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.

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.

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.

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!

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.”

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.”

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!

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!

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.

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.

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 )

( Israel )

( Mel Gibson )

( Iraq )

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:

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.

UPDATE: I was going to wait to post this, but Kevin Smith deserves the press before Clerks II opens, so the link should be spread. Kevin Smith talked to Joel Siegel on the radio. Smith's updated his post, and you can hear the interview from his site. Click here and scroll down. Very entertaining. Totally worth a whole listen.

Back again with collected links of note from the past week.

Proof that not all politics suck
On Thursday, "a [New Hampshire] judge gave state Democrats the go-ahead Thursday to question high-ranking Republicans in a civil suit over the jamming of Democrats' phones on Election Day 2002." This is a brick in the Reps' rigged election wall, and with any luck, and it could point back to the White House. Quick thought: didn't tricky Dick get busted for wiretapping DNC rooms prior to an election. Hmmm.

And this just in. Criminal fuckwad and morally corrupt assjackyl Ralph Reed screwed the pooch in Georgia and lost the Lt. Gov. primary. The primary. The Christian Coalition whore couldn't win a Republican primary in Georgia. Guess all that Abramoff/scandal stuff isn't just a bunch of fluff that people will ignore after all.

The Decider Continues to Shock and Awe
The Great Uniter continued his shock and awe campaign at the G8 summit. First there was the weird creepy obsession with eating a pig. Then, of course, he discusses foreign policy secretly into a reporters microphone and says the word, "shit." (I can actually look past that one.) And now, he's fondling the Chancellor of Germany. Click here, and then click the Video link on the left. I think he's actually scored more points this month for being a weird creepy fucker than Kim Jong Il.

Geek Tools
For all y'all that appreciate this kind of geekiness, here's a very cool list of Google operators - apparently Google isn't just a common search engine.

General Entertainment
This poor guy. I want to laugh so badly at the great Jenga sculptor, but then I feel so bad for the poor guy who ruined it. Summary: a short video on a reporter who destroyed someone's Guinness Record effort.

As I said to maladr1n, Kevin Smith found a critic who rivals the assholery of Tampa theater critics. Definitely worth the read.

Entertaining and Geeky?! Tres Cool.
A very cool toy, with very cool design, for music junkies. Just check it out.

Here's my week's top pick of interesting stuff worth checking out on the Internets. It's all work-safe, but you might want headphones for some of it.

Funny Stuff
Turns out British radio personalities are just as juvenile and desperate as American dj's for homemade entertainment value. The difference - like most of British culture vs. American - is they actually stand a chance at being clever. Here's one of the best crank calls I've heard in a while.

I can't even think of something witty to add to this. The wit is in the picture. Just check out the link.

Thank God for Leadership
This video comparison is rather frightenizing. Evidently, our President didn't always talk like an extra from The Ringer (which, btw, wasn't nearly as wrong/funny as it promised.)

Having problems tracking down those evil Iraqi terrorists? The Dept. of Terrorism-Eradicationism and Democratization-Spreading might want to reconsider who it looks to for leadership. The Iraq chapter leader (troop 397) of al-Qaeda might not be leading much. He's in jail. Oh yeah, and he's not in Iraq either.

That's one small speck for man...
Feeling insignificant lately? Pshaw! See a visual representation of you vs. the rest of the world in this pretty graphic. Make sure you use the horizontal scrollbar to get the full picture.

Good Reads
An article about gas prices actually worth reading, if for any other reason to understand why gas prices shoot up overnight, and then take eons to come back down. Well written and a quick read.

Ha! The reason I don’t know what net neutrality is is because no one knows what it is. Or they do, but someone else may have a completely different definition.

(I realize this may turn into some sad geek/political obsession, but I am going somewhere with this.)

Last night while flipping channels, I came across a political ad. I only caught the last bit of it, but it was a political ad. You know the type. “If you don’t want so-and-so shitting down your baby’s throat and getting paid millions of dollars of your hard earned tax dollars because of necrophiliac draft dodging lobbyists, vote Yes on resolution 4!” The ad sounded something like that. I specifically heard 1) Google, 2) net neutrality, and 3) legislation. But it was the net neutrality that caught my attention, especially since it’s mid-June and there aren’t any elections in the near future that I know of, so I thought it was rather unusual.

That started me to wonder, if someone is paying for advertising, this is becoming a big deal. And if I don’t know what the hell it is (and I’m actually trying to care and find out), what the hell is the average Joe watching Wheel of Fortune going to know about it? Won’t stop Joe from voting on it, but Joe and I still don’t know what it is.

