Paul & Paul report from the field

An an analysis from the New York Times about Paul O'Neill and Bono (his real name is Paul, for anyone who didn't get the title) in regards to the government's refusal to actually help any foreign countries- other than, of course, ones with military weapons or huge reserves of petroleum, and how they have... slightly... different opinions on how money should be allocated in this country.

[T]he United States currently spends 0.11 percent of G.D.P. on foreign aid; Canada and major European countries are about three times as generous. The Bush administration's proposed "Millennium Fund" will increase our aid share, but only to 0.13 percent.

Maybe the easiest way to refute Mr. O'Neill is to recall last year's proposal by the World Health Organization, which wants to provide poor countries with such basic items as antibiotics and insecticide-treated mosquito nets. If the U.S. had backed the proposed program, which the W.H.O. estimated would save eight million lives each year, America's contribution would have been about $10 billion annually...

[O]pponents of the estate tax didn't even try to make a trickle-down argument, to assert that reducing taxes on wealthy heirs is good for all of us. Instead, they made an emotional appeal - they wanted us to feel the pain of those who pay the "death tax." And the sob stories worked; Congress brushed aside proposals to retain the tax, even proposals that would raise the exemption - the share of any estate that is free from tax - to $5 million.

Let's do the math here. An estate tax with an exemption of $5 million would affect only a handful of very wealthy families: in 1999 only 3,300 estates had a taxable value of more than $5 million. The average value of those estates was $16 million. If the excess over $5 million were taxed at pre-2001 rates, the average taxed family would be left with $10 million - which doesn't sound like hardship to me - and the government would collect $20 billion in revenue each year. But no; the whole tax must go.

So here are our priorities. Faced with a proposal that would save the lives of eight million people every year, many of them children, we balk at the cost. But when asked to give up revenue equal to twice that cost, in order to allow each of 3,300 lucky families to collect its full $16 million inheritance rather than a mere $10 million, we don't hesitate.

 

 
Wow, how'd they score this guy for an endorsement?

Official Yasser Arafat Cheese Puffs. As always, shitting you not am I.
 

 
Making shopping safer for white folks everywhere

Salon has a great article up about the growing racism in the crystal-clean upper-class utopia that is the nation's growing cadre of shopping malls. And just to get this out in the open, I'll clarify my position on malls in general. Anyone else from northern New Jersey will confirm that the Bergen/Passaic County area has more shopping mall per square inch than any other area on the planet. I live in Teaneck, one of the many towns adjacent to the much larger city of Paramus. which has, in itself, five malls. Thus, Teaneck, Bogota, Bergenfield, and all the other towns wedged in between Paramus and the county's largest city of Hackensack have led college students like me to identify the location of where we live in the state to other people with the line "Go to the mall and look in the parking lot." Thus once again cementing the time-tested theory that New Jersey has no fucking culture whatsoever with, of course, the exception of Bruce.

So despite my state pride (give or take the eight months a year I'm not living in it) I love to point out any article that reminds me about the two hideously low points about the place: New Jersey is famous for malls. and racial profiling. We fucking invented the term, for Christ's sake. Points to anyone who remembers the infamous photo of Christie Whitman (then governor, now head of the EPA. the governor of New Jersey... that's right. But I digress) pausing for a photo op during a re-election bid. To show her "tough on crime" stance, she "helped" Jersey police with their job by allowing an officer to teach her how to frisk suspects. the 1996 photo of Whitman smiling as she searched an unknown black man facing a brick wall is largely credited as one of the main reasons she isn't vice-president right now.

Okay, went astray there for a moment. Anyway. As the article explains, a St. Louis mall is banning clothing obviously connected to black culture, and has gone as far as to kick out Nelly, a famous and recognized entertainer because his doo-rag might have "incited gang activity." Yes, the security staff at the mall is that old and white.

What makes this such a compelling read is that the article also reflects the repeated examples of this happening in the American consumer environment:

One such case is pending against Dick Clark's Restaurants Inc., alleging that the management of one restaurant, located in a Philadelphia mall, attempted to get rid of African-American clientele (whom management allegedly referred to as the "Norristown element") by firing black security guards, banning hip-hop music, raising drink prices, and enforcing a dress code -- no baseball caps, football jerseys or Timberland boots -- that prohibited fashions popular with local African-American youth.

Lawyers representing the fired security guards say that when they sent black and white customers into the restaurant, all of them dressed in apparel that violated the dress code, only the African-Americans were asked to leave. "We sent investigators in there, Caucasians, dressed in violation of the code, and nobody bothered them," attorney Robert Adshead told the Philadephia Inquirer. "One sat under the sign that said what you couldn't wear, and he was waited on the whole night."

