Some terror groups in Iraq have come right out and said democracy (that old buggaboo) is "un-Islamic" and evil and all that. Not only that, but it could turn the Middle East into...gasp...Massachusetts. Oh, heavens no!

The radical Ansar al-Sunnah Army and two other insurgent groups issued a statement Thursday warning that democracy was un-Islamic. Democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority or people agreed to it, the statement said.

"Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," the statement said. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God — Muslims’ doctrine."

It bears repeating: We live in strange times. Bush is stopping the spread of gay marriage at home, but supporting it's potential spread in the Mideast. As South Park once claimed, maybe this is what bothers all other countries about America: Our country is founded on the doctrine of "do one thing, say another."

National Review has their 2005 predictions up. Some are better than others, but that's how these things usually go.

A million or so illegal immigrants will come across our borders or overstay their visas. Among them will be some dozens or hundreds of Middle Eastern terrorists. George W. Bush will refer to all million-odd as "good-hearted people."

Millions of people in Africa will die from violence and disease, and nobody will care much.

Major liberals will start admitting that Maureen Dowd is an embarrassment.

Some of the most interesting — and heated — debates will not be between Republicans and Democrats or between conservatives and liberals. They will be within these groups.

My predictions?

The Iraq elections will go better than expected. And the situation will begin to slowly (slowly!) burn out. The blogosphere will notice this around April. The New York Times, sometime next December.

We'll kill Zarqawi.

Bin Laden? "Who's Bin Laden?", says W.

Iran tests nuke.

Palestinian terorrists don't support whatever new Palestinian government forms.

Blair hangs on to his PMship.

UN scandals continue to stain the institution far worse than we've ever seen U.S. scandals stain the Presidency.

North Korea muddles on.

Social Security Reform will be a big issue. But I won't care because I find it boring. Sorry.

The Huygens Titan probe will fail.

Articles will start appearing next Fall about the strength of the "Evangelical Left."

Our newspapers won't contain a single story about Ukraine by April.

Bush's approval rating will hover at 51% for the bulk of the year.

Papers, politicos, pundits, journos, finally get wise and realize that the term "Red/Blue America" is largely bunk and the notion of a simply divided America recedes from the popular consciousness.

I was reading through my old comics, the official pass time of comic fans who are home for Christmas, and stumbled upon the original "Carnage" storyline in the Spidey books. I laughed to myself at having been so excited to own it in the first place, and then realized that it was drawn by Mark Bagely. This makes Bagely the only artist to draw the original incarnation of a character and their Ultimate update. And unless Jack Kirby starts drawing the Ultimates from beyond the grave, or Frank Miller signs on for Ultimate Elektra Strikes Back, this will probably remain so for a good long while.

Just a curio really.

Hi, I'm bored as hell.

Whoever invented Ug Boots must be a merry prankster indeed. I was told, before ever laying eyes on the damned things, that the name is short for "Ugly." When I heard that I thought it was a nickname, but it's the actual brand name. This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that someone, probably someone I would really enjoy spending an afternoon with, decided that they would sell ugly clothing, even going so far as to call it ugly in the marketing campaign, and by sheer force of glossy advertising high fashion chic, trick people into buying the damn things. And it worked!

Last week I found out that even though they were prominently featured in the giant billboard for "Raising Helen" at Hollywood and Highland, Ug boots never appear in the actual film. That person is a genius. An evil genius.

Ahhhhhh.

The Hand b&w is done. It's online. The page is a bit crap, but it's Secumas and I've got better things to do than redesign the website. Like hang out in deer sights and drink.

Go read the Hand. Talk about it. Hope you like it.

ps- Special thanks to Anthony, the only person in State College with easily attainable DSL. Bravo.

Guest-bloggers on AndrewSullivan.com are looking at the goofy semantics battle going on in the press over the crazy lady who cut a baby (ooops...8-month old fetus) out of a pregnant woman's belly. I like this note from Townhall.com's Rich Lowry.

Note how a "fetus" -- something for which American law and culture has very little respect -- was somehow instantly transformed into a "baby" and "infant" -- for which we have the highest respect. By what strange alchemy does that happen?

I don't know if American law has "little" respect for fetuses considering it's now a federal law that a person who kills a pregnant woman can be charged with two murders. But, interesting stuff nonetheless.

