cheese it, the cops!

heist

the hell you say!

pointless nihilism

ok. like tom friedman , i stared long and hard and disbelievingly at a picture of people shooting election workers on the streets of baghdad.  like him, i was repulsed. but what i don't understand is how someone this apparently thoughtful can spend his life just parroting the rhetoric of this vicious administration.

There is much to dislike about this war in Iraq, but there is no denying the stakes. And that picture really framed them: this is a war between some people in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world who - for the first time ever in their region - are trying to organize an election to choose their own leaders and write their own constitution versus all the forces arrayed against them.

friedman's view is that we have liberated iraq in order to bring its people the blessings of democracy and freedom. it's as if his column is being written out the white house press office, where "freedom," "democracy" and so on are the purest ideology: swift reversals of "expansion" and "domination." the actions of the iraqi insurgents are "nihilist," "senseless" etc: i suppose even when they are actually in pitched battle against an army that is occupying their country. now what these people want for their country might not be good for their country, or morally or politically defensible in any sense. but on the other hand, the election is not going to happen or it's not going to be real. why? because we rule the country under martial law and we cannot accept the results.

it's me, harassing you

now why am i quoted in this piece?  is it because i ever watched an episod of "friends"? or because i'm an expert on sexual harassment law? or just because i'm an all-around good guy? anyway, thanks for calling, lynn!

suicide bowlers

well now!  and i didn't even know yasser arafat was a bowler. one thing this story certainly does, though, is to substantiate claims of arafat's corruption.

dude.

we all know this  is true.

suicide bombers

the fart bomb  is deadly.

phantom

andrew lloyd webber  must be destroyed.

tribute 2

and to the beloved commander in chief  of our armed forces, who has to make the hard decisions to keep america safe and great.

tribute

eyeofthestorm pays tribute to those who are heroically fighting to protect this blessed nation .

street team

ok, there's this "investigation" from the guardian  about the use of children to promote new bands in the uk. meanwhile, the country singer chely wright's "bumper sticker on my suv," promoted by her "fan club" (or, um, record label) by having people call radio stations and say they had a loved one in iraq and needed to hear that song.   (chely is someone i like fairly well and have reviewed positively.) oh, it's tacky. but there has to be some explanation for the way some folks get arbitrarily promoted to the radio, and these sorts of things are the least of the abuses. an explanation of that would also be an explanation of this: that "format" radio is all but unlistenable. 

crime connoisseur

or check this . damn that one's definitely a movie waiting to happen. you break into the jewelry store, then hide while the police respond to the alarm, then hold the place up next morning, nabbing between 10 and 20 million bucks worth of jewels. then you head for vegas.

nice

well, we're all fans of crime. it's really the more or less dominant theme of our entertainment, along with lingerie. so anyway, how ever you look at it, this  is extremely impressive.

standardized, continued

so. the surprise hit toy of the holiday season is a clock that actually is supposed to control children's sense of time, thus leading supposedly to better results on standardized tests (nytimes story ). there is no reason, i suppose, why children 4 and up shouldn't devote every waking moment, every gesture, to activities that might improve their scores. excellent scores on standardized tests are, after all, the purpose and meaning of human life.  (thanks to ben moss for passing this on.)

99 to 1

the idea that russ feingold might run for president in 2008 is a lovely one. patriot act vote in the senate: 99 to feingold. maybe it's a way for the democrats to overcome their unbelievable cowardice. cowardice was their only platform, their only strategy, their only truth in 2004.

ben shapiro

is like all smart and shit. really, he's a little prodigy. but this is completely incoherent. it accuses feminists of - of what - of supporting kobe bryant in his accusation that karl malone hit on his wife? really? dude. what the fuck you talking about? anyway. anybody's who's a sports fan anywhere except los angeles despises kobe bryant for numerous reasons. right on. plus we admire the great karl malone. so, er, where are kobe's feminist defenders? little bitch: have you lost your mind?  you seem to have this completely the wrong way round. the only people on kobe's side, if he had a side, would i guess be arguing for the sanctity of marriage.

