Moore's Law Finite, Says Moore

All geeks share common knowlege about a few key things. They know that dating isn't their best thing. They can rattle off the names of all the Star Trek series without difficulty. And all of them know the old saw Moore's Law. Conceived by Gordon Moore in 1965 it is the observation that that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years.

It affects non geeks in that every two years computers double in power while remaining at the same price point, which means that every two years you buy a new computer because you resent your crappy old one that doesn't do anything any more.

On Monday Gordon Moore spoke at IDF with the comforting news that no, it can't keep going on like that forever. He says it will start slowing down in about ten or fifteen years. The brakes are going to be put on not by the limits of human ingenuity but by, as Stephen Hawking put it, "the speed of light and the fundamental nature of matter." In other words you can scale a chip down to the size of a few atoms but after that, where do you go? One atom? Half an atom? Game over.

There has been talk of quantum computing, of course. The physics of very small particles poses some interesting applications in the computing world. A circuit in a computer is either on, or it's off. That's binary. But in quantum physics it's possible for a particle to be both at the same time. If clever chip designers could harness that l'il nugget, computers would become so powerful that we might as well just hand the world over to COLOSSUS and mix ourselves a pitcher of mint juleps.

In any event, it's been quite a ride in the technology sector for the past 40 years, and maybe it's time to stop long enough to let some passengers off to stretch their legs. Instead of the drive to improve technology, we can focus on USING it for something.

Mankind Gets Its Day in Court

Senator Ernie Chambers, an Democrat independente state senator* from Nebraska, is suing God. He claims that:

...senators periodically have offered bills prohibiting the filing of certain types of suits. He said his main objection is that the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all. "Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody -- even God," Chambers said.

So it's all just his little civics lesson.

Senator Chambers, this is not a new idea. People try it now and then and always with the same result: God settles out of court. Most likely you will find that your property is located on an oil reserve, or the bank will make a mistake in your favor involving some six-figure amount. Perhaps your team will win at the Superbowl.

The thing is, God is devoting resources to the suit that He could be using elsewhere. Perhaps a mail carrier will flip out somewhere; maybe a bridge will collapse. Maybe he won't have time to ruminate about an important decision and God will be forced to play at dice. Point is, your little rhetorical gesture could result in the very calamities you claim you are suing against.

The lawsuit accuses God "of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent." It says God has caused "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."

Yeah well, maybe if you'd stop pissing Him off with nuisance suits...

Serving God with a subpoena is a trivial matter because he's omnipresent, but winning the case is impossible because he's omnipotent. There's no point in calling witnesses because while they swear to tell the truth, they swear it to God. Plus you can't put lawyers and God in the same room, because the lawyers will turn into pillars of salt.

All I'm sayin' is, this is a very, very bad idea. And I'm not just trying to get on God's good side, because they're ALL good sides with that guy.

* I must remember to fact check any story I get from Fox News.

The New Guy, Mukasey

This morning President Bush introduced us to Michael Mukasey, the nominee for Attorney General to replace Alberto Gonzalez. Bush was subdued, perhaps cranky. His eyes said "why do I have to go through with again? I already appointed an Attorney General! Can't you people just leave us alone up here?"

His weariness will be further aggravated by Mukasey's probable decisions. Bush has used up all the candidates who will automatically go along with whatever he wants and he's been forced to dip into the "qualified and competent" bin. Another more Bush-friendly candidate, Ted Olsen, is apparently being kept in the wings for a Supreme Court appointment. You don't want to blow the conservative wad on a guy who might only ruin jurisprudence for a year and change, do ya?

Congress is expected to make short work of the confirmation, because they're grateful that Mukasey is not, say, Harriet Meyers. Recently he wrote an essay in the Opinion Journal which opines that the executive branch shouldn't be making laws - it should be Congress. Congress will probably like that.

Mukasey is best known for being the judge of the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdul "Top" Rahman, the famous "Blind Sheikh" who spearheaded the first World Trade Center bombing in '93. You know, the one that didn't do any damage. Even so, Mukasey says that the experience taught him that terrorism shouldn't be prosecuted like normal crime. This is the bright side for conservative bloggers, and the part I find troubling. The problem with tribunals and no defense lawyers should be obvious to folks, but let me spell it out in language Republicans can understand: If Hillary! is elected, she will be able to declare you an enemy combatant with no evidence, and put you away forever without even a chance to write a note to your pastor. It would be an incredible abuse of the system, but come on! The woman killed Vince Foster in broad daylight after her husband snorted cocaine off his naked chest. She's capable of anything.

Still, the new guy is a step up from the old guy. Hell, Miss North Carolina would be.

Sexual Politics, Chimp-Style

Now that I'm dating again, this is sobering news:

Behavioural psychologists found that female chimps mate with the males that give them the most fruit, while male chimps steal "desirable" fruits such as papaya from farms and orchards in a bid to woo potential mates. Oranges, pineapples and maize are among the most sought after crops, with bananas proving far less popular.

Oh great. Am I going to have to start stealing just to get a date?

"The male who shared the most food engaged in more consortships and received more grooming than the other males, even the alpha male. Therefore the male chimpanzees appear to be 'showing off' and trading their forbidden fruit for other currencies, for example 'food-for-sex' and 'food-for-grooming'.

I've always prided myself, even before I was married, on never having to feed for it.

I haven't been on a lot of dates so far (okay, 2) and so far only one of them involved food. Sadly neither one has involved grooming. Well, mutual grooming anyway. I did shower first.

Still, I'm on a limited budget until I pay off my moving expenses and furniture. Damn anthropologists! why can't you keep your crackpot observations to yourselves!

Wait a minute... I wonder if chicks would accept pirated software as a substitute? Hmmmm.

Nobody Wants A Free-Market Solution For Everything

Over at WAMK, we've been knocking around the whole "why are we in Iraq" question. For some reason they all insist it's to fight terrorism, even though we didn't go in for that reason and the only reason any terrorists are there now is because they know where to find us. Maybe the real reason is this, courtesy Republican congressman Chris Shays: we're there because we can't afford to let any other country control the oil. H/T to Crooks and Liars for hosting the video.

Isn't that fascinating? Whether true or not, this notion illustrates that no matter how much you believe in free-market capitalism, you think the government has to step in somewhere. In this example, we are afraid to allow foreign interests to control the price of our oil. Well, why not? If the price goes up, won't the market compensate by forcing us to find alternative energy sources, or restructure society so we use less oil? What's the matter, McCapitalist? Chicken? So rather than allow the market to correct itself, Rep. Shays is willing to endorse an expensive government entitlement that involves trillions of dollars and untold American lives.

This is an economic example, but most Republicans part ways with deregulation at the point where morals enter it. It's government meddling, for example, that suppresses prostitution. I mean, what's wrong with that deal? A man and a woman (or a man and a man, or rarely a woman and a woman) enter into a business deal which involves sex. They both agree to the terms up front. Why is this against the law? Or maybe it's a drug deal instead. And sure sometimes people are killed by the drugs, but so what? You want a nanny state?

Lead-based toys? If people stop buying them, the problem solves itself. Child labor? How is it the Government's business to protect children? It's the business of parents! Besides, some kids like to sew. The FDA is the biggest thwarter of free-market solutions ever, after the FBI. Crime itself is an efficient free-market solution to a host of conditions.

Even libertarians I've talked to say that they're okay with public roads.

So ultimately, your tolerance for government interference is a question of degrees, not absolutes. And everyone wants the government to control SOMETHING. The only disagreement is where and how much.

Waste Even More Time With Google Earth!

I loves me the GOOGLE EARTH, essentially a combination virtual globe/mapping program. You know how you use map quest to plot a route from your house to the Karaoke bar downtown? (just me again? sorry.) With Google Earth you can start from a Telstar point of view, zoom in to the top of your house, plot the route, then do a faux-3D run through of the trip, following the route the way the police helicopter would follow your slow-speed chase. Except without the inevitable blown tire, foot pursuit, and beating-to-a-pulp with nightsticks. (just me again? sorry.)

The latest update to Google Earth, which is free by the way, incorporates what is possible the best "Easter egg" ever. It you have version 4.2, fire it up, click on the globe and then hit control-alt-a, or command-option-a on the cool platform, and you get, yes, a flight simulator. There are a couple of aircraft and a handful of runways, but the important thing is you can now crash a jet right into your own house!

