I thought Asa would enjoy this. Hell, even I enjoyed this.

Inside Columbus's Nationwide Arena, Bush's 20,000-strong crowd seemed re-energized. They roared with approval at all the cult-of-personality stimuli that mark a Bush campaign event in these final days. A four-person African-American a cappella group warmed up the crowd with a song in which the word "love" was replaced with the word "George."

As they sang, a group of clean-cut white kids marched into the stands. They wore black athletic shorts and red shirts emblazoned with the letter W and sat down in a pattern that formed a giant scarlet W in the stands. Up on the Jumbotron, a rock-video-style short film opened with quick cuts of various GOP all-stars shouting Bush's name. "George W. Bush!" said Jeb Bush. "George W. Bush!" said Laura Bush. "Viva Bush!" said George P. Bush. After the film, one side of the arena shouted "B-U" and the other side returned "S-H." When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bush arrived, the crowd cheered for seven minutes straight.

Looks good, huh?

Putin strengthens his crypto-dictatorship in Russia.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. If Putin wants to help fight a global war on Islamic terror, great. We need all the help we can get. But Putin turning Russia into a dictatorship (again!) simply sets them up as our next Big Bad a generation down the road.

Provided of course that 11.2 doesn't start a Second American Civil War. I'm already dusting off my grey VMI uniform in case the Old Dominion calls me.

Oh, wait. I just confused myself with Stonewall Jackson.

I have to say, as much as seeing "The Evil One" pop up on television maddens me about 9/11 and the Bush Admin.'s failures to kill him, I do think it's rather telling that when they wanted to effect Spanish elections, Al Qaeda managed to blow up a train station and kill hundreds. When they wanted to effect the Great Satan's elections, all they managed was a tape. And a goofy one at that. (Bin Laden referencing the "My Pet Goat Incident" is high comedy.) Could it be *gasp* that we are actually winning? I sure hope so.

The glorious Billmon is back for a day and talking about the creepy cult of the leader under(over)tones of the Bush campaign.

I have to say that all politics aside if you aren't thoroughly disgusted by the idea of having to sign a loyalty oath to see the President speak/campaign then I think you have some serious soul-searching to do. The President is supposed to be the President of all Americans, not just half of us. It really sickens me to see a man who tried to lead us all with a policy of centrism (Bill Clinton) get tarred and feathered and then a man who ran as a uniter drive an incredible wedge through this country to the extent that liberals can't even see him speak.

That's just not America. I'm sorry. When people say that we could be on the verge of fascism, or that this is the most important election of our lifetimes, this is what they mean. And this isn't about conspiracies or oil or vote swapping. This is about access and representation and fairness.

I have to say that in an instance like this it is incumbent on the members of the party at fault to either speak up and change their party's behavior or to abandon it. Republicans, like Democrats in the eighties, have some very serious soul-searching to do.

I leave you with this. Billmon provides us with this incredibly prescient quote:

"Sure, only here they'll call it anti-fascism."

Huey Long, when asked if fascism could ever come to America

I still don't have a costume. I do, however have an idea, but I fear it is just me delving into too-obscure costume territory yet again.

I wanted to be Bizarro. But then I realized that i'd already chopped up my superman outfit for another costume, and buying a new one is too expensive. Plus I want to wear my glaasses so i can see all the girls dressed as Sexy Whatevers (because girl's always just go as Sexy nurses, pilots, cats, presidents, etc. You name it, and slap a sexy on the front, and suddenly its a halloween costume) at Shane's Halloween Party. And I think I refuse to do the Clark Kent costume (suit and tie with dress shirt open to reveal Superman shirt underneath) because it's so overdone.

But then! Aha! I've already checked, and Meltdown has a Superman t-shirt with the backwards 'S' (ie a Bizarro t-shirt). I can do the Dlark get-up, but with the bizarro shirt and paint my face white, dye my hair black, and BAM Bizarro Clark.

Start talking people. I don't want another communist dracula on my hands.

I made the mistake of visiting that den of neo-con bile, The Belmont Club. Check out this totally-out-of-it passage on the sad news of Arafat's illness.

Twenty years of European and UN Middle Eastern policy may be lying on the deathbed with Arafat. That they had to fly in doctors to treat him in a makeshift clinic underscores how, after 50 years of UN relief and billions in European investment, there are no Palestinian institutions. Not even decent hospitals for its supreme leader. The downside of the Arab Way of War -- the Intifada in this case -- is that the concept of victory through denial is inherently pyrrhic. 'We burned our village in order to keep it from falling into enemy hands' is like lighting a match to examine the gas tank; it works but misses the point.

