deep blog revealed!

Amnesty International calls Guantanamo a “gulag.”
What did Dick Cheney think of this allegation? "Frankly, I was offended by it. For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously." One must admire Dick Cheney’s candor. Two “frankly”s in as many sentences! Not many would dare this.

And President Bush?
He called the Amnesty International charges “absurd.” Such a big word from such a little boy!

Deep Throat Revealed!
Does anybody even care any more?

Anonymous sources
In all the breast-beating, forelock-tugging, and brow-beating over the use of anonymous sources by the news media, we should probably remember that Deep Throat was the granddaddy of anonymous sources. We should also remember that the press always wants to identify sources. It’s the sources that don’t want to be identified.

Stop presses. Now.
Fox News London bureau chief said in an op-ed piece for Wall Street Journal Europe:

“Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.

“Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.”

So, somehow, because it’s a public company, the BBC’s “leftism” is less tolerable than Fox News’ “rightism?” I am intrigued by conservatives’ urges for the media to admit liberal bias, which seems to exist only in the minds of conservatives. Because conservative media, at least on this side of the pond, NEVER admit to bias. They are fair-minded, level-headed, and fair. Until you admit to being a liberal, of course, or not. Then they club you to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly.

Memorial Day sex blog!

And the hair on the palms/masturbation thing - what about that?
The FDA has received about 38 reports of blindness occurring among users of impotence drugs.
Female orgasms!
Apparently, they serve no evolutionary purpose. They’re kind of like juggling, painting-by-numbers, and growing roses.

This just in, from Toledo.
Well, from May 3, 2005 anyway….

WTVG-ABC informs us that a Toledo Mom gave birth to her first child in early May: “The proud parents say they received a sign she is special in an ultrasound photo taken about a month ago. After taking a closer look at the ultrasound they say there's an image of Jesus Christ in it. It's an image mom and dad say they can see in two of the ultrasound images taken that day. It's also a sign that came when they both needed it most.”

A victory! For something!
The following sticker has been removed from textbooks in Georgia:
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Studied it carefully, critically considered it- wow! It’s true! Get over it!

Memorial Day
“Happy Memorial Day!”

My wife thinks there’s something not quite right about saying that.

Somehow this holiday, meant to honor our fallen soldiers, has become the occasion to break out the barbecues for the summer. That’s what I’m going to do anyway. I spoke to my father about this – he being a veteran of both WWII (“The Big One,” he calls it), and the Korean War, and he wasn’t overly upset. I believe he plans to break out the barbecue himself.


.

bloggo

Video game dependency
One more thing I’m not going to lose sleep over.

Drunk and crazy guy on N Judah
He said this: “Hey, the Pope died. They elected a new one. A German guy. The Pope lives! The Pope lives! He lives in Rome, I think. Somewhere like that.”

Then he said some other stuff.

Last weekend.
Went to LA for the annual Duck’s Breath performance benefiting Jim Turner’s son’s former school. (Do I follow that?) Big fun, as usual. We performed at Fais Do Do, a club on Adams that (I think) specializes in reggae/Caribbean/New Orleans kind of music. It used to be a go-go club. At least, it still has go-go boxes (lit from bottom) for dancers, no longer functional (dancers as well as boxes).

But we also had a photo session, as part of a promotion for the national release of the Duck’s Breath DVD, which has been picked up by Riverbend Productions (a new production company), to be distributed by Ryko. How hip is that?

http://www.rykodisc.com/

They do Bowie, Nils Lofgren, Brian Eno, etc. The official launch is scheduled for late September.

This is too good
NBC clashes with Tom DeLay on Law & Order

By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representative Majority Leader Tom DeLay accused NBC on Thursday of slurring his name by including an unflattering reference to him on the NBC police drama "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

DeLay's name surfaced on Wednesday night on the show's season finale, which centered on the fictional slayings of two judges by suspected right-wing extremists.

In the episode, police are frustrated by a lack of clues, leading one officer to quip, "Maybe we should put out an APB (all-points-bulletin) for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

What an insult! I think....

In a letter to NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker, DeLay wrote: "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse."

Go get ‘em, Tom!

The Texas Republican went on to suggest the "slur" against him was intended as a jab at comments he had made about "the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary."

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly responded in a statement that the dialogue in question "was neither a political comment nor an accusation."

Liar! It was both! Probably!

"The script line involved an exasperated detective bedeviled by a lack of clues, making a sarcastic comment about the futility of looking for a suspect when no specific description existed," Reilly said.

