Paris, I'd rather see you nailed into that box behind you

...than in my favorite color.

Preach on, brother Frank

I like Frank Rich.

Especially when he makes my counter-argument for me. TRO wrote in with a comment that "There is a BIG difference. Mammoth actually." between McCain/Hagee/Falwell and Obama/Wright.

I felt that comment deserved a reply, but to tell you the truth I just got home about 20 minutes ago from spending the afternoon and evening with my nephew, and I'm kinda beat.

So, imagine my delight at finding the one-time "hot seat" theater critic's column in tomorrow's Times is on this very same subject. Bigger than usual excerpts follow.

those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

...virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001, televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

A warning to Faeries

There's only so far you can go in terms of dressing up dragons in feather boas and putting makeup on their snouts before they just decide--

"Oh, t'hell with it,"

--and start rending you limb from limb.

Keep in mind that I still want anime eradicated

Sweet land-a-goshin

Brittany Murphy's legs just go all the way up to her neck, don't they?

No...no, I can't...it's just too easy a shot...

...oh, alright, fine. Ahem:

"Linday Lohan poses in front of her intellectual equal."


Now I feel dirty...

Oh boy

A woman who was awarded the Silver Star--the nation's third-highest medal for bravery in combat--has been removed from combat. Why? Because chicks can't fight. Seriously, that's what it says, in black-and-white. "Chicks can't fight."

...oh all right, not in so many words, but the implication is clearly there.

Judith Godrèche

What the heck, I haven't done this for about a year...

Over at No Smoking in the Skull Cave, I just won Becca's weekly Guess That Movie Quote game. Which reminded me, it's been about a year since I did my little version of that popular internet pastime.

Some people, like Becca, can do it just about every week, but I find once a year is sufficent for my purposes. If I run too many movie quotes, I'll never have time to dance on George W. Bush's political grave...

So anyway, here we go, you know the rules, I give you the quote, you give me the movie. Onward!

1. Well, the Big Bad Wolf was really gone / And with him went his corny horn / Went out of this world without a trace / Didn't go to Heaven, t'was the other place.

2. "Well now, what about that, huh? What about a woman showing up naked in a public place, Freddie?"
"Well I'm for it, of course."

3. "Silly little planet. Anyone could take over the place with the right set of mammary glands."

4. "How could you?"
"It was easy."

5. "This mission sucks!"

6. "Why is the rum gone?!"
"One; because it is a vile drink that turns even the most respectable men into complete scoundrels; two; that signal is over a thousand feet high! The entire Royal Navy is out looking for me; do you really think there is even the slightest chance that they won't see it?!"
"But... why is the rum gone?"

7. "Hi, I'm Plenty."
"But of course you are."

8. "Are... are you my conscience?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm your conscience. We haven't spoken for a while. How are you?"

9. "Yeah, I had a dream, Charlie, but now I’m awake. And I hate my dream."

10. "That's impossible! Even for a computer."
"It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters."

Wow.

A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.


A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll shows 71 percent disapprove of President Bush's job performance.

CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974."

I mean that "wow" kind of seriously, BTW. I knew he was unpopular, but good god. I almost don't want to do the "can we impeach him now?" bit...

Phrases that don't belong in the same sentence.

At Daily Kos, davidkc has a lengthy post about "Hillary's serious gay problem." I agree with virtually all of it, but I'm assuming most people reading this either do too, or don't care, so I'm not going to quote huge sections of it.

I just wanna pull this one sentence, and suggest it should have been re-phrased.

Hillary has given lip service to supporting GLBT rights, but her actions over the past few months - not to mention the past few decades - have shown that Hillary is not only trying to distance herself from the gay community and GLBT issues but has done her best to use anti-gay sentiment to her advantage.

"Hillary has given lip service."

"gay community."

Phrases that don't belong in the same sentence.

You have got to be ratfucking KIDDING me!

