Friday night I went to the movie "Hellboy". You know, the one about the big red guy with the filed off horns and the hand made out of stone? Yeah that one.

The theater was full of mullets. Very odd. And lots of college guys who seemed to miss the big rule of movie-going: when the lights are down and the previews are running, take your danged seats! I swear, they were just milling about in the isle even down near the front, talking and what not while the new I, Robot preview was running. And then there was Mr Cackles, this guy two rows in front of me who danced through the 13 Going On 30 trailer and kept laughing like the offspring of The Joker and a hyena.

So that all, combined with the other kids who kept walking in the door to the theater and then just stood there talking instead of taking their seats too, pretty much ruined the movie for me. On Sunday, Cindy and Robin from Uncommon Grounds wanted to see it, so I opted to give it a second chance.

I liked the movie much better the second time, without the mullets, the standers, and Mr Cackles. Plus I was better prepared for the tone of the movie, which is somewhat more offbeat than expected.

I wonder, does the name Hellboy offend those with more conservative values? Would Wal-Mart rename it "Heckboy" or "Bleepboy"? Or even "H-E-Double Hockeysticks-Boy"?

Ah, sweet TV-death, first you take away Angel into the dark abyss of cancellation and now your new child Wonderfalls.  Curse you TV-death!

Ok, but seriously, what ever happened to networks giving a show the chance to mature and find their audience and voice?  It's funny, because by today's standards shows like X-Files and Star Trek The Next Generation would have been cancelled mid-season.  But now TV execs (or at least FOX execs it seems) demand instant audiences even when under-promoting and placing a show on a death-watch night like Friday.

I shouldn't be surprised.  This was the same network that cancelled Firefly after 11 or so episodes, a show that was so successful in DVD release that a movie is now being made with the same cast and crew taking place six months after the last episode of the show).  Also the same network that cancelled Family Guy, which did so well on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and on DVD that it has been resurrected with new eps coming this fall over two years after cancellation.  Maybe FOX should get the hint.

So sorry fans of interesting TV, there will be less of it here on out.  Hope you enjoy The Bachelor 38: Mega-Bachelor Battle Challenge!

Today I went to Omaha for The Apprentice 2 open casting call.  It was an odd experience.  I've been watching The Apprentice (catch phrase:  You're Fired) since the premiere, and had been thinking about sending in a tape - a plan which never happened.  So when I read they were having a casting call in Omaha (at Nebraska Furniture Mart no less), I had to go.

I booked a hotel a while back and headed out from Misty's after watching last night's ep.  That got me into Omaha right around 11:30 last night.

From the website I knew that they were handing out wristbands at 9am and that only those with wristbands got in, so I opted to go the some-but-little sleep route and set the alarm for 4am.  By the time I hit snooze a couple times and then actually got up and going, I hit the line at 5:15am.  My place in line - #93.

So there I stood for the next couple hours along with Damien - an Omaha resident who is GM of a Sizzler, another Omaha-an (Omahanian?  Omahaoian?) named Chris and his girlfriend who, despite waiting all that time, didn't want to interview, and this woman whose name escapes me but was mentally handicapped.  And that's not my opinion, she told us straight out that she was and wanted to try to be on the show because "they don't have any handicapped people on the show right now."

Around 9:30a we got our wristbands, after a cold (but thankfully not raining) morning.  And then we proceeded to wait some more.

Starting around 10:30, they started to take groups of 30 into the NFM "Mrs. B's" building (the discount/clearance part of the complex).  Once in there we proceeded to wait for about another hour before being taken to casting tables in groups of 10.

As I mentioned, the interviews were done group-style, with 10 people at a table along with a casting person.  The interview lasted 10 minutes during which time the casting person would ask questions and watch how the group interacted while making notes about this and that.  Since we all went in order numbered in line, most of us at the table had been hanging around together since very early morning.  There was myself, Damien, Chris, the handicapped woman, and a group that had come over from Denver.

The first thing the casting person (caster? is that a real way to call it?) asked us to do was the obligatory go-around-the-table-and-introduce.  "Hi.  My name is Jason Cross from Des Moines, Iowa, and I am an Internet consultant for Iowa's largest Internet provider."  They then asked us right off the bat - who at the table did we think should not be there.