white pride

ok. i hate political correctness. i do. no one, i believe, has seen more of it or been more irritated about it than me.  my old girlfriend, the feminist hooker, read the blurb on my book "art of living" which said: manages to avoid simplistic "political correctness." "must've been hard," she said, knowing the racist sexist shit i said in a given day. but sam francis is wrong. real wrong. fucking nazi wrong. he wants to actually oppose interracial marriage in order to "preserve his culture ." his culture ought to die. and it is dying. slowly. the way white man scott peterson should die.  ok.  ditch me. ditch him. i don't care. and i know that creators puts you on some fifty-year contract. but that is some wrong, fucked-up shit. fire his ass.

heroes

ok. check out this piece by, um, oliver north , up to his neck in what i've been trying to tell you about gary webb: i.e that the reagan white house would do anything to support the contras in nicaragua, including rewarding terrorists and selling drugs. still, we're in the same syndicate. but anyway, here's the deal. rafael peralta, whom he's praising here, is indeed a hero. the act north describes was an act of extraordinary moral courage, an act that should be immortalized as the best of which our species is capable. but understand this. the person he condemns - pablo paredes - who has refused to serve in iraq, is also performing an act of courage. oliver: insofar as you can think clearly, think clearly about the repercussions of this act. to call it cowardice is exactly, precisely, completely wrong. 

if that ain't country

i'll kiss your ass (dac). i just saw an episode of the old porter wagoner show on rfd , the rural netweork. damn. ok, he's wearing  the ground-zero classic rhinestone nudie suit. the studio audience is smoking cigarettes. the banjo player is killing me. and dolly parton, with an incredible completely rigid stack of hair, is singing like a fucking angel.

iran.contra.crack again

check this  from l.a. weekly/alternet.  it really is a sad tale, and the "investigations by the post/la/nytimes were really simply parrotings-back of the views of the people webb had investigated. pathetic.

if op-ed columnists were rappers, 3

I'm the illest on your commentary page
food for thought, nutrition for the whole brain
keep your neurotransmitters warm on a cold day
I'm ahead of my time, or so they say.

I was created by intelligent design
Shields, you're just a spokesman for the party line
you diss me out of pride
but when you're finished talkin with your bitch lehrer you're out of  time
even my worst fuckin column was fuckin sublime

if op-ed columnists were rappers, continued

“I’ll be brief and let me just keep shit simple,
maureenfuckindowd don’t want no beef with C, Noooo!
Not even on my radar, so won’t you please jump off my dick, lay off and stay off
and follow me as I put these crayons to chaos from séance to séance,
aw-a-aw-sh-a-aw”

dream big

i kinda wish that op-ed columnists were more like rappers. i could devote column after column to snapping on michele malkin's mamma, or matching quotations with george f. will. i could get into a beef with ellen goodman that would spin out of control into exchanges of gunfore between our crews. at heart, i'm a soldier, son.

mellow

in my continuing effort to find and disseminate the most riveting headlines, i present you with this from  reuters:
MELLOW JIMMY CARTER FINDS JOY IN SHARING

slash government spending, or maybe not

pardon me if i am sceptical of john snow's claim that the bush admin will "slash" government spending.  first off, there's going to be a huge new intelligence bureaucracy/budget getting started. snow claims that some of the reduced spending will come from the pentagon budget. really? that seems a bit irresponsible and unlikely in the middle of a war that as far as i can see is escalating, in circumstances in which you had better be fairly ready to deal with other threats, and in which you've suddenly been made aware that someone has been made aware that the actual troops on the ground are underequipped. actually, i really do not understand the admin's philosophy on taxes, government spending, deficits, and debt. it seems as plainly incoherent as an important policy address by john kerry. i don't actually believe that there is a serious commitment to reducing the deficit or decreasing the size of government programs.  i suppose this incoherence reflects a split in the republican party and the conservative movement, but it leaves you with the worst of both worlds: an ever-more-obese state and an ever-more-obese debt.

