My Oscar Picks

Best Picture:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich

It has to be Brokeback Mountain.


Best Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck

Philip Seymour Hoffman. I don't even like him that much, but I have to give him credit.


Best Actress
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

Felicity Huffman was so good in Transamerica, it would be a crime not to give her the Oscar.

Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt, A History of Violence

Jake Gyllenhaal was a very convincing bottom. He wins.


Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Junebug
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

Catherine Keener was wonderfully restrained in her role as Harper Lee. She wins by a landslide.


Best Director
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller, Capote
Paul Haggis, Crash
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Steven Spielberg, Munich

Ang Lee is a shoo-in.

Best Original Screenplay
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Match Point
The Squid and the Whale
Syriana

Crash had a wonderful screenplay, with plenty of ins and outs.


Best Adapted Screenplay
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
The Constant Gardener
A History of Violence
Munich

Brokeback Mountain was more visual than auditory, so I have to pick Capote.

Who do you pick?

Cindy Sheehan Considers Bid for Senate?

Uhh, Cindy, I am all for you leading anti-war protests, but the idea of you replacing Diane Feinstein as a Senator from California isn't going to fly.
As a grieving mother you are fine, but as an orator you are...well, too goofy to be in the Senate.
Not that there are no goofy Senators already, but they tend to be Repugnicans, not Democrats. Well, except for Lieberman, but he may as well be a Repugnican.
You might consider a move to Arkansas or Alabama, where the population will think you are a brilliant step up from their current legislators.
But California is too big and too important a state to have a meek woman Senator.
Sorry, Cindy, you need to stick with what works for you.

Track the Perves in Your 'Hood

This oughtta freak you out:
http://www.familywatchdog.us/

A Few Million More Little Pieces

Well.
Oprah changed her mind about standing by James Frey, the liar whose fictitious memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," got selected as an Oprah's Book Club recommendation.
Her pick caused a couple million extra copies to be sold.
She had him on her show yesterday and pretty much picked him down to the bone.
I wondered, after reading the book, how this guy could recover from his addictions without a Twelve Step program.
The answer is, it's hard to say if he really is in recovery.
I mean, he lied about everything else, so who's to know if he's really being honest about being off dope and booze?
I know AA is a program of rigorous honesty. It's ideal for people who consistently lie to cover their addictions, because it teaches them to be honest with themselves first, and others later.
I don't trust him anymore. Once someone turns out to be a serial liar, trust is hard to muster up again.
I gave my copy of his book to a recovering alcoholic friend, advising him that the book is filled with lies, so it should read it as a piece of fiction.
Had I been shopping for fiction the day I bought his book, that's what I would have selected.
James Frey ripped me off.
I hope he uses the money I paid for his book to drop into the basket at 15 AA meetings.

Too Much News

Every morning, I read the latest headlines and some of the news stories attached to them.
It has become overwhelming to try to select the worst of the worst political scandals on which to comment.
Which is bothering you most lately?
I'm too overwhelmed to pick just one.

More Kinky

Obviously, Kinky Friedman's appearance on Sunday's "60 Minutes" created some media buzz.
Watch for him again on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" on Wednesday night.
The Kinky campaign just started their "Countdown to the Petition" fund drive and they need our help to make sure they not only have the manpower to get the job done, but also the money to get the job done in time!

They need to raise $100,000 in the next 45 days to get Kinky on the ballot.
Please contribute today by pasting the link below in your browser.

http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/petitiondonation
To learn more about the petition to get Kinky on the ballot, please go to http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/123

I know most of you are not from Texas, but Bush says he is, and this is a great way to send a message to his ilk that we've all had enough of Texas GOP liars and crooks.

Get Kinky Tonight

Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman will be on CBS "60 Minutes" tonight.
If Minnesota could get sick of the status quo and elect Jesse Ventura, I don't see why Texas can't elect a common sense coot like Kinky.
In the running so far are Rick Perry, the closeted gay GOP incumbent whose arrogance is matched only by the Bush boys, and Carol McClellan-Keeton-Rhylander-Strayhorn, the mother of demon spawn & pudgy faggot Scottie Mc Clellan. She apparently believed she had to marry every man she ever screwed.
Of the three contenders, Friedman is the only one who seems like a real person rather than typical Texas GOP neo-cons, who all seem to be cranked out of a factory like bad sausage.
Unless some Democrat comes along with some legitimate ideas, I'm voting for Kinky.