So why go after Tom?

He added: "It's not unusual for 'Law & Order' to mention real names in its fictional stories. We're confident in our viewers' ability to distinguish between the two."

We can’t do that! Fuck you!

The show, which frequently incorporates stories and themes ripped from the headlines, aired weeks after a white supremacist was sentenced to 40 years in prison for plotting to assassinate a federal judge whose husband and elderly mother were later slain by another man angry at the judge.

Boring!

That judge, Joan Lefkow, appeared earlier this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee to rebuke politicians and other public figures who have used inflammatory language to criticize judicial decisions they disagreed with. She said such rhetoric encouraged violence against judges.

Some leading Republicans used harsh terms to condemn judges earlier this year after courts failed to intervene to save the life of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was removed at her husband's request but against her parents' wishes.

At the time, DeLay said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Maybe not!

Producer Dick Wolf, creator of the "Law & Order" franchise, took a swipe at DeLay in his own statement on Thursday, saying, "I ... congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

Me too!

The flap came as ethics questions swirling around DeLay mounted with a Texas judge ruling on Thursday that a political action committee formed by the congressman violated state law by failing to disclose $600,000 in mostly corporate donations.

He’s innocent! I think.

The show's season finale drew 14.5 million viewers, but DeLay wasn't one of them. An aide said he heard about the show through his wife, who learned of it from someone else who saw the episode.

He didn’t even see the show? And yet he is deeply offended? The man is a god. A GOD!

And from across the pond….
Doctors in England want to ban certain kitchen knives, believing they might cut emergency room costs:

A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers told the BBC: "ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes."

There goes Thanksgiving. That’s all I have to say.

Joke or not?
You tell me.
http://www.blogebrity.com/blog/

straight up and down blog

On the left side of the new civility.
From the Washington Times:

Howard Dean “…last month did an impression of Mr. Limbaugh for a gathering of Democrats in Minnesota that included the sound of someone snorting cocaine. Mr. Limbaugh became addicted to the painkiller OxyContin while dealing with years of chronic back pain, but entered a rehabilitation center last year and says he is now drug-free.

“Mr. Dean, a doctor, was unapologetic about his parody, even when ‘Meet the Press’ host Tim Russert asked whether it is ‘appropriate for a physician to mock somebody who has gone into therapy and the abuse for drug addiction?’

“’Rush Limbaugh has made a career of belittling other people and making jokes about President Clinton, about Mrs. Clinton and others. I don't think he's in any position to do that. … I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like ‘Rush Limbaugh,' and we don't have to put up with that.’

“ In the wide-ranging, hourlong interview, Mr. Dean also said his comments in January that ‘I hate Republicans and everything they stand for’ and that this is a struggle between good and evil, and we are the good’ were taken ‘a little out of context.’

Different elephants.
Reuters: A “restaurant that serves barbecue and other traditional Korean foods was closed for a month for repairs after three elephants rampaged through its plate-glass front. It has just reopened with a new name: ‘Restaurant Where Elephants Have Been.’

“…The elephants crushed tables and stools and also munched on carrots.

“Keum said patrons have been heading to her newly reopened restaurant out of curiosity and sales have doubled.

“‘What can I say about the elephants? Thank you for causing the trouble? Well, that just might be right,’ Keum said.”

iTunes, and what they say about you.
A little while back, on what was apparently a very slow news day, the media revealed what was on President Bush’s iPod. Much was made of what the musical choices revealed about the President. One of the songs, it seems, is “My Sharona,” by The Knack, which was deemed both unPresidential and unChristian by the editor of Spin. True, perhaps, but who the hell cares?

Well, a lot of people do, I guess. Any time a new technology comes along, we can’t just relax and enjoy it, or relax and ignore it, as the case may be, no, it has to reveal something about ourselves.

A group of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Palo Alto Research Center recently came up with a study outlining what iPod use in a work environment tells your co-workers about you. According to their study, what a cubicle-dwellers put on a playlist is selected more to impress co-workers than for personal musical enjoyment.

According to New Scientist.com: “Participants confessed to forming judgements about co-workers based on the taste - or lack of taste - revealed by their music collection. Many also admitted to tailoring their own music library to project a particular persona, and some said they deliberately hid particularly embarrassing tracks from others.”

snoop blog redux

Suggestion
Instead of busily chiding NEWSWEEK for causing riots in Afghanistan, perhaps the White House could chide the rioters in Afghanistan.

