Table scraps:
:Since I did such a lousy job describing Al Franken's first show, here's a blogger who captured it almost minute-by-minute. At 12:42, we learn, G. Gordon Liddy called Al from his own radio show. Not an hour into it, and already liberal radio had become meta. Oh boy.
::Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix gives his impressions of meeting with Bush and Cheney. On Bush: "He made on me a boyish impression. He was agile, moving, moving in the chair, especially compared to Cheney." And on Cheney: "The rumors that Cheney is alive are somewhat exaggerated."
:::Soul food? What soul food? The Tennessee Department of Health was slapped recently for airing a public service announcement that told people to "try baking your chicken, eating a fresh tossed salad on the side and scrumptious watermelon for dessert."
::::Abe is back. Back again. Abe is back. Tell a friend.

Here's more proof that the music industry isn't actually suffering from music downloads. A report (note: it's in pdf format) from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina analyzed the industry and mp3's impact on sales, and found there to be "no statistically significant effect." Furthermore, it said that while downloads don't really affect the sales of any artist, the tiny fraction of impact actually lands with relatively unknown artists, and that artists in the top one percent of the industry are virtually untouched. This, of course, confirms what we knew all along: Metallica and the RIAA are money-grubbing bastards. While it should have been obvious that downloads don't hurt music sales, my wish is that the greed and willingness of Metallica and the RIAA to legally assault their fans and customers will create a consumer backlash that will actually affect sales. One can only hope.

Here are two experps from the study's results:

...We find that file sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample. Moreover, the estimates are of rather modest size when compared to the drastic reduction in sales in the music industry. At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline. This result is plausible given that movies, software and video games are actively downloaded, and yet these industries have continued to grow since the advent of file sharing... ...Based on our results, we do not believe file sharing will have a significant effect on the supply of recorded music. Our argument is twofold. The business model of major labels relies heavily on a limited number of superstar albums. FOr these albums, we find that the impact of file sharing on sales is likely to be positive, leaving the ability of major labels to promote and develop talent intact. Our estimates indicate that less popular artists who sell few albums are most likely to be negatively affected by file sharing. (Note, however, that even for this group the estimated effect is statistically insignificant.) Even if this leads record labels to reduce compensation for less popular artists, it is not obvious this will influence music production. This is because the financial incentives for creating recorded music are quite weak. Few of the artists who create one of the roughly 30,000 albums released each year in the U.S. will make a living from their sales because only a few albums are ever profitable. In fact, only a small number of established acts receive contracts with royalty rates ensuring financial sufficiency while the remaining artists must rely on ther sources of income like touring or other jobs. Because the economic rewards are concentrated at the top and probably fewer than one percent of acts ever reach this level, altering the payment rate should have very little influence on entry into popular music...

A quick gasp of air: with the combination of my old software and Air America's website delays, I got to catch a whopping two seconds of Al Franken's show. At 12:02, my Real Player connected in time for me to hear him say, "...it's about relentlessly hammering away at the Bush administration," and then a little window popped up to tell me my connection had been severed. Not bad, though. Take any random two seconds of Al Franken, and you're ensured a snippet of anti-Bush. Take a deep breath of Air America -- it's potent!

You dirty, dirty sun! It appears that sunlight may actually increase the chances of catching a sexually-transmitted disease -- but not, as the AP notes, "because people have more sex when the weather is nice." Sunlight, it seems, can weaken a woman's immune system, which has been a boost to the papilloma virus. But I'm a bit more interested in that throw-away claim of having more sex in good weather. The only follow-up the writer gives is half-way through the story, with this:

No one can say exactly when people are having the most sex, but one strong hint is when the most babies are conceived. Records show that conception is most likely to occur in Holland in March, although there is only about a 10 percent variation over the year.

Ok, so Holland residents are having baby-making sex in July. That's hardly enough evidence to claim that people have more sex when the weather is nice, especially when it would make more sense that people have more sex during crappy weather. If you're holed up at home during the winter, with snow making outdoor activities tedious and sometimes impossible, what else is there to do but have sex? It's a nice way to pass the time, it warms you up, and hell, nobody's lighting romantic fireplaces in July. (Although, they are, according to AskMen.com, having sex in gondolas and hockey games.)

Hopefully this isn't an indication of how the new liberal radio network, Air America, will run. Today is its debut day, and its website is down. Too bad. I was hoping to listen to its early hours. Al Franken goes on at noon, so I'll try back then and hopefully something will be working. Meanwhile, the NY Times gives us a photo of Janeane Garofalo looking rather punk rock and very unlike her Truth About Cats and Dogs character in front of a radio mic, along with a few descriptions of her show's practice run yesterday:

In an interview with Craig Crawford, a columnist for Congressional Quarterly, the two hosts spent several minutes clobbering the news media, a favorite target of Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Hannity. "It seems the journalists have really put themselves in the center of the story in a partisan political way," Ms. Garofalo said, speaking of what she called a new form of participatory journalism. Moments later Mr. Seder observed, "Really, most reporters are whores." Among others, Ms. Garofalo and Mr. Seder poked fun at Mr. Bush's former spokesman Ari Fleischer ("Is he not shoveling coal in hell now?" Mr. Seder asked); Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser and political strategist (said by Ms. Garofalo to be pursuing "the elusive 18-25 Klan demo"); and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. Seder said he felt sure that he could see Mr. Cheney's hand moving Mr. Bush's mouth on "Meet the Press" earlier this year.)

UPDATE: Well, the site's up and running, but now it's just a jump to AirAmericaRadio.com, which is fairly empty. It does say there will be "streaming audio of all programs" on the site, but if that's true, they better get on it quick. I'm writing this at 11:46 a.m. -- 14 minutes to show-time.

Tuesday, March 30

Table scraps:
:Move over, black and brown. This season, men are wearing pink.
::Confused about what the Pledge of Allegiance means? Slate has a powerpoint presentation to help you sort through all those sticky details.
:::What has celebrity obsession come to? Here's a critic writing about MTV's "I Want a Famous Face" -- a show that is, in a word, appalling: "Fans who are having plastic surgery in order to resemble Kate Winslet, Pam Anderson, or J.Lo are right up there with Madonna stalkers in the realm of having big, unresolved issues. They have distorted and fragile self-images, perhaps from having studied one too many glossy magazine photo spreads. They want celebrity skin, almost literally."
::::The press release is the gun, and the Axl is the Rose. 

And the Oscar for jailhouse emotions goes to...

Singer and deadbeat dad Bobby Brown, displaying both depth and poise in his ever-growing collection of mugshots! As NewYorkish (who created the above graphic) so very astutely observes, Bobby is a natural in front of the prison camera. Someone call Mr. Deville, because this man is ready for his close-up. How does he display such emotional truth? He must be such a dedicated method actor that he just can't seperate Jail Bobby from Citizen Bobby. Oh, Bobby. That's quite a deBobby-debacle.

Apologies to those of you who tried to access the site over the weekend and Monday. The server was down, and I wasn't able to actually update anything until about noon on Tuesday. But as you can see, it's now back up and running.

Can Adam please dismiss his show's producers? Let the girls stay a little longer, and get rid of whatever hack jobs are behind the editing board. Yes, I'll admit, I'm watching Average Joe: Adam Returns, even though I didn't see most of the first season in which Adam was a contestant. But here's what kills me about this show: just because the premise is a gimmick -- bringing back the loser to get his own batch of girls -- doesn't mean the entire show needs to be peppered with gimmicks. Last night, we saw another season one contestant, Zach, snoop around a golf course and then do sneaky things to Adam while he's on his date. Later, Brian Worth, the last average joe standing from season two, shows up to watch his own show with the girls. Each appearance was fairly useless, and since they were given only a minute or two of airtime, I'm assuming the producers knew that. It's as if NBC is giving its audience a This Is Your TV Life episode overlapped with an actual reality dating show, and that's making for some pretty stale television.

A sidenote: I was looking for a good, non-NBC link for the show, and found this site: RealityTVnews, which is an unbelivably shameless rip-off of the Boston Globe's website. I mean, if they're so hard up for site design that they need to borrow another site's, don't make it so damn obvious. Yikes.

In today's Boston Globe, conservative radio talking head Jay Severin goes on and on about liberal radio, and then writes something I genuinely agree with:

...the values and views of nonliberals are the root of evil: "selfish" because we believe our taxes too high; "haters" because we disdain racial preferences and same-sex marriage; "cruel" because we believe in strong national defense, capital punishment, and actually oppose illegal immigration; and, of course, "stupid" because we reject your benighted viewpoint.

Right on, Jay! I mean, sure, I'd change "strong national defense" to something like, um, "isolationist militarism," and swap out "disdain racial preferences" for "want to ensure the success of our white friends," but I think the tenor here is the same. It's nice to finally be able to agree on some issues with conservatives.

Friday, March 26

How best to explain the demise of the American workforce? Try this: Wall Street is attacking Costco for being too nice to its customers. You see, in America, public companies function in the best interests of the shareholders, not the employees. In part, that's because shareholders have money and employees don't, and shareholders would like to keep it that way. Less money for the employees means more money for the shareholders. Shareholders like when employees get lousy wages and no health care. They like it even better when all the employees get fired and the company moves overseas. Sometimes, shareholders stop by companies and just kick employees in the head. Yes indeed, shareholders sure love a miserable and suffering employee.

Consequently, the last thing a company wants to do is allow its employees to eat well and raise a family. "From day one, we've run the company with the philosophy that if we pay better than average, provide a salary people can live on, have a positive environment and good benefits, we'll be able to hire better people, they'll stay longer and be more efficient," Richard Galanti, Costco's chief financial officer, told the Wall Street Journal. A retailing analyst responds: "Costco's benefits are overly generous." Ugh, that spineless Costco bastard. Providing a salary people can live on? Costco should be ashamed of itself. It makes me sick.

Table scraps:
:The NFL is the devil, according to the Pope. In what must have been yet another attempt to make the church more inclusive -- a wildly effective campaign, especially when coupled with all this gay-hating and child-molesting -- the Pope has declared that Sunday sports are making people "stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they can no longer see the heavens." Is anyone getting the feeling that the church secretly doesn't want people to join? I mean, really.
::Have you missed the 9/11 hearings? No problem. You can catch up with this crafty diagram.
:::Christ may have been reborn in the Passion of the Christ, but he wasn't the only thing Mel brought back from the grave. Monty Python's Life of Brian is crusading back in to theaters, just in time to remind everyone that there's more to life than weeping for Jesus.
::::A song Crazy Debbie likes is blaring from the bar inside, and she starts doing that dance that you sometimes see in music videos, the one where women shake their butts so fast they seem to blur. Here is one writer's brave journey into the belly of Girls Gone Wild.

Nothing like a little awkward small talk between former enemies to lighten the mood. Take a look at the following exchange. Is it a bad translation from a kung-fu movie? A chance encounter by two former lovers? A fourth grade writing assignment?

"You did a lot of fighting on this issue and seem exhausted," the first one said. "There's been a lot to do," the second one replied. "You are looking good. You are still young," the first one said.