Let's all watch him tonight and see what he has to say.
I think anyone who had the balls to call his musical group, "Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys" is worth hearing out.

Big Brother Is Already Watching Us

You think Bush wanting our Google records is too much?
I just got a sobering weblink. Just tap in your name and state and be amazed, if not chagrined:
http://www.zabasearch.com/index.php?se=GG&ref=zabasearch_google

Are They Fucking Kidding Me?

"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department to turn over a database of search terms as part of a government probe of online pornography but Google rejected the demand as overreaching by the government.
In a Wednesday filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Justice Department demanded that Google provide all queries entered on the company's Web search system between June 1 and July 31 of last year.

The Justice Department includes a request for Google to produce a random sample of one million Web addresses, known as URLs.

The data request is part of a broader government effort to track the effectiveness of a 1998 law, the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, which penalizes Web site operators who allow children to view pornography, the filing said.

A 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Ashcroft vs ACLU, upheld an injunction that blocked the government from enforcing the law and the Justice Department is seeking evidence from Google and others as part of an appeal of this injunction.

The motion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez vs. Google details the negotiations between the government and Google's lawyers, who have resisted the request as overreaching, burdensome and a violation of trade secrets.

"Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches," Nicole Wong, Google's associate general counsel, said in a statement. "We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."..."

................................................

I imagine a lot of closeted GOP perverts are starting to worry that Bush's Big Brother campaign might start to infringe on their secret lives online.

If Bush wants to obtain everyone's Google records, he should start with his immediate circle of cronies and publish the results. And he shouldn't leave out his criminal brothers, his crackhead niece or his bimbo twins, either.

Once he shows good faith by doing that, he can have my Google records. I mean, how much trouble can I get in for Googling, "Bush is an asshole," then pressing the "I'm feeling lucky" button?

The one nice thing about having this paranoid little twit in office is that I feel I can still say anything I want---I'm the least of that piss-ant's worries.

We should all start to practice Googling phrases unflattering to the pinhead on a regular basis.
Bush has got nothing better to do than check up on Joe and Mary Sixpack, so let's keep him busy.

White House Announces Openings for Press Corps Journalists!

(Women need not apply)

http://www.whitehouse.org/media/application.asp

Courtside, Baby!

Today must be my lucky day.
A friend I ran into, who just happens to have courtside season tickets for the reigning world champion San Antonio Spurs, offered me a free ticket to watch the Spurs beat the Bucks tonight.
In person.
Courtside.
Just left of center court.
Did I mention courtside?
... Just checkin.'
Hotcha!

Molly Ivins Nails the FUBAR Bush Regime (Again)

AUSTIN, Texas -- Boy, you really can't take your eyes off this bunch for a minute, can you? If they're not screwing up one thing, then they're screwing up another -- busy little beavers. And then there are the administrative nightmares they have created all by themselves: The new Medicare prescription-drug benefit is such a disaster area, four states took it over in less than a week just to make sure poor people received their drugs.

Some of the press is starting to get the drill. Give us something like the West Virginia coal mine disaster, and instead of standing around emoting like Geraldo Rivera, a few reporters have enough sense to ask the obvious question: What is this mine's safety record? And when it turns out to be abysmal, a few more reporters have enough sense to ask: Who's in charge of doing something after a mine gets 205 safety violations in one year? Where's the Mine Safety and Health Administration? Who runs it? What's their background -- are they professionals or mining industry stooges? Who's the Michael "Heckuvajob" Brown in this outfit? Why are so many jobs at MSHA just left completely unfilled? How much has MSHA's budget been cut since 2001 to pay for tax cuts for the rich?

The great irony is that this was supposed to be the CEO administration. Bush was supposed to put people in charge of government who had track records in private industry, who did in fact know how to run a railroad. For just sheer incompetence, this administration sets new records daily. All those years the right wing sat around yammering about government incompetence, and it took this administration to make it true.

But while the press is busy sort of figuring out what government needs to do -- homeland security, anyone? -- other agencies are slipping quietly out of control, with almost no attention paid. In the case of the Internal Revenue Service, the problem appears to be more malice than incompetence.