As the article also proves, It's obvious in the attitudes of the mall spokeswhitepeople that they're trying to avoid the concept that is blatantly obvious to all of us: malls are made for people with money, and we live in a country where most of the money is in the hands of white people. Comedian Chris Rock broke ground with a frighteningly true joke that finally put the truth right out in the open: "towns have two malls- the new, big mall, and the mall that white people used to go to."

And he was absolutely right. My area has an equal proportion of blacks and whites. I have never gone to one of the "main" malls in Jersey (Short Hills, Willowbrook, or the Garden State Plaza) and seen a single black person in half the stores. No black people in Abercrombie and Fitch, none at Old Navy, none at The Sharper Image- the store that competes with Brookstone in catering to white people who admit to having no idea what to do with their extra money. And the Garden State Plaza now has two Sharper Images. That's right, two of the same fucking store at opposite ends of the mall. You know something else black people don't do? Stupid shit like that. My college fund to anyone who can prove to me anyone other than a white guy brainstormed the idea of putting two identical stores in the same mall just in case the consumers are too tired to walk that far.

Like all aspects of culture and entertainment, specialization for minorities is a "theme." White people shop anywhere: all the trendy clothing stores simple pull the white consumers in. Black people have a fashion ideal, which is then captured, specialized, and marketed by white people, for white people. Then they make sure the store has the word "Urban" somewhere in the title, and presto- "black" culture for white people.

But since the argument that a private company (the mall) has the right to discriminate against anyone they want fell flat (do to the pesky legal fact that they actually can't,) the pro-get-black-people-put-of-shopping-centers-for-white-people crowd moves to the next expected step: talking out of the side of their ass.

Defenders of dress codes like to give the impression that their codes are based on science. Many, like the Union Station Mall, claim that their profiles of potential gang members come straight from local law enforcement and the FBI. But if there are such profiles, the FBI is not aware of it.

Indeed. Maybe it's because there's no such thing as a "scientific" example of gang clothing. If the local gang wore red, would all red be banned from the mall? Ridiculous. In any culture, groups attempting to be popular among one another wear clothing that they identify as cool or popular. and what makes the clothing popular? The stores in the malls, be it Abercrombie & Fitch, Hot Topic, or Urban anything. English majors, help me out here: is that classified as "irony" or "just plain sad?"
 

 
More on Moore (yeah, that never gets old...)

Story about Michael Moore's Cannes coup from the man himself. No explanation about the sunglasses, though.
 

 
Dance, white man, dance

Michael Moore kicks ass at Cannes. And to top it off, Bowling for Columbine has officially been picked up by United Artists for U.S. release. Now let's all hope they have the balls to actually release the damn film somewhere.

How did Mike do it? Evidence shows: The Matrix.

 posted by August J. Pollak at 9:10 PM

 
TiVo spam

Since the day I started hearing about the "features" of the TiVo recorder (the demographic spying, the shady deals with advertising companies, the lack of output features, and of course, the monthly fee, which never seems to be mentioned in the ads,) I have rarely been overly enthusiastic about the idea of getting one.

Well, TiVo decided to add another reason to the "never, ever buy me" list: a new "sponsorship feature" automatically records certain programs, ads and other promotional material.

[V]iewers in the UK were surprised this week to find that the second episode of the little-known BBC sitcom "Dossa and Joe" had been recorded without their knowledge and added to the system's main menu screen.

They were even more surprised to find that they won't be allowed to delete the programme for one week, and that more sponsored recordings are on the way.

TiVo defended the new "Advanced Content" feature, insisting that it doesn't adversely affect a viewer's usage of the system. Sponsored programmes are recorded on a reserved section of the hard disk, and only if the viewer isn't watching or recording something else.
 

 
The Lighter Side of... oh fuck it. This sucks.

Figured I should post this before eight or nine hundred of your forward the story to me: Mad Magazine cartoonist Dave Berg is dead at 81.

I'm upset because it's another notch in the end of a great era... as a lot of people mentioned before, Mad Magazine hasn't exactly maintained the height of relevance is held thirty years ago. I look at old copies from my attic and think that, on a respective scale, they're better than anything they published in the last ten or fifteen years- which is why two years ago, after a membership that due to my father's interest in the magazine literally spanned longer than my own life, I decided not to renew my subscription.