Whatever you thought, you're wrong! It's actually England's Prime Minister Tony Blair talking to Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in a brief and well-publicized meeting between to reward Libya for giving up its nukes. After those words were spoke, Blair raised his hand for a handshake and Qaddafi giggled softly and stutter-stepped into a hug. Blair patted him on the back and said, "It'll be okay, sweetie. It'll be okay."

Permit me a moment of self indulgence:

See the guy beneath that red arrow? No? I understand. After all, he's pretty hard to miss. That's me, though. All the way in the back left, tucked so far away that even Hollywood lights couldn't reach me. This is a photo from the set of a scene in Jersey Girl, the new Kevin Smith movie out today, and that there on the left is Mr. Smith himself. The scene was shot in Paulsboro, N.J., and I skipped work and drove five hours to be an extra in it. Our seating was all luck of the draw, but it worked out well that I got stuck in the back. Because the shooting went on until around midnight, I was able to leave early and make the five-hour drive home.

Actually, screw that. I would have rather slept in a motel that night and actually been in the movie. But oh well. It was a good time, I met some fun people, and I wrote this cheesy story about it for the paper I was working for at the time, which newsaskew.com posted (and then some newsaskew.com readers ripped apart). Our main job was to applaud. Over and over, sometimes faking it and sometimes really, truly smacking our hands together. We gave multiple standing ovations -- also, sometimes silently and sometimes with vigor. I became an expert at clapping.

I've been a big Kevin Smith fan since Mallrats came out -- hell, I made my college drop $22,500 for him to come speak there, where I finally got to meet the guy and help be a part of his DVD collection of speaking events -- so today's a good day for me. I hope you'll all go check out Jersey Girl, as I'm sure it'll be a delightful little flick.

Thursday, March 25

During college, some friends of mine were called by the two well-known prank callers. They were the Foot Guy and the Sex Guy, and it seemed everyone knew someone who had been called by one of them. The foot guy would call and get girls to talk about their feet by posing as someone they knew, but refusing to reveal his identity until they described their shoes and socks. The second guy would call and say he dialed a number at random because he needed someone to talk to, and that he had just gotten drunk and made out with his roommate, and now doesn't know if he's gay. Ultimately, he'll try to get a girl to reveal some personal information about herself. These both sound like jokes, but they weren't. I was there for both of them. These guys were full-on fetish folk, and they couldn't get their jollies any other way.

They were sort of funny to talk about, but extremely creepy to hear in action. I always wanted to track them down, but with the school's internal phone system and cops not caring too much and residential advisors saying it wasn't a big deal, I just gave up. But not this lady. She was getting calls for a while, and managed to track it to a single phone book. She had all numbers forwarded to her cell phone, and then  her and some family members staked out the booth, waited for some guy to get in the booth and call. When he did, her cell phone rang, so they surrounded the booth and called the cops. Three cheers for this lady. There's nothing more rewarding than vigilante justice.

Less education, more money! Or, you know, less education for children, and more money for Bush. No, it's not No Child Left Behind -- or, not this time, at least. It's Bush's $2,000-a-person Boston fundraiser, which comes with so much security that a nearby school needed to be shut down for the day! Enjoy it, kids. It's about the only favor Bush will ever do for you.

Table scraps:
:Somehow, this seems fitting. Richard Simmons was cited for a misdemeanor assault after slapping a man who insulted his exercise videos. Next up: Slappin' to the Oldies!
::Magicians are freaking out over a Houdini museum's plans to reveal the secret to "Metamorphisis," a trick in which lots of wacky stuff happens. This is a major violation of the magician's code of ethics, but the museum's curator said their bunny is already out of the hat. She learned how to do the truck by checking out a book at her local library.
:::Will recently killed Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin mysteriously come back as Yassin the White? Hey, why not? He did it in Lord of the Rings.
::::Here's something to keep you occupied while in jail: try trademarking your name and then suing every judge and lawyer that uses it without your permission in court. It's not too legally sound, but that hasn't stopped criminals from trying.
:::::That last link was sent to me by a reader, which reminds me to remind you: if you've got a question or comment, or a fun link to share, please do e-mail me. My address is up there on the top left. Thanks.

Heh heh heh. Shibby.

I wish I was clever enough to come up with this on my own, but I wasn't. Nor was the Bush administration, although at this point even they're making fun of themselves for not finding any weapons, as they did at this recent schmooze-fest. But even some humble pie -- and some pretty lame humble pie, at that -- won't help these guys out, especially with former counterterrorism cheif Richard Clarke now saying that, after 9/11, Bush demanded that Clarke find a connection between the hijackings and Iraq. Duuuuude, that's messed up.

The Supreme Court case to decide whether "under God" belongs in the Pledge of Allegiance is easily the most interesting thing going on right now. I've read a few stories about it, and have been fairly surprised that the papers are treating athiest Michael Newdow -- the guy who brought the case to court, and is arguing for it in his first appearance at a high court -- so fairly. The NY Times even highlighted this great exchange between Newdow and Justice Rehnquist:

For example, when Dr. Newdow described "under God" as a divisive addition to the pledge, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist asked him what the vote in Congress had been 50 years ago when the phrase was inserted. The vote was unanimous, Dr. Newdow said. "Well, that doesn't sound divisive," the chief justice observed. Dr. Newdow shot back, "That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office." The courtroom audience broke into applause, an exceedingly rare event that left the chief justice temporarily nonplussed.

Pretty good stuff, and I'm glad the case is being argued by a guy as quick as Newdow. He's up against some heavy-hitters, namely the majority of the country, all of whom argue against his case for the same reason he's arguing for it. They say "under God" shouldn't be taken out because it's ripping government from religion, and Newdow says, exactly. As much as the Supreme Court justices want to argue that the phrase is diluted and not religiously based -- a pretty absurd argument, if you ask me -- it really doesn't take much to highlight just how much "under God" refers to the Christian God. As he pointed out, when the first ruling at the 9th Circuit court was made in favor of Newsom, all 99 senators gathered on the steps of the Capitol and played the song "Onward Christian Soldiers." I mean, let's get serious here. How often does the opposition to a case make the strongest argument in favor of the case?

If the Supreme Court doesn't decide to strike out "under God" -- a phrase, don't forget, that was entered into the pledge just over 50 years ago -- then it will only be doing so out of the fear of tampering with religion's stronghold over this country. And that, just like everything else, will prove Newdow right.

Wednesday, March 24

Ah-hah! Finally, someone explains why television news channel websites always look exactly the same. Take a look, for instance, at the differences between KETV in Omaha and KMBC in Kansas City and WCVB in Boston. Now look at your local tv news station's site. Always the same exact layout, which is ugly, confusing, generally useless. As the executive director of New England Cable News said, "Is this news, is this marketing, who's in charge of this thing? There's no sense of priority in the top half. It's all over the place. These pages look like everybody got their way at the station at once. Whether it's breaking news from Baghdad or Mr. Food, it's all top line. It makes me nuts, I don't understand the logic."

The reason, according to Online Journalism Review: so many news stations outsource their webpages to Internet Broadcasting Systems, some random company that then has to take direction from the station's news, sales and promotions departments. Maybe this saves the stations some money, but if they're willing to outsource their site to a company like IBS, I don't understand why they have a website in the first place. These things are totally useless. I almost never link to them because the content is skimpy, the design is awful, and I can usually find a better version of the story at a more reputable and well-designed source. Why this isn't a priority for news stations, I have no idea.

A few words about the anonymous assault on the book industry that appeared a few days ago in Salon.com. In it, a woman going by the name Jane Austin Doe laid out her struggling career as a writer, and rips in to the book industry for being shallow, unwilling to take risks, and unsupportive of mid-list writers. It's caused just about everyone to respond -- Gawker.com is trying to figure out who she is, and Neil Pollack slaps her silly, writing that "You only got $80,000 for a book it took you two whole years to write. Do you know that, according to the National Writers' Union, the average writer in America makes $4,000 a year from their writing? And that's when you figure Stephen King and Nora Roberts into the equation."

Amusingly enough, I can speak about this from personal experience. I wrote an article in Salon about the complexities of female arousal, and it caught the interest of a top book agency. Through the generous guidance of one of the agency's readers, I worked my way through a book proposal on the subject, which I think is both fascinating and highly important. But ultimately, the agent passed on the book because she felt it wasn't very marketable -- and that's fair. This is her business, and she doesn't want to make a bad investment. I was disappointed, but hey, that's how it goes.

So, back to Jane Austin Doe: I appreciate her plug for indie bookstores, but I had a hard time accepting this woman's gripe. I was expecting true savagry: people stole her work, abused her, chained her up and made her write blurbs for book covers. Instead, her problem seems to be that her books aren't selling well.

Now, I do sympathize with her main critique of the book industry: much like movies and music, this is an industry that focuses on guaranteed successes, not risks. And ultimately, the things that are guaranteed are the ones that are time-tested, which means that Stephen King gets to crank out 45 versions of the same exact book but John Kennedy Toole literally kills himself trying to sell something quirky, a little less mainstream, but ultimately brilliant. I'm with Jane Austin Doe on this. It's a fine and fair observation, but hardly unique to books.

But Jane Austin Doe made more of a stink than a point, I'm afraid. It's too bad, too. I think we often forget how cautious and viewer-conscious our mainstream art is these days. But complaining about $80,000 book advances surely isn't the way to make that point stick.

Table scraps:
:An Australian guesses about American foods, and is mostly correct. For grits, he muses: "So is it just what it sounds like? Are you just sitting in front of a bowl full of grit – basically just bits of rock – and spooning gravel into your mouths? Do you put sugar on it?"
::Erin Brockovich is, as a friend of mine put it, full of Brock-o-lies. And all it took was one scrappy reporter at a small-time California weekly newspaper to figure it out.
:::You know when a daredevil jumps from a really high building on to an emormous air-filled cushion below? Ever wonder how big those air-filled cushions are? Ever consider how close somebody could get to actually missing the cushion? Yes, yes and yes? Watch this video.
::::Warning: I am about to link, for the very first time, to the Drudge Report. And here's why: the FCC-inspired panic about "indecency" is now so out of control that an Internet rumormonger is trying to get people worked up about a short snippet of a middle finger on American Idol. Check it out. I apologize for the conservative pop-up ad that will follow, and again, I'm sorry -- deeply sorry -- for sending you to Drudge. I'm going to lose sleep over this.
:::::What happens when a man drops a bowling ball out of a 17th-floor apartment? It makes a big crater. And just why was he dropping a bowling ball? Well, of course, to kill cops.
::::::If you're a stray dog, head to Thailand.

Feeling a bit randy? Why not launch into the exotic and erotic three-day love-fest of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church? All you'll need is a Holy Handkerchief, the Holy Salt, a Holy Gown, and two basins or bowls. Oh, and you can't be creeped out by having sex in front of a picture of Sun Myung -- or, as the uber-conservative, bigoted Washington Times owner who once called gays "dung-eating dogs" has people refer to him as, the True Father -- because that's the only way to truly make love in the church. Confused? Don't worry. His church provides hot, steamy instructions for all your love-making needs. Meow! Here's a taste:

The third day is the ceremony for the man to restore dominion. It is the ceremony for both the man and woman to come together as the ideal husband and wife.

(1) The man washes first, using the Holy Handkerchief, then the woman washes.

