The dead hard drive is still dead, and since Saturday's mail has already arrived, it's safe to assume my new hard drive won't show up until at least Monday. Damn you, Dell. Damn you. But in the meantime, may I gloat for a moment? Well, ok.

See that up there? That's page 24 of the June issue of Zink Magazine, a glossy fashion magazine that I occasionally write for. For this issue, which includes a story about my possibly nudist tendencies, they asked me to be a "contributor" -- meaning, much to my delight, that my face and bio gets plastered on the contributor's page. Of course, being the shameless attention whore I am, I practically tripped over myself trying get them what they wanted. That picture of me -- second to the left -- was taken by my outstretched arm while standing in my driveway. You think it sticks out from the other photos -- of people who actually know fashion and art? Try reading the bios. One of them (not mine) includes the line, "The fashion aristocracy has self-promoted and self-proclaimed a 'lack' of vision doctrine that nurtures the 'old boy' system and holds the world hostage to high-rise-capitalism." What's my bio about? Being stung in the butt by a jellyfish, of course. I'm such a phony. I cannot say enough wonderful things about the people at Zink for taking me seriously. If you want to pick up a copy, here's a list of where to find one.

Bad news.
Last night, without so much as a farewell, my computer passed on to the big gigabyte in the sky. After talking with a Dell tech support guy in India for an hour, during which he made me do all sorts of meaningless tasks just to confirm that, indeed, the hard drive is obviously dead, he told me a new hard drive would be arriving in the mail shortly. I can only hope Dell hasn't exported its shipping company to India as well, since I'd like to get this hard drive soon.

Just so we don't leave this open-ended, let's say I'll update this page by Monday, May 31 -- either with content from my new hard drive, or with an angry gripe about Dell from someone else's computer. I hope to be back with you as soon as possible.

Thanks.

Damn you, concrete! Daaammmnnn yyyoooouuuu...
Finally, Bush has gotten around to laying blame with appropriate parties in this Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. But it isn't Rumsfeld and it isn't the people that worked at Abu Gharib prison. Instead, it's -- oh, here it comes -- the very structure of the prison itself. In his televised address on Monday, which all networks realized was a campaign speech and not worth broadcasting, Bush said he wants to tear down Abu Ghraib prison. Yes, indeed, it was the very steel and concrete that held up Abu Gharib, and not anybody actually involved with the abuse, that is to blame for the scandal.

Does Bush think the building had been overtaken by Satan? I know he's a religious nut, but there must be some limits to logic here. Perhaps he thinks the Arab world joins him in an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality -- no prison equals no abuse scandal! -- but I'm afraid the only person with that kind of simple brain is the person running this country. Since the scandal began, we all knew someone would take a fall for it. I just never would have guessed it would be the building itself.

Table scraps, part duex:
:Wal-Mart has threatened to invade Vermont, which has caused the National Trust for Historic Preservation to put the entire state on its endangered places list. Says the organization's president: ""This issue is by no means limited to Vermont, it's what a lot of communities are facing. We think communities should be making their own decisions, but if they do want a Wal-Mart, then do it with eyes wide open. Think about the job losses downtown, about the destruction of the community character, about the cost to subsidize these stores."
::This school went out of its way to prove a student's point. When a senior got up to make a graduation speech, and declared that the school was a "prison" where free speech and individuality were shunned, the school turned off the microphone. I guess he was right.
:::From the I'm Glad I Don't Live In Alabama Department: Some crazy supporters of Roy Moore -- the chief justice who decided the U.S. has an official religion and then moved a big ol' statue of the ten commandments into the Alabama Judicial Building -- are running for elected positions. If they win, is there any way we can kick the state out of the country? I just want to be prepared.
::::"Homo cellular is at least a step removed from his more primitive cousin, Homo sapiens. He's a different creature. But not necessarily a better creature." Is it a revolution, or evolution?
:::::Coming and going: Things I'm excited about. Just a little promotional message here of two things good, and two things that will be good. Out and good: the new Piebald and Ben Kweller albums. Soon out and good: the new Michael Moore movie and David Sedaris book. Excitement, excitement!

Ten bucks says Bush thinks the holes in his hand are signs of a stigmata:

After all, this is the guy who told a group of supporters in 1999, "I believe that God wants me to be president." (For those of you who missed it, Bush went cruisin' for a brusin' on his bike last week.)

Have the NIMBYs been driven underground?
Anyone who's ever followed local politics or had the displeasure of covering local boards for a local newspaper can tell you this one unwavering fact of life: when an affordable housing project is proposed in a community, people will come out of every little hole (or, actually, out of every big house) to oppose it. We call these people "NIMBYs" -- that is, Not In My Back Yard(ers). (Or, as a former co-worker of mine once called them, "BANANAs" -- Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.)

But a poll highlighted by the USA Today today seems to suggest otherwise: "Americans are so worried about skyrocketing home prices that most say they would support more affordable housing in their neighborhoods." Of course, the poll was commissioned by the National Association of Realtors, a group just thrilled to go out and build more housing, so I think (and apparently the USAT doesn't think) this poll might be suspect. But then again, maybe the NIMBYs aren't actually representative of their communities, and it just seems that way because they're always so damn loud. Huh.

UPDATE: This survey is totally useless. It doesn't explain to people that many local governments have an actual definition of "affordable housing," nor does it describe what kind of affordable housing would be build. Instead, it only asks people if they'd support affordable housing that was "built in such a way that they fit with the area and were pleasant to look at." (See the survey in pdf format here -- thanks to the once angry-about-milkshakes reader for this.) This survey is pointless. The USA Today should be ashamed of taking it seriously, let alone running a big story on it.

