back! The fella advocating for a return to the good old days when at least the trains ran on time is none other than:

The great (and stylish) Vox "Why women's rights are wrong" Day.

Some of you ladies may remember Mr. Day; if not, I encourage you to use the 'search" function above...

ETA again-Or as Jeff Fecke put it on Shakespeare's Sister:

It's what they've needed all along--a reason to abandon Bush. And now they've got it, wrapped up in a neat little bow. No, for John Hinderaker and LaShawn Barber and Michelle Malkin, this isn't about immigration. It's about paying Bush back for making them look like idiots for supporting him. And payback's a bitch.

Thanks for your sacrifice

Crooked Timber finds that the conservative (and myopic) gang of warbloggers have now convinced themselves of a couple things. Not only that they're serving their country better behind their keyboards than they would actually going out and putting themselves in a position to be shot.

But that in fact, they may be suffering from a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You know, that thing actual soldiers get. They think they've got that from

defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth-column in the media.

BTW, I admit I had to look "irredentist" up but I don't think it means what this guy thinks it means.

I could take a paragraph here to say how fucking insane such a comparison is. However, Belle Waring at CT has done just that while also heaping a side order of scorn on Jeff Goldstein.

So I think I'll just let her take it. Belle?

actual real live American (and coalition) soldiers are fighting and dying right now, and one might imagine the Iraqi on the street to be suffering from a bit of battle fatigue herself (better make that himself given current conditions for women walking alone on the streets of Baghdad), and there are thousands of US soldiers returning each month at severe risk for, or suffering from actual PTSD. The armed forces, sadly enough, are not well known for sensitive, effective responses to these emotionally wounded soldiers.

...manning the keyboard against the evil MSM and “irredentist” Democrats is not very much like going out and getting shot at every day, or having a car bomb kill your daughter, or having to go to the morgue to identify your son’s mutilated body. (Let’s keep in mind that there’s likely to be a line at the morgue too, if we’re talking about Baghdad itself.) Not much like it at all. And you know the closer-to-home scrum of domestic politics? Also not like that at all. Not a bit of it. Now, and I hate to belabor the point...but we are talking about some strikingly dissimilar things. I’m not saying that the desire to conflate the rigors of combat with the crushing burden of being, say, Jeff Goldstein means that you’re a dishonest person with an extraordinarily inflated self-regard, I’m just…No, take that back. I am saying that.

Thanks, Belle.

A fairly lackluster episode

...of "24" tonight, I thought, especially coming only one week before the season finale. In previous years at this time we've had things like:

• A candidates wife trying to entrap her husband in an affair
• An attempt to fabricate a reason to start a war for oil interests (imagine that), Jack's daughter terrorized by a child-abuser and wife killer
• Tony betraying his country
• The son of the secretary of defense first implicated in a conspiracy to commit terrorism, and then outed as gay, Michelle & Tony reuniting, the return of Mandy (played by everyone's favorite bisexual, Mia Kirshner) and Tony taken hostage.

Comparatively speaking, tonight, nothing happened.

As murderers with whom Jack has to force himself to work despite his overwhelming desire to kill them go, Henderson is really making me miss Nina Myers. Just as hissable a villain, and a damn sight sexier to boot.

And-obviously it's too late, not like there's much of a chance they'd read this anyway-but if I could have just a word in the ears of the writers: I still want to know why the constant repetitions of "Henderson killed David Palmer" aren't being followed by "and Michelle and Tony."

For second tonight it seemed like Jack was at least alluding to them when he said Henderson had killed "People I care about," but Henderson assumed he was only talking about Palmer and Jack didn't care to correct him.

Still not a show-killing, "shark-jumping" mistake, but I better hear their names mentioned next week (preferably as part of a litany Jack recites as he puts at least three bullets in Henderson's brain) or I'm gonna be very cross.

Good thought, Rev.

As quoted in Living The Truth In A World Of Illusions by the recently deceased William Sloane Coffin,

In my office is a poster that reads: "Do not follow where the path
leads. Rather go where there is no path and leave a trail."

Tell me what's-a-happenin'

Via Pharyngula, once again, blogs on the left are buzzing about how Al Gore Is Going To Come Back And Save Us All.

Right.

Once again, I don't care how good he looks now, we have seen, and we have seen, and we have seen how he copes with the pressure of actually running for President. It ain't good. He starts running again, we're gonna be back to Robocandidate.

And my memory goes back to those ludicrious PMRC Senate hearings, too.

Um...I don't know much about symbolism, but...

