the latest

How I spent the RNC

2008-09-05T02:22:37Z

BTW, been meaning to tell people: if you missed any of the DNC, like I inadvertently did, you can download a bunch of the speaches in audio and video from the iTunes library for free. I think I'll watch them now.

Place your bets

2008-09-05T02:20:01Z

McCain is walking across the RNC stage to what looks like more than 10 or 20 people fervently screaming really loudly. I guess. I have the mute on.

Anyway, before he speaks, I'm going to say the same thing I said last week, and the same thing I said back in June:

Obama 57%
McCain 42%
Other candidate(s) 1%

There, that's the spread.

I wanted to just go back to bed

2007-12-11T17:30:03Z

So, I stopped journaling when I lost my last office job and went un/self-employed and didn't sit under a fluorescent light anymore.

Then I started when I went back to the cube. But then I stopped again, when they started monitoring all of our web activity.

Maybe I'll start again.

Before I left the house, I just knew it would be a bad day. My wireless router started giving me a hard time for no apparent reason while I was trying to shoot off an email to my Mom. I was running late by the time I got the stupid Internet up and running again enough to see that traffic to work was worse than usual. Almost got killed on my way to the office on 275. Then my computer at work was acting up again, randomly, so it took me 15 minutes just to log in. Had a meeting at 10, so I went downstairs to clear my head, start new, maybe get something to eat. Upon going back to the office, my access badge spontaneously wouldn't let me back into the office. Get to my desk, and there's an IM from my boss to see her in one of the meeting rooms; strange, since she's supposed to be in Sarasota today. I didn't even know she was in the office.

Diligently walk into the meeting room with my notepad to see my boss.

And the HR guy. And the HR VP. They drove up from Sarasota to fire me.

Why? Outstanding performance apparently.

Despite glowing reviews and repeated outstanding performance, and the impending audit I was going to work on, and the new department my soon-to-be overworked old department was going to turn into to oversee the processes for the whole company, and given the crappy industry my company is currently in and some glaringly bad investment decisions, money's tight. So they terminated my position and me with it.

The HR people were all actually very considerate about it. Even more so than usual. The HR VP wanted to let me know that since I have a bit of PTO outstanding, from a payroll perspective, my unemployment will start on Dec. 17. I didn't ask if that's their idea of a birthday gift.

Um, yeah.

My boss found out at the last minute. She is not pleased, to say the least. Suffice to say, I didn't see it coming.

Update: just got a phone call. Evidently the scythe is swinging fast and wide: people are dropping like it's The Stand. I thought about asking if I was the only one during my meeting, but quickly realized it was moot. And it is. Other people getting cut at the same time doesn't make me feel any better. It doesn't even make me feel more justified.

So there it is. At least I don't have to be amongst the lucky few who get to stay there and endure what will now be a year of impending firings and all the lovely paranoia and morale degradation that goes along with it. I'm just glad I was able to get home without some other dread happening.

Okay, my unemployed ass is going to watch a movie or something.

Cheers,
prs

Help!

2007-01-24T17:31:26Z

So, here’s the short of it: tickets to All the Great Books (abridged) are collecting dust, and no one who’s seen our production can understand why. This show is of the same quality, caliber, humor and performance as our (abridged) productions of Shakespeare, America and Bible. Same cast & crew. Same venue. Same time of year. Same overwhelming responses from audience members… at least the ones who have seen it.

True, there are other productions that opened in January, but none of them are comparable to what we’re doing. It’s not like there are 16 hard hitting comedies playing in local theaters.

True, we’re also opening another show in January, This is How it Goes, which also deserves attention.

But, since this show has been so dependable, from a business standpoint, Jobsite depended on Books to do what all the other (abridged) shows have done for us: to financially support a bulk of our season. Books sells out, it advertises This is How it Goes, it sells our subscriptions, it exposes new and old people to Jobsite, it brings in the budget for the Mamet’s and Churchill’s and Gobioff & Paonessa’s – shows that need that budget. Sure, all our shows do that, but to a much lesser degree than an (abridged) show ever can.

My point is, this isn’t just another pitch to get you to come out to a Jobsite show. Well, it is, but it’s a pitch for help to get people to a show that’s really critical to Jobsite. This is something that has historically proven solid for us, and we quite judiciously banked on it, and people are suddenly not showing up for what is dollar for dollar probably one of the best and most entertaining ticket deals in the Bay.

People who have seen it are vocal. For example: see here, and here and here.

Please, if you have a minute, either e-mail or blog about the show to your Tampa peeps. My contacts/lj lurkers either don’t live in Tampa any more, or they do live here but are already hard-selling the show.

If you want, feel free to link back to this post. Or copy and paste it. It’s free copy. Take it. Spread it like herpes at Gasparilla. Whatever floats. Just please help get the word out.

You get paid how much? And you're that stupid?

2007-01-18T14:44:37Z

Falcons' QB Michael Vick raises suspicion at Miami airport

This has so many different shades of stupidity and hubris, I don't even know where to begin. Of all the "vessels" to hide his weed in, he chose the most obviously prohibited container - a bottle of water. And he was carrying it. And it was somehow specially designed to hide the weed. So at some point, someone said, "hey, I know, let's make a James Bond weed hider - from a water bottle – and just make sure you're carrying it so security can see you when you're trying to get on the plane." You'd be better off with your weed in a bong duct taped to your face.

Here's another question. Why is one of America's most highly overpaid/overrated athletes taking AirTran from Miami to Atlanta? These are massive airports. There are plenty of options besides the former-SunAir, which changed names after one of their planes flew into Everglades like a dart. When you have a $130-million contract over 10 years, what the fuck are you doing with your money? You sure as fuck aren’t spending it on an airline that’s guaranteed to not make you feel like an annoying piece of human freight with no where to go soon before you lift off the tarmac.

Take a look at the history of certain football players, who 1) enjoyed large amounts of fame when they played, 2) were paid very well, and 3) eventually got busted for stupid behavior and probably are now broke from blowing their wad on hookers, drugs and legal fees. There are trends here, folks, and if Michael Vick is getting busted for being this stupid while flying AirTran, I promise this won’t be the last time we see Vick.

And the stupid gets stupider. No where did the police or security actually do anything. They recognized he's Michael Vick. That's like fucking diplomatic immunity in Miami. The have video of him throwing it away, after he pissed and moaned about getting rid of it. So, they called the NFL, which can test him, maybe before the preseason starts in August.

I'm walking away from my desk now.

Randumb stuff

2007-01-17T14:48:27Z

Why are all the flags still at half-mast? Is this for Gerald Ford? Didn’t he die in December? Not to be a killjoy, but if that’s the case, um, why are they still half-mast? Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an issue keeping them at half for like a week or so. Sure, president, big deal, drop the flag. But this is like weeks? Wasn’t the whole point of the founding of the nation and the creation of a term-limited presidency to remove the semi-deification of national leaders? How long to we have to mourn a dead president? And really, short of family and friends, is anyone actually mourning any more? Do we really need a national decree that a symbol must be erected for god knows how long to tell people that they should be mourning? This is morose and stupid.