No wait. Let’s blame the Internet!
Op-ed in today’s USA TODAY
“Newsweek's blunder fully exposed how explosive this is. The story was a relatively small one - part of the magazine's front-of-the-book "Periscope" roundup. The reference to the Koran was just 13 words. A few years ago, it would have drawn little notice.

“Instead, it helped spur a blaze of riots. Technology pushed it along: The item flashed via radios and the Internet, reaching places in the Muslim world once cloistered from news. Political figures and extremist agitators were quick to toss it into a tinder box of American hatred.”

Well, there’s another way to look at it dept.
"The crusaders' hag came to sully the land of the caliphate." - Al-Zarqawi on Condoleeza Rice

For you fun-loving conservatives of a scientific bent
“Now obviously we were not going to use an actual copy of the Quran for this test. For one thing, most of those things are quite heavy, being in hardback editions, mostly green, often with embossed covers, and we wanted to make this as fair a trial as possible. And for another, we have this odd desire to keep our heads attatched (sic) to our shoulders.”

http://silentrunning.tv/archives/005868.php

Another Drudge scoop!
Announcing a new series called THE GHOST WHISPERER, a drama about a woman who communicates with dead people, that will replace JOAN OF ARCADIA, about a woman who communicates with God, CBS head Leslie Moonves said, "I think talking to ghosts will skew younger than talking to God."

Every time I hear the word “skew,” when applied to demographics, a shudder goes through me.

Quoted in the Washington Post: That darn Holocaust!
“We could really speed up the whole process of drug improvement if we did not have all the rules on human experimentation. If companies were allowed to use clinical trials in Third World countries, paying a lot of poor people to take risks that you wouldn't take in a developed country, we could speed up technology quickly. But because of the Holocaust ...”

-- Francis (END OF HISTORY) Fukuyama, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and director of the Human Biotechnology Governance Project.

snoop blog

George Galloway
It was fun to see a bit of the Brit style in the US Senate, even if George Galloway is rather an iffy sort of person.

Here is that of which he stands accused:
"Iraq granted George Galloway allocations for millions of barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme. Moreover, some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for children’s leukaemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation. Lastly, according to senior Saddam officials, the oil allocations were granted by Iraq because of Galloway’s support for the Saddam regime and his opposition to UN sanctions."

High points from his testimony:
"I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf. I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas."

"You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq."

"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."

"I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq, and I told the world that the case for war was a pack of lies."

He also said that accusations against him contained a “schoolboy howler,” and described a Senator as “not much of a lyncher.”

Further
Andrew Roth of The Guardian, wrote that Galloway "Suffers from shin kicking of leaders, over-the-toppism and pariah worship; glories in his ability to rub more people the wrong way faster than anyone else."

From Wikipedia (why actors shouldn’t carry weapons dept.)
In May 2002, at the Cambridge Union, American actor John Malkovich stated that he would like to shoot both George Galloway and the journalist Robert Fisk. On being told of this, Galloway responded "if it was a joke it is not very funny and if it wasn't a joke, he will be hearing from my lawyers.”

Hmmm
Reuters ran a story about “the dark underside of the United States” being on display at the Cannes Film Festival.

Lars von Trier presented MANDERLAY, with Danny Glover and Willem Dafoe, about “a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished.”

Gus van Sant's LAST DAYS is about the final days of Kurt Cobain, and Atom Egoyan’s WHERE THE TRUTH LIES stars Kevin Bacon as “an over-sexed, over-drugged celebrity.”

“Canadian David Cronenberg, who directed A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, said he could have set his film anywhere but chose a small Midwestern town because it fitted the story best.”

Oh, and SIN CITY was shown as well.

I don’t know if we’re supposed to be alarmed by this, but if you think about it, there aren’t that many movies that show the bright upperside of the United States. I don’t think that’s a reflection of any kind of anti-American animus. I think it shows that we like to see big beefy guys shooting guns, thin reedy men succumbing to drug abuse, aliens emerging from actors’ adbomens, and of course trucks blowing up.

Of these moviemakers, only Gus Van Sant is American.