The really amazing thing about this is that when I first started using computers, you could buy a low-res black and white version of this for $60; now it boasts photo realistic landscapes, includes a map of the entire ***king world and it's a knocked off unadvertised freebie in an already free program.

What it doesn't include, sadly, landing and navigating instructions. Then again, if you don't have Internet access you can't use Google Earth anyway; and if you do then both those things will be online somewhere by the time I finish writing this.

O Brave New Google Earth: that has such code in't!

Rambling

I don't like westerns, but I saw 3:10 TO YUMA yesterday and thought it was great. Good snappy dialog there... it's an odd coincidence that General Petraeus's testimony about the Iraq war was scheduled to take place around September 11th, even though Iraq had nothing to do with it the tragedy... Check out THE I.T. CROWD on Britain's Channel 4 -- you say you don't get Channel 4? You say it's in PAL instead of NTSC? Lad, that's why there is Bittorrent!... I worked another one of those Singles parties this weekend, but this is the first time I was actually single myself. I didn't score... they're treating me well and thanks for asking, WAMK... Oh come on, Britney was just below average.... Didn't Larry King write a column for USA Today? Whatever happened to that? It was stupendous!

Early Adopters are Crybabies

Forgive my bluntness but if you spent $600 dollars on a damn cell phone, and they drop the price to $400 dollars, it's not Apple Inc. you should be mad at. You should be mad at yourself for spending $600 on a damn cell phone.

Wall Street hasn't reacted well to the swirling miasma of controversey surrounding the iPhone price cut either. Even though Apple is only giving back $100 worth of retail goods in response, the stock price dropped today. This makes it a pretty good bargain, because the price will climb again when people realize that the actual cost of each refund is only $40, and they will be moving items off the shelves. Also don't be fooled into thinking Apple dropped the price because the iPhone wasn't selling. They dropped the price because they're finally confident they can meet demand.

Look, get over it. Why were you willing to wait in line to throw $600 at a candy bar that took voicemail? Because you wanted the latest, coolest thing before everybody else. And that's what you had. It's still the latest, coolest thing, but now more people will have it, that's all.

Incidentally, it costs about $250 in materials to make an iPhone, so that markup was just crazy. You should have seen it coming.

Quote of The Day

I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to make room for a new outrage.

Al Gore, proving again that he's actually a funny guy, in 02138 Magazine.

How I Spent Labor Day Weekend: A Multiple Choice Quiz

Well, it was a long, hot 3 days. I will now report on my activities, only to make it less boring I'll let you guess which scenario actually took place.

1. Blind Date
a. I had a blind date.
b. I didn't have a blind date.
c. Other.
(answer c; I had one but she flaked on me.)

2. Swimming pool
a. I swam in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool
b. I did not swim in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool.
(answer b; just didn't get around to it, even after spending half a day outdoors at a birthday party in Agoura. The temperature ranged from 95 degrees to 112 degrees. As a matter of fact, the temperature in Las Vegas this weekend trailed ours by 5 degrees.)

3. Met a girl
a. Hung out with a bright-blue-haired Russian girl named Natasha at a karaoke bar in Studio City; she told me she was a mail order bride who had been abandoned by her patron and if I married her she would give me "good DJs."
b. No, that's ridiculous.
(answer a; but I'm pretty sure she was just an actress working on a character. Either way quite charming.)

4. Vision correction
a. Spent several hours looking for a hobo who would sell me his eyes.
b. Spent several hours at Lenscrafters getting contact lenses and new glasses.
(answer b; I actually had an agreement in principal with a local hobo but the deal fell through because I couldn't find a competent doctor to perform the surgery.)

Thanks for playing!

A Cheap Shot With Honor

Larry Craig, disgraced Republican restroom sex habitue, is a story I would only touch with tongs. It's a minefield of disgraceful punchlines, the kind yours truly avoids like the plague. I wouldn't stoop to coming up with double entendres about his sorry situation.

But I'd certainly be happy to reprint his own!

Via Radar Online, the headlines to editorials penned by Mr. Larry Craig. Enjoy!

• What's That Larry Been Up To?—August 20, 2004
• All is Fair in Love and War—July 5, 2007
• THIMBY - Thin My Backyard—June 28, 2007
• At Your Fingertips—July 15, 2005
• The Calm Before the Storm—February 16, 2007
• The Taxing Experience—March 9, 2006
• Lt. Ross Bales and the "Potato Peeler Kids"—November 2, 2006
• Time to Pack in Iraq?—June 22, 2006
• A Thief in the Night—May 25, 2006
• What Message Did We Send?—March 23, 2006
• A Secret No More—March 30, 2006
• The Snake River Keeps Us Moving—August 13, 2004
• Mayday, Mayday!—May 5, 2007
• Join me at the Boise Health Conference—February 6, 2004
• O Long May it Wave—June 15, 2006
• Cowboy Up—July 21, 2005
• Where's the Beef?—August 9, 2007

Weather Report

I work right now 3 miles from where I live. Normally this is great; but today the area will boast a local Los Angeles high of 110 degrees. So I can't escape it until after 5:00pm. If I survive, perhaps I'll write to tell you how I did.

AG Not AG for Long

The biggest sign of Alberto Gonzalez' incompetence is perhaps this - the decision to resign was made on Friday but he chose to delay the announcement until MONDAY MORNING. Honestly, does he know nothing about news cycles?

I don't think I'm going to miss the guy. He's so colorless. Janet Reno had presence, for god's sake. John Ashcroft, in addition to his erstwhile singing career, was ballsy enough to cover the bare breasts on the statues during his watch. Gonzalez? He'll be remembered as the guy who refused to acknowlege his boldest moves, who couldn't remember anything he did. Why should I?

A.G. is another in a long line of Bush appointees who had been given the task of crossing the ethical line while keeping it legal, while having no actual finesse or skill in those areas. Simply put, he didn't have the charisma to pull it off. His partner in August resignation, Karl Rove, at least could claim to have those skills. However, he was so good at it that he aimed too high and tried to get away with illegal things. He may still, but at the cost of his position. That's gotta hurt the President, who is rapidly exhausting his talent pool as he digs deeper to find competent people who are also willing to remain loyal under any circumstances.

The ship of state is going to have an awful lot of trouble avoiding the reefs for the next year or so.

iWant

I just killed part of my lunch hour at the mall, toying with the iPhones at the Apple store. What is the strange allure of this candy-bar-like device, which costs about $600 more than the phone I currently carry?

Around March I'll have the option of upgragding my phone under my current contract, which I have two years left on. I think that's when I'll make my move. As it happens I could also stand to replace my laptop, which is aging (in the same way that Joan Collins is aging, that is to say it's old and I can barely stand to look at it any more, even though it's got a fine bone structure); and my iPod Nano by then should have a battery life of around 35 minutes between charges. When I look at it this way, I'll be saving approximately $1000 if I buy an iPhone. Plus I'll be able to watch videos!

Of course, blogging will be less fun. I'm not thrilled with the virtual keyboard thingie, and I type 65 wpm on a REAL keyboard. This is slightly faster than I think. One of the reasons blogging is so much fun for me is that I can read something I just wrote and say, "that's my opinion?" So expect better reasoning from iPhone posts, unfortunately.

Another good factor in this is by March, the major updates will be in place, and maybe there will even be a price reduction in the post-holiday season, as the even newer iPhones will be just around the corner. It'll be after MacWorld, after all. Who knows what fun little things will come out of that convention?

Honestly, I can't wait to be able to carry my porn around and watch it at lunch.

That's my opinion?

I Return to the Stage; the Stage Sighs Helplessly

Ha ha, I've done it again! Last year around this time I auditioned for two local amateur theater productions. I didn't make it into the first one, because even though the producer liked me he thought that audiences wouldn't buy me playing a 40-year-old man. I was 44 at the time. But I did make the second audition a week later and got cast as ex-college-football-star-turned-artist in HERE LIES JEREMY TROY, a warhorse mistaken-identity farce from the mid -sixties.