***

Fuck the iPhone. I’m sick of it already, and no one even has one yet. It’s a phone with a big fat hard drive. Move along. It’s not going to revolutionize jack shit except a bunch of jobs for tech and marketing execs who now have a shinier benchmark for their plastic candy. And for everyone who used the word “revolutionize” or some derivative when it came out: fuck you double. Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone was revolutionary. Cellphones made on a mass-market level was revolutionary. A cell phone with a bigger screen, more bells and whistles, and more storage to hold your pictures of Paris Hilton’s indented, bony chest do not a revolution make.

***

True story. Sunday morning, I’m in the car, jamming to Shed 7’s “Chasing Rainbows,” sitting at the light to get on the highway, and a van pulls up to me. The driver asks, “Is Hillsborough back that way?” He just got off the highway and suspected he missed his exit.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just make a left back onto the on-ramp. Hillsborough’s your next exit.”

“Thanks,” he said laughing. “That’s what I get for daydreaming.”

I was on my way to scout locations for a photo shoot for The March of the Kitefliers.

Post-script: when I got off the highway into Downtown, Petula Clark’s “Dans le Temps” (her French version of “Downtown”) started playing.
I don’t know what it is about this show, but it’s always brought a surprising kind of serendipity whenever it nears the surface of things.

***

So, Obama announced he is authorizing an announcement investigation consulting team to investigate whether he should announce his consideration to announce his candidacy for president.

We can’t wait two months after the last election until some alleged fever whips up for the next election? Want to know why the political process is so fucked up? (This is for you Obama, so listen up.) Because politicians apparently spend all their time either running for office or gearing up for the next campaign. If the media didn’t publish this crap until it started to matter (oh, say 6 months before the election) then the politicians wouldn’t have a venue to pitch themselves. That’s why it costs a billion dollars (you laugh, but you just wait until the next campaign and see how much it costs) to run for anything. They’re not spending it all in the last month; it’s constant advertising for two years.

And apparently the big issue is whether Obama is experienced (he isn’t.) Because that was the ginormous issue du jour when George W. Bush ran in 2000, let me tell you.

I’m not getting into this because it’s totally irrelevant. You may as well start polling for 2050, because it just doesn’t matter right now.

But I’ll say this. About two years ago, I was having a political conversation with the kind of people I never get into political conversations with, and I opened my fat mouth and said that this country would elect a black man before it elects a white woman. That is not my personal choice – I’d be happy to see either in office. That’s just my analysis/speculation on how this great nation will vote. So there it is again. My gaping maw has widened again, and I’m sticking to that.

Pass it on!

2007-01-11T04:05:39Z

Code to post the video:
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bTyDsVPQFg0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bTyDsVPQFg0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="320" height="240"></embed></object>

All Dentists are homicidal, evil fucks

2006-11-29T21:36:46Z

The Dentistry Industry is not a medical profession. It is a fucking racket, a scheme of highly overpaid sadists and thugs who have engineered a legalized way to inflict unfathomable amounts of pain in never-ending cycles of alleged “cures,” and to force its “patients” (what a hypocritical euphemism that is) to expend absurd amounts of money for their alleged services. These immoral, godless, soulless shiteyes are the only people on the planet who could make a CIA interrogator understand the value of mercy.

So, I just got back from the dentist. Round 3 of 3 in my biweekly festival of pain to install a bridge for a tooth that’s been missing for about five years. I thought this was going to be a 20-minute trip. I’ve had crowns before. That’s a quick fix. A little jabbing. A little fitting. Done. They replace the temporary with the permanent and you leave. Right?

Evidently not. The fun starts when they remove the temporary. At this point, whenever the bridge is out the cold air from the office entering my mouth causes the exposed gums to hurt. A lot. Like a nerve pain, but all the nerves at once.

Then the guy jams the permanent in, which at first was literally like fitting a square peg in a round hole. I mean he really had to jam it in with force. Guess what? It was pretty fucking tight. Like too big to fit.

Pull it out (insert pain from aforementioned cold air here), shave it down and shove it in again. Oh yeah, I should mention that every time he pulls it out to shave it down, he cleans it with blasting cold air, so it’s a really cold piece of whatever being shoved on my gums. Imagine shoving a rod full of blasting freon into a bullet wound.

I bite down on it, and I see stars. Pull it out. Shave it down. Shove it in. Stars. Repeat about 15 times. I’m not exaggerating. Every time is a little better, about as much as missing the first minute of a Barbara Streisand movie is better than watching the whole thing.

Then he says he’s going to get the Dentist. He comes in. Nice guy. Seems to have a better grasp on the painlessness thing is, God forbid, so he makes me bite down on a fucking stick, and I just about clocked him.

Jerks the thing out, puts some kind of unfathomable pain inflicting adhesive on it, and shoves it back in for good, I assume in the hopes that this will cause permanent pain, because that’s what it feels like.

His duty done, I’m stuck again with his assistant, who I assume is named Igor. Igor shows me some thick blue floss and asks me if I’ve ever flossed with it before. I haven’t, so he hands me a mirror and shows me how to do it. He sticks the floss point end in at the bottom corner of my teeth. That doesn’t seem so bad. He threads it through and pulls it. Piece of cake. Until I realize the blue floss is attached to a fucking rope. When he yanks the rope halfway through, he then pulls back on both sides underneath the tooth. Now it’s bleeding. But he apparently doesn’t think this is working. So he threads the other side of the tooth and pulls on it until the rope goes completely underneath the tooth from one side to the other. This is when I realize that the bridge is called a bridge because there ain’t nothin' underneath it, except a fucking piñata of pain.

When I regain consciousness, I ask, “How many times do I have to do that?”

“Twice a day,” Igor says.

“FOR HOW LONG?!”

“A week. Have you been rinsing with warm salt water?”

“Uh… no, not since no one told me to.”

“If you did, that would heal faster and it wouldn’t hurt as much. Rinse with warm salt water twice a day for a couple weeks.”

“Thanks for the scoop.”

I get sent out to the front desk, where the ex-cafeteria lady makes me take a seat so she can do my paper work, which I think is odd. Despite all the other fun I need to do to my mouth, this chapter is done as far as I’m concerned. There’s no paper work. This was paid for a month ago, I’m ready to leave, and I really don’t feel like coming back for more torture if I can put it off for a couple months.

The ex-cafeteria lady tells me she’s ready, then tells me to wait in a different spot, then tells me to come around the other side of the desk again, so she can explain that some twunt at my “insurance” company – no doubt a mastermind of this con – has just now realized there is a little known “clause” that any tooth that was extracted under a different “insurance” company isn’t covered. So on top of the $900+ I’ve already paid, my “insurance” company thinks I should pay the other $700 they originally said they were going to pay.