Oh, goodness. Oh, my gracious...ok, lemme calm down so I can set this up properly. Okay. Ahem. All right. As you may or may not have noticed, as much as I may rip on Bush, his administration, and conservatives in general, one well to which I don't think I've ever gone is the Hitler/Nazi comparison.

As much as I may hate Bush & Co. for the many things they've done to my country, including feeding the Bill of Rights into a shredder, he's not Hitler (for one thing, Hitler could talk), and they're not Nazis.

And anyway, I believe Godwin's Law is not just for Usenet anymore.

So yeah, like I say, I don't play that card.

Except--

When a Republican candidate speaks at a birthday party for Adolph Hitler.

Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Indiana's 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.

(there's pictures. Believe you me, you gotta see the pictures)

And get this (& if I were you, I wouldn't be drinking soda when I read this next part unless you want to spit your pop of choice all over your keyboard). When asked why he would appear in front of Hitler-loving Socialists, between the two of them, arguably, universally representative of the worst things about the last century, he replied:

"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle said Monday. "I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta."

This, children, is what we call False Equivalence...

Yo, dumbasses in the media!

Can you say:

More people care about McCain dancing the Texas two-step
Or Clinton having all the convictions of a windsock.
Than give a shit about who Obama thinks is bitter or who he used to hang with.

I knew you could.

Per NBC and the Wall Street Journal:

43 percent of registered voters say they have major concerns that McCain is too closely aligned with the current administration.

By comparison:

36 percent have major concerns that Clinton seems to change her position on some issues (like driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which her husband signed but which she now opposes)
34 percent say they’re bothered by Obama’s “bitter” remarks
32 percent have a major problem with the Illinois senator’s past associations with Wright and the 1960s radical William Ayers

Do you get it now?

just stumbled across some fun pictures by an artist named Brianna Garcia...

I'd post one or two, but in the FAQ on her deviantART site, she says she prefers people not put her work on their blogs, etc.

I respect that, so I'm just providing the link and hoping you will go see for yourself.

Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home

A Media Matters for America review found that since February 27, the date that televangelist John Hagee endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, The New York Times and The Washington Post combined have published more than 12 times as many articles mentioning Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Sen. Barack Obama as they have mentioning Hagee and McCain.

For any conservatives who may be looking in, this would be an example of balance bad.

Great paragraphs in literature

The porter opened the door to find the blonde girl in front of him. He was, to say the least, surprised, because she was standing there completely naked.

...from the book, Zigzag : the incredible wartime exploits of double-agent Eddie Chapman by Nicholas Booth.

It's official: Hillary Clinton has vinegar for blood.

That's the only way she could say Wright was "Offensive And Outrageous" while sitting across from Bill O'Reilly.

For those of you playing at home, that's Bill "made a million dollar settlement payment...to have his sexual harassment case...go away" O'Reilly. Bill "The Dixie Chicks should be physically abused" O'Reilly.

Bill O'Reilly, who said of my wonderful old stomping grounds:

"[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco."

Bill O'Reilly:

A "national underground network" of pink pistol-packing lesbians is terrorizing America. "All across the country," they are raping young girls, attacking heterosexual males at random, and forcibly indoctrinating children as young as 10 into the homosexual lifestyle"

And of course, Bill O'Reilly, the whining liar.

That Bill O'Reilly. But, it's Wright who's "Offensive And Outrageous"

Can I assume that if only he had a show on FOX, sitting down with the Reverend would be perfectly all right?

Laugh it up, Hill.

Here we see Hillary Clinton being endorsed by North Carolina Governor Mike Easley. In lending Mrs. Clinton his support, Governor Easley uses a usually disparaging term for a weak or effeminate man, boy, or male homosexual.

And Mrs. Clinton laughs.

I'm reminded, as I so often am, of a line from a "West Wing" episode, in this case On The Day Before. It was spoken by a Republican congressman to Sam and Toby.