Tonight I auditioned for the part of Tim, a New York womanizer in his mid twenties, in a play I can't even remember the title of (it's brand new! I'll OWN that part!) and got it. I have to say, this is not a tribute to my talent as much as it is a sad commentary on the level of my competition. If there was any. While I was there I didn't see anyone else reading for Tim. It was all 50-year-olds trying out for the 40-year-old's part. Maybe some other Tims showed up later. I will have the grace to not ask about it.

I hope to God I didn't get the part because of my New York accent. Because I don't have one of my own, I read with, swear to god, a Jay Leno impersonation. I figure it was good enough for Kenneth Branaugh in DEAD AGAIN, so why not me? Point is, the voice was a desperation move and if I'm lucky the director will gently steer me toward something more authentic.

The time I spent last year on that play was the oasis in an otherwise miserable existence and while I'm surprisingly much less miserable this year, it will probably still be refreshing enough.

It was also the first day of my new job, which I can already tell I'll have wired by Wednesday. I'm working below my intelligence, which is why I always seem to do so well in these jobs. Because I don't have a degree, I can't seem to get anything better. Since I'm starting a new life, I should really, REALLY look into this.

In Which I Modify a Long-Standing Aesthetic Opinion

I just finished watching THE FOUNTAIN, Darren Aronofsky's sci-fi epic starring Hugh Jackman. Yes, I too think it sucked. It was overreaching, pretentious, murky and badly paced. It was also the most expensive of Aronofsky's three movies. Normally I would shrug it off and say "money ruins everything."

You know, I've long felt that. I've seen dozens of independent filmmakers do great little cheap features, only to be taken on by Hollywood to produce ungodly expensive crap. And I always assume it was the money that sucked all the life out of those movies.

But the production history of THE FOUNTAIN has given lie to that premise. The idea was germinating since the late nineties, and Aronofksy was pushing hard for this to be his next feature after LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. He had it all set up, with Brad Pitt as the star, and then Pitt walked out and the studio pulled the plug. Aronofsky re imangined the movie as a at half the budget, roped Hugh Jackman into the lead, and got it made, presumably with complete artistic control.

Given this scenario, it's clear that at least some times I was wrong. Big money doesn't cause bad movies. Big egos do. Once a guy puts out an acclaimed cheapie he thinks he can do anything, and he DEMANDS big money. Maybe the studio heads are right. Maybe that's what happened with EVAN ALMIGHTY and WATERWORLD and HEAVEN'S GATE. Maybe these people need to be slapped down for their own good.

Thank god I'm not trying to break into showbiz any more, because once this gets googled, I'd never work in this town again.

I Work At Dunder-Mifflin

I'm very pleased (okay, relieved) to report that I've just recieved an offer of employment from a printer supply company here in town. Good people (looks like, anyway) solid work and a four mile commute. I start Monday.

So that's one source of anxiety down, leaving only the other 1100.

If you are a British reader of this blog, please change the title to I work at Wernham Hogg.

Bloody Well Wright

Let me establish my boomer cred by admitting that I was looking forward all week to the free concert-in-the-park by Gary "Dream Weaver" Wright. I went, I saw, I took some pictures. Not bad. In the photo, note below the prominent SOPRANOS logo on the man's hat. I Love L.A.!

Gary Wright is a perfect choice for a free concert. For one thing, he is not a one-hit wonder like the Little River Band, who performed last week. Gary had two hits, the other one being LOVE IS ALIVE. Thus he is able to have a 45 minute set with a climax, a break for people to buy more kettle corn and barbecue, then come back for another set with another climax. Furthermore his hits are still in pretty good rotation on certain radio stations, which means that the younger generation has a fighting chance of knowing him. Finally the material is catchy and light as a feather, listenable without being troubling.

However, it didn't really work. Gary and the band were fine. They sounded great although there were a few mic problems. Maybe it was the heat. At 6:00pm the temperature was around 90 degrees. So try though they might, Mssrs Wright and company were unable to raise more than a tepid response from the crowd. I think we all dug it and everything, but we were just like, you know, mellow.

I learned a few things. Gary Wright is not the least bit British. He's American! But he got established in England with the band Spooky Tooth, which I have heard of without ever having heard. I read a lot of Rolling Stone when I was young. Also Wright played on a couple of George Harrison albums, and a book of indian poetry inspired DREAM WEAVER, his best-known work.

Well, the important thing is I got out of the apartment for a couple hours. Maybe I'll do the same next week, for the Zydecats. Oh how I wish they were the Hamonicats!

This last picture is best appreciated in conjunction with another blog called SUICIDE FOOD. They meticulously document the phenomenon of advertising depicting animals happily inviting you to eat them.


From now on you'll notice it EVERYwhere.

The Bright Side of Global Warming

I was just watching the BBC News and they quoted an interesting statistic. Even though the frequency of "weather events" is measurably rising, the death toll from them is falling. Weather events, obviously, include flooding, hurricanes and such like. The BBC rep said that it's believed that the casualty rate is down because it is now easier to predict these things and the sheer frequency has put rescue crews at the top of their game.

So, there's your bright side - practice makes perfect! Let's pump a little more carbon into the atmosphere, to speed up the training!

The Two Things I Accomplished Today

Actually I accomplished three things. One, I made my pasta with olive oil and basil. Note to self - next time, garlic powder too.

Two, kick ass job interview at the place the laid me off a couple of years ago, which put me into the job I was just laid off from last week. I think they'll make an offer, but it's a big company and it will probably take another week.

Finally, I have posted another Dark Meat show! This is the first new, non-rerun show in quite a few months. In order to make sure it gets heard, I name-checked Ron Paul. I can't wait to see the stats.

You Can't Imagine How Boring I Can Be

Sherlock Holmes. Famous detective. Brilliant guy, if fictional. He had a few quirks, not the least of which was he was a drug addict. If there was not a case to occupy his mind, he would turn to cocaine, a 7% solution self-injected into his forearm.

I bring this up to explain why I'm not writing lately. Writing, you see, is my cocaine. It's something I do when my awesome mental powers aren't needed elsewhere. Sadly, I'm putting them to use in the service of getting my own life back together. Look, it was a bad week. My divorce progressed painfully, I moved out of my house and into the swinging bachelor pad, and the very day after I got into the new place they laid me off from my job. I worked for a subprime mortgage lender. Should have seen it comin'

Anyway you'd think I'd have more free time but I have less. I spend most of the weekday work hours looking for work. And surely you know that finding work is way more work than doing work. Then in the evenings, after the temp agencies are closed, I try to beat my little studio apartment into place. I have been haunting the thrift stores trying to find the perfect kitchen table, the best salt shakers. I've been keeping an eye out for the right shade of blonde wood. I've been going through my digital photo library and finding good pictures that don't have my ex-wife or ex-dogs in them.

I've been installing water filters so I don't have to buy bottled water.

I'm excited as hell because tomorrow they finally turn on the gas in this place and I can boil water and make my own pasta, which I will top with frozen meatballs, oregano, and olive oil.

Anyway, I have a job interview tomorrow and sooner or later I'll run out of things to buy for the place (I still have to find a set of throw pillows for that futon!) and then, I'll be writing all the time to alleviate the boredom of living in a tiny place like this.

Or, hopefully, dating.

Swingin' Bachelor Pad

Well, that's one hurdle crossed. I've managed to move into my new studio apartment to the point where I'm comfortable getting up tomorrow and being able to shower and put on clothes. The rest is gravy.

And by gravy I mean I want a refrigerator, gas hookups, my new queen size bed, and the combination microwave/toaster that I saw at Sears this weekend. Yes, a toaster! It's built into the side of the microwave. Useful for small spaces.

By the way, I don't have DSL service until Friday. One day I will find out which neighbor didn't encrypt his wireless router, and I will take him out for a drink.

Your Real Age

Even with all I'm going through, I'm actually 3.5 years younger than I thought, plus I look even younger than that! Try it for yourself.


Poodwaddle.com

Ron Paul - What's Up With That Guy?

Ron Paul is a Republican Presidential candidate who is against the war. Do I love him? Do I hate him? I don't know, but I do know that just mentioning Ron Paul on your website can quadruple your hit count.