Sorry, boys, but did it ever cross your minds that maybe the reason why there's not a Palestinian infrastructure is because, oh, I don't know, the Israelis destroyed it? And not with simple bombs either, through that "Security Fence", through economic blockades, through a forced second-class servitude exerted for three generations by the only Democratically Elected Tyranny on the Planet. And what the Belmont Blokes call "pyrrhic" is largely the only way that an opressed people can make themselves heard. No right (well, left) thinking American supports the murder of innocents; but, unlike the Right, we condemn the murder of innocents on all sides. Whether it's Palestinian children gunned down by Israeli tanks, or Israeli children blown up by Palestinian freedom fighters. Yes, there is a certain nonsense to strategy of "lighting a match to examine the gas tank," but (and you'll excuse this analogy) the resultant explosion is the only way to alert the world community that there is indeed a problem that's threatening to destroy the entire gas yard and surrounding neighborhood.

You know those 380 tons of explosives that John Kerry and Michael Moore and all the others keep blaming our troops for losing? Well, big surprise, the IAEA was told to destroy them and didn't. IN 1995!

So what we have here is a case where the American weapons inspector said "destroy the weapons." And John Kerry's favorite government, the UN, says "no, they might not be for WMD, so we can't." Then nearly 10 years later the weapons go missing while our troops are busy demolishing a brutal dictatorship and probably end up being used against those very same troops by the people they were trying to liberate. And Kerry has the audactiy to blame Bush for this?

Mel Gibson stumps against Prop 71, the stem cell funding prop, which Ahnuld supports.

Why oh why can't our 80s action stars get along?

I keep saying it, and they just keep proving me right. What more proof do you need that the BBC has a crippling liberal bias than using Michael Moore as their 2004 election anchor?

Lies, distortions, and truth shadings from this Admin. really shouldn't be surprising at this point. But this one might take the cake for it's obviousness. You know, you'd think Bush and Co. would have had the common sense to at least go to a legit effects house, but instead it looks like they just went in FOX News' basement and cooked this one up.

Well, whatever fears we had that Rove and his Orc Army would unleash some sort of October bombshell seem to have been just that -- fears. In retrospect, it's hard to believe that we thought that an administration that bungled a War (that they started!) could even be capable of something as inherently difficult as trapping Bin Laden, holding him, and then displaying him to the U.S. public. But, hey, when conservatives control the media, it's not surprising that even the Left bought into the notion of the uber-competent Republican Machine.

What is not surprising, however, is that the truth (that old GOP bugaboo) has found a way in this late stage of campaign spin. With Kerry's massive, rainbow coalition of the willing (and this one fights for good!) further moving away from Bush in all the key states, the Next President got the final boost he needed with al Qaqaa.

As usual, Talking Points has a great roundup of all the rapidly collapsing Bush Admin lies surrounding this debacle. So, let me get this straight: we went into Iraq to find weapons, and then didn't even protect those weapon caches that we were going there to destroy? Something tells me that even if we sent enough troops, this sort of thing would still have happened, though, as the Bushies were always more concerned with securing the Ministry of Oil than they were arms. Real or imagined.

Oh, and what does the MooneyTimes Fantasy Land Paper run in light of this massive story? A trumped-up bit of hearsay and conjucture that says that Russian Spec Forces helped Saddam steal away his weapons just before the American "liberators" got there. Never mind the fact that those al Qaqaa weapons were probably the very ones that we sold to Saddam in the '80s.

Still more hilarity in all this...

How about the fact that an administration claimed the support of Dictator-in-Waiting Vampire Putin just last week, now sends up this false story? Even I'm confused as to who exactly is "friends" with America. It seems to change with the hours.

The one thing that's not changing is Kerry's lead. And for that I can sleep well at night.

Now with that last post out from under me (it was pretty non-partisan, I think it's OK) I officially declare BIZARRO DAY open for business. If you don't get it now, you will soon enough.

Also, as a quick note, the musically minded Anthony Miccio and gloriously geeky Jeff Stone have been added to the blog roll.

Jeff recently noted that Grant Morrison is his favorite comic writer (hey, mine too!) and I notice that he's got Long Story, Short Pier on his blogroll. This is a fine time to remind everyone that that's good shit. They had me at old-timey-sailor-illustrations, but really it just gets better from there.

In case you didn't know, Alex has been been cheating on me by masturbating into cyberspace all on his lonesome over at Theo's gift. I like to pretend it doesn't happen, but every once in a while I check in.

Anyway, in this post he links approvingly to this quote: "What slightly disturbs me about most liberals is their hypertense refusal to admit the corollary. "Anybody But Bush"--and this from those who decry simple-mindedness--is now the only glue binding the radical left to the Democratic Party right. "

That's not a fault of liberals, or the Democratic Party, or even Bush's power to unite through incompetence, but rather of the two party system. According to virtually anyone but Ralph Nader, it is in your best interest to vote for the candidate you hate least. This is how grand coalitions are built and how Olympia Snowe and Tom DeLay can be in the same party. Or how Log Cabin Republicans can keep a straight face (no pun intended) when they say that third word in their name.

Alex does make the case for the Right also having this problem, but I think doesn't go far enough in how it plagues the Right as much as the left, or the obvious cause of it in the first place.

It's a process. Bear with me. And feel free to comment on the theories, if you're up to date on IC.