Immediately the group starts going after this guy two over from me, as he was still in college.  "He doesn't have experience."  "He's not educated."  Those types of arguments.  I then chimed in how I thought that wasn't fair, as I for one never graduated from college yet had started and sold a company by the age many graduate with a Bachelors.  The casting person then turned to me, "Well, who do you think shouldn't be here?"  And I was honest - in my opinion, despite her being a very nice person, I indicated the handicapped woman.  "She's very sweet, and I think she has a lot to contribute to others, but this just isn't the right environment for her to succeed in."  Everyone was thinking it, but nobody wanted to say it.  I understand her wanting to prove that someone mentally handicapped can contribute, but when she didn't even write her own application but instead had her aunt write it for her, running a Trump company isn't going to be the best fit.  So I said it, and I hated doing so, but it was the truth.  They asked if she wanted to say something in her defense, and she told us how she used to be a manager at Nebraska Furniture Mart and how a drunk driver hit her some time back causing brain damage and leaving her like that.  Damien then responded among my line - that nobody is questioning how she's a nice person, but that this probably wasn't the right place for her.  It was a tragedy what happened to her, but while there are things she could do well in a business evironment such as a customer service position, CEO was not the best fit from what we saw.

Questions continued along the same lines.  "What makes a great leader."  One guy said how a leader had to know a bit of every part of the business.  I added to that how a leader has to not only know it, but also be willing to take the reigns and apply it, not just be one of these smart guys who let others take the lead, risk and responsibility.  A girl said how she thought a great leader was someone who cared about the people working for them as the highest priority.  I pointed out how a leader sometimes has to make the tough decisions that can cost someone their job if it's necessary for the company and how a leader has to lead even when unpopular or not friend-like if the situation demands it.

The ten minutes passed quickly and that was that.  They told us that we'd hear in 3-4 days if they wanted a call-back.  And we all went our separate ways.

Leaving the building, the line was still several hundred people long, and many people called out wanting to know what happened inside.  We opted to let them find out for themselves.  After all, why make it easier on the competition?  ;)

Remember this guy?

I am being overrun by Boxelder bugs.  They keep appearing in my house, a few here, a few there, a few everywhere.  It's disgusting, but at least they aren't roaches or wasps I guess.

I bought some pest killer yesterday and went around the outside of the house, spraying by the doors and along the seams.  And there they were - several giant masses of the little guys, hundreds of them, huddling against the sun.  A couple sprays sent them flying this way and that, hopefully not into the house.  Now the masses are gone but little piles of dead bugs remain.

And yet more go crawling through the house.

Anyone know a good exterminator?

It is expected that the EU will announce this week a fine of $613 million to Microsoft for anti-competitive practices.

This article on The Washington Post said:  Feverish negotiations over two weeks yielded a plan to settle charges that the company used the power of its Windows monopoly to favor its media player over those made by rivals, the executive said. But as the details were being worked out, a Microsoft negotiating team at European Union headquarters in Brussels that included chief executive Steve Ballmer was told that something had to be done to restrict future bundling of other programs into Windows.  It then goes on to say:   According to the Microsoft executive, an agreement was fashioned that would have required computer makers around the world who licensed Windows to install at least three rival media players on the hard drives of new machines.

As someone who is generally uninstalling third-party software from Windows as soon as I'm done setting up a new computer, this would really annoy me.  But it also brings to light another question - what is the core difference between Microsoft bundline Media Player in Windows and Apple bundling the iLife programs into the Mac?  Some might think that having Media Player included with Windows hurts the chances of a product like Real Player (I don't, by the way, as only Real Player can play .ra files, so you'd still have to install it for those - it's key file format - regardless of having Media Player.  And I've never been a fan of the format.), but doesn't iTunes included on the Mac hurt the chances of companies like the new Napster?  Or iCal hurt calendaring companies?  Or those other whiz-bang little iLife apps hurt third-party companies who made the same for the Mac before?

A number of you readers are Mac people...any insight would be appreciated.

Made it back from Chicago.  Pictures forthcoming.

In the meantime, I found this odd little application linked to from Scott Bateman.  Enjoy.

Blogging from the road on the way to Chicago with the family thanks to SprintPCS's 3G network.  Misty, Keith, Sebbie, Nate, Mom and I are all staying downtown this weekend to do some shopping and site-seeing.  Plans are to go to the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, and possible Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry, depending on if time allows.  Sebbie and I are looking forward to some deep-dish as well!

Will be taking pictures to share later.

For some reason, Fox keeps getting pretty good shows as their mid-season replacements, yet insists on being idiotic about them.  Take last year's Firefly for instance, which it put on Friday evenings when nobody the shows are geared towards (15-35yrs, largely idiosyncratic) watch TV, and then decided to run out of order despite being an arc-driven storyline.  The same Firefly that did well enough in DVD sales post-cancellation that there is now a movie in development a year later...