Nothing Freaks Me Like A Cephalopod

I grew up in the Monterey Bay Area, and I've seen some weird stuff. One year, there was a population explosion of bio-luminescent plankton, and for months the tide glowed eerily. Then the plankton population used up the oxygen in the bay and there was a mass grunion annihilation. Volunteers scooped up thousands of beached grunion.

But thankfully I don't live there now, because this terrifies me.

A mysterious sea creature, up to 7 feet long, weighing up to 100 pounds. It hunts in packs of hundreds, flying through the water at 25 mph, changing color.
With a parrot-like beak and arms covered with thousands of sharp barbs, it attacks and tries to eat nearly anything it sees, including fish, scuba divers, even its own kind.
But it's not a creature of Hollywood. It's real. And it's reached the Monterey Bay. The Humboldt squid, also known as the giant squid or jumbo squid, traditionally has lived in warm waters off South America and Mexico, where fishermen call it "diablo rojo," or "red devil."
For reasons that still aren't entirely clear, large numbers of the scrappy cephalopods have been steadily expanding their range north, first off San Diego and Los Angeles, where hundreds have washed up on beaches in recent years.

Squid and jellyfish are sooooo alien and amorphous that I can't deal with 'em. Don't ask me to explain it either. They're just creeeeeeeeeepy. And why no real plurals? What's up with that?

WAMK will be surprised to learn that a mainstream newspaper goes out of its way to dismiss Global Warming as a cause for the migration, blaming instead overfishing in diablo's native waters. I think it's more that they sense that their first major attack on humans would be better launched from somewhere closer to Silicon Valley. Once they take down our technology, then we will be helpless as babes, plump and primed for devouring. And I'm well aware that Los Angeles is right along their route.

The article is two days old, but I read about it today. It figures. Thursday... Cthulu, HP Lovecraft's eldritch God of the deep. Sweet Jesus, we must stop them now, before it's too late!

Then again, I live 30 miles from the beach and it's 100 degrees out here nowadays, so I can probabaly outrun my ectomorphic overlords if the time comes.

Okay, never mind. I'm fine now. Whew! Still... watch the aquariums.

Flaunting My Ignorance

The first ever YouTube debates happened a couple of days ago. There's been plenty of comment around the blogosphere about 'em, and even a fun hoax which claimed that somehow the goatse had made it on to CNN. I don't want to say any more about the goatse. Look it up on Wikipedia, and even follow the links if you want to know more. You'll be sorry.

I didn't watch, perhaps out of goatsephobia, but mostly because it's too damn early. The campaign cycle is criminally lengthy and I don't need these people shouting VOTE FOR ME in my face when we all know that a year and a half from now the elections will have been cancelled because Dick Cheney has declared martial law. I've got to buy a barrel of rice and a water tank and shotgun shells. YouTube! Ha!

Also don't fool yourself that opening up the questions to WeThePeople was somehow more democratizing than the normal debate format. The questions were screened, and there were many thousands to choose from. Even taking out anything with goatse footage, any question a moderator would have asked on their own was surely supplied by SOMEONE in YouTubeniverse. If you think the debates are normally sealed off from reality, this is worse because it has the appearance of not being so. Which is more dangerous, a Terminator that's a titanium skeleton or a terminator that appears to be a flesh and blood policeman? I think you know the answer to that!

At this early stage it's not only safe to ignore the candidates posturings, it's VITAL. This is their training period. Pay attention next year. If you must vote in the primaries, start looking at them in that final month when they have their messages all polished up. If they can stay on message and only use small, easy-to-digest sentences -- vote for the other guy.

Silver Lining

So last night, a picture fell off a high shelf in my office, plummeting 6 feet to the the tile floor below. Bright side? I'm sleeping on the floor of my office until my swingin' bachelor pad is ready next week, so the picture harmlessly plopped on two layers of sleeping bag, a blanket and sheet, and my leg.

Okay, so maybe it's not the most cheerful silver-lining story ever. You want uplift, watch some Oprah.

The D-Word

I'm getting divorced, all right? That's why I haven't been writing much lately.

Just signed the papers last night, which means now the part that everyone loves begins - negotiating who gets what appliances, which CDs and so on. Music isn't going to be very difficult because we had very, very different tastes in music. The hardest part of DVD shares will be determining who has to keep the ones NEITHER of us likes. How did those get in there?

We were married for a little over 14 years.

Financially we look to be okay. I think both of us are walking away from the union with more than what we had when we met, which means the whole thing turned a profit. Bright side!

Irreconcilable differences. It's the only reason you need in California.

If you enjoy reading this blog, bear with me for a few more weeks and I should be back to speed. Right now I'm embroiled in detail work, the kind that I started writing blogs to avoid doing. I'll be back though. And I won't really be gone either, because I can use the therapy of posting once in a while.

(P.S. I'm not normally this shameless, but if you're a woman who reads this, drop me a line about my profile picture to tell me that I'm totally hot. A little of that goes a long way in these circumstances.)

Hidden Beauty: Local Boys Make Good

I swear I was gonna keep off this story, but there's a local angle. You always play the local angle!

Mitt Romney, who threw himself onto the John Edwards Haircut bandwagon at breakneck speeds as it careened past him, has been revealed to have used the services of Hidden Beauty, a “a mobile beauty team for hair, makeup and men’s grooming and spa services.” He got two sessions at $150 a pop. I bet it was when he was doing those debates at the Regan Library, which is about a 20 minute drive from here.

The company is based in West Hills! So am I! And as you might expect, I've never heard of Hidden Beauty. There is a gated community called Hidden Hills around here somewhere, though of course it's hidden so I couldn't quite tell you where. It's kind of like the train platform to Hogworts.

Anyway, Romney was quoted as saying about Edwards that he pays $50 for a haircut, including tip - when you include bronzer treatments, this rounds up to $200 bucks, and that makes them about even. Maybe there aren't two Americas, after all. I can't wait to hear what Fred Thompson spends on makeup, though it's a safe bet his hair budget is pretty low. Guiliani, well, calculate by this:

Boing Boing: 1952 comic predicts Bush/Cheney Iran policy

Click to Enlarge

As they suggest, perhaps Cheney read this as a child and it stuck with 'im.

No Legs = Unfair Advantage

...South African Oscar Pistorius, 20, on Sunday night made his debut against a top field of able-bodied athletes. In rainy chill that validated the common phrase "dreadful English weather," he finished a well-beaten seventh, then was disqualified for having run outside his No. 8 lane In the Norwich Union British Grand Prix race.
LA Times, 7/16/07

Oscar Pistorius' legs are missing from the knee down. He was profiled in Wired Magazine a few monts ago, which is why I know anything about a sports story. He has been fitted with carbon fibre springs in the place of normal prosthetic legs, as pictured here.

Pistorius was running in a race against less exotic atheletes, and he'd fought hard to compete in that arena. There are two arguments he had to refute. One is that as a man without legs, he was at a disadvantage. His counter-argument was the second reason why he shouldn't compete: the springs enabled him to propel himself farther than someone with mere feet, and with less body mass, his lungs didn't need to provide as much oxygen thus giving him better endurance.

So in a lot of ways, it's a race of apple versus oranges. Or cheetah versus motorcycles. The question is, is it a fair race?

And the answer is yes, if we all agree beforehand.

Sports is entertainment, nothing more. We pit people against each other and hope that one person or team will win. Often implicit is the assumption that they're evenly matched, but it's no requirement. If people buy tickets to the big Clean Vs. Steroids game, they are perfectly happy to root for clean or steroids, knowing that the Steroid people, while stronger, will have worse judgement and mobility. It's all in the disclosure. Plus, no one goes after their bookies if you know the parameters in advance.

This is the calculation that the promoters made when staging the Pistorius race. It's very disappointing that it ended in a technicality; because this proves nothing. If he wins the next one, it will prove something: We have the technology. We can rebuild him - better, stronger, faster.

My Best Blog Metric

Just a quick observation - I use FEEDBURNER to syndicate this blog, and they provide me with handy statistics. It's because of them that I know what the number one post is, as the result of google searches. I'll make it a multiple choice for you.