Someone made a very good point tonight: In genetics, diversity is considered a strength or even a necessity. If you only have one breed of rat, and it is is susceptible to some disease, then you have the potential to eliminate all rats. This is a major argument against GM crops. Diversity can create strength in both direct and indirect ways.

If we think of culture this way, then Globalization becomes truly frightening. As we develop our Monoculture - a Wal-Mart/McDonald's/Virgin Megastore/Hentai Palace on every corner in every country - we lose a very real defense mechanism. If every human watches the same shows, speaks the same languages, and eats the same foods and so on, then we become susceptible to a cultural "disease" on a global scale. A dangerous idea becomes infinitely moreso when it has the potential to affect all of us in the same way.

We risk massive cultural inbreeding, and all of the attendant defects.

Happy Holidays!

I walked into my grandparents' house tonight and set my bags down. The door at the end of the hall swings open and Grammy, ever smaller than the last time I saw her. She stares at me, expecting a mugging perhaps. They finally started locking the doors after one of the cars (unlocked with the keys inside, for convenience) was stolen from the front parking lot.

This is it. Surely this is the day I've been dreading when I come home and she doesn't recognize me. There's really no preparing for that day.

I walk towards the door and that wobbly, perfect voice hits my ears. "Oh! Asa!" Thank goodness. "I shouldn't have turned out those lights. It's a dark welcome we've left for you."

But it was a welcome none the less.

I stayed up all night to finish the Hand before I left town and now it is definitely time for me to put the finishing touches on my packing and head to the aiport. And I'm on page 19. So unfair.

But if LAX is equipped with wireless now (somebody ask Warren Ellis) then there's a fair chance I can finish and upload it before my plane leaves.

It will be done today, but when it will be on the internet is anybody's guess.

Well, I found that list and it seems like the poster I quoted didn't know what s/he was talking about. Alas. It would have been interesting though.

November's numbers are up, and despite some good showings in the top 5 from DC, MArvel still wins hands down. But check out this comment from the Newsarama board: "Marvel's no overprint policy with 'Order now or never' is why they are always so high up on the list.

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 had so many reorders that it would have made that issue the #1 spot for the month it was released. THe 2nd printing is #74 on the Top 300 list,

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #2 would also be higher up if you were to add in all the reorders and second printings.

If you look at the entire listing you can find IDENTITY CRISIS #1-6, FLASH, TEEN TITANS, GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (1st printing), GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (2nd priting), JLA, CATWOMAN, FIRESTORM, TEEN TITANS/LEGION SPECIAL, ADAM STRANGE, WE3 and others all still selling. With REBIRTH #1 that still doesn't count the 3rd printing. Every single one of those titles would be higher up the list if DC had the mentality of 'order now or never' to retailers like Marvel does.

So while Marvel only looks at the monthly outcome, DC is beating them at the end of the year when everything is completely added up. Which means in the end, DC is 'kicking Marvel's butt' by far. DC was the #1 publisher last year dispite Marvel having more titles in the Top 25 every month."

Very interesting. I'd like to see that end of the year list.

There will be no Cash for the holidays. Between finishing up the Hand, becoming a legal CA resident, and returning home to the rolling hills of Pennsylvania for Secumas, I just don't have it in me. But Cash, KVN, and the other yet-to-be-named supporting characters will be back in January!

Today is the Silver Picture holiday lunch.Secret Santa party. Bought my Secret Santa-ee a bottle of Gentleman Jack. With highball glasses! More importantly, though, all of the presents have been lovingly placed at the feet of the life sized Predator in the lobby.

Merry Secumas, Mr. Predator.

The more I think about it the less I mind IC #7. It's still a bit anti-climactic, action-wise. Oh yeah, and it contains my least favorite plot deivce ever: The killer slips up and says something he/she shouldn't know, thus revealing him/herself. Fuck you Minority Report. But it seems like they would have had her anyway, so that's not awful. Anyway, I'm starting to feel like maybe it does make sense. In this crazy larger-than-life world of heroes it may actually make some sense that Jean would think the only way to get Ray back was by trumping up some danger. After all, isn't almost every superhero relationship built around some amount of deadly peril?

I need to sit down, read the whole thing through and let it settle.

