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Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in US after 9/11, Officials Say Bush Vows to Continue Spying on Americans Cheney Defends Domestic Spying Cheney says the wiretaps were "part of a concerted effort to rebuild presidential powers weakened in the 1970s as a result of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War." Perhaps it was fear of abuse such as this that led to those "weakened" powers in the first place, Mr. Cheney. Rice Fails to Clarify US View on Torture I'm fascinated by the term "extraordinary renditions". Websters defines rendition as "obsolete" and "the act or result of rendering ." Click on that rendering link and you'll find several meanings, but the first definition is "to melt down… to extract by melting… to treat so as to convert into industrial fats and oils…" which seems FAR too appropriate when referring to an action used to facilitate torture. None of the other meanings seem quite accurate in te...

Then there's this guy, who looks to be on the opposite end of the grinch scale from my previous post's moron . CNN.com - Neighbors' yards cleared to create 'Snowzilla' - Dec 20, 2005

I was going to post some kind of cynical rant about the new spirit of Christmas, but really, this just says it all. CNN.com - Murderous Santa display draws stares - Dec 14, 2005 And may I just say… "bullshit": "It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn't be," he said. "We didn't put it up to offend anybody." Don't you just have to love (and by that, I mean detest) this kind of contemptible asshole?

…then cats must be teenagers. First off, I have to admit I enjoy making that "dogs are like children" comparison if for no other reason than I know it must annoy at least some of the people out there currently raising kids. But trust me, the parallels are amusing, if a bit scary. Take jealousy, for instance. We have two dogs, a male and a female. The female is a German Shepherd mix, a couple of years old. The male is a Rottweiler mix and he's about 9 months old. We got Athos (the Rottweiler) first, then Nala adopted us a week later. And we've been seeing jealousy issues between the two almost from day one. I'll take them out for a walk and, when we get back, Athos will race over to Nala's space to grab the bone she's left behind, then gleefully trot over to his space, where he's already got a bone. She'll come prowling into the house, find a toy he's been playing with, and take it out into the yard, stepping over the toys already littering the ...

I am NOT a huge System of a Down fan. Which is really something of an understatement, since I used to fall over myself trying to get to the radio fast enough to change the station when their first single was in heavy rotation on KROQ. So it's not terribly surprising that I'm not particularly taken by their latest work. But when the chorus for " Lonely Day " comes blasting at me with "…the most loneliest day of my life…" I'm whipped right back to "QUICK! CHANGE THE STATION!" mode. I realize how tragically un-hip this makes me sound (and how tragically un-hip "tragically un-hip" sounds, as well as how much I've overused both "tragically" and "hip/un-hip" in the past few days) but seriously… "the most loneliest day"? I notice that the song isn't called "Most Loneliest Day" or even "Loneliest Day". Makes my ears bleed, just hearing it. (*sigh* Yes, more hyperbole. Get over it.)  

Not that I really believe that. In 2415, There are Still Bad Hair Days I think the problem with this NY Times review of Aeon Flux is obvious in the first few sentences when the reviewer shows that he's not terribly interested in this film, nor particularly conversant in SF tropes (yes, there's that word again) nor, apparently, willing to put any effort into watching this film in order to understand it. And this is not a film that entails a lot of effort TO understand, if you ask me. (I just remembered that you have to register with the Times to read their reviews, so to spare you that annoyance, allow me to quote a pertinent example for you: Why - and, for that matter, how - did Sophie Okonedo replace her feet with hands? Who knew that garter belts, tulle snoods and spandex jumpsuits would come back into fashion in the 25th century? Does Frances McDormand live somewhere in Charlize Theron's digestive tract, and is that why she didn't comb her hair?… But I'm supp...