It’s turned into a bad joke. I’m still throbbing sore at this point, the Dentist won’t so much as give me an aspirin, and now my “insurance” company doesn’t want to pay for any of this. Because in this day and age, I’m apparently a fool for having the tooth extracted under a different “insurance” company. That’s quite a handy little clause, especially considering that the odds of your employer keeping the same “insurance” carrier year-to-year are comparable to winning the Powerball lottery.

Ex-cafeteria lady writes down the “insurance” carrier’s name, etc. on an envelope. You’d think for the thousands of dollars I’d given them over the years, they could buy a notepad, but I digress.

Thanks to red tape, the twunt hasn’t actually processed the claim yet, so ex-cafeteria lady doesn’t expect $700 on the spot. Ex-cafeteria lady asks when I’d like to come in next. I explain that I’d like to talk to the twunt first before I make any commitments. Fortunately, she doesn’t give me a hard time and lets me walk, though that’s probably more fortunate for her sake than mine.

I wish I had some witty punch line, or moral, or even a finale to this. But I don’t. That’s it. That was my trip to the Dentist, Meister of Sadism.

Tomorrow: prs calls the twunt to discuss clauses.

C'mon fight! Fight! Fight!

2006-11-17T16:32:26Z

Prior to the 2000 election, I used to tell people that all I wanted was a two-party system. More often than not, they’d look at me and say, “But there’s the Republicans and the Democrats.”

And I would respond, “Exactly.”

Then the Great Uniter got elected, and George W. “Mr. Bipartisan” Bush led a team of… we’ll call them people, who generated a divide that rivaled the Marianas Trench. At first, it looked like the typical divide between the Grand Old Party and the Democrats. Then it was a divide between the GOP and “them” – specifically anyone who disagreed with them, publicly branded as unpatriotic on a good day to a motherfucking terrorist with a vial of nuclear anthrax wedged up their ass at a gay orgy on a bad day.

It was “my way or the highway,” as the guy who swore to bring everyone in government back together drove a wedge between the White House and every disagreeable government, then every agreeable government, then it’s own government, and through it all – the American people.

I predicted – and history backed me up – that this hubris, blatant strong-arming and division can’t endure more than six years without a backlash.

So, the Democrats got back into the game.

However, the Democrats didn’t win by virtue of uniting under one banner against the other team. They did, but not so much. They didn’t win so much as the other team lost.

While the president of the Evangelical whathaveyou was outed as a meth-addicted purveyor of male prostitutes, it was announced weeks before the election that W. (he’s the Great Uniter, by the way) used the Christian Right – his “base” – for their money and their vote and didn’t care what they wanted from the White House.

After the fallout, the Republicans turned on each other. John McCain, previously seen as the next natural Republican Presidential candidate, can’t get support from the staunch right wing of his own party, because he’s not a staunch right wing kinda guy, but he can’t get a grip on the general moderate of any party, because (among other things) he gives speeches to Christian fundamentalist right-wing groups.

But here’s where it turns weird.

Yesterday, the House Democrats broke with their incoming Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and elected Rep. Steny H. Hoyer to be House majority leader. Hoyer got 63 more votes than Pelosi’s choice Murtha.

It gets better. Everyone, especially Pelosi and Murtha, thought it would be a real horse race. Pelosi was making the hard calls, and they were pledging their votes for Murtha. But, somewhere in the mix, about 60 Democrats lied to their new, vaunted Speaker. It was the first real political action the first female House leader made. And she tanked.

All week, Democrats have been pointing fingers at each other, like they lost the election (again). I won’t even get into who’s blaming who, but it’s a bunch of crap about who takes credit for winning, and who gets blamed for not winning enough. From the average American Joe’s perspective, this looks like high school locker drama bullshit. And to an extent it is. It’s the kind of behavior that makes you shake your head and silently whisper to yourself, “Can’t you fucking assholes get along and actually accomplish something, like balance the goddamn checkbook or something?”

However, I don’t see it that way. I want this division. I want this angst and disagreement, and I’ll tell you what turned the table for me:

According to today’s Slate:

[T]his whole conflict "sent a clear signal of what kind of leader [Pelosi] is: an old-style politician who puts a premium on personal loyalty, even at the risk of high-profile defeat."

James Moran of Virginia, didn't seem to get over his bitterness and said "there are a number of members who can't be trusted," as a reference to those who had pledged to elect Murtha but changed their vote. Apparently he didn't receive the reconciliation memo, because he went on to say those who voted against Murtha "will be damaged by this," reports the Washington Post.

Hrm. A premium on personal loyalty. A join us or perish philosophy. Obvious overtures of deception, backstabbing and division whose only pronounced solution is punishing “them”. Okay, sure it sounds like an episode of the Sopranos. But it also reminds me of the Republican party for the last six years, except the Republican party folded into this philosophy. They bought into the bullying, and the reward was six years of strong-arming their policies into effect.

And look what it got us:

War. Torture. An astronomical amount of financial debt. Warrantless spying. Prison with no trial. No accountability. No responsibility. No planning. No oversight. Ruthless neglect. And the conversion of the US Government into an even greater bureaucracy. This is the closest our government has ever come to the term “Orwellian.”

And this is from the party that wants to reduce government and spend less money. Imagine what a party like the Democrats would do if they had free reign and could bully everyone they wanted to for a change.

It’d be a disaster. And we’d have a one party system. Again.

But instead, there is open disagreement on both fronts. Hell, there’s more than two fronts. You could probably divide each Party into three factions. That’s six little groups of disagreeing bastards. The black and white is turning into shades of gray. And this, folks – this is how third parties get invented. When enough people, perhaps like Leiberman or McCain – set themselves apart and push away from both tables. And whether that third party forms a party, or just forms a coalition of issues, that’s historically when things get done. Things don’t happen in one party, because, when one group dominates, all they have to do is stay in power. They don’t have to actually accomplish anything. But when no one can dominate, then everyone has to perform.

Traditionally, third parties dissolve quickly in American history. But their causes, their issues, and their people carry on and alter the course of government. We’ve seen what six years of a single party government can accomplish. I hope the Democrats take the gloves off and start killing each other. And the Republicans should too – they got nothing to lose. Then, maybe, we’ll actually get a government of people that have to work for a living.

VOTE, YOU WHINING BUNCH OF NANCIES!

2006-11-07T14:19:53Z

Ah... gray, stormy sky. Kinda cool out, if not a little ominous. Must be Election Day.

I made a down payment on my old-man membership and voted first thing this morning before work. I was rather encouraged: around 7:45 there were about 14 booths at my polling station, and I had to wait for one to open up. There were about 4 or 5 people behind me in line, too, so just a head's up if you're voting today - you might have to wait.

