May 31, 2007

Welcome

To Crazytown:

At the Creation exhibit, two young T. rexes peacefully watch fish swim in a placid pond. Two curly-haired robotic kids play nearby. In any other place, this would be the setup for a massacre. But this pre-Noah's-flood Jurassic Park is benign. The animals are vegetarians and plants don't have thorns. The fossil record, says the museum, confirms all of this.

Mark Looy, co-founder of Answers in Genesis, is walking me through the museum. He explains that the great flood is responsible for the fossil record. Plants and animals are distributed in different strata based not on the time of their formation, but on where the flood waters moved them before receding. Those areas where no thorns or other defensive or hostile plants are found, he explains, are pre-flood forms.


Thats right, the Creation Museum

May 29, 2007

Real Life: Such a Disappointment

So the first honest-to-God Cyberattack has taken place in Estonia, of all places.

But compared to the supercool cyberattacks that were promised us in the novels of William Gibson, the real thing seems a bit of a letdown.

Low Standards

OK, so the Miss Universe has no talent competition, so basically all a contestant has to do is put on an evening gown and a bikini and walk around. Apparently that was too much for Miss USA Rachel Smith, who slipped and fell on her ass during the evening gown "competition" Once again our international standing takes a hit. Miss USA still managed a fourth place finish which really does make you wonder about world beauty contestant standards.

May 27, 2007

May 26, 2007

May 24, 2007

Party Planning Note

Anyone going to Vegas but not getting an e-mail last night get in touch. Get yourself in the loop.

Whack a Braveheart

Alex Massie, spurred by the fact that Randall Wallace is going to be doing a movie out of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (Staring Angelina Jolie! Talk about a libertarian wet dream.) to give Braveheart the serious whacking it deserves.

My personal favorite Braveheart crime against history was staging the Battle of Stirling Bridge without the bridge. That's like leaving the beach out of the D-Day invasion or taking the crossing of the Delaware River out of the Battle of Trenton.

May 23, 2007

Not Over

So the Dems have decided to drop troop-withdrawal deadlines from the emergency Iraq funding bill. They had enough votes to pass it (and did) but not enough votes to overcome Bush's veto. So the simple truth is unless a significant number of Republican come over to the pro-withdrawal side, there is no stopping this war this way. Its not over however. Dems in Congress have lots of other ways to put pressure on the Administration and will do so.

May 22, 2007

Trails

I may never need to go see the actual movie, the trailers are so much fun.



Its like getting my childhood back, two minutes at a time.

Game Review: Lord of the Rings Online: Shadow of Agmar

Ah multi-player online games. Big, fun and complete and total time-sucks. Where free hours go to die. The reason I haven’t been able to solve either the Health Care or immigration crisis this week is due to taking Lord of the Rings Online out for a spin. What a great way to lose yourself for a few hours (day, months, etc).
You strap on your sword/bow/staff and go walk a mile in the shoes of a Tolkienesque hero. Or a mile in your bare, furry feet if you decide to have a hobbit character.

As a game LOTRO plays just like World of Warcraft. Same controls, combat system and quest system. Of course, unlike WOW’s Tolkien-inspired setting, you have an actual Tolkien setting with LOTRO. I’ve gotten drunk at the Inn of the Prancing Pony and wandered around Bag-In. I’ve defended a farm from a giant spider attack and earned the name “Spider-Foe.” I’ve seen a Ringwrath stab a ranger with a Mogul blade. I’ve even done a quest for those nasty Sackville-Baggins folks who have inherited Bag-In now that Frodo and Bilbo have left the Shire. In other words I’ve pretty much immerse myself into Middle Earth.

The setting will draw you in, but the game has bunch of ways of keeping you playing. In addition to the standard leveling (I’ll sleep/eat/take a shower right after I hit level 20) LOTR introduces “feat” these are special tasks like using your special moves lots of times (Shield Bash! Kick to the Head!) or killing lots of a particular type of monster (44 orcs…45… 46). The reward is a special bonus or a nifty title (strangly enough “bunny-slayer” is not available) that you can impress your friends with. Anything to keep you playing. And you will keep playing. And playing. And playing.