This year's Firefly is the show Wonderfalls.  It's by Tim Minear, a former bigwig on Buffy, Angel and Firefly, as well as the guy who created Dead Like Me.  It premiered last Friday and was one of those shows that I was "hmm?" about the first time but after it simmered in my head a day or so was "hmm!" about.  Watched it again this evening - hilarious!  It's so off-beat, and I love the way the characters talk.

The plot, basically, revolves around a 24-year-old woman who works at a gift shop in Niagara Falls.  She's one of those ivy-league educated types but with a degree in philosophy (and no technology to fall back on like Benn) so she's basically unemployable.  But she's snarky as heck.  And then she possibly goes insane as these inanimate objects start talking to her leading her to do oddball acts.

No denying it - it sounds weird.  But it really is good.

I encourage you to watch it.  Many of you who read this site often know the types of shows I like and tend to like them yourselves (some of you tend to wait until years later, but still grow obsessive about them), so this time jump in while fresh!  Watch Wonderfalls!

The first episode is being re-shown Thursday night at 8pm CST, and the regular night is Friday at 8pm CST as well (you can always set your VCR or buy that Tivo you've been wanting), both on FOX.

In last Wednesday's Indianola Record Herald, there was a Letter to the Editor declaring the Left as being akin to Nazi's in their pro-choice policies as well as saying that being a Democrat was like being in a pseudo-anti-religion.

While the Nazi argument is nothing new - it's a favorite comparison in politics for both sides of the isle I guess, heck I've even compared a certain policies of the Bush administration as having parallels to those of the Nazi party - I believe that all of us must be judged on our own merits, not simply by the party we back.  Let me clarify - I know several Republicans and non-Republican conservatives.  While I disagree with the actions of their Party, I know that these individuals are FAR REMOVED from the actual policies of their Party.  My friends didn't have a hand in the Patriot Act (*ahem* while some of the members of my own Party in Congress did), and many of them have a far more liberal stance on the environment and privacy rights than their Party.  But when someone like in this letter decides to declare war on THE PEOPLE of my Party, THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS rather than the Party as a whole, that makes me incredibly angry.

Plus his was a message of hate.  Plain and simple.  To have the gall to say that the Left are Godless shocks me.  When you do that, you are calling my Grandmother Godless, a woman who has done more for her community through the church than anyone I know, yet she's a Democrat.  You're calling my neighbors Godless, a family who is active in both their church and the Democratic Party.  You're calling my friends Godless, many of whom go to church every week, Catholics and Lutherans and Methodists and others.  Look around people, our country is split pretty evenly, so odds are you're saying that about every second person you meet on the street.

Frankly I am sick of the moral argument of the Republican Party.  Not because I believe that there shouldn't be a moral argument - those raising the argument have the right to their beliefs like everyone else.  It's because I can't believe that these members of the "moral majority" REMAIN Republicans!  The Republican Party on a national level talks the talk when it comes to morality, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, they are all inaction, preferring to pass aid to the mega-rich and controlling corporations.  Republicans have controlled the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court for the past three years!  Where is your prayer in schools?  Where is the 10 Commandments in the courtroom?  Where is abolishing Roe v Wade?  If my Party had control and didn't act on any of the key points it runs on, I would be looking for a new Party - and none of my Republican friends voted Republican so that the oil companies could get billions out of Iraq.  So why remain Republican?  I'm not saying that you should switch Democrat, because maybe we don't match your ideology either (though maybe we do).  Why not a third party then?  I'm just asking...

Anyway, I wrote a Letter to the Editor that may or may not go in the RHT this week.  I am posting it below in its entirety for review and comment if you want.  I tried my best to keep my argument to being against the Party and not the People (with the exception perhaps of the guy who wrote that other editorial last week), but you can be the judge.

Blinded by the Right
March 11, 2003

Reading a letter in the RHT this week, I once again saw the same age-old rhetoric used by the Republican Right against the Democrat Left.  This letter complained about how unfair it was that an earlier letter referred to "Republican bigots" yet itself went on to compare the Democrats to Nazis.  The letter cried out that we must entrust in the American people the freedom to decide on banning same-sex marriages constitutionally, yet at the same time it advocated against their individual choice of whether a woman should carry a pregnancy to term.  As typical of such arguments, it lashed out at the Democrats as being immoral and filled with hatred while dispensing only bile itself.

These are classic tactics of the modern Republican Party, the party that works so very hard to distract the American people – especially its own loyal members! - by making the public debate be about so-called “moral” issues while at the same time selling us out to the machinery of corporate corruption and greed.  The national Republican Party is like the sucker-punch fighter, getting you to look at the waving hand while punching you in the gut!  Consider their misleading arguments we can expect throughout this election year:

They will make the argument be about so-called "morality issues" such as the pro-choice vs pro-life debate, allowing the Ten Commandments in our schools and courtrooms, and providing for prayer time in the school day.  Yet in the past three years of a Republican-controlled Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court, they have made no meaningful movement on these issues.  At the end of the day, just painting themselves with the brush of morality gains them loyal support willing to ignore the Republican Party's corporate agenda, while actually acting on these policies would risk labeling them as too extreme and losing office.