Right-wing conspiracy theorists used to enjoy frightening themselves with the possibility that the IRS would somehow become politicized and be used as a tool by some nasty socialist like Jimmy Carter to go after their ill-gotten gains stashed illegally offshore. Always seemed like a good plan to me. Unfortunately, the only people who ever tried to politicize the IRS were on the right -- first Richard Nixon and now George W. Bush.

Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans have had their tax refunds frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, according to the IRS's taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson. Testifying before Congress this week, Olson said the average income of these taxpayers is $13,000. Olson and her staff sampled the suspected returns and found that, at most, one in five was questionable.

The poor citizens are seeking refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit, a Reagan program to help the working poor. The total possible tax fraud amount involved in these returns is $9 billion -- compared to the $100 billion problem with fraud by small businessmen who deal in cash. That's the kind of shrewd administration we've come to expect from the Bushies. Olson points out it is not only unfair, but also a waste of time. Meanwhile, mind-boggling sums in taxes are being evaded by those at the other end of the income scale.

David Cay Johnston, The New York Times' tax expert and author of "Perfectly Legal," reports the IRS is now involved in an effort to cover up these very kinds of incompetence that Olson demonstrated. "Records showing how thoroughly the IRS audits big corporations and the rich, and how much it discounts the additional taxes assessed after audits, are being withheld from the public despite a 1976 court order requiring their disclosure," Johnston writes. In an episode reminiscent of the three stooges, the IRS simply announced there was no court order.

This is, of course, part of a far wider and grimmer shutdown of information about our government. Despite cheerful burbling from the president ("The presumption ought to be that citizens ought to know as much as possible about the government decision-making," he said last year), this administration's love of secrecy is monumental. In fact, the cost of keeping what our government does secret from the public has gone up alarmingly: The classification system that cost $4.3 billion in fiscal year 2000 was up to $7.2 billion in fiscal year 2004. That's a lot of Wite-Out.

Meanwhile, the IRS has also tracked the political affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states. Its explanation is that the information was "routinely collected by a vendor" and, of course, it made no use of it. And now the IRS is planning to "outsource" collecting overdue taxes to private firms around the country. Now, let's see, do we think any of those private firms will have Republican Party affiliations? ..."

Remember the Good Old Days?

Just after 9/11, even we liberal doves could kind of see why the U.S. needed to invade Afghanistan and kill off all the al Qaida in sight.
I mean, we knew most of the 9/11 terrorists were of Saudi nationality, but they trained in Afghanistan, and we knew Bush wasn't about to invade his employers' palaces in Saudi.
So, Afghanistan had to take the whipping for allowing Saudi militants to train to be terrorists on their soil.
Once American troops landed on Afghani soil, BushCo realized they could be of much better use attacking Iraq, where there was oil to be plundered and plenty of post-invasion money to be made for his daddy Dick's bosses at Halliburton.
Bush ordered the troops in Afghanistan to be cut to the level of the Lukenbach, Texas police department.
He left the task of hunting for 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to a few Afghan nomads, who probably hurt themselves laughing at the very idea of capturing their hero and handing him over to BushCo.
Nothing to see there, move on.
Now that American troops are all but depleted in Bush's vanity war with Iraq, Afghanistan has become overrun again with record opium crops and a sturdy new al Qaida.
Bush has done more to develop and foster a league of Uber-Terrorists than bin Laden could have ever hoped.
Afghanistan has actually become more of a shithole than it was before we invaded ...and that, my friends, is saying something.
But for those of you who value a fabulous heroin rush, Bush has nation-built a country that delivers the finest smack in the world, with plenty of security lapses to ensure its fresh, regularly scheduled delivery to America.
I couldn't be more proud of Our President.

Another One Bites the Dust

Though the GOP dominoes are falling slower than many of us would wish, still they are falling:
Ohio Republican Tied to Lobbyist to Cede Post

AP Washington - Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in a lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.

"Unfortunately it has become clear to me in recent days that the false allegations made against me have become a distraction to the important work of the House Republican Conference and the important work that remains ahead for the House Administration Committee," Ney said in a written statement..."

I believe Tom DeLay used the false allegations routine, too, just before he "temporarily" stepped down in disgrace.

Adios, MoFo #2.

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping


By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.

Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups

Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 66% of Democrats favored impeachment, as did 59% of Independents, and even 23% of Republicans. By ideology, impeachment was supported by Progressives (90%), Libertarians (71%), Liberals (65%), and Moderates (58%), but not by Conservatives (33%) or Very Conservatives (28%).

Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion. 74% of those 18-29 favored impeachment, 47% of those 31-49, 49% of those 50-64, and 40% of those over 65. 55% of women favored impeachment, compared to 49% of men. Among African Americans, 75% favored impeachment, as did 56% of Hispanics and 47% of whites. Majorities of Catholics, Jews, and Others favored impeachment, while 44% of Protestants and 38% of Born Again Christians did so.

Majorities favored impeachment in every region: the East (54%), South (53%) and West (52%), and Central states (50%). In large cities, 56% support impeachment; in small cities, 58%; in suburbs, 46%; in rural areas, 46%..."

Where is the Mainstream Media on this? Weren't they supposed to be the biased, liberal media? Why are they afraid to report that Bush is this unpopular?

Bush needs to go, and most people agree with me on this.

I Love It!

John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog reports today he just bought a list of three days' worth of General Wesley Clark's cell phone calls for under $90.
The Chicago Sun Times was all over the news, quoting Gen. Clark:

"When I learned today that my phone records were purchased for less than a hundred dollars I joined millions of Americans who worry about the invasion of their privacy that seems to be the growing price of technology," Clark said. "People should be able to trust that their privacy is being respected and protected by everyone from the government to our internet and mobile phone service providers. Clearly, this is not the case."

Clark urged consumers to contact their senators to urge passage of a law to order the Federal Trade Commission to "restore integrity to the system and give people back a reasonable degree of privacy."...

Hats off to John- a professional Blogger who once again has shown the mainstream media how to get off their asses, drop the press releases and actually report the news.

Go pat John on the back:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Let's See If I've Got This Straight...

BushCo's Department of Defense can't be bothered to equip our troops with proper armor, yet anyone who talks about ending the war is hurting troop morale? Huh?

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) expects to be taken seriously, yet twice during his questioning of Samuel Alito he referred to him as, "Judge Scolito"? Huh?

Washington, D.C. council member (and former mayor) Marion Berry tests positive for cocaine during a routine drug test as an income tax evader, and he hasn't been thrown from office and into jail yet? Huh?

Christian fanatic Pat Robertson wants to build a Christian tourism center in Northern Israel, yet he suggested Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent stroke was caused by God punishing him for messing up his turf? Huh?

Random House has offered refunds on James Frey's fictionalized memoir, "A Million Little Pieces" if the customer bought it "directly from the publisher" AND has a receipt? Huh?

Tom DeLay is trying to sue a group of concerned citizens for trying to run a TV ad linking DeLay to Jack "free Scotland golf junkets" Abramoff? Huh?

If people play their iPods too loud for extended periods they might experience a hearing loss? Huh?

While Bush was recently visiting wounded soldiers at Brooke Army Medical Center, he actually said he too was injured recently...by a cedar tree scratching him? Huh?

Armed Federal Air Marshals are supposed to ride on airplanes incognito, but they have to announce themselves at airline ticket counters as FAM's, then be admitted to the planes first, as first class and special needs passengers watch? Huh?

Where did common sense go?

An Idiot's Guide to the Abramhoff Scandal

Here's a concise little article I found that deftly sums up how disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's arrest (and his willingness to testify against GOP co-conspirators) will cause the GOP stranglehold on America to crumble.
I made bold the second to the last paragraph, just because I loved it so much.
Enjoy...


The man with the inside track now persona non grata

09.01.06
By Rupert Cornwell
The New Zealand Herald


WASHINGTON - The wood-panelled restaurant Jack Abramoff owned on Pennsylvania Ave, where he wined and dined his pals in Congress, now stands shuttered and empty.

The millions of dollars he showered on the politicians in campaign contributions are being hastily turned over to charities. But official Washington will not be rid of him so easily.

Barely two years ago, Abramoff was the uncrowned king of the Washington lobbying industry. Now he is the central figure in the biggest political sleaze scandal in the US in a generation - a morass of kickbacks, fraud, influence peddling and bribery that could bring down some of the biggest names on Capitol Hill.

Last week his disgrace was complete. The erstwhile super-lobbyist shuffled out of a Washington courthouse just four blocks from his Signatures restaurant, after completing a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

The young Jack Abramoff first made his name as chairman of the College Republicans. He went to Hollywood and produced a couple of movies, before riding into Washington on the crest of the Republican takeover of Congress at the 1994 mid-term elections.