To address what Alex says below, I think the best thing to come out of IC may be the ramifications for the big leaguers. There were a ton of good subplots left running. They aren't really dropped threads because they end up not being involved with the murder, but they all came out in IC: the power pact, Batman being mind-wiped, Wally West has some interesting stuff going on, New Boomerang (who's his mom?), Dr. Light is dangerous again, Calculator as the evil Oracle. This is all good stuff.

Illinois is lame. Here's the proof.

Isn't it weird to think that 11 years ago another Democratic politician (Joe Lieberman!) was up in arms about videogame violence? Has anyone looked at those games recently? They're incredibly tame. And even though I can't stand Lieberman's stand on censorship and the game industry, it's strange to think how prescient he was in predicting that attacking videogame violence -- and videogame violence in general -- would become a pretty big issue.

I had a sinking feeling after reading #6 that Identity Crisis was about to implode. Everything was in the balance (my phrase of the week) leading into #7. There was still a chance things would work out, but sure enough, everything *did* implode. My more detailed thoughts to come, but let me just say: Identity Crisis is a failure.

Of course, one of my big complaints about the arc (it's essentially a drama about D-list characters in an A-list setting), hopefully means that it won't reverberate all that much among the DCU's big boys.

It's over. And dammit it's just not very good.

I'm about to spoil the living fuck out of Identity Crisis, so if you haven't read it yet you should go do that, and then when you're as pissed off as me you should come back.



wheeee.

OK, you ready?Here's what I wrote after issue 5 of 7:
"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."

I stand by all of that.

And I guess I never said it on the internet (or at least I can't find it now) but I always discounted Jean (and Ray) because a crime of passion like that (for love, but not in the heat of the moment) seems highly unlikely. Especially from Jean, who is the one who ended the relationship. All she had to do was flirt a little and she could have had Ray back. She didn't think of that?

Anyway, they explain a lot of this away with the rationalization that the first murder was an accident ("I also brought some extra weapons along" WTF?), and the rest was cover-up. The more I think about it the more that would work in a normal mystery novel, but in the superhero world it seems completely wrong. And maybe that's the idea. But I don't think it works.

So yeah, how anticlimactic was that?

I'm so sad.

And I didn't even buy the Astonishing X-men trade because I know they'll release an oversize hardcover of Whedon's entire run. Dammit.

Two of my favorite topics here... Gays and Batman! Not that that's anything new. But this column gives a pretty good summary and reading of the whole situation. It's all you ever needed to know about whether or not Batman is gay, which turns out to not be very much at all.

In addition, for some reason the same column features a second section devoted to year in review. An interesting take for sure, although in listing comics that have ended this year (Bone, Cerebus, Black Hole) he neglects to mention Avengers. Though I guess in a few years they'll just start giving New Avengers that wierd extra grey number, like FF, and pretend the whole thing never happened.

Anyway, I'm going to spoil the end, because it's funny and you'll read the whole thing now: "then I think there's one hope left for comics, and that's legalising hemp, thus making paper cheap enough that comics can finally be competitively priced.

Bookstores didn't work. Let's try cannabis!"

Newsarama saysMORRISON & QUITELY ON SUPERMAN IN 2005?

To which I reply "oh please lord yes." After the completely failed 2004 Superman relaunch they certainly need a 2005 edition. And lordy my, this would be a good start. The only downside: Lois will be incredibly ugly.

Also, uhh, please do that thing where Supes makes a deal with the Dev- err, Mr. Mxyzptlk and ends up unmarried from Lois. Thanks.

Wow. These people are really not going to like Secumas.

Of course I celebrate Secumas, but my Mom, having been raised Catholic, and I always celebrated Christmas, so I now present a list of our Christmas tree themes (parentheses are for the 'angel'):

Star Wars (Darth Vader?)
Star Trek (11" Q figure)
Nightmare Before Christmas (12" Sally doll)
Robots (Optimus Prime)
Art Supplies

and last year my Mom made a tree entirely out of pink flamingos. That was all her. She's a genius.

He's a third or fourth string character. He's not well known. He's hardly "cool." And he's really not even the most interesting villain on the block. But Per Degaton is really, really, really evil. And that's why Asa and I will probably be reading and enjoying this.

He will protect you.

I just found this pretty amusing:

"Ever the forlorn optimist, Shawn floats the possibility that humanity might survive by availing itself of the moral codes embedded in traditional religions.

Chomsky cuts right through those dreamy clouds.

