"I'll get you next time, Gadget. Next time."

Let's observe a moment of silence for the end of the Lake Show.

For now.

Biblical Interpretation Quote of the Day
"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it OK to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?"


- fictional President of the United States Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) of "The West Wing", trying to explain to a group of reactionary religious conservatives exactly why we do not and should not live in a theocracy defined by a strict interpretation of the Bible.

Aaron Sorkin's last month on the show reminded me why I used to love it. I mean, who can beat John Goodman as Newt Gingrich?

Loose Lips
Here's the ACLU's report on all the various & sundry ways your President and his supporters have tried to squash dissent for their policies.

Artwork, BTW, is courtesy of Micah Wright's "Propaganda Remix" collection.

Getting Out of Dodge
Proof, once again, that, where there's a will, there's a way. When the Republican majority in the Texas State legislature, allegedly under marching orders from U.S. Congressman Tom Delay, decided to redraw the state's congressional districts to the GOP's advantage, in an off-year, without the benefit of a Federal Census to justify it, Texas Democrats walked out.

Of course, you need a quorum to actually hold the vote, and, while there are enough Republicans to pass the bill, there aren't enough of them for a quorum. And, assuming that the Democrats stay across the state line in Oklahoma, outside the reach of Texas State Police, the time to pass the bill will expire and the measure will die.

Checkmate.

Amazing what you can do when your back is against the wall.

"Hold The Line!"
For once, Senate Democrats have managed not to completely cave in to Right Wing demands by preventing a GOP bid to make the All Seeing Eye Powers given to the Justice Department permanent.

The Dean Effect
Howard Fineman of Newsweek tends to be one of the more thoughtful, less partisan, and less shrill of the political pundits that make the cable circuit. In many ways, I think this is why he's dead on with his analysis of Gov. Howard Dean's position in the Democratic primary.

Having said that, I also think that Bill Schneider of CNN made a contrary, yet still excellent point about the 2004 presidential election on the Charlie Rose show this week and it is this: Each election ultimately comes down to a job interview with the American public, where a given candidate has to make a case as to why they should not just hire him but, when running against an incumbent, why they should fire his opponent. Reagan was the Un-Carter. Clinton was the Un-Bush. 2000 doesn't count, in my opinion, because Bush Jr. won on a technicality. But it's not enough to be the opposite of your opponent. You have to offer something he's lacking that the public desperately wants. Reagan was gonna get those Commie bastards because Carter was too soft. Clinton was going to take care of us because Bush didn't care. The question remains: what does the country desperately want from George W. Bush that it's not getting?

One last thing: is it me, of does Howard Dean's candidate profile bear more than a passing resemblence to President Bartlett on The West Wing?

Tower of Babel
And now, a long overdue nerd moment.
Here, on Space.com, scientists debate whether mathematics could possibly be a universal language that we could use to communicate with extraterrestrial beings.

I tend to agree with Sundar Sarukkai - statistically speaking, it seems highly unlikely. Our system of mathematics is an extremely complex universe based on thousands of postulates and assumptions that we cannot guarantee others with different biological, environmental, and sociological backgrounds will share. I'm much more intrigued by the idea of what an alternate, yet equally viable math system would look like.

Evolutionary Path
This is a rather surprising article from The New Republic about the social implications to be found in comparing the movie X2 to the current versions of the X-Men comic books (New X-Men by Grant Morrison & Ultimate X-Men by Mark Millar, among my own personal favorites). In it, the author notes that "X-Men" has always been an allegory for the relationship of minority communities with the majority culture, where Xavier represents integration and Magneto represents violent separatism. But the author laments that, unlike the film, the current comics paint Magneto's POV in a much more fashionable light.

Point taken, but I think the comic writers are less interested in espousing a militant agenda and much more concerned with injecting some emotional realism to these stories. Yes, Xavier is a proponent of integration, but, after literally thousands of stories where various regular humans have tried to commit mutant genocide, some of which include several glimpses into possible future timelines where mutants are enslaved by the majority population, I think any sane man would begin to doubt the viability of peace. The problem, ultimately, with Magneto's view is that it's much easier to maintain in the face of adversity than the view of peace. Just look at the Middle East.

"Take off that uniform!"

"But on this point I differ with the President: I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech."

- Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVa) expressing his outrage over the President's "Independence Day" photo-op last week.

Tune in next week as I continue my ongoing examination of the death of shame....

Untouchable
OK. Now I'm satisfied.

Since there clearly aren't stockpiles of anthrax-tipped Scud missiles aimed at the "Children of America"(tm) like Bush said justified razing Iraq to it's foundation, and since the Shiite majority seems to have a difference of opinion on this whole "Democratic American puppet" thing, some people in the Administration are finally coming clean as to the point of this war.

It's "Shock & Awe", but not the way you think. It's entire purpose was to let potential terrorists know that America operates by the Chicago Way, - "you pull a knife, we pull a gun. You send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of yours to the morgue".