With his College Republican friends, the conservative Christian leader Ralph Reed, and the tax-cutting Grover Norquist, he was part of a powerful network that expanded to include ambitious Texas Congressman Tom DeLay. Lobbying is about money and access - and in both Abramoff had the inside track. DeLay was his crucial contact and ally. Simultaneously, Abramoff struck a financial gusher, in the shape of six Indian tribes ready to spend mega-dollars to protect their lucrative casino gambling interests.

With his sidekick Michael Scanlon, Abramoff got US$80 million from the tribes to advance their cause in Washington. Some of the Indian money they kept, some they used to shower favours on congressmen, some they used to show they were very powerful people.

Abramoff counted Pakistan's military among his many clients. His pace was frenetic, yet he found time to set up ventures including Signatures and a Jewish prep school. By the end of the decade, he ran a veritable industry of influence-peddling.

Abramoff kept four luxury skyboxes at DC-area sports arenas, where he held 72 fundraising events - mostly for Republicans - between 1999 and 2003. In an average year, Signatures provided US$80,000 worth of free meals for his chums; for the most favoured there were trips to St Andrews and other shrines of golf, organised by Abramoff and paid for by the tribes.

The tawdry saga came out at hearings in early 2004, complete with emails from Abramoff and Scanlon describing their tribal clients as "monkeys" and "troglodytes".

The FBI started an investigation, and in late 2005 Scanlon struck a plea bargain, fingering Abramoff. To reduce a possible 30-year sentence to a maximum of 11, Abramoff followed suit, admitting tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy to bribe and agreeing to co-operate with prosecutors. In other words, he'll name names. The FBI is believed to be probing at least 20 members of Congress and senior aides.

Abramoff's confession has turned on the kitchen light in the middle of the night. The cockroaches are scuttling for cover, handing back money and repeating, mantra-like: "Jack Abramoff? I never knew him."

But heads will roll. Among them is DeLay, who yesterday confirmed his role as House majority leader is over.

In 2000, he accepted an Abramoff trip to Scotland. So in 2002 did the Republican congressman Bob Ney, who is set to be ousted from his chairmanship of a powerful House committee - and possibly worse. Dennis Hastert, the Speaker, has hastily given the US$69,000 of funding he received from Abramoff to a fortunate charity, but it may not be enough to save him.

The scandal hardly brushes George Bush. But it could yet be a disaster for the President. Most of those involved are Republicans, and voters could punish the party by handing control of Congress back to the Democrats at this autumn's mid-term elections. That in turn would allow Democrat-controlled hearings into Iraq and other embarrassments, making Bush's final two years in office a misery.

By then Abramoff will likely be behind bars. Back when he was the star, a colleague sensed the disaster that lay ahead. Be more careful, he warned Abramoff, or he would be "dead, disgraced, or in jail". The second prediction has been fulfilled. The third will be.
As for the first, suffice it to quote Conrad Burns, a Republican senator: "Frankly, I wish Jack Abramoff had never been born."

AFTERNOON UPDATE
Monday, January 9, 2006

Texas high criminal court denies DeLay's requests
Justices refuse request that money laundering charges against DeLay be dismissed or be sent back to lower court for immediate trial..."

Hey, Delay! That stench you're smelling is your ass on fire.
You're toast. You're done.
You're out with a whimper, like a sprayed cockroach.
Nobody likes you anymore.
You bullied your way into criminal obscurity.
You were the first neo-con artist to fall, so do it with dignity so that Frist, Rove, Cheney, Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld will have someone to emulate when they take their dives.

I hope you meet someone nice in prison, you know, someone who'll use Vaseline the first few times.

As my big sister says, "Adios, MoFo."

James Frey:
You Can't Even Trust an Honest Drug Addict/Alcoholic Anymore

Like millions of other suckers, I bought and devoured James Frey's nonfiction account of his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction called, "A Million Little Pieces."
Today, The Smoking Gun.com published a detailed account of how and where he lied, and lied, and lied in his book to sound badder and more fucked up than he apparently was.
Thank God I didn't rush out to buy his next book, "My Friend Leonard."

Even with his first book, I wondered how he could truly recover without working the 12 steps.
Now I see he's got no program of stringent honesty and accountability--he's just another liar with a substance abuse history and a two-bit rap sheet.