Just to get you warmed up into the grandest of political junkie holidays, here are few links.

You know things are getting heavy and heated, when you hear hecklers at a rally, and who better to heckle than George "I was a teenaged KKK wizard" Allen. I heard this last night on NPR and was laughing my balls off in traffic. Listen in the background around the 1:40 mark.

If you haven't voted yet, Creative Loafing and the St. Petersburg Times offer some pretty good crib notes on who you're voting for. Not saying vote for who they tell you to vote, but it's a good read. ESPECIALLY on those goddamn sneaky Amendments. For the Times article, scroll to the bottom.

For a completely unbiased (if a little confusing) view of all things Florida politics, check out VoteSmartFlorida.org.

And a little Simpsons for dessert. This includes a line that was edited from the Nov. 5 airing. I wish I'd watched the whole episode. Looks like it was a good one. But even if you didn't, there's enough here to see what they aired.

BTW - special thanks to everyone at tampa who provided the CL, Times, and VoteSmartFlorida links.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY critus. I hope you get all the flaming homo-loving tax and spend cut and run liberal pussies elected that you wish for.

the quick links

2006-11-03T22:08:59Z

Okay kids, I only have about 5 minutes of fun left in fluorescent light land, but I think we've all earned our links this week, and some of these need to be checked out now, lest I miss any timely fun. So here it is, the quick links:

LAST WEEKEND

Politics

Yeah, I'm sick of the fucking elections too, but just in case you forgot why certain people were such a bunch of twunts:
A blueprint for Iraqi regime change... interesting, since it was drawn up before the Great Uniter even got elected President in the first place, let alone all that 9/11 stuff.
Fun with voting has already begun! Hoo-doggeys. Sadly, this is like the first in a 29 part series of various articles that I've come across, and I already lost hope in linking all of them after the first.
And to sweeten the deal, watch Stephen Colbert take a chunk out of Rush Limbaugh's arrogant ass. Hoo Lard!

Best Toys Ever
You have no idea how tempted I am to make one of these.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Halloween's over. But y'know, I just don't see why this should be strictly related to Halloween (make sure you watch the video). I say replace those ridiculous statues of little negro men holding lamps on your front lawn and make a birdbath out of this. Or better yet, get a bunch of Bush/Cheney shirts and line up about 2,000 of these along the sidewalk of whereever the President's limo drives. There's some fun protest action.

Fun with Media
A bunch of pictures. That's it. They're amusing.
STICKY BALLS! That would be my favorite worst video game title ever. Check out 49 others just like it!
And... drumroll please. 2/3's of the MST3K crew are back, and you can download their take to Star Wars Episode 1. Fuck yeah! It's finally worth watching!

Rumsfeld Proves Iraq Vastly Improving

2006-11-02T14:43:12Z

From today's Associated Press:

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld stated today at a press conference from the Pentagon that the death rate for American troops in Iraq has plummeted drastically.

“105 American troops died in October. That’s a little more than three a day, or one every seven hours or so. But yesterday [November 1], the first American soldier wasn’t recorded dead until 9:30 a.m. That’s barely two a day. So, clearly at that rate, our troops will stop dying, reverse the curve and start repopulating the Middle East with good white Christian children by New Years’. So everyone can just back off and stop worrying about Iraq. It’s complicated, but it’s already improving. So the next person who asks about the ‘plan’ can just shut the fuck up.”

When asked about the consistent death rate of Iraqis, Secretary Rumsfeld said, “Look, Iraq doesn’t even count their dead, which tells me that either they aren't dying or the Iraqi government doesn’t care. And if they’re not dying and they don’t care, then why are you people pestering me with this? I just proved to you that we’re saving American lives, and you keep insisting on asking me questions about people that haven’t died that no one cares about. You people just need to back off. This is complicated. And the next person who asks me about the ‘plan’ is getting their nuts wired to a car horn, which I can legally do now, because it’s legal now, not that it wasn’t legal before.”

Check out this obit

2006-10-25T13:51:06Z

This is from Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column. He included it in his column for good reason, “The below obituary, of a man neither you nor I ever heard of, appeared in the Washington Post last week. Every word of this obituary is fascinating. The life's story told represented, for me, an argument why God would remain interested in human affairs:”

The obit:

Harald Lindes, 85, former editor of the U.S. Information Agency's Russian-language magazine Amerika, died Oct. 11 at the Deer's Head Hospital Center in Salisbury, Md. Mr. Lindes worked for the USIA for 21 years, starting under broadcaster Edward R. Murrow during the Kennedy administration. Mr. Lindes retired in 1980, then worked for about five years as a personal assistant to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, former director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Lindes was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. When he was 15, his father was arrested and executed, and his family was exiled to Siberia. In 1939, he returned to study in his native city but in 1942 was arrested by the Stalin regime, sentenced to a labor camp and sent to the Finnish front, where he was captured by the Finns. Because of his German name, he was handed over to the Germans, where he was drafted into the German army.

After World War II, he left Europe and moved to New York and then Monterey, Calif. He became a master sergeant in the Army Reserves and began teaching Russian at what is now the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. He moved to the Washington area in 1958, working briefly for the Voice of America before joining the USIA.

Apart from work, he enjoyed researching his genealogy at the Library of Congress and reading Russian history and works of world culture and religion. He also enjoyed travel and growing vegetables and herbs at his home in Kensington. Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Olga Lindes of Kensington; two children, Nina Willett of Ocean Pines, Md., and Hal Lindes, a guitarist in the rock group Dire Straits, of Los Angeles; and seven grandchildren.

For those suffering apathy whiplash

2006-10-20T16:01:43Z

Hey, look at that. I just got apathy whiplash – that moment when you’re at work and you spontaneously don’t give a fuck about anything you’re doing there.

So, it’s been awhile since I posted a crapload of links.

Buy your tickets now!

It really is as great as everyone says it is. We sold out opening weekend for a reason. Do yourself a favor and get your tickets now while you still have a say on what night you can get a ticket. Or don’t take my word for it: check out the bazillion comments and reviews on the Pillowman Media page.

Turning Japanese
Y’know, for a culture with a reputation for being the biggest workaholics of the world, these people sure have a lot of frickin’ free time. Watch them apply their ninja tactics to descending a flight of stairs (among other things) and holding a pen.

Film
I must see this.

For all y’all independent artistic industry peeps out there – especially the Jobsite kids – you have to see how Terry Gilliam is raising money for his next film. This is great.

Media Tech
Since iTunes (one of my all-time favorite software apps) released 7.x, it’s been both very impressive and a major pain in my machine’s ass. It only agrees with my iPod about 10% of the time, and it’s a fucking memory pig, randomly jumping from 40Mb to 150Mb, not including the 3 startup side programs that are set to remain active from the moment you boot.