With the exception of a few that I won't specifically name because I know I'll miss a few like I always do... okay, it includes Sergio Aragones, Duck Edwing, and the brilliant Peter Kuper, Mad Magazine doesn't really have a top-notch staff anymore. I'm aware that coming from an artist who's never been offered a job in the field, attacking professional artists is sort of pretentious, but as I've stated before, a lifetime of reading comics makes me incapable of pretending not to believe this: an assload of cartoonists have jobs that they don't deserve, many of which have had a job too long, many of which are making money that should go to people like... well, me.

Dave Berg was sort of an exception to that rule. Anyone who read a recent issue of Mad would realize instantly that, among the fart jokes and pointless jabs at politicians that weren't original when the writers stole them from Leno, Dave Berg wasn't exactly in touch with the PoMo demographic. He was a 50's cartoonist who, even though he threw in hip modern references, still only knew about drawing a 50's cartoon. Unlike the newspaper cartoonists who suffer this ill, however, Berg worked for a once-iconic magazine. As such, he actually did represent a bygone era. It actually didremind readers of the old Mad Magazine what the thing used to be like.

In forty short years, Mad Magazine went from a 10-cent magazine that was reviled by politicians and parents alike and hailed for it's anti-mainstream commentary of politics and consumer culture to an ad-filled, merchandise-endorsing, full-color glossy piece of irrelevant crap that just happens to now be owned by the largest single consumer culture-producing industry on the planet. And now they won't even have guys like Dave Berg around to remind them of what they used to stand for.

But what do I know, I'm just some crotchety 21-year-old geezer who wishes Mad was still the way it was back in the good old days. Who cares that I wasn't born yet? Right now Mad Magazine doesn't seem to care that we're all actually alive.
 

 
Well, that's interesting

It's funny how things like this work out. A few days ago the news hit the airwaves, or netwaves. whatever. about how the new copy protections on music CDs can be disabled by drawing on the CD with a Sharpee.

Here's where it gets funny. You'll notice that the link to that story is on Yahoo, via the Reuters news service. So I'm waiting to see if huge organizations like these get any legal complications like all the little guys who post software hacks get. You see, according to this article here, posting a story about how copy protection can be cracked is technically a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known interchangeably as "The DMCA" and "The Hands-Down Worst Law Bill Clinton Ever Signed."

Under the 1998 law's sections 1201.2(a) and (c), it's illegal to "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof" that is primarily designed to circumvent a copy protection. That's in part (a), and Reuters and its customers might be able to argue that the story wasn't "primarily" designed for that purpose.

But Reuters would have a lot of trouble getting around 1201.2(c). It outlaws the manufacture, etc., etc., of any "marketed" product or service that allows users to circumvent copy protections.

There's no question that Reuters marketed the story. Selling stories to its customers is the way it makes money, and several copyright lawyers suggest the "bad intent" language of those sections can easily apply to news stories. Reuters would have to be massively naïve to believe that hundreds of music-sharing fans around the wouldn't test the magic marker technique on Sony CDs as soon as they read the story.

So, in other words, I guess I'm now in legal troubles for posting an article about how an article about an article is in violation of the most convoluted and most giant-media-conglomerate-friendly piece of legislation ever created by man. In other words, mentioning this can get one in legal trouble, but it can't actually be reported by any news service if that happens because technically they would have to explain exactly what it is you're in legal trouble for. which is exactly that. My head hurts. I have to lie down now.
 

 
Pouring it on a bit thick, are we

Media Whores Online points out that today is the one-year anniversary of Jim Jeffords defecting from the Republican Party, thus turning control of the Senate over to the Democrats. And I would take a mile guess that they're happy about it, what with calling it Jim Jeffords Day and suggesting that one way to celebrate it, among others is to "adopt a pet from the Humane Society and name him or her Jim Jeffords."

I'm just pointing out that I'm not actually endorsing the joy of Jeffords' actions (at least not to the level of the unabashedly Clinton-adoring MWO,) merely that any self-imposed holiday that dictates adopting a puppy is fine with me... even if you're supposed to name it after Vermont politicians. There have, for the record, been weirder celebrations in my life.

Update: Unfortunately, the day has passed and the page is no longer there, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.
 

 
I'm going to hell for this post.

Well, that's nice. I'm glad they haven't lost her again. It would be a shame if she didn't remain found for at least a little while.

Up next: General Fransicso Franco is still dead.
 

 
This month's World's Stupidest IdeaT

Sorry if I missed the initial bandwagon on this, but I've got to register my formal complaints about the latest desire spreading around the country about giving guns to airplane pilots. Now, despite just about everyone in the country saying it's a bad idea, including the White House, they still demand them. And, given the success of the NRA lobbying in congress, odds are this latest attempt to override the government is most likely going to have a very good chance at succeeding. So here's a few reasons why we should all be very, very afraid:

The gun advocates are liars, and obscene liars at that.