1. Turtles All The Way Down (6/19/07)
2. Geopolitics as Barfight (12/6/06)
3. Oh No, Ann Coulter Again (3/5/07)
4. Adwords - Does It Make Adsense? (5/16/07)
5. SECOND LIFE Is Much Cheaper Than Heroin (7/7/6)
6. Nazi Porn Vs. Terrorist Gangs (5/7/07)

Yes, of course it's #6. But thanks for playing!

The Photo the GOP Wants To Hide

This ranks with the "George Bush Can't Find the Exit Door" and "press conference in front of a cemetary" photo ops and the best Republican Encapsulation of recent times - the stage at the NAACP Republican debate. Note Tom Tancredo... and NO ONE ELSE! They all had "scheduling conflicts."

read more | digg story

The Longest Delayed Punchline Ever

I was just about to write a comment in another blog about someone resorting to a reducto ad absurdum argument and I caught myself. Where the hell did I, who never finished college, get all these fancy latin phrases?

Looking back, I remember a 16mm film from high school. It was about how to identify propaganda and counter it. It stuck with me because "propaganda" was depicted as a 7-headed dragon, with one head being ad-hominum attack, another being false analogy, and so on. It was a keystone in my logical development.

I guess it's a pretty dry concept and they filmmakers had to do that to "catapult the propaganda." And it didn't occur to me until just now that depicting propaganda as a dragon IS propaganda.

Setup... beat... beat... beat... (repeat for 30 years) ... PUNCHLINE!

I Was Wrong About Blaming The Messenger

So sue me.

I did a little railing against ad hominum attacks yesterday, calling them a distraction from the real issues. But a weird thing happened. Through means I can't fully comprehend, I have acquired access to a news database from the year 2030. I think it has to do with ATT upgrading its network for the iPhone. Anyway, if you look at these quotes, I think you'll see how wrong I have been. My bad, people!

Al Gore looks sheepishly into the distance. "The thing I never realized was that one man CAN make a difference. Once Tipper and I decided to move our family into that two-room apartment, the global warming trend reversed! It's documented. They were right to ridicule me." Gore sighs heavily and rolls his futon back into place.

See, I wouldn't have seen that coming either.

It was revealed today that Niger had actually sold over 3 tons of yellowcake uranium to Sadam Hussein's Iraqi government in the the 1990s. The evidence had gone unnoticed for decades because Joe Wilson, United States envoy, was enjoying an Iraqi vacation at the behest of his wife, Valarie Plame. "Joe was just there to party on the government's dime," an anonymous source told us. The papers revealing the truth were found under a mini-bar in the hotel where Wilson stayed.

Wow! Is my face red!

The "fame addiction pill" has it's detractors, but Sheehan isn't one of them. "I was out of control. I didn't care about mourning my son, I didn't care whether the war was just. Hell, I was FOR THE WAR! But I just had to have fame."

Page after page of this stuff -- DIXIE CHICKS HOSTED AL-QUAEDA CEL IN STUDIO, OLBERMAN'S EX-DATES TELL ALL: "HE'S A BELOW-AVERAGE LOVER", POOR PEOPLE DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY RISING PRICE OF HAIR PRODUCTS -- I realize now that I have been horribly wrong. In fact it's always appropriate to counter a rational argument with an attack on the person making it.

That's why I feel comfortable saying that Rush Limbaugh's opionions are worthless because he's a drug addict, and anything anyone says on Fox... well, come on! They're fame-whores, or they wouldn't be on TV, right? People who fight illegal immigration are racists, by the way.

Man, is this easier than a real argument? You bet it is! Not that you'd know. You're a terrorist.

I (Cardiac) Huckabee

Oh, THIS is mature.

"Frankly, Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country. He clearly is one of the reasons that we have a very expensive system. I know that from my own personal experience," said (Republican Presidential candidate Mike) Huckabee, who lost more than 110 pounds and became an avid runner after he was diagnosed with diabetes.
"I know how much more my health care cost when I didn't take care of myself than when I do take care of myself, not only in terms of doctor visits but regular diseases, illnesses, chronic things that come up, monthly prescription bills," Huckabee said. "All of those things have gone dramatically down since I've taken care of myself and worked to live a healthier lifestyle."

Huck. There are ways to grab a piece of a hit movie and use it for your own publicity. This isn't one of 'em. For one thing, it's beside the point - with Universal Health Care Michael Moore wouldn't have to tally how much extra it cost him to be overweight. For another, perhaps anticipating this line of attack, Moore has gone on a program of diet and exercise. You may notice he is bigger in the movie than he is on his contentious CNN appearances.

But the real no-no here is the favorite arrow in the RNC quiver, the ad-hominum attack. Republicans would always rather you discuss John Edwards' hair, Al Gore's car or Michael Moore's weight than poverty, the environment, or socialized medicine. Because they get creamed in the latter arenas and it throws off their opponents. I think we as a people are onto this trick now, but I'm probably being optimistic.

Bonus commenter points for examples of the left doing the same thing!

Harry Potter And The Disco Vampire

Perusing TIME.COM just now, I came across this headline for the review of a certain summer movie:

HARRY POTTER GROWS OLDER AND DARKER

I think I know how the book ends - in the final pages, Voldemort kills Harry, but he rises again as George Hamilton.

*rimshot*

Man About Town

My wife is visiting her parents for the weekend, so I decided to spend a rare afternoon among people, taking advantage of my proximity to tourist spots. You take it for granted when you live in Los Angeles that there is nothing to do here. In fact, people come here because they're attracted by our things to do because things to do in their town suck.

So I hopped the Orange Line across the valley. First stop Universal Citywalk. It's an open-air mall opposite the Universal Studios tour. I like taking the subway because a round trip ticket is a few dollars less than parking on top of the hill, plus you're spared the anxiety of driving. I had lunch at the Daily Grill. A gorgeous model-quality woman sat across from me with her kid, and we were all serenaded by this 17-year-old guitar hero, who performed classic rock tunes with just an effects box and backing tracks. He was note-perfect on HOTEL CALIFORNIA.

I became bored with Citywalk and decided to hoof it down the hill to the subway station. Here's where the "only in L.A." element kicks in. I took the red line to Hollywood and Highland. I heard cheering as I neared the street; sure enough the barricades were up. I had no idea why. The first thing I saw was a street performing trio - a Swedish family of two gawky teen boys and a little girl performing HOTEL CALIFORNIA. I didn't get a picture of them but the street looked like this. Why?

After a little walking around I determined that the Chinese Theatre, which is adjacent to the stop, was hosting a handprint ceremony for the young stars of the HARRY POTTER movies. My first big clue was a sign held by some kids in the bleachers that read 'RUPERT GINT IS BOOTYLICIOUS."

A few years ago I went to Boston by myself, and similarly took the subway downtown on a Sunday, and emerged into the middle of a Greek Pride parade. I felt the same way then that I did today - surrounded by people I had nothing in common with, excited for reasons that I couldn't share. But spectacle fascinates me, so I hung around the big Kodak Theatre mall. I watched people straining to catch a glimpse of (the presumably clothed) Daniel Radcliffe. Two great pictures (thanks cellphone industry, for the camera!) came out of it. Here's the first, of a couple of weary mall employees outside a yogurt shop:

On the left, Supergirl; on the right, Batgirl. There was a guy dressed as The Thing downstairs, but he wouldn't be able to enjoy ice cream until the end of his shift. That's showbiz.

And this other one, just outside the press gaggle. Actually, it's a lousy picture, but if you could see it it's great:
See that little sign in the center of the picture, taped to the barricade with tiny dark squares on it? If I had had a zoom lens, you'd be looking a pictures of the actors, with their names and character names typed beneath them. It's a crib sheet!

No, I didn't get any pictures of Harry Potter stars. That's for tourists. As a matter of fact, I noticed a sign advertising an open mike for a place called the Hollywood Pop Academy. Normally they get a lot of walk-in traffic on a Sunday and a girl named Casey tries to sell you on the idea of singing classes. However since I was the only one there and it was inside, and quiet, I cajoled her into a conversation about what it's like working when the streets are closed, and then we went into a tangent about celebrities sponsoring charities and how it can go horribly wrong. She said that as bad as a Chinese Theatre footprint ceremony can get, it's nothing compared to Academy Awards week, where the streets are closed and security does sweeps of everything

I realize now that I don't enjoy entertainment nearly as much as I enjoy stories about putting entertainment together. When I was a kid I would rather read the Mad Magazine parody of a movie than see the actual movie; it's similar to that.

