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.

This is so on...

I wonder how that's going to go over

About 180 county employees in suburban Atlanta are being asked to return thousands of dollars the county says they were overpaid 16 years ago.

How about "Demands to see under threat that if they don't, we'll draft each and every one of their of-age children into military service?"

WH asks BP to share more information on spill

The White House is asking BP PLC to publicly disclose more information about the Gulf oil spill including measurements of the size of the leak 5,000 feet under the sea and air quality.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the White House is writing to BP asking the company to put that information on its website and be more transparent about its response.

"Asks to share?"

It's things like this that make me want to call for a violent overthrow of the United States government

ATMs a mystery to senator

The Nebraska Democrat [Sen. Ben Nelson] pleaded ignorance when asked this week whether Congress should cap ATM fees. Nelson said that while he's no fan of unnecessary fees, he's unfamiliar with the charges.

“I've never used an ATM, so I don't know what the fees are,” Nelson said, adding that he gets his cash from bank tellers, just not automatic ones.

Wait, it gets better.

“But I could learn how to do it just like I've . . . I swipe to get my own gas, buy groceries. I know about the holograms.”

Holograms?

By “holograms,” Nelson clarified that he meant the bar codes on products read by automatic scanners in the checkout lanes at stores such as Lowe's and Menard's.

Oh, sure, I can see how--what?

However, lest you think Nelson leads a completely pampered life inside a bubble, he insists:

“I go and get my own seating assignment on an airplane,” Nelson said.

Well! Aren't you a big boy?

This could ruin women for me altogether

Hollywood conjures images of the past New world needs spirituality That will last I've seen the future and it will be

Actual headlines on Yahoo! Homepage:

How America is creating an underclass

Experts say the country is in danger of turning into a two-class society

"Creating?" "In danger of turning into?"

Sigh.

Take it, Marvin...

Early signs that your child may in fact be the buddda

I love this (edited w/addition...I love these.)

Doctor's Girls Wallpaper by *mimi-na on deviantART

(I highly recommend checking out her d-Tart page...this woman is extraordinarily talented and I think I want to marry her)

Seriously. Cutest thing I've ever seen.

PS: Oh! And I just noticed that the girls from the black-and-white years are, indeed, drawn in B & W. This is great work.

ETA: Along these same lines...this made me laugh like a child.

(click on this, you need to see it full-size)


Doctor Hoo by ~pu-sama on deviantART

(and she ain't bad, either)

"Kristen Lopez Eastlick?"

It seems a local paper in racist/tea party Tennessee is managed by either idiots or liars. Or of course, you know, there's always the possibility they could be both.

Per Southern Beale:

Oh, Tennessean. Your gullibility would be laughable were it not so very appalling. Seriously, what does this say about your reputation that a D.C. lobbyist has managed to fool you not once, not twice, but three times in one six month period? Somewhere on K street a corporate lobbyist is laughing his ass off at you.

In December 2009, The Tennessean ran an anti-minimum wage op-ed by “Kristen Lopez Eastlick,” identified as “senior economic analyst at the Employment Policies Institute.”

"Kristen Lopez Eastlick?"

"Kristen Lopez Eastlick?"

And they weren't the least bit suspicious this was a phony name?

I must admit, I have a real curiosity about this movie

Wall Street 2, that is.

Well, I see no reason not to take their word for it, do you?

BP is claiming to have had some success in closing up the oil leak.

(And as someone notes in the comments, yeah...and the mission was accomplished.)