So, some indy’s got a program coming out called Songbird. It’s in dev-mode (pre-alpha?) but you can download it anyway, and it’s made me very curious. Despite that its logo is a fat farting bird, it’s got some groovy functionality that’s worth checking out. At the very least, check out this features video and this one too. And since it’s Firefox based, there will be extensions (like an iPod sync.) Someone want to give it a shot?

The Miscellaneous
Highly entertaining – the concert rider for Iggy Pop and the Stooges.

A great remedy for telemarketers.

A very cool little web toy that enables you to compare what you’re buying online to a relative visual reference. Even if you don’t use it, worth playing with it for a minute.

Sure, you were born in the year of the yak, but what other useless minutia don’t you know about the day you were born?

Dig the groovy illusion: Maggie Thatcher’s a cow no matter how you look at her. MAGIC!

Happy (early) Halloween

2006-10-18T19:21:53Z

Take a nice long look at this photo. Seriously. Check it out. When you’re done, click the jump below.

That kid is dead. No shit.

Here’s another:

They’re from a collection of Victorian-era photos, back in the civilized days when people used their new camera technology to photograph relatives who croaked from the scurvy or the cramps or whateverthehell people died from back then. You didn't seen them wasting their technological revolution on pictures of monkeys picking their butts. Those were the days. Ah... good times.... Good times.

There’s more here for all your historical morbid pre-Halloween indulgences. Enjoy!

leaves

2006-09-22T16:07:33Z

Temporary distractions. Flooded full of them. Like walking through a waterfall of dead falling leaves until you lose all direction. Got to pick up every leaf. Have to deal with it. Each and every one. Falling so fast, though. Need to do something with them. Not sure what. But must be dealt with. And that tree over there. There’s another. The leaves are falling there too. How will you get those leaves? Need to get those too. But can’t go yet, still need need to deal with these leaves.

These. Those. The others over there, too. Lots and lots of leaves.

Where was I going? I really want to go there. But all these damn leaves.

This Week on the Internets

2006-09-20T21:28:41Z

It’s been a slow week on the internets. Or maybe I wasn’t wasting as much time on it. At any rate, here’s a bunch of links:

Who Needs Cable, when you have YouTube?
Too early for Steve Irwin jokes? Fuck that. Look, it’s Norm McDonald being funny. Honest.

Holy crap, I want one of these. Imagine attaching a small, remote video camera to it.

In the News – the news is fake. Lewis Black provides some investigative journalism on investigative journalism (and the lack thereof.) Highly recommended.

Politics
Here’s some three-year-old news that I just found out: George Bush’s brother, Marvin P. (yes, that’s really his name), was a head honcho for a security firm that, among other things, ran security for the World Trade Center until 9/11. I reckon the firm has since lost that account. Now, I’m really not drawing any conspiracy theories, because frankly, I don’t know of any security forces – especially our military – that can prevent Boeings from flying into buildings, but doesn’t that little tidbit strike you as a little weird? Is it just me? Seriously, what kind of a fucking coincidence is that?

I’m gonna whip somebody’s ass
After zefrank’s conversation with the light post, check out the remix of “I’m gonna whip somebody’s ass.”

Your (quasi) weekly list of fun crap on the Information Superhighway

2006-09-13T20:25:42Z

Go ahead. Watch it. I dare ya.
Talk about creepy. Imagine, it’s 11:30 at night, all the lights are off, except for the warm fuzzy glow from the television – a nice quiet episode of Dr. Who. And then you see THIS!

Here’s a little supplemental from the next night’s CBS news to explain a little more of what that is.

Getcher rock on.

Hey, look at the douchebag!
Ever wonder how much respect a TV reporter has for the entire nation during a storm?

Politics
45 percent of those polled blame the Bush administration “either a ‘great deal’ or a ‘moderate amount,’ for the 9/11 attacks." Blame. I recommend you stock up on your popcorn now for the midterm elections.

This has to be the best practical joke ever. Evidently George Bush has to meet with President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to diplomatically smooth some wrinkles caused by a movie featuring Ali G creator/performer Sacha Baron Cohen. Apparently, the problem is the US has decided to not censor Baron Cohen’s movie based on his Kazakh-based character, Borat, and the Kazakhs are afraid that Borat will MAKE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY LOOK BAD. Back when Kazakhstan threatened to sue Cohen, “Borat” responded on a video saying, “I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew.” This is awesome. Bush has to have diplomatically talk about shit with people that are more fickle and mentally repressed than he is.

Cool Art Stuff
This is actually a cool effort. Someone used the Half-Life 2 video game engine to create a virtual tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water" structure.

Dig the groovy sculpture that you can’t see in Tampa because the art museum, or what’s left of it, sucks and never shows cool stuff like this.

HTS
Yes, you too now interact with your own high-tech duckpond simulator. Swear to God.

And finally…
Behold – Pjotro!

Modo infusion

2006-09-07T15:18:53Z

Hey, look at that. I’m already bored off my tits and don’t want to be here. Who am I kidding? I was bored in the car on my way over here.

Speaking of the car, when I got out of it this morning, I suddenly remembered all the shit I wanted to accomplish last night. How’s that for a pisser?

Speaking of pisser, that’s sort of where my mood’s been in the past 18 hours, and I don’t really know why. I technically shouldn’t be in a bad mood about anything, but I keep stumbling into waves of other people’s stupid, negative, inconsiderate and generally annoying behavior just about every corner I turn. Compound that with things I’m already frustrated with, and hey lookie there – shitty mood.

I almost wrote the word “modo” back there. I don’t know what it means, but I like it. I think it’s what happens when Scandinavian designers redesign your dojo. “Ya, velcome to your new den of zen awareness and physical destruction. This is not a dojo. It is a modo!” You look in the corner, and that sparring totem pole thing has been replaced by a giant blue plastic figure with no descript features or sharp edges, but it’s pleasing to look at. The rounded blue androgynous being makes you want to listen to Tosca, and you think that you really could live in South Beach, but only in a place with a lot of bamboo and the lighting adjusted so it always looks like the last minute of dusk, while you sip on dark rum and ginger infused cocktails and think of new ways to use the word “infused.”

Speaking of words that have no meaning, it’s official: people who use the word “infused” in cooking references – they’re full of shit. It’s just extra syllables. It sounds like there’s some kind of chemical process involving goggles, precision tools and blue flame. It means “in”. “I had the encrusted scallops infused with Cointreau and braised with a carmelized reduction.” That means you threw Cointreau into the pan with the scallops. Or you marinated them. Either way, there’s Cointreau in the fucking scallops. And reduction? That means you let the pan sit on the burner, but the art is apparently riding the line of laziness that determines how long you can sip you’re glass of wine and stare at the pan before you finally have to move it (and consequently yourself) so you’re not eating briquettes. It’s like a game of chicken for people handicapped by their own ego.