Thanking Casey for a pleasant chat, I decided to make my way back to the Red Line before the Potter kids emerged and things got really ugly. On the way back I passed the Swedish family again; they were singing HOTEL CALIFORNIA again. Is this some kind of compulsory song for L.A.? Whatever. All I know is, you just can't kill the beast.

Those Who Don't Know Cinema History Are Doomed To Repeat It

Over at Box Office Weekly, guest-me Skot wrote a little piece about Justin-TV yesterday. By the way, good work so far, big fellah! Anyway, to catch you up, Justin-TV is a project in which Justin Ko, a web developer, has strapped a webcam to his head and streams video 24 hours a day. Any time you can log in and see what Justin is doing. Often it's nothing, just like your life.

I just realized why the concept of Justin-TV seems familiar. It emulates the weirdo Robert Montgomery detective movie, THE LADY IN THE LAKE. It was a typical mystery with a gimmick: the whole movies is shot as seen through Montgomery's eyes, which means the only time you see the star's face is if he's looking into the mirror. And he doesn't do that often, because he'd look like a camera with an exhausted cinematographer strapped to its side.

Justin-TV recently expanded, putting cameras on the heads of other people, including a hot blond that you never see. I think this strategy is a mistake. They're only ripping off the same idea. In order to expand and diversify, they need to steal OTHER MOVIE GIMMICKS.

Idea #1. A webcam in a lifeboat. Just like in, you know, Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT. It would be like BIG BROTHER only much, much more limited. 24 hours a day, the same 8 people, all getting more and more annoyed at each other. Maybe one of them is a Nazi spy. Probably Al-Quaeda would work better in this modern context.

Idea #2. At some screenings of THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES, masked ushers rushed into the auditorium during climactic scenes and waved cardboard axes at moviegoers. How difficult would it be, when Justin is having a conversation with a roomful of geeks on your computer, for them to trace your I.P. address and send a team of local Geeks over to your home or office, to duplicate the experience? Note to self: make sure viewers sign a release first, to avoid breaking and entering charges.

Idea #3. During the beta test of the site, stage an elaborate, scary trip to the woods; have Justin and the gang killed off one by one, and claim it's all real. Then, just before you go with version 1.o, announce it was all faked. Yeah, I'm still bitter about BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

Idea #4. Electric shocks. William Castle wired some seats for showings of THE TINGLER. I'm not quite sure how you'd integrate it with Justin-TV but I like the idea of administering random electric shocks to people. Note to self: confirm appointment with therapist.

Idea #5. "This website is so exciting, no one will be allowed to log in during the last 20 minutes." Lame idea, but easy to implement.

Idea #6. Hitchcock again - instead of a camera strapped to someones head, have one that is trained on the apartment building across the alley, like in REAR WINDOW. Like Justin-TV it's voyeurism, but it also offers some variety!

And finally, Idea #7. Two cameras, mounted on either side of the head. 3-D, man! I can't believe they aren't doing it already! I know what you're thinking but if headaches and motion sickness aren't already a problem with Justin-TV, 3-D ain't gonna make 'em one.

Low-Stress Cynicism -- Hitleresque Felines

Tip o' the hat to WAMK for the link - I'm taking a few moments off my busy schedule of fretting and anxiety to point you in the directions of a website devoted to Cats That Look Like Hitler. I could describe it to you, but a picture can launch a thousand ships.

It should be obvious to you all by now that I am a dog person.

An Hiatus

Regular readers of this blog (and I swear it's more than Skot and WAMK) will be disappointed, or perhaps relieved, that I'm going to be knocking off blogging for a while. I got stuff to do. May I suggest using the RSS feed, to monitor when the hibernation is over?

In the meantime, I'm told there are other sources of crackpot opinions all over the web, and I encourage you to take advantage of them.

Start the Revolution Without Me

My previous post was jumpstarted by footage of a man grabbing a mic from a Fox News reporter, which I watched at work without sound. What I'm reading now is that the assailant was actually stealing an iPhone and the mic probably just looked like another cool gadget to him.

So he wasn't making any kind of damn statement at all, except "I'm stupid enough to attempt robbery on live television".

Skot's comment intrigues me - do bloggers share a distrust of news that the rest of the country doesn't? Well, I have taken most things I see on TV with a sack of rock salt (suitable for clearing snowy driveways) for a long time now. And WAMK has made no secret of the fact that he believes the MSM has a liberal bias. So yes, all bloggers share the view.

Something that fascinates me: Chris Matthews. If you're on the left, he's practically a neo-con. If you're on the right, he's a flaming liberal. No matter what he does, everybody thinks he's biased in the opposite direction. Matthews has a unique gift: whatever it is that allows people to blend with ease in various gatherings, he's got the opposite of that.

As far as the blogosphere, the entire news media shares that gift. No matter who you ask, the one thing that everyone agrees on is the news is lying to us and trying to force an agenda down our throats, but once in a while they throw our side a bone to appear balanced. An objective observer might note that this pan-spectrum jaundice suggests the media ARE fair.

But there are no objective observers nowadays, are there?

The Nexus of Politics and Acid

Even more so than usual, this round-up of political cartoons on Wonkette just slays me. All political cartooning is a kind of surrealist exercise; the Cartoon Curmudgeon demonstrates what happens when that is taken too far. Or, as he puts it:

It’s hard to define exactly how far is too far, but generally, it’s when the whimsical transformation you depict goes beyond “Ha ha, that animal is talking and wearing clothes” and hits “SWEET JESUS I’LL NEVER TAKE PEYOTE AGAIN I PROMISE JUST MAKE IT STOP”.

Enjoy.

Take Back the Morning Show

Watch this clip on Fox Morning. During a New York man-in-the-street interview about those iPhones, another man in the street steals the mic and attempts to run off with it, screaming expletives. He's shortly subdued by Fox goons; the interview continues apace.

I'd like to think this means something. Not by itself of course, but after the recent incident on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC morning show where a reporter refused to read a story about Paris Hilton and even attempted to set the copy afire, could we be witnessing the long-awaited revolution that will not be televised? After years of news sliding from "the fourth estate" to "hey, we only give the public what it wants" is the pendulum about to swing back, perhaps made to do so by force?

It could happen, and here's why - what would you rather watch, another story about John Edward's hair or a violent, colorful argument about that story? The argument! It's a sure-fire ratings grabber, PLUS the news people can feel better about themselves filling the air time with it. You can say it's onanism, reporters reporting about reporting, but so what? Isn't it still better than a straight Britney Spears piece?

It's a ridulous path to the return of responsible journalism but at least it's a path. Next step - firing all sexy anchor people. Don't worry, they'll find work somewhere.

Attention Supreme Court!

There, you happy?

I Cannae' Change The Laws Of Physics!

(Title quote courtesy James "Scotty" Doohan - glad they found the ashes!)

Having grown up in California schools, I don't have a thorough grounding in science. But I recall hearing that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If this is true, we should all be very worried about Dick Cheney.


To recap, Cheney's claim that his office isn't subject to document disclosure rules because it is not a part of the executive branch has produced a novel proposal from Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is introducing a bill to stop funding his office from the executive branch budget. The VP infrastructure pulls down about $4.5 million a year.

Maybe it's childish, maybe it's shrewd. But here's my problem. If Cheney isn't getting federal money, it's not like he's just going to admit this or obey that. He'll simply look for other ways to raise the money. He's already getting kickbacks from Haliburton - why would they give him any more? Because he's going to expand their market into new territories, like Iran. That's why.

If Dick Cheney is desperate, he'll go into Iran.

So the best thing to do is to back off and leave the guy be. Except then, he'll know that he can't be stopped. He'll know that he has unlimited power, and with that he'll do what he's always wanted to do - send troops into Iran.

If Dick Cheney is left alone, he'll go into Iran.