Photo via Digby.

As "Huff" starts to go after the "L Word" dollar

Jen-"JeopardyGirl", who I turned onto the Showtime series "Huff," wrote me a few weeks ago that this season she was really disliking the character of Beth, Huff's wife. At the time I defended the character, but with the last couple of episodes I've done an almost complete 180.

Last week ended with a precious scene in which Beth, who had lately been on a spirtual quest, visiting a church in the middle of the night and mewling something about looking for her family. No Beth, your family is back at the house. You'll know them, they're the ones you keep shouting at when you should be talking (and listening!) to them.

And this week, Bethy goes out drinking with an old college buddy (female) and they end up making out in the ladies room.

Earlier in the episode, Huff gave a concise encapsulation of the schizophrenic (ironic, for this series) road his wife has been on this season, the impulsive choices she makes...which only seem to last for an episode or two, if that.

I couldn't help yelling at the screen, "You'd almost think she were a character on a badly-written television series!"

This is "Huff?"

If Karl Rove Is Indicted

As it looks like he will be, it'll mean that the Bush administration has employed not only the first (Libby) but the first and second sitting White House staffers to be indicted in 135 years. Damn partisanship.

Back in November, Time Magazine said

several of the most important lawyers who deal with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said they saw more clues last week that Fitzgerald is continuing to look into the possibility of charging Rove with lying to investigators or the grand jury or both. If that happens, Rove almost certainly would resign immediately, as did I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, when Libby was indicted two weeks ago.

To which I said,

Of course, Bush could score a few points if he fired Rove before the next round of charges...that is, if he actually wanted to "promote ethics"...

But he didn't do that (he didn't actually want to promote that), and now it looks like we're gonna get a chance to see how he does without Rove's hand up his ass. Of course, he's been doing so well with it we may not even notice the difference.

A brief recap before we continue

Completed Sunday, December 04, 2005: 179 pages. 36, 293 words. 32 chapters.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, a novella in four parts and an epilogue.

Completed Friday, February 24, 2006: 201 pages. 38, 669 words. Still 32 chapters.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, still a novella in four parts, but now with a prologue and interludes.

Completed Saturday, May 13, 2006: 209 pages. 40, 270 words. 35 chapters.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, a novel.

In three parts, interludes and an epilogue. I moved the material that I had called the prologue in the last version into the body of the book on the grounds of length. When was the last time you read a book with a 20-page prologue?

I think it's a novel. I think it's done.

Now what do I do?

(I mean, besides send a copy to my first-reader extraordinaire, the friendly, thoughtful and bright fellow known as a vision of manlyness and a man of vision not at all subsceptible to flattery, Corey Klemow.)

Some guys have all the luck, some guys get all the...updates...

Update: Glen Greenwald writes about the same article, and the head-in-the-sand response taken by such pro-Bush bloggers as The Anchoress, who announced she was taking her blog off the subject of politics for a while:

We’ll talk sex, religion, baseball, opera and even - Lord help us - television. But to stay in the middle of the deleterious snakepit of politics…no…there be monsters.

Now this engendered two reactions from me. The first I left as a comment on Glen's blog:

What's weird to me is that I still feel much the same way The Anchoress does.

I can't fully enjoy the GOP's panicky fall because I have no confidence in the Democrats' ability to do anything about it.

It's like they're still so hypnotized by this President, for some reason, that they just can't see that the mob has turned against him.

And if only one kid stood up, pointed and said "Look! The clothes have no emperor!" (to coin a phrase), the spell would be broken.

But the Democrats are too busy sewing, and don't want to disturb the circle.

And the second is, yes Anchoress, there are monsters, and the biggest and baddest is sitting in the oval office with your support. Heck of a job.

Original post: In Hullabaloo, Digby takes note of a recent poll comparing Bill Clinton's performance to Bush. As he says, it really shouldn't surprise anybody, much less progressives, that Clinton looks good and is looking better every day in comparison.

But he reminds us of something that should not be forgotten.

What the story fails to mention is that Clinton outperformed Bush while fighting off the rabid, slavering GOP congress of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott that was determined not only to thwart his program but used every institutional lever of power they had to destroy him personally.

Emphasis Digby's. George W. Bush has had-literally-everything handed to him. From being a legacy at Yale to having a GOP congress and lapdog press corps, if he had been the slightest bit competent-oh what the hell I'll just say it:

If he had been a man able to rise to the occasion, to meet the context of the circumstances of his birth with character and integrity, who knows what he might have accomplished?