(2) After putting on the Holy Gowns, the man and woman bow three times (as in Pledge service) to Heavenly Father and True Parents. Then they offer three bows to each other simultaneously. Then the man offers the prayer. He stands; the woman kneels facing him (Figure 3).

Note: the man now stands on the right side in the subject position.

Contents of the man's prayer:

"Thank you for having me reborn as sinless Adam through the first two ceremonies. I pray that through the ceremony today we may become an eternal couple as husband and wife and that each of us can have the triple objective relationship of love with each other. I pray that I may restore all the conditions that the first Adam lost."

After the man finishes his prayer, the woman in the position of wife, offers a prayer in response to the man's prayer.

(3) For the Act of Love

The man, in the position of subject, lies above the woman and takes the initiative. The woman cooperates and responds to the man.

(4) Care of the Holy Handkerchief

After the act of love, both spouses should wipe their sexual areas with the Holy Handkerchief. Hang the handkerchief to dry naturally and keep them eternally. They must be kept individually labeled and should never be laundered or mixed up.

Tuesday, March 23

Two great quotes:
1. "Who cares what you think?" -George W. Bush to a guy who told him he's not doing a good job as president. The guy sent the quote to a few friends by e-mail, and it exploded on the web. In Salon.com, he muses: In retrospect, it's an excellent question. I made a list, and it's pretty short: My family cares what I think. My friends care. My various employers have cared at various times, as have a generous handful of teachers and mentors. But that's about it. In the big picture, I'm nobody from nowhere, and the marketplace for my ideas is pretty slim.
2. "I'm a tough guy, I chew on cigars, I live life to the fullest. But I don't like it when I see human rights violated. We are not the Hetero States of America." -Jesse Ventura, quoted in the Boston Globe about his support for gay marriage. It's not really the most eloquent thing I've ever heard, but that's ok.

Soak up Bob Edwards while you can, because the longtime host of NPR's Morning Edition is about to sign off. At the end of April, Edwards, a man who I can't even imagine having a regular conversation with his ready-steady-NPR voice, will become "senior correspondent for NPR news." The circumstances sound a little fishy: an NPR spokesman said the changes is "part of a natural evolution. A new host will bring new ideas and perspectives to the show." Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. At the very least, it's not sacking Bob the way Sandra Tsing Loh was booted from NPR affiliate KCRW because an f-bomb she used wasn't bleeped out. Better NPR's "natural evolution" than the FCC's unnatural regression.

Table scraps:
:Charlie Kaufman, we hardly knew you! Or, at least, I didn't. I've always been told that Kaufman is the most mysterious man in Hollywood, which is annoying because he's also the most talented. But someone has undertaken the task of collecting all the information you could possibly want about Kaufman, and to this person, I am grateful. And by the way, if you haven't seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yet, your life is incomplete. Go. Right now.
::Thanks to the WashPost for bitch-slapping Cargo Magazine in a way it deserves. Put simply: "Cargo might be the worst idea for a magazine in human history" And in the same article, it says of Lucky Magazine, "The apparent idea behind Lucky was simple: Women are too dumb to read magazine articles." Read this article, love it, and live by it.
:::Ol' b**** in London knew I was nice, I f***ed that b**** till she called me Sir Ice. Possible rhymes by Ice Cube after being knighted by the Queen.
::::I've never actually watched Law & Order, but this is amusing anyway.

Levitating midget surrounds himself with cute, underage girls!

Ok, so that's not what's really going on in this photo, but take a good look at that man's leg. It's... not there. Is he floating? What's going on? This is a photo from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, and truth be told, he's a good guy -- whether he defies physics or not. He runs Becca's Closet, an organization that provides free formalware to high school students who can't afford dresses for homecoming and prom. Good cause, good idea, and a good opportunity to hover two feet above the ground.

West Virginia is our new Canada -- a land that just can't take a damn joke. The state's governor, Bob Wise, wrote Abercrombie & Fitch a letter yesterday that demanded it stopped selling -- and, indeed, completely destroy its entire stock of -- its "It's all relative in West Virginia" t-shirts. Wise is apparently a bit testy over this incest stereotype the state's been slapped with, but let's get serious here. It's just a t-shirt, pal. And if he didn't make a big stink over it, it wouldn't be showing up in the Associated Press and New York Times. Sales are surely going to skyrocket, and A&F has Wise to thank.

Now, if Wise really wanted to hit A&F, he's got plenty of reason to. Why not take them to task for sweatshop labor, or hell, for selling a cheap orange shirt with some black ink on it for $24.50? For its part, A&F responded with a very Howard Dean-like statement: "We love West Virginia. We love California, Florida, Connecticut, Hawaii and Nebraska, too." And then we're going to sell expensive crap in New Hampshire! And then in Ohio! And then we're going to sell a pair of socks for $36 in Utah! And $92 sweatpants in Texas! And in Alabama! And a pair of $72 boxers in South Dakota! Aieeeeeeeahhhh!   

I had this e-mail exchange with Rawstory.com, which is essentially a site of news links that bills itself as the "Liberal alternative to Drudge." The tagline bugged me, as you'll read below, and I wanted to know their rationale for it. I thought this was interesting enough to share:

Subj:   Why "The liberal alternative to Drudge"? Date:   3/21/2004 11:56:25 PM Eastern Standard Time From:  KNULPREK@aol.com To:      rawstory@yahoo.com Hello, I'd like to take a minute and address your tagline, "The liberal alternative to Drudge." I'm a liberal, I voted for Nader in the last election and I'll be voting for Kerry in this one. But despite my politics, I've become increasingly frustrated with the liberal movement's inability to offer self-initiated ideas. For the last four years, instead of offering the country new solutions, the liberal movement has done nothing but respond to the conservative movement. There's only one side on the political spectrum introducing new concepts, or gaining any forward momentum, and it's unfortunately the side that I think is bent on doing serious damage to this country. I think your tagline is so indicative of this problem, just like Al Franken's new radio show title, "The O'Franken Factor." Why can't his show act as its own platform, and not, as the title indicates, an automated response to conservatives? Why can't your site simply be a good news source, and not a stated response to a conservative news source? Do you see the distinction here? I'm curious to hear your rationalization for this tagline, and whether you think Rawstory would be more or less valuable as a straightforward initiative, and not a stated response to Drudge. Thank you, Jason Feifer                                            * * * * * * * * * * * * * Subj:   Re: Why "The liberal alternative to Drudge"? Date:   3/23/2004 11:00:19 AM Eastern Standard Time From:  rawstory@yahoo.com To:      KNULPREK@aol.com Thanks for your message. We chose Drudge as a means of comparison because of the type of site he operates, not so much because he is conservative. So far as I know, there are few major sites that operate on a news-link basis. If, for instance, we said the "liberal alternative to Google News," no one would know what we're talking about. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with taking on conservatives on their own terms, using their own language. They've been using the word "liberal" in derogatory terms for years. And from the site, I think you'll find its very clear we have no connection to Drudge whatsoever, nor in terms of layout, as does the Drudge Retort. We use "Drudge" as a reference point because people are familiar with it, and it helps folks understand what it is we're doing. =john=

Monday, March 22

Table scraps:
:I know the Martha Stewart thing is over already, and quite frankly I hated it while it was going on, but this is too funny not to pass along.
::A few words about break-ups, from themorningnews's non-expert: People reach inside your chest and squeeze your little ticker with their fat sloppy fists, people who had plenty of faults, lemme tell you, like the lingering onion breath and a penis crooked as a boomerang. But still: You have to soldier on. Take this time to try new things. Like kayaking, or prostitutes.
:::Nothing soothes the soul like washing the feet of homeless people. Take it from Kelly Nilsson: "My mom thinks what I'm doing is gross, but I really like doing it." (Editorial note: I think Kelly and her peers are doing a great thing, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I agree with her mom. It's kind of gross. Maybe I'm just shallow.)
::::Hey everyone, it's March Madness! But, um, why?
:::::I don't really trust Americans to make the right decision this coming November, so I propose that we let the rest of the world decide for us.

They finally found weapons of mass destruction! Guns, bullets, bombs, and a lethal chemical cyanide bomb that could have killed thousands -- yes, it was all there all along. Except, uh, they weren't found in Iraq. They were found in Texas. And by Bush's doctrine, you know what this means, don't you? It's time to invade Texas, ensure a regime change, liberate its people and take over oil production. Hot damn, those freedom-haters in Texas won't know what hit 'em.

This is one sorry looking mascot.

Listen, the American Cancer Society does great things. And whatever it can do to get its name and cause into newspapers is just fine with me. But let's back up a minute and consider its "Polyp Man" mascot, which looks like a blood clot on St. Patrick's Day. If Polyp Man arrived at my hospital, I'd want to get rid of him as soon as possible -- and maybe that's the point. Actually, if that is the point, this is truly brilliant. Just like you want to get rid of a polyp -- a non-cancerous growth of tissue that often signals the onset of colon cancer -- you want to get rid of Polyp Man. The very presence of Polyp Man is a reminder of how very much you want him gone. In fact, look at Polyp Man's face up there. It looks like he's been gotten rid of a few too many times. Oh, you are a sorry sight, Polyp Man.

Table scraps:
:Eat all you want! Oops, ok, now you've eaten too much. Red Lobster does away with its all-you-can-eat option, because people were eating all they could.
::What's everyone so fucking afraid of? The FCC has decided that f-u-c-k is harmful to our nation, and now dopey old St. Petersburg, Florida, wants to fine promoters for any musical act who swears on stage. Time to break out the capes and big black hats, folks, because we're apparently Puritans again.
:::What does Weezer need besides an ego-check and the ability to put out something, anything, nearly as good as Pinkerton or the blue album? Clearly, they need Jay-Z. Together, they're Jay-Zeezer, putting together hits like December 4th (Say it ain't so).
::::Bush gets Burma-burned! Dubya had banned imports from Burma to punish its dictator, but that hasn't stopped his campaign from selling official merchandise made in Burma. Story here, photos here.
:::::What are your senator's favorite jokes? This guy posed as a fifth grade boy to find out.

What are we talking about here? A witch's brew? A new brand of Doritos? The cure for cancer? Take a read:

To deliver the required calcium, we add back Calcium Chloride into the product. Through detailed analysis, we discovered that our product did not meet our quality standards. Because of the high level of bromide contained in the Calcium Chloride, a derivate of bromide, bromate, was formed at a level that exceeded UK legal standards. This occurred during the ozonisation process we employ in manufacturing.

Any guesses? Here's the big stunner: that process above is all about water. You know, water. The stuff that used to be H2O, but is now something like H2O3DH4KAL. The above text is Coca-Cola's explanation for why it just pulled Dasani out of the UK market, after studies found that the water contains a cancer-causing agent. But, what does that explanation mean? Who knows. And quite frankly, that's the problem. When you buy bottled water, you deserve water, and not water with some crazy chemical and an ozonisation process. A what process? A no-longer-water process, that's what.

Hi, sorry for the delay. It's been a busy morning. While I go find things to rant about today, I'd advise that you hop over to this wonderfully simple game, in which you just move a red square around and try to avoid hitting the blue rectangles. I lasted 16.38 seconds. Good luck.