Oprah Winfrey chose his book as a recent Oprah's Book Club recommendation.
He was the only guest on her show the day she interviewed him about the book. There, he continued the lies and self-aggrandizing that made his book so compelling.

Don't buy the book until it hits the dollar fiction table at Half Price Books.
That's about all it's worth.

Read about the lies he told here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html

One Step Closer to Hell...

Big Dick Cheney was taken to George Washington Hospital early Monday experiencing shortness of breath, a spokeswoman said. He was released four and a half hours later. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said Cheney was taken to the hospital at 3 a.m. He was released about 7:30 a.m. Doctors found his electrocardiogram unchanged and determined he was retaining fluid because of medication he was taking for a foot problem...

After four heart attacks, several cardiac procedures and a pacemaker implant, it's a wonder VP Lord Voldemort is still alive.
Someone get a silver spike, please.

The L Word Premiere

Just as I suspected, season three looks like it's going to be just as lousy as season two.
A brief rundown of the characters' latest antics:

Bette & Tina: all about that stupid baby. Unemployed Bette looks slightly yellowish gray.
Dana: back with that chef chick, Laura. Looks like Dana will develop breast cancer this season.
Alice: on RX drugs, stalking Dana, crying a lot.
Helena: a psychic predicted Alice would be her next victim. She also bought a movie studio.
Shane: dating Carmen, hairstyle worse than ever.
Carmen: still hot.
Jenny Schecter: still crazy and tortured, plus her mother is played by equally crazy Margot Kidder. Their dramatic scene together was painful to watch.
Kit: Woo hoo, menopause is dawning.
No new characters, except for an exceptionally unattractive butch Jenny was shtupping back at her mother's house in the midwest. Of course they got caught.
Unfortunately, the producers opted to keep that same horrible theme music by Betty.
The writers all need to be beaten with sticks, then fired.
All in all, I think I'm done with the L Word.
It's a real pile of crap.

Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor
By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: January 7, 2006
NY Times
A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials...

To read the rest of this article, go to

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/politics/07armor.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1136649690-V3UtxFgtOVxeud4Tl4be3Q

Lou Dubose: The Pimping of the Presidency

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/010606Z.shtml

Jack Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the president. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Bush to Give Away (part of) Abramoff Donations

Jack Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for Bush's 2004 re-election effort, earning him the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign.

Now that Bush has been caught with his paw in the honeypot, pudgy White House spokesfag Scotty McClellan said the Bushies plan to give "part of" the $100,000 to charity.

What's this? Bush gets caught with dirty money and he thinks donating part of it after the fact will somehow exonerate him?

WTF? Can this guy's balls get any larger?


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010406I.shtml

Why the Long Face?

Oh, no. John Kerry wants to run again for the presidency.
I voted for him once but I won't do it again.
I think he had good ideas but he couldn't articulate them.
He let Karl Rove and the Swift Bloat phonies bully him.
Wrong man, wrong time.
Sorry Kerry, you had your shot.
What do you think?

The Happiest of Happy New Year's Days

I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" with a very cute companion on Sunday evening.
The best part was standing in line, watching people walk by and spying my ex rush by with her latest girlfriend to another screening room.
I don't think they saw us, which was good because they would have seen my jaw drop in shock.
It seems the ex got a radical haircut and what looked like a very inexpensive home perm.
It would be tasteless to say her hair looked positively elderly and clown-like, so I won't. But Phyllis Diller might be suing for trademark infringement.
The shocking new 'do managed to extinguish any microscopic embers of attraction that might have remained. With one fell swoop, she fell from a misty watercolor memory to a jolt of relief that I got out...well before the unfortunate makeover.
Sayonara, ex. Go in peace.
Anyway...
The movie was lovely. Go see it.
When the first sex scene occurred, two straight couples immediately got up and rushed to the exit in a huff. They must have needed to crawl back under the rock that hid them from the kazillion media mentions of the gay cowboy movie.
The story was bittersweet and highly credible, the acting was superb and the cinematography was gorgeous. Oscar time for Heath Ledger. The Aussie actor nailed the part of a Texas cowboy, including a picture perfect accent.
The theater was chilly, so we huddled under her fleece jacket and held hands, surrounded by queens and lesbians who were doing their own cuddling. It was very, very nice.
And my companion's shoulder length, perfectly coiffed golden brown hair with natural highlights looked absolutely, positively wonderful.

I have a feeling I'm gonna like 2006. Onward and upward!