Oh, what a relief to my mind

Actual Wall Street Journal headline via Yahoo!:

Millionaire Population Bounces Back to Pre-Crisis Peak

Whew!

Recommended reading on the Israeli blockade

Via Daily Kos:

Can we stop pretending the blockade is about keeping weapons out of Gaza?

An official document obtained by McClatchy reveals the Israeli blockade of Gaza is not about weapons, but instead "economic warfare" meant to collectively punish the Gazan civilians for having the audacity to vote in a free and fair election in a way Israel doesn't like. This is a crime.

The Geneva Convention, in which Israel is a signatory, expressly prohibits targeting civilians for "collective punishment." This fact apparently has made little impression on the Israeli leadership.

You think I'm right to be suspicious of this, or is it only because it happened you-know-where?

Lightning kills Tenn. woman before fiance proposed

Lightning struck three times as the Knoxville, Tenn., couple were on Max Patch Bald, near Asheville. The third hit Butler, 30, and his girlfriend, Bethany Lott, 25, killing her on Friday, he told the Asheville Citizen Times. He suffered third degree burns.

"I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back," he told the newspaper. "My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire."

His mother, Janet Delaney, said her future daughter-in-law loved the mountains.

Butler suffered third-degree burns, but Delaney said he hasn't been to a doctor despite her urging him to go. She said his emotions seem to be in good shape.

Seriously. I'm asking you. I'm not going for the knee-jerk Tennesee joke here. Something about this makes me go hmm...

Aaron Sorkin writing for one of the greatest ensemble casts in TV history.

11 minutes of Sports Night, the show so good, it made me love a show that was about sports...sorta.

Long live Sheffield

What?

Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White

An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face from the mural, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students pictured on the school wall to be repainted as light-skinned children.

(All emphasis in original)

As I've said elsewhere: At least Arizona isn't kidding anyone, or even themselves, anymore. They might as well just put it right on the state flag: Arizona: Brown Spics Are Stupid.

So close.

Jennifer Love Hewitt reveals her rules for guys she'll date:

“Guys should be clean and their underwear free of skid-marks,” she said earlier this month. “If they are not then run as fast as you can in the other direction and never date him again.

“Guys should also be funny, have a great smile, be trustworthy and have a good relationship with his mom.”

A brief announcement

You longtime readers may remember that this blog was once Dictionopolis in Digitopolis. Well, guess what: It is again.

PS: Credit for the new header goes to maxiekatt2.

could i interest you in a little something special?

I picked up the album this was on from a "free with purchase" bin at a local used record shop, almost completely on a whim. Also because I remembered a single that got play on the modern rock station of San Francisco, but this is not that song. It is one of my two favorites on the album, and maybe one of my favorites ever.

Oh, my god. We're still dealing with this shit?

As you may have have seen elsewhere, Al and Tipper Gire are separating after 40 years. About this I have nothing to say but "Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that." What I do have something to say about is the very first two paragraphs (also known as the "lead") of the Associated Press story announcing it:

Al Gore once claimed his romance with wife Tipper inspired the novel "Love Story"

Oh, for fuck's sake. No, no he didn't. First of all, "claimed" means "To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain." That's not what Gore did regarding his and Tipper's connection to Love Story."

And now on to the second paragraph:

Now, after a 40-year marriage that survived the near-death of a child and the heartache of losing the disputed 2000 presidential election, the former high school sweethearts are calling it quits.

Two things. First, Al Gore did not lose the election. It was taken from him (not to say...stolen) by Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court, et all. But never mind that. Second: Did they just equate the Gore's feelings when their 6-year-old son was hit by a car to that of "losing" an election? And did they really use the word "heartbreak" about the latter?

Priorites.

This is quite possibly the creepiest thing I have ever seen.

Via queerest of them all, who incidentally were kind enough to link to me a week or so back.

A boy's first Kung Fu Flick

So keyed.

Recommended reading on the oil leak (some I agree with more than others)

From Nothing learned from Hurricane Katrina: Inept leaders crushing New Orleans again after BP oil spill :

Watching President Obama coolly insist that he was taking responsibility was oddly comforting.

He got elected on charisma. He'll need a ton more than that to fix the horrors here that have only just begun.

From Joe Klein: BP Oil Spill Is Actually Bush’s Second Katrina

Aha! Someone was listening during Obama’s press conference the other day, when he was sure to note that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had inherited a rotten Minerals and Management Service, “plagued by corruption for years.” Today on The Chris Matthews Show, Joe Klein of Time magazine acknowledged that unlucky inheritance, calling the BP oil spill catastrophe “more Bush’s second Katrina than Obama’s first.”