Thursday, March 18

This is downright fascinating. This database allows you to search for political contributors by name or address, and it will also tell you about your neighbors' political interests. A few fun things to note: People with the last name of Bush overwhelmingly support George Bush, the Kerrys love Kerry, but there is no consensus among people with the last name of Whitehouse about who they'd like to see inside the White House. Donald Trump has given $2,000 to both John Kerry and George Bush, and political contributions are hemorrhaging out of Beverly Hills, 90210.

Donald Trump, have you no shame? Clearly, no. 

You've done something obnoxious. More obnoxious, in fact, than your new line of bottled water, the label of which looks like you're selling it from the depths of hell. (maybe you are). More obnoxious than your reality TV show's opening segment, which the New York Times reminded us is based more in ego than fact:

The first episode of Donald Trump's new hit reality show "The Apprentice" began with an introduction. As usual, Mr. Trump did the honors. Over aerial views of Manhattan's glittering skyline, he intoned, "My name is Donald Trump and I'm the largest real estate developer in New York." The camera panned across Trump International Hotel and Tower at Columbus Circle, and he continued: "I own buildings all over the place, modeling agencies, the Miss Universe contest, jet liners, golf courses, casinos and private resorts like Mar-a-Lago." For millions of viewers, the show is an opportunity to watch 16 remarkably ambitious people compete for a $250,000-a-year job with Mr. Trump. But for those who follow the New York real estate market, the show provides something else: a hilarious look at Mr. Trump's blend of fact, image and sheer nerve. Even when the show plays a bit with the truth, it's an excellent primer -- sometimes unintentionally so -- on Mr. Trump's peculiar brand of success. To start with, the superlative-prone developer does own many valuable assets. And the Corcoran Group reports that 22 of the 50 most expensive apartments for sale in the city today are in buildings developed by Mr. Trump. But as far as his central claim to fame, he is not the largest developer in New York, nor does he own Trump International Hotel and Tower (he redeveloped the Columbus Circle skyscraper on behalf of GE Pension Trust for a tidy fee and a percentage of the stratospheric apartment prices). In Manhattan, he has developed 13 residential towers -- Trump Tower, Trump Palace, Trump World, etc. -- and about 4,100 apartments. Mr. Trump no longer owns the condominiums he built, although, by all reports, he continues to manage the buildings well. In contrast, consider the relatively invisible Leonard Litwin of Glenwood Management (developed and owns more than 5,000 apartments) or the Elghanayan brothers of Rockrose Development (developed and own 7,000 apartments in Manhattan and are starting construction of 3,500 on the Queens waterfront). And Stephen M. Ross of Related Companies has developed and managed 11,000 apartments in the city and has five projects with a total value of over $2.5 billion under construction, including Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. (These are all private residential developers and owners; even they look small compared to some of their commercial counterparts.) In at least five follow-up phone calls to an interview, Mr. Trump insisted he is "by far the biggest builder in New York." "There might be some guy in Queens that sells more units," he said. "But one of my units sells for as much as three or four of their buildings." "The Apprentice," on Wednesday nights on NBC, includes a few more fudges: the Trump Organization's "boardroom" in Trump Tower, where one contestant is "fired" at the end of each episode, was constructed for the show; the company's real office is 22 floors above it. And the show's theme song, the O'Jays' 1970's hit "For the Love of Money," has morphed from a warning about greed, gold and celebrity into a paean to them. Two key lines were excised: "I know money is the root of all evil/ Do funny things to some people." (NYTimes, 1/25/04, "Due Diligence on the Donald")

So anyway, as I was saying. This might be more obnoxious than what we've just read above. What could be so obnoxious? You, Mr. Trump, think you deserve a trademark on the phrase "You're Fired." I'm not kidding. It's right here. Someone must have put you up to this. Who did it? Was it your hair? I bet it was your hair.

You seem like a fairly intelligent guy, Mr. Trump. Or, Donald. Can I call you Donald? What about Donny? How's about Donarooski? No? Ok, fine. Donald it is. Listen, Donald, you can't just go around owning everything. I understand you think that if you touch something, it's yours. I see that. You stick your name on things that aren't even yours -- the Trump International Hotel, for instance. But there are some limits here. People have been saying "You're fired" since money was invented -- and judging by your hair and saggy face, that was at least five or ten years before you were born.

Some things are just fair game. You know how you just started saying "You're fired," and didn't ask anybody to do it? Wasn't that neat? That's how language works. You just go and use it, and then drop it off. Like a hooker, Donald. Think of it like a hooker. You wouldn't want to own a hooker, would you? No, too much time. Too much effort. She'll get lipstick all over your fine wine glasses. No, the hooker is good for a little bit, but after a while, you've just got to let her go. Let her go, Donald. Let her go.

Table scraps:
:If your doorbell rings, don't be surprised if it's disgraced reporter Jayson Blair trying to hawk his hack-job of a book. The thing has only sold 1,386 copies -- and that's after he took his freakshow on the road, leaping from TV talkshow to talkshow. Nobody cares about you, Blair. Not even when you dispute a NY Times review of your book. Go away, and go away now.
::Is there a "No Duh" rule to cancel lawsuits? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a penis enlargement pill company get sued because their product is worthless, but let's be honest here: does this guy really deserve any money for believing penis enlargement advertisements? No.
:::Don't say barbituate, say barbiturate. And don't say cannidate, say candidate. And no more of this persnickety, it's pernickety. And here are 97 more of the most commonly mispronounced English words.
::::She says: the Diet Coke's coolness contrasted with the steam of the shower makes for an invigorating wake up that I'd recommend to the groggiest of non-morning people. Translation: the Cult of Diet Coke is out of control.

Hooray for weird challenges. A man collected $100 after friends bet him he couldn't walk from Kennewick, Wash., to Helix, Ore. "I'm fat and everybody said I couldn't do it," he said. "They picked Helix. I had no idea where it was, and I didn't get a chance to look at a map. I just knew it was east of the Tri-Cities and south of Walla Walla." And in Florida, a 17-year-old boy jumped out a two-story window, after his teacher bet him he couldn't do it. Meanwhile, I'm prepared to eat just one Lays potato chip, so get ready to start paying up, you Frito-Lay corporate bastards.

If you're in the southern hemisphere, Asia or Europe, go outside tonight and try finding a 100-foot asteroid that will come within record-breaking distance of the Earth: 26,500 miles. No need to pop in your spare copy of Armageddon to see how Bruce Willis would survive this ordeal; it's not going to hit us. And if it did, it would probably burn up in the atmosphere anyway.

Wednesday, March 17

Table scraps:
:"The stench sometimes stays with me for days," says a judge for an annual rotten sneaker contest. "It's like a flashback"
::There's too much reality in Philadelphia, so MTV's Real World has decided to go elsewhere.
:::Driving, driving, driving, turning, stopped at a red light, now it's a green light, driving, driving, HOLY MOLEY IT'S BIN LADEN! STEP ON IT! ....oops.
::::Eeeeeewwwww. This from an angry stripper: "No I will not let you just 'slip it in real quick' for 50 more bucks. If you're going to proposition me, at least don't insult my worth."
:::::Watch out for the odorless, tasteless chemical that's deadly if inhaled. One California city tried to ban it, but then they realized it's water.

Dear Abby, Is it hard being so lame and out of touch?

I have a few guilty pleasures: the comic strip Brenda Starr, reading scathing music and movie reviews, and until recently, watching Average Joe. These are things I know are bad, but I just can't help liking. Then there's Dear Abby, a column that's so bad -- so unbelivably bland and meaningless -- that I can't find any enjoyment in it. I've tried. I tried reading it and finding humor, but found none. I tried finding humanity, and found none. Instead, I found bad advice from a woman who, it seems, hasn't left the house since 1964.

And so, it was with great pleasure that I read a recent Dear Abby column in which writer Jeanne Phillips gets duped by someone named "Stuck In A Love Triangle," who poses a question straight out of a Simpsons episode. Here's an AP story about it, and here's the actual letter and response:

Dear Abby: I am 34 and have three children. My husband, "Gene," and I have been married for 10 years. He is greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude. I don't know why I married him, nor why our marriage has lasted this long. Gene put off getting me a birthday gift for as long as he could; then he bought me a bowling ball. It was the last straw. Not only do I not bowl -- he had the holes drilled for his fingers and his name was on it. The next day I went to the bowling alley determined to keep the ball and learn to bowl. It was there that I met "Franco." Franco is kind, considerate and loving -- the polar opposite of Gene. Franco and I began bowling together, and he bought me a glove in my size with my name on it. Shortly thereafter, our affair began. (I didn't mention that I was married.) When Gene saw the bowling glove on our dresser, he became depressed because he realized that I'd met someone. I feel sorry for Gene, but the last time I saw Franco, he proposed. I no longer love Gene. I want to divorce him and marry Franco. At the same time, I'm worried that Gene won't be able to move on with his life. I also think our kids would be devastated. What should I do? -- Stuck In A Love Triangle Dear Stuck: You are not "stuck" in a love triangle. You deliberately put yourself into one by not being honest with Franco. Before you get in any deeper, put your house in order and tell your husband why you strayed. He may not realize how selfish, greedy, inconsiderate and rude you think he is. To save the marriage, he might be willing to change back to the man who bowled you over in the first place. Next, apologize to Franco for not informing him of the fact that you are already married. He has a right to know the score -- and after that, que sera sera.

Oh, Abby. You thought you were funny with all those bowling puns, didn't you? Too bad you were wrong. You're a dope.

Immediate? No, I said "I'm mediate." Donald Rumsfeld is going to have to come up with something good to help him out of this one. He went on national television this Sunday and said nobody in the Bush administration ever called Saddam an "immediate threat," and then got slapped with two of his own quotes, one of which actually used the words "immediate threat." Check out the video clip, which MoveOn sent out on its mailing list today. It would have been nice if they let the clip run a bit longer, but it's still fun to watch Rumsfeld squirm.

There's something very impressive about being able to peer onto the streets of faraway lands. I'm sure most webcams are being used by teenage girls who look somber, show some cleavage and then ask their viewers for a few bucks, but I must say that I'm more impressed by webcams like this one, which shows the streets of Tehran, Iran. It's not that I can get much information out of it, except that I now know that at 10:24 a.m. EST, it's getting dark in Tehran and traffic is heavy. And here's a traffic cam from Worcester, Mass, from the point of view of the main offices of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which I write for. Oh, and here's a bunch of surf cams from Australia. One time a few years ago, I visited that site and watched the sun rise in Australia. Why? Because I could.

I saw Noam Chomsky speak a few days ago, and nearly fell asleep. In fact, I think I may have, considering there are large holes in my memory of his speech. He was giving a speech on the topic of "Our enemy, ourselves" -- or, as Republicans would call it, "Blame America First" -- in which he explained how much of the violence we're fighting today actually started with us. It's an interesting topic, although not a particularly new one. But what bothered me most wasn't that Noam failed to inject anything particularly unique into the discussion, but that he spoke with the Professor Accent.

In the two years since I've graduated college, I had forgotten all about the Professor Accent -- and then Noam brought it back with a roaring thud. The Professor Accent is when professors talk about a subject with total nonchalance, using as much vocal inflection as they would when reading the instructions on a coffee maker. Their voice emphasizes nothing. Everything they say, it seems, is unimpressive and old. They've heard it all before, and while you may be hearing it for the first time, you must remember: they've heard it all before. "You think this is interesting?" they say. "Hah. I've heard it before."