Take a look around at all the democrats running from you right now. Do you even know who your friends are anymore?

ETA: And here's Andrew Sullivan comparing her to Karl Rove-

Clinton. Never miss an opportunity to exploit homophobia. Remember DOMA? Remember doubling the discharges from the military? Remember inaction on AIDS? Remember the Clintons' using anti-gay marriage ads in the South in 1996? And yet the gays keep coming back for more. I don't understand why. I really don't.

-which is kind of spooky considering all the ethical pretzels into which Sullivan used to have to twist, to assure himself the Bush administration really and truly did think he was a person. You see (for any of you who don't know), Sullivan is a homosexual who supported that administration for years.

I don't understand why. I really don't.

You have got to be frickin' kidding me.

A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between gay women and the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos.


Inhabitants on the Greek island of Lesbos, pictured, have launched a lawsuit against a gay rights group.

There's more if you can take it. BTW, notice something about the picture in that article. Now, I've never been to Lesbos. I'm sure it's very lovely there. But are you telling me they couldn't find a single picture to run with this particular story that wasn't of a fallen tree?

I think somebody at CNN was having their fun...a theory which is not exactly disproved by the headline "Lesbos ladies launch lesbian lawsuit." At times like this, I always think of the Albert Brooks line from Broadcast News:

"A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts."

Mae West was worth her cup size in quotes

West and Don Ameche appeared on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show in 1937, and did a sketch as Adam and Eve that was thought to be blasphemous and risque. Then, her sketch with Bergen’s dummy Charlie McCarthy was considered so shocking that she was banned from the airwaves and was not heard again on radio for 31 years. One line that drove the NBC executives to panic when she lewdly used it on the wood dummy was, “Charles, I remember our date, and have the splinters to prove it.”

Okay, the (latest) Rev. Wright thing

I haven't said much about this, because unlike conservatives, McCain supporters, and the media...I don't care. And also, as you know, I'm trying to cut back on the politics. But I wanted to say I agree with about 90-95% of this post from Hullabaloo, by brother (or sister) dday.

Especially the bits pointing out how clueless Chris Matthews is. My favorite, this quote from the ever-spooky Matthews:

Jeremiah Wright to a lot of people is Barack Obama.

Is it me, or does that sound like "They all look alike?"

Or as dday summarized Matthews' POV:

"I know I'm talking bullshit, but this is my impression of what the unwashed masses think, so, you know, I'm going with it."

And in conclusion, I've said this before. But anybody firing on Obama for Wright had better be taking exactly the same stance on McCain for Hagee and Falwell. If not they are, at best, hypocrites, at worst, racists.

This is my new favorite thing ever

...and I don't say that very often about things using images from video games, at least of the post-Donkey Kong era...but this is amazing.

Oh yes, I'd been meaning to say something about this...

Megan Fox has been named the world's sexiest woman. Well, I think we all know what's coming now, so sit back, get comfortable, and let's enjoy...

30 Women (give or take) who are sexier than Megan Fox.

(nothing personal, Megan)

Amber Benson. Need I say more?

Tina Fey. I still think she's overly-hyped as a performer and writer, but sexy, I'll grant you.





Sigourney Weaver. Defined the "hot bitch" school of female leads with Ripley (and I'm using "bitch" as a good thing).

I also find a certain amount of hope in knowing that part was created, and written, by men...



Kristen Bell. Do I really need to explain this to anyone at this point?

Just as an aside, Laura Prepon would have made this list until she went blonde against the Lord's will.



Jodie Foster. Do you notice--and I'm proud to say this wasn't intentional--a pattern in these choices so far? Most of these women are known for being, or at least playing, smart.

Alicia Witt. See, Laura? This could've been you.



Leelee Sobieski. This is another one of those "What can I add, at this point?" choices.



Deborah Kara Unger. Little-known, but hard to forget once you've seen her.