I think about writing in my journal all the time. But I never do. Is it the climate, myself or both? No one’s around anymore, except three people and a bunch of lurkers. Everyone’s lost interest in the interaction. Which is fine, and I can’t complain. I’m one of them. Waiting for one of you fuckers to entertain me. It used to be quite the clubhouse, but like all things, the novelty wore off. And people got busy. Or something came up. I was out of work and at home for a year and a half. I had better things to do than stare at everyone’s diaries and links to weird shit. Not that I don’t like you all, but let’s face it, would you rather do something constructive or read crap by people bored and stuck at work?

Exactly.

Well, now I’m bored and stuck at work. And while I could post an actual journal, I just feel like that kind of self-exploration is both boring and, well, rather personal. And believe me, there’s nothing worse than boring personal melodrama whose drama relies in the fact that it’s trying to be more interesting than it really is. Because it’s not. Interesting that is. In other words, it is not infused with interest. And you don’t care anyway. Well, maybe you do care, but I don’t care if you care, because I don’t care. And if I don’t, why should you? That’s kinda creepy.

New theory: the Internet is turning people into flagrant assholes.

It enables people to exhibit and practice shitty behavior from the comfort of their own home without fear of repercussion or being smacked in the mouth like they should have been a long time ago.

Here’s an example, so you can see where I’m coming from on this. Go to digg.com and poke around on a bunch of posts with a lot of comments (look for high diggs.) Soon, you’ll find a comment lambasting another, calling them a name maybe and telling them why they’re an idiot. Strangely, many idiot comments are because of a typo that someone made.

Typos happen. They’re going to happen a lot when you hand out keyboards to the general public who hated the two English classes they had in high school. However, I missed the memo that said one person’s typo was another’s free license to criticize the living bejesus out of them. It’s not hard to see that the critic criticizes because it empowers a false sense of intelligent superiority, and more importantly, because they can get away with it.

And it’s not just a grammar police thing. People sling their opinions against the wall like they own the place, and then treat those who disagree with the same care and empathy as the White House does for anyone who “dissents” against the War on Terror.

It’s easy to look at these people and say, “it’s just one guy.” Sure, some nut job finds a way to angle something to empower his white supremacist philosophy. That’s one guy. But if it’s just one guy, how does that asshole show up in more places than Isaac on the Love Boat. It’s a lot of people. The behavior encourages others to do it to. It’s behavior by example playground rules.

Digg is just one example. Any public Internet forum has it. Remember livejournal’s heyday, back when all y’all posted treatises on personal philosophy and other things that might make people think? On the other side were fanatics pounding their foreheads into monitors, threatening death if you didn’t love your neighbor, unless your neighbor was a homo. Good times, good times.

Of course there’s also the theory that people were assholes anyway, and the Internet has just enabled them to come out of their little world, or hole, or closet or where ever they come from.

Maybe. But there’s a big difference between talking smack to someone’s face and anonymously posting it on a giant electronic bulletin board for the whole world to see. Sure, they were assholes anyway. But now they’re encouraged.

And none of this is anything you don’t already know. In fact you probably know it so well, you already came to that conclusion cognizantly or indirectly a while ago and said fuck it. Maybe you realized it was just easier to not post, to not delve into the land of typo-infused risk, and to just keep walking and watching. The journal more or less became an offseason spectator sport.

Or perhaps you have succumb to the zen warmth of your modo and can’t be bothered with that whole journaling thing. If that’s true, be warned – eventually, the blue guy will creep you out. I promise.

Come and Git Your Tubes Filled!

2006-09-01T13:52:46Z

So I missed last week's post, and this week's is a bit late, so here's a bunch of stuff that's been collecting in my bookmarks folder - but there's some tasty stuff here, I promise.

Fun with Pictures
We'll start easy. I don't know why I find this so enjoyable, but SomethingAwful went old school. Their Photoshop geeks took a random boring picture and just played around with it, putting the people in it in different situations. Why am I explaining this? Just check it out. It's fun.

In the News
Men's Health magazine has done some research (no, I don’t know how) that has determined that the angriest city in the country is Orlando. St. Pete’s #2. Miami only made a whopping #7. And Jacksonville is #9. If you connect the dots, then apparently Tampa is the nexus of hatred. Did I mention that the study was national and not just of Florida?

A federal appeals court ruled that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. No shit. Apparently having more than a certain (unspecified) amount of money on you is evidence enough that you are guilty of… carrying a lot of money?! That’s a federal offense. Home of the free.

"… that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers." – Katherine Harris. Those goddamn, evil, baby-killing Founding Fathers fucking lied to us!

Surprisingly, the lovely Katherine Harris and her Orlando Fly-In Rally – whatever that is – were sold out, not just by one invited special guest, but by all of them. Nine invited bigwigs, and about 40 other supporters were all simultaneously having car problems and washing their hair during the event. “They confirmed that they would be here,” Harris said. “I don’t know what the problem is.” Um, maybe the fact that you’re a pariah to the entire Republican party? Or maybe it’s that you’re a psychopathic, Machiavellian, step on your grandma’s jugular in your 4-inch stilettos to rig an election cunt? Just spitballing. Maybe both?

And finally in politics, Make Cupcakes Not War.

Tickled
For reasons that people with an age range +/- 3 years of mine will appreciate, Choose Your Own Adventure.

Best Fiction of the Month
You’ll never watch Star Trek the same again. Read this. Here’s a little sample: “One minute they're sitting around the campfire singing and BOOM there's a giant version of Commander Riker trying to smother them all with his stadium-sized scrotum. I made sure to fake a door lockout too, so they were trapped in there for hours looking at Riker's taint and trying to breathe around his ball bag.”

Video, video, video
Man have I got videos. First – okay, I know this is old, but I hadn’t seen it in awhile. And there’s nothing that funny about the video itself, but you have to watch the whole thing and listen to it in slow motion. No, I don’t know why I think it’s so funny. But I do. Fuck off.

One of the best independent animations EVER: Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown.

The Office (ala David Brent) is back. Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing, but it’s an organizational video for Microsoft, and from what I’ve seen, it’s brilliant. The first video is 20 minutes, and the second is like 17 minutes. Great stuff.

The Next Show
Get your tix now. This is a one-time performance you won't want to miss. Also, I've resized this banner, so it's a little more aestetically/bandwidth friendly for everyone's blog. Check out our banners here!

The Week on the Web

2006-08-17T13:29:28Z

Not a whole helluva lot of tasty stuff found this week. I even waited a day to see if anything cool came up. Maybe people are starting to worry about fillin' up the tubes. Anyway, here they be:

GET THE WORD OUT AND BUY FREAKIN' TICKETS!
We sold 96% of our opening weekend. They're probably the cheapest ticket in town. It's mindlessly fun. But our sales for this weekend our hurting, and something just tells me that we're going to turn people away final weekend, which really sucks when no one shows up this weekend. Please come or if you're not in town, spread the word to those who are. We need the help, and those who go will be glad they do. And if you haven't at least seen the commercial for it - WATCH IT.