The action/reaction law I quoted earlier is often illustrated with billiard balls. You hit an 8-ball with a cue ball, then the 8-ball absorbs the energy and flies off. Think of us as a cue ball and and Cheney as the deadly asteroid in ARMAGEDDON. It takes more than a few accountants to stop him. It takes a nuclear device, a handful of recognizable American movie stars and a power ballad, and even then we can expect devastation. Bringing Cheney down is going to be ugly. And I don't wanna miss a thing.

New Uses For Ann Coulter

I never get tired of writing about Ann Coulter. After her dust-up with Elizabeth Edwards, it occurred to me that arguing with her is like beating your head against an adam's apple.

But the criticism got me thinking - what does Ann Coulter DO, exactly? She's a pundit, obviously, but not a serious one. She couldn't be put on a panel with Britt Hume and Juan Williams. She tells jokes. She's funny, in a 1/2 HOUR NEWS HOUR kind of way. So suppose she wanted a regular gig on a mainstream news show, instead of one of these once-every-book jobs she gets?

You know who has a slot for a gal like Ann? Keith Olberman.

The final story on COUNTDOWN is usually something involving light news, like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. Often he'll just bounce jokes with a BEST WEEK EVER regular or gossip columnist, like Michael Musto. Ann 'n' Keith would be a match made in heaven. First of all, Keith already has experience in that segment with Musto, a substanceless awkward person of dubious sexuality. Secondly he knows Coulter like the back of his hand, having frequently featured her as his worst person in the world.

Ann could spout off whatever crazy shit she likes because, you know, the segment is dessert. It's a throwaway. And Keith would let her, because it proves he was right all along. The ratings would shoot through the roof. Ann gets regular exposure, Keith grabs new ratings -- win/win!

I'm going to reference Monica Novotny, Keith's producer, here in hopes that someone on the staff Googles her name. Monnie, make this happen! It's a weird idea but nobody has anything to lose. Just don't let her in the same studio as Keith, because THAT might get ugly.

Meat is Murder -- Delicious, Juicy Medium-Rare Murder

I'm reading a piece on the podcast tonight about PETA, and their picks for the sexiest vegetarian celebrities. I think it's Carrie Underwood and Kevin Eubanks this year. Whatever.

Periodically I wrestle with the idea of becoming vegetarian, simply because I'm certain I'd lose weight. Meat isn't inherently fattening but limiting your dietary choices inherently is. The second you start questioning every snack over whether there is dairy in it, or wheat, you're forced to also think "is it worth the trouble to eat this?" Boom! There goes 10 pounds. Which, by the way, would put me within actuarial tables' opinion of what I should weigh.

A lot of people object to carnivorism on moral grounds. Either it's bad for the environment because you're artificially raising the population of cows and feeding them, instead of just making cow feed into human feed, or you're taking the life of a creature with a brain and a soul.

You are, you know. Can't be helped.

There have been studies which suggest that plants also posses intelligence. If you limit your diet to things without intelligence, you won't be sexy for long. You'll be food for one of those other things. It's the circle of life. Can you feel the love tonight?

Nice guy that I am, even I recognize that you gotta either kill or be killed. What you kill is a matter of choice; if I could afford it and it wouldn't clog up my arteries my choice would be Kobe cow about once a month. Well-done, with a horseradish sauce and a side of once-lively vegetables, and a red wine made from the life-force of happy central-California grapes. I'd savor the well-marbled deeply browned flesh of this animal for the full month until nothing was left but the bones, which I would happily give to my faithful dogs, who demonstrate their affection by not eating me instead.

Instead I cheerfully enjoy chicken, turkey, and lesser quality beef on a daily basis. Thus do I remain nourished and confident that I'm at the top of the food chain.

For now.

Secure, Undisclosed Locution

The Vice-President's office, it turns out, isn't part of the executive branch. Who knew!

This position, taken by Dick Cheney in reponse to requests that he turn over documents required by long established federal law, isn't flying. The panel on Fox News Sunday for example, mostly laughed it off. Even Britt Hume said it was "dumb." William Kristol thought it made perfect sense. He started the Iraq war, you know.

If people who work for Fox News disagree with Dick Cheney, then Cheney is wrong. I'm saying this because they all are risking a smear campagin, getting shot in the face or both.

============================

Update: "Either Wednesday or Thursday my amendment will be on the floor, because the funding for the executive branch is on the floor. And I’ll strike the money for the Vice President’s Office. He can live off the Senate presidency budget that funds him up here. And that’s fine. But if he’s going to be funded in the executive branch, he complies with the rules that apply to everybody. He is not above the rules of the executive branch. " - Rahm Emmanuel

Harry Shearer pointed out on LeShow this weekend that Dick Cheney has spent his entire career attempting to restore power to the executive branch, making him perhaps the most selfless man in politics - he's the only politician ever to make his life's work giving power to others.

Judge: Not!

Woo hoo! The judge who sued a Korean immigrant couple for $54 million dollars because he claims they lost his pants, has lost his case. He has been ordered to pay the court costs of the defendants.

Look, judges are people too, and it's only natural that one of them will go nuts and freak out, once in a while. But its really nice to know that other judges will ignore professional courtesy long enough to dole out common sense decisions. I'm relieved, frankly. They came for our dry-cleaning shops, and I said nothing.

What the World Needs Now Is Dogs, Ugly Dogs

This is Elwood, a chinese crested/chihuahua mix and winner of Petaluma's annual Ugliest Dog contest. When I say he's a mixed breed, please understand this was acheived conventionally and not by using the same teleportation chambers as in Cronenberg's remake of THE FLY.

Elwood's tongue hangs out the side like that because he has no front teeth. Quoting Elwood's owner, New Jersey resident Karen Quigley:

"The breeder was going to euthanize him because she thought he was too ugly to sell," said Quigley. So ha ha, now Elwood's all over the Internet and people love him and adore him."

Indeed we do, ma'am.

Blog: A Blogger Blogs About Blogging

I just finished an entry for my other (allegedly profitable) blog enterprise, BOX OFFICE WEEKLY. It illustrates a writing strategy I learned from doing improv - if you're stuck for an idea, introduce a random non-sequitor element and write your way out of it.

For readers of this blog, I also did it here.

The Marketplace of Ideas

In order to keep my threads tidy, I'm responding to my good friend WAMK here, in a new post. He writes:

What about the other part of my comment, about just turning off the radio, if you don't like what is on it, the same way the Left has told Conservatives to turn off the TV if we don't like the content.

Good question.

My answer, of course, is that you're right. Let the marketplace decide. Unlike many other liberals, I think Fox News is on the air not because of some right-wing conspiracy, but because it gets the ratings. Therefore, viva Fox! It's just a little odd to me, though, that AM talk radio skews soooooooo far to the right, when the polling suggests there's better money in balancing it out a little. Worrisome, but capitalism has built-in correctives for this. If I'm right, I suspect Michael Savage will give up the most market share the earliest, 'cause that guy's just NUTS.

I was kidding about giving us AM stations, but I'm afraid I have to admit that you're right; the left will often call for the silencing of opposing viewpoints, perhaps more often then the right does. Witness the periodic calls for Ann Coulter to be dropped from syndication whenever one of those hate-speech bon mots escapes her lips. The right's method for dealing with those who disagree with them is not to demand they be silenced; it's usually to attack the messenger and attempt to ruin their lives for speaking out. Cindy Sheehan questions our presence in Iraq? She's a crazy, evil, fame-whore who only wants attention. John Kerry runs against the president? He lied about his military record and can't make up his mind. Harry Reid? Grey, defeatist, wants the terrorists to win because his only passion is hating the President. And so on.

Neither side is better in how they treat their debate opponents. We all should be attacking the ideas and leaving the people alone. Personally I like having Ann Coulter around because I can point to her as a particular kind of right-wing crazy. Ann Coulter is a DNC recruiting poster. I know that that was exactly the kind of attack I'm decrying here, but she's gotten most of her best exposure from behaving like that so I'm just agreeing to play on her turf. And she's a solid competitor, being a transvestite and all. *snap!*

Incidentally, no one would really expect you to just turn off the news if you disagree with it. I mean after all, every single MSM outlet except Fox has a far-left liberal bias. Ya'll would get less media than the Amish.

Angry Liberal Blogosphere Problem Solved!

It's true that I am swimming around the Angry Liberal Blogosphere even as I write this, but I'm all about helping. That's just how I roll.

