respect your elders

Even though it's one of the more interesting entries in the sex tape craze it just seems wrong.

Porn Dragon Conspiracy

The Porn Dragon is destroying the Jews. At least they wear their flag pins and armbands. I'm going to make a wild guess and say that this guy is a born again believer.

5 days

Here's someone who spent 5 days playing GTA4.

street money

We needz our donuts

Little filly break your heart?

No, it was a girl. Freida Felcher, from Scranton.

Message force multipliers

Don't worry, our long national commercial is almost over. The NYT writes about documents it has that show how the military analysts on TV were coached on their 'themes and messages', or talking points. If you need to kill some time, here is 12 pages of government/military/industrial/media symbiosis. I know I was shocked to learn that this kind of behavior would be going on in this administration. The administration with more marketing slogans than all the automakers combined. The first CEO administration has lived up to its hype. Every idea that it had was preceded by an ad campaign just as insidious and annoying as the worst commercials. We even had traveling sales staff. Everything was boiled down to a gimmick meant to appeal to all the 'folks' out there. The worthless pieces of paper in the social security trust fund, the special PR group that sold the Iraq war, axis of evil, the surge, significant progress, evildoers, etc etc. After 7+ years of PR propaganda approaching fetishism for freedom, liberating, evildoer smiting, and free marekts YAY! it has reached the point where a presidential debate focuses on flag pins, loving america, and how many friends, acquaintances, and supporters you can throw under the bus. It is understandable though when fighting two wars with a military on its third and fourth rotations, costing trillions of borrowed money while at the same time cutting taxes on the wealthy and large corporations couldn't be sustained without the patriotic frenzy that was built on message culminating in a gigantic circle-jerk fantasizing about the greatness of USA Inc.



**Frank Rich writes about the debate today in the NYT

Oil Portraits

Bush's HUD director has now resigned. I guess the oil portraits is what did it. If only he could just have been a fuckup and not gone crazy with the portraits. Everything would have been fine then. Heckuva Job!

Shredding

With 9 months left of W, I'm curious when the heavy shredding will start. There's been some confirmed and unconfirmed cases already. But with all the recent revelations about the high level involvement, the Monday enhanced interrogation meetings, it must be very soon when the heavy document destruction, and e-mail mis-placing, will begin. Especially after Obama said he would investigate what was done.

Stick to your guns

Hillary Clinton is starting to act a lot like George W. When they're facing a tsunami of evidence that they either lied or made a bad decision, they will dig in and defend it to the death, never able to admit the truth or admit error and change course. The Bosnia sniper fire story for example. She repeated it multiple times, and when she was called on it, it was late, she was tired, and she 'mis-spoke' -- the word of the day now for when politicians lie or say stupid things like McCain confusing who is aiding and abetting whom.

Like W wants to stay in Iraq until we 'win', and then we can shake hands and head to the locker room, meanwhile winning their hearts and minds by destroying their country, Hillary will stay in her campaign until the bitter end.

A Job for Ed

Edgrimly didn't seem to like my vacation or cruise ideas, maybe this time he will like my suggestion for a new profession.





If edgrimly doesn't want it, maybe Alberto Gonzales will

Golf Courses in the desert

This NYT Magazine article about an exurb near Phoenix is a pretty well written account of the real estate bubble in general too. Some things make you laugh like the fancy irrigation for grass growing in the middle of the desert. It is sad to see the lack of planning and it seems rather typical of quite a bit of the developer planned burbs. In the gold rush to develop the mass subdivisions of single family American dream homes no one thought about high schools or traffic planning at all. You would think there would be rules for this sort of thing, kind of minimum planning requirements for communities. It doesn't seem to be the case though it makes me curious how many similar places there are that are basically speculator established with no planning other than how to squeeze in the most fancy homes and golf courses and bar&grilles.

It's tempting to enjoy the misery of the people who bought there hoping to make a quick buck, but it is unfortunate too that the buyers and the banks will take much of the losses in situations like some here where the developers have already sold most of the land and made their money and left.

I can finally get the gun I've always wanted

Now that Charlton Heston is dead I can finally take his gun that I've always had my eye on. All I need is a shovel for digging and a crowbar for prying it out of his cold dead hands.

Hands off

Hell

More Memos

Look here to read about the latest release from the seemingly bottomless pile of DoJ OLC legal memos that attempt to justify the use of torture and narrow it's definition.

No one wants to see your schwarzschild

The world might end soon, unless a lawsuit filed in Hawaii might save us all before it's too late. Thank god we won't be swallowed by a black hole. I knew that those particle accelerators were the devil's work! How will you explain that, Mr Scientist?