I've come to two conclusions:

1) Batman was present for the initial power pact and convinced Zatanna to wipe everyone else's memory, maybe including her own, of his presence so that he could act as a failsafe for what was, admittedly, a dangerous game. Batman loves the failsafes. This is the only reasonable explanation I've got for the flashback inconsistency.

2) Bolt was set up, just like Digger. Whether his powers failed him or not it seems clear he didn't expect the kids to shoot him. The guy's a supervillain. If two kids pop guns on him after he says he isn't paying them for their merchandise I don't think he would say "W-what's wrong with you? Friggin' psychos." I think he was told the money had exchanged hands, while the twigs were told he would have the money on him. We interpret his "who said anything about money?" as a threat, when it is actually a genuine question.

3) The calculator goaded Bolt into that deal, much the same way he guides Digger's relationship with his son. It's fair to say that if Calculator isn't the mastermind then he is certainly acting on behalf of that person.

4) Most likely metod of entry for Sue and Jean's attackers: Mirror Master technology. The magnifying glass has a reflective surface and there is a hall mirror right behind the door that Jean is hung from.

5) It stands to reason that in issue 5 Boomerang was actually going to the Drake's apartment to catch Sue's murderer, not kill Jack Drake. He tells his son that this one will put him "back on the map." Given that Robin's identity is not public, wouldn't Drake's murder just be chalked up as more Gotham crime? How would killing a single father put the Boomerang boys back on the map? It's also worth noting that Owen (Boomerang Jr.) seems more upset than he maybe should be that his father has done this. Is he working for the Calculator? Did he plant the gun in Drake's apartment? Did he hire the Calculator to get his father back into his life?

Now that we're on Boomerang, he's dead and all, but could he be the killer? In issue 3 Calculator says "He owes me a favor" and Merlyn responds with the implication that the favor Calculator did was getting the lovechild story into the tabloids. What if the favor was actually the botched job in the alleyway that distracted Ralph during Sue's murder? In the very next scene Calculator says to Boomerang "Nobody's going to hire you, not after what you did with-" Boomer: "I was just trying to prove I still had it." Calc: "Yeah, well- If you want to do that you have to go bigger than-"

From a pure narrative perspective Digger makes a good killer because now that he's dead before the mystery is solved we don't have to worry about what punishments the JLA will mete out.

That would also explain the line "this time I'm leaving a card. OUR card." Up until now the killer has left the calling cards of other villains, Dr. Light/Firefly/etc and Slipknot. This time Boomerang will take credit for what he's been doing.

Boomerang actually makes more sense as the killer now that he's dead. Funny that.

Also that was way more than 2 conclusions. I can't believe how this is ruining my life.

Someone on the Geoff Johns board finds the between identity crisis and the red sox: "Suddenly game four, Roy Palmer comes flying in and snatches victory litterally out of the teath of death, saving his ex-wife at the last minute.  Much as David Ortiz snatched victory from the Yankees in 12 innings.  The first stirring of life and hope can be sensed from our heroes."

Well, Maakies! runs in the LA Weekly, so I guess the answer is yes.

Well, here it is, our first good look atChristian Bale as Batman. Color me unimpressed. It's like a busier version of the suit from Batman Returns (Alex's favorite). The only improvement I can see is the all black batsymbol. Otherwise, meh.

I can't believe I wrote that much about Identity Crisis and don't really feel any closer to a solution.

But it's so good.

You jerk.

Alex asked what I had to say about Sully's "endorsement" of John Kerry, and I will try to respond in greater detail later. But reading through it, the first thing that jumped out at me is how truly tepid the endorsement was. It was, much like the Slate endorsements, mainly a critique of Bush, followed by a meek little "so I guess I'll vote for Kerry." This seems to be the defacto position these days, especially among liberals and Democrats (yes, they're very different), to the extent that you must wonder who the hell voted for him in the primaries because nobody seems to like him in even the slightest.

But from his principled stand against Vietnam, a wildly unpopular thing to do despite people trying to paint it as some kind of cynical jumping off point to a career in politics, to his takedown of BCCI, Kerry really has done an awful lot of standing up for what's right. The man may not be a great candidate, but he sure as hell seems qualified to be President, and hoepfully at least a few people know the difference between the two positions.

Anyway, The Rude Pundit gives us a good rundown: "Kerry's done a fuck of a lot more than pull a guy out of a river. And the fact that America doesn't know that says a great deal about how we negotiate our desolate political landscape."

The Onion must have been reading our blog yesterday.

Alrighty, here we go. First things first, we're going to generate a list of mysteries, as of issue 5, all of which must be addressed by the final solution:

1: Who killed Sue Dibny?

2: Who told Dr. Light the JLA was after him?

3: Why is Batman in Dr. Light's flashback in issue 3, but not in the collective League flashback in issue 4?

4: Why is Calculator helping Boomerang reunite with his son/What "favor" does Boomerang owe Calculator?

5: Who attacked Jean Loring?

6: As Batman so aptly puts it, Who benefits?