Your shave is just not getting any closer
I just saw an ad today for Gillette's M3 Power razor, a motorized razor the company claims delivers "gentle pulses" to "stimulate hair follicles upward" -- thus providing, as the shaving advertisement cliche goes, a "closer" shave. This is, of course, totally useless. But isn't it interesting to see companies like Gillette and Schick reinvent the wheel? Two blades! Three blades! Three blades with a motor! Four blades! They're really flailing under the pressure to stay fresh, but the product they sell is already tapped out -- and they know it.

This is a prime example of a product that simply needs no improvement -- in fact, hasn't needed improvement for years -- and yet continues to be upgraded and updated anyway, for the sake of corporate competetion. At this point, the only way to get a truly "closer" shave is to tear the skin off our faces and smoke out the hair follicles. Gillette will call it the M3 Ripper.

The theory has always been that marketplace competetion forces companies to make improvements and advancements to our daily lives, but I think that might be a bit misguided. Marketplace competetion forces companies to pick a product and amplify it beyond its value. Gentle pulses to stimulate hair follicles upward? Come on now.

The secret weapon is in your pants
When I was in seventh grade, I overheard a kid in my class angrily say to another kid, "I'm going to take out my dick and slap you with it." I laughed because it was, bar none, the most vulgar thing I had ever heard. And in retrospect, I should laugh because, while a penis may not be much of a weapon, a 12-year-old's penis is definitely not much of a weapon. And now, more than a decade later, I got to laugh again at this penis-slapping move. It's all thanks to Stella, a comedy troupe featuring the brilliant people from "The State" and Wet Hot American Summer. Stella puts on live shows and produces short, inane comedy videos -- and in a video called "Office Party," there's a few seconds of some fierce (presumably prosthetic) dick-slapping. Enjoy.

Table scraps:
:Monty Python's Eric Idle has summed up American politics and the FCC's assault on free speech amazingly well -- and in typical Python style -- with this song. In it, he says what we're all feeling: Fuck you very much, FCC. (link is an mp3)
::A number of readers sent me a link to subservientchicken.com a few weeks ago, and I never posted it because, although everyone found it very entertaining, it's just a Burger King ad and I typically don't link ads to major companies. And yesterday, the New York Times Magazine finally raised the issue I was wondering about -- if polls show that most people are sick of advertising, why does crap like subservientchicken still interest people?
:::People Magazine claims to have a scientific method of determining what actors and actresses are beautiful enough to make the Top 50. So, what does this science have to say about everyone else? Fametracker.com says, "She glows. She sparkles. He smolders. You suck."
::::British students set the world record for Most Simultaneous Shrinkage. Or, as it was officially recognized, the most nude people on a rollercoaster (in the cold).
:::::At least it's a comfort to know sex offenders can't stop being sketchy bastards, even if they're being sneaky about it. An offender in Montana was busted after posting a for-hire flyer seeking overnight baby-sitter jobs -- for, specifically, girls aged 2 to 4, or offering a place to stay for any handicapped girls under age 8. Yeah, that's not sketchy at all.
::::::Some baseball players are urinating on their hands because they think it toughens up the skin. Too bad they're unaware of two things -- one, that's really, really gross; and two, urine softens skin, not hardens it.

Friday, May 21

Table scraps:
:Go to this site, open the "illusion," follow the instructions, marvel at the power and limitations of our brains, and then get a headache.
::The "problematic" with semiotics was that by becoming a means of interrogating the ideological assumptions of bourgeois pleasure, semiotics itself became a form of bourgeois pleasure. The rise and fall and rise again of a wacky major at Brown University that churned out some of the most talented figures in pop culture today.
:::Here's an article about that Jimmy Breslin thing I attended yesterday (see yesterday's entry). It doesn't quite capture the gruffness of it, but I guess the paper wasn't able to quote his "son of a bitch" and "total bullshit" lines. Oh well.
::::Ok, we give in. All you conservatives were right -- liberals really are communists who hate freedom. It's true, it's all so true. And now we have the banners and bumper sticker phrases to prove it. Like, say, "Ask me about the homosexual agenda" and "My president is Saddam Hussein."
:::::Hah-hah! There was a great development in the NBA last night, as the New Jersey Nets got bumped out of the playoffs. I don't have anything against NJ in particular, but I do wish all the harm in the world to Jason Kidd, their star player who was arrested a few years ago for beating his wife. Every year, this is what makes me interested in the playoffs -- rooting against Kidd, who doesn't deserve to be making a penny and earning the respect of anyone after what he did. And to make it even better, Kidd was scoreless last night! Jason, go crawl into some hole and die, won't you?

The Saturday Night Live hate-child

No, this isn't some Conan O'Brien-like face-morphing job, although I dare you to dispute the equation that the faces of Horatio Sans plus Fred Armisen equals this sketchy bastard who put a webcam under his female co-worker's desk. And by the way -- and I know I've linked this before, but pay attention if you didn't see it last time -- check out the "Am I a Taxi?" sketch here, which is perhaps the funniest thing Fred's ever done.

Thursday, May 20

Table scraps:
:The governor of Massachusetts keeps a safe distance from anything that opposes him. Like, say, literature and the people who harbor it.
::Pennsylvania scientists have discovered a new dinosaur. And while that's all well and good, didn't NBC acomplish this a few months ago when it put Donald Trump on television?
:::It may not protect against disease or prevent pregnancy, but at least your penis will be safe from angry swordsmen with this chainmail condom.
::::Bambi's gone urban. A deer becomes the first animal in recent memory to make it across the Golden Gate Bridge "in one piece." Meanwhile, a Florida driver got attacked by a flying turtle.
:::::Well, I guess it's good to know that advertisers prefer CNN to Fox News, but still, will the public ever learn that they're watching trash?