They will make the argument be about not allowing same-sex couples the benefits of the social institution of marriage.  But do you know who really wins when same-sex marriages are not allowed?  Despite what the Republican Party would like you to think, it’s not the church.  Allowing civil marriages for same-sex couples in no way forces a church to do so, the same way that your church cannot prevent a couple from divorcing in the eyes of the state.  No, the real benefactors are the insurance companies who collect less in premiums from a civil-recognized married couple than they would from two individuals.

They will make the argument be about tax cuts for working America.  Yet over 50% of all of the Bush tax cuts went to the richest 5% in our country.  Bush himself saved over $30,000 annually from the tax cuts; Cheney over $80,000; and their rich friends saved even more.  Meanwhile the bottom 60% of taxpayers in America saved a whopping $300 in federal taxes while our country remains in deficit.  Of course when you point this out to a Republican they cry out that those people didn’t really pay anything in taxes anyway since they’re obviously the nation’s poor.  Any idea where the cutoff for the 60th income percentile is?  It was an annual income of $62,500 as of 2002, not exactly a low income level.

They will make the argument be about the Bush administration’s heroic measures against terrorism.  Yet they ignore the facts that the Bush administration spent their first eight months making a missile-defense shield a priority over acting on the piles of intelligence handed over to them and continuously provided by the former-Clinton administration, the Hart-Rudman commission, and CIA director George Tenet about the imminent threat posed by bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

They will make the argument be about building democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Yet companies like Halliburton and Unocal – companies led by Cheney, other members of the administration and their friends – have been making billions of dollars off of their reconstruction.  They've even gone so far as to install former Unocal staffer Hamid Karzai as the interim president of Afghanistan.  Not so coincidentally, this was followed with Afghanistan allowing Unocal to install a natural gas pipeline through the country worth billions – something that had previously been attempted with negotiations between Unocal and the Taliban leadership as well.

They will make the argument be about welfare.  Yet they forget that Jesus taught that we are judged by what we do for those with the least among us, that civilized societies have an inherent responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves, and that history has shown what happens to the stability of a country when social welfare systems do not exist.

They will make the argument be about Democrats running wild with government spending.  Yet they ignore that Clinton left office with a budget surplus while Bush Jr has given us the greatest deficit in our country’s history and yet still advocates further tax cuts beyond all logic.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, they will make the argument about being the party for blue-collar America.  Yet they promote policies that allow the corporations to grow ever more wealthy and powerful at the expense of their employees.  The Department of Labor releases guidelines on how companies can get away with not having to pay for overtime.  Insurance companies are allowed ever-greater restrictions on what they have to pay you benefits on.  Companies are allowed to raid pension plans in favor of “investing” the proceeds in themselves without fear of meaningful recrimination.  Heck, companies are even allowed to take out life insurance on employees that exist even beyond the employment of the individual where the company is the sole beneficiary named.  You die, your family may be left destitute, but your former employer makes money (and they even go so far as to call this “Dead Peasants Insurance”)!

I’m all for capitalism – as an entrepreneur and someone who has had a successful business here in Indianola, how could I not be?  But to borrow the old adage, unregulated capitalism is like a hockey game without rules – everyone ends up getting hurt.  The modern Republican Party and the current Bush administration has had at the heart of their agenda nothing less than allowing businesses to grow as rich as possible at the expense of We The People.  Despite their claims to the contrary, if you look at their true policies, it’s not about morality at all – it’s about money.

Jason Cross, Indianola

Yes, it's true.  Slate did a recent article on those semi-horrific little guys in the Quizno's ad, and it turns out they're called Spongemonkeys.

And they aren't limited to singing for Quizno's.  Oh no, they existed before.  Click the image below to see.

Click to See...If You Dare!

Courtesy of Scott Bateman

It's official!  Fox has greenlit a movie based on last year's best (yet ill-fated) TV show, Firefly!  The entire cast is set to return with filming beginning this summer.

If Firefly is so good, why did it fail?  I blame Fox.  Joss Whedon is known for his complex character arcs and storylines taking place over a long stretch of episodes - look at Angel Season 4 which WAS essentially one long episode - so what do they do with the new show by this man?  They air the episodes out of order!  That's right, they started with the second episode, skipping the pilot, and mixed from there.  Heck, the LAST episode they showed was the pilot!