Possibly the most disgusting comment to ever come out of the NRA's mouthpieces is the recent "September 11th could have been prevented if pilots had guns." Not only is this a horrific exploitation of thousands of innocent lives to promote an increase in membership dues, it's spouted simply because it's an idea that can never be proven.

But ask yourself this: each plane had four or five hijackers. Could a frantic pilot clip all of them? What if one of the terrorists was in the cockpit with the box cutter to his throat before he could even get out of his seat? What about the belief that the terrorists produced a box which they claimed was a bomb. would the gun help that then? All of this, of course, is speculation to the most ridiculous of notions- that using a gun to try and kill someone would dissuade them from performing a suicide mission.

It's blatantly dangerous, and no research has been done to dissuade the notion.

The entire movement to arm the pilots has been supported by petitions and flowing speeches about safety. Yet little, if any, research, has been spread in the mainstream media (if it even exists) about the safety and outcome of the most obvious "what if" situations. What if the terrorist gains control of the gun? What if a passenger gains control of the gun? Likewise, what if a drunk or hysterical passenger decides that every dark-skinned person on the airplane is a terrorist? What if a stray bullet hits a passenger? What if a stray bullet hits the window? An overhead oxygen tank? The co-pilot?

The result of any of those situations ranges from the physically worst (one to all passengers will die) to the financially worst (exactly how much would you sue a billion-dollar airline for if their pilot put a bullet into your four-year old?

The proliferation of handguns in society show the same change in attitude that things like SUVs have shown: people can learn to use them responsibly, but even with training, a large percentage are unable to handle something as dangerous as a gun- and some of them are going to prove it the hard way. If ten thousand pilots are given guns, several thousand of them are not going to be properly able to exert the utmost responsibility of handling them. and one of them is going to over react and cause a lot of problems. This isn't a statement on guns, it's a statement on human nature. Technology has allowed the human race to cheat Darwin every now and then.

The cost-risk balance is unfeasible.

Manned airplane flight in this country has existed for 99 years. Armed airline hijacking is at least several decades old. Today, airplane flights number thousands daily. September 11 was not an addition to an average: it was an outlier- an anomaly. But even with four plane hijacks in one day factored into the average, the ratio of plane flights overtaken by terrorist hijackers to place flights that land safely with no threat since the modern inception of hijacking is a fraction so small I doubt any records could calculate it accurately. That said, how is it financially feasible to arm, train, and legally secure (both through licensing and lawsuit insurance should previously mentioned screw-ups occur) over ten thousand people for the preparation of, statistically, an incident less likely to occur than being struck by lightning as a shark attacks you on the way to claiming your winning lottery ticket?

And before it starts, the "it's worth it" argument is irrelevant here. Saying that the cost to taxpayers is worth it because it might prevent another 9/11 is as weak as saying that the cost to businesses of banning all airplanes is worth it. And with the mention of taxpayers, we come to the next point:

Somehow, we are going to pay for all of it.

Just like the $5 surcharge on all plane tickets now, at least part of the funding for arming pilots will come from taxpayers and consumers. If you don't believe me, remember that the lead proponent of the arming is (go fig) the National Rifle Association, who have consistently used the second amendment as a backbone for arguments that taxpayers and federal funding should aid activities related to the bearing of arms.

In addition, pilot unions would mention the grave injustice that already occurs- that a significant portion of pilots make less than $15,000 a year, and that it would be ludicrous to consider that they have to pay for their training and equipment costs.
 

 
On what the president might have known before 9/11

Well, I'll be the first to admit the grand sceme of this is well over my head, espcecially since the entire Unocal involvement was born before I was (which as of the last post you can pinpoint the approximate time, har har.)

So like a lot of others have done, I direct you to Tom, who sums it up as best as possible.

The part I agree with most is about how the blame will immediately be shifted towards a political level, and with that I advise, nay, demand (what?) that you all read this post at Get Donkey! about how once again the Republican party has decided to pre-emptively attack the Democrats for accusing the Bush administration of foot-dragging on 9/11. The problem, like always, is that no one's really done that yet... but little inconveniences like making up facts never stopped them before.
 