Lars von Trier: Up Close
Dane Lars von Trier also gave us DOGVILLE, another anti-American movie, sort of, and DANCER IN THE DARK, a pro-American movie (I think) starring Icelandic wailer Bjork as a woman who works in a factory. She’s slowly going blind and is rehearsing to be Maria in a local production of SOUND OF MUSIC. Her best friend at the factory is played by Catherine Deneuve (!!), and the guy who wants to be her boyfriend is played by creepy Peter Stormare (the guy who wasn’t Steve Buscemie in FARGO). The excellent David Morse plays a policeman who comes to a bad end. As does Bjork. It’s the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen. And not necessarily in a good way. Bjork throws herself into the part, though.

Lars Von Trier told Reuters: "America has to do with 60 percent of my brain and all things I experience in my life, and I'm not happy about that. I'd say 60 percent of my life is American so I am in fact an 'American' too. But I can't go there and vote or change anything there. That is why I make films about America."

He said he “would be happy to watch a film slamming his home country of Denmark.” Sounds like a challenge to me!

DENMARK BOOGIE
Hans Christian Andersen, Isak Dinesen, Nils Bohr, Brigitte Nielsen, and Victor Borge team up for a bank heist that goes horribly wrong…..

Or we just re-do HAMLET again. Now there’s a bleak view of Denmark.

Blog-i-festo

Sartorial Moment
Our friend Jo-Carol passed away suddenly two years ago, when an aneurysm felled her on the street, killing her instantly. She was 46. Her influence lingers, however, her having been very much a larger-than-life infuriating and wonderful person.

Among other things, she was a cabaret singer and composer; in honor of her birthday and memory, there was a memorial concert of sorts last night, with various friends, relatives, and/or drag queens singing her songs or songs she would have sung, for the amusement of one other. I did “Is That All There Is?”, the nihilistic yet strangely cheerful Peggy Lee song, and it went over quite well. A good time was had by all.

Yesterday afternoon, making my way to the venue from downtown, I crossed paths with a young Asian man in a very white suit and overly-moussed hair. As we passed, he started waving happily at me, a huge grin on his face. “Do I know this guy?” I wondered. I waved back, puzzled. Then he grabbed his tie, and shook at it me. His tie was very purple. As it happens, I was gussied up for the show that night, and wearing a purple necktie as well. So I waved my necktie back at him, and returned his grin. We were purple tie brothers! For one brief moment all was right with the world.

“Flee”- ance aftermath
"Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce" is selling briskly. Also, a likeness of Jennifer Wilbanks, on a piece of toast, can be yours for the right bid on eBay.

Huh?
Tomorrow’s New York Times has a rather puzzling article about the insurgents in Iraq. It leads with this: “American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.”

The thesis of the article, near as I could tell, is that the insurgents don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just killing people with no larger tactical goal.

Several experts are cited: Anthony James Joes, professor and author of books on guerilla warfare, told the Times, "The insurgents are doing everything wrong now. Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing." Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."

The Times’ analyst, James Bennet, concludes, “No one really knows what the insurgents are up to.”

He then cites Dr. Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute: "It clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it. And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."

Therefore, until they have a manifesto, the insurgents should just cut it out. Go read your Mao and Che Guevara, kids, and don’t come back to the suicide bombings until you have a game plan. Oh, could you fax that to us please? Or e-mail us your Power Point presentation? Appreciate it.

At Bloggerheads

Unfortunate Media Nicknames Dept.
“Chili Finger Woman.”
It sounds like a discontinued super-heroine, or an archvillain with very obscure super-powers.

Dave Chappelle
He has supposedly checked into a mental health facility in South Africa, in case you were wondering.

Having your cake and eating it too.
Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, Republican, said that if John Bolton were in the private sector, he’d be fired. He also called him “arrogant” and “bullying.” “This administration can do better than that,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said Bolton was the “poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.”

So he couldn’t vote for Bolton’s nomination, but he agreed to send the nomination to the floor without approving or disapproving it, saying, “I am not so arrogant to think that I should impose my judgment and perspective of the U.S. position in the world community on the rest of my colleagues." Of course not. God forbid.

Lost pilot
Apparently, nobody told President Bush that the White House had been evacuated after the Cessna scare until after he finished riding his bicycle, or whatever the hell he was doing. This followed established White House “protocols.”

Can we stop seeing pictures of the Cessna on the news now, by the way? That would be great. In my opinion, this was the greatest non-news news story of all time. Any other contenders?

Pat Buchanan puts it in perspective for us. Thanks!
From yesterday’s column: "If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a 'smashing' success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in."