'You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible--not only did he order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide--...but was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide--you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive--that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful.'

Even God can't put anything past Noam Chomsky."

MoveOn wants to set the pace for the Dems at the national level. Hmm. The national Dems are a joke, no doubt. Even with record turn-out and organization in 2004 they still looked pitifully run next to the GOP. But, while ripping out McAullife's terrible reign is the right move, is MoveOn right for the job? Maybe. The group doesn't exactly have a winning track record themselves, let alone a history of winning important policy debates. If anything, MoveOn should help start other liberal think-tanks and orgs, not simply become the big one. The Dems need breadth to increase their reach. Still, when it comes to "saving" the Dems I just don't know. As demographic data and voting trends emerge from 2004, I increasingly think it's going to be very tough to right the ship. Right now, I'd say that there's a much better chance of the GOP self-destructing than there is of the Democratic Party re-emerging as a 50-state entity in the next couple cycles.

No, that's not an oxymoron.

I love this little anecdote I found online.

* * *

During the space race back in the 1960s, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen." Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.

The Russians, when faced with the same dilemma, used a pencil.

Reporter coached soldiers on those body armor questions.

* * *

I do think lack of body armor is very serious issue. I just bristle at the fact that it looks like the media's trying to spin and massage the issue for their own gain.

Oh, and as for Rummy -- I'd fire him tomorrow, if I could. So maybe rigged questions aren't *that* bad.

I mean, I like that he wants a streamlined, futuristic space-age-y army, but I just don't think he's competent, plain and simple.

In case anybody's missed it, the centrist Democratic magazine The New Republic has set parts of the liberal and libertarian blogosphere aflame with a massive article by editor Peter Beinart. In "A Fighting Faith", Beinart argues that Dems need to become just as anti-Islamism as they were anti-Communism in the 50s and 60s. It's a pretty awesome article, but then again, I'm a pretty hawkish bastard.

But, I think it's Beinart's follow-up column that really deserves the praise. Partially egged on by Kevin Drum, Beinart seeks to address just what it is that makes fighting Islamism so damn paramount. And why Osama et al represent the third in a triumverate of anti-democratic, anti-Western ideologies stretching back to the "isms" of the 20s. (I refuse to type the "N-word" or the "C-word.")

You don't have to believe Al Qaeda is as grave a threat as the USSR to believe it is the greatest threat to U.S. security and liberal values today. In 1954, segregation was probably the greatest domestic threat to liberal values. But that doesn't mean it was as great a threat as slavery ...

... Drum suggests that Al Qaeda's "power to kill people isn't even remotely in the same league" as the USSR's. But, if you're talking about killing Americans--which Drum is--the fact that Al Qaeda controls no territory makes it more dangerous, as well as less. Yes, the USSR, with its massive nuclear arsenal, had the power to kill more Americans. But, as a government interested in self-preservation, it was also deterred by the threat of U.S. retaliation. And that threat made the USSR cautious about taking American lives.

Of course, while I side with Beinart's belief that radical Islamism is fundamentally irrational, and a sort of crypto-death cult, it is worth pointing out that plenty of Islamist scholars find Bin Laden to be decidedly un-insane. I don't have the time to find those contrary views, but they're out there. I trust you're all familiar with Google.

The amazingly prolific Mark Steyn has his first book coming out next year. How did I miss this news? Anyway, I'm soooooo buying this.

I got an e-mail this morning from someone named Dave with the subject "Guess what.." and the entire contents read "You're beautiful." It was addressed to my Mastodon City account, so I can only assume that it was through the site or the ad for a colorist that Alex posted on craigslist.

So either this is some new delightful form of spam, or I've got a semi-secret admirer. Hi Dave!

God cut from His Dark Materials film: "'They have expressed worry about the possibility of perceived anti-religiosity,' Weitz told a His Dark Materials fans' website."

Well of course. It's an ANTI-RELIGION BOOK! It's a children's book that takes a very dim view of religious institutions in which the characters, two 13 year olds in a sexualized relationship, set out to quite literally kill God. I mean, I guess this was to be expected, but what's the fucking point then?

Did nobody read the books before buying the rights? Or, more likely, do they just not care if they turn the whole endeavor into worthless pap that the puritans still won't go see and all the people who loved the books will disdain? Jolly, that.