I got the box set of the series off of Amazon when it came out - I highly recommend any fan of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sci-fi, Cowboy Bebop, The Dead Zone or similar check it out.

Plus, hey, a space western with a balladic theme song written by its creator.  It's so weird you can't help but love it.

For those who were wondering about what traffic to my site is like, I present the following stats courtesy of StatCounter for the past two week period (stats do not include RSS users unless they click through to the page from the RSS aggregator):

To give you an idea of the very odd searches that bring people here, some popular search terms for just today have been:

Can you guess who our top visitor this month has been?  Psst, I'll give you a hint - his "name" starts with a K- and ends with an -ent.

So there you have it - not a crazy number of visitors, but certainly more than I would have expected, especially considering the number of 233 unique repeat readers.

On Friday, our friend Kent posted the following:

Just remember one thing Jason....the people who think like you, not the least of which is Bill Clinton, cost 3000 innocent people their lives on 9/11/2001. If you're too much of a simpleton to understand that, I truly pity you. You obviously don't understand anything about the history of this country or the history of the middle east either. We can't take the Bill Clinton approach and pop off a few cruise missles when we need points in the polls becauase we were banging an intern instead of doing our job running the country. Clinton's legacy is an embarrasment to this country.

So I did a little research afterwards.  Was Kent right?  Was it all Clinton's sole fault?!  I found the following:

One month before Clinton left office, Robert Oakley, ambassador for counterterrorism in the Reagan State Department told the Washington Post, "Overall, I give them very high marks."  Ironically, he went on to say "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama, which made him stronger."  Of course Paul Bremer, Oakley's successor and the civilian administrator in Iraq said he believed that the Clinton administration "correctly focused on bin Laden."

Speaking of Reagan - let's look at his anti-terrorism record:  Radical Islamic terrorists killed more Americans during his administration than during the Bush Sr and Clinton years combined.  Between the 1983 embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut and the destruction of Pam Am flight 103, nearly 500 American lives were lost.  Reagan's only direct response was a single bombing run against Libya in 1986.

He then supplied arms to violent Muslim extremists Afghani Mujahadeen as well as to American "allies" in Iraq and Iran.

Then we have George Bush Sr who as president continued to supply arms to Muslim extremists in Afghanistan (to fight the Russians!) and then once the Russians withdrew proceeded to promptly ignore Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban and their anti-american training camps to take over.  But hey, wouldn't want to blame a Republican president.  After all, they didn't get caught having sex!

Then you have Clinton who tripled the counterterrorism budget for the FBI and more than doubled counterrorism funding overall.  And created our country's first top-level national security post to coordinate all federal counterterrorism activity.  The cad!  Hell, after Clinton struck targets in Sugan and Afghanistan with Tomahawk missles after our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked, even Gingrich said "The President did exactly the right thing.  By doing this we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists."  Even Gingrich agreed with how Clinton handled it!  And Clinton issued a presidential directive authorizing the assassination of Osama bin Laden at that time as well.  Ironically, many Congressional Republicans seized on this to actually attack Clinton, citing it as a violation of Executive Order 12333 which was issued by Reagan prohibiting the assassination of foreign heads of state.  Of course, Osama was not actually a foreign head of state.

So Kent says terrorism is all Clinton's fault (oh yeah, and people like me according to Kent)?  After the USS Cole was attacked, Clinton put Richard Clarke in charge of coming up with a comprehensive plan to take out al Qaeda as one of the final projects of his administration (this was in October 2000).  This plan was submitted to Sand Berger and other national security principals on December 20, 2000.  Its plans included:  breaking up al Qaeda cells and arresting their personnel; attacking financial supports for its terrorist activities; freezing its assets; stopping its funding through fake charities; giving aid to governments having trouble with al Qaeda (such as Uzbekistan, the Phillipines and Yemen); and increasing covert activity in Afghanistan to take out al Qaeda training camps and reach bin Laden himself.  Does all this sound familiar?  It should, since a senior Bush administration official told Time Magazine in the August 12, 2002, issue - Clarke's plan amounted to "everything we've done since 9/11."

As this plan was completed within weeks of Bush taking office, it was handed over to the following administration to carry out - essentially handing them a war on terror. 

So Bush gets into office and has been given a plan to fight terror.  So what does his administration do with it?  Well, despite several warnings from Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke, they felt those wacky Clintonites had become a little obsessed with terrorism.  They were more interested in things like missle defense, for example.  And pulling out of the Kyoto treaty.  And limiting stem cell research.  On February 15, 2001, a commission led by Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued its final report on national security warning that "mass casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serious and growing concern."  This report also urged the creation of "a National Homeland Security Agency".  These suggestions caused some movement in Congress but were ignored at the time by the White House.  In fact, the Bush Administration's response was to announce a new task force on May 8, 2001, to develop a plan to counter domestic terrorist attacks.  This task force never met once. 