The Blog to End All Blogs

Random Real Headlines!
Brazilian Town Declares Orgasm Day
Big Belly or Big Butt: Which Is Better?
“Jesus Christ” Battles to Get License
Oceans Getting Louder?
Response to scent linked to sexual preference

…and so, on.

From Las Vegas Review-Journal
“If Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada still feels remorse for calling President Bush a loser, he didn't show it on Tuesday.”

Remorse? Don’t we reserve remorse for major felonies?

Paula: What Happened?
From Drudge:
“Former AMERICAN IDOL contestant Corey Clark says he can prove his sex claims with Judge Paula Abdul -- by identifying a ‘distinguishing characteristic’ on Abdul's body, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal!”

When the accusations against Paula Abdul first surfaced, my flinty heart broke, exploding from my chest like the alien from ALIEN, only without the alien part. As I sobbed in my living room, sweeping up the shards, I thought back to her early days, when she was the choreographer for the Tracey Ullman Show, to her platinum albums, and tragic relationship to Emilio Estevez- well, I guess I loved her that’s all.

I don’t know if I will ever again be able to watch AMERICAN IDOL with the same raptness of attention. Will the endless melismatizing of the earnest young contestants ever send thrills up my spine again, knowing that contestants and judges may be all out shopping together, and God knows what else? I doubt it. I really fucking doubt it.

Fly the friendly skies.
From the New York Times:
“United Airlines, which is operating in bankruptcy protection, received court permission yesterday to terminate its four employee pension plans, setting off the largest pension default in the three decades that the government has guaranteed pensions.”

Oh boy! Let’s all get jobs there! Then retire, and kill ourselves.

Larry Flynt, Investigative Reporter!
From his press release:
“Corroborated allegations that Mr. [John] Bolton’s first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department despite inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato’s Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

Experience that could come in mighty handy at the United Nations, believe you me.

The Q BLog

One drop does it.
A specialist in “extreme food,” New Jersey’s Blair Lazar, has made the world’s hottest hot sauce. Called “16 Million Reserve,” it is 8,000 times stronger than Tabasco. Hotsauce.com informs us that if you order it, you will receive “a 1ml pharmaceutical grade vial filled with this unreal Pure Capsaicin Crystal! No more than 999 Bottles will be offered. 16 million Pure Capsicum. Never BEFORE produced in History. This is Pure CRYSTAL powder that is only sold for experimental/display purposes.”

The sauce comes with a cautionary disclaimer. Asthmatics could die if they tasted it, and a user who touches, say, his or her nether regions after tasting may have to be hospitalized.

It is called “16 Million Reserve” because it scores 16 million Scoville Units (the Richter Scale of hot sauces). Red Savina, the world’s spiciest pepper, measures just 570,000. Mr. Lazar claims that when he first tasted it, “It’s like having your tongue hit with a hammer.” Fire up the Weber!

All is Vanity
Michael Wolff, in the new issue of VANITY FAIR, takes liberals to task for not being as funny as their conservative counterparts. Huh?

Da Vinci Code
I finally got a chance to read it. For those of you who haven’t, this sentence pretty much sums it up: “Langdon popped a Coke and turned to the window, his thoughts awash with images of secret rituals and unbroken codes.”

The combination there of yearning and product placement was irresistible, at least to this reader.

My little blog

Who gotta go now?
A superintendent in Benton Harbor, Michigan, has ordered the McCord Middle School band not to perform “Louie Louie” at this Saturday’s Grand Floral Parade, which (according to the AP, that arm of the MSM from which I obtain most of my information) is part of that region’s Blossomtime Festival.

The superintendent apparently feels that the song is not appropriate to play while representing the district, because of its raunchy lyrics, even though the song would not be sung.

For the record, here are the actual lyrics to “Louie Louie,” as near as anyone can decipher them. (The FBI, which once investigated the song for obscenity, supposedly declared that the song was “unintelligible at any speed.”)

Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go.
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go.

A fine little girl, she waits for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone.
I never think I'll make it home.

Louie Louie, me gotta go.

Three nights and days we sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.

Louie Louie, me gotta go

Me see Jamaican moon above.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again.

Louie Louie, oh baby, I said we gotta go

Uh oh
GM and Ford stocks have been downgraded to junk status.

Excerpt from DeLay’s “delivered remarks” on this, National Prayer Day
"Think of what we could accomplish if we checked our pride at the door, if collectively we all spent less time taking credit and more time deserving it. If we spent less time ducking responsibility and more time welcoming it. If we spent less time on our soapboxes and more time on our knees.”