But he isn't, and he didn't.

I'll be leaving the blogs now, I've seen everything

Jim Emerson's scanners blog is all growed up and with a place of its own separate from his old digs on Roger Ebert's homepage. This week, he's got a post on the latest charity case embraced by those caring, capable hands without whom we'd be nothing, Hollywood folk:

Tom Cruise.

You see, M:I:III's domestic grosses were considered to be "disappointing" for its opening weekend. And now, Cruise is gathering his friends around him for support in this traumatic time.

Emerson quotes a recent USA Today story that sez...

... according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll over the weekend when "Mission: Impossible III" opened to $47.7 million, about $12 million less than expected, the public has lost its loving feeling for Tom Cruise.
When 1,013 adults were asked their opinion of Cruise, 35% were favorable and 51% unfavorable. Nearly a year ago, when War of the Worlds opened on July 4 weekend to $77 million, the rating was 58% favorable and 31% unfavorable. (Sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.)

His popularity with women seems most affected: 56% were favorable in 2005, compared with only 35% now....

But that's not what made me want to fling up my hands and run screaming from the blogsphere. It's this: He also found a quote from Kathy Griffin that actually made me smile. I have rarely if ever found Griffin funny in the past. But...

How much fun is the Tom Cruise meltdown? Here's my favorite thing about it... He's so crazy the gays don't want him anymore. They don't want him. They don't care... I love how the gay guys only want hot guys to be gay, right? They want Gyllenhaal, they want Ledger, they want Colin Farrell. Here's what you'll never hear from one of the gays: "Oh, girl. Don't be naive. Don't tell me you don't know about Miss Gene Hackman."

Maybe it's because this reminds me of one of my favorite monologues Scott Thompson used to do as his "Buddy" character on The Kids In The Hall:

"When I find out someone is gay my admiration for them increases tenfold. Well, not everyone. I still refuse to believe Liberace was gay. I just don't want him to be."

Awwwwwwwwwwwww...y'havin' a bad day, puddin'?

Via Think Progress, some Highlights From Tony Snow's First Press Gaggle:

“You’ll forgive me, but I’ll do the talking points on this as the new kid on the block. I’m not fully briefed into everything. I hate to read from a sheet of paper.”

“For today, I am not going to handle international issues or currency issues. I do not wish to set off global tempests. I frankly just don’t know enough on those.”

“I thought this would be nice and congenial and it is obviously just a mess.”

If only this were funny

Credit: Shakespeare's Sister

My dinner with a liberal hawk

Well, not mine, tristero of Hullaballo.

He was angry and unstoppable.

"No, no, let me ask you a question. How come you, a musician, maybe a good one, maybe a well-read one, but a musician with no training in affairs of state - how come you of all people were right about Iraq but the most respected, most experienced, most intelligent, most serious thinkers in the United States got it wrong?"

"That is a question I ask myself every day, because it scares the daylights out of me," I replied.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for. (Updated)

Update: PZ Myers puts this in the proper perspective.

It means: less than one third of our American compatriots are insane or stupid!

Original post: Bush approval hits 29 percent (via Democrats.com).

I'm going to make a prediction. It may be wrong, it may even probably be wrong, but I'm going to make it anyway. Bush will not finish his second term. The only question is, whom will be installed as Vice-President (when Cheney resigns first for "health reasons") so they can advance to President when Bush resigns in disgrace?

Actors are so stupid

Hey, dummies: If you want to put on a show somebody else wrote, you get their permission first. I knew that when I was a teenager.

Stories like this remind me of one of my favorite exchanges from one of my favorite movies, Fosse's "All That Jazz:"

"God, I hate show business."

"Joe, you love show business."

"That's right, I love show business. I'll go either way."

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

Amy and Dan Sherman/Palladino's last episode of Gilmore Girls aired last night. It left me coldly disappointed...which is better than the hot anger Veronica Mars left me with.

Rather than talk about the specifics of that final episode, since IIRC the one or two of you who also watch the series are in other countries and a year or so behind, I thought I'd pay a little tribute.

These are, so to speak, a few of my favorite things: A somewhat-random, and certainly far from complete, listing of my favorite GG moments. They are in order of occurence, not preference.

Links in the episode titles are to capsule summaries; others are to quotes (to keep this post from being bigger than it is already)

(Dirty.)

The episode: Dead Uncles And Vegetables

The moment: A folky rendition of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." My favorite (ironic) musical GG moment.