7: Who is Boomerang Jr.'s real mother?

8: Who set up Jack Drake/Boomerang

The answers to 1,2,5 and 8 are clearly related, but not necessarily the same. The person who tipped off Light and set up Drake is the mastermind, but might not be the peron who physically killed Sue Dibny.

As to Question 7, there's also some debate about Boomer Jr.'s father, but there's a panel in issue 5 which, from the way their faces and particularly noses are drawn, makes it abundantly clear that Digger is the real father.

So what do we have? Someone who knew what the League had done, and thus that they would go after Dr. Light when Sue was murdered. Someone who is, or has access to, a teleporter or similarly powered assassin. Someone with something to gain from exploiting the Justice League's morally dubious actions.

It seems like the Suicide Squad is involved. Captain Boomerang, Dr. Light, Bolt and Slipknot all served, but then what C-list villain wasn't in the suicide squad at one point or another? So that doesn't really help that much. I'm also going to go ahead and not discuss the possibility of it all being a Sue orchestrated birthday mystery, or a mind-contorlling super-villain (where's the Ultra-Humanite when you need him?) because those are maddeningly stupid enough that I don't think DC would allow it.

The obvious answer, I think, is Calculator.

Calculator-
Pro: He's got his finger in enough pies to have orchestrated the whole thing, and the person outside Jack Drake's apartment is on a cell phone using the conversational tone Merlyn and Calculator have been sharing throughout the series. He probably stands to gain business from the whole ordeal, especially if he can eventually start selling off secret identities.
Con: Now that Boomerang is dead the story seems to be pointing at Calculator, which implies that it won't actually be him. Additionally, his involvement does nothing to explain why Batman has been erased from the memories of the JLA, or how he found out about this in the first place.

Chronos:
Pro: The guy can see the future/travel through time, which would make just about anything possible. According to the DC encyclopedia his arch-nemesis is the Atom. He keeps saying "we'll win" (which is creepy from an evil seer, by the way).
Con: He's barely in the series and doesn't seem to have much to gain.

Jericho:
Pro: He's a body jumper, and in issue 3 Slade delivers the Jericho jump-line "contact." Given the theme of family in the book, Slade's son is fair game.
Con: He hasn't even been mentioned by name, and Meltzer has promised he'd play by the rules.

Jean Loring
ugh, I hate doing this, because I don't think it's a hero and so far the only happy thing to come out of IC has been the reconciliation between Jean and Ray, but here we go:
Pro: Considered "safe" by the JLA security systems. Jean's story, as retold by Green Arrow in issue 4, doesn't jive with what we see in issue 3. There's a broken mug of coffee, in addition to the phonecall to Ray, which simply don't macth up with having just walked in the door and been attacked. Most damning is a panel on the second to last page of issue 3 which shows her gag being tied by hands from the front, not from behind. Could Jean have staged the attack?
Con: Why? Why why why? There's really just no motive.

ARGH! I've spent too long on this already and I don't feel like I'm cracking anything at the moment. My promise of an official declaration will have to hold off a little bit. The Batman thing is really screwing with me. Were the JLA's minds wiped as well?

Clearly Calculator is involved, the question is at what level. I feel so close, and yet so far.

They aren't on the links bar, but this installment is quite good:
A Lesson Is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible

As co-creator of the Daedalus Orb, I am in love with the notion of game theory. Even if I myself am "meh" when it comes to higher math. Anyway, Slate has a cool article that uses game theory to determine how Bush and Kerry should run the last week of the campaign.

I'm pretty transparent in my love of all things Andrew Sullivan, so I'm curious to read what Asa's thoughts are in response to Sully's endorsement of Kerry. I actually think it's one of the better Kerry endorsements out there. Right up there with the WAPO's.

Kos' Column from last week in the Guardian: "Ohio
The Republican secretary of state, J Kenneth Blackwell, attempted to destroy thousands of new voter registrations because - he claimed - they were not printed in the proper card stock (a heavy 80-pound stock). Registration forms had been photocopied on regular paper and even printed in local newspapers. After intense public pressure Blackwell backed off.

Meanwhile, voters in heavily Democratic Cleveland have been receiving mysterious pre-recorded calls telling them their voting location has been changed. Local election officials are investigating the malicious calls. The so-called 'robocall', in fact, is now a staple of dirty campaigning."

It's from the much hated BBC, but it backs up the discussion going on under the Eminem post. New Florida vote scandal feared: "A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals."

I'm just sayin'.

It used to be a site for penis drawings, but I guess now it's for records and stuff. Anyway, GOOD HANG presents to you "The Wimbledons," who will unleash some mighty country pop stylings on your sorry ass, particularly if you live in the LA area. I missed their first gig because of the Mayday contest, but presumably they'll have another one soon. I'll be there with bells on.

Go putz around and listen to the music. It's good stuff.

Just in case you were wondering if Eminem wasn't as clever as he used to be, he comes out with this new video. Given the setup, and how it progresses, the ending is pretty spectacular, and sadly close to the truth in a lot of cases.