standardized, continued

the incentives to cheat on standardized tests  increase with the emphasis placed on them: jobs, promotions funds, reputations: all come to depend on the scores. the fact that it's happening in texas in particular is not new, but it does illustrate the problem with particular vividness: as the ap piece points out, no child left behind has been the law down there since early in bush's governorship.

subvert our troops, continued.

rick atkinson, who's been hanging out in the same hall as me as the omar bradley chair at dickinson college/us army war college has an excellent piece  on the op-ed page of today's wash post. what flummoxed me though was the last sentence, which  seems to state flatly what the column was devoted to questioning and rendering in all its complexity. it's like the autonomic reponse he himself says can turn out toxic. anyway, as you might already know, i have a different take  on the issue.

standardized testing, the soundtrack

yo check out my latest creators screed on standardized testing on my main site. and you need to go there every day or 2 anyway to listen to the soundtrack.

heaven forfend!

bill o'reilly accused chevy chase of  disrespecting the office of the presidency . chevy called bush a dumbfuck. the idea of disrespecting the office of the president originates with richard nixon, who indicated that anyone who impugned his personal probity, which didn't exist, was disrespecting the office of the presidency . i don't disrespect the office of the presidency , whatever that might mean. i only fuck the occupant of that office until he squeals like the proto-fascist little animal farm piglet he is. i only beat the occupant  like a fucking bitch, while preserving intact my incredible respect for the "office itself." however, i ask the occupant of the office to eat my fucking shit. but i pay homage to the office, which is a venerable and impressive room, a distinguished little piece of architecture. if only it wasn't occupied by a fuck who hates the constitution and our sacred way of life. nevertheless, let me state unequivocally that i revile the office of the attorney general in its entirety, in all its immense square footage. i intend to firebomb the office, while paying the deepest respect to the occupants thereof. i only wish i performed a function that exempted me from personal responsibility and hence criticism for any crime i, the fucking fuck of all times, happened to commit. i must admit that i recognize a deep distinction between crispin sartwell and the offfice of associate professor of political science at dickinson college. the former is a pathetic fuck who is not worth the paper he's printed on. the latter demands your respect. truly, i am a miserable groveling fuck, but in virtue of the office i occupy, i am exempt from your petty criticism. ok. i am an embezzler, a pederast, etc.  just make sure that you insulate that in your mind from the incredible respect due to my sheer position. one thing is: i despise bill o'reilly the vibrator-obsessed sexual harasser. and yet i have nothing but respect for the host of a fox news series.

person (sic) of the year

and now it's time to announce the eyeofthestorm person of the year.  there were so many amazing candidates. judith regan. amber frey. lindsay lohan. shitstuffer cripply. kobe bryant. george tenet. sauron the dark lord. rob dauses. p diddy. augusto pinochet. sponge bob squarepants. yo momma (that's right, i said yo momma). the great john kerry, whose uncompromising moral vision inspired so many, a moral beacon shining across this great land. but after much debate among our staff we reached the only possible conclusion: vlad (the lad)  putin.

some of vlad's accomplishments this year:
seizing dicatorial power
killing the last 6 chechens
"cooking with dioxin" (regan books 2004)
maintaining the respect and esteem of the world, especially george w. bush
making orgiastic love to a bonobo

summary of our america

if you want to understand everything about our culture, this ap story   should do the trick. scott peterson is happy and cooperative. scott peterson has a "fan club" (the reasons for their enthusiasm remain unexplored: is he a sex symbol? or do people just like a man who takes decisive action?) meanwhile the mighty judith regan has a book deal for amber frey.  judith probably has a pretty good idea what amber's been through.