On CSI: NY tonight, about half-way through the episode, one of the character's cellphones starts ringing. It's playing Coldplay's new single "Talk" and we know that because the character tells this to the other actor in the scene, joking that it's (talking, we assume) something his girlfriend is good at. The scene ends, cut to commercial, and "you too can get Coldplay's Talk, the song you just heard on tonight's CSI: NY" downloaded to your cellphone! As blatant commercial tie-in's go, this one's gotta take the cake. Well, until 10 minutes later in the episode, when they use the same song as the background to one of the big reveal moments in the episode. And, once again, once the scene's over and the show goes to commercial, we get told how we can get Talk on our cellphone. Dani pointed out that it's the only way advertisers can get their messages out, since people are TIVOing right past the commercials now. And I remember read...

I’ve always been fascinated by this word. Film and SF critics seem to constantly refer to "tropes," but finding a definition that actually addresses that usage has eluded me. Websters' "a word or expression used in a figurative sense," for instance, is virtually useless. This Wordsmith.Org "definition" helps a little bit: The word tropism is related to trope, the term for rhetorical devices such as metaphor and irony. The idea is that the words in those rhetorical devices are turned in a special way. But I finally had to delve into Wikipedia to find a definition that really helps here: In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme , style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. They are usually tied heavily to genre. For example, tropes in horror literature and film include the mad scientist or a dark and stormy night. Tropes can also be plots or events, such as the science fiction trope of an alien invas...

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I just heard the DJ on KROQ talking about the Verve's song " Bitter Sweet Symphony ." I didn't know this, but apparently they sampled a Rolling Stones song for this track, which led to a long court battle with the Stones—one which the Verve eventually lost. So every time that song plays, it's the Rolling Stones that get the royalty check, and not the Verve. I'm pretty sure this was their only really BIG hit, so could truer words have ever been applied to a song title?  

I had to rent a truck this weekend and, while I was standing in line, I saw this product that's supposed to help you lift heavy items. The slogan on the product was "virtually makes your load seem lighter." Later in the day, I heard an ad for Target where they urged you to visit their "virtual website." Now, if we go with the colloquial definition of virtual, the product slogan is either simply redundant (it almost makes your load give the impression of being lighter?) or an outright contradiction, depending on how you see it. As for the website… well it's either a website or it isn't. I'm pretty sure there's nothing virtual about it. And if they're somehow pushing some virtual reality content (the probable reason "virtual" is now a buzzword), then that's some pretty ambitious content for a discount department store website. I'm not sure HOW virtual became such a buzzword, but I'm pretty sure this is the wrong word fo...

Angry Moms Boycott Eatery That Asks Kids To Keep Quiet I used to work in a restaurant in Irvine, and lost count of the number of times parents would come into the restaurant, ask for tables separate from their children and proceed to ignore them as they misbehaved and acted out, under the apparent assumption that it was someone else's job (presumably the waiter's) to mind their children for them. Maybe because I was raised to respect others, I don't find it terribly offensive to expect other people (and their children) to have a little respect in return. (It's called " socialization " people, and its one of the things that differentiates us from animals.) And I don't find much to complain about in asking kids to "use their indoor voices" in an indoor environment, especially one that might cater to MORE than kids. I may have to start patronizing A Taste of Heaven. God, I hate people these days.  

I have greeted the results of every election since at least the 2000 Presidential elections with a mixture of horror and contempt, so it was a refreshing feeling today to listen to the news and hear results I actually wanted to hear. The good news? In California, all 8 of the abominable initiatives in our special election got defeated, many of them by some pretty impressive margins . (For an interesting look at the results, click on the "map" link after each of those propositions to see how each county voted. It's really interesting when you get down to Prop's 78, 79 & 80.) The Governor's plans got repudiated and his popularity is at an all time low. (Yes, I most definitely consider that good news.) Outside of California, 2 states elected Democratic Governors, Maine rejected a bid to reverse their gay rights legislation, and all eight members of the Pennsylvania School Board that introduced the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution i...

Bush Declares: 'We Do Not Torture' So if we don't torture, why all the effort to oppose a Senate ban on torture? I'm just asking, you know?