I'm thinking about signing up for the Parents Television Council so I can get updates on what shows they hate so that I can write the FCC to tell them how much I love those shows. So I went to their website. Down at the bottom (really, take a look, this is hilarious) there is a section called "Other Ways to Help" and the very first thing listed, before Help Us Spread The Word or Take Action is, wait for it, "Include PTC In Your Will." Seriously? Creeptastic.

This has got me thinking. I want to start an advocacy groups that agitates for broader access to information and ideas and greater liberty and choice with regards to our media. We will work for reregulation of the media in order to foster greater competition and thus better quality. Our most high profile and immediate operation, though, will be a massive letter writing campaign to the FCC anytime someone does something risque on television. We will call, we will write, we will storm Michael Powell's office to congratulate him on his bold decision to allow adults to watch what they please and to encourage parents to be responsible for their own children. We will laud the organization for the great creative outpouring it has fostered. I think that would be awesome.

That's what SoundPolitics.com wants to know.

It's the education, stupid. Oh, and class. Crappy infrastructure results in crappy voting machines, crappy volunteers, and crappy instructions.

Anyway, here's Reason's take on "dumb voters." (Hint: they're everywhere, but a little more in the Demo ranks).

And here's a nice Seattle P-I editorial that sums up my personal view: Voting is a right, so do it right.

* * *

Here are some exit polls (so, I guess take them with a grain of salt) from the 2004 election.

Kerry led Bush among America's dumbest by just 1%. Bush gained hugely in this category, as traditionally, Dems clean up when it comes to winning the vote of America's least educated. But not this year.

Conversely, the Dems won the vote of America's smartest by about 54-44 percent. No change there from other years. As for the vast middle (high school grad, some college, B.A.), Bush won that by about 53% to 47%, gaining small in the three categories.

It's just one little slice of the pie, but I'm increasingly thinking that as far as peripheral voting indicators, Americas are *less* divided than they were post-2000.

Fine little post about the rural/urban split that ends with this graf: "It seems like there's an opening of some kind here for a politician who forthrightly admits that city and country have different needs but that we don't have to split into warring factions over it. It's worth a thought, anyway."

Hmmm, that sounds like Howard Dean. Goddammit.

At night I dream of Goldwater.

Stop. Please just stop. I know you hate Social Security, and I know you hate the New Deal, and the public schools, and the government in general, but please please please if you're going to axe this stuff than have the cajones to just cut the programs rather than running up deficits my Grandchildren will be paying off in order to shove the knife in from behind. It will be cheaper and more intellectually honest.

I remember back in the day when Republicans believed in balanced budgets and state's rights, and there were at least a few things I could agree with them on. They seem truly intent on cutting everything I like out of their platform. Sad, really.

Over the weekend I reread my copy of Dan Dare, a 4 issue update of a popular British comic strip character. Rinner was nice of enough to give the issues for christmas a few years ago, and I was surprised to see that they were written by Grant Morrison. Huzzah! They're quite good, and you can tell Morrison has no love for Margaret Thatcher, but lots of love for spaceships, aliens, and alien sex monstrosities.



If you can find it (or borrow it from me) I highly recommend it.

As an added bonus, in the back of issue 4 there is a full page of adverts for sex comics. Not just any sex comics either. Some of them were written by Bill Willingham of Fables and Robin fame. Like so:



I thought y'all might appreciate that.

Anthony says in comments: "I definitely like it more than anything Schumacher sowed, but the title and recent trends in superhero cinema make me worry this film is going to be rather...emo. Shudder." And I kind of agree. But that was always the Marvel way. Hulk overdoes it, and the Spidey movies, by largely eliminating the wise cracking aspect of the character, end up making the main character not much more than a sadsack, but it's not much of a departure.

Batman Begins, I imagine, will be moody as all hell, but not in the same way. Batman has an operatic quality. Dark and brooding and swallowed in angst and drama from start to finish. And it's great, because it isn't tied down to the real world. It's so over the top, so "criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot" that it can be moody and sad without actually makign the movie feel moody and sad. Plus, Batman can brood while he fights villains, which is the best time for brooding.

American Conservative argues that U.S. voting patterns are more closely tied to how many children we have than anything else.

The late socialist historian Jim Chapin pointed out that it was perfectly rational for parents with more children than money to ask their political and cultural leaders to help them insulate their kids from bad examples, even, or perhaps especially, if the parents themselves are not perfect role models.