Well, I just saw this. Turns out, the people gearing up for the fight don’t know what it is either. This is probably the best article I’ve seen on it so far. I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the writer’s position. However, I agree that this is churning into a legislation war that isn’t well defined and can have massive consequences on the Internet and how it operates. Washington chuckleheads voting on something this unknown could be even worse and far reaching than legislation for something that is at least clearly established. Would it be so wrong for everyone to just shut the fuck up for once and see if there’s any research to predicate an argument one way or the other, and while you’re at it, actually determine what the “net neutrality” is seeks legislation?

I can't be bothered to write a real journal, so just a few random things:

For anyone who thinks 1) the apocalypse is near or 2) global warming is immediately increasing a recent spate of annihilating hurricane activity, check this out. I'm not saying global warming isn't a factor, but there's nothing to say that the impact is immediate and/or something just arising in the last few years. Check out the 150 Years of Ruin link on the top, and don't miss the links for "By Decade" (under the top links) and "Average Annual Strengths" (bottom right, below the map).

Evidently the West Wing has been looking for something a little more... moralistic and fascist. Check out the barrel of monkeys Team Bush hired for it's chief domestic policy adviser. This guy should be a real hoot for the 06 election. Good thing he wasn't around for Katrina, or domestic policy may not have been pretty.

Fun Fact - did you know the former chief domestic policy adviser "resigned after being accused of trying to fleece retail stores in a product-exchange scam?" I hate to say it, but maybe the Child President would be a little more successful if he hired good thieves, instead of the two-bit variety.

Question: what the fuck is net neutrality? I've seen a load of references in the last couple weeks, never heard of it a month ago, and I'm hearing that so-and-so is an opponent/proponent (ooooh big deal!) and will be seeking to re-write the [insert massive international/federal legislation] for/against it. I've tried looking it up, and the best conclusion I've come up with is that it's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you use the Internet to surf the web, or use the web to access the Internet.

And finally, Happy (belated) Birthday cretebunny! I would have remembered yesterday, but I'm an ass and forgot. Hope you had a swell day.

A sad, sad day indeed for comedy and political junkies around the world. The great boob, Scott McClellan, is resigning his post as White House Press Secretary. It looks like we have only the Child President and maybe the occasional attempted manslaughter by the Big Dick to rely upon for our humor brought directly from the White House.

For those who don’t know, McClellan was a special kind of Press Secretary. See, normally, the job requires the dispensing of bullshit unparalleled by any other position in the world, the kind that in any other form would mandate giant hoses, hydraulic pumps and the sorts of wind producing mechanisms used on the set of a movie about natural disasters. That’s normally. By normally, I’m talking the kind of slinging required for a Clinton or a Reagan. "Normally" is a tsunami of fucking lies.

Now add what it must take to summon the balls, the stupidity, the absurdity to lie for George W. Bush! That’s like parting a red sea full of feces! LIKE TWICE A DAY! That was Scott McClellan’s job.

But that wasn’t Scott McClellan. Scott took a unique angle. Scott made press meetings look like the Argument Room sketch from Monty Python. I mean, you really couldn’t tell if he was using the White House’s twisted faulted logic to defend itself, or if he really was that brain damaged and just kind of accidentally epitomized the mentality coming out of the West Wing. He’s like one of those skiers or ballet dancers who just made it all look so easy and effortless. If the mentally retarded were trying to be mentally retarded, Scott McClellan would be their God!

In Scott’s defense, his retirement isn’t a surprise. Even during aforementioned “normal” circumstances, a White House press secretary only has a shelf life of about 2-3 years. It’s an exhausting job, all that shoveling, and even Charles Manson would start to question his conscience after doing the job for a few months. So, don’t think this is part of the great alleged shakeup that isn’t really happening at the White House. This is par.

But it is sad. The world has lost a great spirit in American humor indeed.

At least until he gets a talk show on cable news.

Good ol' Lyndon Johnson is credited with one of the most fundamental truisms in politics, specifically when it came to disseminating bad information about opponents:
It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Make them deny it.

Johnson knew it was the confrontation of the issue that sank people, careers, institutions... you name it. While the justice system believes you are innocent until proven guilty, public opinion doesn’t work that way. Say the same thing over and over again, and people will eventually believe it. Just ask John Kerry what people think about his military record.

Here’s where I’m going with this. According to the AP: “Court papers filed by the prosecutor in the CIA leak case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said Bush authorized Libby to disclose information from a classified prewar intelligence report. The court papers say Libby's boss, advised him that the president had authorized Libby to leak the information to the press in striking back at administration critic Joseph Wilson.”

That’s all fine and good, and I’m happy as hell that the prosecutor has become capable to officially file this. What’s more important, however, is if this White House can deny it and get away with it.