I've been hearing the buzz for months on Jarhead , with every movie preview and feature story on the movie pounding the Oscar buzz drumbeat. I'm not a big fan of military/war themed films, so my reaction so far has been a resounding "yeah, whatever." Then I saw the teaser trailer for the movie a couple of weeks ago. I've been complaining for a while now about bad movie trailers (my pet peeve: the "tell the whole story" trailer that leaves me wondering why I should bother seeing the movie. In most cases, I find I shouldn't.) But this one does it all right… just enough story to establish setting, striking visuals, and a hip-hop background track that drives the whole thing. I honestly found myself wanting to see this film, simply because of that trailer. If the movie's half as good as the trailer (and, judging by the reviews , that's sounds about right) it just might be worth checking out.  

I read a review of this book a while back that talked about its smart satire and stylish wit and left me thinking it might be one I'd want to check out. So when I came across a copy at the local discount bookseller, I picked it up. There's a part of me that wishes I'd read the reviews on Amazon.com first. Not that this is a bad book… more that it's one where the whole is LESS than the sum of its parts. It's set in a dystopic future where capitalism has reached its logical extreme, the American government is privatized and places like Australia (where much of the book takes place) are now "the Australian Territories of the U.S.A." People adopt their employers name as their surname, so John Nike works for Nike and Jennifer Government… well you get how it works. The police will stop a crime if it's in progress, but you must hire them to investigate that crime if you want the perpetrators charged and tried. (One of the more inspired moments in the book c...

And no, for once I'm not talking about the President… I saw Flightplan last Friday. 2 weeks at number 1, beating out Serenity in its second week, and the number two movie this week, right behind Wallace & Gromit , for a grand total of over $63 million and counting. And all I could think after seeing it was how undeserving of that kind of success this movie is. It's got the requisite Big Name stars… Jodie Foster, Sean Bean and Peter Sarsgaard are all fine and give the kind of performances you'd expect from these actors. And, while the directing might be adequate, the story is anything but. It starts out all right, but by the time you get to the second or third plot twist—assuming you're still paying attention—credibility has been strained way beyond the breaking point, even for movies like this that habitually strain your credibility. The ENTIRE set up for the "bad guys" nefarious plan is so absurd as to leave you wondering if anyone was paying attention w...

A couple of years ago, I took a class in "storytelling". We spent a lot of time with Scott Adams Understanding Comics , discussing the elements of comics and how they apply to storytelling, especially as it relates to online and other media. Chief among the concepts we discussed was that of comics as "sequential art"… images in juxtaposition that gain meaning due to that juxtaposition. Since the frames in a comic are static, the "action" in the comic takes place between the frames (the action in frame A leads to the action in frame B leads to the action in frame C, etc.) So there's a connection implied between juxtaposed images. Imagine my surprise on seeing the front page of today's LA Times. Above the scorched earth image of the latest So Cal wildfire, we have the announcement that John Roberts has been confirmed as the new Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Sure, the picture actually goes with the "Fire still out of control" artic...

Success always breeds imitators. So it's no surprise that the fall TV season is full of Lost clones, right? I'm not sure what I'm most amused by here… the fact that all of them have gone with a single-word, declamatory title: Surface, Threshold, Invasion, Supernatural or maybe it's the way some of them tried SO hard to distance themselves from the whole "Sci-Fi" label. Maybe it's just that, for all their attempts to ride on Lost's popularity, none of them are really doing anything new or original. Supernatural seems to be the most fun, so far, and the one I'm most likely to keep watching. It's got that whole painfully-hip "McG does the WB" vibe going for it (you know, too witty for its own good, everyone's WAY too good looking for real life, that sort of thing). With the mixture of "looking for dad/solving the mystery of mom's death" and the monster-of-the-week format, this one's firmly in the X-Files/ Night St...

What a relief! After everybody seemed to be falling all over themselves the past couple of weeks to "accept responsibility" for the Hurricane Katrina/New Orleans debacle, it's almost refreshing to hear that Mike Brown isn't willing to jump on that bandwagon. FEMA's Brown puts blame on Louisiana officials "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," he said in his opening testimony. The best part of this article may be the revelation that he's still on FEMA's payroll as a consultant "to assess what's wrong". The fallacy in that statement's so obvious, I don't even need to mock it! Way to go, Mike. Good to see a guy that really knows how to pass the buck in full stride.  