May 21, 2007

Tick, Tick, Tick

Doolittle's Chief of Staff calls it a day. Soon, the rest.

What Else Goes?

Remember that scene in Pirate of the Caribbean were the heroes in their ship, are being chased by the villains in their bigger, better ship. And so the heroes begin to toss everything they can to make the ship lighter, to try and get away?

The Bush Administration is throwing everything they can overboard, just trying to keep Iraq going a little longer. The goal is the end of the term and dumping the mess on the next poor sap.

So now they throw out things like using the ISG report that they completely rejected six month ago. Or overthrowing the Maliki and bombing Iran. Any idea other than the right one. Just have to come up with a idea that last a little longer. It can be a total failure, just as long a it keeps things going.

May 20, 2007

A Little Something

A little something sexy for your Sunday afternoon:



Chris Isaac - Wicked Game

May 18, 2007

Meanwile

The most interesting thing happening in my neck of the woods is a pair of whales have wandered in. The trick now is to get them to wander out.

May 17, 2007

Wolfowitz Out

At this rate, every single member of the Bush Administration will have resigned in disgrace by January of 2009. Should make the transition to a new Administration much faster, what with all the jobs already empty.

Al Gore

The Assault on Reason.

May 16, 2007

Lizards

Sheesh, the GOP Presidential field is in a rapid race to the bottom when it comes to torture. When Endorsements of Torture are applause lines, things are seriously out of control.

Guantanamo Bay has become a black hole sucking America's moral authority into the void. Every nasty regime on the planet can point to Guantanamo Bay and say "look, we are just as good as the Americans."

So what does Mitt Romney say? We should double Guantanamo! And they cheered.

May 15, 2007

Jerry Falwell: Dead

Must...Not...Speak...Ill...of...Dead.

Outrage!

The Pentagon is blocking YouTube, Myspace and 11 other website. Which means no more
Lazy Ramadi. This is just dumb.

It cuts off soldiers from home and hurts moral.

It also reduces the militiary ability to seem more human, which I don't recommend when stuck in the quagmire of a unpopular war.

May 14, 2007

Tease

He is so coy. Why does he torment me so.

America Held Hostage

Three US troops are missing in Iraq. Insurgents are claiming they captured them. Good to know that we are staying in Iraq to make it easier to attack the United States.

May 12, 2007

Party On

Don't have too much fun this weekend.

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

May 11, 2007

Beyond Death

Alberto Gonzales in a place beyond political death. By any reasonable poltical calculation, he should have resigned in complete disgrace weeks, if not months ago.

And yet here he is, being put the wringer of still yet another Congressional hearing. Dahlia Lithwick shows the scene. My favorite bit:

Robert Wexler, D-Fla., finally loses his temper and starts hollering: "You did not select Iglesias for the list." (No). "Did Sampson select him?" (No). "Did Comey?" (No.) "Did McNulty?" (No.) Did the president? (No.) "Did the vice president? (No)." Then Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., follows up with one of the best queries of the day: "If you don't know who put Iglesias on the list, how do you know the president or the vice president didn't?"

Long silence. Pause. "They wouldn't do that," hems Gonzales. "The White House has said publicly that it was not involved in adding or deleting people from the list."


Oh please. Eight US attorneys just were fired spontaneously and no one actually made the decision to fire them. A list just appeared? This has got to be the weakest cover story in the history of weak cover stories. A four year old, caught stealing cookies, would have the sense to blame his younger sister. Alberto Gonzales doesn't even have the sense to make up a fall-guy. Hell, just make up a name. "I beleive thatRolo Tomasi fired all those attorneys, Congressman." Make up something, just don't sit there. Gonzales doesn't even have enough respect for Congress to lie to them properly.