From Carol Browner: Administration 'Prepared For The Worst,' Oil May Leak Until August

President Barack Obama's top energy adviser says the Gulf oil spill is probably the biggest environmental disaster the country has ever faced.

And Carol Browner says the government is responding with what she calls its largest environmental response ever.

Already it's been called the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Browner says more oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico than from any previous U.S. oil spill – including the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989.

And finally, from Americans want a superman to turn back the black tide of oil

Suddenly Americans did not want an icy-cool leader but a superman. A nation whose distrust of central government has reached a post-Civil War high wanted a huge and powerful government to jump in. Perhaps no one summed up that desire more succinctly than Mr Obama’s daughter Malia, who peeked her head around the bathroom door last week to ask: “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”

No, he has not, and of course he cannot. That job can be done only by BP.

FWIW, I think this is the story with which I agree the most...except for that last part.

“Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”

No, he has not, and of course he cannot. That job can be done only by BP.

I don't think that's right. I think what Obama, BP, and every other person or corporation responsible is fumbling and fighting madly not to have to tell us is that this leak cannot be stopped. The hole cannot be plugged.

The only way this could've been stopped is if it had been avoided. And the only way it could've been avoided if a couple, or even one, of the presidents we've had just in my lifetime (Nixon to Obama) had been able to see beyond the millions of dollars oil companies wave in their face. They weren't.

I'm real sorry that Obama is going to have to take responsibilty for this, because I also agree with Joe Klein above.

But on the other hand, I'm not too sorry. Because every time this President or Congress has to take responsibilty for something Bush, Cheney and/or the rest of their White House did, I remember something else.

I remember that they--Obama, Pelosi, etc--let Bush and Cheney finish their terms and walk out free men. Because they did that, I can never fully escape the feeling that they deserve a great deal of the misplaced anger they're getting placed upon them.

The country knew how badly Bush and Cheney had fucked up, and wanted to see them held to account for it. When they weren't...

I know this isn't exactly news, but I. Fucking. Love. "Sinfest."

(Click image for better clarity)

Blues, nothing to win or to lose, it's getting me down, Who's escaped those weary twentieth century blues?

This is my favorite Elton John record...and it's not insignificant that he didn't write it. (Sorry to any fans, I'll admit he writes good bubblegum pop music, but the lyrics are idiotic.)

Way to make with the clever headlines...

HitFix:

'Sex and the CIty 2' comes early with $14.2 million Thursday

The '80s man's lullaby

Wait a minute...

What I want to talk about is something I heard Cliff Kincaid quoted as saying on the Keith Olbermann show just now.

"A vote to repeal the homosexual exclusion policy would inevitably mean more disease and death for members of our Armed Forces," stated Cliff Kincaid, the veteran journalist who runs ASI. "It is unconscionable to add this danger to the risks they already face in fighting for our freedom around the world."

No, not that. I'm assuming most if not all of the people who read this blog already share my belief that the homophobes screeching such about DADT being repealed are sick in the head. So I'm not going to get into this that way. I just wanted to give you an idea of where he was coming from.

This is what got me:

"If Congress repeals the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' homosexual exclusion policy," declared Kincaid, "Corporal Klinger could become a reality in the Armed Forces." Klinger was the bizarre character on the MASH comedy show that dressed up as a woman so that he could be kicked out of the service.

"Klinger may now give way to the Pentagon actually permitting transgendered male soldiers that look like Klinger to openly wear women's clothing," noted the ASI president.

Sigh...never mind that this implies homosexual=transvestite, which isn't true. Never mind that it also confuses transgender with homosexual, which isn’t true either. Here's my thing:

Corporal Klinger was not a homosexual. It's why his character was funny. The street kid from Toledo wearing dresses, worrying about the latest fashions in hem length and so on, while still remaining, emphatically, that street kid (and straight kid) from Toledo.

So the story goes, when Klinger was first introduced, the director had Jamie Farr play his one scene very effeminate/gay. Fortunately, the producers, including my man Larry Gelbart (who created the character) got to the scene and had it redone. And what was written as a one-shot became a regular who lasted to the end of the series.

I'm not surprised anymore that homophobes like Kincaid are sick in the head. I am surprised that he apparently never watched a single episode of what was arguably the most successful television series of all time...

Some days, a man just needs 10 minutes of '80s "new wave."

This man does, anyway.

Don't read this if you're at all affected by the ways in which we've lain waste to animals

Apart from that...I really don't know what to say.