 
The Big 2-1

Well, here it is. I'm now 21. And as is the style of my birthday, I provide you the eloquent words of Weird Al Yankovic, whose prolific verse generated the most poignant birthday elegy of our time:

Well, it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year
We'll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer
You should be good and happy that there's something you can eat
Since a million people every day are starving in the street

Your daddy's in the gutter with the wretched and the poor
Your mama's in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four
There's garbage in the water
There's poison in the sky
I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die

Well, what's the matter little friend, you think this party is the pits
Enjoy it while you can, we'll soon be blown to bits
The monkeys in the pentagon are gonna cook our goose
Their finger's on the button, all they need is an excuse

It doesn't take a military genius to see
We'll all be crispy critters after World War III
There's nowhere you can run to, nowhere you can hide
When they drop the big one, we all get fried

(Come on boys and girls, sing along, ok?)

Well there's a punk in the alley and he's looking for a fight
There's an Arab on the corner buying everything in sight
There's a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed
Seems that everywhere you look today there's misery and greed

I guess you know the Earth is gonna crash into the sun
But that's no reason why we shouldn't have a little fun
So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take
Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake

So have a happy one to anyone else born on the 20th. I'm going to go eat cake and not think about how screwed up the world is for a day. Then I go find friends and buy them lots of alcohol, because I'm happy (really) and because I can.
 

 
Sins of the mothers

Reader Josh Clark has alerted me to the latest attempt by affiliates of the Christian religion to make itself look inclusive and supportive of all people in all walks of life. Apparently, the head Pastor of a private Christian school has expelled a 5-year old student after discovering her mother was a stripper. "If you choose to do the wrong thing willfully, then God's word instructs me as to what my responsibility is," said the pastor, just seconds before unexpectedly melting like the guy with the glasses in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As the article explains, the mother apparently was instructed to "follow the ideals of the school" in her child's application to the school, which of course means that any of the following is also grounds for expulsion: having a gay relative without setting them on fire, fornication involving physical pleasure, listening to the new Moby album, and telling her daughter that she can bea firewoman if she really wants to. I'm sure there's a couple of other ungodly activites we can think of that technically sends you straight to hell as well, but frankly, it's not as condescending to the asshole with a collar that in no way is going to be near the Right Hand of anyone when he gets hit by a truck.

So, Ma'am, here's the deal. You can make even more money than stripping by creepy old men (half of whom, ironically, are most likely preists who are trying to prove to the Mon Seniors that "they really like pubic hair, too! Really!") by suing the school. But before people start the "she signed a contract" speech, here's the catch: you're going to sue them for discrimination. And that contract is going to be YOUR evidence, not theirs.

How does that work, you ask? Simple: the article claims you were "turned in" by another parent. That means at least one of two things: Another parent participated in the act of entering a house of ill repute, and even if they didn't, by turning you in they violated the Ten Commandments by not loving their neighbor. What that means is that another parent has violated the ideals of your child's school, and yet their little bible-whipped brat still has their ass in their seat.

Go get a lawyer, and sue the hell out of the school, and the glowing white horse they crusaded in on. If you think they're upset that you show your tits, imagine how they'll feel after you fuck them up the ass.

 

 
Why Conservative columnists shouldn't watch Star Wars after smoking lage amounts of crack

From The Weekly Standard, the same paper that provided us the laughable Larry Miller Middle East essay: an analysis of how Star Wars reflects a reverse of true conservative politics and how Darth Vader is actually a hero for the neo-conservative right wing.

I'm not kidding.

The [Galactic] Senate moves so slowly that it is powerless to stop aggression between member states. In "The Phantom Menace" a supra-planetary alliance, the Trade Federation (think of it as OPEC to the Galactic Republic's United Nations), invades a planet and all the Senate can agree to do is call for an investigation.

Like the United Nations, the Republic has no armed forces of its own, but instead relies on a group of warriors, the Jedi knights, to "keep the peace..."

...[T]he most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.

None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.

Jesus. It goes on. Read it and weep.
 

 
Or as Bush would say, I hit the Trifecta

Well, I'm glad the USA Patriot Let's RollT act is fully working to prevent all those evil terrorists from destroying us. Unfortunately, here's three different news stories about how we as a people can triumph over the obstacles of security and still manage to endanger the country from within.

To start, Ford accounced this morning that 13,000 customers just had their credit information stolen. A customer databse hack allowed unknown users to gather, essentially, all the information on 13,000 Ford buyers needed to completely replicate their identity:

In short, the thieves in one fell swoop obtained everything they needed to assume a person's identity and open a credit card or bank account in his or her name. Experts say the thieves could also establish telephone or utility service in the person's name, obtain a loan, or use the information to obtain government documents or even government benefits.

