Protester inadvertently says something sensible.

Re the bear hunt in New Jersey:

"I fought against this day for 10 years,” Smith said. “One week of bear hunting, nothing’s going to be solved. Come spring the bears will still be eating our garbage and still be walking through our back yards."

Dead right, sister. So can I take it you're for extending bear season to a more reasonable length?

[Thanks, Paula.]

My favorite dead film writer.

Hollywood continues to plunder the rich vein of Philip K. Dick short stories. If we're lucky one or two of the movies will actually end up resembling the stories on which they were based.

(Minority Report sucked, by the way. Tom Cruise in a Dick movie is an obscenity.)

And this is the frontrunner, folks.

Howard Dean on Hardball regarding Iran, via today's Opinion Journal:

The key, I believe, to Iran, is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran I believe mostly likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union, and it may require us buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I guess for Howie history's just something that happened to other people.

Oh, and that would be a dumb plan even if the Soviet Union did still exist.

More eye candy.

Download the Prisoner of Azkaban trailer here.

Eye candy.

Download the Troy teaser trailer here.

Look how they messed with my boy.

From IMDB:

After 18 actors working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy threatened to write an open letter to Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons complaining about the small size of their bonus payments, New Line Cinema agreed to create a "bonus pool," negotiated by "one of the actors everybody trusted," the London Daily Telegraph reported today (Tuesday). However, although a measure of peace has been restored between the actors and the studio, the group is nevertheless demanding an audit of the films' accounts, the newspaper said. The Telegraph observed that producers were originally able to negotiate low-paying deals with several actors (it specifically named Orlando Bloom, who plays the elf Legolas) because they were struggling unknowns at the time.

Panties all in a bunch.

My lands, pass the salts. People are evidently delinking Lileks because he dast use the "f" word a few days ago. And the man has actually apologized for using it, despite the fact that he gave ample notice of his use of harsh invective at the head of the column. That's a gracious human being (and a fine writer). I'm pleased to note he doesn't apologize for his honest opinion of Salam Pax; he only apologizes for his language.

Btw, the idea of sending someone a letter with notice of intent to delink is hilariously adolescent. You said something I don't like; now we're not friends anymore and I don't want to hear from you ever. Pardon me while I shrug.

Warning you now.

Put whatever you're drinking down before you read this.

Sic transit gloria blogdomi.

James Lileks is irked [scroll down to "Finally"] by Salam Pax' tone of sneering condescension in his open letter to Bush in the Guardian. There's been some righteous indignation following the publication of the letter and much linkage of Lileks' enjoyable mini-screed, usually prefaced by the phrase "I never liked Salam Pax". My lone comment: what did you expect, exactly? Reading his blog ("dearRaed"--no, I'm not linking to it, because I think he's a pissant) during the war I garnered the distinct impression he was personally pretty well insulated against his government, and therefore in all likelihood at least slightly connected to the Ba'ath party. Is it any real surprise he wouldn't be overjoyed by the overthrow of a regime from whose murderous policies he was apparently benefitting? And was anybody but the anti-war crowd taking him seriously prior to the publication of this letter? Because I'm getting a distinctly hurt tone out of the warblogger commentary on the issue, and I'm at a loss to figure out why.

PSA.

If you're planning a trip to Vegas, hear me now and believe me later: do not--I repeat, do not--book your hotel through LasVegas.com. Due to their dysfunctional relationship with the Hilton (and, one suspects after several lengthy chats with their staff, with every other hotel on the strip), they are evidently unable to process a refund in less than 3 months, and the convolutions hinted at in the description of why they are unable to process the refund in a reasonable length of time make one wonder if they can possibly remain solvent for much longer. In other words, the people at this company could fuck up a two-car funeral. Avoid them at all costs. (And no, I wouldn't trust them to book a show, either.)

That is all.

Yeah, baby.


You're the warlike Rumsfeld! So simple, so
subtle, so darned...cute. God bless you, Donny!


Which member of the Bush Administration are you?
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[Via Damian Penny.]

Keith Richards, arch-conservative.

Or at the least, aging gracefully. Unlike Mick.

Two Towers extended.

Nearly all is forgiven. Huorns! Denethor! Ent draught! In other words, I'm now prepared to concede that Jackson might actually know what he's doing, and if there's an extended version of the third film, Saruman will probably show up in his proper place.

My boss just thinks I'm nuts.

O brave dissent.

"W. is a doodyhead."

Interesting that the author, whose grasp of fact can charitably be described as tenuous, wasn't proud enough of the screed to attach his or her name. And this passes for journalism.

[Via Peter Briffa.]

Newsflash: Americans go back to being rude to one another.

Jack Thomas at the Boston Globe notes that post-911 America has returned to the norm: rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. I have only two comments:

1) I'm not sure we're ruder than ever, but I do think we lack enforceable standards of public behavior.

2) Mr. Thomas blames the Baby Boomers. I tend to agree, but I also tend to treat the Boomers like France, generationally speaking, so my personal opinion is suspect.

Article bonus feature: a pointer to Etiquette Hell.com. Check out the Bridesmaid Dress Incinerator. (That should make Bern and Paula both feel better.)

ROTK: circling the drain?

Peter Jackson has cut Christopher Lee from Return of the King.