Amen, brother.

Behold a dark horse, and the name that sat upon him was Joe.
From the Independent, UK
“A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.”

And it’s actually Little Debbie of Babylon, the four pony riders of the Apocalypse, and there were only six seals. They were more clasps, really.

Eunuchs in the news!
From Reuters!
“An Indian man who left his wife and two young children two years ago shocked his family when he returned home as an eunuch, wearing garish red lipstick, the Asian Age newspaper said Thursday.
…
“His wife, Shama Parveen, fainted when he returned home late last month and now wants a divorce.

"’I cannot live with this eunuch and subject myself and my children to social ridicule,’ she was quoted as saying.”

Amen, sister.

The Movie Blog

Iraq and a hard place?
Six cabinet positions remain unfilled as of this writing. So: is Iraq half empty or half full?

Exploding German toads.
The exploding German toads have been baffling experts. However, a German veterinarian thinks he’s solved the mystery. He claims that they are exploding because crows are pecking out their livers. Frank Mutschmann told the Associated Press, "The crows are clever. They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers."

Apparently, a crow pecks into the amphibian to get the liver. As a defense mechanism, the toad then puffs up. But since there’s now a hole in the toad’s body, the lungs burst, and the internal organs ooze out.

Not so funny if it happens to you!

From the secret Downing Street memo, 23 JULY, 2002. (Italics mine)
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Not so funny when it happens to you.

Headline: Internet Cuts Need for Bike Messengers.
And that means, sadly, a lessening interest in QUICKSILVER. Made in 1986, and starring Kevin Bacon, it is unquestionably the best movie about bicycle messengers ever made. It does for bicycle messengers what COCKTAIL did for bartenders, COYOTE UGLY for bardmaids, ROADHOUSE for bouncers, and FLASHDANCE for exotic dancer/welders who want to go to ballet school.

From Slate: What the sixties have come to
“… the curious governing philosophy of interest-group conservatism: the expansion and exploitation of government by people who profess to dislike it.”

…

“Instead of Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts promoting a hate-crimes bill endorsed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, it's Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado introducing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on behalf of James Dobson's Focus on the Family.”

And make it explode!
From Reuters: “The CIA officer who led the first American unit into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said on Wednesday that his orders included an unusual assignment: bring back Osama bin Laden's head on ice.”

I wonder if those who issued the orders ever saw BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA? This was Sam Peckinpah’s 1974 masterwork, perhaps the best movie about a crazed piano player driving around Mexico while talking to a rotting head in a bag ever made. All that, plus Warren Oates!

cheese blog

Say cheese?
The police chief of Minneapolis apparently wants to help with the homeless problem, by giving licenses to beggars. According to the Associated Press, Chief William McManus wants to issue ID badges to “make it easier for officers to manage aggressive begging in Minnesota's largest city.”

He told the media, "The idea is not to penalize people or make them go away. It's just a way to govern how they conduct their business. A badge with their picture on it should make them less likely to engage in aggressive panhandling."

Now, here in San Francisco, I wade through aggressive panhandlers daily. I’m not sure if seeing a picture of them hanging around their neck would dissuade them from begging. They probably know what they look like, after all, and if they want a visual reminder, they can always find a mirror somewhere, or a puddle. As for us, the ones being panhandled, how will seeing a beggar’s picture affect our decision to give the beggar money or not? Do we match the face to the picture, to make sure the beggar is really who he says he is?

Breaking news from Drudge
"I am quite surprised and disappointed ABC is devoting an hour of its prime time programming to air tabloid trash," a top FOX executive said from Los Angeles.

Yes! That’s Fox’s job!

From the New York Times
"I'm glad I got the partying out of my system when I was young, because now I'm so over it and I can focus on my career," Hilton said one balmy afternoon late last week. "Now I'm trying to build an empire. I don't want to be known as this Hilton hotel girl my whole life. I want to make my own name."

Me too. Partying is out of my system too, I swear. I want to make my own name too. Come on, let’s go!

Hutch!
According to the New York Times, Pastor Ken Hutcherson, aka “Hutch” aka “the black man” insists that he is the person who forced Microsoft to withdraw support from a gay rights bill in Washington. He had threatened a boycott.

Microsoft claims that Hutch had nothing to do with its decision.

Hutch claims that is a “flat-out lie.” He said, "If I got God on my side, what's a Microsoft? What's a Microsoft? It's nothing."

How’s God at tech support, I wonder?