If you're commenting on my blog lately, I have to apologize for the inconvenience of the "word verification" step that's been added to it. Turns out the spammers have yet another outlet for their pointless attempts to get us clicking on their crap… comment spam. It's not a new thing, judging by the articles in the Blogger Help section, but I've just started experiencing it this month. Rather than have to police my blog daily for moronic attempts to sell the latest miracle drug/free credit/get rich scheme to unsuspecting Internet users (who the hell clicks on this shit enough to make it profitable, is what I want to know) I've enabled word verification for comments on my blog, to keep the spammers software out of my blog. So, my apologies for the inconvenience. But at least you won't have to filter through the spam to read my blog, right?  

When I was in high school, I remember sitting in countless Lit classes discussing classic novels and stories, trying to determine what the writer was "trying to say" in each of them. I understand that the goal was to try and develop "critical thinking" skills and teach you to analyze and understand what you're reading, but I kept coming back to the thought that maybe the writer was just, you know, trying to tell a story. I felt about the same when I read the Entertainment Weekly review of Just Like Heaven and found it discussing whether the movie was a metaphor for the Terry Schiavo case. First off, I think that's giving the movie credit for much deeper meaning than it could possibly support (although, in checking Rotten Tomatoes , EW isn't the only one to see the politics in this movie). And I'm left wondering if that means I should dislike the movie for its politics, or simply for its lame second act. I guess this is where I should warn you that ...

Really, all you've got to do is watch The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (go ahead, I dare you) and then read Moore's LoEG graphic novels (go ahead, I challenge you) to see that's obvious. (I recommend this in that order, too, as going from the books to the movie I guarantee you'll never make it through the movie.) They're currently in production for his "V for Vendetta" novel and, according to this story in the LA Times, it's running into problems because its themes ("set in a dystopian future London, The main character uses the trains of the London Underground to attack the government") are hitting a little too close to home these days. Yeah, I can see that being a bit problematic for producers and distributors. But here's the thing (and I haven't read "V" yet, so I can't speak to the merits of the book) but it looks like the kind of story that might work a little better for you if you're British, or at least...

Seriously? This article was on the front page of the LA Times this weekend. Apparently, creationists are out to "take back the dinosaurs" with the argument that "the fossil record does not support evolution." Yeah, right. I've always known that fundamentalists see the Bible as literal truth (it's the bumper sticker "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" mentality at work), but I've never really thought it through to the point that I realized that would include all the fun and fantastic stuff in the book of Genesis. According to these guys, baby dinosaurs huddled in the ark while their big brothers and sisters were wiped out in the flood, so all those stories of knights battling fire breathing dragons are based on literal truth. Oh, god, my head hurts just typing that one. (For a real eyeful on the arguments for a creationist view of "the origin of the species", check our this disturbingly fascinating site.) It's somewhat r...

So I saw what I HOPED was a good trend in DVD releases last month when Constantine came out on DVD. Side-by-side on the shelf were the basic, all you really get is the movie, DVD and the "super deluxe, get all the extras you can handle" edition. Just interested in the movie? Buy the standard release. Feeling obsessive and want all the extras? Pay a few bucks more and get that special edition. No more rushing to the store and finding a stripped down version the only one that's available and then having to wait months or more for the studio to get around to releasing the obsessive/completist Special Edition version (yes, I'm a DVD-extras junkie). Unfortunately, if it IS a new trend, it's one that's in its infancy and it hasn't translated to the release of Sin City on DVD. I really liked this movie in the theatres and was really looking forward to getting it, now that it's out on DVD. And hey, I get my choice of 4 DIFFERENT COVERS! Woo hoo! Of course, t...