Now, I'm not one of the hardcore Tolkienistas screaming because Jackson cut Tom Bombadil (a mercy) and the elves aren't chanting Tolkien's (rather vile) poetry in the background of every scene. Hell, I'm actually in favor of streamlining the narrative to increase the visual "punch".

However.

When Jackson started cutting things that are actually vital to the story--and Aragorn's acquisition of the palantir in Orthanc is vital to the story--because he was supposedly having difficulty cramming in the necessary details, and then padded the second film with lingering shots of Arwen's perky breasts, Aragorn's adolescent sulking, and a completely de trop over-the-cliff fake death scene...well, frankly, he betrayed my trust. I can't trust him to attend to the barest details now without fearing how he's going to fuck up the storyline. Surmising--and this is just speculation on my part--that Arwen is now going to be bringing her jagoff fiance his reforged sword sometime in the third film (nevermind the fact that he's supposed to have it before leaving Rivendell), why not just have her and Grandma Galadriel show up with a barebreasted Amazon Elf army at Pelennor Fields just in time to pull the guys' fat out of the fire? And then in the name of "Grrl Power" we can have Eowyn seize the mount of the Witch King, fly to Mt. Doom, take the ring from the failing Frodo's hand and fling it into the firey chasm from whence it came. That should dumb the whole story down nicely.

No, I'm not taking this well, thanks for asking.

[Thanks, Paula.]

True. So true.


You are the Girl Next Door. You're the sweet one.
The quiet one. The one that he doesn't realize
he's got until you're gone.


What Type Of Retro Gal Are You?
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Er...just ignore the profanity in the preceding post. I'm really not like that.

Stop laughing, dammit.

[Via Ian Hamet, the tramp.]

MLB taking longer to die than Mimi in La Boheme.

Another classic moment in Bud Selig's ongoing quest to drive a stake through the heart of the national game:

MLB may organize a World Cup to start in '05

There is only one kind of "cup" in baseball, and it's not a championship series.

Looking at soccer's success at creating the world's most-watched tournament, major league baseball could give the go-ahead by the end of January to start a World Cup in March 2005.

You start naming baseball tourneys after soccer championships and it can only lead to the collapse of the game as we have known it. I'm completely serious. Next thing you know we'll have a diamond full of guys in shiny pants yelling "GOOOOOOOAAAAALLL" every time they cross the plate, and I just can't reconcile myself to that prospect.

The tournament would include 8-to-16 national teams and be played in 4-to-8 U.S. ballparks,

And then all the other countries will wonder why the fuck they have to do all the traveling when it's supposedly an international contest.

according to DuPuy and union head Donald Fehr. Talks with the union already have begun.


"That's a goal we share, and with a reasonable amount of luck, I think we will get there," Fehr said.

Don Fehr, once again playing Beelzebub to Selig's Satan. Anything that'll kill the game, right guys? And what is it that's driving this sudden need to internationalize?

While the United States was eliminated from Olympic qualifying on Friday, that roster was stocked mostly with minor leaguers. Management and the union envision the World Cup teams having top stars.


The Olympic qualifying loss shocked many major league baseball officials, who repeatedly have said they cannot stop the regular season to allow major leaguers to participate in the Olympics. Canada and Cuba will represent the Americas in Athens next year.

Yes, because MLB has its head up its collective ASS, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA will not be represented in the Olympic contest in the event that represents its own national game. And yet, to the genii at MLB, the solution is not to review the rules on how the Olympic rosters are set, the solution is to make up an entirely new fake tournament to embrace the spirit of internationalism and so forth. I'm just waiting for the special rules for the world cup to be proposed, so that we won't be accused of discriminating against the way other countries play the game.

The commissioner's office and the union are working on several international events for the 2004 season. Talks are under way to start next season in Japan -- last season's opener between Oakland and Seattle in Tokyo was scrapped because of travel concerns prior to the U.S. war in Iraq.

The union is awaiting a management response to its latest proposal to move 22 Expos' games from Montreal to San Juan, Puerto Rico, or Monterrey, Mexico.


Spring training games will be played once again in Mexico City, and if the Expos don't play in Monterrey, that city could wind up with either exhibition or regular-season games involving other teams.


In July 2005, baseball hopes to play a regular-season series in Europe, according to Archey, possibly in Rome's Olympic Stadium.

Ok, ENOUGH. It needs to be said: it's incredibly hard on the teams that start the season overseas and have to do all that fucking traveling at the start of the season. It has the potential to cost them games when they get back, and it deprives their US fans, who are the people who actually support the teams, of the chance to attend Opening Day without taking out a second goddamn mortgage. Here's an idea: stop fucking with the people who support you. Stop catering to the Japanese, who in most cases don't give two shits about seeing the American teams if they're not the Yankees. They've got their own teams, let them play the game their way, and if we must meet up, let it be at the Olympics. Jetting the teams halfway around the globe so you can pretend the sport has an international cachet is lame. Attempting to model the playoffs after soccer is the final straw.

[Via heads up from Paula, who probably didn't think I was going to react this way.]

And this one surprises me, like, not at all.


Athena


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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She's a girl/she's a bomb. Pfft.

[Also via Dean Esmay, same link.]

I'd argue if I could.


schizoid


Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
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[Via Dean Esmay.]