I’ve spent the last six years in shock and awe (that’s where all that went). I’ve watched an administration repeatedly, baldly, bluntly tell the world it was going to do whatever it wanted and get away with it. Not only has it done that, but it’s done it all really, really badly. Like redefining incompetence badly. Not only did you smoke in the non-smoking section, but you used the grease dumpster in the kitchen as an ashtray and burnt the restaurant down. And then you said you were going to go to another restaurant, because the service sucked. And everyone said, “Well, he seems so dosh-garn country-bumpkin charming that it must be bad service, because no one could be so stupid as to use a grease pit as an ashtray and blame a waiter.” But you did. And you went to another restaurant and you smoked there too. And you burnt the block down. And you just kept on accusing waiters. That’s how bad.

But no matter the arson, no matter the blatant corruption, lies, mismanagement and incompetence, he’s still there.

Anywho, my point isn’t really about the issue. My point is that in the last 12 hours, I’ve seen link after link headlining “Bush Authorized Leak.” Catch it on TV or radio, and pretty soon you’re hearing rather memorable quotes from the President in the last year or so saying how much he hates leaks and will use every power at hand to terminate anyone in his administration who does leak. It’s everywhere.

There’s a picture being painted in the collective conscious of a smoking gun in the hands of George W. Bush – a guy who will probably be the first to attest that facts are meaningless because perception defines reality.

My concern is will this administration just… keep getting away with shit at no consequence? Any other administration, any other time, it’d be the weenie shrinker of weenie shrinkers. But this isn’t any time. This is a time when record voter turnout gave a 0.000001% margin to a guy who shouldn’t have gotten the 0.000001% margin the first time. This is a time when approval ratings have hit the second lowest of all time – just above Richard Fucking Nixon – and Congress isn’t sure if he’s done anything wrong, much less done something so horrible that they would at least officially shake a finger and call him a bad boy. Besides getting a b.j. from a fat chick, what the fuck do you have to do to get fired in that city?

Have we – you, me, them, Congress, everybody – reached a point of blind apathy so complacent that it just keeps going? Will this be the test that this administration can’t pass, or will this be the test that proves Lyndon Johnson’s theory wrong?

I can’t resist, and apparently the ABC and the AP can’t anymore either. Just a few select sections from one article.

Here’s more or less the reason the article is written, but there’s so much more.

President Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war Sunday by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence that rages three years after he ordered an invasion. The president didn't utter the word "war." Bush did not mention the insurgent attacks, the car bombs or the mounting Iraqi deaths in a two-minute statement to reporters outside the White House after returning from a weekend at Camp David.

Oh, and by the way, the third anniversary of the “beginning of the liberation of Iraq” is going so well, that…

The White House is trying to remind the disapproving public of Bush's vision for Iraq with a public relations blitz. The president plans to give a series of speeches on Iraq, beginning Monday in Cleveland.

Brace yourself, probably my favorite part:

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney did not express any regret for predicting in the days before the invasion that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators or his assessment 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes." On the contrary, he said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

Evidently, the vice president’s doctors have added to his heart medications some of “the good shit.”

In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Cheney flatly rejected a statement made earlier Sunday by Iraq's former interim prime minister that the increasing attacks killing dozens each day across his country can only be described as a civil war.

“What the fuck does he know?” Cheney asked. “He’s just some middle-management foreigner. We’re watching the last throes from the greatest surveillance satellites available. I can watch basically accurate reflecting last throes seven thousand miles away from my desk.”

Instead, Cheney described the violence as the actions of terrorists who have "reached a stage of desperation."

Translated into the reality that everyone outside the White House is using: by “terrorists,” he meant only all of the Sunnis and Shiites fighting each other. And by "desperation," he meant “uncontrollable conflict”.

"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment a civil war," Cheney said. "But I don't think they've been successful."

Translated again, by “foment” he meant “sow the fucking seeds for”. And by “successful” he meant, “successful of thinking of a better way to coexist with a religious conflict that defies imagination but could only be controlled by a dictator threatening to kill all of them.”

Cheney blamed the negative perception on news coverage of the daily violence instead of the progress being made toward democracy.
"There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," the vice president said. "It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces."

Yeah right? I mean, how many people remember that farmer in Nebraska who grew like that insane fucking pumpkin back in September a couple years ago? No one. Not even the local paper came out to take a photo. But try finding a newspaper from that day without some big ol’ buildings in New York City with exploding planes sticking out of them. The liberal media just focuses on the negative all the time.

Okay, I’m done with the Cheney reality translator, but two more sections I have to put in, because someone at the AP’s starting to get a little fed up: these paragraphs appeared back to back in each instance.

Rumsfeld urged Americans to continue supporting the fight and said he believes history will show that the terrorists were defeated.
In a New York Times column, retired Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003-2004, called the defense secretary "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down."

And here’s the finale:

Nearly three years ago Bush announced the end to major combat in Iraq.
Last week, U.S. forces launched Operation Swarmer, described by the Pentagon as the biggest air assault since April.

Ah, good times. Good. Fucking. Times.