Crooks and Liars links to a panel on Fox News. (Note - there's actual video! I wonder if Fox knows yet that people can watch this stuff after it's been aired? Have they told Cheney?) The panel's general complaint, I'm reading, is that Democratic leadership in Washington is influenced by the crazy bloggers on the left, who take partisan talking points and repeat them endlessly until they take on the weight of truth. And as everybody knows, bloggers should repeat talking points GIVEN to them by the leadership of their party.

So bloggers, a group of elites made up of, oh basically anybody who wants to be one, is somehow unfairly influencing government by demading that they (let's call them "the citizens") be represented.

And the problem is only going to get worse, as more "citizens" feel the urge to express their "opinions." How can we stop this flood of left-wing blogs?

The answer comes in a report (.pdf) published by the Center for American Progress and Free Press. Did you know that AM Talk Radio has a conservative bias? Yes!

* In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

So there's your answer. Give us more AM Talk stations! Maybe we can divvy 'em up roughly along the lines of the President's approval rating. Hell, even if we even do it by Congress's approval rating we'll gain 10%.

Your Freedom To Choose What I Want

In the course of my usual blog arguments this morning, a paragraph caught my eye. From an Investor's Business Daily editorial about Jimmy Carter, and his less-than-vicious statements about Hamas.

When one party has started a civil war, democracy isn't exactly the issue anymore. ...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly points out that those who are elected democratically have an obligation to govern democratically or they aren't democrats. Hamas has blown its right to democracy.

Now understand I'm not crazy about Jimmy Carter, and Hamas is a bunch of war-mongering lunatics masquerading as a political party. But what the hell is this anonymous editorialist getting at here? I'll paraphrase: We, the United States, are the judges of whether your elections should count. The editorial doesn't dispute that the Palestinian vote was orderly and fair (well he does put "scare quotes" around that term, and later the word "won", but that's not the same as disputing) he merely disputes the RIGHT of them to govern since he doesn't like how they're doing it.

Democracy is a messy business, and if you are going to encourage the people to choose their leaders, you better be prepared for them to do it. We have been trying to cram Democracy down the sandy throats of the Middle East for a long time now; if we tell them "you need to pick a leader we LIKE" then we're selling defective product. And they don't exactly love doing business with us now, effendi.

The editorial also says "No one in the West is obligated to support an international terrorist organization just because it "won" an election. The proper response is to cut it off until it renounces violence." I agree with that. If they want our help, we can demand that they act a certain way. It's hypocritical to demand non-violence out of Hamas, but not unreasonable. If they have something we want, we can change our behaviors too. Fair exchange.

Turtles All The Way Down

TV Producer Joel Surnow has plenty to answer for. First of all, he's responsible for Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour, a show which is to comedy what Fox News is to accuracy. But even worse, he has warped one of our greatest legal minds.

The Canadian Globe and Mail reports from a legal conference in Ottawa this week, and passes along the following account concerning panelist Justice Antonin Scalia:

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said.

Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so... So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

That really fired up the panel, and made for a plenty lively discussion, you betcha.

Presumably the eccentric Justice S. was being provocative by citing a fictional character from Surnow's 24 to prove his hypothetical points, but he's running into the same problem that all pro-torture advocates face. It's a logic thing that Scalia is familiar with, because he used it himself in a decision he wrote.

In our favored version, an Eastern guru affirms that the earth is supported on the back of a tiger. When asked what supports the tiger, he says it stands upon an elephant; and when asked what supports the elephant he says it is a giant turtle. When asked, finally, what supports the giant turtle, he is briefly taken aback, but quickly replies "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way down."

Yep, it's basing your conclusion on unproven assumptions. To support torture you have to assume that it's your only way of getting the information, that your subject HAS the information, that he'll tell the truth only if you torture him, and that he's even the terrorist you thought you had in the first place. If not you're committing cruelty on someone for no reason. And if you don't have a problem with that, you're a Nazi. (Reducto Ad Hitlerum for illustrative purposes only.)

It is amazing to me how conservatives, who are so opposed to change, are willing to drop traditional pre-ratings code film mores as their guidelines. Look at any good-versus-evil movie. Star Wars - who tortures, the rebels or the empire? The empire! Marathon Man - who tortures, the method actor or the evil Nazi dentist? Dentist! Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3, Hostel, Hostel 2, Touristas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original and remake) who tortures? The EVIL people!

Up until Jack Bauer, the hero is the one who avoids torture. Scalia endorsing torture is like Nixon growing his hair long and smoking weed because it looked cool in Easy Rider.

My Blog is Worth...

You know that picture of George Washington to the side - yeah, the field is editable. I wish I'd figured that out months ago... I could have attracted investors.

Actually what I wish is that investors hadn't figured it out.

The thing that steams me is it's supposed to take its value from web traffic. Since I have virtually none (hi Skot! hi MD!) I'd expect the figure to be zero, but how come I can change it myself? I'll never trust George Washington again. Just one more Washington I'll never trust again, I suppose.

Catch Phrase Of the Day

The Magna Carta was signed on June 15, 1215 in Runnymede. In honor of it, today's catch phrase:

Nobody puts Habie in the Corner!

Attention T-shirt companies - rights are available. But they're goin' fast.

Document Dump: RNC Fundraising Letter

If you saw my previous post, but you never get this kind of mail, you may enjoy these.

The RNC Asks For My Help

First of all, understand I'm thrilled. I get junk mail from the Democrats ALL THE TIME asking me for money, but they have never, ever asked for my opinion. But today in the mail, direct from 310 First Street in Washington, this came from the RNC.

Dear Fellow Republican,

You are among a select group of Republicans who have been chosen to take part in the official 2007 CENSUS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Enclosed is your new 2007 GOP CENSUS DOCUMENT, which was assigned and prepared especially for you as a representative of all Republicans in your voting district.

(There follows a registration number and voting district code, which I must assume are unique to me. After all, they used my nickname "Fellow Republican" at the top of the letter. How did they know?)

Your answers will be used to develop a NEW BLUEPRINT for the Republican party for the next 10 years, a BLUEPRINT to rebuild our party from the grassroots up.

But, because it is cost prohibitive for the Republican Party to print and mail an official REPUBLICAN PARTY CENSUS to each and every one of the 62,000,000 Republicans nationwide, your answers will represent the views and opinions off ALL Republican voters living in your voting district.

The four-page letter goes on to paint a grim picture of recent Republican history. I'd quote more but I don't think we need to air that dirty laundry again here! Along with it, a kind of survey, asking for my opinion to help guide them as they build their new platform. I can answer yes, no or undecided to the following questions, among others.

1. If Democrats try to gut the USA Patriot Act and other important laws that promote the safety and security of all Americans, should Republicans in Congress fight back?
2. Should we do everything we can to stop Democrats from repealing critical border and port security legislation?
3. Should President Bush's successful income and capital gains tax cuts be made permanent?
4. Do you support President Bush's initiative to allow private religious and charitable groups to do more to help those in need?
5. Do you agree that sowing the seeds of Democracy and freedom in the Middle East is a worthy goal?

(I wonder why they capitalized Democracy but not freedom? Odd.)

Anyway, I'm so pleased that they're really willing to listen to us now instead of TELLING us what to think. And I'm pleased to not be hit up for money! Oh oh...

6. Will you support the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?

There follows a series of amounts with $100 helpfully flagged as enough "to mail 250 more Census Documents to registered Republicans". Like me. I was going to send $350 but then I realized that's what I got back as a tax rebate that one year, so it didn't seem right somehow. Instead I'm sending nothin'.

I suppose I should fill out the survey, but I don't want to gum up the works by giving them my opinions, so I'll keep that to myself too. Although I gotta admit, knowing that my answers will be counted as representative of ALL Republicans in my district... it is pretty tempting.

You Can't Get Any More Independent

"(Party head) John Orman called Tuesday for Sen. Joe Lieberman to resign, saying his advocacy of a military strike against Iran could explode into a global conflict. "He has crossed the line," said Orman, a professor of politics at Fairfield University. "His unilateral warmongering could lead to a new World War III."
- the Connecticut Post

The punchline is that John Orman is the head of the Connecticut for Leiberman Party, which only has one elected member at the moment.