Not to be outdone yet again by those stupid Americanos, Mexico pulled in an unprecidented strong showing in the "Oh Shit" department today as robbers hijacked a truck containing 20,000 pounds of cyanide. Aside from terrorism fears, authorities are concerned that the robbers may choose to dump the cargo, thus contaminating the ground where they spill it. That, of course, and the fact that a spoonful of the stuff can kill you in a few minutes, so you know what? Fuck the lawn.

Finally, existing security is now rendered useless, thanks to the true experts in excessive unnecessary technology, the Japanese. A professor at Yokohama University has recently discovered that biometric fingerprint scanners can be fooled using gelatin found in Gummi Bears. The biometric readers, considered secondary only to retina scanners and German Shepards trained to ideintify Terminators as the most secure security devices in the world, can now be fooled about 8 out of 10 times using a computer and less than $10 worth of Jello mix.

You know, folks, I'm seeing Star Wars tomorrow, and a big complaint everyone has about the newer movies is the whole deal about how all the technology in the prequels looks cooler and more advanced than in the original series. I think shit like this is the answer. We made all this cool stuff and then it all went to hell beause we found ways to destroy them using Jello and SUV lease agreements.
 

 
Oh sweet merciful Christ yes

Bruce Springsteen for Senate. I shit you all not.

(Thanks to my former roomate Chris)
 

 
On Lebanon and late night

To start, an update on the heating-up-of-screwdriver-and-jamming-into-eye thing: it's official. Jimmy Kimmel will take over ABC's late night talk show slot with a new show, meaning the Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect is cancelled. So between getting a late-night show, becoming the excuse for getting rid of Maher, and actually having a goddamn Emmy, I think it's safe to say that Jimmy Kimmel is now somewhat significant proof that there is no God.

To be honest, I rarely watched PI, not out of discontent for the concept or the host, and certainly not because of some form of outrage "The American People" were supposed to have with him over his infamous post-9/11 remark. I honestly didn't watch it because it wasn't living up to it's actual potential.

Tom did a strip a while ago about this, and I agreed: Maher filled the show with empty-headed actors and token political pundits who knew what they were talking about and got little time to express it. The outcome of every show soon became massive dialogue on Free Republic an hour later about how the liberal media didn't give this episode's right-winger equal press time.

Basically, Maher's suffering the same fate as Dennis Miller- actual legitimate intelligence hindered by the fact that they have to format it for television. in Maher's case, pointless irrelevant celebrities bantering, in Miller's, instinctively making sure every fifth word he says has four letters to keep the audience awake.

Let's talk about the Middle East, Pt. 8

And with that, I segue to the second little bit of fun for today. I've noticed that I've drawn a lot of hits recently through searches for Dennis Miller's rant on the Mideast. So, here's the deal: it turns out someone posted on a right-wing message board the text of a column written by Larry Miller of the Weekly Standard.

I'm sort of glad for the confusion, because even by Dennis Miller's standards, I couldn't believe he would say or write something as obnoxious, racist, and unfunny as this.

In a few paragraphs, "humorist" Miller attempts, and succeeds, at emptying every single anti-Arab stereotype about the Middle East with gaping self-satisfaction. He makes sure to include the notions that all Arabs hate Israel, Palestinians aren't an actual people, and that Arabs are a backwards people.

Let's not forget the blatant racism as well. Miller points out, "Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible."

Gosh, how can you argue with logic like that? If suddenly the proportions of oppressed, abused and exiled people were reversed with those who have benefited from countless billions in international aid for the last fifty years, would they decided suddenly to feel anger towards the unfairness of their privilege and kill themselves in an effort to damage those who they feel they are oppressing. let me know when you come up with a point, Larry.

Of course, I jest. You see, I'm just pointing out how Miller has decided to use the metaphor for the culture of the two peoples but not the history. essentially, he's saying that even if the Jews went through what the Palestinians went through and vice-versa, the Jew would still never be suicide bombers. Wow, that's still hideously racist. And to think you got in that and a light-hearted remark about how hard it is to say those pesky Arabs' names. You must be tired from being a genius all day, Larry.

The reason I even point people to this article is because it points out the countless hypocrisies in the Middle East debate. Palestine doesn't exist, and in fact just this week Israel voted on this. But the Arabs denying the right for Israel to exist is horrendous. Huh?

Let's try to explain this using a combination of what I said earlier and what Ted Rall said a few weeks ago: no nation has the "right to exist" any more than a nation has a right to "say they exist." Palestinians exist as a people because there are several million people who say they are Palestinians. Jews exist as a people because there are several million people who say they are Jews. Neither has a right to exist. Israel just exists because they can back the claim up militarily. Historical claim is pointless. The American Indians can vouch for this. They got run over by a bunch of people who told them their god told them the land was all theirs. And their god happened to have guns.