I think "telephone" is what the game's called. Start a rumor about someone or something, then wait for it to pass through your circle of friends and acquaintances, just to see how it turns out. Reports came out this week that Walter and Laurie Parkes, producers of The Island, slammed Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett Johansson on their personal website for "half-hearted efforts" and not being "superstars" as reasons for The Island's failure. (Amusingly, all the links I found to this story, as above, are from the International press. And if Walter and Laurie have a site for Parkes/MacDonald Productions , I can't find it.) But when one looks at the interview they actually gave, it may be that they weren't anywhere near that harsh, and a lot of what they say actually makes some sense. Most of their remarks are in praise of both MacGregor and Johansson, and even their comment about "lesser TV actresses" makes a kind of cold-hearted (read ...

There's a site called "T-Shirt Hell" out there. (I'm not going to link this one for reasons which will become obvious VERY soon.) I'd heard about them on KROQ a month or two ago because they were getting a lot of press for their truly tasteless "Worse than Hell" shirts. I checked out the site and they had a whole line of shirts that truly WERE over the top in their efforts to offend everyone. Of course, if you weren't offended, you might find them amusing, but that's beside the point. Tonight, for reasons that escape me, I decided to check out their site and see what's up. On their landing page, they're promoting their US & UK Harry Potter spoiler t-shirts, which tell you what happens to whom on page 596 and who does it. Those of you who've already read the book will know exactly what I'm talking about. Those of you, like me, who have not yet read the book and have any interest in reading it—and experiencing the full effect of...

Two summers ago, it was the abuse of CGI effects leading to soulless, tedious uninteresting movies (a problem that has most definitely NOT gone away). Last summer it was the overuse of the "cinema verité" style of handheld camera work (a la Bourne Supremacy ) that got me going. This year, my nominee for the most abused movie tool is product placement. God knows this isn't a new problem… product placement has been a part of entertainment since before movies were even being made, I'm sure. It's just that it keeps getting worse and worse and worse and there are two truly egregious examples of it in this year's crop of summertime brain-death movies. (Not that there probably aren't other bad examples to pick from… these two just beat me over the head with it and I find it annoying at best.) Fantastic Four , in an apparently desperate attempt to give Johnny (the Human Torch), some kind of character hook, made him an action junkie prone to X Games friendly purs...

My cat died last night. (If "good riddance" was the first thought that crossed your mind on those words, kindly go away now *.) It wasn't a surprise… he was ancient (we speculate he was somewhere around 20 years old) and things were starting to fail. He'd been having problems walking for years now, but he was still managing to get around pretty well up until about a month ago or so. He's been on several different drugs for quite a while and he's simply been getting more frail every day. He'd been to the vet several times in the past few months, and each time I expected him to not come back. The last time we took him in, the doctor even recommended that it might be time to put him to sleep. There was nothing more they could do for him, and it was time to consider his quality of life… he was confined to a small area where he would be safe, with papers lining the floor since he couldn't use a litter box (not that he had much use for it anymore anyway). An...

My first reaction to the news that certain papers were dropping or editing Doonesbury this week due to "toilet humor" was, 'MY GOD, in 2005 people are getting upset over the use of the word "turd"? Seriously?' Then I saw this story . So the president's nickname for Karl Rove really IS Turd Blossom and Truedeau wasn't making it up? That's spectacular. That just conjures so many… olfactory images. I do have to give points to this week's featured moron, the Executive Editor of the Providence R.I. Journal who opines (in the original article), "I didn't think [taking out the word] hurt it." Sure, stripping the word "turd" out of the "turd blossom" punchline doesn't change things much: "Hey, ____ Blossom! Get IN here!" Sounds the same to me.  

Life… is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. William Shakespeare , "Macbeth", Act 5 scene 5 Between all the hubbub over what Karl Rove knew or didn't know and whether or not he broke any laws and now all the noise about GTA San Andreas and the now-infamous Hot Coffee mod, it feels like truer words have never been spoken. The activists and foam-at-the-mouth types are screaming over porn being fed to their kids, Congress is vowing to investigate and pushing for more legislation, and Rockstar and Take Two are playing dumb (and I don't mean that in the "silent" sense). Here's the thing… Rockstar and Take Two probably deserve to get slapped around for playing dumb when the Hot Coffee mod was first revealed and trying to say "it was all some modder's fault". What, they didn't expect anyone to be able to check the PS2 disks and find it there? Morons. Now, it's possible that the Suits at Rockstar and Tak...