Michelle Williams. This is just a guess, but I think she might turn out to be the Kim Basinger of her generation.

Christina Aguilera. Ahem, let me see now, I think the proper answer to this gesture is...


"Yes, please."

Jena Malone.



Could she possibly be any more adorable?

Angela Bassett. Brace yourselves, kids...



...she's approaching 50. Actually, I haven't done a list-by-list comparision, but I'd be willing to bet I have more women in their late 30's and up in mine. Maybe I should accent the word women.

Alexis Dziena. Dziena, on the other hand, may be the Heather Graham of her generation...which, in the long run, is nowhere near as cool as being the Kim Basinger.



Mary-Louise Parker. Remember what I was saying about smart, talented women?



Saffron Burrows. See Leelee Sobieski and Amber Benson.

Amy Adams & Shirley Henderson, seen here together in Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, which is what put Henderson on my radar (for Adams, it was Charlie Wilson's War).



Rachel Bilson. If I was king for just one day...





Diane Lane. I dunno if she's had work done, but the girl still looks good...

Audrey Tautou. One day I gotta see her act...



Natalie Portman. Ok, so she seems like kind of a silly person, but you can't deny the beauty.





Rachel Weisz. Smokin'.

Another "Would've been on this list, but..." is Helen Hunt. I've no wish to be unkind; Hunt was very hot in the '90s, as well as being a gifted actress.

And I want to see her feature directorial debut, Then She Found Me, which has been getting solid reviews. But so far as her looks...something has happened.



Uma Thurman. If you have to ask, you can't possibly understand.



Evan Rachel Wood. If we could just get her away from that insane man of hers...



Eva Amurri. Of all the mid-20s actress-models of the day, she's the one to bet on getting even sexier as she gets older. And yes, that is a reference to her mother.




Abbie Cornish. Just one of the reasons I'm glad I saw Stop-Loss...

Why doesn't Dannii Minogue just jump up into my lap and get it over with already?

Seriously, why doesn't she?



(I know why...)

A second observation.

I'd like to start nibbling Pink's neck and not stop until...



(Ahem). Thank you.

Question: When did hope become a bad thing?

I think these are funny...and it doesn't hurt that Amber Benson is one of the actors in the first one. They were made for MoveOn's "Obama in 30 Seconds" contest and made it to the finals.





One more.

Oh, wow...

Julianne Moore as The Little Mermaid.



Continuing in that series of Annie Leibovitz Disney recreations.

Via Cinematical.

And now, an impersonation of a stoplight

Thank you.

Three green

Observation.

Mischa Barton has green eyes.



Thank you.

I've said it before and yes, I'll say it again:

Don't mess with my Gray Wolves, man...

From the AP via USA Today:

BILLINGS, Mont. — Environmental and animal rights groups are suing the federal government in hopes of restoring endangered species protections for gray wolves in the northern Rockies.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had removed the region's 1,500 wolves from the endangered list in March, turning over management responsibilities to state officials in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

The lawsuit alleges those states lack adequate laws to ensure wolves are not again eradicated from the region.

I have no idea what they're selling, but I'll take a six-pack

"And then the bear says, 'you aren't really here to hunt, are you?"

100_5063
Originally uploaded by jaime is the best lawyer in town.

Hey, get me, I'm in the Wikipedia

...or rather, my reviews are cited as sources for pages on the band Adventures in Stereo & the album The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 2. Plus I'm an "external link" on the Wally Wood page, but I already knew that.

This makes three times my name can be found on the "free, open content, community-built encyclopedia." Which is exactly once more than can be found the last living beaver, riotous Corey Klemow.

Fortunately, I'm not petty enough to rub his nose in that humiliation...

If this doesn't make you smile...

...I'd like to know what would.



The clips are from (it says here) a childrens' TV series, Pocoyo,which I've never seen. The song is by those superheroes of synth, Pet Shop Boys...

Green, too.