Less than a hundred years before the creation of Israel, half the United States seceded from the Union, claiming their right to form their own country. The amount of time we took to debate whether or not the Confederacy had "the right to exist" was only slightly less than how long we debated whether or not the brown people who lived here before us were culturally refined enough to co-exist peacefully with the chosen folk such as ourselves. Geography, will of the people, cultural dynamic- this was all pointless in the debate. Several million people called themselves Confederates, and unfortunately for them they didn't have a foreign nation giving them several billion dollars a year to brag about how they had the right to exist. Four years later, the Confederacy was history. Just a bunch of people who wave flags and then have the gall to tell the "A-Rabs" that they should get over losing their land.

Which leads to my other point: this bullshit argument that "talks cannot be made about statehood until terrorism ends." In other words, like us or we'll beat it out of you.

Earth to Sharon: it's not going to work. First you have to give the Palestinians a state. Then you have to give them the opportunity to build better schools, running water and power, an industrial infrastructure, and an increase quality of life. This is going to take, if you're lucky, about a hundred years.

All the time this happens, you're still going to get terrorist attacks. People who just won't give up and want to hold on to the fleeting ideals of their past stupid visions. The same way all the people here wave their Confederate flags. And beat a gay man or a black man to death every now and then. The same way neo-Nazi punks stroll the streets in Germany. It's always going to be there. You can only slow down the flow by giving people a more sufficient reason to live full, happy, non-violent lives.

So maybe all the cabinet members who just voted to refuse Palestine a right to exist should keep that in mind: the formation of a Palestinian state is not going to be the end to terrorist attacks. The formation of a Palestinian state is the first step you have to take towards stopping them.

 

 
Everything's okie-dokey under Bush's watch!

From Jonathan Chait in The New Republic:

...[N]ewspapers reported that this year's deficit is estimated to be about $100 billion--twice as large as previous forecasts had suggested. President George W. Bush immediately offered a multilayered defense packed with jaw-dropping mendacity. First came denial. "Of course, it's all speculative to begin with," he told reporters. "I don't know the models that they guessed [sic], but it's guesswork thus far." (Actually, this year's revenue forecast, which is based on tax returns that have already come in, is fairly reliable. What's unreliable are the ten-year budget forecasts, which Bush was only too happy to treat as money in the bank while selling his tax cut last year.)

Next Bush offered up what has in recent months become his all-purpose escape clause: "I want to remind you what I told the American people, that if I'm the president--when I was campaigning, if I were to become the president, we would have deficits only in the case of war, a recession, or a national emergency." Bush, somewhat morbidly, plays this line for laughs in his speeches, chuckling, "Never did I realize we'd get the trifecta." But this escape clause is not only a falsehood; it's actually a revision of a previous falsehood, which itself was consciously designed to cover up the fact that the budget is in far worse shape than Bush lets on.

Not to mention, of course, it's techincally joking about how funny it is that the country's in the crapper because a few thousand people died and we decided to respond by killing a few thousand more. Yeah, George... real funny.
 

 
Talk about trying to cover your ass.

In an update to the infamous story mentioned before on this site (as well as every news station in the country, usually in a segment right after the weather but before the sports roundup) about the vice-principal who took it upon herself to force female students to show what type of underwear they were wearing at a school dance, the suspended administrator in question is now hitting the news interviews to perform personal damage control:

Wilson said she had been concerned because dances at Rancho Bernardo, in suburban San Diego, had become raunchier and girls with short skirts and thong panties were often left exposing themselves during so-called "freak" dances.

"I think that parents don't realize what school dances are like now," she said. "I think (they would) if they could see inside a dark gymnasium with 750 students simulating sex."

Wilson said her efforts to control the "freak" dancing in the dark, frantic environment of a school dance had been unsuccessful in the past, so she turned to making sure that the girls at least were not getting exposed.

"That's really what I wanted," she said. "If they were going to 'freak,' at least their bottoms were going to be covered. 'Freak' dancing is not a fun thing to watch all night. I've had employees who have been 'freaked' upon."

I'm sure the merits of this vice-principal's ideal can be analyzed and debated to an infinite end, but I think for the sake of expedience I can express my comments on her explanation as simply as possible.

Horse shit.