It's sad that this year in many battleground states the Dem strategy is to register as many voters as possible, and the GOP strategy, from Florida to Ohio, is to deny as many people the right to vote as they can. According to Ezra, MTV doesn't want to air this video. They can go fuck themselves.

Now taking suggestions for Halloween costumes. There's just no stopping how much I can't think of anything worth dressing up as.

Before Friday I will reread issues 1-5 of Identity Crisis and then post my spoiler-filled theory as to whom the killer is. I now have possession of Alex's baby and I think it will come quite in handy in my sleuthing. Though I hear that even Batman will get this wrong, so I'm not going into this with a lot of confidence. Alas.

So yes, despite the busitude of this week, the last week of this hellish month we call October, I will perform this miraculous feet. Consider this fair warning. Get out there and read issue 5 so I don't spoil it for you. And if you aren't reading Identity Crisis, well, I don't know why anyone even taught you how to read.

OK. This is a mild improvement. If anyone knows a good way to keep this general layout but eliminate at least one scroll bar I would be willing to learn your interweb magics.

You can't access the article without being a paying subscriber to the LATimes or the Calendarlive portion of the website, but Art of Bleeding was kind enough to post the text: "A blond guy with a nose cast, Asa Tait of Los Angeles, enthusiastically explains, 'They diagnosed me and told me it would make me safer.' He seems swept away in the world of the Art of Bleeding."

What's funny is that I'm not blond at all, I was wearing Emmett's mullet wig. I'm so tricksy!

This article at the Gadlfyer says it pretty well: "In today's politics, it is acceptable for Republicans to traffic in ugly stereotypes and assert outright that people who come from some areas of America are not really American."

It's true. Why is it generally considered a much better idea to nominate a Southern Democrat than a Northern one, but nobody even blinks when, as in 2000, both of the major GOP candidates are from the south? Because the midwest, the "heartland," is for some reason considered more American than the coasts.

A little below I metioned the BC04 "wolves" ad, and how I thought it was funny that at the end we see Bush working so darn hard reading and talking on the phone AT THE SAME TIME! Well someone has done this Bears pardoy ad, and it isn't all that great, until you get to the end, and then it's pretty hilarious.

They've learned nothing.

Check out this ballot in Ohio.

This is just sad. The new Thing costume actually manages to look WORSE than the one in the old Corman flick. From the cast shots it appears that the Thing, rather than being a hulking behemoth, is the shortest member of the FF.

Also I just realised that Sarah Michelle Gellar would have been perfectly cast as Sue Storm.

Last night someone told me that they torn down Babe Ruth's boyhood home in New York not too long ago, as in within the last 6 months.

If one were superstitious, this would certainly give one a bit of pause.

No, not the new "Wolves" spot from BC04, which Atrios is calling "Puppies," though I don't really see the camp he does. I'm talking about the very end, during the "I'm blah blah blah and I approve this message" bit. We get a shot of Bush, standing in the oval office, reading and talking on the phone at the same time. Oh my god, he's such a hard worker! Look at him, doing all that work! He's so smart.

Whatever happened to stuff in the vein of I like Ike? Now THAT was optimism.

F*** my wife for red sox tickets.

Lie Girls.

Seriously hilarious.

via Oliver Willis

Slate's Chris Suellentrop has some sobering news about Kerry's duck hunting trip.

I can tell you that the goose that Kerry shot was a mere gosling, wearing only a loincloth, fleeing the scene, and that Kerry chased it down and shot it in the back.

That Suellentrop. He's a funny guy.

More fuel for my "Bush wins popular; loses EC" theory/hopes.

President George W. Bush is poised to gain 2 million votes this year in the three most-populous U.S. states: California, Texas and New York. None of those ballots will help him win re-election.

Well, Bryan Singer says he's found his Superman and that's good enough for me. Simply put, I trust Singer, so I'll fly with whoever he picks.

And, as a continuity hound, I'm very pleased to read that Singer and the writers are going to try to actually connect this new Superman flick to Donner's Superman: the Movie and Superman II. This whole idea of a "sorta-sequel/sequel sequel" is really interesting. And what a challenge! I'm just dying to see how they're going to connect franchises that are some 20 years apart.

All that said, however, I am extremely worried about Singer being so in debt to Donner's vision of Superman. For proof, check out this transcribed passage from a recent Singer talk at the ArcLight in L.A.

He then went on to tell us about how he actually pitched his idea to Richard Donner, director of the original Superman movie, to get his approval first. Donner apparently loved it and then Singer went to Warner Brothers with his idea. He's going to stay very true to Donner's vision of the Superman mythos, saying that the three most important aspects of the character are young Clark, the Clark facade, and Superman himself.