The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety. Red-region white conservatives, insulated by distance from the Crips and the Bloods, don’t care that white liberals’ kids are in peril. Besides, in sparsely populated Republican areas, where police response times are slow and the chances of drilling an innocent bystander are slim, guns make more sense for self-defense than in the cities and suburbs.

Hand preview pages are up. Enjoy.

New teaser poster for Batman Begins. I like it. I still don't like the ears on the cowl, but I like the poster.

If you think about it, and this is something that has always stumped me a bit about mood/behavior altering prescription drugs, all of your actions and thoughts and emotions that you feel are YOU are still the results of the chemical makeup of your brain. That was genuinely what you were like, and I wonder if in the past you (Universal Ye), or society, would have found that so far outside the norm that it needed to be treated somehow. I guess I worry that, like my friend Maureen's concern over plastic surgery, we will collectively arrive at some sort of ideal average where everyone will gravitate. As a narrower range of emotion is acceptable over time we begin ostracizing or medicating a shrinking number of the kind of madmen and women that society needs.

If we are going to think of the undesirable parts of our personality as being chemical in nature we should also be thinking of the positive traits that way.  Anything else is a false separation. It makes it more difficult to tell when someone has a genuine problem and not just a personality quirk (remember, it's ALL chemical) and it makes it hard to draw the line in terms of what behavior society deems acceptable.

This is yet another issue that is greatly informed by 'sci-fi reasons.' I'm still not quite sure how to wrap my head around the brain chemistry/what is the real you problem, but general applications aside, I have big fears in a Brave New World/Equilibrium way.

Other issues which I contemplate with Sci-Fi Reasoning:
-DNA databases for criminals.
-Artificial intelligence in general
-Unmanned weapons systems in particular
-Genetically Modified crops
-Any sort of physics experiment which could potentially, upon activation, implode the Universe.

Potential replacements for the word "asshole":

sinkhole, beanpole, gringo, apeman, wormhole, alright, back yard, Adolph, oatmeal, damn fools, anal.

And how does this help?

"hung" (you must be/like): huge, endowed

Is "you must be endowed like a Sperm Whale" any less racy?

Today I got a hold of one of those guides that tell you what words are unacceptable for TV and what words you should replace them with. I think I'm going to keep it by the TV, so when someone blurts out a string of gibberish in a different voice I'll know that when they said "Hey monkeyfetus! You touched my sister!" they actually meant "Hey motherfucker! You raped my sister!"

An Ashlee Simpson CD exchange. Trade the lip syncher for some Mr. Bungle. Awesome.

It's alwasy nice to know that some folks with too much money to brn are also really fucking great people. Hi-larious.

Still tellin' it like it is: "“You really do have the power,” Dean said. “But you get a ‘D’ for voting - it’s the bare minimum for your democracy to thrive.”"

In light of the word that the U.S. is putting more boots on the ground (finally!) in the run-up to 1.30.05, I looked over the list of countries with troops in Iraq. I was actually surprised at some of the numbers.

United States 150,000
Britain 8,530
Albania 70
Australia 850
Azerbaijan 150
Bulgaria 455
Czech Rep. 92
Denmark 510
Dominican Rep. 300
El Salvador 360
Estonia 55
Georgia 150
Hungary 300
Italy 2,700
Japan 1,000
Kazakhstan 25
Latvia 120
Lithuania 105
Macedonia 28
Moldova 25
Mongolia 180
Netherlands 1,263
New Zealand 60
Nicaragua 115
Norway 150
Poland 2,400
Portugal 120
Romania 730
Singapore 200
Slovakia 105
South Korea 675 (3,000 on way)
Thailand 460
Tonga 44
Ukraine 1,700

Denmark 510? Wow. 1,263 from the Netherlands?

Here.

We take a little piece of Iraq, not a very big piece mind you, an hopefully not a chunk anyone wants very much, and we make it it's own sovereign nation (it can even be a democracy!) called Alqaedastan.

Then we bomb the living fuck out of Alqaedastan.

When the smoke clears, and the sand has been melted into a pristine glassy surface stretching for miles (a perfect site for a 9/11 memorial!) we can declare victory in the War on Terror and go home.

I think I could get this through Congress, but maybe not the House.