So the "Ed Wood of the 21st century", über game movie director Uwe Boll is at it again… this time with the new Dungeon Siege movie . Sure, it's got a pretty good cast, especially when you consider who's directing it. But after the miserable reviews and performance of his last two films ( Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead ) all I want to know is who keeps selling him the rights to these properties?!? But hey, he's found a solution to his problems this time. In this article on GameSpot , it's revealed that he's learned his lesson: "Boll told GameSpot in February that he understands the importance of a great script and that he wanted this film to have 'great characters in a Braveheart meets Conan meets Lord of the Rings story.'" That's why he picked the guy that wrote Van Helsing to write the Dungeon Siege screenplay. Yeah. That's gonna help. Well, at least there's the Far Cry movie to look forward to… oh, wait a minut...

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It cost me $32.50 to fill the tank on my Mustang today at nearly $2.50 a gallon… the most I've ever spent for gas and yet, the cheapest price I was able to find today. Allegations that we invaded Iraq for "cheap oil" would appear to be unfounded. Allegations of "corporate greed" and "global imperialism" would likely still be up for debate, however.

Once more, vacation comes around and, for one whole week, I was blissfully able to ignore all the fun stuff happening in the news! Now that I'm back, I feel no real need at this point to weigh in on our potentially treasonous presidential kingmaker and first adviser, the almost certain-to-be-ugly battle over the next Supreme Court justice, nor any discussions about the war in Iraq or terrorism in general. As for the knee-jerk lunatic fringe, all I've got to say to the PTC and their "The Shield is bad for kids!" campaign is NO SHIT! It's not meant for your kids. Once again, take some personal responsibility, change the channel and leave the rest of us alone. And, for those all worked up over the next Harry Potter book… it's fiction, people, and NO ONE'S learning real magic by reading Harry Potter. Get over yourselves, grow up and find a REAL reason to complain about the books. Perhaps if you actually read one, you might be able to do that. More likely, you...

No, I'm not talking about the latest moron, whoever he may be, who's decided to recreate that "really cool" scene from Jackass: The Movie . Frankly, I've got a very Darwinian attitude towards this stuff. I figure if you're not smart enough to be able to tell movies from real life, then I can only hope you manage to off yourself before breeding thus sparing us (and the gene pool) your excessive stupidity. No, this is more for the idiot statements I keep hearing coming from movie directors that keep embracing bad ideas because they're more "real". The most blatant example of that these days has to be the dread handheld camera. Steadicam exists for a reason, people, but for some reasons, directors like this seem to think it's "more real" or "more immediate" if they're jerking the camera around so you can't focus on anything for minutes on end. I assume it comes from the world of documentary and news footage, but fra...

Yep, I've done it again… here it is, more than a month since I saw it and I've yet to post anything about the last Star Wars film ? God knows, you've all been waiting to hear what I think about it, right? (Of course, waiting this long lets me get away with talking about the ending and not worrying too much about yelling "SPOILER ALERT"… but I figured I might as well put it in anyway.) So, without further delay… Things that worked The overall story. From the beginning-of-the-end of the Republic and the betrayal of the Jedi to the revelation of the soon-to-be Emperor's real schemes and Anakin's fall to the dark side, the pieces of the mythology that we've been waiting 30 years to see are finally all here. And, for the most part, they work. Sure, there's the typical George Lucas clunky dialogue and oft-times incongruous jabs at humor (but don't knock it… at least he attempted some humor in this one!). But in the end, I have to say I liked it. (F...