Of course, Bush probably didn't have time to put it into action - after all he spent 42 percent of his first seven months in office either at Camp David, the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, or at his ranch in Crawford Texas.  Fighting terrorists on the golf course, no doubt. 

On July 10, 2001, Kenneth Williams, a Phoenix FBI agent, sent a memo urging FBI Headquarters to contact other intelligence agencies to see if al Qaeda operatives might be trying to infiltrate the US civil aviation system after discovering a group of Middle Eastern students attempting admission at an Arizona flight school.  This report made it to Tenet briefed Condoleeza Rice soon after "that there was going to be a major attack."  So on July 16 - seven months after receiving it - Clarke's anti-al Qaeda plan was finally approved...to move on to the Principals Committee composed of Cheney, Rice, Tenet, Powell and Rumsfeld.  They were going to meet on it in August 2001, but too many members were planning time off for August so they moved the date back to September 7, 2001.  At this meeting the committee finally met  and decided to advise Bush to accept the plan - the plan created and completed under orders from President Clinton, where it then sat on his desk.  The events four days later would FINALLY get the plan activated.

On September 6, 2001, Congress proposed a boost of $600 million for antiterror programs, but because money was to come out of the missle defense program, Rumsfeld threatened a presidential veto.

On September 7, 2001, Ashcroft sent his Justice Department request to President Bush.  Despite including spending increases in sixty-eight different programs, NONE of them dealt with terrorism.  In a memo of his seven top priorities, again terrorism wasn't on the list.

So - we had the Reagan and Bush Sr administrations who actually armed would-be terrorists.  Then we had the Clinton administration that actually attacked terrorists and made long-range plans to stop terrorism.  And then we had the Bush Jr administration who, up until that awful day in September, repeatedly ignored terrorism as a priority. 

But Kent says its all Clinton's fault.

Whatever.  Try actually looking at a fact sometime, buddy.

From The Onion:

Bush to Cut Deficit from Federal Budget

WASHINGTON, DC - President Bush proposed a $2.4 trillion election-year budget Monday that would boost defense spending, redistribute funds among government programs, and cross out the $477 billion deficit entirely.

"Nobody likes making cuts, but the nation's current rate of spending and the decreased tax revenues we've seen since implementing my tax cuts have created a deficit that we can't afford to carry," Bush said in a nationally televised address. "Someone had to have the vision, leadership, and courage to go in and erase that line altogether, no matter how unpopular and impossible that may be."

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the $477 billion deficit is the country's largest ever, easily topping the previous record of $290 billion in 1992. If the budget is approved, however, the deficit will roll down to $0.0 billion.

In the past, critics have accused the Bush Administration of responding to a mounting deficit and the ongoing recession with unsound fiscal policies like cutting taxes for the wealthy. Bush supporters say the deficit cut proves the wisdom of the president's economic plan.

"Bush has taken a brave step, one that was long overdue," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said. "He has taken charge of the budget problem once and for all, simply by saying 'The deficit stops here.'"

Faced with the difficult choice of either cutting government programs or raising taxes, Bush reportedly arrived at the radical new "deficit-cutting" solution late Sunday night, only hours before he was to announce his budget.

"I was staring at the figure for the deficit, and I decided that it simply could not stand," Bush said. "It was too high. Something had to be done. But Americans have been taxed and taxed. I say 'Enough taxes.' By my estimation, this historical crossing-out of the deficit will save American taxpayers millions, billions, and perhaps even bajillions of dollars."

The president then turned to Section 14-D of the official budget document, where the federal government's total expenditures, the GNP, and the difference between the two were listed. Using a black Sharpie, the president crossed out the third figure, eliminating it entirely.

Bush then held up the newly marked-up page and said, "My fellow Americans, I have solved the federal budget crisis."

The budget is expected to pass through the GOP-controlled Congress with little or no opposition.

"I don't know why I didn't have this idea before," Bush said. "For years, we have tried to control the deficit by eliminating federal programs, lowering taxes for the rich, sending out checks to everybody, and God knows what else. None of us once thought to just draw a line through it."

The Bush plan is not without critics.

"President Bush drew a line through the deficit, yes, and we commend him for that," Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said. "But that doesn't solve the country's budgetary problems. While he was at it, why didn't he add several zeroes to the end of our GNP?"