The Professor Accent physically cripples me. I fought to stay away during college classes, even if I got plenty of sleep that night, and I fought to stay awake during Noam's talk. Somehow, my mind is lulled to sleep by the mono-toned streamline of facts and observations. Why can't professors talk like normal people talk? Why can't they explain things with excitement and energy, or at the very least, some level of humanity? They're hired to help students understand the material, but they often function like human versions of the books read in class. it's. very. difficult. to. learn. when. the. professor. does. not. give. any. indication. of. what. facts. are. important. and. what. facts. are. mundane. zzzzzzzz.

Tuesday, March 16

Table scraps:
:Meet Jamie. His desire to be on Donald Trump's Ego-a-thon -- er, I mean, The Apprentice -- has prompted him to set up this stupid website. More important, though, is the striking similarity between this Jamie fellow and Lex Luther from Smallville.
::Well, here's someone who won't be needing Viagra any time soon.
:::Hey Donald Rumsfeld, something looks different about you. What is it? Oh, it must be a new suit you're wearing. No? Ok, um, you got a nose job. No? Did you get a tan? No? Well jeez, what is it?
::::Dubya hasn't checked his e-mail in a while, nor has he checked the definiton of the word recession.
:::::Is there anything that an Internet connection can't be offered through? We've got our phone lines pumping out Internet, our cable lines pumping out Internet, wireless Internet connections, and coming soon, our electrical outlets will be Internet-ready as well. It's a pretty neat idea, though, and will hopefully drive down the absurd price of basic connections. It will also probably electrocute a few stupid people, but that's ok. They'll just call 911 (see next item).

"Thanks for calling 911, how stupid are you today?" The answer: pretty stupid, at least if you were one of these unfortunate fellows. Stupid number one: what happens when you try to commit suicide by nailing yourself to a cross? Well, you nail one hand down, realize you can't nail your other hand, and then call 911. Stupid number two: what happens when you cut yourself while breaking into a store, and then can't figure out how to open the cash register? Well, you steal some cigarettes, get beaten up by some guys in a sports car, bleed on yourself, and then call 911.

Finally, someone starts asking Jayson Blair the questions he deserves. No more of this Chris Matthews love-fest (see March 12 entry). After hitting the talk-show circuit to sell his crap-ass book, "Burning Down My Master's House," in which he makes money and gains additional ego-stroking attention for being one of the most dishonest reporters of all time, Blair sits down with The Black Table, where they hit him with a big ton of bricks:

BT: Here's a question--would you rather be a slave or a big fucking liar with no credibility, friends, or people who trust you? JB: A big liar with no credibility, friends or people who trust me. But I ain't that yet. I wish none of this had happened. BT: You're almost there. Would you rather burn down a house full of children with cancer or be a big fucking liar with no credibility, friends, or people who trust you? JB: A big liar with no credibility, friends or people who trust me.

Hey Mel, how many Jewish people do you love?

Oh, silly Mel, Jesus doesn't count!

What does the Interior Secretary of the Bush Administration do? Well, whatever it is, it doesn't involve interior design. Jessica Simpson didn't get that memo, though. When she met Interior Secretary Gale Norton in the White House on Sunday, she said, "You've done a nice job decorating the White House." Note to terrorists: when Jessica Simpson and George Bush are in the same building, we'll look the other way if you want to drop a bomb or two.

Monday, March 15

Table scraps:
:Some men dream of fame. Others dream of creating the world's largest ball of paint.
::China discovers the downside of sending a man into orbit: it must finally confront the ugly fact that its Great Wall cannot, in fact, be seen from space.
:::For future reference, here's eight ways not to get hit in the face with a brick.
::::To break even, spammers need 1 in every 10,000 people e-mailed to actually buy something. Meet Mr. Soto, that one guy.
:::::Has Bill O'Reilly stopped telling people to shut up? Maybe, but he's still an asshole.

It's too bad that cryonics enthusiast John Henry Williams, who fought to freeze the body of Ted Williams, his baseball legend father, died before hearing news of this: a lobster company has found that some of the lobsters it freezes will come back to life after being thawed. This is undeniably creepy. I wonder what the lobster was thinking before and after the big freeze. Gotta pinch things. Gotta pinch things. Gotta pi-- ------------------ --nch things. Gotta pinch things...

When you turn on the television news, you expect to see crap. But, do you expect to see government propaganda? Expect again, my good friend. Federal investigators are looking into a series of faux-news videos released by the Bush administration, which feature a fake reporter talking to fake pharmacists about how delightfully wonderful the new Medicare law is. The videos have already been aired in Oklahoma and Louisiana. Here are some details from the NY Times:

Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government. Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia. Another segment shows a pharmacist talking to an elderly customer. The pharmacist says the new law "helps you better afford your medications," and the customer says, "It sounds like a good idea." Indeed, the pharmacist says, "A very good idea." The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration describes as a made-for-television "story package." In one script, the administration suggests that anchors use this language: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details."

This might explain why the Bush administration is giving newly reelected President Vladimir Putin a pass in Russia, even though the guy hijacked the media and blocked his opponents from freely campaigning. But perhaps the Bushies are just using the same logic they use to attack their opponents: just as people against Bush are unpatriotic, people against Putin must be unpatriotic as well. After all, as National Security Advisor Condi Rice said on Meet the Press, "I don't have any doubt that Vladimir Putin is completely committed to his country and to its best interests." That's right: Bush and Putin, both manipulating the media because they love their countries.

The only interesting exchange to come out of this was when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he was "concerned about the way (Russia's) election is being held," to which Putin responded, "Four years ago, we watched in bewilderment how the US election system was failing." Oh, SNAP! How you like them apples?

Saturday, March 13

Bush should have listened to Austin Powers: "It's a man, baby! A man!" Yesterday, in an International Women's Week speech honoring women reformers, he said, "Earlier today, the Libyan government released Fathi Jahmi. She's a local government official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech and democracy." Problem is, Fathi Jahmi is a man. And to make things even better, he's listed as a man on a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations website.

You think you live in a crappy place? Try Valley County, Montana, where a quarter of the population is senior citizens, the seasons are all dreadful, the animals are all dying and the Sheriff says of the place, "You feel like the life has gone out of you. Just like one of those antelope, you want to lay down and die." Here's some of the seasonal pleasantries the Washington Post discovered when it took a visit:

• Grapefruit-size hailstones. On July 21, 1999, a hailstorm smashed car windshields across the county. Paul Monson, who owns a bar in Glasgow, went outside in the storm and a hailstone caught him square on the head. He told the Glasgow Courier that he absorbed "a good-sized cut that bled a lot." • Mosquitoes. Julie Adolphson, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Glasgow, went on a three-mile run last summer but forgot to oil up with mosquito repellent. When the run was over, she counted 40 mosquito bites on one leg. At Sunnyside Golf & Country Club, it is not uncommon to see players who dare wear shorts walk off the 18th green with mosquito-drawn blood streaming down their legs. • Heat followed by cold followed by heat. The record high temperature in Valley County is 113 degrees -- but weeks of 100-plus days are not uncommon. The record cold is 59 degrees below zero -- but weeks of 30 to 40 below are routine. In every season, Valley County residents can expect sustained winds of 20 to 40 mph. The National Weather Service doesn't bother with a wind warning until it blows 40 mph for three hours.

Friday, March 12

Thanks to Rhona Silver for reminding us of why there are starving people in this world. Rhona, a Long Island caterer, has offered to pay $1 million of Martha Stewart's legal bills. Hey, Rhona, care to give some money to starving children? No? Well, what about providing health care for some people who can't afford it? No? How about buying some jackets for homeless people who are freezing to death on the streets? A million bucks could buy a lot of jackets. What's that you say, you don't like that either? Ok, what about paying a million bucks for the legal bills of a celebrity who's worth billions? Yeah, you like that idea? Oh, you have a heart of gold, Rhona. A heart of gold.

Chris Matthews playing 'Hardball'? Ha. Haha. Hahahahahaha.

Little league is more like it. Take a look at this exchange between MSNBC's Hardball host Matthews and Jayson Blair, the bastard that was fired a few months ago for fabricating stories in the NY Times and is now promoting a book about it:

MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you the two toughest questions. I told you I was going to ask them. I'm going to ask them right now. Why-you are such a damn good writer, a creative force. You have fluency and life. Anybody who picks -- I'm not saying buy this book. I'm saying, look at it in the book store, pick it up and read a couple of pages. It moves. It's got air. It's got oxygen, the thing you always look for in a writing. What's it like to be that creative? You are obviously a guy who can knock out 120,000 words in a month. BLAIR: I enjoy it. MATTHEWS: Nobody else can do that. BLAIR: No, I enjoy it. But like all writers and like all people, I'm insecure, and I was insecure while I was at the Times about how good I was. It really took, you know... MATTHEWS: You're up there with Johnny Apple. You're one of these guys who can do it magically. Do you know that? BLAIR: But I did not know it. I did not know it until afterwards.

That's not made up. That's the actual transcript. As Editor & Publisher said, it sounded more like SNL's Darrell Hammond's impression of Matthews. It's a wonder Matthews didn't just lean over and make out with Blair. If this is Chris's definition of "hardball," I can't imagine what his softball questions are like. "Jayson, how did you get so beautiful?"

A few years ago, I saw Matthews speak at his alma mater, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. The crowd was tossing out similar hardballs -- things like, "Chris, I respect your opinion so much, and I was wondering what you thought about abortion." Matthews spent a lot of time talking about how people shouldn't listen to the "media elite," and so a friend of mine stood up and asked Matthews how, with his books and television show, he wasn't part of the media elite. The audience actually hissed, and Matthews' response was so weak that I don't even remember it. That ball was apparently too hard.

Table scraps:
:What is this crazy scarf thing? Just follow these simple instructions.
::Wait, they let (insert ugly person joke here) go outside? The Herald Sun is reporting that "Villagers on the island of New Britain this week reported seeing a 3m tall, grey-coloured beast with a head like a dog and a tail like a crocodile."
:::I don't know why anybody would want to do this, but some people have put the controls to their houselights on their website. You can go and play with the lights in their house, and then watch the results on webcams. This is truly a unique form of self-torture.
::::Yes, but what does it all mean? Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Batman.

More shallow than a kiddie pool, more uninspiring than a Jeff Goldblum monologue, it's... "Nobody's Perfect: What to do when you've fallen for a jerk but you want to make it work," a book by Batchelor 2 contestants Helene Eksterowicz and Gwen Gioia. I've braved a few of the passages here -- I got it for free at The View (see yesterday's entry) and looked through it in the name of science, I assure you -- and have come back to report that this book makes one very strong case: never date Batchelor 2 contestants Helene Eksterowicz and Gwen Gioia.