Let's pretend, just for a moment, that Mrs. Wilson is not, as most household pets could tell you, talking out of her ass. This would mean that the female students of Rancho Bernardo High, in their pre-college naïveté, failed to ever think that the skimpy sexy underwear they specifically picked out to wear at the dance that night might be exposed. It would also mean, of course, that Wilson was scared because obviously the school would not take the steps to stop people from being harassed by "freak" dancing who didn't want to.

Moreover, Wilson needs to be commended for her sole ability to realize that accidental exposure on the dance floor would be embarrassing for the girls. I mean, imagine if a girl who didn't actually want to have her body exposed, but somehow accidentally wore underwear specifically designed to allow one to do just that, and somehow in the process of acting on her own free will and chose on her own to dance in a way that might, on a fractional probably, expose herself. and it actually happened? Who could have prepared for that? And what could those poor uneducated girls have done? Imagine if Mrs. Wilson hadn't been there to tell them "Hey! You're exposing yourself! Maybe you should stop doing that, because obviously you weren't predicting that might happen! And if you didn't want it to happen, there's no way you could stop dancing and adjust your skirt!" I mean, they could still be there with their butts exposed right now.

Let's also remember, as the earlier stores reported, that allegedly overweight girls weren't inspected. obviously Mrs. Wilson realized that all the overweight students had special knowledge in advance that "freak" dancing might occur, and as a result undoubtedly wore the correct "non-revealing" underwear, lest the said freaking accidentally reveal their nether regions.

My, this just gets more and more easy to believe, doesn't it? I certainly never could imagine how someone could just think up some complex theory like this woman is trying to cover her ass after being called on having draconian moral policies and even under good intentions violated the personal privacy of dozens. What was I thinking?
 

 
Another notch added to the dumbing down of America

Bill Griffith once did a great Zippy strip lord knows how many years ago that I consider one of the greatest statements about how to measure human evolution. The strip was a quote from an actual episode of Jeopardy! in which Alex Trebec told the contestant "This was considered Van Gogh's greatest work" to which the contestant replied "who was Rembrandt?" A character in the comic proceeded to walk over to a wall and mark down a line on a giant chart labeled "The Dumbing Down of America."

Hence, any time I see somethign like this, I consider it an addition to that infamous chart. Case in point, I woke up this morning to the wonderful sound of Fox News for the first time in eight months. (NYU's Campus Cable doesn't get Fox News) And, lo and behold, the top story of the morning was about Fox's upcoming contest show that was basically like The Bachelor except the winner got to become a Playboy Plamate. I'm not making this up.

So, with that rotting cancer on my intelligence already fresh in my mind, I went o go through this morning's internet-provided tidbits of interest (note to all: I am now condemned to rural New Jersey 56K access, which, to quote the bard... sucks ass) and came across this story from my good friends and compatriots at Get Donkey!. The Burros pointed me to a petition somone started to protest the next "Lord of the Rings" Movie.

Apparently, he's angry that they are naming it "The Two Towers," because it's an obvious attempt to capitalize on the attack on the World Trade Center.

Right before my brain died, I failed at a hearty attempt to contemplate how someone born and raised in this country could ever be so goddamned stupid.
 

 
This is where the latest rant on the Middle East was going to be, but I apologize profusely and declare that you must wait a little while longer.

I have just finished said 1,500-word final paper on Deweyan Pragmatist Democratic... something-or-other, my bloodstream is now filled with an illegal amount of Diet Coke, McDonalds, and blue Pixy Stix, At 2:00 PM tomorrow I'm required to have 8 months of schoolwork, books, and everyting else in my room packed neatly in boxes on my bed for my checkout inspection, and then I get to take the bus home to Teaneck, grab my car, come back and pick it all up before they change the locks on me. And yes, I'm being overly dramatic. But I'm also cranky from writing the worst paper I have ever written in my life. That, and twelve hours from now I will go from stylish lovely-viewing 14th floor Village apartment life to suburban summer with no job prospects and 56K dial-up modem service. My home ISP cackles maniacally and taunts me as I mention it... chills.

But, on the plus side, I get to see my cat.

So check back later, hopefully sometime soon I will have said angry rant about said whatever I saw on CNN that morning. As long as the internet's working back home, that is.
 

 
Yes, I know

A brief update on my earlier post about the cartoonist industry: yes, I love Bloom County. I just forgot to mention Berke Breathed in the list. As well as all the other good cartoonists you are writing to tell me I forgot to mention.

Please stop. I'm trying to write a term paper here.

(If any of you out there, however, can give me 1,500 words on the importance of Dewey's pragmatist theory on democracy, go right ahead. But something tells me most of you want to talk about Sunday funnies. Lord knows I'd rather.)