Rough day. Cat Stevens is a terrorist, and Russ Meyer is dead....

On the bright side, Tatu are are declaring their heterosexuality...

Anne Rice has kind of bugged me ever since the full page "letter" she wrote after Tom Cruise was cast in the "Interview" movie. You may or may not recall magazines like "Variety" running her lengthy justification letter for this odd casting choice, a letter which at the bottom read "Paid For By The Geffen Corporation".....

Well, this is even tastier. She apparently responded to Amazon.com reviews of her new book recently, beginning with "Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work...", and proceeding to babble on for about 1200 words defending her work. Here's the link. Scroll down to "From the Author to the Some of the Negative Voices Here". She concludes with "If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at Anneobrienrice@mac.com. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans, La, 70130. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God!

Leave it to the publicists, Anne. Oh yeah, buy the book while you're there....

This man gets scarier all the time. You may have heard about the latest Bushism:

"We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
(Speaking at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.)

Here's the audio goodness (mp3, 97KB)

And yes, I agree Terry, it was utterly horrifying how they "managed" the protesters in New York, especially stories like the Bikes Against Bush guy that got arrested while being interviewed by MSNBC.

Oh yeah. Then there was the Governor of Appalachia, Zell Miller:

At the Democratic Party of Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner – March 1, 2001:
"John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment."

At the Republican Convention:
"For more than twenty years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure. As a war protestor, Kerry blamed our military. As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far-away."

More audio goodness: Zell challenges Chris Matthews to a duel. (mp3, 108KB)

Man, this GOP convention ROCKS!!! Reagan's my man all the way! Oh wait. Huh? He's DEAD??? I'll vote him anyway. Great man.

BTW, Terry...Chris Matthews, partisan bastard that he is, pulled a great and probably overlooked little coup by having the other Reagan son (the one actually named RON) on the air as the GOP Reagan son finished his verbose preamble to the tear-jerking eulogy-slash-video.

As of this morning as I post this, this article was the only thing Googleable about Clinton's appearance on The Daily Show last night, and the guy is DEAD WRONG. Clinton, as little as I cared for him in many ways in the 90's, came off as witty, articulate, and quite likeable. To bad he's not running this time, Bush would be toast.

** And has the hots for Monica Lewinsky

Laura Bush Visits Citicorp In NY Amid Terror Alert -CNN

A little refresher for the First Lady (especially perhaps number 4):

High Condition (Orange).
A High Condition is declared when there is a high risk of terrorist attacks. In addition to the Protective Measures taken in the previous Threat Conditions, Federal departments and agencies should consider the following general measures in addition to the agency-specific Protective Measures that they will develop and implement:

1. Coordinating necessary security efforts with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies or any National Guard or other appropriate armed forces organizations;
2. Taking additional precautions at public events and possibly considering alternative venues or even cancellation;
3. Preparing to execute contingency procedures, such as moving to an alternate site or dispersing their workforce; and
4. Restricting threatened facility access to essential personnel only.

Although the quality of her journalism would be a good fit for USA Today, they dropped Ann Coulter anyway, allegedly because of her first submitted column which CBS News says started with:

"Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the 'F-word' are my opponents."

C'mon Ann, if being Republican is so great, how come Michael Moore makes more money than you?

"Back in 2000, a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true."

James Carville, Democratic strategist

"For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?"

Ronald Reagan, Inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1981

McSweeney's has listed the pros and cons of possible V.P. picks for Kerry. My favourite:

Ann Coulter, columnist
Pro: Flattering position would silence her exposing of the true evil liberal agenda
Con: Is composed entirely of spiders and deadly snakes writhing beneath a latex "skin".

See more here.

The reason America creates war is that there is no personal peace here. We're consumed by the guilt of the horrible things we did to the people who lived here before us, and what we did to each other once we lived here. The civil war this country enjoyed was a cakewalk compared to the economic and social havoc we've wrought against each other since. The most abundant, and blessed land on Earth has been wielded as a shiny, sharp, and unthinking silver sword instead of the silver platter, the cornucopia it could be. I'm finding it harder and harder to be an American, as much as I could stand proudly for what I think that really means. The upcoming elections feel already like a lark, a sham, but I'll vote anyway, because I can.

I've lived long enough to learn that humans have always chosen to kill each other to shape their agendas, so I have no hope (though I have prayers) that we'll ever live in a world without war. In the meantime, in spite of the fact that I often express my feelings about life and the human race with a mixture of hope, cynicism, and humour, I pray, and wish we all could, that someday everyone will just look at the person near them and realise there's no reason to hate them, we're all so much more alike than we could ever be different. I'm going to keep praying, but it's so dark down here lately that sometimes I feel alone in my venture.

Head lice getting you down? Get revenge. Kerry's proposed tax increases pissing you off? Fight back. Feeling frisky? Why not Spank Bush? Wanna play dressup? You can dress up GW here or here. (The second link's a little more fun.) And finally, play tic-tac-toe with the chimp himself (careful, he's crafty).

Hey guys, am I the only person left around here? Maybe I should write some articles?

Your tax dollars at work. I'd love to know who the contractor was for the web site of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority (I bet it was Halliburton Web Design). It's a direct rip-off of the Brookings Institution web site, all the way down to pieces of code, including things as obvious as:
"submenu name="Brookings Review" id="brs" url="/press/review/rev_des.htm"
If they've changed the site since this post, here are side-by-side screenshots.

On a positive and completely unrelated note, you can stream the entire Beck C.D. "Mellow Gold" by simply giving up your e-mail.