Kicking it old school with Jimmy Breslin
Earlier today, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by newspaper legend Jimmy Breslin, a New York City columnist who won the Pulitzer in 1986. He comes from the old school of journalism, where reporters punched away on typewriters in smoke-filled rooms and then went out to the bars to get smashed. Perhaps because of his iconic status, or perhaps because he's just this kind of guy, or perhaps because of a bit of both, he spoke at a gathering of newspaper editors and pretty much just tore apart newspapers for being corporate lapdogs run by lazy people who don't know what a good newspaper article is. And everyone loved it, myself included.

The man is a historical artifact from the old days, and he just came to life for us -- hair standing up straight, his voice gruff, his lecture not much more than a rambling critique on anything that came to his head. It was wonderful. I jotted down a few quotes as he spoke, and here are my favorites:

"The country relies on you to call him a son of a bitch and prove it, and if you can't do it, don't do it." --In response to a question about what he'd say to today's White House press corps. The 'son of a bitch' is Bush. "I was not going to pay for some musty old car when I could buy clean, fresh beer in big glasses." --On why he never learned to drive. "I love that word -- media. It's the plural of mediocre." --Fairly self-explanatory. "He's got the ruined face of an old, nasty liar." --On Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968.

Wednesday, May 19

Table scraps:
:My hand was resting on the arm of the chair. I started to drum my fingers on the arm, thereby making a barely audible sound. Here it is, the dullest blog in the world.
::Woe are the thin people in this country, who don't have any clothing left to buy because companies are now catering to the average American.
:::Canifornia dentists are saying: Come for the cavity filling, stay for the nose job.
::::A Spencer Gifts -- you know, one of those generic wacky-stuff mall stores -- sold a blow-up doll to a nine-year-old Colorado boy. The boy's family is religious, and has vowed "to let people know kids can buy this type of thing at the mall." Somehow, I have a feeling that might backfire on them.
:::::8:00 p.m., Vote on which country to invade next. 8:10 p.m., Blame Bill Clinton for World's Hatred of USA. 8:15 p.m., John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos are after your Children!! If the schedule is any indication, the Republican National Convention should be a blast.
::::::From the Welcome To The Real World Department: A German couple who has been married for eight years finally broke down and visited a fertility clinic, because they weren't able to have a baby. But what they learned shocked them: to have a baby, they need to have sex. "We are not talking retarded people here," a clinic spokesman said, "but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate." Three cheers for the real-world value of religion!

Monday, May 17

Because deep down, everyone loves young girls
First, the news: a 13-year-old girl was sent home from school, on the day of her May crowning and graduation pictures, after showing up in what school officials deemed a "revealing" dress. The dress, however, isn't abnormally revealing at all(unlike, say, Kerry's daughter in today's first table scrap). It's a totally normal dress with a little bit of cleavage. And how do I know that? Because there's a 16-shot slideshow of the girl and her dress at this television news station website.

That's right. Sixteen shots. The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal probably didn't get that many shots. This story is being linked everywhere. And there's a poll on the site asking if the dress was too revealing, and at 2 p.m. EST today, a stunning 24,105 people had chimed in. Normally, I'd say this is just another case of America's sudden fear of "indecency." But after seeing the treatment on this news station's site, let's just call this story what it really is:

An excuse for America to look at a 13-year-old girl's boobs.

Come on, there's no other way to say it. You think 24,105 people really care about this small blip on the "indecency" debate? Not a chance. You think people are upset that this girl missed her May crowning and graduation photos? Like hell. Following this story is a seemingly moral way to mask what, deep down, is a lot of people's desire to check out a pretty good-looking 13-year-old with large breasts.

Listen, I'm not passing judgement here. I went through all 16 photos myself before realizing what I was doing. On the first shot, I was trying to judge for myself if the dress was too revealing. Perhaps the second one as well. But as these photos went on, it was pretty clear that I didn't care about the dress anymore. I was just looking at the girl and thinking, whoa, she's thirteen? If this was any other website, or any other situation, I'd feel awfully dirty about checking out a girl that young. But that's why people care about this story. We all might as well admit it.

Massachusetts under assault from God!

Dear Lord, friends! After today, I fear there will be nothing left of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the founding lands of America and the birthplace of Boston cream pies. A storm has been raging since midnight -- a violent, angry storm, with winds that pick up cars and throw them into athiests, with rain that drowns the bodies of Jews, with lightening that fries the souls of Muslims. Yes, friends, the Lord has had enough. This state has turned its back on morality by beginning to issue licesnses to gay couples, and now they see the consequences. Oh, have mercy upon us all! The gay-hating priests were right!

...actually, it's a clear, beautiful day in Massachusetts. The air is crisp, the sky is blue, and people are free to declare their love for each other without the government trying to stop them. Yes, it's a beautiful day indeed.

Thursday, May 13

Table scraps, part duex:
:Is there a conspiracy of angry conservatives afoot? This comes pretty close. The U.S. has so far been unable to explain exactly who detained Nick Berg, the American who was recently beheaded in Iraq. And yet, at the same time he was detained, a list of anti-war "enemies" from a well-connected group of conservatives was making the rounds on the Internet, and members of the group were out making trouble for the people on the list. On the list was Nick Berg's father, and so the theory goes that Nick was detained mysteriously because of his connection to the list, and then the timing of his release happened to plop him into enemy hands. True? Who knows. But it's interesting.
::A pianist has stumbled upon the useful service of cataloging pay phone numbers. Here's his site. And did you know there are pay phones in Antarctica? I didn't.
:::The Tampa Bay Lightning have discovered that their fans like the games a whole lot more when they're totally drunk.
::::Fun with money legends: The letters "JS" on the dime don't actually mean "Joseph Stalin," but it is true that a large percentage of American currency contains traces of cocaine.
:::::"You sleep like baby. They put camera. They take camera. You sleep. Like drunk husband." In broken English, a doctor prepares this man for a harrowing colonoscopy.
::::::Well, here's a depressing view into today's youth. An ABC reporter visits a school and asks if anyone in class follows the news. Only a few do. When she asks what news stations could do to make the news more accessible, one student says: "Maybe you should have celebrities do it. I think Jay-Z should rap the news." That makes me want to simultaneously cry and puke.