Strangely, there's nothing in it about helping people who "want to make it work," but there are plenty of anecdotes about jerks. And when I say plenty, I mean... plenty. Every other paragraph stars out with something like, "Jeff and Samantha were dating..." There are more fake couples here than after the keg is tapped at a frat party. There are also a fair amount of top-ten lists, one of which, I swear, only has nine entries. (It's a top-ten list of things a man should never do on a first date, and includes such knee-slappers as "show you his tattoo" and "ask about your single friends.") But so far, the best page in the entire book is the title page for section two. It says:

Part Two
THESE JERKS CAN BE SAVED, TOO!
They simply possess a physical abnormality that you can overlook

What follows is chapters on short men, bald men, hairy men -- you know, total jerks. You'll cackle and urinate on yourself while enjoying stories such as:

We'll never forget the story our friend Janis told us. She once woke up at a man's house in the middle of the night. She had a foggy recollection of going home with this cute guy, who was now sleeping next to her. In his bedroom, she focused through the darkness on what appeared to be a mannequin head sitting on the top of a dresser. And it was wearing a wig! After she'd fallen asleep, this guy had put his rug on this plastic head. Sobriety changes so many things. When she told us about waking up with a stranger whose hair had been moved in the night, our own hair stood straight up on our necks.

Dead fish and horse's heads are smelly and out of style. If you really hate someone, just send them a copy of this book.

Is it still funny? Yeah, it's still funny.

Some brilliant person on eBay is selling dolls of Janet and Justin from the infamous SuperBowl halftime show. But if you buy them, watch out. Janet will corrupt your children, and Justin will start ripping the clothing off your daughter's Barbies. Come to think of it, maybe this is why Barbie and Ken broke up! Oooh, that Justin!

Table scraps:
:Is this how the cookie crumbles? Police nabbed a man for posession of pot, put him in a holding cell with some Girl Scout cookies, and told him not to touch the cookies. He had one anyway -- really, who can resist these cookies? -- and so police charged him with larceny. But really, isn't this entrapment?
::This is the official 'news source' from the Michael Jackson camp. Of course, the group will use the site to throw positive spin on Jackson's legal troubles, but its graphic seems to take a more colorful approach: to counter claims of Jackson being attracted to young boys, they're showing him emerge from what can only be seen as a giant vagina.
:::Here's your Daily Thing To Worry About: the vapor from a microwave popcorn bag may cause a rare form of lung cancer.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm now a fan of George Michael. Not necessarily his work, but just him. George has announced that he'll no longer sell albums, but instead will put all his new songs online for free, and any donations made to his site will be given to charity. Take that, RIAA. It will nice to see some other rich musicians make this decision, although as we all know, some will remain greedy bastards until the end. Metallica, who took their fans to court for downloading their songs, comes to mind.

The liberals are coming! The liberals are coming! Air America Radio, the long-awaited liberal radio network -- or, as Ann Coulter will no doubt call it, "24-hour treason" -- will debut in NYC, LA and Chicago on March 31. Its hosts will include Al Franken from noon to 3 p.m.; Janeane Garofalo, apparently revising the role she played in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.; and Chuck D in the morning. This lineup will no doubt help shake the view that liberals' primary support comes from Hollywood activists. Also, Franken's show, "The O'Franken Factor," will no doubt help shake the view that Democrats do nothing but respond to Republican issues. Air America is flying some shaky skies, but let's at least hope the in-flight meal tastes good.

So, how was The View? I'll tell you.

I thought my career as a reporter was over. On the train ride into NYC, we saw a listing that said Jayson Blair, disgraced former NY Times reporter, was going to be the day's guest. I was about to be in the same room as Barbara Walters and Jayson Blair. They would suck all the integrity out of me, I knew it.

But, luckily, that didn't happen. After standing around in the ABC studio for about two hours enjoying the ol' Hollywood Hurry-Up-And-Wait, and listening to some woman complain about how seats were given -- "I was here first. I should get the best seat. What's right is right," she bitched to some producer, who told her, "You're here to see The View. You'll get in. Just calm down and enjoy it." -- we finally got to sit in the studio and learn that we'll be seeing George Carlin, four people from reality television shows (who all conveniently have a new book or TV show to promote) and some country singer named Clint Black. And Barbara Walters wasn't even there! I was saved.

I was going, by the way, because my girlfriend got free tickets. I've never actually seen the show, but I did see a Saturday Night Live skit that made fun of it, and I'm not joking when I say the skit prepared me well for the show's format. One of our housemates, who told his place of employment an awful lie to get out for the day, joined us.

The View's set is really interesting. It's large, has at least 50-100 pieces of lighting equipment hanging from the ceiling, and all the different sets -- that is, all the different couch arrangements they sit on -- are furiously dragged around during the commercial breaks. The cast was surprisingly friendly, and spent the commercials going around the audience chatting, taking pictures and giving lots -- lots -- of hugs.

Before the show, some producer comes out to warm up the crowd. She gets everyone cheering, makes some jokes, and then gets a bunch of audience members up on stage to dance to that "Boom boom boom boom, let's go back to my room" song. The camera was trained on them, and they appeared on the studio's television sets, complete with bar-mitzvah-style cheesy effects. The first girl to dance tore down the house. She shook her rump in the camera, flaunted her revealing shirt, and won hoots and hollars all around. You'd think we were at a strip club -- but there only about a dozen men in the audience, and since they all had clearly come with their wife or girlfriend, they stayed respectfully quiet. Later in the show, the girl got the ultimate reward: presenting the show's teaser ("Coming up on the view...") on live national television.

During the first commercial break, Star Jones got up from the set and hugged some lady in the front row of the audience. They chatted for a minute, and then she announced to the crowd, "This is my best friend!" Everyone applauded. I wondered, what exactly were we applauding? Star? Star's friend? The bond of friendship? Imagine if we all naturally applauded people when being introduced to them. "Honey, this is my mother," she says, and you break out into cheers. Weird.

The show's content was the least interesting to me. I spent most of the time watching the cameras, the producer flashing cards that say "2 MIN" or "WRAP," and the teleprompter -- and comparing it to what the cast actually said. When there's content on the teleprompter, they read it all, pretty much without any deviation. But, occasionally the prompter will say something like, "Rant about Martha Stewart, new divas, etc.", and then the cast will just babble for a minute or two. When the guests did come out -- and of course, it's always a treat to see George Carlin -- I was surprised at how little time is actually spent with each guest. I'm sure it's like that with all TV shows, but I never really noticed it from my couch.

Oh, and yes, I did get on television. During the opening shot of the audience, my face was large and in the foreground, invading the living rooms of millions. You see me clapping, then looking up at the off-screen television monitor, seeing myself, laughing, and then they cut away.

A bit about the guests: George Carlin was great, Omarossa (from The Apprentice) is a lot prettier in person, Evan (from Joe Millionaire) is about as inarticulate as a dead body, and Clint Black wins the Pander to the Audience Award. In his first minute on the air, he told the women about how his baby daughter would wander into his studio while he was recording his new album, and would say, "Daddy, it's too loud." So, he'd turn down all the music and pick her up, and "it was the best kind of interruption." All the women in the audience cooed, and all the men thought, "Just give the kid some earplugs and send it back home."

And that was that. When the show was over, people chatted with the cast and slowly filed outside, where we received our free goodies: a Clint Black CD, an awful book by two girls from Bachelor 2 that I'll surely be making fun of in the coming days, and a tie (or, for my girlfriend, a scarf) to promote awareness of violence against women. Total retail value: I'm guessing $45. Total cost of going to the show, excluding transportation costs: nothing. What a deal!

Help me help you help me help you... or really, don't. So says Roberto, a reader and McDonald's fan, who had this to say about the store's recent decision to drop the SuperSize option (see entry on March 3):

I understand that this is marketing, but I think it sucks that McD's decides to kow-tow to advocacy groups who worry about what everyone but themselves are doing to their children. As a bonafide Fat Bastid, I will admit to getting the Super-Size on occasion. Why should some whiney soccer mom with a chubby kid keep me from enjoying a few extra fries and a 42 oz. Coke with my meal? Why are you so down with the Childization of everything we do as a society? I'm sick and tired of people worrying about what kids will see on TV, or in a movie, or in a video game, at the stadium, in the Men's Room, at School, in Church, in Town Hall, near the bar, in our parks, in my house and under my sheets. When did we give up on telling people to stop whining and live their own lives? It's infuriating.

You heard it here first, folks. Stop whining, and live your own damn life.

Here's what I've always wondered about famous last words: if somebody thinks of some great words to utter before they eternally lose breath, when do they say them? After all, there's no way to know if you'll recognize death fast enough. You could wait until you feel Grim's hand on your shoulder, but by that time, your time is up. Or, do you speak your final words and then keep quiet, waiting the rest of your moments out in stubborn silence? Knot Magazine doesn't answer this question, but it does have some great tips on how to craft your last words as famously as possible.

More proof that secret frats are lousy: during a Masonic initiation ritual, a new member was accidentally shot in the face and killed. The gun that was fired was supposed to have blanks in it, which was intended to scare the new member. This is lousy for a two reasons: 1) why are grown men going through initiation rituals? Shouldn't they have grown out of that, oh, 30 or 40 years ago? 2) A senior deacon of the lodge told the AP that "This is very upsetting, very upsetting that one of our brothers was accidentally killed." Well, pal, things probably would have worked out better if you didn't use a gun. I don't know why he's all that surprised. Grow up, frat boys. College is over.

Table scraps:
:This is sort of clever: someone took eight photos of a woman and morphed them to show a time lapse of 69 years. But watch it with the sound on, and tell me the music it plays around age 30 isn't plain creepy.
::Bush has been talking some big talk about Kerry's career wavering on the issues. But here's something he should chew one: firstly, while Bush may consider himself a steady leader, his record shows him to be unable and unwilling to realize and readjust when he's chosen the wrong direction; and secondly, he's done plenty of wavering himself.
:::Atom & His Package briefly resurfaces, and oh, how I've missed him. The one-man quirky-quasi-punk champion wrote a piece about touring with a band for Philly City Paper, and includes useful tips such as, "Get very comfortable with shitting in weirdly laid-out bathrooms." Also, some band called Fred's Fear did a pretty good cover of Atom's "Upside down from here." Atom can now be found in a band called Armalite. And now, you may wonder: did I just repeat all the information he sent out on his mailing list? You decide.
::::Doctors are preparing to remove John Ashcroft's gallbladder. They'd schedule a heart transplant as well, but over the last 61 years, he seems to have been functioning fine without one.
:::::Did I call this, or did I call this? In my March 3 entry, I babbled on about the half-assed nature of the McDonald'ss health food initiative. And now, here's the proof: a McDonald's salad is fattier than its burgers.

Sunny days ahead for Al Sharpton:

The New York Times reported yesterday that Sharpton is being eyed as a mini-media phenom, with possible future TV and radio deals, including a reality television show. A TV exec would only say, "We were not thinking of doing a dating show, I can confirm that." Phew!

But then, what? Let me propose a show called The Fresh Reverend of Bel-Air, in which Al just goes around embarassing rich white men. There's Al, riding a golf club like an invisible pony. There's Al, hiring a stock broker and trying to buy shares of Enron. There's Al, throwing pucks into the crowd at a professional hockey game. After all, embarassing rich white men is basically what he did on the campaign trail. The only interesting moments in the Democratic debates were when Al opened his mouth. Otherwise, it was a lot of stodgy blabber. Go Al!

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, but who's the most out of touch?