Hey, it worked for Nixon in Vietnam and Reagan with the Soviets, right?

Dixiecrats
A Country radio DJ in Colorado got suspended and was threatened with being fired for playing the Dixie Chicks against station programming orders last week.

What strikes me as the most interesting is that, according to the article, the majority of the fans actually want them to get airplay, but it's management/business that is keeping them off the air.

Could this whole thing just be an organized smear campaign from uber-Nationalist radio bohemoth ClearChannel? After all, they were the money behind a bunch of pre-war rallies across the country back in March.

Thieves In The Temple
Turns out ancient Mesopotamian artifacts weren't the only things that grew legs and walked out of Iraq last month. In this report from the Global Security Newswire, a team from the U.S. defense department found an Iraqi nuclear facility had been looted two weeks before they'd arrived on site.

Cutting The Gordian Knot
I was amused and somewhat saddened when Michael Bloomberg became the mayor of New York City. Talk about buying an election, right?
Well, I'm recanting every negative thing I have to say about Mayor Bloomberg, because he's demonstrated that he's all about handling the business of the city.

Case in point: Bloomberg has publicly stated that the people of New York should judge his entire career on his ability to overhaul the city's failing public school system by applying business techniques and cutting out the red tape. For starters, Bloomberg has eliminated ALL of the regional school boards, making all the school principals directly accountable to him and his new School Chancellor. He's replaced the 40 different math curricula and 30 different reading curricula across the city's 1200 schools with one of each, which allows them to standardize the programs and buy textbooks for the entire city at bulk rates. And he's fired over a thousand people.

What stones.

I'm impressed. I just hope it works.

As a side note, I can't help but notice some similarities in tactics between Bloomberg and President Bush. I suppose I'd be willing to cut Bush some more slack if he applied said tactics for policies I agreed with. But I digress.

"Step One - Assign Blame"
Proving once again that the GOP can't even win gracefully, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that if Colin Powell & the State Department hadn't screwed up so bad diplomatically, we wouldn't even needed to go to war in the first place.

Gingrich, who's been sitting behind the curtain as part of a Pentagon advisory board, has clearly never heard that you can't blame the messengers. State can only do so much when the White House tells them to sell lemons.

"Which way did he go? Which way did he go?"
Not only has the American coalition not found any substantive storage of WMDs in Iraq, flying in the face of that whole "imminent danger" thing Bush talked about, BUT, as this Washington Post article suggests, even if there were any, the way we mishandled security in Baghdad may have actually helped put them into the hands of terrorists. The words "strategic looting" should concern alot of people.

Go See "Better Luck Tomorrow", now in limited release
The two guys in the picture above are cousins. Best friends. High school honors students, bound for the Ivy League School of their choice. Model examples of the "Model Minority".
They also happen to be members of the most feared group of cheats, thieves, drug dealers, and all around thugs in the most lilly-white Orange County suburb you can possibly imagine. Proving the motto that, if you get good grades, you can literally get away with murder.

This is the set up for "Better Luck Tomorrow", a small indie film directed by relative newcomer Justin Line that is, simply, the best film I've seen so far this year. What's even more surprising is that this is a co-production of MTV Films, which may have finally graduated from the sugarcoated simplicity of "Save The Last Dance" and "Varsity Blues" to finally show the first, true teen drama I've seen in a very long time. It's in limited release, so check the website and see if it's in your town. Catch it before it flies away. It gets my strongest possible recommendation.

Ex-Presidential Quote of the Day

"You cannot kill, jail or occupy all your adversaries, sooner or later you have to make a deal."

- Fomer President Clinton, giving his feelings on the current administration's foreign policy.

I guess Bubba's stood all he can stand. See what else is on his mind.

"Bush Doctrine In Practice" Quote of the Day

"We have a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq."

- Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who seems eager to follow the example set by the United States, but with no such compunctions as a concern for Pakistani civilians.

Thank you for what you've wrought, Mr. President.

Truly Patriotic Quote of the Day

"In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce."

- Tim Robbins, from a speech he gave at the National Press Club after the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled a celebration for the 15th anniversary of "Bull Durham" because of the anti-war stance taken by Robbins and his wife/co-star, Susan Sarandon.

Next In Line
Of course the U.S. Army didn't have enough guys to stop looters from robbing Bagdad of 7000 years worth of historical artifacts. While no one else was looking, they were far to busy bombing the shit out of the armed militia formed to oppose the current Iranian dictatorship, who'd taken refuge in Eastern Iraq.

Now, if the leaders of Iran are truly part of the Axis of Evil, why would the U.S. take out their strongest opposition? Some speculate that it was a pay-off to keep Iran out of our invasion of Iraq.

Didn't we learn our lesson from Iran-Contra about backdoor deals with these people?