Rummy heads to Iraq to take care of bi'niss:

Donald Rumsfeld, just what the hell are you doing over in Iraq right now? Meet-n-greet with the soldiers? Just a good ol' Secretary of Defense going over to comfort his troops in a time of need? Like hell. As we see in this photo, Rummy has gone to Iraq to stalk the soldiers that might have cost him his job, and then burn their faces with his Superman-like heat rays. Here's an idea: instead of flying half-way around the world for a photo-op, why not step down to show the world that we take this whole prisoner abuse thing seriously?

Thomas Friedman knows why not: Because Karl Rove says to hold the conservative base, you must always appear to be strong, decisive and loyal. It is more important that the president appear to be true to his team than that America appear to be true to its principles. (Here's the new Rummy Defense: "I am accountable. But the little guys were responsible. I was just giving orders.")

Table scraps:
:The "Super Size Me" website has a Pac-Man rip-off in which you run around eating burgers and trying to avoid fat clowns. Yummy!
::Looks like Jayson Blair's self-fellating memoir, "Burning Down My Master's House" also helped burn down his publishing house. New Millennium Entertainment is now being liquidated, after going $2.5 million in debt. Blair's book, surely, will go to the lowest bidder.
:::Detroit medical professionals say there's no such thing as a "blackout baby" -- a child concieved as a way to pass the time during the big blackout of nine months ago. "I'm not convinced there is more sex during blackouts," one said. "Some people are stranded, some people have to work because of the crisis, some feel romantic, but some are freaked out. Some women won't be ovulating. And we do have birth control."
::::...crossing the parking lot on my way to the taping I did recognize John Peter Lewis, who, apparently reluctant to head back home to Rexburg, Idaho, after being voted off the show weeks ago, has been showing up regularly to watch it from the audience. A dispatch from a live American Idol taping finds plenty of things to be sad about.

How to counter the culture police
Readers have to trudge through this entire Wall Street Journal story -- about some religious jackass who's been sending in "indecency" complaints about a local radio show to the FCC -- before actually getting to something important: a way to get these people to crawl back into their caves. Here it is:

Until recently, (the show) Mancow's Morning Madhouse regularly placed first in Chicago among 18- to 34-year-old men, according to Arbitron. But according to figures released last month, (show host) Mr. Muller's show fell to fourth. (Religious jackass) Mr. Smith, for one, is listening a lot less than he used to. In March, he became the target of a $3 million harassment suit Mr. Muller filed in Cook County Circuit Court. On his lawyer's advice, he has stopped monitoring Mancow while the case is pending.

Hah! There it is. Sue them for harassment. Mr. Smith was setting his tape recorder and transcribing specific parts of Mr. Muller's show, specifically to send to the FCC. He sent dozens of them. This isn't a case of a man being offended by a show. He was looking for things he could pass off as offensive, and targeting this specific show so that it'll get fined by the FCC. That's not a contribution to society; it's simple harassment.

And isn't that the point, then? These culture crusaders aren't concerned with the specific content of a show; they just want to lash out at entertainers that they don't like, and the FCC has become a willing vehicle for them to do it. Here's an interesting analysis by Ira Glass, host of the NPR show "This American Life," who wrote in this week's New York Times Magazine:

What's craziest about this new indecency witch hunt is that it's based on the premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child. (I've yet to hear of a scientific study proving even that repeated exposure affects children.) Recently on my show, I asked one of the people who organizes write-in campaigns to the F.C.C., Brent Bozell, what harm it did anyone to see Janet Jackson's breast for a fleeting second, or to hear Stern use the phrase ''anal sex,'' and he said it destroyed the ''innocence of childhood.'' In our talk, Bozell used the phrase ''anal sex'' himself, presumably doing exactly as much harm to young people as Stern did on April 9, 2003. That day, a brief conversation about the act on Stern's show drew $495,000 in fines. Bozell and I received no fines.

Fascinating, isn't it? Bozell supports the "premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child," and yet he doesn't hesitate to use a word that he has argued is damaging. Why? Because he doesn't actually believe these words are damaging; he just wants to use the law as a weapon. The FCC needs to realize it's not actually providing a service here. It's just become a willing weapon in a culture war whose aggressors are aiming for a total overhaul of free speech, not just the elimination of the words "anal sex" from Howard Stern's show. The FCC has become a tool, not a guide. It no longer represents the people, and therefore no longer has a place in government.

Wednesday, May 12

Polls are like a bikini...
...what they reveal is interesting, but what they hide is crucial. (I know, I know, that's a little sketchy. And is a nipple really crucial? Well, you decide.) Anyway, Kerry and Bush and duking it out in the polls right now, which on the surface seems to predict a close race all the way. But a columnist at The Hill takes a different view on what this poll means by comparing it to past polls:

In the latest Gallup poll, John Kerry leads George Bush by five points among registered voters when Nader is included, and by 6 when he is not. How do we know just how strong a showing that is for Kerry? Looking at the history of presidential races is one approach. No challenger has ever done as well against an elected incumbent at this point in the cycle. Every incumbent who won re-election had a double-digit lead over his challenger at this stage. Lyndon Johnson led Barry Goldwater by 59 points in the spring of ’64. Bill Clinton led Bob Dole by 14 points, Ronald Reagan led Walter Mondale by 17 and Richard Nixon was ahead of George McGovern by 11.