What's wrong about this, is that it sounds like Singer is going to continue screwing with the Superman mythos by again making Superman Kal-El's true identity and not Clark Kent. For proof of the devastation Donner wrought, just look at the well-written, but completely wrong and misguided Superman speech David Carradine gives at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2. Making all this still more complicated is the fact the Smallville is all about showing the world that Clark Kent is Kal-El's true self. Of course, Singer and Co. said they're going to be respectful to the Smallville continuity as well. Argh. I'll turn this over to Asa...

Well, Asa. It's here. And it's beautiful and perfect and marvelous in more ways than I can count. You'll be seeing it very, very soon.

Matt Yglesias gives the first beleivable breakdown of a best case scenario in Iraq that I think I've ever scene. It sure isn't showers of rose petals and a full on Democracy, but I think it's safe to say that the people who expected that were simply dreaming. It's nice to see someone take into account all of the flaws of our current situation, unlike the Right, and actually figure out a course of action, unlike the Left (and the Right).

World's best review of Air:
"I feel like I'm deep inside Sofia Coppola."

Bookslut presents a Q&A withMarjane Satrapi, presented in a rather incredible mimic of her style.

Persepolis 1 & 2 are both pretty incredible, moving portraits of life in and out of Iran, or revolution and theocracy, and just the turmoil of growing up at all. Highly recommended.

Am I the only one who thinks it would be really cool if Bush won the popular vote and lost the EC?

It would be a great case of Cosmic Balance, would it not?

Glorious.

I love the rain. I miss summer rains, when it's hot enought to actually go run around and play in a downpour, but this will do.

During the whole My-Life-Has-Been-Ruined-By-Cats debacle (both my computer and my dog were laid low by feline attack) I was so pissed at the world that I wanted to move. Just to get away. The other night the housemates and I sat on the porch, listening to the rain, playing scrabble and drinking tea. I wouldn;t trade that for the world.

There's a new Mastodon City in town.

Now with the news feature, which makes the homepage actually useful and worth visiting sometimes.

Sometime in the next month look for more art in the gallery, including carrot art and storyboards. Hopefully by the the new year there will also be an issue of the Hand and a new Junk Science.

Until a few days ago, I was pretty sold on Idenity Crisis' brilliance. But after reading this, I'm having seconds thoughts. I'll wait until the arc ends, however, before I come to a complete verdict on it.

Half of The Hand has been pencilled. That means half of half the artwork is done. If you don't include color.

Man, this seemed like more of an accomplishment before I typed it.

How cool would it be, if instead of Baby Jesus and the Wisemen, we set up a giant version of this in the front yard each Christmas?

Corn: "A young woman returns home to bear an illegitimate child, and witnesses an environmental accident involving a genetically modified crop of corn. Doubted by the community she has returned to, she questions her own sanity as she tries to discover what is happening. Her journey takes her on a trip down the food chain, as she tracks a potentially life threatening byproduct from the cornfield to the supermarket."

I mean, it's no National Treasure, but still.

The cat spilled water on my computer.

In the week following I learned just how much my life revolves around this fragile little piece of equipment. My social, creative and professional pursuits are all centered around the box. I am both a little saddened by that, and a little amazed at what the futur has wrought. Stupid future, and the amount I am living in it.

I can still love the Chancellor. In the end the damage was not too bad and I put up with a week of hassle but not much monetary setback. I know he still loves me. Whether or not he loves Emily is debatable, since he sleeps in my room every night, but I suppose that's only fair turnabout for Donna loving cool Uncle Alan the best. I can't wait until we all have kids.

So now I'm back up and running, but for some reason sad little Guillermo, post water damage, has decided that he won't ever open Dreamweaver. So until I manage to download or otherwise steal a new version of Dreamweaver that Guillermo likes there will be no new Cash, and no new home page (yes that's right, many site improvements are coming!).

The circus of life continues unabated.

Reason picks up on a theme that I've increasingly believed: this election ain't as important as we'd like to believe.

Here's an enlightening article on that smallest of small movements -- the conservative punk.

I found this via Oxblog.com:

Less than one month after Kerry threw out the suggestion that Bush might reinstate the military draft, a new poll shows nearly half of younger voters swallowed the Democratic nominee's bait, hook, line and sinker.

The University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election survey found about 50 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds believe Bush will bring back the compulsory draft. It also found this group is often clueless about the candidate's views. "Young voters are much more misinformed about the presidential candidates' positions on the draft than the population in general," said Kate Kenski, a senior analyst for the group. Bush has repeatedly denied he would reinstitute the draft.

It's numbers like this that really fuel the criticisms of those over-wrought "Vote or Die"/"Rock the Vote" campaigns.

Well, we've gone a while without a passage from the always interesting Andrew Sullivan, so I'll put this one up.

The war on terror, if we are going to succeed in the long run, has to be a bipartisan affair. By far the most worrying legacy of the Bush years is the sense that this is a Republican war: that one party owns it and that our partisan battles will define it. Simply put: that's bad for the country and bad for the war. Electing Kerry would force the Democrats to take responsibility for a war that is theirs' as well. It would deny the Deaniac-Mooreish wing a perpetual chance to whine and pretend that we are not threatened, or to entertain such excrescences as the notion that president Bush is as big a threat as al Qaeda or Saddam.