Vote!
Best of the Bay voting ends tomorrow. Go vote for your favorite theater company now. More specifically, vote Jobsite. Seriously, it's easy. You do have to fill out like 17 votes to be eligible, but it's a lot easier than it sounds.

Politics
The Republicans "seem to be anxious to tie [the recent London Bomb plot] to al Qaeda.... If that's true, how come we got seven times as many troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan? Why have we imperiled President [Hamid] Karzai's rule and allowed the Taliban to come back into the southern part of Afghanistan? Why was Iraq deemed to be seven times more important than finding the al Qaeda leaders for the last five years?" - Bill Clinton in a tasty little interview.

Make a little contest with yourself: see how far you can get through this article before you punch or curse something. President George Derrrr Bush is apparently frustrated by the lack of Iraqi support for Americans in Iraq. He can't wrap his massive intellect around the fact that "Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd." So... notice that he's totally content and apparently doesn't give a shit about the majority of people in his own country who don't support Derrrr. (FYI - it's a NYTimes article, so it may fall under a login-umbrella any second. Get it while the gettin's good.)

Dead?
I know it's old news by now, but it deserves to be linked. Bruno Kirby croaked Monday. I just about croaked when I head about it on NPR yesterday morning, and the NPR announcer person said Kirby was known for City Slickers 1 and 2 and When Sally Met Harry. Yes, she said "When Sally Met Harry". And she's a female. What the fuck. Why does no one remember him for playing the limo driver in Spinal Tap?

Art/Media
Here's your time killer. The National Portrait Gallery has a tres cool website displaying portrait covers for Time magazine for the last 75 years. Not only are the covers cool, but the site design rawks.

The Week on the Web

2006-08-09T13:40:11Z

Here’s something interesting. My weekly list of links, while albeit longer than usual, is filled with cool, artistic, or groovy stuff, and not a whole helluva lot of politics. That’s a nice change. Well, it’s a whole buncha links, so I’ll get to it:

Mmmm. Original works. Sketch Comedy. Jobsite. Opening weekend.

Shopping
I’m not really sure why I like to own and display weird crap in my house that fucks with people, but it’s the only reason I want something from here.

Blog o’ the Week
Kathleen Reardon wrote a spot-on blog nailing the Bush Admin’s diplomacy and negotiation style (and lack thereof). It’s a quick read and highly recommended.

Cool Web Stuff
Ever want to know what that song is on the radio? Well, you certainly can’t depend on the DJ anymore, because there isn’t one. However, you can go here.

Rather simple, and nearly pointless, but a cool concept and a nice 3-minute timekiller.

Word on the Street
“Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them ‘because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.’”

Groovy Art
I can’t say anything but “cool” for this site. Check out the Bazantar.

A part of me really wants to understand how this works. But a bigger part of me just wants to look at the pretty colors. Scroll down to see the video.

Well… the artists makes really cool stuff. Out of paper. And I’m not talking origami either. Click the A4 Papercut link to start.

Drroooool
I want this. And I don’t even know what I’d use it for. Probably porn. You can probably skip the first minute of the girl who looks a lot like my first grade teacher.

Video Coolness
This is the second funniest thing I’ve seen all month. The first is Jason Evans throwing a baby at a camera, but that video is still in production. So, until then, you must watch Darth Vader Being a Smartass. And no, there's no reason the video why it's flagged as inappropriate. You could show it to a 3-year-old.

And if you’re pants are still tight and wet from that Star Wars goodness, check out the Omen-quality eerieness that was with the very first preview for Star Wars. Tres chic nostalgia goodness.

I am so sick of the news

2006-08-04T16:24:36Z

Okay, so maybe it’s just been a long, slow, dull, rusty dentist’s drill of a news week. That still doesn’t mean I need it proven for yet another week that Murphy’s Law applies to world affairs. Is being a dickhead contagious in the international community?

Several rants here, mostly because it's a bunch of stuff that no one is saying. I haven't been hated publicly in awhile, so I guess I'm due. Here we go:

Cuba
I’m glad Castro’s alive, just so I don’t have to hear every news outlet desperate for a new country to cover, sprawling itself spread eagle for a bunch of pointless forecasting.

And the White House just fuels it. “Well, Castro’s going tits up. Now Cuba will be free!”

No. It won’t. And fuck every naïve dipshit in Miami who is quoted on NPR for saying, “if only the people in Cuba would rise up.” Sure. 47 years of this crap – why didn’t they think of that earlier?! Note: when the leader of a country wears a military uniform to work, there ain’t no risin’ up.

ANYTHING that the US says remotely negative about Castro and how he runs Cuba is jet fuel in Castro’s propaganda fire. They are all convinced that the US is standing by the helm to overthrow the country, and given the way the US has handled everything in the past 50 years, it’s not hard for them to see it that way. When word spread that Castro was ill, Bush jumped at a chance to vomit a bunch of crap that Castro could just say, “See, the warmongering honkey wants to kill us.” Next time, just send a card and some flowers. Seriously. Doesn’t mean you mean it. But lets face it: will repeating the same thing that’s been said and done in the past half-century really change anything? Change it up. And don’t give him anything to use against anyone.

As far as Raul goes.... By virtue of the fact that the guy has been Fidel’s personal bell hop all this time, something tells me the guy isn’t going to kick the Little Red Book to the curb and start quoting Adam Smith the first time he gets a chance. His last name is fucking Castro! He’s not as bad as Fidel? Yeah, and I’m sure some genius said, “Hey, y’know that Khrushchev guy ain’t as bad as Stalin.” That doesn’t mean anything to me. Stop assuming that problems are solved as soon as the douchebag buys the farm.

Israel
Israel Israel Israel. Remove all the bombs, the missiles, the kidnappings, dead children, devastated land in both Lebanon and Israel – all the evil destruction. Delete all that, and you have a high school soap opera. It’s two obstinate, stubborn varsity players, fighting over a chick they both hate. This is stupid.

Hezbollah – you bunch of assholes. Stop digging tunnels under other people’s borders and give back the soldier you kidnapped. That’s not a bartering chip for your peeps in Israel’s jails. You stole it in blind daylight. You’re not fooling anyone. You have a 20% stake in a government that apparently can’t control you. Use it. Otherwise, what’s the point in being in the government?

Israel – you indignant knobs. Enough with the relentless bombing. I know you can’t tell the difference between civilians and guerrilla fighters. That’s what makes them guerrillas. Just be happy you’re not Lebanon, and enough with the fake war. Take a note from your pseudo-buddy in the White House, look at the ginormous clusterfuck he’s bequeathing his successor in 2008 and get the fuck out. Now. You got to know when to fold them.