Table scraps:
:Good boyfriends are hard to find these days, aren't they? The guy you meet online will only steal from you, and the guy you've been dating for years and finally dump will drop leaflets on your house. And after fooling around, how many gross guys sit there and smell their fingers?
::How does Fox News report on this crazy thing called blogging? With a lot of meaningless B-roll shots and some on-the-street interviews with people who don't know what a blog is.
:::Kermit said it's not easy being green, but Alice DeHan says it's not easy being dead. At least, not when you're not actually dead.
::::Looks like Miramax might pull a Pixar and break with Disney, proving once again -- and really, how many times must this be proven? -- that Disney can't recognize a good thing when it has it, and is only going down, down, down.

So wait, when is this movie taking place?
The new special effects bonanza, "The Day After Tomorrow," is starting to whip up some discussion about the effects of global warming. And although that's all well and good, I'm currently more focused on the movie's title. More specifically, what is it trying to accomplish? Wouldn't it just be easier to call it, "Two Days Later"? Or, um, "In 48 Hours"? It's as if the movie makers wanted a title that sounded deep, but didn't have much to work with. I mean, why not just go all out, and call it, "A Week Before Nine Days From Now" or "Three Days From Yesterday"? If the same filmmakers had gotten Danny DeVito and the Governator together for a flick in 1988, they would have called it, "My Parents' Son Who Was Born When I Was."

Tuesday, May 11

Have you had a beer with John Kerry yet?
No? Well, what are you waiting for? Kerry's apparently so concerned that people think he's a bore -- I wonder why... oh, right, because he is! -- that he's been forced to insist that he's a fun guy. From Reuters: "The Massachusetts senator also sought to dispel the notion he was aloof, asking one television interviewer: 'Have you had a beer with me yet? I like to have fun as much as the next person, and go out and hack around and have a good time.'"

Boy, that doesn't sound stodgy and robotic, does it? Come on, folks, have a beer with the man. He wants to have fun as much as the next person. Really, he just wants to hack around and have a good time. It's groovy, man. All the hepcats are doing it. Like, totally far out.

McDonalds finds its McDefender:
And here I thought Super Size Me, the brilliant and important documentary about the fast food industry and the health hazards it poses, was just a profile of the way Americans get their food and the choices they have. Nope. According to a conservative me-too filmmaker, it's just a political attack on big corporations. And as we all know, if it's one thing conservatives love, it's big corporations.

But how far will conservatives go to defend money-making machines over actual science, common sense and the welfare of humanity? Apparently, quite far. Me-Too Filmmaker went off on her own 30-day McDonalds binge, and claims she lost weight and feels great. Of course, Me-Too also ate McDonalds while limiting her calorie intake every day, something most McDonalds customers don't do. (This reminds me a bit of the conservative forces that are trying to take salmon off the endangered species list by counting hatchery fish along with wild salmon in a total count of how many salmon are alive and out there. It's not real science, and it further endangers the species, but hey -- it blurs the numbers and sure helps big business.)

She tells the American Prospect: "I think the majority of the American public will be a bit offended by [Super Size Me's creator Morgan] Spurlock's contention that we have no choice, and [have to] eat like some sort of automaton." Yes, well, they might. But that's just about the entire point of Super Size Me -- that Americans are not educated enough about the food they eat, and that part of the problem is that corporations have no incentive or desire to actually inform their customers. There's a scene in Super Size Me where Spurlock goes around to McDonalds locations trying to find an in-store posting of nutrition information. Most stores don't have one, and it appeared that the employees had never been asked for one before.

So, will Americans be offended? Sure. People don't like to worry about their food. They like to put it out of their minds, and just eat. If they cared more, or had more access to information that outlined the dangers of high-fat diets or biologically-modified foods, they might make a change. But it's high time somebody educated them, because the only thing people like Me-Too are willing to do is blindly defend the corporation. Salmon, Big Macs -- it's all the same to Me-Too. As long as the company keeps making money, who cares about the consequences?

Table scraps:
:Note to future prisoners: hunger strikes don't work when you really, really want to eat. (And on a related note, this.)
::This seems to sum up low-carb foods: "What are we saying? It's not going to make you puke? That's our highest praise: If it's four in the afternoon and you haven't had anything to eat all day and you're plotzing, you would eat this!" So says Mark Bittman, columnist for the New York Times, during a taste-test of low-carb mac-n-cheese.
:::I'm warning you now. This is just plain creepy. Creeeepy. Cree-ee-eepy.
::::People watch a video of a basketball game and are asked to count the number of passes they see. In doing so, they totally miss the woman in a gorilla suit thumping her chest in the background.
:::::Bush tells Rumsfeld he's doing a "superb job." Talkingpointsmemo wonders, "When President Bush says Don Rumsfeld is doing a 'superb job' you really have to shudder to think what we'd have in store for us if the guy came off his winning streak."

Monday, May 10

Table scraps, part duex:
:It was "Splash Day," a semiannual event hosted at a nude beach in Austin, Texas. But the real splash came from a nearby ship, which tipped over after everyone on board gathered at one side to try and catch a glimpse of nudity.
::"In our log, it says the son in the house couldn't see that the dog was in any pain and concluded that she had probably dialed the wrong number." Police respond to a puppy who somehow dialed 113, the emergency medical number in Norway. 
:::Government officials must think they're so slick when they use a black pen to block out certain parts of documents. Yeah, well, they ain't so slick.
::::These are fascinating color photos from the 1930s and 40s, mostly because it reminds me that not everything was black and white back then.
:::::When Saddam was digging his hole, he should have asked this guy for help.

Memo to Army: the KKK wants its hoods back

My girlfriend raised an interesting question this weekend: where did all these hoods in the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse come from? I mean, I doubt there's a soldier over there whose job it is to sit around making these things. Do they have some duel purpose -- like, say, they're ammo storage by day and prisoner hoods by night? Or did the Army actually transport these things over there with the expressed purpose of hooding the Iraqi prisoners? And if they did, is it fair to assume that hooding Iraqis -- and, perhaps, the abuse that went on while they were hooded --was part of the plan all along?