Boy, I hope President Kerry can usher in a brave, new We're-All-Americans-Marching-Together-to-Battle-Islamic-Terror era.

Okay, I've long railed against town hall debates because I just hate undecided voters. They drive me crazy. Plus, I find there to be a certain phoniness to the proceedings. I don't know, I'm just biased.

Nevertheless, I do love the actual look of the debate. I love having the two candidates on stools and then stand and address a crowd as they walk around the stage. It's old school and makes me wistful for Lincoln.

Ebert, in a review of I Heart Huckabees: "Because nobody knows $#!t about quantum physics..."

So how long before he can just say "shit" in one of his reviews?

This might be the funniest legit site I've run across this political season.

Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided, or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you've come to the right place! We're Kerry Haters for Kerry -- perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerryhating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he'll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: 'He's awful! And I'm for him!'

...is for someone to tell me, unprompted, that their love for me spans the multiverse.

This would be a truly special person indeed.

ps- I don't care if they are a comic geek or a physicist. Either will do.

pps- Do physicists say "multiverse"? They should.

Is there a liberal case for W?

In the 1990s and early 2000s I grew accustomed to hearing conservatives scoff at Bill Clinton's efforts as "international social work." With the honorable exception of dissident neoconservatives, post-Cold War Republicans increasingly resembled their circa 1930s isolationist counterparts.

Even after the Vietnam War -- at least when Clinton was president -- the Democrats had the right temperament for guns-and-butter liberalism abroad. The intervention against Slobo's regime in Serbia wasn't slammed as a "unilateral war." It was the Peace Corps with muscles. But when George W. Bush implemented the Clinton Administration's policy of regime-change in Iraq, democratic nation-building morphed into "imperialism." Overthrowing a totalitarian regime was deemed "reckless." What mattered most was "stability." Just as September 11 taught George W. Bush that liberals had a point all along, liberals started to sound like... conservatives.

My thoughts? Well, on the Left, I've long seen a double standard against Bushie's ventures abroad. I've also grown alarmed at the far left, or shall we say, the "street Left"'s generally blaise stance toward Islamic fundementalism.

But, as Asa asked a while back, sure Bush's classically liberal talk of spreading democracy is good, but does he really believe it? Well, I think he does, and he surely has no problem implementing it. But his true fault seems to be in making it succeed. Simply put, great strategy, awful tactics. And poor tactics can pretty quickly undo whatever good there is in such a doctrine.

This time, it's the Chinese who offer us a window into the murky world of next Wednesday.

China has developed a method to wash an entire car with just 0.3 liter of water, apparently aimed at solving the problem of an economy that combines booming auto sales with severe water shortage, state media said.

This is what it would look like if a 10 Kiloton nuclear bomb was dropped on my zip code.



What have we learned from this? A 10 kiloton nuclear bomb isn't really as bad as I expected it to be; the apparent geographic center of my zip code is sort of up in the hills; and if nuke were dropped there I would probably die of fatal radiation doses, as would Alex. The sunset strip would be largely vaporized, which isn;t necessarily a bad thing. Party time!

You too can create a blast map of your area to see what kind of hellish death you would endure!

Via Andrew Tobias

Well kind of. I certainly take an interest in it. I'm also one of the few people out there who will argue that Los Angeles is a real city and all of you east coast fucks who seem to move out here simply to talk about how horrible it is should all go home. It is what you make of it.

Anywho, what brought this on: this animated GIF illustrates what animates the city. It's so simple, but I don't think people realize. There are parts of what I would call urban Los Angeles which take advantage of this, but it's really a mixed bag throughout Hollywood and Los Feliz/Silverlake.

Someday, if anyone cares, I'll start talking about the not terribly difficult steps that would make Los Angeles a superior urban environment. One of them is muzzling the rich people.

I've updated the links. But still not fixed that quotes problem. Such is life.

Oh, and I didn't delete Billmon. Dammit.

Yeah, I watch it. Tonight's episode kind of sucked. Also, this is the television equivalent of the much despised decrompessed storytelling. It's taken 3 episodes to establish the status quo for the series. 3 episodes! I enjoy this well enough though. Maybe there's something about being lost on an island that lends itself to that pacing.

I will also try to watch the premiere of Desperate Housewives that Doug downloaded (yay the future!). Fox's new ridiculous schedule has made me completely cease to care about The OC, I do need a little bit of sweet trashy TV drama in my life, and I still have a passing affection for Teri (hottest Lois Lane ever) Hatcher.

It looks like ABC is the big winner this season. Doug and Sara are watching The Bachelor right now, and will probably watch Wife Swap. I'm so ashamed.

I have a comic book to be working on.

I think it was generally a tie. Cheney wins foreign, Edwards wins domestic. Edwards is lucky domestic was second.