The episode: One's Got Class and the Other One Dyes

The moment(s): Lorelei is bombarded with questions by high school junior asking her to justify her choice to have Rory at their age. And Lane shops for hair dye.

The episode: Those are Strings, Pinocchio

The moment(s) Rory (and Paris "Eustace" Gellar) graduate from Chilton. Possibly the best graduation scene ever on television, frustratingly full of too many good moments to quote.

The episode: The Fundamental Things Apply

The moment: Lorelei's rules for watching a movie.

The episode: Ted Koppel's Big Night Out

The moment(s): Lorelei learns a little something about football. A lot of these moments come from the fourth season, which I continue to see as underrated. I liked a couple of characters and storylines that may not have gone over big with everybody (Jason, Paris dating an older professor).

The episode: Luke Can See Her Face

The moment(s): Lorelei gets a feline visitor. And one of Liza Weil's best acting moments, which is saying something considering what an amazing actress I think she is. She's the girl who would play Annabel, if I had my druthers.

The episode: Last Week Fights, This Week Tights

The moment(s): Well, besides a brief guest star part by Teddy Dunn, the future Duncan Kane of Veronica Mars and a combination '80s/Renaissance themed wedding, there's Luke and Lorelei's first dance, to my favorite (non ironic) GG musical moment: Reflecting Light by Sam Phillips.

(Click on that to see an enlarged series of pictures w/excerpt from the lyrics)

The episode: Raincoats and Recipies.

The moment(s): Every reason you need to watch the first six seasons sandwiched between two great pop culture references:

RORY: What's your damage, Heather?

LORELAI: I think I'm dating Luke.

RORY: What?

LORELAI: I'm not sure. It's just a possibility. I could be wrong.

RORY: But how? When?

LORELAI: I went with him to his sister's wedding, and it was really nice. We had a really good time. We laughed a lot, and we ate, and then we danced.

RORY: Danced? How?

LORELAI: We pop-locked.

RORY: Was it a fast dance, slow dance, group dance?

LORELAI: It was a slow dance. What is "group dance?"

RORY: The hustle, the hora.

LORELAI: No hustle, no hora. It was a slow dance -- a waltz. Luke can waltz.

RORY: Luke can waltz?!

LORELAI: Luke can waltz.

RORY: Look how you just said, "Luke can waltz."

LORELAI: What, I'm just saying, I'm surprised that Luke can waltz.

RORY: That sounded more like, "I'm surprised I still have my clothes on."

LORELAI: Oh, stop.

RORY: What else happened?

LORELAI: Nothing. We spent the evening together. We danced, he walked me home, then he asked me to a movie. All of these things individually do not add up to dating, but together, I don't know. And there was this moment, when he walked me home, where I thought -- I don't know.

RORY: Did you say yes?

LORELAI: When?

RORY: To the movie. Did you say yes?

LORELAI: Yes.

RORY: That sounds like dating to me.

LORELAI: But maybe he didn't mean it as a date thing. Maybe he just needed to get out of the house, and since I'm currently one of the women sitting home, thinking, "If I could only find a man like Aragorn," he picked me.

Also: Lorelei runs into possibly the only door in the world with comedy timing (you have to see it).

And:

LUKE: You know the last time I bought flowers for someone? Never! That's when! Very easy stat to remember!

LORELAI: I loved the flowers!

LUKE: And then when I walked you home after the wedding, there was a moment. I thought there was a moment.

LORELAI: There was! There was a moment. [Luke gazes at Lorelai, then moves closer.]

LORELAI: What are you doing?

LUKE: Will you just stand still?

[He gathers her in his arms and they kiss.

And Lorelei "ruins" Rory's first time.

What have we learned from all this? Well, I've learned that I like Daniel Palladino's writing even more than I thought I did-he's the credited writer or co-writer on five of the listed episodes. Amy Sherman-Palladino is "only" credited on three.

We've also learned that besides loving Paris in the springtime and the fall, and just generally being an old softy, I love me some Lorelei ranting, and I am all about the Luke-and-Lorelei love.
Which may be a clue to why I was so disappointed with last night's season ending (you see how it all comes back in a loop?).

I absolutely luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv Molly Ivins

Have I mentioned that before? Yesterday, she offered her two bits (and change) on what we in the liberal blogosphere have decided to call..."Hookergate."

I don’t care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie ‘til they puke, and I don’t care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they’re not screwing the public.

On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead—has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Hookergate is rife with public interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.

Read her. Rejoice in her. Luxuriate in her.