Everyone else – wow. Talk about not agreeing on the color of shit. A UN peacekeeping force led by France? Sure. Why not? And while we’re at it, why don’t you put $10K on Richard Simmons winning an Ultimate Fighting Championship, too.

The US – A sustainable cease-fire? So… you’re up for a cease-fire once both sides… cease… fire? Fuck you. Oh, and by the way, Condi – nice job on your trip to Rome. Let’s sum up:

You took a surprise trip that the White House announced would happen a week before you left

You gave no international credence to one of the sides

Beirut told you to not bother and you didn’t even make it into the country, and

You came home announcing that Israel would lay off the fireworks, which would have been great press, if Israel wasn’t bombing the shit out of Lebanon when that hit the wire.

Good stuff. Maybe we should take some smaller bites next time. How ‘bout you head up to the Dakotas and figure out what all this North and South stuff is about.

Mel Gibson
Can OJ kill someone again? Please? This. Is. Not. Important.

Okay, he hates Jews. I get it. And I don’t care. He was drunk. He knows it, and he knows he’s got a problem. Question: would anyone make this much of a stink about it, if he said the same about Muslims instead?

Iraq
Pulling out is stupid. This isn’t a pride thing. But it is slightly unethical to drop by, fuck the place up even worse than it was before, and then leave. This is a good place to get the French to sign up to get shot at.

Yes, the people who put us there are criminally stupid. They not only are unqualified, but they’re harmful. However, consider the following:

Iraq is not on the brink of a civil war. It has been a civil war for quite awhile now. Enough with the bullshit semantics. Accept it.

If the US leaves, there is zero hope for the civil war evolving into anything but anarchy. Anarchy is an open house to any nutjob with enough nutjobs behind him to take over. When nutjobs take over, you get a dictatorship. The only nutjobs around are religious fanatics that will make Saddam Hussein look like Thomas Jefferson.

Say what you want about the idiots that got us in this mess. Done? Good. Now, consider that Iraq at its best day could be a rather strategic location to counter the rise of fundamentalist Islam. However, at its worst, it could be Iran’s butt boy. I’m not talking about democracy in Iraq. I’m talking about potential for a country that can prove that Islam does not necessarily equal evil. If the US leaves, the scales can only tip toward the worst. Should the US do this alone? No. It can’t. The president needs to stop being a fuckface, tuck his tail between his legs, admit he’s a fuckface and present this to other countries that can help. Either that, or split the country back up into the three smaller countries, like it was before the Brits got the wise idea to “unite” them a hundred years ago.

Of course, I know it's not as cut and dry and easy as all that. But neither is just plain leaving. The real solution, or at least the first step in obtaining a real solution? The White House resigns. Don't just buy time until the election. Give the job to someone qualified to do something. (Hey, I never said it would happen. I'm just looking saying that's the first step to a real solution.)

Fillin' up dem tubes

2006-08-02T16:38:28Z

Here's your week on the interweb:

Politics
I’m still working on a nickname: Train-Wreck. Queen Hubris. The Dragon Lady. There are so many. For right now, I’ll continue calling her the Bush/Cheney 2000 FL Campaign Manager & Twunt In Charge of Florida’s 2000 Elections.

Anyway, Katherine Harris’ campaign is going so swell that the Washington Post felt the urge to remind people that three months ago the Florida Republican Party told Harris they wouldn’t support her US Senate race because she wouldn’t win. In a statement yesterday, Harris called the letter "old news" and said that party chairman, Carole Jean Jordan, had never expressed concerns about her campaign. In her own statement yesterday, Jordan said, "Uh, read the letter you dense twunt. We said you were fucked, and you still are."

In the same article, apparently there’s some hub-bub about MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) referring to the Big Dig as a “tar baby”. A Romney spokesman told the news agency that the governor was "unaware that some people find the term objectionable and he's sorry if anyone's offended." He will now use the more politically correct “Porch Monkey”.

Back to Harris: the Republican-leaning Tampa Tribune scooped the Times (aw snap!) this morning. Harris concealed a grand jury subpoena from top campaign advisers hired to help her deflect negative publicity. "Finding out about the subpoena caused me to wonder about what was going on and what else I didn't know" said Glenn Hodas, Harris' third and most recent campaign manager. The article does emphasize that the subpoena doesn't mean she's actually potentially guilty for breaking any law. Just that she's lying so much to her own staff, that they're jumping faster than the Titanic. For those keeping score, she's currently working on chief-of-staff number five.

Big Scoop. The Pentagon lied to the 9/11 commission. “Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the airliner was not hijacked until 12 minutes later. The military was not aware of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.” I guess the panel “debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation“ but opted to pass a note to the inspectors general of the Transportation and Defense depts. Better idea: let’s conduct the next investigation of Maj. Gen. Arnold and Col. Scott at GITMO.

Hollywood
I don’t get. I just don’t get the fucking obsession. People so engrossed over a fucking baby, that they’ll flock to stare at a wax dummy of it. It's a stranger's baby! I hope the next picture someone takes of it is while the kid's being cornholed by Michael Jackson.

Poor Mel. Seriously. I feel bad for the guy. Okay, that said, this is still funny.

And in Mel’s defense, the Daily Show slapped the media’s manipulative methods (my alliteration, thank you) of covering irrelevant shit like Mel Gibson’s recent DUI.

In case you didn’t know
All your snakes are belong to us. Motherfucker.

And of course, the most important link in the world:

Links of the Week

2006-07-26T19:07:17Z

Woo-hoo! It’s that time to dig what was on this past week’s Series of Tubes!

Politics
It’s only been a couple weeks since Bush said SHIT over a reporter’s microphone, and I still haven’t chimed in. That’s because I don’t care. However, were I to add anything, zefrank covers it quite nicely.

Because the moral high road wasn’t high enough, Rove bolstered the White House’s case against federal stem cell research by lying. Well, maybe “lying” is a bit harsh. I mean when you just make shit up, then your reality is quite clear. So here’s Rove telling it like it is (except to the rest of the world that has a fact-based reality.)

Probably the best summary and commentary on net neutrality was featured on The Daily Show. Seriously. If you want to get the five-minute low-down on net neutrality without developing narcolepsy, you can do it here.

Watch This
If you click on any link and watch a video this week, this is the one. This isn't Oliver Stone style conspiracy theory. Here is a sworn testimony from a programmer involved in voting programs and machines who explains how he was asked to write code rigging a hypothetical election. I’d love to know where this hearing happened, who was involved, and so on. Nonetheless, this is a quantum leap in exposing our new-fangled voting machines and potentially how the hell monkey-boy got elected (again!)

Fun stuff
Um, this... uh. Well, just click the link and see for yourself.

And here’s an interactive time killer of greatly useless but quasi-creative proportions.