Political pundits have been largely impressed by the visionary slash.

"Opinions vary as to what the long-term effects of the deficit cut will be," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said. "One thing, however, is certain: The growing federal deficit, a Gordian knot that for three years no amount of cutting taxes and spending money could unravel, has been sliced in two by the president's bold, radical new take on the problem."

A CNN/Gallup poll taken immediately after the president's announcement showed that 67 percent of Americans support his decision to draw a black line through the deficit, and thereby eliminate it.

"I'm tired of the tax-and-spend Democrats always talking about adding zeroes to the GNP," said Henry Strom, 40, of Bakersfield, CA. "How about we cross out our debts and get our affairs in order before we start adding zeroes? We need to cut this deficit and stand firm against printing deficits in future budgets, as well."

According to Bush's political advisors, later this week, the president will declare that the U.S. has universal health care.

Now just to clarify for the reader who can't tell satire (you know who you are), this is not a real news story.  It's satirical humor.  Chill.

Wow!  Who knew Nutri-Grain bars were so effective?!  ;)

Click to View the "Commercial"

Thanks to Benn

Yesterday I got a Postini warning with the following:

I thought this was kind of funny.  Excerpted From the Feb 22nd 60 Minutes:

It doesn't seem right, but religion has been in the news a lot recently.

Pat Robertson says that God has spoken to him and told him that George W. Bush will be re-elected because he deserves to be.

Here's Pat Robertson's exact quote: "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I'm hearing from the Lord that it's going to be a blowout."

I hadn't wanted to say anything about this, because it seemed like a personal matter, but Pat Robertson isn't the only one who has heard from God.

I heard from God just the other night. God always seems to call at night.

"Andrew," God said to me. He always calls me "Andrew." I like that.

"Andrew, you have the eyes and ears of a lot of people. I wish you'd tell your viewers that both Pat Robertson and Mel Gibson strike me as wackos. I believe that's one of your current words. They're crazy as bedbugs, another earthly expression. I created bedbugs. I'll tell you, they're no crazier than people," said God.

"Let me just say that I think I'd remember if I'd ever talked to Pat Robertson, and I'd remember if I said Bush would get re-elected in a blowout."

That is what God said to me. That's about all he did say to me because I'm sure God has a lot more important things to do than talk to someone on television.

My own question to Pat Robertson is this: The election looks as though it could be close, certainly not a blowout. If George W. Bush loses the election to a Democrat, will you become an atheist?

It IS an awfully big limb for Robertson to step out on, though I imagine come November should Bush lose he will just forget he ever said anything.  Or make up some excuse about God deciding Bush should lose because of not doing enough to forward the agenda of the reactionary Christian right.

I've taken to reading the website Working for Change lately, originally because it held the This Modern World archive, but have found some other pretty good articles on the site.  Arianna Huffington made a good point about Bush, for instance, which I found surprising as she's been known for some time as a solid moderate Republican advocate.  On the site I also discovered the hilarious editorial comics of Scott Bateman, whose work you can find on his site at http://www.batemania.com/cartoons/.  A couple recent examples that I found funny:

Click to Read the Whole Comic

It all seems so...oddly familiar...

"Today my candidacy may come to an end--but our campaign for change is not over.

I want to thank each and every person who has supported this campaign. Over the last year, you have reached out to neighbors, friends, family and colleagues--building one American at a time the greatest grassroots campaign presidential politics has ever seen. I will never forget the work and the heart that you put into our campaign.

In the coming weeks, we will be launching a new initiative to continue the campaign you helped begin. Please continue to come to www.deanforamerica.com for updates and news as our new initiative develops. There is much work still to be done, and today is not an end--it is just the beginning.

This Party and this country needs change, and you have already begun that process. I want you to think about how far we have come. The truth is: change is tough. There is enormous institutional pressure in our country against change. There is enormous institutional pressure in Washington against change, in the Democratic Party against change. Yet, you have already started to change the Party and together we have transformed this race. Along the way, we’ve engaged hundreds of thousands of new Americans in the political process, as witnessed by this year’s record participation in the primaries and caucuses.

The fight that we began can and must continue. Although my candidacy for president may end today, the most important goal remains defeating George W. Bush in November, and I hope that you will join me in doing everything we can to support the Democrats this fall. From the earliest days of our campaign, I have said that the power to change Washington rests not in my hands, but in yours. Always remember, you have the power to take our country back.

Gov. Howard Dean M.D."

From "Kent" in a recent off-topic comment posting:  "This just in:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/18/elec04.prez.main/index.html
Now don't you feel foolish Jason. I tried and tried to get you to see the writing on the wall and you just kept those blinders on. "

No, I don't feel foolish.  Anyone can find the courage to fight for the easy win; the real test is when you're willing to put your beliefs out there to fight the battles that need fighting even if likely to lose or against popular opinion.