If nothing else though, this certainly shows that it's a good thing we didn't nominate Edwards. At least half of Kerry's win last thursday was due to having gravitas and a command of the facts that let him jump on any opporunity Bush left open. Edwards got creamed by Mr. Sourpants.

So the media had it in for Howie, and Edwards clearly doesn't have the stuff when it comes to security cred. Wes Clark was an underwhelming campaigner and everyone else was an also-ran. It may be that the Dems did actually nominate the best candidate. Curious.

Best post-debate pundit line I found online:

"If I ever need to sue somebody, I'll call John Edwards. If I ever need somebody killed, I'll call Dick Cheney."

I have long railed against Cheney's surly nature, his decidedly non-Media Age looks, and, well, let's say, his "interesting" corporate background. Still, I agree with Asa that Cheney comes across as amazingly articulate and well-prepared.

And to be fair, I was also very impressed with Edwards. As one conservative blogger puts it:

My immediate reaction to the vice presidential candidates' debate tonight, October 5: Let's reverse our two party's slates! Let's vote for vice president, not president. Both vice presidential candidates tonight proved themselves immeasurably more literate, thoughtful, and competent on the issues than the head of their tickets.

I've seen about 2 minutes of the debate. I'm not going to watch the whole thing until I get home, but I just have to say it's amazing how intelligent and well-spoken Cheney is. If he could be personally appealling in even the slightest regard he would make for a damn fine Presidential candidate. Assuming you agreed with him. There is a reason he's the most powerful VP ever.

Apparently JMS has revealed that Gwen Stacy had sex with Norman Osborn before she died. Now, I'm not a big spidey fan, but I've always had an affection for that particular story, the death of Gwen Stacy. That SNAP will echo down through comic book history. The different turns that Gwen's life and death have taken in Ultimate Spidey, from what I gather anyway, really do make Peter a different man than the one we've been reading for 30+ years. That is the point where continuties really diverge. I don't know, it seems like you just don't mess with that.

Scott Tipton has a lovely rant about it.

You want to talk about smirks! Check out the picture of Cheney that this kids' government info site uses.

Quoth the Alex:

My friend at the University of Iowa went to that big Nick Meyer film fest and said it was pretty cool. And Meyer, of course, was awesome.

Some quick Meyer notes, courtesy of my friend:

Meyer strode up to the stage wearing a denim jacket, upon which was affixed a large, "Kerry/Edwards" button.

A few minutes into his talk, Meyer nonchalantly removed his denim jacket. Affixed to his shirt, was an even bigger "Kerry/Edwards" button.

According to Meyer, "For the last year I've worked on a comedy screenplay that nobody else thought was funny."

Meyer loves Trek II and VI, but he doesn't consider himself a Trek fan. He's happy that the fans like the movies, but he's actually never seen any of the Trek movies other than his own. He just likes straight science fiction -- telling stories about today in the setting of tomorrow.

Meyer has spent the last five years reading a ton of stuff on the American Revolution and he's come to two conclusions:

1. It's the only revolution that ever worked.

2. It's the only revolution where all the principal men involved were geniuses.

And finally, Meyer's also spent the last few years trying to get a political thriller made.  

The plot, as follows:

It's an election year, and a hotshot, Edwards-like Senator is summoned to D.C. to meet with an incredibly popular President, sure to win reelection. The Senator and all his handlers are certain that POTUS wants to make the Senator his new running mate, seeing as how the current Veep is retiring.

So, the young Senator goes to D.C. and meets with the Prez. Prez offers the VP slot, and the Senator takes it. This will be the springboard to his entire career.

That evening, POTUS calls the Senator into the Oval Office for a private talk. The Prez goes on for hours about his plans, his thoughts on the future and this and that. He talks well into the night, and as the clock approaches 1AM, the Senator begins to realize something. This incredibly popular, well spoken President is completely, certifiably...

Insane.

The next day, the Senator begins to ask around, to dig deeper. And what he finds is that all of the Presidents crazy plans (think: kill all Jews, and stuff like that) are not only popular, but embraced by every person and agency in the government.

And off we go, into the second and third acts.

Man, I wish Meyer got that script made.

One thing Kerry said in the debates which has gotten surprisingly little coverage (to the best of my knowldege none at all) is that he would immediately halt construction of the 14 permanent US bases in Iraq.

These bases were always part of the purpose of the invasion. Having a new stronghold in the Middle East that ends at least some of our reliance on Saudi Arabia is a sound strategic goal. On the other hand they certainly give lie to our statements that we will ever actually leave Iraq. They may get basic sovereignty, but there will be foreign troops based in within their borders. This is something the US gets away with in a surprising number of countries worldwide. Of course ending construction of these bases fundamentally changes our goals in Iraq, and if the decision gets enough fanfare it could actually shift perception of the US in a good portion of the population from occupier to liberator.

So it's arguable whether or not it's a good idea to halt these bases. But it is probably the clearest difference between Kerry's plan for Iraq and Bush's, the rest of the plans being essentially the same with Kerry saying he would actually do it right. If this is really Kerry's intent I'm a little su