May 10, 2007

Oh Lovely

Bill Richarson's ad.

No Fooling

Lots of people are pointing to the NYTimes and Giuliani's intent to stop weasaling around and offer clear support for abortion rights. No more code words and false singnals, As Drum points out, in the wake of his donations to Planned Parenthood being revealed, its not like he had a choice.

I'm guessing this is the end of him. But you never know.

May 9, 2007

France: Free and Clear

Out from under the thumb of the devastating Bill O'Reilly boycott.

However they may still have a marriage problem.

Or course this marriage problem seems to only exist in the mind of Mitt Romney.

May 8, 2007

Rubes!

Of course Mitt Romney believes in evolution. He is an educated man who has been rather seccessfull right here in the 21st Century. And yet he has to pretent like its an open question in order to fool a bunch of people and become President. And if he gets the GOP nomination, he still believe in evolution and stop pretending otherwise.

May 7, 2007

Defending Olbermann

Oh my God. A liberal on TV. He must be stopped.

Great Moments in Exercise

So having just completed a half-hour on the cross-country skiing exercise machine thing and the digital readout says that I have maintained an average heartbeat of 293 beats per minute throughout the course of the run. Does this mean that ...

1. I am suffering some sort of heart attack? Stroke?
2. My newly installed bionic heart is functioning exactly as designed?
3. Turns out, I'm not human.

or

4. The sensors on this thing are not to be trusted.

May 6, 2007

Dedication

This one goes out to The Park.

Fall Out Boy - This Aint a Scene, It's an Arms Race

May 4, 2007

First GOP Debate

No real fireworks. Just Giuliani getting tripped up by questions over Roe v Wade.

Also three of the candidates do not believe in evolution.

May 3, 2007

My New Fear

Jason Zengerle on Obama getting Secret Service protection:

I must confess that my deepest, darkest fear about the '08 campaign is that Obama's candidacy--and what he and it represent--will prove irresistible to some racist nut-job with a gun, so I'm relieved that he's now getting Secret Service protection.


Oh great, I didn't even think of that till now. Something new to worry about.

I'm with This Guy

If Someone Wanted To Publish My Blog Entries For Money, I Wouldn't Say No.

At Least Pretend

Now even the Bush administration has adopted the line that a political solution is nessisary to end the Civil War that dare not speak its name in Iraq.

So Bush and his dead-enders must pretend like the Iraqis are moving toward a political solution, that the Shia and Sunni are talking it out and are just on the verge of the magic deal that will turn the Country into the Magic Kingdom we were all promised.

The fact that the Iraqi Parliament is not even going to be in session for two whole months makes it difficult to even fake political progress. It really does make administration spinner's life difficult, when the Iraqis are not even pretending to try and come to a deal.

May 1, 2007

Happy Mission Accomplished Day

Four years ago, the mission was accomplished. And everything has been great ever sense.

The State Department's terrorism report shows that terror attacks went up 40% last year. Iraq accounted for Two-Thirds of all terrorist attacks worldwide.

Hookers!

The DC Madam Tells All!

So a women who ran a high-class call girl operation in DC has been busted and is going on trial. In an effort to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible, she has released her phone records to the good people at ABCnew's investigative unit. A major State Department official has already resigned, and who knows how many more are on the list.

Now this is likely to effect both parties, but this sort of thing always hurts the Republicans more, because it always turns out the GOP guy getting the hookers was a member of the Project for Moral Values, the Anti-Sex League or based his last re-election campaign on "preserving the family" while he was snorting cocaine off the ass of a $1,000 dollar a night call girl.

So while deep down this is really none of our business (consenting adults, private lives, and all that) The tawdry sex stuff will always come out.

PS - I've always maintained that there is a better case to make to legalize prostitution than drugs. Discuss. I'm just throwing that out to keep our discussion high-minded.