UPDATE: A reader writes in with a reasonable theory: I was thinking about the same thing, but my guess was that they have hoods for transporting prisoners to prevent them from seeing where they are being taken, or to prevent them from being identified during transport. So the hoods could have nothing to do with abuse, unless you, well, put them on people while you shock them, etc.

UPDATE AND ANSWER: A rather astute reader has solved this mystery: they're sandbags, not hoods. The answer is buried inside the now-infamous Taguba Report, which in section 6-h describes a situation presumably similar to the photo on the left: "Positioning a naked detainee on a (Meals-Ready-To-Eat) MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture." The rather asute reader wrote further: "They use them to make bunkers, but the unfilled bags are being used to cover prisoners heads."

Swinging dead animals and hitting everything
In a recent story I submitted (which hasn't run yet), I quoted a source as saying, in reference to some kind of poker rooms, "You can't swing a dead cow without hitting a bunch of sleazeballs." I hesitated to put the quote in, because it seemed a bit too gratutious for the average daily newspaper. But, I just did a quick Lexis-Nexis search, and discovered that the phrase "You can't swing a dead _____ without hitting _______" is fairly common. In a search of all news in English, I came up with 234 results -- and in a seperate search, I learned that 174 of those are about swinging "a dead cat." Without the "dead" or "cat" in the phrase, that number jumped to 516. Here are some examples:

"You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist in this building," (Washington D.C. city council member David) Catania said yesterday in his office as he celebrated the bill's passage with champagne and doughnuts, something he had never done before. -Washington Post, March 3, 2004 "You can't swing a dead cow around here without hitting a candidate," said Keith Kuper, another Iowa Falls farmer. -The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 9, 2003 It's getting so that you can't swing a dead Catwoman at a newsstand these days without hitting a magazine or newspaper that has a story about comics. -Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 4, 2003 Man, you can't swing a dead endangered species in this town without hitting a panini sign, and you can't swing two without hitting a panino itself. -New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2003 You can't swing a dead armadillo without hitting the Beach Boys! -Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune, March 6, 2003 You can't swing a dead cat in this movie without hitting Sam Rockwell's exposed buttocks. -Palm Beach Post, January 25, 2003 "This shipping industry is a shadowy underworld," said one American official involved in efforts to investigate the suspected al-Qa'ida ships. "After 11 September, we learnt how little we understood about commercial shipping. You can't swing a dead cat in the shipping industry without hitting somebody with phoney papers." -The Independent (London), January 1, 2003 Those movies have already been shot, but you can't swing a dead studio executive without hitting a remake in pre-production. -Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2002

Table scraps:
:A reader took this picture of a no-pooping sign in front of a local PetCo, which raises an obvious but amusing observation: there's probably an abnormally high rate of pet poop in parking lots in front of pet stores.
::If there is a hell, there's a special place for lawyers that argue women who are raped had been asking for it. The prime seat may go to a defense attorney in a high-profile Orange County case of three teenagers who videotaped their gang-raping of a 16-year-old girl while she was unconscious. The lawyer claimed "the alleged victim enticed the 'sweet,' 'caring,' 'kind' defendants into a sexual frenzy and then, while faking unconsciousness, sexually assaulted them. At one point, the attorney, an incredulous Joseph G. Cavallo, blurted out to the jury, 'Why isn’t she being charged with this crime? She knew how to use her body. She knew how to use sex.' "
:::Teachers get paid so poorly that many of them have to take second and third jobs. And what does that mean? Dave Eggers writes in Mother Jones: Teachers with two and three jobs are tired, their families are frustrated, and the students they teach, who want to—and should—consider their instructors exalted figures, learn instead to think of teaching as a part-time gig, the day job for the guy who sells Game Boys at Circuit City.
::::Oh, do I love anything more than a good rock song with a piano in it? Well, yes. But I sure do love a good rock song with a piano in it, and that's exactly what's on Piebald's next album. In particular, go listen to "Haven't Tried It."

Sunday, May 9

Happy mother's day...

(more of my lousy comics here)

Friday, May 7

Score one for supporters of teenage pregnancy
Congrats goes out to all the social conservatives who wanted teenage girls who make a mistake one night to be forced to either have a baby or have an abortion, perhaps then evoking further rage and abuse by social conservatives. Yes, we can all rest assured that what this world needs -- and what this world will get -- is more unwanted babies. Bring 'em on, the social conservatives say! Maybe they'll grow up to clean the toilets in our mansions.

That's right, the lobbying worked. The Food and Drug Administration finally admitted that its decisions are not rooted in science, but rooted in politics. And now, Plan B, the "morning-after pill," will not be sold over the counter, even though the FDA's own expert panel voted unanimously that the drug could be safely sold as an over-the-counter medicine. So, Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, it's time to clean out those storage rooms and buy some more cribs, because if you want these unwanted babies coming into the world, you should be prepared to adopt them.

Table scraps:
:Apple's iTunes gives its first iRejection to an iMix, and the lucky winner is "One to Tango: Songs with a masturbation theme." Of course, all the songs on the album are iAvailable through Apple, so the only iProblem appears to be pointing out their iSimilarities. iGnornace iS iBliss, huh?
::Sketchy alleys in New York City are prime real estate for moviemakers looking for a creepy scene. They're going for upwards of $10,000 a day.
:::Just how much does it take for Bush to apologize for something? If this guy took a shit on your couch, he probably wouldn't apologize. He even went on Arab television to try to make nice with the Iraqis, and still didn't utter the "s" word. He did only later, under much pressure from his senior aides, to the king of Jordan. This from the WashPost: A wide variety of officials in the administration had advised Bush to apologize on Wednesday when he gave interviews to two Arab television channels and were puzzled when he did not, senior U.S. officials said. An apology had been recommended in the talking points Bush received from the State Department and elsewhere, the officials said. And you know what? He didn't really apologize there, either. He said he was sorry for what happened, which I'm sure means he's upset it happened, not that he's taking responsibility for it. What an ass.
::::Louisiana is so mortally offended by people's posteriors that it's making it illegal to wear pants that droop low enough to show any underwear or butt. Finally, gangsters and teeny-boppers have a reason to unite.