1. Is it Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who fled his country under U.S. pressure and approaching rebels, is living in exile in Africa, but still thinks he runs Haiti? "I am the democratically elected president and I remain so. I plead for the restoration of democracy" in Haiti, Aristide told whined. "We appeal for a peaceful resistance."

2. Is it supremely conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who still thinks he's an objective judge even though the LA Times keeps uncovering blantant conflicts of interest? Just recently, the paper uncovered a second duck-hunting session Scalia took with people who were about to appear before the court, and now it's reporting that Scalia was the keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner for an anti-gay organization just before the court was to issue a decision on a Texas law that criminalized gay sex.

3. Is it the editor-in-chief of the new magazine Cargo, a men's "magazine" about shopping, who thinks men actually want such a useless product. He says his typical reader "feels self-assured when he goes shopping and, with Cargo, has the proper tools to get what he wants." But a friend of this Salon contributor says it better: "Finally, a magazine that's nothing but all the kinds of stuff I skip over in other magazines."

4. Is it the Boston Herald, who thought it was a good idea to hire disgraced columnist Mike Barnicle? In its announcement yesterday, it wrote that Barnicle "was a columnist for 25 years at the Boston Globe, where he established himself as one of New England's most popular and influential journalists." What it fails to mention, of course, is that he was fired from the Globe for fabricating quotes and ripping off George Carlin jokes. The Herald's union called the move "an obvious shock and disappointment," although I'm sure they had plenty of more colorful words for it.

5. Is it Craig Karmazin, the spoiled son of Viacom International president Mel Karmazin, who, much like his father -- surprise, surprise! -- is in the business of buying radio stations and making them crappier, but thinks he's actually doing something good? Oh, and he also puts himself on the air, mostly because he can. But don't worry, he's a modest fellow: "I don't feel I work any harder than anyone else in the company," he tells the Milwaukee Business Journal. Yeah, Craig, that's because you don't have to work hard at all.

Yes, all the folks up there are enjoying a bit of carnal knowledge, even if Whitey Rapper on the right looks like he's in a low-budget horror flick called Revenge of the Icky Moustache. (Say it with me this time: "Aiee!") This is a project called Beautiful Agony, in which people videotape their faces during orgasm. The faces are pretty amusing, sometimes sexy, but largely creepy. Most of them look like they're in abject fear, and a few look dead. It's a good thing we all lose our minds when dancing the horizontal mambo, because if we had the presence of mind to look around objectively, procreation would come to a screeching halt.

The creator told Nerve.com that "You almost find yourself cheering them on, as if they were participating in a sport or something." But it reminds me more of this exchange from Kevin Smith's Dogma:

Bethany: What's he like? Metatron: God? Lonely. But funny. He's got a great sense of humor. Take sex for example. There's nothing funnier than the ridiculous faces you people make mid-coitus. Bethany: Sex is a joke in heaven? Metatron: The way I understand it, it's mostly a joke down here, too.

Table scraps:
:Welcome to Amigone Funeral Home, where they tell you, yes, youaregone.
::The Passion of Christ overcame her. A middle school teacher has been suspended for showing Gibson's gore-fest to her class. One 11-year-old said, "I saw Jesus getting beaten. Needles were going in his arms. It was scary the way they was beating him."
:::It's embarassing when you throw a party and nobody comes. It's more embarassing when you hold a nude protest and you're the only one nude -- and then you get arrested.
::::Here's something neat and useless: a program that converts your photo into a text image.
:::::How do you steal neon beer signs without getting caught? Just tell the store owner you're a beer distributor, and are taking the signs in for a cleaning.
::::::Those 11-year-old California girls who made up a story about being attacked in a park, which resulted in a homeless man being sent to jail, were finally sentenced: they'll be in Juvenile Hall for 45 days, and must perform community service. The homeless man wants the cops, not the girls, to pay: "That's terrible. They're only children, for goodness' sake," he said. "Prosecuting and sentencing these kids is just a way to get the cops off the hook."

Why didn't Jayson Blair overdose on cocaine, and save us all this embarassing moment in history? The man-boy who rocked the New York Times by making up stories and and sources has released a new book, "Burning Down My Master's House," in which he fellates himself for nearly 300 pages. Is it a plea for forgiveness? A lengthy apology? No, and no. It's about how awesome he thinks he is. Take a look at this exchange from the opening moments of Katie Couric's interview with him:

Couric: “Why did you do this? Why did you make this stuff up?” Blair: “’ Why’ is the, you know,  $60 million question. But why is not the only question. Who is this young man who tarnished the reputation of the nation's greatest newspaper? How did he get away with it for so long? What if any role did race play? And where does Jayson Blair go from here?"

Translation: "The only interesting thing I have to say isn't what I'm going to say. Instead, I want to talk about me."

Bill Clinton said he didn't inhale, and Monica is lucky she didn't either -- inhale a condom, that is. One 27-year-old woman wasn't so lucky. She endured six months of "persistent cough, sputum and fever," and no medicine helped. A "chest radiograph showed non-homogeneous collapse-consolidation of right upper lobe," and further investigation uncovered a condom she accidentally inhaled during oral sex. That must have been one seriously intense blowjob. I'd love to know how that never came up during her doctor visits, though. What did she think happened to the condom after she inhaled it? Did she expect to poop it out? When she heard the result of the chest radiograph, did she exclaim, "What? That's still in there?"

Hold the shawarma, says the Bush administration. Israeli newspapers are reporting that Bush has told Israel to not withdraw from Gaza until after the election, because the instability it could cause would hurt Bush's political future. According to the Haaretz Daily, "security sources said that, bowing to White House pressure Israel intends to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November before uprooting the Jewish settlements in Gaza." This is an interesting new level of world domination, isn't it? Instead of going to other countries and changing their governments, the Bush administration is now freezing other governments in the hopes of avoiding a governmental change in America.

Kerry serves up a big stinking bowl of Pandering Soup in Mississippi, and he added the wrong vegetables. In a comparison meant to draw a parallel between black and gay rights, he told a church congregation that "when Matthew Shepard gets crucified on a fence in Wyoming because, because, only because he was gay, and Mr. King gets dragged behind a truck down Texas by chains and his body is mutilated only because he's gay, I think that's a matter of rights in the United States of America." Except, uh, John? It wasn't Mr. King, it was James Byrd Jr. And it wasn't because he was gay, it was because he was black. But, nice try.

Friday, March 5

Don't let anyone tell you that college athletes are just there for the sports. They're there for the education as well, and their grades reflect it. Take, for instance, the final exam from a University of Georgia "Coaching Principles and Strategies in Basketball" class. Every student got an A, and as you can see, these questions were some true brain-busters. Here's a sample:

How many goals are there on a basketball court? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 How many halves are there in a college basketball game? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 How many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a Basketball Game? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4

Table scraps:
:Classic 80s video games, ready for the playing.
::Did the White House have anything to do with the GOP staffers spying on Democrats' computer files? According to a White House counsel, there's no reason to believe that -- and because there's no reason to believe it, he's not checking to make sure. As he tells the NY Times: "I am not aware of any credible allegation of White House involvement in this matter. Consequently, there has been no White House investigation or effort to determine whether anyone at the White House was aware of or involved in these activities."
:::A vibrator in a garbage can prompts a bomb squad alert.
::::Ok, I'm going to warn you about this one: it's sort of like a traffic accident. You don't want to look, but you do. And then you look a little more. And then you feel dirty, and leave. And with that, here's the animated, choose-your-own-adventure-ish poop machine.
:::::In his time since being governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura has grown a beard. Oh yeah, and he's done lots of stuff, too.

Better bitter batter: today's spiteful quotes
"The function of an hour drama is to reassure the American people that it's O.K. to go out and buy stuff. It's all about flattering the audience, making them feel as if all the authority figures have our best interests at heart. Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists: sure, they have their little foibles, some of them are grouchy, but by God, they care."  --David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, in the NY Times.

"If you're a resident of Greater Boston, that hand on your back belongs to your political leaders, and it's about to push you under the bus."  --Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory in today's column.

"And, after a short pause that I attribute to shock, I burst into tears right at the jewelry counter with the realization that I'm going to seal my nuptials with a cubic zirconia ring from Wal-Mart. (Much to my horror, he has on two occasions dragged me over to the Wal-Mart jewelry counter extolling the virtues of CZ and how much it looks like the real thing.)"  --A woman explaining her engagement ring woes and her cheap, ambitionless boyfriend, in a letter to Salon's advice columnist.

Granny's dirty? Just put her in the washing machine:

The NY Times has a great piece on futuristic robotic help for the elderly, including the above body-washer and "a motorized, battery-operated pair of pants designed to help the aged and infirm move around," the latter of which reminds me a lot of Wallace & Gromit's "The Wrong Trousers." But hey, even if the body-washer is a bit freaky, I think I'd appreciate not having to scrub my 90-year-old saggy body. And the woman in the photo, 89-year-old Toshiko Shibahara, seems pleased: "The temperature is just right — the bubbles are really comfortable," she said. But of course, all this newfangled technology can't beat the excitement of a good, old fashioned elderly food fight.

He's human! Oh my, he's actually human. All this time, I thought it was impossible for a man as stiff, humorless and inflexible as John Ashcroft to actually be human. (And I've heard word from someone who attended his Christmas party that he's just as stiff and humorless in person as he is behind a podium. No big surprise there.) Because really, what person is born with such prudishness and little common sense that they want to cover up the semi-nude statue of the Spirit of Justice? What person has such disregard for his fellow citizens that he shreds all laws protecting their privacy, and then says he hasn't gone far enough? What government worker makes his staff attend daily prayer sessions, and then makes them sing songs he wrote himself? For that matter, what government worker ends a press conference by performing one of these songs? (and he's got plenty of 'em.)

Clearly, I thought, he is a cyborg. A machine built by the Bush administration, and programmed to interpret things through Taliban-like religious ideals. But no. He's just been admitted to the hospital for a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis. It's amazing. John Ashcroft, flesh-and-blood. Who would have thought?

Let's all make a concerted effort to stop caring, and even stop paying attention, to the Yale Skull and Bones frat. So, it's got a lot of rich white kids from powerful families. So, it's a big secret. So, both Kerry and Bush were members. Well, howdy dowdy. Here's the thing about secrets that don't matter: if nobody gives a damn about what's being kept secret, the people keeping the secret feel less important. And clearly, the only reason people join such an institution is to feel more important. They're like the snotty kids in elementary school that form a clubhouse and then refuse to invite their classmates in. The last thing this group of silver-spoon-fed, wannabe-Stonecutters needs is more self-importance.

Thursday, March 4

Table scraps:
:If you're going to be a bad-ass corrupt policeman, you might as well just go all the way and bite off your tongue before being interrogated. Right, former traffic policeman Alexander Astapov?
::It's like Moses, but not. A man, taken for dead, is sent down a river in accordance to local tradition. Eleven years later, he returns. So far, though, he hasn't demanded that anybody let his people go.
:::Now that Janet Jackson has been covered up, it's time to move on to the next movement corrupting our culture: risque-sounding cocktai... I mean, drinks.
::::Rumors are swirling that John Kerry will tap Republican Senator John McCain as his running mate. Slate asks, is that even possible? (Answer: Yes, but...)
:::::You've always wondered: just who the hell are the people photographed in the Onion? "Every single of one of us, all our friends, family members and relatives, the guy we met at the bar and neighbors and the person across the street, all those people have been in the Onion. We are always looking for someone to be the guy who broke up with his girlfriend," the editor-in-chief tells The Denver Post.