The conservative-controlled media has long-since anointed their chosen candidate, and I fear too many Democrats don't consider the fact that they have put forward the candidate most likely to have a hard time fighting Bush as he parallels Bush in many ways rather than showing a clear alternative.  Too many Dems fear the term liberal, wanting a candidate that is "more conservative" because they think to do otherwise would alienate the right.  Yet the right doesn't worry about alienating the left - they just push their agenda forward.  I've yet to hear a Republican say that Bush is "too conservative"... they don't fear the moniker, so why would that be a problem?  Yet too many liberals have bought into the Rush Limbaugh notion of liberal = bad and that it's something to be somewhat ashamed of.  That to be liberal is to have the public think you're a tree-hugging spend-crazy alternative welfare hippy, despite the fact that it's really more of a gray area than that.  I know Repubs who are environmentalists.  I know Dems who are pro-welfare-reform.  I know wealthy Dems who know how to manage money, and the only President to balance the budget in the past 34 years was President Clinton, a Democrat, while the past few Republican Presidents have put forward deficit after deficit.

1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

<sarcasm>Wow!  That's a pretty bad thing to be!</sarcasm>

It lists conservative as:

1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

Which also has its merits.  It's by the balance of the two, the fact that we have a two party system with people on both sides of the spectrum, that our country neither spins out of control with reckless abandon nor stagnates in a clutch to the past.

Would I do it again - would I have supported Dean knowing the outcome -  if I could go back in time?  Hell yes.  The only differences would be I would fight even harder and would start doing so earlier.  Hindsight being 20/20, I would not assume that the caucuses would be balanced to accomodate all candidate representative's points of view, but instead would be more vocal about making sure that anyone who wants to make a point can be heard.  I would go in using broader marketing tactics to get more listeners before making my points, and I would play a more active role in the campaign directly.

Some pictures of the Touareg now that it's been washed:

Click to View Larger Version

Click to View Larger Version

Click to View Larger Version

Several years ago I bought an aquarium for my CrossPaths office, and when Lighthouse bought CrossPaths, they had no interest in taking the tank so it has been with me ever since.  A couple years back I stopped buying new fish as I debated about switching from freshwater to saltwater, but opted post-move to keep it fresh.  So today, after completing some aquascaping, I have added some fish back to the tank.

Click to View Larger Photo

I might add a couple more larger rocks yet as I'm probably going to do African Cichlids this time around, but am not yet sure where I'd put them.  Hmm.

A listing for PFHT - Pet Foil Hat Technology on Ebay...

I'm not sure which is weirder...the fact that someone made this up, or the fact that it sold for $12.50!

Pet Foil Hat Technology (PFHT)
is the sorta-patented system that protects you and your pet from the government!

Technical Jargon:

This ultra modern aluminum foil hat will protect your pet from the brain scanning rays of the NSA, certain 'auction' websites, fbi.com, and CIA satellites that are monitoring their little subversive thoughts.  You may not have considered this before, but your lead lined hat is worthless if your pet can give away your secrets to the very people most dangerous to you - your government!

The PFHT contains space age materials, and is guaranteed to work for your pet. All government I/O is cut off.  It's like a firewall for your pet's brain.

Click here to see for yourself...

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On Friday morning I picked up my new Volkswagen Touareg at Jordan Motors.  In this snow, going from the rear-wheel-drive BMW to the AWD 4XTraction Touareg is like night and day...or maybe more like sliding vs driving.

It certainly is a gadgetmobile - with the navigation system, moisture sensitive wipers, air quality sensor for recycling vs refreshing air, a sensor to automatically run the compressor when the windows fog up, synchronized powered heated side mirrors, electronic parking assist on the front and back, a second full-color LCD for the driver dashboard, 11 forms of autostability control, etc etc etc.  And with black leather, wood trim and chrome accents, it's even more luxurious than the BMW was.

Take that old man winter!

Picture is not my Touareg...mine is covered in snow-grime already.

This is ridiculous.  CBS agrees to run ads by tobacco companies, beer companies and the Bush White House during the Super Bowl, but refuses to run the MoveOn.org Bush in 30 Seconds winner because they claim it is too controversial to air.

Visit http://www.moveon.org/cbs/ad/ to view this "too controversial" ad for yourself.

Ok, since people have been asking for them, here are some pictures of the new home.  I only have the outside ones for now as I'm still working on the inside (unpacking, decorating, new lights, etc).

From the front

From the back

The back yard