Yeah, Don, you sure did.

You sure did. (And meanwhile, the company that makes the Army's bullets can't keep up with the demand, which it says is the highest since Vietnam.)

UPDATE: For updates on the state of Rummy's job, just turn to this handy Rummy-o-meter!

Where's the falling penguin?
It's right here. Sorry I'm not keeping up up on the page in a more animated form, but it's such a big file that I was afraid it would make the page difficult for some people to load. (For those who missed it yesterday, check it out. It's totally fake, but funny nonetheless.)

Hold up there, Tommy Friedman:
The NYT's Thomas Friedman, perhaps the most insightful and level-headed op-ed writer out there, seems to have missed the mark a bit in this Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. In yesterday's column, he wrote:

I know that tough interrogations are vital in a war against a merciless enemy, but outright torture, or this sexual-humiliation-for-entertainment, is abhorrent. I also know the sort of abuse that went on in Abu Ghraib prison goes on in prisons all over the Arab world every day, as it did under Saddam — without the Arab League or Al Jazeera ever saying a word about it. I know they are shameful hypocrites, but I want my country to behave better — not only because it is America, but also because the war on terrorism is a war of ideas, and to have any chance of winning we must maintain the credibility of our ideas.

I know they are shameful hypocrites? Why? Does Friedman think Arabs have no right to complain about abuse because they had already been abused, or that they have no right to be angry at America for abuse because Americans aren't the only ones abusing? This seems way off base. The entire point of the American invasion -- at least, the entire stated point after it was apparent that WMDs weren't going to be found -- was that we were coming to liberate them from Saddam's torturous ways. And when American soldiers, in effect, begin to mimic what Saddam's own soliders once did, Iraqis have every right to be angry. They were promised better. It wasn't delivered.

On the other hand, perhaps Friedman is saying that the Arab League and Al Jazeera should be reporting on abuse in other Arab countries and not just focus on Iraq -- and if that's the case, he's absolutely right. These groups shouldn't turn a blind eye to the countries they serve, because they do a severe disservice by doing so. But still, it must be remembered: most Arab countries aren't promising human rights. America is. There's legitimacy in reporting this.

I don't care if the prisoners being tortured are Ba'athists, militants or average citizens. America had stormed into that country promising a better way of life, and for all the bombings and killings we've put Iraqis through, we owe it to them to deliver on that promise. Otherwise, there's only one group of hypocrites over there, and it isn't Al Jazeera.

Thursday, May 6

Table scraps, part duex:
:Blazin' Blip Blop and Blar & Blee "(re)unites the voices of renowned rap and R&B performers with the faceless musicians who create the ringtones that are broadcasted over cellphones worldwide." And it's pretty damn impressive.
::A plumber who left an unattended bag containing a teddy bear, some fruit and clothes in an airport lounge was jailed yesterday for causing a full-scale security alert.
:::"Sue Me, Asshole," is an online book aimed at drawing a lawsuit from Arnold The Governator, who recently threatened to sue a guy for copyright infringement for making bobble-head dolls with Arnold's face on them. "Sue Me, Asshole" contains all Arnold's lawyers letters regarding the incident, plus a color photo of a nude Arnold with a digitally-shrunk penis. Go ahead and sue them, asshole. Then we'll see who's making a mockery of copyright laws.

Skip this and just look at the penguins:
As much as I hate putting Rush Limbaugh's name on this site, and as much as we all already know he's an asshole, I think this needs to be aired. On his show recently, a caller said that the Iraqi prisoner abuse stuff is "like a college fraternity prank," to which Rush responded: "Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?"

And I'm just saying this: come on, Rush, we know the war was started by your boy, but let's try to look at things even somewhat objectively. Even Bush is now saying this stuff is bad. If you don't start thinking independently, one of your half-brained listeners might start to notice a pattern soon.

Come for the advertisement, stay for the game
Picture this scene: Major League Baseball executives are sitting around a boardroom trying to figure out a way to get more kids excited about the sport. They float a few options: better mascots, better players, make the game actually exciting for once. And then, someone has an idea. A great idea. An ah-hah! idea. They'll simply make money -- ready for this? -- by placing advertisements for "Spiderman 2" on the bases! That's it! Perfect! The kids won't need to actually watch the game! No, they'll just tune in and stare at those lovely, lovely bases. Oh, Spiderman. How we love thee.

"This was a unique chance to combine what is a sort of a universally popular character and our broad fan base, including the youth market we're trying to reach out to," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. I am not kidding about this. Instead of DuPuy describing this move as it really is -- that is, MLB selling its most defining symbol to make a few bucks -- he's spinning it as if putting ads on the bases will legitimately raise the interest in baseball among America's youth. Hell, if that's the case, we can solve this whole the-youth-doesn't-vote problem by just placing advertisements for Skittles at voting booths. Perfect. Who woulda thunk?

Table scraps:
:The Olsen Twins say it's ok to refer to them as "The Olsen Twins," although they'd much prefer if you just get their damn names right. Especially if you are, as the Associated Press describes, one of their "lecherous male fans (who) have made sport of counting down the days until they turn 18."
::Unless you're on tour you can't understand. You get so in the middle of a major mellow fade, and the aura, it's the aura, layered with thick sound, the stock reports and rigid political debate about geriatrics and interviews with senior senators from the Mountain states filling the spaces between your neurons. It's why people go on tour with Bob Edwards.
:::The pitcher winds up, throws the ball, and suddenly two or three people behind home plate pop up and start waving like mad. They're not trying to distract the pitcher; they're on their cell phones, waving to the camera so their friends at home can see them. And they're also, next to the Yankees, the bain of Red Sox fans' existence.
::::Thought the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandals were too disgusting for mockery? Think again.