Have you ever walked inside Wal-Mart and asked if the gunman is gone yet? I have. I got a call from my editor yesterday that a gunman had hi-jacked a taxi, had it drive him 20 minutes to a Wal-Mart, and then he went and robbed the place. So, I hopped in my car and zipped over to the store, where I expected to find something akin to mass chaos. Instead, I found business as usual. I walked over to the greeter and said, "So, I guess everything's settled now, huh?" She said she didn't know what I was talking about, so I tried again. "The gunman. He's gone?" Once again, nothing. I thought to myself, man, the Wal-Mart people are really trained not to talk to the press.

I tried this out with three or four other employees, and finally decided that, quite possibly, this Wal-Mart was not robbed. I mean, the store is big, but it's not that big. There have been rumors that an atomic bomb accidentally went off in the middle of Australia in the 1980s, and that nobody knew about it because the place is just so big and vast. But one Wal-Mart can't be like that. It just can't.

Anyway, it turns out that we had gotten some wrong information from the police scanner, and that the gunman was dropped off behind Wal-Mart, after which he fled on foot. The only person he robbed was the cabbie, who is now safe and sound. The gunman is still at large. Maybe he's hiding in Wal-Mart.

Well, that didn't take long. In Bush's first ad of the campaign season, he's already using 9/11 as a political prop. Victims' families aren't happy: "It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people. It's unconscionable," Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks, told the New York Daily News. Maybe the Bush team is using 9/11 because they just can't come up with anything to actually boast about from the last three years. The No Child Left Behind Act, which schools nationwide are protesting? The Iraq war, where our troops keep dying? Maybe they're just desperate. Which reminds me: there's still time to bid on your influence in the Bush administration! They need the dollars, and apparently the ideas as well.

Some choice moments from Al Franken's journal of his USO tour, in which he entertained troops in Iraq and Afghanistan along with a country musician, two Redskins cheerleaders, an actress from JAG and three hip-hop gals. It was published in this month's Mother Jones, but the article is unfortunately not on the web.

My wife said to me before I left, "You don't see Bill O'Reilly doing a USO Tour."   "That's not fair, honey. O'Reilly has no talent." After the Army band played a few songs, Karri would take the stage and say a few sincere words of her choosing, then introduce me. Andy (Saturday Night Live writer) wrote my opening line: "Anybody here from out of town?" Then a couple more quick jokes: "Say, that Army chow isn't sitting well with me. So far I've had five MREs [meals ready-to-eat] and none of them seem to have an exit strategy." After it was announced in the press that my mom had died, some guy wrote this review of my latest book on Amazon: "See, if you write mean things about people, your mom might die." Six of 37 people found the review "helpful." In the front row I saw a black male soldier linking arms with a white male soldier and a woman soldier, swaying back and forth and really meaning it. I thought how the military could teach our colleges and universities a thing or two about affirmative action. Then I noticed that the woman soldier was holding the hand of a gay soldier, who was holding the hand of a transgender soldier... Okay, that's not true.

Wednesday, March 3 

The recording industry isn't done playing the role of World's Biggest Jerk just yet. While it's still gleefully suing babies and grandparents for downloading a few songs, it's now turning its sights on Chinese karaoke bars. Go get 'em, boys! The world isn't safe until every note of music costs somebody something. Music doesn't grow on trees, you know.

How much of a man is John Kerry? According to this Associated Press photo, quite possibly more man than Dirk Diggler. And speaking of Kerry, Josh Marshall makes a good point about Kerry's take on gay marriage, which he said he addressed "head-on -- not on the president's terms, but on his own. The president is desperate, he argued, and because he can't run clearly on the economy or foreign policy he's opting to muck up the nation's founding political document for narrow and momentary political purposes." From my point of view, though, while this is true, and it's a good way to spin it, it still doesn't address Kerry's inability to give a straight answer on the issue.

Fabio the man-whore! That's according to Fabio's manager, who reacted this way when the Average Joe II winner freaked out when told that Larissa, the girl he won, had previously dated Fabio: "Fabio wishes Larissa nothing but the best. Other than that, the only thing he has to say is if that guy is looking to date someone he (Fabio) hasn't, he should start dating men." In other news, lovable second-place guy Brian Worth is no longer heart-broken, still funny, and very single. And Fredo, the guy who stormed off the show and left Larissa a classy note saying good-bye, didn't actually write the note.

Table scraps:
:What made the bank robber jump over the counter? "A smurf was talking shit," he says.
::Rejoice, you working porn-a-holics! Here's some safe, steamy shots.
:::Best headline of the week: Australian made Oscar-winner in his pants.
::::Whoops! The Pentagon has decided that global warming is real after all.
:::::Just to give the conservatives of America something else to fear, let's take a moment to consider the legality of transsexual marriages.

Sorry, Ronald. It's time for a diet.

McDonalds somehow thinks it can change its image from fatty to fitness, and so it's doing away with its supersize option. Now people can only get fat, but not obese, from eating there. McLardy's says the move has nothing to do with the documentary "Super Size Me," in which a man almost dies after eating nothing but McHeartattack's food for a month. But after this, it will no doubt release its new line of fatty water and salads, along with extra-oily vegetable wraps, made from the finest mystery-vegetables around.

Howard Dean is screaming: "And we're going to take Vermont! And then we're going to take Vermont! And then Vermont! And then Vermont! Vermont, Vermont, Vermont, Vermont! And we're going to take Vermont! And then we're going to take Vermont! YEAAHHHHH!"

Tuesday, March 2

You say "tomato," John Kerry says "a squishy vegetable that's mostly red except when it's not ripe, at which point it's not red and then some variable of other color, like green, although in-between being ripe and not-ripe, it's sometimes a mixture of green and red, and less squishy." And that, according to Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant, is why reporters hate covering John Kerry -- and why I'm afraid that too many voters will hate listening to him. Says Oliphant: "His rhetorical approach is almost elliptical ... Kerry can come up with sentences that have a dozen subordinate clauses in them that you couldn't diagram on five blackboards."

Cheating has been taken to a whole new level. It's no surprise that students will do anything they can to squeak by writing assignments. A student-teacher friend of mine once told her students to write a poem, and one of the kids turned in a Get Up Kids song. Of course, there are also countless websites hawking pre-written papers, but this is the first time I've run into a classified advertisement looking for paper writers. "I am currently looking for an excellent writer to write two essays on political/philosophical subjects," this person writes on Craigslist. "The essays have to be completed by March 11th and both have to be 6-7 pages long." Vague? Yes. A student? No doubt. Lazy bastard? Lazy bastard.

Table scraps:
:Outtakes from Gibson's Passion.
::Astronomists break the long-distance record, and find a galaxy 13.2 billion light years away.
:::He was an old man, but he wasn't the oldest man. And that makes all the difference.
::::If Ahnold is such a stickler for the law -- and indeed, he flogged San Francisco's civil disobedience by granting gay marriages -- then what's up with his illegal stash of cuban cigars? Oh, boo-yah!
:::::Why bother hating gays when the Bible also commands you to hate shrimp!

Woe to the Average Joe! For those of you who had better things to do than watch last night's finale of Average Joe II, here's the short of it: beauty queen Larissa chose an emotionless pretty-boy dolt named Gil over the endearing and hysterical and heartfelt Brian, and then went on a tropical vacation with Gil to reveal the big "secret" that the network has been promoting for a week. My friends and I figured she had a baby, or maybe a penis. But instead, the big secret is... she once dated Fabio!

Pretty lame secret, by all accounts. If I were hearing this from her, I'd laugh. I'd ask if Fabio has a last name. I'd ask if she were with him on the roller coaster when that duck flew into his head. But Gil responded differently: he stormed off, waded in the ocean for a bit, and then told the audience, "Put yourself in my position." It was as if Larissa told Gil that she killed his mother. Or she gave him herpes. Or she's actually a man. The next day, Gil left the beauty queen behind and headed back home, to a land presumably far away from anyone who knows Fabio.

It was somewhat satisfying to see Larissa get dumped, since all of America was rooting for Brian. Some folks seemed to take it a bit tougher than others, though. Check out a post from someone named "Big Jimmy" on the NBC.com bulliten board, which was discovered by a columnist at The Trentonian:

"All you women now be honist, you like the new hunks on the show. You dont want an avrage joe loser like my self. I can’t tell you how many times women go out of there way, even when I just walk into a room to make me feel like a loser and laugh. If you have your choice you would spit in my face, kick me, then have all the hunks come over and kick me while you laughed, then kill me and then spit on my grave and then douse it with gasoline and lite it on fire and dance and laugh at me ... Personailty does not matter to you. Those hunks beat the snot out of the Joes and won like they always do and you women love that. You hate losers. yes laugh at me, kick me, spit in my face and spit on my grave. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

Ouch. Big Jimmy, we feel your pain. You may not know how to spell anything, but at least for today, we feel your pain.

Monday, March 1

Table scraps:
:The Smoking Gun collected written complaints sent to the FCC about Janet Jackson and Boobgate.
::Could the Oscars have been any more boring?
:::How little support does the amendment to ban gay marriage have? Even Roy Moore, the loony-tune Alabama judge who stuck a big statue of the 10 Commandments in the middle of his courthouse, disagrees with it. Meanwhile, George W. Bush is no doubt jealous over Egypt's reportedly brutal man-hunt for gay men.
::::Whoa, scary flying putty man!
:::::Cops busted for holding a contest to see who could issue the most tickets.

Banning same-sex marriage may not be enough to save our culture from spinning into a vicious cycle of equality and love. No, we may need more. We may need to ban Samish-Sex Marriages as well. In this week's New Yorker, George Saunders helps us sort out the details: "If you are a feminine man, become more manly. If you are a masculine woman, become more feminine. If you are a woman and are thick-necked or lumbering, or have ever had the slightest feeling of attraction to a man who is somewhat pale and fey, deny these feelings and, in a spirit of self-correction, try to become more thin-necked and light-footed, while, if you find it helpful, watching videos of naked masculine men, to sort of retrain yourself in the proper mode of attraction."

If Haiti is a teenage boy, and its raging rebels and fleeing president are just the onset of puberty, then America has the perfect weapon: Playboy's Miss May of 1983 -- or as she'd prefer to be called, "Playmate Mother Teresa of Haiti."

It was 10 p.m., and I was headed to a strip club for a female friend's birthday party. I had never been to a strip club, so I was a bit nervous about going. I was mostly afraid of having to react to a stripper, who I assume is only smiling on the outside, like a sad clown with bare breasts and, perhaps, the same amount of make up. Try as I might, I couldn't think of a reaction that wouldn't make the stripper think I'm a pervert. Smile, and I'm a lonely pervert. Frown, and I'm an in-denial pervert. Stay straight-faced, and I'm a perverted pervert. And if I chronicle my two hours there for an online magazine, well, at least you won't think I'm a pervert. I hope.