'Cause I just can't resist the near- pleonastic "Ep III, Pt 2" title, and since this part of the post takes a big left turn (no pun intended) from my previous post on the topic, I figured I'd go ahead and break this into two separate posts… So what about the politics? There was all kinds of uproar right before Sith opened about Lucas' politics. The knee-jerk conservatives were calling him treasonous and urging boycotts, reactionary liberals were pamphleteering local theatres to call attention to parallels they could find to current Senate judicial battles. And you know what? The parallels are there if you want to see them. They've been there in all three of the prequels. And if you didn't notice them before and are just getting upset now, you weren't paying attention. But here's the thing… Thirty years ago, George Lucas set out to create a mythology, in grand SF Space Opera tradition (evil galactic empires, plucky rebel freedom fighters, FT...

I've been hearing forever about "damn liberal media" and been annoyed by the idea for nearly as long. I've gotten slapped around by friends for reading the Village Voice (okay, granted) and the New York Times (maybe, but can I simply say " Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper"?). And I've found it incredibly annoying in lieu of the overwhelming preponderance of conservative noise in the talk radio/TV world (one friend I know refers to it as Hate Radio—even as she listens to it regularly). Frankly, as with most of our currently polarized society, I think you hear what you want to hear and get worked up by what you choose to get worked up over. Complaints about liberal media come from people that feel their narrow worldview isn't represented by the press. Complaints about hate radio come from people like me that find all the noise coming from these clowns detrimental to our worldview of a place where people should be rational and tolerant… yeah, I'm...

The Parent's Television Council is at it again. (And no, I'm not going to link to them. I'm not doing anything to push their traffic or Google ranking up. If you can stomach their site, you'll have to Google 'em yourself). This time it's Carl's Jr. and the Paris Hilton ad campaign . They're upset because the ad is too racy for kids and are calling for a boycott of Carl's Jr. Let's face it… obviously the ads aren't meant for kids. They're meant for the "18-49 year old males" demographic advertisers are lusting after and if your kids are watching the shows where this ad is probably running, maybe you should be paying more attention to their television habits. (Also, keep in mind that your younger kids aren't going to "get" what's going on here, and that the teenagers have already seen much worse on the Internet.) Or, better yet, if you're REALLY upset with what's on TV, turn the damn thing off and sit dow...

Isn't it reassuring to know that there are jackholes out there just looking for some celebrity to make "the wrong remark" so they can jump on it in righteous indignation? Isn't it even more reassuring to know that one of those jackholes is helping to run the country? Congressman Slams Maher Over Army Remark A congressman says comedian Bill Maher's comment… is possibly treasonous…. Once again, we've got someone who SHOULD know better whipping out the "treason" word because he doesn't like Bill Maher's sense of humor. I don't know what dictionary Rep. Bachus is using (he pulls this definition out of who knows where: "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country.") but Webster's defines treason as "the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance…." I'm kinda thinking that, even if you take the OTHE...

Dobson Blasts Filibuster 'Betrayal' Of course, as with most compromises, it leaves something to be desired for people on both ends of the argument (after all, the three nominees that have NO business being justices in this country are going to get their chance at a vote). But as long as narrow-minded a-holes like this are unhappy about the outcome, I can't say I'm not pleased. In the steaming mess of illogic that I generally expect from this end of the political spectrum, I have to appreciate this one: Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations. The unconstitutional filibuster survives in the arsenal of Senate liberals. Let's see… the compromise that so infuriates Mr. Dobson wasn't in place at the time of Thomas, Scalia & Rehnquist's nominations, but the filibuster was. And yet they somehow survived t...

Well, in my mind at least. See, a few weeks ago in Entertainment Weekly's Summer Preview issue, they had a feature on the new Batman Begins movie. In the article, they came off with this gem: "Despite the best efforts of director Joel Schumacher, the franchise lay in smoking ruins." Unable to let that one pass (since, let's face it, Schumacher's "best efforts" were the REASON the "franchise lay in smoking ruins"), I fired off a letter to EW… only to get an email from them last week, telling me they needed to confirm my info because they were considering using my letter in an upcoming issue. Sure enough, in this week's Entertainment Weekly (the one with Coldplay on the cover), thumb through to the letters section, and there I am! See, I CAN get published! (Did I mention that I'm amused as hell by this? Consider it mentioned.) SINCE you've gotta be an EW subscriber to see that link above, here's the quote from the article: Becau...