The do-gooder and the don't-gooders:
Spec. Joseph M. Darby was the guy who blew the whistle on the Iraqi prisoner abuse, and now his family at home is worried. Why? Well, they're sort of concerned for his safety -- after all, he just broke ranks with a lot of angry men with guns -- but moreso, they're worried because this kind of do-gooder attitude doesn't sound anything like the Joe they know. One of his friends told the WashPost: "That don't sound like Joe. ... When he got mad at somebody, he wouldn't hit out at them -- he'd go bust something up. He had this temper, and that might have been the thing. ... Like the rest of us might, I thought maybe he'd just turn and forget about (the prisoner abuse). Maybe I'd do the same. You just never know." Joe and his friends are going to have some issues when he gets back. Joe, I just don't know you anymore. You're dead to me. You're... good.

Wednesday, May 5

Table scraps:
:Disney gives us one more reason to dislike it. It's blocking Mirimax from distributing Michael Moore's new film, "Fahrenheit 911," although the reasoning is sketchy. Moore's agent says it's because Disney receives major tax breaks in Florida and doesn't want to upset the governor there, Jeb Bush. An unnamed Disney exec says it's because the movie is just too controversial. I'm thinking this is a good reason why Mirimax should have never signed a deal with Disney in the first place.
::Here's a little Internet art for you: a friend of mine wrote some program that automatically collects and collages images from a Google image search of the digits of the present day's date. Here's today's picture.
:::Remember that thing every two years where countries get together and play sports? Oh yeah, the Olympics. Well, that isn't happening this year. Nobody's actually come out and said it yet, but let's be honest: it's not happening. Athens, the host of this year's Olympics, was bombed three times yesterday, and it hasn't even finished construction of the stadiums where the games will be played.
::::Keith Knight, creator of the comic strip The K Chronicles, says he always gets mistaken for Aaron McGruder, creator of the comic strip the Boondocks.
:::::No writer, it seems, can escape the desire to describe something as "fishy" when it involves a fish. In this case, it was a case of a woman hitting her husband with a mounted fish.

A few words about Ted Rall:
Political cartoonist Ted Rall struck a pretty sour note with his recent comic, which questioned the judgement of soldiers who joined the military after 9/11, and used former football player and recently killed soldier Pat Tillman as an example. It was pulled from MSNBC.com, and kicked up quite a storm of anger towards him. This sucks, because I like Rall. But his major problem -- in fact, his real downfall -- is that he's just too damn angry. Unlike Ruben Bolling of Tom the Dancing Bug, or to a somewhat lesser extent Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World, Rall has no ability -- or, maybe just no interest -- in channeling his anger into something clever, something with zing, some kind of parable or, hell, even something digestable. Instead, he just writes angry things, and then illustrates them. If he could, every strip of his would go like this:

                                               (Insert subject here)
                                                     "Fuck this!"
                                        (Illustration of middle finger)

I think this exchange between Rall and Bolling in Rall's book "Attitude: the new subversive political cartoonists" is amazingly telling of Rall's process:

Rall: Sometimes it seems that with your political work you're trying to summon up a rage that may or may not be there. Do you ever find that you're intellectually annoyed by a politician or a phenomenon without feeling the requisite visceral anger to go along with it? Bolling: I don't think I ever try to "summon up a rage," and I don't think "visceral anger" is a "requisite" part of cartooning. We just have very different approaches. I look at my political stuff as an opportunity to make fun of a position, point out a flaw in an argument in an ongoing national debate, or laugh at the absurdity of the process. Even when an issue really does make me angry, doing a comic on it is never an angry process for me.

Isn't that interesting? "Requisite visceral anger"? It's too bad, because Rall actually is a talented guy. Check out his comic book "My war with Brian," about a bully that picked on him in high school. It's really well done, and immensely sad. But I imagine him just seething as he draws his comics, and it really shows. They're not very always very clever or insightful -- and in fact, they're often just kneejerk angry shouts. Rall needs to take a lesson from Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, who told Punxsutawney Phil, "Don't drive angry!"

Tuesday, May 4

Table scraps:
:Man tries to kill his wife with a romantic bubble-bath electrocution. The town's chief of police says, "This is a strange case. It's the kind of case you would expect to see on a Columbo episode."
::This collection of awful (and awfully amusing) album covers has made its way around the Internet already, but now some guy added funny commentary to them. But, it's not that funny. So, just go look at the album covers again. They're a hoot.
:::The last decade has been very good -- and, it appears, very revitalizing -- to Tina Fey.
::::Create your very own Thomas Friedman op-ed column.
:::::Here's a joke I heard on NPR's Car Talk: Two antennas are installed on a rooftop. They get to talking, find out they have a lot in common, and soon start dating. They fall in love, get engaged, and finally get married. And while the ceremony wasn't much, the reception was fantastic.

I found my calling: White House pool reporter
No, I haven't actually gotten that job -- or any job, for that matter, seeing as I'm stubbornly remaining a freelancer. But after reading the WashPost's Dana Milbank's column about a former pool reporter for the White House, I see no other way to celebrate my interests than to use them alongside the sad group of people known as White House pool reporters. As those who know me can attest, when I actually had a full-time job at one extremely miserable paper, I spent almost more time writing bitchy e-mails about the place than I actually did working. And now I learn, there are people out there actually getting paid to do just that! From Milbank's column: 

The Bush White House has expanded the audience for the pool reports by e-mailing them also to more than a thousand government officials and Republican operatives. This gives the dispatches -- part travelogue, part gripe and occasionally part news -- a disproportionately large following. Nobody delighted this following more than (former Chicago Tribune pool reporter Bob) Kemper.